oops.

guess i haven't updated in a while! i think i've been car hunting (and maybe reading) too much. who knew that was possible?

can't believe the insanity that has been the holiday season, yet again. halloween was lots of fun. went to a party at dear francis' girlfriend's house that night (there were lots of teenybopper kids dressed in not-so-tasteful costumes, but it was still cool! bob and i actually hung out with crystal's mom and grandmother for a while and heard their stories about coming here from portugal). and then we attempted to play twister (bob and me against francis and crystal)... thanks to my mad klutzy skills, i fell first and we lost (!).

thanksgiving was splendid as well.. helped mom with baking a little, and had visits from my aunt, brother, and a few friends later in the day. although i did end up feeling the effects of a cold that morning and all the way through the rest of the weekend, at least i had a few days off from work to shake it off... those germs had lovely timing. :shrug:

just got a new dell inspiron too, thanks to some wonderful trojan viruses that attacked my sony laptop! lol it's fixed though.. that boy of mine is smart on occasion. :) and he doesn't mind spending an hour on the phone talking to microsoft people because i never had the CDs that went with the stupid thing. just goes to show that you don't only have to be thankful on thanksgiving. ok, maybe that's corny, but still true!

and now i guess i'm brought up to date, which leaves us at just about 2 weeks before christmas! i had every intention of getting started early, but since i don't really know what the people on my list want, i tend to gravitate toward things that i want for myself. not really working with the whole idea of giving to others, huh? i should probably get on that. most people like gift cards. maybe i'll go with some of those. hmm. i should also stop thinking out loud (or in writing, in this case) about now! yeesh.

soooooo... happy holidays (not to be politically correct, but to save myself from having to type all the different celebrations around this time of year lol)! hope everyone is feeling festive! :)

not sure if i like big apples too much.

Well, namely I'm not sure if I like a particular "big apple" more commonly known as New York City. It's fascinating and diverse and everything, but it's also loud, too crowded, and ridiculously busy all the time.

And I'm thinking that someone or something I touched caused me to get strep throat this week. So I certainly don't appreciate that. But nevertheless, there were some good times (when you don't count the part about my legs feeling as if they were going to fall off after walking for 6 hours or so).

Like:
1) Central Park - really the only place in that city that has more than a few trees around. And it's an escape from all the honking horns.
2) Times Square - it was kind of strange yet really, really neat to see (up close and in person!) the place where the ball drops every New Year's Eve.
3) NBC Studio - Okay, we didn't really see the studio per se, but we did go inside the building where the studio is. It was pretty cool. Also kinda huge and pretty confusing.

Dislike:
1) Feeling closed in and surrounded by something at all times.
2) Hearing a car horn on nearly every street literally a second after a traffic light turned green. Do people have absolutely no patience anymore? And I thought I was horrible! I'm never moving to that city. Never, never, ever.
3) It's never quiet. A place with so many millions of people isn't really a place that I can stay in for too long. If they were spread out, then fine, but the last time I checked (which may have been a few years ago), NYC had over 16 million people. Crazy, yes?
4) The lack of places to get food at! - It's awful. Take Madison Avenue, for example. We walked probably about 20 blocks or so down that street, looking for a place to get dinner at (that wouldn't cost us an arm and/or a leg), but nothing! For 20 blocks!! So we found St. Patrick's Cathedral (pick-up destination) and walked a bit past there to 56th St., or one of those numbers, and found a McDonald's. Yeah, we had to settle for that. And yet it felt like we'd found a buried treasure. Hmm.

Amused by:
1) The fact that there's a $350 fine imposed for every time someone beeps their horn. Yes, it's really true. Hahahahahaha. But oddly enough, I still heard at least 5 dozen beeps during my lovely visit.


After all this rambling, I think this is my conclusion: I guess I like and dislike NYC at the same time, but it's more of an all right place if you have something planned. Otherwise, you may very well end up doing what Bob & I did for most of the day - wandering around aimlessly. Part of that problem caused by the fact that all the streets look the same.

Hey, at least the weather was fine. Breezy for a while too! Perfect for walking a lot... which I think my legs might still hate me for doing. ;-)

trivial, but still annoying.

Is it fair to be paying for half of something even if you take less than half of it? This probably sounds dumb, but this particular situation is just annoying the living daylights out of me.

And let's just say that there's nothing better than figuratively being slapped in the face when someone whom you've known for years says (regarding this same situation), "I thought you forgot," instead of saying something like, "You already gave me enough, don't worry about it."

Anyone who knows me well enough would realize that I'm not a gold digger, but I also don't expected to be spoken to as if I would take advantage another person, especially not someone very close to me.


Really annoyed with this right now.......

maybe i should walk around with my ipod on all the time... ?

Seems like a good idea to me. Mom is driving me nuts. Thinks she knows everything, including every detail about my life. What the heck am I doing wrong? I've never given her any trouble, I was never a rebel child or anything. She's just been getting on my case over the last year, and I'm not really sure how much more I can stand.

And it's always about the same thing. Ughhh. Maybe I need 3 jobs so I can save up faster and get the heck out of here. Losing sanity.

:(

grrrrr

In need of a different job. Boss is a bit unfair.

At my work, how we're paid is supposed to go by how long we've been there (and of course, how well we're doing at our jobs). Now, granted I haven't been there even a year yet - it'll be 10 months in mid-April - I'd say I've been doing pretty well with keeping up with all the responsibilities and quirks in that place.

But yet I find out from a friend of mine there that the newest person, who arrived in September, is making 50 cents more per hour than I am. And she has no college degree. I'm not saying I should be the highest paid person in there just because I have a degree, but I don't think that this upholds the seniority policy that had apparently been adhered to until recently.


I do my work. Sometimes I do more if I have to. It all depends on whether there's a lot or a little.... which changes from one day to the next these days.
:sigh:

Really wishing the economy would pick up. Yeah, I know, me and billions of other people. Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful to have a job, especially now, but I hate feeling like I've been stuck on the back burner after I worked so hard to earn something as meaningful as a 4-year college degree. Here's to hoping that better days are on the way.

sometimes you wanna go... to a rest stop in lowell?

Yeah, I know, it sounds weird. But would it be anything else with 2 of the people that know me best and love confusing me? Nahhhh. I'm actually pretty embarrassed that I didn't notice that something was up (sooner than at the last minute).

Now for the crazy story that was my pre-23 weekend. I think I'll go through Friday first though, just for the sake of chronological order. Work was a little wacky - our printing machine broke down for a few hours, we had the tech guy come and repair it while, in the mean time, my mom (who has Fridays off) brought Diana and me Subway for lunch and then left about 2o minutes later, only to be followed by 2 guys from my boss's band that we ended up talking to while trying to get our work done. Finally, for the grand finale.... (drum roll) I hear what sounds like the running of the bulls making its way down the stairs, and a few seconds later, Lori barges in with a cake, and Jeff and Allison come in behind her. If that's not enough, now there are 7 people in the room (not including myself), and they all start singing "Happy Birthday" to me! I think my face turned a very bright shade of red at that point. Sometimes they're sweet enough to make up for annoying me. Sometimes.

Now moving on to the weekend. Went to my aunt's on Saturday afternoon for a mini party, stayed at her house for about 2.5 hours, then finally went with her and my mom to visit my memere's grave in Exeter. Then back home to finish getting ready before a rather insane night with Bob and Kevin. Left here around 7, went to Friendly's in Swansea for ice cream (yum-ilicious!) and then back to Fall River for a tickle-Bob-until-he-can't-take-it-anymore fest! And, most naturally, being slightly freaked out by the reminder of how bizarre they are together. Yes, still, after 3 years of experience with their disturbing friendship. Sweet Lord.

Yet, after all that, Sunday was the award-winning day.

I wake up, get ready, and in my morning stupor, walk out of Bob's back room to the living room where there's a computer. After realizing that I wasn't hungry, I turn around to go back to the room I just came out of, when I happen to see an IM from my dearest Sunshine! So I think to myself, "Cool, they're keeping in touch," and pass it off as normal and mostly not suspicious. I suppose I should note that this is in spite the fact that Bob had previously told me that he was bringing me to northern MA, "in or around Lowell," and roomie's in southeastern NH. Then, a while later, Bob gets a text message from "his friend, Lou." Okay. But he walks away to respond to it. Hmm. Even after this, I'm still not that curious.

About an hour or so later, we're in his car heading up to this top secret location, and his phone rings. It's Jackie, saying that she tried calling me but that I didn't answer (my phone can be selective with the calls it lets me take), so she asks Bob to tell me to call her back. At this point, I'm wondering about all this Jackie contact in one day. It's very uncommon. But I think I was just trying to convince myself that it couldn't be, only because roomie is usually busybusybusy and has no extra time to do these things nowadays. Apparently, I did a great job of it.

So, in our lovely conversation, I had asked what she was up to, and she said that she was headed home from work, but that she just wanted to wish me a happy birthday and hoped that I was doing well. Okay, that's sweet, Jac. Thank you.

"Now Chrissi, where are you going in Lowell?"
"I have no idea... I don't even know why we're going to Lowell!"
"Are you going to a farm? Milk the cows, maybe?"
"Jackie, are there even farms in Lowell?!"
"I don't know!"

Roomie's weird. Anyway.
We continue on our journey, and then he pulls into some rest area to "ask someone for directions to make sure we're going to the right part of the city." Uh-huh. Riiiiight. So, I'm sitting in the car, at a rest stop, in Lowell, and I have no freaking clue why. Now, as I'm looking out the window, I see through the corner of my eye, someone walking toward the car that isn't Bob and has a bright pink object. Now who could this be?

Oh, hi Jac-- what?! JACKIE?!?!?!? AHHHHH! IT'S ROOMIE, IT'S ROOMIE! I HAVEN'T SEEN YOU IN 4 MONTHS! :hugs:

And I really need to be more suspicious of these plotting people, who then told me some nutty story about how I should know where we're going because of some place we walked by when we were in college, but I found out that none of it was relevant when we ended up going into some random Dollar Tree store for no reason, and then back out to Jackie's car.
Then we went to IHOP. One of our favorite destinations from the AssCo days. I love pancakes. And Massachusetts. Oh, and maybe Jackie and Bob.

But just a little.

it's been a while. oops!

I've been trying to keep up on this, but things can be crazy sometimes. I don't think I need to explain that.

Working like a maniac lately. Diana's husband had surgery about a month ago after a year and a half of waiting (because the stupid state wouldn't pay without a fight), and now that he's had it, she has to bring him to all kinds of doctor appointments to get him to the next stages of recovery. Right after the surgery, she was out for 5 days and I was doing work for both of us. Then a week later she was out again to bring him to get his stitches removed. And today she was out to take him back to the doctor's so he could get a cast on. Or a boot. I forget which. But he had extensive foot surgery, so recovery will take him 9 months to a year. Poor man.

But anyway, I guess I digressed a little there. My point was that I've been working harder than I did since I got there last June. I get next Monday off though! Thank goodness for birthdays. At least in this case. The boss won't be at work tomorrow though.. going into Boston again for more testing on his stomach. He hates doctors, so that'll probably be really uncomfortable for him. He gave me the keys this morning, which means I get to open up. Yahoooooo!
Yes, I can be just a tad sarcastic at times.

Can't believe it's been almost a year since college graduation. Insanity. I really miss people. More specifically, my really super close friends that I was so used to seeing every day. The ones I could walk to visit in 5 minutes and not think twice about it. Or the one that I shared a room with for 4 years and haven't seen since early November. Jeez. I kinda suck at this. :sigh:

All right, now I think I sound mildly emo. Stopping. I'm so not emo. But I really do miss them.

Very happy that spring is finally here though! Even though it doesn't quite feel like it yet. It was definitely below freezing when I walked outside to start my car this morning. Hmph. No me gusta! March madness at its best. Gotta love it.
<3

what it all comes down to

Everything changes at some point. I'd say this is a pretty well known fact of life.

Yet as I watched all of the news segments on the upcoming inauguration before, there were still people attempting to ruin the excitement and optimism of this huge, historical event. Specifically, these were some older people, maybe in their 60s or 70s, who said that they didn't care at all about the political change. It didn't matter to them - to people who are citizens of this country just like the rest of us, whether we voted or not. Okay, so maybe you voted for John McCain, or were one of those who supported Hillary, but neither of them made it. Move on and hope for the best at that point. After all, I'd say most people would agree that things can only get better without Bush. Improvement will probably be slower in coming than a lot of Americans would like it to be, but at least there's a better chance of it with Obama taking office on Tuesday.

Of course there's a chance that I'm biased in this situation. I voted for Obama, but I didn't just vote for him because I'm a young person just out of college who only considers Democrats. I voted for him because I really believe that he's the best shot we have at creating a brighter future for the country and the rest of the world. But we can't even begin to create a brighter future without changing the way things are right now. People are losing their jobs at a drastically high rate, more and more kids can't afford a college education, stocks are unstable, the housing market is still in a rough position - how can any of this get better if we don't change something?

I just don't understand how anyone who lives in the United States and sees what's happening can know about all of these issues and not care at all. Granted, there appear to be more people who are waiting and ready to embrace changes, but then there are others who seem to think that it's impossible for the country to be prosperous again. I mean, there are people coming to Washington, D.C. from all over the world to be a part of this inauguration, and they're excited about it! Doesn't that show how significant this is? Doesn't it show how much this one presidency could affect the path that we're on right now? Doesn't it show how much hope has been restored just because of one person? Sure, we have to see Obama's work before we can create a valid opinion of him, but there's never anything wrong with changing things that aren't working, and there's certainly nothing wrong with believing that it's possible to make them better.

Think about it - without change, this country wouldn't have gone from 13 colonies to 50 states. We wouldn't have our own government without its hard-working founders who wanted to change the lives they knew before they came here. We wouldn't have faster, more accurate technology if no one was willing to work on changes for it. This will probably sound horribly cliche, but change is the only constant that anyone ever has in life. If everything stayed the same, no one would ever grow old enough to vote on who will be the next person running our country... it would be like living through the same day over and over again. What's the point of that?

Apathy is a disgusting thing, especially when it comes to events like the one we're anticipating this week - the start of something that we'll be working through for the next 4 years, at least. Over that course, I'm expecting big differences. I'm not sure if they'll be positive or negative, but time will tell. But if we don't take the opportunity to change the mess we're in right now, we'll never know if it could work, if millions of people could live more comfortably and feel more secure.

Wouldn't that be a great change?

hm.

Me: bob says to me on our way to the movies "ya know, it's really weird thinking about how close the wedding is, especially with it being one of our good friends"
Me: so i'm like, "yeah, try being in the actual wedding party!"
Me: lol
Laura: oh boy!
Laura: wonder when yours will be..
Me: pshhhhhhhhhh
Laura: O:-)


the girl doesn't give up. seriously.

sooner than you think.

Just over 6 months til Laura's wedding!

Spent the night at her house on Friday, and then went shopping for a bridesmaid dress with her and her sister, Janice. Justine (friend from college) and Brandy (friend of Laura's for a long time) weren't there though. The snowstorm was worrying Justine's dad, so he told her not to come, and Brandy's car apparently needs to be registered, although Laura didn't think she was coming even before she heard that. Needless to say, she was a bit stressed about figuring out new dates for them to get their dresses.

What to do? Well, it was a morning full of trying to get her to think happy thoughts! It started out as a sunny day, and she at least had Janice and me to go shopping with. I think she was just slightly amused at the thought of torturing us with 4 different styles of dresses to try on, but we just went along with it like the good sports that we are. :) After going in and out of the dressing rooms a few times, we finally decided on one. The store didn't have that dress in black though (Laura's got a black and white theme going on for this), so we had to order them, and they should arrive by early March!

So she doesn't have to worry about us anymore. A little relief there at least. So we left David's Bridal and went back to her house to drop off her sister and get my things ready. We had planned on me staying until today, but considering that we all thought there was gonna be this HUUUUGE snowstorm, her parents suggested that I get back before it started. It made sense, but we hadn't seen each other since June, so we were bummed.

On the way back though, of course with Laura being the kind of spontaneous person she is, she had a brainstorm! All those 395 North signs reminded her of the way she goes to Worcester, where Dave is. So off to Worcester she went, after she brought me home, but at least she called to let me know she got there fine. Not sure how her parents felt about that, but the storm didn't end up being too bad anyway.


Kinda getting tired of the snow now. We've had too much at one time this winter. Hopefully it'll stay away for a while....

miss high school much?

No, not me. Really. But I think my boss does.

I don't even like going upstairs to leave my lunch in the fridge anymore because every time I do, he calls me in his office. Well, maybe not every time, but many times. It's not so much that I don't want to talk to him in general, but I don't expect to be in there to listen to him talk about the other employees. If he has a problem with them, he should talk to whoever it is personally. And I especially don't want to be hearing him complain about the person who trained me for the job I've been doing since the middle of June (no, that person was not my boss). If it weren't for Diana, I would know virtually nothing about my job. No exaggeration there either.

Hearing all of that crap from him just made me feel like I was back in high school... like the morning gatherings near lockers for gossip sessions. I was hardly ever involved in those, but I was normally inconvenienced by hearing them. Long story short, they're not on my list of favorite things.

All of this is why I made to sure avoid going up there again this morning. I'd rather have a warm lunch than to get myself stuck in his office for half an hour listening to him make up stories about the people who work there. And what really makes me wonder is, if he says all these things to me about Diana and Lori (our receptionist), what would he say to them about me when I'm not around? Someone needs to find a little more maturity......

starting all over again

New blog! I definitely needed one.
But for now, it's bedtime... more to come soon!

:)