So I realized I'm really out of touch with mainstream music, and really just pop culture in general. I don't know the latest bands, I have no idea what celebrities are popular other than the things I see on the tabloids while standing in line at the grocery store, and I haven't really watched any of the new TV Shows. But I really don't have any desire to. I really have no reason other than the fact that sometimes when I'm talking to people they reference these things and I'm clueless.
I was thinking about it again today and I really have never been in touch with what's considered cool and what's not. Well, I have to take part of that back, I know that what I like is generally not considered cool so I have the second half figured out. I mean, even as far back as elementary school I was way out of touch. I listened to bands that none of my classmates had heard of. I loved REM, Rush, Phil Collins, and Collective Soul. I really didn't watch much TV and I remember how weird I always felt when all the other kids talked about Step By Step, The Real World, and Blossom. I watched Discovery Channel. And the weather. How do you fit in with that when you're a third grader and all you watch is educational shows (by choice, my parents really didn't care what I watched) I tried to fit in, I would smile, and say that I watched the shows, I would pretend I listened to the music (I can't even remember what music they talked about because I never listened to it and have no idea what was popular aside from grunge and none of the other kids liked that apparently).
The only time I ever really got involved with pop culture was in middle school, I watched MTV, listened to the radio, followed celebrities, watched popular movies. And then I realized that I didn't really care. So I went back to being out of touch and not really caring what anyone else was doing. In high school a lot of the times I guess I was ahead of the game and knew about a lot of bands before they got popular but I always listened to weird shit and most of the time it didn't get popular.
It's really a lot better this way. Sometimes I get weird looks when people get into my car and I'm still listening to grunge (most rock aside from indie rock sucked after that). I do listen to a few new bands, but mostly just stuff people think is weirder than grunge.
The whole point of this blog is that I realized during my childhood I was almost sheltered from pop culture. I don't think that was my parents intention really, because it's not like they were sheltering me because they thought it would be a bad influence, I think they just thought the shit they were into was cool and I thought I would like it too. And I'm not sure if it was more they didn't expose it to me or more I didn't really care for it. Most of the time I just emulated my uncle (who is still the coolest person I know) and he was always kind of out there. My mom usually just tells me I was born a decade too late.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Monday, August 18, 2008
Brita water pitchers amaze me.
It's true. The little things in life like Brita water pitchers really excite me. We bought one about a month ago. Here's the story behind our Brita pitcher... (I don't know why I am writing this, I sometimes think if I write about boring things in my life that it will make me sleepy (I have constant insomnia)).
When the floods hit we, like most other people in Iowa City, stocked up on water. We bought about 10 gallons of bottled water. The water receded and all was well in Iowa City so we decided to start drinking from our stockpile. I can't really recall how long it took to drink all of the water, but we got through it. Then, after being spoiled so long with bottled water, we tried to go back to drinking tap water. Iowa City's water leaves much to be desired and the taste grossed us out and we started buying bottled water refills from Hy Vee (It's only 25 cents if you're refilling). Then we went on a trip to Chicago and our friends had a Brita pitcher and now I'm obsessed with them. The only thing that bothers me about it, after I put water into it all this black stuff is filtered out and it really freaks me out that I drank it for so long.
Perhaps I should write about something more interesting now. Work is going well. There seems to be a correlation, less days worked, work is perceived as being better. I really haven't been working much at all lately. Well, it doesn't seem that way, I only work four days a week, but they're ten hour days.. it all adds up in the end. But I've been taking vacation days too, so I only work three days a week. It's pretty sweet. And I'm super excited for Halloween because I am off Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. My family is obsessed with Halloween. My parents make our back patio into a haunted house and have a giant party every year. Since I moved away I haven't really been around to enjoy this as I always have always had to go to work or school the next day.
I really miss college. It was probably the best time in my life. Sad that I couldn't wait to get it over with (I got my bachelor's in three years). As much as I hated it my first year, I really miss Macomb, I miss being closer to my family, I even miss working at Bickel's. I miss the school part a lot too. Random, but I just thought about driving back on Halloween night in my Ford Contour by myself to my empty apartment. That first year I really regretted living by myself in an apartment. I went to school knowing one person, that I really didn't hang out with much. It was definitely a good experience as it taught me to rely on myself and learn how to make the best of any situation and occupy myself. I ran a lot that first year, sometimes twice a day because I would be so bored being home alone at night. That first year was crazy. I had my first relationship, got dumped, started running 5 miles a day, rediscovered bicycling, met one of the absolute coolest people I have ever met in my life, went to a few cool parties, and played in a band with my little brother. I miss the time my brother and I spent together. We used to be inseperable, we had all the same friends, did the same stuff, hung out all the time. Now he lives far away, rides a motorcycle, and has boot friends. I live far away, work full time, and hang out with girls. But I still relate to him better than anyone else in my life. Well, it's kind of a tie between him and my mom. Then it's Matt, Alyssa, Rachel, and Tadd. I love everyone.
So recently I got a phone call from someone I hadn't talked to in probably two years. It was weird, because we talked just like we never got in a fight years ago and stopped speaking. It's just weird, we talked for about 1/2 hour the other day. I don't know that we'll ever hang out again, but it's just odd how quickly someone can come back into your life and it's like they never left.
I'm still not tired but I think I should stop my late night ramblings.
When the floods hit we, like most other people in Iowa City, stocked up on water. We bought about 10 gallons of bottled water. The water receded and all was well in Iowa City so we decided to start drinking from our stockpile. I can't really recall how long it took to drink all of the water, but we got through it. Then, after being spoiled so long with bottled water, we tried to go back to drinking tap water. Iowa City's water leaves much to be desired and the taste grossed us out and we started buying bottled water refills from Hy Vee (It's only 25 cents if you're refilling). Then we went on a trip to Chicago and our friends had a Brita pitcher and now I'm obsessed with them. The only thing that bothers me about it, after I put water into it all this black stuff is filtered out and it really freaks me out that I drank it for so long.
Perhaps I should write about something more interesting now. Work is going well. There seems to be a correlation, less days worked, work is perceived as being better. I really haven't been working much at all lately. Well, it doesn't seem that way, I only work four days a week, but they're ten hour days.. it all adds up in the end. But I've been taking vacation days too, so I only work three days a week. It's pretty sweet. And I'm super excited for Halloween because I am off Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. My family is obsessed with Halloween. My parents make our back patio into a haunted house and have a giant party every year. Since I moved away I haven't really been around to enjoy this as I always have always had to go to work or school the next day.
I really miss college. It was probably the best time in my life. Sad that I couldn't wait to get it over with (I got my bachelor's in three years). As much as I hated it my first year, I really miss Macomb, I miss being closer to my family, I even miss working at Bickel's. I miss the school part a lot too. Random, but I just thought about driving back on Halloween night in my Ford Contour by myself to my empty apartment. That first year I really regretted living by myself in an apartment. I went to school knowing one person, that I really didn't hang out with much. It was definitely a good experience as it taught me to rely on myself and learn how to make the best of any situation and occupy myself. I ran a lot that first year, sometimes twice a day because I would be so bored being home alone at night. That first year was crazy. I had my first relationship, got dumped, started running 5 miles a day, rediscovered bicycling, met one of the absolute coolest people I have ever met in my life, went to a few cool parties, and played in a band with my little brother. I miss the time my brother and I spent together. We used to be inseperable, we had all the same friends, did the same stuff, hung out all the time. Now he lives far away, rides a motorcycle, and has boot friends. I live far away, work full time, and hang out with girls. But I still relate to him better than anyone else in my life. Well, it's kind of a tie between him and my mom. Then it's Matt, Alyssa, Rachel, and Tadd. I love everyone.
So recently I got a phone call from someone I hadn't talked to in probably two years. It was weird, because we talked just like we never got in a fight years ago and stopped speaking. It's just weird, we talked for about 1/2 hour the other day. I don't know that we'll ever hang out again, but it's just odd how quickly someone can come back into your life and it's like they never left.
I'm still not tired but I think I should stop my late night ramblings.
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Blog Revival!!
So I forgot all about this blog, until I was reading Sara's blog about South Korea and I wanted to leave a comment, so I did. I guess the secret is out. I write in this thing. If she looks at that comment she will be the first person I know to read it. How um exciting?
Anyways, half the reason I write in this is so I can relieve stress, the other half is so I can look back at my thoughts. I read through my last post and noticed the part about being scared about my brother's safety. I posted that, and a about a week later he got in a motorcycle accident. Luckily he's alive, he snapped his femur in half and has a titanium rod through it and uses a walker, but he's alive, he's very very lucky. It's just weird to see him like this. I think about it everyday, and how lucky we are to still have him here. Hopefully he takes something away from this experience.
In other news I think I may tackle setting my parent's computer up with Ubuntu. I'm on their computer right now and it sucks. My dad is super paranoid about viruses and spyware and I talked to him about Linux. Tomorrow I think that I'm going to set their computer up so they can dual boot. Hopefully it goes well. I've set up dual booting a couple times (once with Harley's help and once in my 8th grade glory) and I am actually kind of nervous about it. I don't know why, the install disk is super easy and does all the work for you. I just don't know, I feel rusty with my nerd skills since I don't use them much and my parent's don't have a backup XP disc. So I guess they could have just Linux :). I don't think they would care, all they use it for is surfing the web.
Speaking of old posts, I was looking back at how I excited I was about having three days off in a row. Excitingly enough I got a new work schedule. I work four ten hour days and have Thursday, Friday, Saturday off now. It sucks that I work Sunday but really I dthink it's worth it.Thursday is sweet because I can do all my errands and Friday and Saturday are nice because Matt gets those days off every other week.
Today I realized I am nowhere close to being ready for parenthood. It's not something that I've really been thinking about or planning on but I just realized how, in case anything should go wrong, I would be completely screwed. My friend Jory has the worldest coolest baby and I was playing with him today. But I didn't know how to feed him or do anything besides make him giggle. If I had a baby I would be completely lost. It freaks me out so much I don't know that I will ever pursue having children.
Good news! I started a diet about 4 weeks ago and have lost 13 pounds. It doesn't sound like a lot but my clothes are fitting better (except for my old pants that fall to the floor). I've been watching my carbs and doing cardio everyday. I usually walk for 1/2 hour at work on my lunch and then get home and either go running for 1.5-2 miles, ride my bike for forty minutes, or do my airdyne for 1/2 hour. I'm really excited, I've always had body issues and it feels good to take some control over that. I've really made a lot of progress with it anyways, I'm much more accepting of myself.
So I went to Manhattan, Il last weekend with my boyfriend because most of his extended family lives there. It's a town of about 8,000 and it's about an hour away from Chicago. And it really surprised me that they got their first 24 hour gas station in the last six months. I guess maybe I've been spoiled living in college towns but it kind of blew my mind that nothing was open 24 hours, not even a gas station. I mean where I live we have 24 hour grocery stores, Wal-Marts, and restraunts. And if it isn't open 24 hours it's open pretty late. His cousin was amazed that we can order pizza until 2 or 3 in the morning. And that we can get beer delivered to our house, but that surprises most people.
Anyways my blog has served it's purpose and I'm tired now so I think I'm going to bed.
Anyways, half the reason I write in this is so I can relieve stress, the other half is so I can look back at my thoughts. I read through my last post and noticed the part about being scared about my brother's safety. I posted that, and a about a week later he got in a motorcycle accident. Luckily he's alive, he snapped his femur in half and has a titanium rod through it and uses a walker, but he's alive, he's very very lucky. It's just weird to see him like this. I think about it everyday, and how lucky we are to still have him here. Hopefully he takes something away from this experience.
In other news I think I may tackle setting my parent's computer up with Ubuntu. I'm on their computer right now and it sucks. My dad is super paranoid about viruses and spyware and I talked to him about Linux. Tomorrow I think that I'm going to set their computer up so they can dual boot. Hopefully it goes well. I've set up dual booting a couple times (once with Harley's help and once in my 8th grade glory) and I am actually kind of nervous about it. I don't know why, the install disk is super easy and does all the work for you. I just don't know, I feel rusty with my nerd skills since I don't use them much and my parent's don't have a backup XP disc. So I guess they could have just Linux :). I don't think they would care, all they use it for is surfing the web.
Speaking of old posts, I was looking back at how I excited I was about having three days off in a row. Excitingly enough I got a new work schedule. I work four ten hour days and have Thursday, Friday, Saturday off now. It sucks that I work Sunday but really I dthink it's worth it.Thursday is sweet because I can do all my errands and Friday and Saturday are nice because Matt gets those days off every other week.
Today I realized I am nowhere close to being ready for parenthood. It's not something that I've really been thinking about or planning on but I just realized how, in case anything should go wrong, I would be completely screwed. My friend Jory has the worldest coolest baby and I was playing with him today. But I didn't know how to feed him or do anything besides make him giggle. If I had a baby I would be completely lost. It freaks me out so much I don't know that I will ever pursue having children.
Good news! I started a diet about 4 weeks ago and have lost 13 pounds. It doesn't sound like a lot but my clothes are fitting better (except for my old pants that fall to the floor). I've been watching my carbs and doing cardio everyday. I usually walk for 1/2 hour at work on my lunch and then get home and either go running for 1.5-2 miles, ride my bike for forty minutes, or do my airdyne for 1/2 hour. I'm really excited, I've always had body issues and it feels good to take some control over that. I've really made a lot of progress with it anyways, I'm much more accepting of myself.
So I went to Manhattan, Il last weekend with my boyfriend because most of his extended family lives there. It's a town of about 8,000 and it's about an hour away from Chicago. And it really surprised me that they got their first 24 hour gas station in the last six months. I guess maybe I've been spoiled living in college towns but it kind of blew my mind that nothing was open 24 hours, not even a gas station. I mean where I live we have 24 hour grocery stores, Wal-Marts, and restraunts. And if it isn't open 24 hours it's open pretty late. His cousin was amazed that we can order pizza until 2 or 3 in the morning. And that we can get beer delivered to our house, but that surprises most people.
Anyways my blog has served it's purpose and I'm tired now so I think I'm going to bed.
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