Quit whining for God's sakes!

After reading over the last few posts I realize how absolutely whiney I sound, complaining about my grad school trials and my general ennui. I guess being chipper just isn't in my repertoire of emotions right now.

You'd think I'd have a little bit more insight into how incredibley lucky I am to live in a warm house with an abundance of running hot water. You'd think I'd appreciate my mom for giving me a place to live until I get on my feet and get things settled. You would think....

Whenever I start being hard on myself I always wonder if maybe I should knock it off and maybe give it a break. Then, before that thought gets too far I always think of all the people I know who've given themselves too much of a break and are doing nothing with their lives. People who have resigned themselves to shitty temp jobs scoring eighth grade standardized tests. People who have worked at Barnes and Noble as booksellers for 8 years. That's okay when you're in early to mid twenties. That was okay when I was twiddling my thumbs waiting to leave, but I'm starring Thirty in the eye. And she's a total unforgiving bitch.

I don't want to "put off" grad school again. Whenever I put shit off, or, when things ends up being religated to the back burner for reasons beyond my control, it always ends up biting me in the ass. I put off breaking up with Jason and ended up breaking his heart. I ended up leaving for Ukraine over a year later than I had planned and ended up in the hospital after a nasty car crash which very nearly kept me from leaving at all. I put off doing anything about my living situation in Ukraine and ended up living in less than ideal conditions. I know this and yet the cycle continues.

Damn it! I just got done going on and on about how I should count my blessings and here I am complaining again....I know I'll get over this slight set back--hell, I don't even know if this is a set back, I haven't heard anything from Marquette yet. In the meantime I just need to chill out and give myself a bit of break. I guess.

REJECTED!

I guess the upside to being rejected by Carnegie Mellon would be that I now know I won't have to contend with a whole summer filled with learning pre-calculus and statistics like I would've had I been accepted. It also frees up my summer to go to China and visit my dad. Who wants to go to an Ivy Leagueish school like Carnegie Mellon anyways, right? Right?

I won't lie: I'm really disappointed. I think I have a right to be too; over the past year I've corresponded with a guy in the CMU Admissions department who all but told me I'd get in, as did literally every other person I know (and when I say everyone I know I mean everyone). Was is something I said in an e-mail? Was it my goddamn quantative score on the motherfucking GRE? Is CMU so hung up on numbers that they won't let me in because I don't take tests well? I HAVEN'T BEEN SPEAKING ENGLISH REGULARILY FOR TWO YEARS, FOR GOD'S SAKES!

Needess to say, I'm really doubting myself and my chances of getting into ANY graduate school right now. I still have a month until I'll hear anything from Marquette (I haven't even begun my application to U of Minnesota), so I'll just have to wait. In the meantime I need to start thinking about getting a job....Being an unemployed grown up sucks.

Work

Yesterday was tolerable, surprisingly enough. Our team leader (I guess that's what you would call him) seems like a nice guy as do the rest of the people on my team. Of course, the project director is a woman I've referred to as "that stupid bitch" on more than one occasion in the past, so I wasn't super excited about working with her, but hopefully she'll disappear and not bother us over the next few weeks.

I wish CMU and Marquette would just hurry up already and decided whether or not I'm worthy of attending their fine institutions. Besides wanting to know because the suspense is killing me, I need to know so I can look for a job. By that I mean this: do I spend a few weeks looking for a job that I'll need to last me until August (when I would head to Milwaukee) or do I just stick with scoring essays until May? Unfortunately it looks like we won't have a lot of work until mid to late spring, when I would be heading to Pennsylvania, which means I may not be making the kind of money I hoped I would until a month before I left for Pittsburgh. This leaves me wondering if I should just suck it up and try not to spend too much money between the end of this project and the beginning of the next one in April or if I should look for something lame. Yet even more indecision. Will it ever end?

I can't wait for a time when I'm working at a job that I don't either hate or not really enjoy. I'm almost 30 years old and I can't honestly say I've ever had a job that I love. Peace Corps doesn't count. That wasn't a job, it was a life. I wonder how old I'll be before I work someplace where I enjoy the work and most of the people I work with. Does that ever happen to people or is it just their attitudes that make their jobs tolerable?

I heart the Olympics

Last night, as my mom and I were watching those crazy speed skaters fly into walls and each other, I had a flashback to the first summer I was in Ukraine, watching the Olympics and lying prone, sweating like a pig (believe it or not, it routinely gets to 90 degrees in July and August in southern Ukraine) on Oksana's couch. Actually, other than the opening ceremony and the same rhythmic gymnastics competition, I saw very little of the Olympics. It's funny how where you're at when you're watching the Olympics affects what events you see; in Ukraine we saw a ton of these random events you never see in the States because Ukraine never qualified or stood a chance of wining medals in events that U.S. athletes excel at, where as Ukrainian athletes did well in competitions that the U.S. didn't do well in.

Last night I gave my first "presentation" about my experience in Ukraine. I think it went well, although the on-campus recruiter talked a really long time (longer than I expected, actually) and I didn't get very long to really to talk about my experience. I realized I'm going to need to find a way to be both realistic and positive about my experience in Ukraine. My service wasn't completely awful, but there certainly were parts that were. I was pretty damn sick my first year, I had nothing but problems with my school the entire time I served, my housing situation frequently sucked and there were times I was a mess emotionally. That being said, I met some amazing people--both Ukrainian and American--and was able to try different things and ended up finding meaningful work while I was there, in addition to discovering what I wanted to do after I left.

If I'm honest other RPCVs might dismiss me as bitter, plus I'll scare the newbies. But who am I helping by not being honest? Being a Peace Corps volunteer is a wonderful growing experience, but like most experiences that test your persistance, patience and resilence, sometimes it's a real challenge. Peace Corps is not summer camp. If you want to just chill out and relax for two years get a good job, work your ass off and stay home; don't join Peace Corps.

Another day alone

Ah, another Valentine's day alone. If I remember correctly this is my third Valentine as a single woman. My goal next year is to, at the very least, have a date on Valentine's Day. That would be sweet. Maybe it'll even be with someone I care about.

In about an hour and a half I have an appointment with Dr. P, an orthopedic surgeon, to evaluate my back and hip. This is all related to my impending lawsuit against the old fart who hit me, of course. The doc is basically going to poke and prod me. Goddamn it, I am so sick of being examined and evaluated by doctors. Between my cholesteatoma (that would be a painful benign ear tumor in layman's terms) and the numerous problems I've had related to my accident, I've seen....let's see....three physical therapists, two orthopedic surgeons, one clinical psychologist, and a partridge and a pear tree.

Speaking of my lawsuit, I had my deposition last week and it looks like Allstate will not be contesting liabilty. This is, of course, a relief to both my lawyers and myself seeing as how I would've picked their lawyer up and thrown him through a window had he even suggested this was an act of God (that had been suggested once, right after my accident). That means that before we make any sort of monetary demand I have to go through this crazy PTSD treatment (I was diagnosed with PTSD last week after my visit with the shrink I saw a few weeks ago), along with being evaluated by a whole buch of doctors for both my side and their side. It should be tons of fun. I'll keep you updated on my progress in the next few weeks.

I wish I had something really exciting to blog about, but right now that's about it. I hope this turns out to be a tolerable day.

Five whole days without blogging

I’ve been a little lax on writing lately. Honestly, I haven’t always been in the mood, plus my computer completely punked out on me last week. It seems I managed to fry the motherboard somewhere in my travels around Europe (or maybe it was Ukraine that did it in). It rattled when you picked it up.

It doesn’t matter now though, seeing as how I’m now the proud owner of a Dell 610. I love her—she’s so much better than last laptop. She makes absolutely NO noise whatsoever, she burns CDs and DVDs. Plus the sound is excellent. I’m so glad I decided to bite the bullet and buy a new one.

In other exciting news, I turned in my Marquette application. I’ve had mixed feelings about applying to Marquette; originally I had an apply-if-you-want-to sort of e-mail from the head of the program and was a little turned off. Then, I received the application in the mail and was surprised and dismayed with how extremely confusing and long it was (they require 4 letters of recommendation and 3 different essays—it’s ridiculous). But then, I talked program co-ordinator (who had sent me the aforementioned e-mail) and was impressed. She seemed really interested in what I wanted out of the program and was pretty encouraging.

That was all before I found out they receive 60+ applications for 10 spots. Now I’m a little discouraged. I really just want to get into either CMU or Marquette, but I’d much rather be in a situation where I’m choosing between them as opposed to waiting for them to choose me. We’ll see.

Regular week

It's been a good week so far. I've been in a good mood, more or less, all week, and have been productive with regards to my grad school applications and doing all the boring crap I hate doing like making phone calls and stuff. Yesterday I even took two fitness classes at the gym; one Pilates class and then a Kickboxing class with the hottest MILF I have ever met in my entire life. Of course, this week has not been without its annoyances; for some reason when I'm on line typing an e-mail my computer will not recognize when I hit the return key. It's so weird! So if this is like one long paragraph, please, forgive me! I understand the basic concepts of how to write a proper paper or blog entry; my computer just won't let me.

Disturbed

I just came across the most disturbing website. Some dude has been taking random pictures of curvy women and posting them on the web. It's basically a whole web page full of big bootied women in tight jeans. I'm not going to post the link because I don't want to direct anyone to a website that encourages men and women to objectify and reduce a woman to the size of her ass or cup size.

It's funny that I should run across this website, randomly, after starting an excellent book called Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture by Ariel Levy (Levy writes for New York magazine), which details the bizarre and very alarming trend among young women to exploit other women and themselves as sex objects and call it "liberating" and "powerful". Levy discusses the birth and death of radical feminism and the division amongst women involved in the movement over pornography.

Over the last decade or so I've had a lot of problems with boyfriends, roommates, friends and, in the past 2 1/2 years, fellow volunteers, chastizing me for my often times loud vitrolic objections to pornography. I've been called a prude, uptight and an all around spoilsport because not only does pornography make me uncomfortable (I feel a genuinely uncomfortable and embarassed for the women being degraded in pornography) I honestly don't find it empowering towards women at all. In Female Chauvinist Pigs, Levy does an excellent job of explaining how we've been sold the idea that women can only be powerful through selling themselves as sexual objects, only this time the pornography industry calls it "liberation" and "freedom" for women. They've made women feel like they've got complete control over their sexuality, which, I guess they do, but at the expense of making themselves into sexual objects.

If you're at all interested in pornography or the really odd, ugly direction pop culture has taken in the past few years, you should check out this book. You might not find yourself nodding your head and shouting "Right on, sistah!" like I do (okay, I don't actually yell that outloud, but I do in my head), but it's good food for thought.

A good day

I had a really good day yesterday, much to my surprise. I met with my PT, Leslie, who told me that as long as I continued to strengthen my back through the various exercises she'd given me to do, I would be able to run again. I know that probably wouldn't seem like a very big deal to a lot of people, but it's a huge deal to me. If I can start running again I can get back into shape and start feeling like I have completely regained control over my life, finally. It's about time; it's been 3 years since I last ran.

I also found out that the place I bought my computer from will fix it free of charge because when I bought this thing I had enough foresight to buy insurance for 4 years and not just 2 years like most people. Even if they wouldn't cover the price of a new battery (that's what I think is probably wrong with it) it still wouldn't have been the end of the world-- I would've ended up paying only $100 or so, which isn't the end of the world. But, a hundred bucks saved on fixing this is a hundred bucks I can spend on myself in Minneapolis when I go hang with JP and Rosa.

Full day

I'm not particuliarly excited about today. I have a bunch of stuff to do and not a lot of time to relax. The good news is I only have ONE day left of studying for the GREs and then I'm done (I've made the executive decision to not study tomorrow, the day before the test, in order to just chill and give my mind a rest).

The least exciting thing I have to do today is go to my physical therapist and inform her in no uncertain terms that I'm filing a lawsuit against the guy who hit me and she, as my PT for the last 4 1/2 years, is going to be a part of that lawsuit, like it or not. The last time I brought this up to her she acted really weird; in fact she changed the subject and sort of pretended like I hadn't said anything at all. She will help me though--she knows me and the extent of my back and ankle injuries better than any other physcian or therapist who's treated me--even if she doesn't know it now. Legally, I'm not sure she has much of a choice.

It looks like I'll be heading up to Minneapolis February 17th. I'm really really looking forward to it; I think I'm going to be in need of a break after all this craziness with the deposition and applications and appointments. I'm already in need of a break and I haven't even started working yet.

Speaking of jobs and work I was talking to my mom last night and was joking around with her about how if I didn't get into grad school or find a job I was going back into Peace Corps. She laughed, I laughed and then I told her I wasn't kidding. I'm not. I'd do it. In fact, the idea of going to Africa and working in some sort of NGO/NGA that does HIV/AIDS prevention is tempting. I wouldn't have to stay for two years--I'm still eligible for all the PC Fellowship programs and benefits because I've already finished my service in Ukraine. I'd be going in with nothing to lose, so to speak. God, I wonder what my mother would do to me it I left for some place like Ghana or Burkina Faso or South Africa....My friends and family would think I'd totally lost my mind. Maybe I have.

Old lady

I know I said this in my last post, but it bares repeating again: I CAN NOT WAIT UNITL I AM DONE WITH THESE APPLICATIONS. The amount of paperwork involved in applying to graduate school is ridiculous.

For example, I got my Marquette application yesterday, which is proving to be by far the biggest pain in the ass ever, and realized in order to recieve financial aid I need to have 3 letters of recommendations from people who can attest to my academic prowess. Now, the application to the program I'm applying already requires 4 letters of rec. (two from professors and two from PC administration). Now, I really hope that doesn't mean I need to have another letter of recommendation from yet one more professor, because that would make a total of FIVE letters of recommendation for this fucking program. The program at Marquette is pretty awesome; 100% tuition paid plus $1565 monthly stipend. I'll also be working like a dog--I'll need to work 18 hours per week at a local NGO during the school year and 40 hours per week during the summer. Despite all this though, the more requirements for the Marquette application the less I want to go there. I mean, this isn't Harvard for Christ's sakes.

On a completely unrelated note, I've noticed I've been watching an enormous amount of TV the last few days. I've also been going to bed on the weekends by 10 pm, which makes me feel like an old lady. I guess it's because I've been working out so much and doing enough academic work that I'm just freaking exhausted by the end of the day. It's ridiculous. Sometimes I worry though that I act too old for my age. I feel like I'm 50 years old. I mean, how many unmarried, childless 29 year-olds do you know that are out cold by 10:30 pm on a Saturday night?

Busy bee

I wonder if they play the music at this internet cafe super loud to get rid of people. It's ridiculous. I can't concentrate. I guess that means I should go home and study for the fucking GREs instead of sitting here and trying to get some work done.

This week has been insane and kind of stressful. There is no way I could prepare myself for my impending deposition, apply to graduate schools and work all at the same time. I guess my decision to wait until February to start working was actually a sound choice instead of me just being lazy. In fact, I have a feeling I've been better about getting stuff done than most of the other RPCVs from my group. That's just a guess though.

Lately I've had a craving to box. Maybe, secretly, I'm just looking for someone to beat the shit out of. There's a class that starts in a week or so that I could take if I really wanted to. Hmmm....

Never in a million years would I have thought that I'd learn how to box in Ukraine. God, I remember the look on my 8th graders' faces when I told them, I, their 5'2, female, American teacher, was learning how to box. That was a priceless moment.

Well, I should probably get started on studying and editing my essay. I can't wait until I'm done with all this!

Grad school application craziness

It looks like I may actually get everything done. I received my transcripts from the University of Iowa yesterday (my GPA was actually higher than I remember it being, thank you very much), and then today I got an e-mail from one of my favorite professors of all time saying that she would write me a letter of recommendation. THANK GOD.

I knew before I started applying to graduate schools that there would be a lot of paperwork to do, but Christ, this almost rivals the application process for Peace Corps. At least with Peace Corps I wasn't battling a deadline like I am now (my CMU deadline is Feb. 1st and my Marquette deadline is Feb. 10th).

I can't believe how willing people have been to read my essay. I think I may have actually had too many people read it at this point--I may be over-editing it. I mean, there's a point where I need to stop drafting and call it good enough, you know? I don't want edit out all the good stuff.

Shrinking Head

Friday went about as I expected: it was emotionally exhausting and not something I'm looking forward to doing again. Anne asked me after the appointment if I felt better, to which I responded that no, I didn't feel even a little better. In fact, in the course of talking with Dr. S I burst into tears three times. The first time was when, in the course of talking about the accident, I described the feeling I had that I was going to die (this was right as I was about to hit the house). The second and third times had to do with how frustrated and angry I've been since then. Fun, fun times.

The really fascinating part of the whole day came when Dr. S gave me a battery of tests. First I was asked to draw a picture of a complete person, which I did a pretty lousy job on. Then I had to complete a worksheet in which I completed sentences about how I felt. Even though I was told not to over-analyze the questions, I couldn't help but laugh at the obviousness of some of them, and sort of scratch my head at others. For example, "My greatest fear..." is pretty obviously measuring what you're afraid of (duh). "Dancing....", though, honestly, I'm a little unsure what they're trying to get at.

The dancing theme came up again when I took the MMPS (Minnesota, something, something, something), an extremely long test in which you have to answer whether or not a particular statement is true or false as it relates to you or how you feel. It's 567 questions! Isn't that crazy? Some of the questions were clearly geared towards people who needed immediate hospitalization. Amongst my favorite was "I see people and animals that other people don't see," and, "I like to hurt people for no particuliar reason." Then there were questions like, "I would like to be a building constructer," which, I'll be honest, I'm unclear as to what that indicates about a person. I do know I've never had a desire to be build anything other than a career, so I had to answer false on that one.

Whiny-poo

Yesterday I had a really good day, thank God. Brian and Rosa sent me their critiques of my grad school essay. Amongst the highlights were "This is really good," and "You're 90% done." More important than stroking my ego, though, they offered a lot of really helpful suggestions. Sometimes I'm amazed at how lucky I am to have these two in my life. Putting up with all the stupid shit I had to put up with from my site in Ukraine was worth it for no other reason than I got meet some really fantastic people, these two being prime examples.

In about 30 minutes I'll head off to an appointment I've been dreading for weeks; a five hour series of tests to determine whether or not I'm suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I've been pretty emotional all week, so this may not be the best time for me to go and talk to a clinical psychologist about my accident, which makes me a little dizzy and lightheaded and panicky to talk about even on a good week. In fact, if I do more than describe briefly what happened I get totally freaked out. I suppose that in itself is a sign that there's a problem.

I don't want there to be a problem, though. I'm tired of being so fucking sensitive that when other people are in pain I feelit too. I feel like I take it on, sometimes. And then, when I'm upset or hurt I'm practically blinded by what I feel. I'm such a freak sometimes.

Slightly recovered

I think I wrote myself through a mini-breakdown yesterday. In the past when this would happen I would do it privately; maybe I should start writing in a journal again to help me with this whole post-Peace-Corps-lawsuit-single-and-desperate phase. What do ya think?

I don't know what's come over me today and yesterday. I hate to admit this, but a large portion of my pissiness started when I weighed myself yesterday, which is ridiculous and stupid. My self-esteem should not be tied quite so much to how much I wiegh.

I mean come on, I'm not overweight, nor hideously ugly. I'm pretty driven and goal oriented, so I wouldn't call myself a loser. Occasionally it'll occur to me that I'm kinda smart (although sometimes I wonder, especially when I fuck up the quantative section of the GREs or my language proficency inventory after two years of studying and living in a Russian speaking enviroment). So what's up with beating myself up?

Yesterday I seriously considered writing a mass e-mail to everyone alerting them to the fact that I have a blog. I didn't though--I don't know why. In fact, I've been wondering what the point of keeping all this to myself is about. I love my close friends intensely--I think a lot of only children do that as a way of replacing the love they miss out on by not having brothers or sisters--but I love having secrets (also an only child thing). I pride myself on being able to keep secrets, so by not telling anyone I have this blog and occasionally writing about them I'm challenging myself. I wonder how long I can go without telling anyone. It'll probably come out when I'm drunk.

Hopefully today will be better than yesterday. I'm going to take a break from my graduate school essay and working out. I think I need a day of rest. It's funny--I feel like every day should be a day of rest considering I'm unemployed and all. It's not though.

Lawsuit

I've been in kind of a pissy mood lately. Gee, I can't imagine why: I'm lonely, broke, unemployed and getting fatter and fatter (despite my nearly exemplary diet and going to the gym four times a week). Oh, did I mention I might be crazy and depressed?

I shouldn't say I'm crazy. I'm not, not clinically, at least. I may be depressed, though, as the result of a car accident I had almost three years ago that wound me up in the hospital for 3 days and physical therapy for months. See, it appears as though the fantasically bloody daymares (I call them daymares because I have them while I'm awake, as opposed to when I'm asleep like regular nightmares) I've been having aren't normal. My lawyer, Ron and his assistant, Ron (yup, they have the same first name) decided that in order to get the "big picture" of all the damage this guy who hit me caused me, I should have an assment done by a specialist.

This didn't seem so bad at first. That is until I learned that a) this specialist fella lives 1 1/2 hours away from me, b) it's a FIVE HOUR assessment and c) this means I'm going to spend five fucking hours reliving one of the worst times in my life. I'm really looking forward to it, as you can imagine.

So, if I am diagnosed with post-traumatic stress syndrome, like they suspect I will be, what do I do then? Do I start shoveling pills in my mouth? Do I start seeing a psychiatrist? When will I be over it? What do I do? Am I going to have to go at this alone? What will it mean to my case against this guy? Can't I be one of the few people in the world that's not depressed?

Sometimes I wonder if bringing this court case wasn't a huge mistake. Then I think about all medical bills and bullshit I would have to deal with on my own with no financial help at all if I didn't file this lawsuit. I hate the fact that I have to do all this in order to just get the fucking money I need to cover my medical costs. Is this the way insurance and insurance companies always work?

Is this what it's come to--putting a monetary value on pain and suffering and all the hours I've spent replaying the accident what would have happened had there been someone in the passenger's seat or if one of the numerous kids who were outside playing that day would've been hit. I have get into a fucking pissing match with Allstate Insurance company about that? Why? Why does this have to be so difficult?

Devotion

There's this coffeeshop I go to virtually every day not far from where my mom works. It's nothing special; they play some cheesy eighties music, they have high speed internet, and the staff is super nice.

The other morning I got my coffee and headed over to the same spot I sit at for hours at a time. This time, however, I stumbled into a meeting of church folk studying the bible. Now, I'm not going to rip on church folk for being religious--I'm not that unoriginal--or believing in God. It did however, make me a little envious.

I'm not an atheist or agnostic. I believe there's a God. I'm not going to get into why (does it really matter what my reasons are?). I don't, however, feel so comfortable with my beliefs as to broadcast them to a bunch of strangers, like these folks did. They didn't offend me or anything, rather I was more....amazed at the unabashed way in which they talked about the "Lord" and "creation" and discussed scripture. Don't they feel too conspicuous? Don't they worry about some telling them to knock it off? Aren't they worried about getting lynched in the parking lot? I would be.

I'm actually kind of jealous. Not in their devotion--there's something about the super religous that creeps me out, probably because I've had so many encounters with so many of the devoted that have been really nasty and judmental people--but rather because they're so confident in their beliefs. There are very few things I'm that I'm so confident in that I'd be willing to share it with a room full of strangers. Why can't I be that confident in myself?

grumplstilskin

Today was kind of a shitty day. I woke up tired, drove my mom to work, then spent the morning looking at computers and MP3 players on-line, only to turn around and beat myself up for my burgeoning materialism.

After that I came home and starting working on my grad school essay for my application to Carnegie Mellon, which, until this afternoon I thought was coming together quite nicely. Well, true to form, I sat down to read what I had written so far and started to doubt how good it actually was. I've fought this battle with myself for about the last 15 years (since I started high school); just when I start to feel smart or proud of myself for something I've accomplished or done I'm overwhelmed with insecurity.

This was no different: I started reading what I had written and nearly erased the two pages I'd been working on (thankfully, I didn't). Why do I do this shit to myself? I psyched my out of the fucking GREs (and now I have to take them over again) and now I'm going to back myself into writer's block. It's a four page paper, for god's sake! This is not rocket science! I'm going to get into this program--I know it.

Honestly, I think part of my problem is I need to stop living so much in my head. I need get out; make some new friends or, say, may be even (gasp) go on a date. I think that'd be a good start on getting my confidence back. That or I need to get a life and get over myself.

In the next year

I know renouncing New Year's resolutions is like the thing to do, but most years I not only make, but at least attempt to stick to them. The reason being because I'm really terribly anal retentative and I work well with goals. After all the year I made the New Year's resolution to quit smoking and increase both the length and intensity of my runs I did. I felt awesome, I looked pretty good and I did myself a world of good. So there.

1. Start grad school
2. Workout 4-5 times per week consistently
3. Stop criticizing myself so fucking much
4. Take a Excel or Access Basics class
5. Take a Pilates/Boxing/Kickboxing class
6. Take off 10 lbs.

Another reason why I love resolutions is because it allows me to be challenge and compete against myself, which, in my opinion is so much more entertaining that getting into some bitchy pissing match with someone else. That, and I have a big problem with jealousy (wow, look at me drag all my skeletons out of the closet for the whole world to see), so competing with another person and then losing makes me feel horribly about myself.

It'll be interesting see where I am with this stuff this time next year.