It's finally hitting me. This whole moving thing. I still have yet to grasp that I am done with college (until/unless I go for my masters). But boy, am I hyperventilatingly aware that I am moving in a week. It's not so much the Indiana part that's so terrifying. It's the part where it's not Columbia. The part where I only know one person in the whole little town. It's freakin' me out right now. Right now. And the only real alternative I can see is crawling into my bed, which is covered with my mostly packed crap, and falling asleep for a long time. I have nothing but a handful of people in Columbia. Oh and a comforting familiarity. But I didn't have either of those when I first came here. And I hated the idea of Columbia when I was applying to schools the first time. I didn't apply here. I was a Clemson girl. But then Miami was Clemson enough for me so when I transfered, I went "urban."
I had the hardest time jumping into water when I was a kid. And forget about diving. That seems so significant now. I've been watching too much My So-called Life.

I found my iPod a few minutes ago. Which means it's been missing (for weeks). But I guess now, I don't have to worry about packing CDs for the move. Although, it wouldn't have been the end of the world. I could live without it until I could buy another. And then it'd be an iPod video with 2x the battery power as my 15 GB generation 3. But, with Oscar's luck with the Gen-4, I don't ever want to upgrade. Besides, my iPod has character, if a silver and white, audio-cassette sized box can have character.

french fries from God

We stopped at Burger King in Tennessee(?) on the way back from Btown.

Fashion point of the season...

Hide the unwanted pregnancy. I went shopping today and a lot of clothes were very flowy and loose around the belly. You could also smuggle a ham or a bag of sugar or a boat.

Home Sweet Home

Oscar and I found a place to live. We visited 5 places.
Place 1 was our favorite going in. A two bedroom townhouse, tons of storage space. $500/month. Places 2 & 3 I threw in because they were owned by the same company, and were equally as cheap, but they just didn't seem like they'd be as cool as a townhouse. Places 4 & 5 were owned by a different company, and almost count as just one place to visit because all their properties were on one giant sprawl of land. They looked the nicest online, but they were at the very top of our budget. A side note: all the places have pools.

So, now to tell you what each place actually was like....

Place 1: Projecty as fuck. The buildings were just long strips of town houses with a few feet of grass between. There was a funny smell when we got there at 8:30 am. Their "Bark Park," which is of no use to me and Oscar, unless Oscar really wants to run on a see-saw and jump through hoops, was an old tennis court with a doggy obstacle course. Cute, but no big draw. Their leasing reps were nice, but I mean that in as generic a way as possible. Neither really knew what to say beyond "Look at all this storage." This place was a disappointment.

Place 2: Not a disappointment. An older complex, built in the 70s. All brick, very established landscaping. It was nice and shady. A nice thing they do, is only allow dogs in certain buildings, so if you don't have a dog, you don't have to hear one barking all the time. Their leasing rep was super friendly and could chat like it was his job. They had a car washing area with a super cool industrial vacuum. They also had these cool built in bookcases. It's also on a good bus line.

Place 3: Also not a disappointment. Pretty much like place 2, except the surroundings. It was as if a parking lot sprouted apartments. The inside was nice. They had built in shelving. Not exactly a bookcase. It was an entire wall in the living room that had bracket slots so you could move two shelve around, you know if you had a big painting or something, it could go there. The lease rep was nice, but not as dynamic as Place 2. She also had too much lotion on her hands. This place was not on a good bus line.

Places 4 & 5: Not a disappointment because I was afraid I'd really like them, and just have to live there, but I didn't. They weren't that great. They were newer than the previous three, but felt cheaper, the way most new construction feels to me. They drove us around in an Expedition, which kinda pissed me off. We weren't going far. They should have had a smaller, less consuming vehicle...like a golf cart. Their big secret weapon (or so they thought) was their clubhouse. It had an indoor pool, a well stocked gym, a locker room, and ta-da! a tanning bed. Fuck the tanning bed. This place actually kinda pissed me off. It was just a status symbol apartment complex. Of course, that's not true of everyone who lives there, but it just seemed so fake to me.

And now, in case you're still wondering, we went with Place 2. Another perk I forgot to mention, is it's closer to stuff than the others. There's all the standard shopping anyone could need less than 3 miles away.

Employment opportunities? Anyone?

Let me tell you a little secret. I don't really want to work. Well, I do, but not at any of the jobs I've seen. I have no financial or computer science training...and that seems to be what people are after. Also, I don't know Word, Excel, Access or Outlook as well as I think I should. But I can look it up. I can figure it out. I don't think I can type enough words per minute. I haven't found any graphic design jobs, plus my portfolio is in pieces. I also hate the whole portfolio process. When you get down to it, you're just showing people samples of what you do, while trying to charm the fuck out of them. Why does it have to be some big blown up ordeal. I hate dealing with people. I can't tell them what they want to hear. I'm awkward and pretty much always look like I'm lying. Atleast that's what it feels like. But, once I'm comfortable, I'm golden. And also, as you can tell, I lack confidence. But if you ask any of my previous employers, they'll tell you I'm organized, friendly, punctual, intelligent, obedient yet self-motivated, I'm really the perfect employee, once I get going. I was once told I was worth my weight in gold. Based on the price of gold as of now ($658/oz), I am worth approximately $1.5 million. The job I'm really interested in is a silkscreen tech. I'd really just like to do manual labor in a field that is technically related to printmaking. I really just need to send out my resume to every employer in Bloomington. Right? Arg.
I did apply at the silkscreen place. They had a page called "Written Interview." Pretty self-explanatory. One question asked if my previous employers would say I was punctual and why. Well, yes I was punctual and they would say that because uhh, I was always on time. They also asked if I had ever lost anything by doing the right thing, and I have to tell you, my answer was effing brilliant. I told them that I didn't know if I'd ever lost anything by doing the right thing because I don't really consider loss or gain when deciding between right and wrong. And I'm actually not lying, but I sat there for a few minutes trying to think if I'd ever turned in somebody's lost thousand bucks to the cops. I haven't because I've never found $1000.

Graduation

Is only 4 days away. I had a dream the other night that I had to stay an extra semester because I missed one art class. And for some reason, I was forced to take a full load filled with dentistry classes. And all my friends from high school were in those classes. And as I was walking out, Lucy was walking in and her eyes were really red. Then I woke up and had really dry eyes. Iiiinteresting.

Concussed bird

This little fella' crashed into my window. I've been seeing lots of injured, crashed, dead birds this year. It's kinda creeping me out actually. Based on evidence from previous window banging birds, I knew this one was just in shock, so I kept my distance and used my zoom. I have this morbid need to take pictures of all these birds I come across.

This next image is from where the bird hit my window, and you can see Destroyer on the inside. Mmmm Hungry!