welcome back

goodbye, house: your silent floors, your humming boxes of life (stocked with guinea pigs, frogs, and sea monkeys-- separately), your messes which were only mine, your comfy and roomy brown suede couch that was home to my afternoon naps and movie-induced trances (occassionally a purse or two strung about).

goodbye, house: your sunny and spacious skylit bathroom, your cozy robin's nest tucked away under the front porch, your gently sloping yard with verdant lawns, your looming basketball hoop that i tried to avoid backing into (mostly successful). . . goodbye, house: your towering and fragrant basil plants, your childlike swingset that made my feet feel like they could poke a hole in the moon, your abundance of daisies and other colorful flowers that replenish my lungs with crisp oxygen and pollen, your shiny green cherry tomatoes on delicate and prickly vines that scale their white lattices with hopeful vertical energy. . .

welcome back, total. fucking. disaster.

(your days are numbered.)

papa johns pizza

i might have said bad things about papa johns pizza indirectly (like, "they have so many coupons... it must be a cheap pizza for college kids"), but i had it for the first time last night. their pepperoni and black olive pizza amazing. the cheese sticks were okay, but i loaded up on the garlic flavored butter. eat it, people.

put that into your car as you hit the semi.

i've started about 5 different posts and deleted them all, so here's an attempt at turning off the internal editor while still keeping my captive audience in mind:

almost 6 months ago, you may recall a post about my impatience with my own growing complacency. well, i've officially staggered across to the spectrum's opposite end and sit passively in the wake of my newfound spite. let me back up a little.

my life isn't how i thought it would turn out to be. (kim warned me about this: "andrea, don't go all fucking emo on me. if you start writing poems on your shoes, we can't be friends.") i know, i know. your reactions are probably something like:

what do you mean?
you're only 22, andrea. life isn't over yet. *hug*
you. are. so. ridiculous.

over a year ago, i decided to continue my education at boise state by pursuing a degree in english. i love reading. i love talking about reading. i love learning through, about, and around reading. it made perfect sense to join this passion with another degree stating that i do it proficiently.

but it isn't how i thought it would be.

i thought i'd sign up for classes that blended some aspect of my interests and practices with theory and larger connections that only a learned professor could establish for me. i thought i'd cradle a book spine in my hand, actively reading with a pen waiting to touch the page and ask probing literary questions, and explore deep issues of what it means to be human.

let's just say it hasn't exactly worked out that way.

i thought i'd develop an interesting and educational lesson plan with activities and assignments aimed at conveying my enthusiasm for writing to my students. i thought i'd earn some respect for my attempts. i thought i'd look forward to watching my students learn and grow not only as writers but as individuals figuring out their identities and futures during their college years.

major disappointment.

on monday, i started my second summer class about inquiry-based project learning. when i signed up in april, i thought that this class would offer me a strategy for teaching that may increase my love for preparing for class each day and executing my painfully detailed plans. instead, i draw pictures of dead rabbits in my notebook and phrases like, "shut up now" on blank pages.

as i was driving home monday after walking kobe in 6 o' clock traffic, i noticed the semi truck in front of me stopping rather suddenly. i thought about not braking. i thought about the accordian-like crunch of my car, the delicate sprinkling of glass on pavement, the blending of my chipped nail polish and gravel, a slight fluttering of my dress hem next to goose feathers and bumpers. and, hey, i wouldn't have to teach again. i'm not belittling or befriending suicide. i'm just being honest about a thought that cut through my mind like a rampid lawnmower blade.

so, dear readers, i've decided to take action: i'm not teaching next year.

i could potentially go on about other aspect of my life that have fallen through: relationships, living situations, recreational habits... all of which i questioned nearly 6 months ago as well. am i that predictable?

i look like a man. and a white girl. hmm.

my love for netflix

i'm housesitting in eagle this month, and because i know my personality, i quickly predicted that i would become a couch-confined blob eating lots of peant m&m's and occasionally indulging in a crossword puzzle or sudoku from the newspaper. fortunately, that hasn't been the entire case. although, a certain entity has brought me endless happiness:

netflix.

i should preface this post with an interesting andrea fact: my first "real" job was working as a guest service representative at hollywood video in eagle. yes, it's true. i rented nearly 300 movies in a span of 2 years (although in my defense, some of those rentals were video games for my brother or movies for the parental unit). after i stopped working for that lovely corporation and shrugged off my starchy purple shirt and black pants uniform, i became really disgusted with the whole movie-watching process. the thought of immersing myself in an alternate world with fake characters and allowing my body ample time to deposit fat cells on my butt urged me to seek other recreational activities. you know, like myspace.

however, i decided that if i was going to be in a strange house, mostly alone, that i'd give netflix a try. the movies come to me, right? i spent near 45 minutes building a 60+ movie queue last thursday, and i was delighted to find the first 3 movies on my list waiting for me when i arrived at the house on sunday night. talk about fast service.

talk about spending hours on the comfy brown suede couch drunk on bloody marys (and vodka tonics. . . and coke with vanilla vodka. . . and beer, but who's keeping track?!) and laughing hysterically at the unlikely duo of bff's in "superbad" or bawling my eyes out (really. . . i feared for the healthy balance of saline in my eyeballs) to "p.s. i love you"-- SEE THIS, people!-- or scribbling in my notebook with small snippets of information from "what the bleep do we know?"

i mean seriously: talk about it! after i watched the first round of movies, i shared one with my mom and then sent the other two away. two days later, more are in the mailbox. it's like christmas/birthday/a hot first date combined. i've watched 5 movies in 5 days. it's incredible.

"lars and the real girl" is coming tomorrow. i can't wait.

why i love ferrets:

Well, it's been an interesting month so far! To think that 22 days ago I was celebrating Kim's birthday at P.F. Changs boggles my mind.

Several dozens of pages later (including not one. . . not two. . . not three. . . but four essays for my grad classes, including an essay on one of my essays!) and several dozens of hours later (from reading 102 portfolios), I finished off my Spring 2008 semester at Amy's combined birthday-bachelorette party. We ate at P.F. Changs (I'm becoming a regular), and then went dancing and drinking at Hannah's. Yes, you read that right! I was getting my groove on.

But I can't escape school that easily. . . the next morning bright and early at 8:30, I had school. It was the first meeting before my summer school class starts in June. School has consumed so many hours of my life (waking and non-waking). I truly thank the people I work with for putting up with my office complaints, attempts at humor, and my Clorox wipe obsession. You can also view my old school computer in my office. What you can't see, though, is an autographed picture of Britney Spears hanging in my cubicle. It's glossy and totally photocopied =)

On Saturday, I watched my best friend Kim graduate (along with others like a roomie, Brett, and various peeps from Eagle) from BSU. I'm so proud of them all!

As if all this wasn't enough, Yann and his girlfriend Alexis came to Boise for the weekend. It was great to see Yann again, and his taste in girls has significantly improved since high school.
This weekend is Amy's wedding, and then I'll be moving temporary to Eagle to housesit for the month of June. I'm super excited about it. I hope you're enjoying your summer vacations too!

a few of my favorite things. . .

in no particular order. do you feel the same?

pretty pink orchids:


the ocean:



a sweet fruity drink:



call me emo. . . but i am so in love with this dude:

(he makes my heart sing sweet melodies like a caged canary sitting in front a pink rhinestone mirror.)

i also love deep fried freedom sticks:

embarassing pictures of my high school self:

the thrill of upside-down roller coasters:

elliot, my doggie baby:

taking random blurry pictures for myspace (my hands shake sometimes):

lipgloss wars:


waking up each day ready to take on the world (meaning, of course, my insular life as a grad student breathing in words of dead authors and exhaling words of writing wisdom to metaphorically deaf and literally ungrateful freshmen):

excelsior, dear readers.

some advice...

this morning when i was shaving in the shower, my razor slipped and left a perfectly vertical cut with a little slice of skin hanging off the red and puffy incision. . . inside the foldy skin of my armpit. ouch. so armpit shavers of the world, hold tight to that handle. i beg you.

update on the cruellest month....

i think t.s. eliot was on to something when he called april the cruellest month. i just want it to be may. . . or more specifically, june. is it too much to ask for a time warp? sheesh.

so, my life has been rather weird lately. not necessarily weird in a bad way-- just weird. i think this may have something to do with four weeks (ok, five including spring break but sort of excluding spring break) straight of presentations for my 3 grad classes. on top of that, i read and "evaluated" 47 unit projects, read an entire hawthorne romance, and a bunch of other miscellaneous items. as well, my hair is grossly long and i'm in desperate need of a haircut.

i've started going to the gym (today breaks my five day gym streak), and i realized what a wimp i am. my back has been hurting from muscle strain, but today when i was getting into the shower, i noticed a really yucky yellowish purple bruise on my shoulder blades, which is from a machine that works my lower back. as well, i have a weird bruise on my right forearm from hitting the doorknob in my room. i installed a coat rack on the wall behind my door (it's the only place where i can hang my coats), but then it fell, and then i hung it back up again. my door doesn't open all the way now, and i've become a creature of habit and still walk through the doorway as if the door was open all the way. . . hence the weird bruise on my forearm. go figure.

yesterday, i babysat for my favorite family in eagle, the brandecker's. i've been babysitting for their 3 great kids for about six years now, and i've had the joy of watching the children grow up into teenagers. (yes, the oldest is now a teenager!) so yesterday, the girls informed me of a father-daughter dance at their church, and the middle child who is the oldest girl decided to model her new dress that she got for the dance. she ran upstairs in great excitement to put it on and show me. she ran back downstairs, yelling, "andrea, will you tie this for me?" when she got downstairs, my eyes welled with tears at the sight of this beautiful girl in a pretty, flowy white halter sundress with blue dots and a sash around the waist. her white sandals with little rhinestones along the strap over her foot completed this very cute-- and very grown up-- look. i tied her sash. she asked me if i liked her dress, and i told her it was absolutely beautiful. and then i felt very sad inside. when did she grow up? when will it stop? (for the record, her younger sister playfully crinkled her face and said, "yuck. you look like gross." =)

tonight i went to the final moveable feast of the academic year. it was great-- great food, great book, great people. maybe i fit in with these literary folk. just maybe. this entire m.a. program has me seriously doubting whether i'm competitive enough, intellectual enough, motivated enough, and just enough of enough to get through it.

this has quickly become an emo post. i will stop now. before i end it, i bid you adieu and hope you're having a wonderful weekend.