2011 Part 2 (Everything Else)

The other half of 2011 was pretty decent too.



-This summer, I took a break from cashiering then doing nothing to hang out with my friend who came to visit America. This picture was taken in Boston, by the harbor, after being caught in a sudden rainstorm. In my life, instances such as this are normal.











-Later in the summer, my friend Greg also visited America, so a few of us met up and hung out for a bit. Which meant a few of us ended up in onesies. Obviously.











-I absolutely love my suite at school, which is dubbed "The Flat" because my roommates and I all met and lived in London last semester. We had a spread of various soaps available in the bathroom, and it was decorated extensively for Christmas. We had our tree set up in late October, so initially we decorated it for Halloween before switching for Christmas. It was the perfect atmosphere for the "fake Christmas" I celebrated with my friends.







-On my birthday, I went apple picking with my roommates. Along with the apples, we also picked up pumpkins, and I carved my first jack-o-lantern ever a few weeks later.









-This semester, I took a Latin American history course, and have never been so bored in a class in my entire life. The silver lining to this is I drew some truly great Doctor Who and Harry Potter-inspired doodles in my notebook.











-After going to see my friend from middle school in a hockey game, some of us decided it would be fun to go ice skating. Even though it had been a while since I had skated and my legs were sore the next day, I did not actually fall. So, you know, success.









-In October, we had a massive snowstorm. Pretty much the rest of the entire state went without power for the next week, but on campus we were totally fine, even though the storm did cancel a scavenger hunt I had been planning for a group of us. You win some, you lose some.








-A few weeks ago, one of my roommates had to take the GRE because she is the smartest of all the people, and I drove her to the site with a few friends. Instead of driving there and back and there and back, we stayed down there and adventured. We came across a trail white driving through rural areas looking in vain for stores, then tried to find a waterfall that didn't seem to exist.








Overall, a pretty great year, I'd say.

2011 Part 1 (London)

I realized yesterday that today is the last day of 2011. I figured I should probably write about the year. It was pretty good. I quickly realized I would need to break the year up into two parts- PARTS PARTY. So here I go reminisce about the first half of the year and London.



-At least once, occasionally multiple times a week (sometimes a day) I ate or hung out in the Wetherspoons chain of pubs. For each meal, I ordered a veggie burger and pint meal, and it was the best thing. Both the food and the company I went there with made each visit fantastic.

Note: the picture to the left is from my last burger there, which incidentally was the worst one I had, because, as you can tell, they burned it. Jerks.









-In the middle of the semester, Emily and I got permission to leave class early to attend a play that Young Adult author Maureen Johnsen tweeted about. I had never read any of her books, but I was still a fan. (I have since read some of her work, and it is exemplary.) As we were sitting in the audience before the show, Emily asked me if I saw her yet, and I said, "Oh she's at the end of our row holy crap... oh she's walking toward us..." and then Maureen Johnsen proceeded to sit down right next to us. Our tickets just happened to be right next to each other. And then we took pictures in awful lighting and thoroughly enjoy the play.




-I was in a great deal of Dailybooth pictures this year, despite not actually having an account on the site myself. At one point I even attended a gathering of Dailybooth users and then felt very out of place.











-This was taken in a tube station, where I spent a quite large amount of time. I'm sitting on the statue of some guy who was an important train engineer or something. I never noticed before, but the guy in the background of this is slightly hilarious. In his defense, I'm sure we looked quite odd.










Ok, this is going to take forever. New plan.





-Belgium, Scotland, France, across England. Having the ability and opportunity to travel so much was an incredible and unique experience I will never forget.












- The European friends I made while living in London made my time there so much more special.

Also, one person is stopping that from being "British friends." Geez, Austria just ruins everything, am I right?










-The friends from my own group and school I made in London are still a huge part of my life. After bonding in the UK, they are still some of the best friends I have ever had.

Cool Stuff I Have aka Consumerism is Awesome

So now I'm back home for winter break, and this means, as it has for a while now, continuing to set up my stuff in my room. My family having just moved, (which has actually been the case for about three years now- three houses in three years will do that) I need to assemble and display my things in the best way possible. This task is very important because you see, I have some really cool stuff. For example:
-I have a plush keychain of Winnie the Pooh in a panda costume. If you're thinking to yourself, "Holy shit that's the cutest thing that's ever fricking existed," you're totally right.
-When I toured Italy with my high school band a few years back, I bought a (probably overpriced) little painting of the Duomo on a street in Florence because I thought that was a chic, international thing to do.
-Over this past spring break in France, I bought a replica army cricket in Normandy- these were used by troops during the invasion to tell if they had fellow countrymen nearby. It was only two Euros and probably only took fifty cents to make but I couldn't even care less.
-I collect vintage books. I have old copies of Shakespeare, Thoreau, and others. Oh yeah guys, you're dealing with a real scholar here. But ask me if I've read any of them? SHUT UP.
-My freshman year of college I stole a poster from my dorm hall because it had a picture of Harry Potter on it. It was advertising a really dumb event on campus, and I at least waited until after the event had passed to swipe it from the floor below mine.
-I bought an eraser from the Globe that has the Macbeth quote, "Out damned spot! Out I say!" (GET IT?!?) It was supposed to be for my sister, but whatever. It's now hanging out by my plays. See? Everything has a place.
-I also collect rocks from cool places. I have some from Omaha beach, Versailles, and Hastings and Brighton in England. These are all together in a plastic cup that once held two Euro, 12% white wine from a French convenience store that caused me to almost flash my friends in our hostel room. My friend asked about the tag on my shirt when I was really in no right state to check it.
-Among some frankly slightly creepy looking ceramic cats, I have a crystal dog and matching bone. These all came from my grandparents house, and I have clear memories of being little and told repeatedly to keep away from the dog because it was fragile and God help us all if the bone went missing. In fact, to this day I have never taken the dog out of his clear plastic protective box. Maybe some day.
-I have an entire shelf dedicated to Harry Potter, which includes all 7 books, the Beetle the Bard book, two books of literary analysis, a plastic wand, a postcard from the Wizarding World, my signed movie cover, and a stuffed owl that is not supposed to Hedwig, but totally is Hedwig.
-I am a fan of bulletin boards. In my room, I have two separate ones, both completely full. They contain everything from my lanyard from visiting the BBC, to my prom ticket, to a birthday card from 2010, to a ticket to Lincoln's presidential museum in Illinios, to a pin of the American and German flags I got on my last day of German class.
-By my Twilight books, I have a heart-shaped paper weight that was made in Volterra because... I went through a phase.
-I also collect souveneir shot glasses because I'm THAT person. I have ones from New Hampshire, San Antonio, Cancun, Virginia, and my university. These are most definitely going to be a worthwhile investment and be worth loads of money one day.
-Hanging off my lamp, I have a YouTube drawstring bag that a friend got me at Summer in the City and I haven't used it yet but it sure looks great hanging off my lamp.

One thing that is noticably missing from my room is a view of snow out the window. But that topic will be covered.... NEXT TIME on SARA TYPES WORDS.

Twitter Stats

I'm fairly obsessed with Twitter. Since my friend Emily set up an account for me last Winter, I have grown more and more attached. So after 657 tweets, I decided to count the number of tweets I create that share common themes. You know, for fun. Like a normal person.
I'm also not going to comment on how I'm discussing Twitter on Blogspot, and posting it to Facebook. Now if only someone would make a Youtube video about it, that would be the ultimate social media combination. What a boring video that would be, though.
So here are the major themes in my life right now:

"I need sleep" 3
casual conversations with friends from a country across an ocean from myself- 105
casual conversations with friends from the country where I am residing at the time, when I am too tired or lazy to just go get my phone to text them- 129
Referring to my favorite pub or the drink I purchase there- 18
clever responses to other people's tweets- 14
Schoolwork is hard- 12
I'm really weird- 81
Class. GROSS.- 10
Me just being clever or commenting on life in general- 126
EVERYTHING IS AWFUL- 31
I was on ESPN- 2
EVERYTHING IS GREAT- 29
my school makes life and parking difficult- 9
retweeting Tyler Oakley or people saying interesting things in more eloquent ways than I could- 11
Doctor Who is the best thing- 12
Attempting to interact with famous people by @ replying them- 12
London is my first and only true love- 20
I'm seeing famous people today- 2
Harry Potter- 10
when I was trying to make "historical pop songs"a thing- 5
when I referred to myself as a hermit because I was embarrassed about last night's events- 4
Emily took over-3

I'm sure some kind of anthropological study could be done on the reasons and motivations for my compulsion to tweet these things.
I mean, it could be. It won't though.

Open Letter to 13-year-old Me

Dear 13-year-old me,
Let's have a discussion. I might be able to help you traverse these next few years with limited unnecessary humiliation. Please, please, just listen to me.
Here's a few things to keep in mind.
1) take a second and reconsider every single piece of clothing before putting it on your body and going out in public. Self expression is one thing but... come on.











this leads me straight to my next thought...
2) notice how in the picture on the right we're wearing those two watches? Those are both plastic Spongebob watches we got out of cereal boxes. Now, in a year you'll think wearing them both to school every day because "What if one dies? I still wouldn't have to look at the wall clock" is the funniest, most charmingly quirky thing that has every happened. You'll think you're pretty much Zooey Deschanel. Oh, that's some serious anachronism. But you don't know what that word means anyway.
In conclusion, please don't. Or at least not every day.
3) You know your taste in music is flawless, I know your taste in music is flawless. Don't even bother trying to convince other people of this. They won't get it. Oh, that reminds me. There's a thing called an "ipod" coming into the world. Best invention of time and space. Start saving for one now so you won't have to share one with Becky. Everyone realizes the flaws in that plan.
4) TALK. You're funny. The world needs to know it.
5) Do not wear your favorite sweatshirt to the pig farm during Farm Week. The smell will linger for weeks, even after multiple washings. Those piglets are adorable though.
6) In a few years, you'll have to make the decision of whether or not to take Honors Chemistry. We've always been ok in Science but Chemistry is an entirely different animal that was born in the fires of Mordor. See this equation? That make sense to you?

Yeah, me neither. The best part of that class was the drawing I did of two moles ninja-fighting. (Believe me, it's funny and totally relevant.)


7) So you're in Spanish right now, and if I recall correctly, you hate it with a passion usually reserved for dictators and Scooby-Doo reruns. So you want to take World Cultures instead next year, because that will help you decide what language to take in high school. Good theory. The reality, however, is that World Cultures is where slackers go when they are just too lazy for elementary Spanish, and lack the motivation for Band or Choir. Boys will hit you in the face with paper clips.
The teacher's nice though.
8) When you're almost done with high school, PLEASE do not tell your band lesson teacher, who has been nothing but nice to you for four years, that you hate playing the instrument that he loves. Yeah, it's true, but it helps no one to let him know that.
9) Actually, whenever you feel like saying things and you even have an inkling that it might be a bad idea, for the love of GOD, DO NOT say them.
10) I hate to say this, but you're a little boy-crazy. Now, I realize hormones are a thing and all that, but still, calm down. You're about to discover the wonders of male friendship. It's a wonderful thing. Try not to be too distracted by your habit of liking every guy who looks at you without disgust in his eyes. That will stop eventually, I promise.
11) It's not going to be easy. The following eight years will go approximately like this: ok with bits of crappy because people are jerks, then it's a little better, then who are these people? OH THEY'RE THE BEST PEOPLE THAT'S COOL, then sporadic sucking and teenage angst, then wait this is ending? but I love you. This sucks, then it gets crappy for a while but then. THEN. Everything is great. The world is rainbows and daisies and really good history jokes.
Ok not quite. But it's still pretty fantastic most of the time.
Now I think that's something to look forward to, I don't know about you.

P.S. Just to save you the stress and making of many pro/con lists later, let me just tell you: you stay in marching band all three years. And also, you hide in the uniform closet during all-school-awards Junior year. You don't get caught. It's the best.

2011 Youtube Survey (on Blogspot)

Currently on Youtube, Alex Day started this survey thing, and it's totally the new hip thing. Everyone's doing it. Even my friend Emily just posted a video of her responses, and told Greg and our friend Dai to answer it as well. I felt very left out and because I'm just that self-involved, I'm taking the questions and answering them in the much-less-interesting medium of text.

-Tell us about your first kiss.
I was the embarassing age of 18, and I'd been seeing my boyfriend for two months. It was New Year's Eve, and we were at my friend's house when it midnight struck. Along with two other couples in close proximity to us, two other single friends were left there... to stare at us weirdly.
There were a few almost-moments in the years before this but they don't count.

-What is the most expensive casual item of clothing you've ever bought?
I don't buy expensive clothes. I simply don't. If anything costs more then $15, I walk away or my mom feels bad and buys it for me (which is something I have never manipulated in my entire life. Promise). But late last year I was working at Kohl's and I used the great clearance rack and my discount to buy a jacket that was retailed at about $80 for $20. I then proceeded to wear that jacket every day of my life for the next six months.

-What was the first job you ever wanted as a kid?
I'm not really sure about this one. I have a clear memory of every single kid in my kindgergarten class, inluding me, wanting to be an artist except for one kid who wanted to run his family's business. I was so jealous of the attention that kid got. But I also know I really wanted to be a teacher when I was younger, and that is the adorable option to go for, because it's what I'm studying to be right now. I remember really loving how my grandfather was a teacher (even though I never met him) and so was my mom. Actually, the "it runs in my family" line is still a big part of my inspiration for doing this.
Also, in middle school, I went through a phase of wanting to be an interior decorator. I REALLY loved "Trading Spaces."

-Tell us about your group of school friends.
In middle school, I was that weird girl who wore Spongebob watches and was too obsessed with softball. You know the girl. That was me. So I had a few friends, but not too many. Freshman year was similar and then when I was a Sophomore, MARCHING BAND HAPPENED. While it would be an exaggeration to say all my friends were in band, they were definitely the majority. We were the cool kids who lettered in band all four years and were found hanging out in the band hallway right after school. By Senior year, there was sort of a core of us (with a number of us paired off as well) who were very close. I still talk to quite a few of them. I've said it before and I'll say it again- band people are the best people.

-What would you name your kids?
I'm totally "that girl" who's put a lot of thought into this. I really like sort of literary names like Emma or Rose. For boys, for some reason I am drawn to multi-syllable names like Thomas or Benjamin just so I can possibly be the one person in their life to call them by their full name. That appeals to me, but I have no idea why.

-Who do you want to answer this next?
I have when surveys end with this. So annoying. And I did a ton of these back in the day, so I was irritated often.

I'm embarassing Part 2

I just turned 21 last week, but does this new, legal maturity mean I've reached a new level of grace and maturity?
Nope.
Let's explore this.
-On the night of my birthday, during one of my more... free... moments, I was told to bite a pumpkin sitting on a nearby table. I did.
-Driving back to campus a few days ago with a friend in the car, we were having a perfectly normal conversation, (led by him, obviously. I can't manage a normal conversation) when I saw that the car in front of us had a Minnesota license plate. I then preceded to freak out and point like a crazy person out the window, to the point where he thought I was having a seizure or we were about to crash.
-Taylor Swift makes up a fifth of my most played songs. All Time Low makes up almost a quarter.
-I run two separate Twitter accounts.
-My sister, upon seeing my put an ice cream cake in my mini-fridge: "Are you sure that's cold enough?"
Me: "Of course it is."
*the next day*
Me: "Hey, ~roommate~?... Are you hungry?.... Ok, because I have a half-melted cake here that kind of needs to be dealt with."
-My suite's common room has become less of "a shared space for all four roommates to live in harmoniously" and more of "extra space for Sara's stuff to take up when she's too lazy to put it back or throw it away."
-At my student teaching placement yesterday, while my teacher was out of the classroom, I was spinning myself continuously in a desk chair. Then a man walked in.
-I created an entirely new blog about my friend Greg, for a joke. Completely normal action.
ionlydrinkpinkdrinks.blogspot.com


awesome.