Day 30 - Free day

Wow, I’m finally at the end of this.  I can’t think of anything special to do for the final entry, but today I randomly found an adorable picture of my little sister, so I’m just going to go ahead and leave it here.

Day 29 - Hopes, dreams, and plans for the next 365 days

My biggest hope for the next 365 days ahead is that I will just be happy.  Truly happy.  I never allow myself to just enjoy my life.  I’m always worrying about something, feeling down about something, and I really want to just be free from that.
I hope that in the next year, if I continue seeing my counselor, I will be rid of my eating disorder for good.  I really hope that this counseling will prove worthwhile.  When you have an eating disorder, you truly are a prisoner to it.  I hope that in the next 365 days I will be done with this forever.
In the next 365 days I certainly plan on picking a major.  I began college not having the slightest clue what I wanted to do with my life.  I still don’t know.  Within the next year I really need to take everything into account and decide what path will be best for me.  I know what I like, and I know what I like to do, and I hope whatever I choose will be something that I love.
I also really need to be more focused.  I need to be more driven.  Since college started, I’ve gotten so apathetic, and I really need to fix that.  I need to be better about staying motivated and concentrating more on doing well in school.  If I don’t get it together, it’s really going to hurt me down the road.

Well, that’s all I can think of for now.

Day 28 - This year, in great detail.

Wow, I love how I’ve been so good about doing this and the last few days of the project have been spread over a week or so?

So this year has had lots of ups and downs already.  The last few months have been rocky at times, but things are a definitely better than last year.  It’s weird because I always think in school years, not really in regular years.  Like when I see that this project calls for me to discuss my year in great detail I think, oh okay, so starting from August… Well, no.  We aren’t that far into this year, so I don’t have as much to tell as I would have hoped.  I guess I just go through each month and see what I can remember.

January…  January was weird.  I was confused about who were and weren’t my friends.  My parents were putting more and more pressure on me to get my ED counseling started.  I was sort of seeing someone but it was kind of awkward, me being a lot less into it than he was.  January was also when winter quarter started, and I was in classes that I really couldn’t care less about taking.  I started to get really apathetic.  It definitely came back hurt me later on.  I don’t think I kept up with any of my resolutions at all.  I saw Avatar and Brothers.  Nothing else particularly exciting happened in this month that I can remember.  Overall it was kind of boring.

February most importantly was when I finally started going to counseling.  It was a really big step for me.  I was putting it off for so long because I really didn’t want to face my problems, let alone tell someone else about every single one of them.  Needless to say, I’m glad that first appointment is over with, and now I have regular sessions that I attend.  Hmm, let’s see…  This month I saw Precious and Percy Jackson.  February was also midterm/project/shit ton of homework month.  Midterms stressed me out really badly this quarter.  Didn’t do so hot.  Sadly it didn’t motivate me to actually put more effort into my work.  Not much else happened in February.  I’m so exciting, eh?

March has been alright so far.  Again, nothing really exciting has happened.  Winter quarter is over FINALLY.  I did alright overall, which I wasn’t expecting.  I’ve been kind of a loner this month.  Not really by choice.  I’ve just kind of been left out of everything lately.  Feels good.  I especially love when I try to make plans with a bunch of people and they all end up in the same place, without me.  hhhhhhhh.  Um…  I saw Shutter Island, which was amazing.  My BP partner and I finally became champions.  Today I had a doctor’s appointment where lab work I had done was supposed to be faxed to my doctor from the ED counseling center.  I called them this morning and they said they had the lab work and it would be faxed.  When I got to my doctor’s office, they hadn’t received it.  They called the center back and they were saying they had never gotten the lab work.  What?  Anyway,  I’m about to take my sisters out to lunch, so I’m going to go do that now.

Day 27 - This month, in great detail.

This month has been pretty lame thus far.  I really don’t know what all I should tell you.

Some highlights this month have been seeing some old friends that were on spring break, finishing up winter quarter, getting my counseling underway, and making some new friends.  I usually talk about what I did on a particular day in regular posts, so there’s really nothing new to tell.  OH, also, this was the month that my beer pong partner and I became champions.  FINALLY.  In one weekend we won 13 games in a row.  It was glorious.  We’ve always been really good, but we were never able to get that really long streak to reserve the title as champions.  Great story, I know.  Um, well… there’s honestly not much else to tell.  If I think of something incredibly significant I left out I guess I’ll mention that tomorrow for “This year, in great detail”.

Day 26 - Your week, in great detail

This was supposed to be done yesterday.  Oops.  Well, it’s only 1 a.m., so I guess I’ll just do Day 27 later on today.

So, this week hasn’t been that exciting, and it’s only halfway done, so there’s not a lot to tell you about.
Sunday consisted of zero sleep, sobering up, and studying for mythology after my friend Sam and I drove an hour back home from Newark.  I felt DEAD.  Anyway… Monday was the day I talked about for “Your day, in great detail”, so you can refer back to that for a very detailed account of that day. 
I got a good night’s sleep Sunday night, thankfully.  I woke up around 8:45 so I had plenty of time before my exam.  I took my Mythology final at 11:30, hung out with my friend Greg for dinner and coffee, and studied for my next final for the rest of the night. 
I stayed up way-hay-hay too late.  Until about 5:45 a.m.  I slept until about 1.  I got ready, studied a little more, got something to eat really quickly, and then went to go take my Statistics final at 5:30.  I actually don’t think I did that bad.  Hopefully I’m not fooling myself in thinking I did alright.  After that, I got a little something else to eat, ran a few errands, and went back to my dorm.  I went to this place on campus for the first time called “Phat Wraps”?  I got a vegan wrap with tofu & veggies that was really good.  It was kind of a Subway-style operation where you pick all the ingredients you want. 
Around midnight I went out again really fast to go to the ATM and get something to drink.  I basically have no food in my dorm room, but I’m going home for spring break tomorrow, so it doesn’t really make sense to buy a ton of groceries now. 
Well, that’s pretty much it.  HAPPY ST. PATTY’S DAY.  I really wish I didn’t have a 9:30 a.m. exam tomorrow :(  I’m not able to celebrate my 99.99999% Irish heritage with the rest of campus.  So sad.  Ahhh, well.  I guess that’s all for this week?  Tune in later today for Your month, in great detail.  I just know you’re gettin’ all excited about that one.

Day 25 - Your day, in great detail.

Awwww, I wish this was going to be about a more exciting day.  I apologize in advance.

Well…. IT’S FINALS WEEK.  So you know what that means.  I’ve been studying like a motherfucker and gettin’ all stressed out.  This morning I set about twenty alarms for myself between 7:30 and 8:30, and I ended up actually getting out of bed around 8:45.  Even though I didn’t have anything going on really early today, I didn’t want to be running late for anything.  I went to bed really early last night, so at least I got some good rest after getting about half an hour of sleep Saturday night/Sunday morning.  Anyway…  I decided not to do anymore studying this morning.  This was the final I knew wasn’t going to be my best, and there wasn’t really anything else I could do to prepare myself, unfortunately.
When 11:00 rolled around, I left my building to go take my exam.  Classical Mythology.  Ugh.  Spare me…  So, I took the exam and then went over to the library to get some lunch.  I took my lunch back to my dorm, tumbled a bit and went over to the Organic food shop off of High Street to pick up a few things.  I went back to the dorm after that and just hung out for a bit.   I wrote down what I ate in my journal, since my ED counselor asked me to start keeping track of what I’ve eaten. 
A little white later, around 5-ish, my friend Greg called.  I wasn’t able to make it when we’d had plans on Saturday, so we rescheduled for today.  We got some dinner,  headed over to a Starbucks off of campus to get coffee, and then we just drove around for a while and talked.  It was really nice to get off of campus for a bit and see him, since we’ve really only seen each other once since last quarter.  We talked about music, cars, our hometowns, etc.  We went back to campus around 7:00 and I got back to my building around 7:15.  I put some of my books back in my room and I walked around for a little bit, had a cigarette, and picked up a few things at CVS.  My mom had left me a voicemail a little earlier, so I called her back at home.  She wasn’t there, but I was able to talk to my dad and sister for a little while, so that was nice.  My sister and I recounted our crazy weekends and party stories, which is always fun.  After that I went back to my building again, and I’ve been here since about 8 or so.
All in all, not really an eventful day, but there you have it.

Day 24 - Free day

Another free day.  I am so unbelievably tired.  I’m stressing about finals.  I’m hungry as hell.  I have no idea what I should do for this day.  hhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Feeling kind of like this:

Day 22 - A website

The website I probably visit the most is Oh No They Didn’t.

I’ve never had a livejournal, so I don’t really participate on ONTD, but I’ve been going to this website for a few years now.  It’s basically a celebrity news/gossip website, but it’s hilarious and I love looking at it every day.  Some people don’t really care about pop culture, but it just fascinates me.  I’d rather gossip about celebrities than people I know in real life.  So yeah, if there’s one celebrity gossip website to visit, it’s this one.  And it’s a hell of a lot better than Perez Hilton, that’s for sure.

Day 21 - A recipe

Okay, so being vegan, I really had to work on getting better at cooking and try to find good recipes to use at home.  I’m still not an amazing cook, but whatever.  So, sometime in the past two years since I went vegan, I created the best chocolate chip cookies I’ve ever had.  100% vegan, but if you ate one without knowing that, you probably wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.  And they’re really easy to make.  So… here you go:

Dry Ingredients:
2 1/4 cups white whole wheat flour
1 tsp. sea salt
1 tsp. baking soda
—————————
Wet ingredients:
3/4 cup organic evaporated cane sugar
3/4 cup organic brown sugar
1 cup Earth Balance organic buttery spread or any vegan butter substitute
Egg replacement equivalent to 2 eggs (I use Ener-G Egg replacer)
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 tsp. molasses
1 cup vegan chocolate chips  (or however more or less you want)

- Preheat oven to 360 degrees.
- Mix dry ingredients, set aside.
- Cream the Earth Balance and sugars until evenly mixed.  Add “eggs” one by one, stirring after each addition.  Add vanilla and molasses and stir.  Fold in chocolate chips.
- Each cookie should be about the size of a heaping tablespoon.  Place dough on an ungreased baking sheet and flatten slightly.
- Bake for about 8-10 minutes.  Place on cooling racks within about a minute of removing cookies from the oven.

That was totally from memory.  I guess that shows you how many times I’ve made these.  Maybe someone will try this out if they’re not too scared of scary vegan food.
Alright, that’s all.

Day 20 — A hobby of yours

Okay, so there are plenty of things I could talk about on here that would be considered hobbies, but mine are just average and boring, so I’ll go with the least boring one.  My favorite ‘hobby’, if you will, is going to shows/concerts.
I think there’s nothing better than going to any show with a bunch of friends, even if the band is shitty.  Even local bands with a small following can put on a good show.
I’ve been to a lot of local shows, and I doubt I could recite them all to you, but I guess I’ll just try to remember the other concerts I’ve attended. 
Um… I’m ashamed to put a few bands/singers on this list, but they were just opening bands that I didn’t really care about….  So, bear with me.

Modest Mouse (x3)
Jack’s Mannequin (x4)
Taking Back Sunday
Angels And Airwaves
The Subways
Head Automatica
The Dresden Dolls
The Hush Sound (x3)
This Is Me Smiling
Saosin
The Outline
Envy On The Coast
Panic At The Disco (x2)
Murder By Death
Smashing Pumpkins
Dave Matthews Band
Ingrid Michaelson
Forgive Durden
This Providence
The Whigs (x2)
The Dead Trees
The Features
Justin Timberlake
Pink
Shiny Toy Guns
Stone Temple Pilots
Arctic Monkeys (x2)
The Kooks
The Graduate
The Audition
Rihanna
Saving Jane
Matt Nathanson
The Like
Manchester Orchestra
Brand New
Phoenix
Ben Folds
Low vs. Diamond

That’s all I can remember right now as far as the more popular bands go.

Day 19 - A talent of yours

Oh, uh…. Hmm.  I don’t know that I am a very talented person, so I’m going to take the lame route and just mention a few random things that I’d say I do pretty well.

• I’m good at my job (Starbucks barista) - I’ll make you the best damn frappucino you’ve ever had in your life.  And I’ll smile and treat you well even if you’re pissing me off.
• I’ve played the viola for 9 years - It would kind of suck if I wasn’t good at it by now.
• I’m amazing at tetris - I’m embarassed by this and proud of it at the same time.
• I’m a good listener - I’m that one person who says “I’ll be here for you whenever you need me” and actually follows through when something happens.

Day 18 - Free Day

Okay, so today is another free day.  I don’t really have any good ideas for this.  Uh…. I guess I’ll tell you some of the movies that I’ve seen recently that I am going to recommend to all of you.

• Meet Bill
• Shutter Island
• Precious
• The Hurt Locker
• Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief
• Franklyn
• The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day

Those are all of the movies I can remember that I’ve seen recently for the first time.  Go watch them now.

Day 17 - An art piece

Okay, so at first glance, this probably looks pretty odd.  If you’ve ever taken a photography class or know some basic darkroom techniques, you probably know what photograms are.  To create a photogram, you place some object (most often something transluscent) directly on your light sensitive paper while you expose the paper to light.  In my Photography 3 class senior year, we had a photogram project.  I procrastinated and had a bunch failed experiments and really didn’t know what to do for the project.  I literally created this series the day before the project was due.  For some reason, my teacher really liked it, and told me to submit this series for Governor’s (Ohio Governor’s Youth Art Exhibition).  Surprisingly enough, I made it into the top 300 in the state.  The recognition was really awesome.  I’ve never really gotten an award or recognition for anything else, so to have people enjoy something I created enough to put me in the top 300 made me really happy.