going over to the dark side

so, if you're looking for me, i have a page on myspace now:

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=61908601

the screenname, of course, is barefootnhippie

see you there.
faith

surfacing

so, i've been sick with a wonderful flu/bronchitis combination, BUT i have an update on next year for all of my cheerful, beautiful readers.

dramatic pause.

i'm going to ISU in the fall. YAY! now that i've officially told my boss (and turned in my letter of resignation) and accepted their offer, the reality of it is starting to hit me, and i'm super excited.

thought you would want to know. more later, when i'm not trying to watch the matrix to distract myself from all of the hacking. :)

kryptonite

WAITLISTED. oh my god, i'm going to shoot myself. i've been waiting for news from Michigan for the past 6 weeks, and the news is that i have to wait some more. but not really... because if i hear that ISU's accepted me unconditionally and with a full assistantship, then my plan is to take it, regardless of how cool it would be to live in ann arbor and live with all of the little neo-hippies that remind me of some of my favorite friends.

on the plus side, the letter that they sent was really nice (which i guess it would have to be if they're trying to get people to hold off on making decisions until they hear that they have or have not been bumped up to the next round). the best line was "I can tell you quite frankly that, in more comfortable years, you would have received a first-round offer; indeed, you came very close to receiving one this year." sigh. and since the budget cuts they alluded to in the letter mean that they probably only admitted three of the 3-5 candidates that they usually admit, i guess that i'm pretty much okay with not being one of them, especially since i was fluxuating between preferring Michigan and ISU anyway.

the good news: i'll probably be staying in this area, which means...

i don't have to deal with horribly nasty winter weather and being six hours away from my family (which is fun for a while and then just sucks);

i can find a new, less expensive place to live relatively easily, since normal's only 45 minutes away, and a new, relatively sane roommate, since i have friends in the department already;

i'll probably actually be able to pay my bills; normal is nowhere near as expensive as ann arbor (where studio apartments start out at about $700 - ridiculous), and my quality of life will probably be a lot better;

i can still do the polar plunge (see sidebar) to help raise money for special olympics. [which, by the way, was superfun - lots of eccentric people there, including bear from bear and the big blue house, beer pirates and their wench, lab technicians, a richard simmons (a local DJ who essentially lost a bet), and cowboys - then me, with my oh-so-pretty black t-shirt, pink butterfly skirt and sandals, complete with sequined butterflies, and my black pajama pants underneath. it was classic]


any other plusses to being in this area still? i'm trying to keep a running tally in my head...

saturday almost sunday

my brother decided to try to make me cry tonight.

he invited me to his band's show, during which he sang his new song ("proud") and dedicated it to me. it's all about how far i've come, and it totally rocks. nothing SAPPY sappy, just very sweet. the irony is that it's been a really crap week for me. really. between gorging like a pig three days and being bloated from my period, the scale says that i've gained something like 14 pounds. in a week. obviously, some of that will go away when i get rid of the period, and i think that a significant amount of it is due to eating salty foods - but, really, how much water weight can one person have? i've probably gained five pounds this week. so, i'm going into what would be a detox session if i were an alcoholic. no sweets, no soda. water, fruit, veggies, meat. period. i can't handle anything more right now. my body feels entirely too gunked up to function.

in other news... UNC and i got back together for a couple of weeks, but i think we're not together anymore. he's been a spoiled, selfish jerk all week, so i told him to fuck off on friday. of course, even though he blew me off from tuesday (that's right - valentine's day, when even the most insensitive of men get the woman they're with some kind of something) through friday, he called and paged me twice today. didn't return either of those. we're both childish and stupid.

brokeback baby

it is SO SAD when you walk outside into the 9F degree weather and think, "it's downright balmy today..."

so i went to see brokeback mountain last night. um, it was really, really good. admittedly, i missed the first scene of boy-on-boy lovin, as i'd zipped out to the lobby to grab some sour patch kids to go with the chocolate martinis swirling around in my tummy, BUT i thought that the love story was very beautifully, tastefully told. my mom asked if the affair element bothered me, but it really didn't. not because i'm a "rah, rah, have an affair" kind of girl, but because i thought that the director did a good job of showing how destructive the secrecy of living double lives was for the characters and their marriages.

has anybody else seen this movie yet?

a dilemma:

i took the GRE today so that i could submit the scores to the university that i've been courting for admission into their doctoral program. my verbal and quantitative scores came back when i took the test, and they surpass the university's averages by about 200 points (a little more) - to the extent that i could probably get admitted into just about any school that i wanted. so. the dilemma, then, is - do i apply to this unpretentious, very reality-based school that i like, that i've been wooing, even though i know that i could probably get into a (more pretentious) someplace else, someplace that would guarantee me a better job in the long run?

what would you do?

i don't understand men at all. what makes them tick? i think that there has to be something other than the eternal quest for the next punani, but then i think of the men that i date and i don't know that my personal evidence supports that (rather optimistic) theory. of course, i've been dating jackasses as of late, so the data's probably skewed.

UNC called last night to chat. he says to chat. i say to get some "over the phone lovin," which he insists was not the case. whenever i talk to him, i hear the wheels turning in his head as he plans out his next move. our "life is a chessgame" conversation plays through my mind again, and i feel the urge to scrap the board. as a "piece," i don't really have the power to do that, but i do remove myself from the playing field when i hear the manipulation in his voice. i need to remove myself permanently. again.

chicago and i have been playing this game - this "who will break down and call to apologize first" game. i think that he called this morning at 7, but the call was restricted and he didn't leave a message, so that doesn't count; he has to make more effort than that. the game ends tonight at midnight, and i don't think that either of us will win. kind of a shame because it was an all or nothing deal. i feel like breaking into a footloose song and dancing around in mourning, all kevinbacon-esque...

as per usual, my love life sucks. everything else is GREAT. :)