panic attack in action

i went down the courthouse between classes today to transfer the title of my car into my name. so that's done. and that's weird.

anyways, since it (shockingly) took barely any time, i had some to kill. i went over to the new starbucks across the street, which i'd never been to before. i sat there, drank coffee, had a muffin, and read some Emerson. i felt like such a badass. it's sort of what i imagine (or hope) i'll be doing next year... sitting in a downtown coffeeshop reading.

and to achieve that end, i'll be mailing all my grad school applications tomorrow. i'm absolutely freaking out. i've been running so late on this whole application process that i feel as if i have a million things left to do before i can be finished. my first drafts of my curriculum vitae and my statement of purpose were pretty much crap - and i've only just finished the second edits. thank god for drs. b and d - their help is basically the only thing keeping me from having an all out manic episode (ya like that shout out, ashbash?).

in just a little while, i'll be meeting with the other phi mu seniors to write the ode! i'm so excited, but i really wish it was another time. i mean, it couldn't be - xmas social is this saturday because this is the last week of school. SO WEIRD. anyway, after the ode-ing, ashlee and i are meeting to make our powerpoint presentation for experimental methods. and then i'll be reading some more Emerson and writing a two page response to give to dr. mayo, who i have been disappointing all year. so this one has to be good.

in case you didn't catch it by that last paragraph, school is completely swamping me. i have enough to do without worrying about the rest of my life. oh geez. you should really call me friday night: i'll be the happiest you've ever seen.

monet, van gogh, cezanne, underwood...

so i took Painting I as an elective this semester, just because i like art and making things. well i've complained about it most of the year. i love ms. noe - she's so perfectly eccentric - and i love the class, but we only meet once a week. we have the rest of the week to work on a painting on our own. that's fine, except i have no good place to paint and i have class and work the whole time the art barn is open to students. so basically i like it but it's extremely inconvenient.

plus i've only had like one piece i've even liked the whole time.

well we had this huge project to do: Famous Faces. we had to trace all the shadows of a famous woman's face onto a huge piece of matte board and then paint it in some non-human colors. i ended up doing mine (Natalie Wood), start to finish, last night. i loooooove the way it turned out.



so at the end of class today, i had to ask ms noe a question about my painting, so we talked about it for a minute, and she preceded to tell me that i really just had lots of natural talent, and she knew i was a senior, but really hoped that i would continue to work at painting because i was just really good at it. ok, i had no idea. i thought i was ok, but not like what she was talking about! she told me she was glad she caught me on my own to tell me because she wouldn't have said it in front of the other students, but wanted me to know that i was talented.

so wow! what a good note to end my school day on! it was probably just a ploy to get me to sign up for one of her classes next semester... which i'm going to go do now.

those babies just did an extension

SOUTHERN EXTREME
THAT'S WHO WE ARE
THE BEST OF THE BEST
(clap, clap)
BY FAR!

i know those words not from the tiny little girls cheering them from the competition mat, but from the mothers loudly screaming them from the stands in the oman arena. complete with blowhorns.

i wanted to die. i settled for gripping courtney's hand and whispering to my father, "intense and inappropriate."

it was my little sister's (read: alexis, not courtney) cheerleading competition. she competed in the 8 and under group. these were the tiny baby ones. each under 3 feet tall (minus lex who is almost as tall as i am), turning somersaults and backhandsprings, more makeup than i wore to prom, more glitter than could possibly be necessary around each eye, hair curled within an inch of its life... yeesh. one grouped had dyed their hair green. all of 'em, hopped up on competition. they were gonna beat those other infant girls, damnit! "they got nothing on us," said my stepmother (in her bejeweled "southern extreme" shirt, of course) of the toddlers who went before my sister. you are an adult - stop talking shit about the rival 6 yr olds.

i don't want to take away from the level of talent most of these girls have - they were doing things that i could never do. and i'm glad they're having fun. but when they get second place and the parents cannot hide their disappointment? no, sir, that's not ok.

nor do i want to err in the opposite direction where everyone wins exactly the same. competition is good and healthy, but it should not reach a level of intesity that makes the average person cringe. watching a documentary on "pageant moms" is the only time i should feel this way, and the only place that people like this should exist. oh, but no, they are alive and well in jackson, tn.

i'm so embarrassing

so phi mu had a PMS night (pizza, movies, and sisterhood) on friday. we could either go see The Game Plan or Elizabeth: The Golden Years. as much as it pained me to do it, i had to vote for The Game Plan because i haven't seen the first Elizabeth movie, and i can't see the sequel first. that would be so wrong.

the first few minutes of the movie, we were all rolling our eyes. dwayne "the rock" johnson is not an actor extraordinaire. But then the little girl got there, and everything changed... i got completely invested. it was so lame, so predictable, so forced, but i was captivated. i just wanted dwayne "the rock" johnson and his illegitmate daughter to end up as a family with the beautiful and challenging ballet instructor. i didn't cry, but some of the girls i was there with did. and i have never, not for one second, thought that dwayne "the rock" johnson was attractive or could ever be attractive. i was so wrong. he is very attractive when he has a child. he is very attractive when he plays the guitar and sings elvis songs. and his teeth are perfect.

it was so lame, but i might have to buy it. i love love loooooove happy endings... and this one made me giggle for like half an hour after the movie ended because i was so pleased. plus there was a cast singing/dancing montage during the ending credits. really, the movie could've sucked and those clips would've saved it for me. but, like i said, the movie didn't suck. at least, not to a bunch of silly girls. (yeah, we all loved it. i'm not the only loser in the bunch.)

i guess there's no accounting for taste. oh well.