This year is coming to an end

So, yes, school is over. The job search begins now in earnest. But the last week or so has been so unbelievably relaxing. It's consisted of sitting for hours watching movies or TV, drinking wine, playing with a puppy, and eatings lots of delicious food.

But I am reaching that point where I will be fully recharged and ready to take it all on again. The question now is, what do I want to take on? Guess that means it's time to start drafting my new year's resolutions for 2009.

Update: 30 by 30 list

Updates on my list of 30 by 30

1. Skydive/ Bungee jump
2. Learn to Belly Dance
3. Travel to Italy -- Venice, Florence, & Rome in 2004
4. Learn to surf
5. Learn Italian -- Fall 2008 LNI101 w/ Prof. Palladino. Grazie.
6. Drive a stick-shift - going to make little brother teach me this holiday break.
7. Road trip -- VA beach, NY, MD (alone)
8. Donate blood ten times -- somewhere near 15 now
9. Graduate from college w/ my BA -- TEN DAYS! Walk on May 1, 2009
10. Live alone
11. Own a pet -- most likely a puppy
12. Fly -- so yes, multiple checks (& 2 cross-Atlantic)
13. Skinny dip -- <3<3 to my partners in crime
14. Sing Karaoke -- check, at T. Rowe for SB's goodbye party
15. Waitress -- Starbucks is as close as I ever want to be now
16. Have a child *update - I've giving myself til at least 35 to do this
17. Live in the city - 4.5 years now
18. Live in France for at least 6 months
19. Get 20 years in Girl Scouts -- 18 as of this year
20. Pay off my credit cards (all of them!)
21. Start saving for retirement - Roth IRA
22. Hike one of the 5,000+ White Mountains
23. Visit Montreal with my mom/Meme
24. White water raft Class V & VI rapids
25. Visit the Grand Canyon
26. Get really good at sailing my sunfish
27. Learn more about wine
28.
29.
30.

* Need suggestions for the last three!!

Will I ever be as cool as my parents?

Sometimes I worry that at 23 I'll never be as cool as my parents were. People don't usually think of their parents as cool, but mine definitely were. They never tried to kid us into thinking they were angels, reflecting on their decisions and hoping to impart at least some of their wisdom on us. But my parents were the people who DID things. They were slightly rebellious, outgoing, adventurous people. Sometimes I worry that my goody-two-shoes life means that I've let all my opportunities for acceptable rebellious adventures pass me by. It's almost time for... REAL LIFE. Ugh. How depressing does that sound? I'm jealous of my brother who has always bucked the conventional trends and is pursuing a career in culinary arts. (Plus, that will DEFINITELY benefit me later on!) And my little sister, who is applying to schools near Tahoe so that she can snowboard all the time. She's also debating deferring for a year and literally just working retail or waitressing while spending all her spare time with her boyfriend on their boards on the mountain. I am JEALOUS.

But then I remind myself that there's no need to have accomplished everything by age 23. In fact, by this time in my mother's life she was already pregnant with me and their lives were settling down. This year my mother will have been married more of her life than she was single. It's a bizzare concept when I really think about it.

I think what it comes down to is that I've always focused so much on pleasing my parents by focusing on the things you're supposed to that I gave up free time for the wild, crazy things I wanted to do. Don't get me wrong, I am thrilled to be graduating Northeastern magna cum laude with my bachelor's in journalism and sociology. I just... feel like I haven't quite reached my full potential yet. As soon as classes/finals are over, I'm going to go back to making more me time. And in that me time I want to work on my lists of goals that I've created (To Do Before 30 and Life Overall). I'm totally inspired too by the blogs My 99 Problems and Boston in 60. Maybe I'll work on a format like that for 2009?

My private property trumps your freedom of speech

Last night as I was leaving the library on Northeastern's campus I noticed a large chalk drawing on the granite landing outside. Now, chalking isn't unusual on campus. In fact, it's usually one of the cheapest and easiest ways for campus groups to advertise an event. This chalking was different though.

In large letters it read OBAMA HILLARY with the communist symbol in the middle.
I almost took a picture because I thought it was odd and interesting. But since it was almost 11:30 and cold, I wanted to get to the train as fast as possible.

I'm mad now that I didn't take a picture. I arrived on campus this morning at about 10 am to find several Northeastern maintenance employees washing the bricks in Krentzman quad. There was a puddle of blue chalk forming below the hose.

My immediate assumption was confirmed later when I got to the library to find a puddle in place of the chalking last night.

So my question is why did Northeastern find whatever the chalking meant to be so offensive that it needed to be washed away before most kids crossed campus this morning. What did the other chalkings say besides the one outside the library? If you know, please leave a comment.

12:27pm Update: Apparently chalking was done by "freshmen college republicans." It is a priviledge on campus, which makes total sense since it's private property. Northeastern retains the right to get rid of anything they deem not okay, especially if you didn't get permission. NEU's publicity rules.

It's that time of year

And I'm not referring to the lovely, warm-fuzzy snowflake-laden holidays. I mean that time of year when you have to coordinate every event down to the minute about 6 weeks in advance. And that means that there's no room when things go wrong or unexpected opportunities arise. Plus, for all us lovely college students it's finals time! So not only do you have a milllion demands from family and friends (maybe it's just because my family has 30 people in it), you have serious academic demands. This usually means that healthy eating habits and gym time go down the toilet. Plus all the germies are now trapped inside all day long, which means I'm also getting sick (you know, the achey-back kind).

Anyone know how to add hours to the day? We could all sleep a little longer!