laceblade

I'm tired and sickly, but luckily I wrote most of this on Friday, so I won't have to type much, bwaha. On Friday night, Antoine had his birthday party (he is 25 now! Which is kind of weird but also cool that he was born and stuff, because I can get date him). There were lots of people at his apartment, and some of the people brought good food, so it was very pwn. An enjoyable time was had by all! I'm glad Antoine has nice friends. It would suck to have to pretend to like people.

Saturday I didn't do much because I was up until like, 5am the night before. I didn't stay long at Anime Club, and went to sleep relatively early.

Today, I've been working on this 10-page draft I have due Tuesday. I have about 6 pages done and am throwing in the towel for tonight. I need sleep because I'm sick. There's some weird respiratory bug going around campus and the Capitol, and I think I've got it. Some people have bronchitis, so I don't know if that's what it is. My cough is slowly getting worse (or better, I guess, as it's a more "productive" cough because it's breaking stuff up), but I did find some cough syrup in my cupboard. It expired in February of 2004, but hopefully it won't kill me! One would think that with cough syrup, it would just lose its effectiveness and not become a destructive elixir.

OMG the Battlestar Galactica season finale was on tonight and I didn't see it! I already know the major spoilers, though. LiveJournal ruins my soul, :D

Thinking Ahead
Old people like playing Nintendo Wii. Man, I can't wait for retirement. I'm going to play so many video games and watch so much anime.....think about how weird it will be when our generation retires. Like, my mom just retired and seems to have some trouble finding stuff to do with herself every day (most days are fine, but some days I think she gets bored). But when we retire? It'll be like middle school all over again, everyone on AIM all the time, playing video games, etc. In fact, I often wonder what life will be like once the majority of my friends and I become married and spawn babies. Will we still have away messages up on AIM all of the time? "Dropping the kids off at school, brb, lolz!" I think it's pretty cool that our generation is the first one to "grow up" with the Internet. Of course, I might be biased as I spend so much time on it, ;)

Thinking Ahead Some More, but Possibly Not as Far-Off
I find this article interesting because it's a conversation topic that came up amongst some co-workers and I. A couple got married, and the man adopted his wife's last name. "Naming" is a weird thing, and an important thing, but is also a thing that most people don't give much conscious thought to. Still, there is something inherently creepy about the fact that women give up their family name when they get married. This derives, of course, to not-so-long-ago when women didn't have many, if any, rights. You get married, and you are the physical property of your husband. You are a member of his family now, and no longer a member of your own. He owns you - and thus, what is his last name is now yours - so people know to which male you "owe allegiance to."

Of course, this phenomenon is changing. Now, many women opt to hyphenate their last names upon marriage - they keep their own family name, but also connect it to a future they choose with a husband they choose. I think this is wonderful, but I personally think that I would find it annoying to have a hyphenated name. Even when this happens, though, it is usually the female half (and throughout this blog post I am referring to heterosexual relationships) that hyphenates the last name, while the male retains what he had all along, without addition.

In reference to a similar circumstance, a radio station broadcasted a story. A listener called in and said, "...[T]urn in your man card." What does that mean? That it is masculine, a reference to power, to retain your name? And then in turn, what does that mean about women? Are we bowing to the "power" of the other sex by being submissive and adopting a new name? In order to retain our femininity, must we disown our familial heritage upon marriage and rename ourselves, adopting our husband's family's name?

Naming is a complicated issue. And even though I'm not sure what I would like to do, when and if I get married, I'm glad that at least I will give serious thought to the matter. Times are changing, and that is encouraging.

My Voice
My Anne Frank class discussed this topic briefly, but I find it interesting that people write differently than they speak. They use different words that they wouldn't use normally in conversation. When I write in my diary, I use "bigger" words than I do when I'm speaking with someone. When I write papers for school, I am often surprised because "big" words (and I don't necessarily mean ones of many syllables, but even just words that are a tad archaic for every-day use) spill out from my fingers and into the keyboard. As for this blog, I really think that it reflects my general speech patterns. It's why there are so many questions, why there are so many sentence fragments, why there are so many dashes, why there are so many parentheticals. Although, I should say that I generally don't speak as many words all at once as I would ever write in a blog entry, bwahaha.v

It is New Year's Eve, which means that it's time for me to do that new year's resolution thing!

As always, I must first review the resolutions that I made for 2006, and see whether or not I kept them. And frickin' A, I had a lot in 2006!!

1) Write every day (blogging/journaling does not count - we're talking creatively, here!). Length is not as important as passion, but a substantive amount is always nice.
As always, no, I did not keep this one. I think I've finally learned that writing every day is simply not a realistic goal for me - at least, not while I'm a student.

2) Get decent grades both semester! Or die trying! (well, I basically died trying Spring 2005, but whatever...)
Mehhh, both semesters were decent, although the Fall semester was better than spring. Getting credit for my summer internship helped, too. Between summer and fall 2006, I brought my GPA up by .07! It's not a lot, but it's something. I'm learning that once you break 100 total credits, it becomes more and more difficult to raise a person's GPA.

3) Move out of the dorms and into a house - a step into the real world! Well, this will happen no matter what - we signed the lease. But I keep thinking about it and how excited I am to live in our own house next year. This way, I'll keep a resolution for sure.
Yes, this happened!

4) Have a summer job (probably the same one, unfortunately) and continue interning - either in the district office or with the campaign. This way, I earn (minimal) money and get valuable experience at the same time!
I did this, too. Actually, I had my regular job, was a media intern for a state-wide gubernatorial campaign, and got another part-time job, too! I kicked ass this summer.

5) Try your best to become a Senate page at the Capitol for Fall 2006. That would be pretty cool.
After spending my summer interning for a political campaign, I felt like interning again in the fall would just be too much, so I decided to take a break. It is my goal to get an internship in a senator's office (not as a general page, but a specific representative's office) for the Spring 2007 semester, and hopefully through the summer as well. I'm working on this now....let's all hope that it works out!

6) Curse less. Cursing is still allowed, just...yeah. Steph notes that I "curse like a sailor." And while I don't hold that against me, sometimes I could stand to be a little more....ladylike....(*blanches*).
I totally forgot about this resolution. *ashamed*

7)GET A DAMN BOYFRIEND, seriously, it will have been three years of NOTHING come June. I mean, I can't really make guys I'm interested in dating fall out of the sky, but....good God.
YES, I did this! Well, actually Antoine did it. I never imagined that this would actually happen, so having to come true is pretty amazing. Yay, Antoine! He's pretty awesome, and he calls me "Pretty." :)

8) Eat healthy and lose some more weight.
I definitely kicked ass at this during the summer. During school.....I eat pretty healthy, but I could do a lot better. I'm eating healthy food, but I lose weight best when I keep track of what I eat and write it down, which forces me to implement portion control. Portion control in 2007! Since I seriously started trying to lose weight, I lost 17 pounds! That's a lot! I can do more.

9) Read some good books.
Hells yes, I did! My booklog serves as proof! (Also note that I inverted it, so that the most recent books are on the top instead of the bottom....how convenient!)

10) Be a little more spontaneous. The majority of your Saturday nights should not consist of UW Anime Club; your weekends should not follow an outline. Once in a while is fine, but....well, whatever. Being more spontaneous in general. There we go.
This kind of happened naturally when I got a boyfriend. "Hey, we should go out to eat tonight." "Hey, my friend is cooking dinner for me and some of my grad school friends, so you should come over." Still, though, I got kind of tied to Anime Club when I became president of it. Oh, well.

11) Stop being so afraid of going to things where you scarcely know anybody. That's how you meet new people, dumbass, and there are lots of cool people around you that you only barely know. Know them better!
Yeah, I think that I did a better job of this. I went to a Cardinal party! I'm also confident much more often than I used to be (for real, not just as a show).

12) Stop being such an ass all the time. You're usually nice on the inside - so make the outside stop acting like a jerk.
At this, I think I failed. Defense mechanisms suck and there are some demons that will never go away, but does that give me the right to be a jerk? No. Stop it, Jackie.

13) Kick some ass.
YES.

And now, I need resolutions for 2007!

1) Write three times per week. No length requirements. Just write SOMETHING three times per week. I've learned writing every day is something that I can't do, but I want to make writing a habit, and something that feels natural (again, as always, blogging doesn't count!).

2) Exert portion control, drink a lot of water, and lose more weight. (Don't worry, I would never get down to a weight that is unhealthy - I'm trying to get to where I'm supposed to be for my height, which I think is healthy and a good goal.)

3) Try your damndest to get an internship for the spring semester through summer. (I'm working on this now!)

4) In addition to #3, I'd like to find a job during the summer that pays me money. If it's related to future career options, such as editing, then that would be great, but I also have a list of bookstores to apply at in case nothing else pans out. I don't need a lot of money, but having some would be good.

5) Experiment, and get better at cooking. I'm definitely better than I was 4 months ago, but I would like to teach myself how to make more meals.

6) Try your best to get good grades both semester and raise your GPA even more. This is always a goal of mine, but I'll write it here anyway.

7) Make some decisions about what the heck is going to happen after college. I already know that if I ever go to graduate school or law school (probably not ever), it won't be right away. I also know that I would be totally fine finding an apartment in Madison, but also any other city, too. So, make a plan - I don't want to leave everything until my last semester to decide.

8) Be a better person. I've learned how to keep my mouth shut. At this point, however, I'd like to relearn how to stick up for myself or say what's on my mind - but doing so with a little grace. Also, I'd like to volunteer some of my time this year.

What else about the New Year? There will be a few new anime series coming out. I'm really excited about the Les Miserables anime....*cackles* Nodame Cantabile looks cool too, but I don't know if I'll be watching it as soon as it comes out or not. I've grown to dislike anime series as they're aired in Japan, which amounts to one episode per week. I'm already doing it with NANA and Ghost Hunt, so maybe I'll continue my trend of renting things from the library/Netflix and catching up on things I haven't had a chance to see yet. (Gankutsuou, Princess Tutu, Full Metal Panic and its sequels, and Descendents of Darkness are all in my Netflix queue, along with the first DVDs of about ten other series that I'd like to try!)

Books and manga are things I'm not going to worry about, or even try to plan, because I know that I will read a lot of them anyway, and most of them will be good!

Anyway, tonight Kristy is having us over for New Year's. I am excited for good food....I think Ryan is bringing his mom's artichoke dip, :) Before that, I have some reading to do and some anime to watch. I also might blog again because I didn't really get a chance to write about life or anything in this entry.