I shall blog again!

Uh. Apparently a brief blogging hiatus transpired. Numerous apologies. The last weeks of college, graduation antics, a stint of frustrated unemployment, two months of rain, and my recent three weeks of legitimate employment are to blame. Excuses are silly though. Blogging will recommence.

I am hungry to learn. Three months after graduating, I miss classes already. To the point where I signed up for the GRE in a fit of frustration yesterday morning. September 26, bring on the math (eeeek). I'm currently working in a development office, and while it's interesting and I'm learning new skills, my liberal arts, politically nerdy brain misses some of the content I soaked up in college. Not that I have a really concrete idea of what I want to study with my hopefully fabulous GRE scores. I have lots of ideas, actually, so I'm doing some serious research into cities, schools, programs, and professors that hit a nerd nerve with me. A smattering of concepts include:

• political rhetoric, inspired by my favorite professor senior year
• public policy
• global communications, inspired by a 2 year program through the London School of Economics and the Annenberg School at USC
• urban planning/city design
• nonprofit management
• business --don't laugh, I'm serious and I have my reasons.
• development/women's issues related programs.

I want to bring both a solid knowledge of material and a real skill set to what I do in the future, and I think a combination of work experience and more school is the way to go. Any insight into what YOU see me doing, or programs you've heard good things about?

On a completely unrelated tangent: I love cooking. I bought a set of cookbooks, and had a little internal monologue about needing to cook more often, and bring leftovers to work. Cooking's also such an easy way to entice friends over for dinner and dessert, and gratefully fed friends often bring wine :). Made delicious chili corn cakes, baked apples with balsamic, and some other tasty things (inquire for recipes), and I'll post recipes/photos as I get more creative. I also baked two batches of treats without burning them, a little more cautious after I charred two sheets of chocolate chip cookies I'd been daydreaming about.

One final note: I am reading like a fiend, due to my onset of desire to learn/think. Suggestions are welcomed, and I'm accumulating what is a pretty intense library of my books and a friend's books I'm babysitting for the year. Let's give/borrow/discuss? There's been murmurings of an actual bookclub, on the heels of our Twitter book club attempt, and I'd be so down.

Definitions

Senioritis

Definition: the ability to convince oneself that going out on a Wednesday night is infinitely more important than a philosophy paper worth at least 20% of a class grade.

Additional facets: when the paper is due in less than 2 hours, and you are on facebook, twitter, or, even better, blogging about your inability to care about the paper or any other school work.

One step further: staring out the window is far more preferable/rational/productive than referencing philosophers on the subject of natural rights.

Synonyms: apathy, alcoholism, oblivion.
Antonyms: productivity, A+ on that paper.

Use it in a sentence: Marisa's senioritis led her to imbibe many delicious cocktails with her friends on a weeknight, kept her convinced that her philosophy paper wouldn't matter in 10 years, a month, or tomorrow, and helped her justify sleeping in on top of it all. NU 09.

[to make myself feel better, I am reminding everyone that I do have almost 100% in Legal Argumentation, for what that's worth.]

Word Counts

Word count limitations or requirements are ludicrous. The point of any paper should be to write until you have proven your argument or discussed the topic to your full intellectual satisfaction. When I write a good paper, and then spend just as long as I spent writing it editing it down to fit some arbitrary word limit, or adding in nonsense to reach a minimum, I am mildly incensed. Just one more reason why I love learning, and hate homework.

word count: 80.

Condensed?

I usually write just the right amount of words. Don't box me in with your requirements.

Not falling apart

My happy list post today just proves to me that a lot of what stresses me out is just in my head. Even with a week as stressful as the last one or two have been, there's so many little (and big) things that should keep me from blowing up.

The weekend with the London ladies was exactly what I needed: some of my favorite people, in my favorite city, and all we had to have to make a good time was each other! We ate and drank and shopped and napped and caught up and LAUGHED! Emily's parents treated us to Maroon 5 tickets out in Mansfield, which was an unexpectedly wonderful night--Adam Levine is gorgeous, and I'd forgotten how much I love their music.

This week is all about trying to take a deep breath and not overinvest myself. I stepped down as the chair of a committee for Generation Progress, a PAC/networking organization launched by a friend. I'll remain involved, but wised up and took a leadership load off. I'm almost at the end of all the summer orientation fairs for freshmen, and onto some of the final preparations for the student groups I run. I'm also freelancing right now, and am quite a bit behind on my hours, but I'll hopefully get around to it this week and the next.

Starting/continuing to ponder jobs. This internship has been a minor-league disaster. Jobs and bosses and work always make me think about how I'd do it better as either an employee or a boss in another instance. I really want to own my own company eventually--not sure what the mission would be, but I've been talking about creating the ultimate work environment obsessively lately. Grad school's also in the back of my mind. My poor buzzing mind.

I booked tickets home for two weeks from now, and tickets to Tampa to see my grandmother right before classes start in September. Classes start?! Eek. Still trying to figure out what my 4th class is going to be: options I've found range from journalism on the web to psychobiology to Islam. We'll see what I pick.

Taking.
Deep.
Breaths.

I think that's the top priority on my long to-do list. That, and remembering to focus on the happy things.