i can't do this all on my own...

Oh so many update items!

My brilliant, although at times exasperating brother, Fro, has apparently ACED his MCAT test. He informed me of this with a phone call at approximately 11:45 Tuesday night (yes, I was asleep). Our exchange was roughly like this:

“Hey Shell, guess what I got a (not to be revealed but rest assured well above average score) on the MCAT. I was worried I screwed it up, since I didn’t really study this time.”

(Yawning). “That’s cool, Fro. Yeah, we Ewings have a “standardized test” gene that pulls us through regardless of lack of preparation. That’s awesome.”

“Yeah, I am pretty excited, so yeah okay I’ll let you sleep”

“Umm okay. You rule!”

After waking up in the morning I checked with Amee (whose sister is in Med school) to see if Fro’s score was any good, seeing as I know nothing about med school admissions, and she said it is a great score, and he will get into a school for sure! So of course I cried a little, as I am emotional all the time, apparently. But see, my dad always wanted to be a doctor, but didn’t get into school the first try, then got married and had most adorable baby ever (me) so he gave up his dream. It’s sort of great that my brother is going to be able to fulfill that dream now, and my dad would be so dang proud. *Tears*

Hmmm. Just realized that having nicknames (a la “Fro”) for all my friends would make blogging more fun. If you regularly read this, or we regularly hang out, shoot me a comment with your preferred nickname, and I will attempt to incorporate it into subsequent entries.

In other news, I have one more online exam and I am done with my law and ethics class. My brief (hahahahaha) encounter with law made me really appreciate the trials (hahahahaha) and tribulations of my law school darlings. I am also convinced based on all my future-yuppie best friends’ school experiences that I could be a doctor a lot more easily than I could be a lawyer. I would suuuuck at law. But now I know what a tort is, and I know that the statute of frauds requires a contract to sell a good for greater than $500 to be in writing, so my life is basically complete.

Last night I went and saw Tilly and the Wall with Kevin, Jason (Kevin’s pal + A&M chemE), and Maria. We were 4 of the maybe 8 people at the bar who were of legal drinking age, so yeah, we were feeling a little old. Maria and I had lil crush on the opening band’s bass player (love those bass players) solely because he was wearing a button up shirt with an enormous cobra iron-on. (Which we have decided to attempt to craft for our own darling boyfriends.) Closer inspection revealed that he was probably roughly 19 years old, but whatever. Tilly and the Wall was charming charming charming as ever, and did not let me down and did indeed dance around and throw copious amounts of glitter. Maria developed a huge crush on their cute tap dancer, who sported a hot pink tutu, and managed to pull it off nicely. Kevin decided to propose marriage to the lead singer (unless of course Pam from “The Office” is suddenly available). It was grand and glorious fun, and you gotta love a band that can make a 25 year old cynical lil career girl to jump and dance and scream out the lyrics “I want to fuck it up! I want to fuck it up….yeah I feel so alive, yeah I feel so alive!” repeatedly. I felt 16 again.

I also just realized that I haven’t posted an Ayn Rand progress chart recently. It’s because I haven’t read any more since that posting. I officially blame school and the ridiculous amounts of reading involved, but I think more accurately, Atlas Shrugged is just to damned exhausting for me. Foiled again! Maybe I’ll try again next year.

Okay, I should study for my final exam. I looove you all and will return in 5 days!

i've got my mind set on you

Love is in the air! There's something about the summer that makes it an ideal time for love (or other various forms of hormonal attachment). Summer romances, holding hands with cute boys at camp (if I haven't forced you to watch my all-time favorite MTV Special: Fat Camp, let me know, because it's awesome!), weddings, engagements, and as was the case when I was 18, hooking up with the waiter at the coffeeshop where you loiter.

I'm not complaining or making fun or anything cynical like that...I love love. It makes me smile and giggle and feel happy to see couples in love. And I guess I can't complain either, because I happen to be ridiculously in love too! (Okay, please don't vomit all over this blog entry)

To stay consistent with the theme, Here is a picture of beautful Kat and cute Such from their wedding a few weeks ago. Kat looked so perfect, that I've decided that for my wedding someday, I would like to be a sparkly blue-eyed blonde. I will probably need a professional wedding planer to accomplish that, but I hear they can and do work wonders. Kat and Such are great because they are so obviously in love and sparkly eyed and crazy about each other.

The same day I saw Kat's wedding proofs, I was checking out cnn.com and they had released pictures of Nicole Kidman's wedding to that country singer guy, and I've gotta say, Kat looked waaaay more fabulous than Nicole. I'll let you judge for yourself, but I imagine you will agree. Nicole is real pointy-faced after all. Plus her skin tone srt of blends right into the white dress. (Although admittedly, I love the poofy sleeves a lot.)

In other exciting news, I am almost done with my first summer course. I haaaate summer school's pace, although my professor is fun. I just completed a 14 page paper about the ethical clusterfuck that was the corporate governance at Fannie Mae (that was almost the title...but I decided against it at the last minute). Summer II starts in a week. Joy.

I'm not looking forward to the next couple of weeks. July 4th was the last time I saw my daddy, and he died on the 10th. A whole year ago. It's so weird. I've become increasingly paranoid in the past year, and if left alone too long (or without school assignments to keep me busy) I think alot about death and the afterlife and how I don't know what's going to happen. I remind myself of Winona Ryder in Beetlejuice. But less freaky. That said, I miss my dad a lot, and can only hope hope hope that there IS an afterlife so I can see him again someday.

In less depressing news, well really AWESOME news, the new season of Project Runway commences in 2 weeks...oooooh joy! I've had to resort to watching America's Got Talent since I ran out of Scrubs episodes, so the new PR will be a relief. Although everytime a magician auditions on the talent show I wish that Europe's "The Final Countdown" will start to play...a la Gob.

In summary, this week I love: love, dumplings, hummus, the prospect of leisure reading, the concept of the afterlife. I do not love: the show "my super sweet 16", unethical accounting, oatmeal, and tortfeasors.

back on the chain gang

Feels like it's about time for a post!

This afternoon I was walking to class. My grown-out-of-its-sassy-haircut hair was pulled into 2 awkward pointy ponytails which of course did no good, as my flopping-straight-into-my-left-eye bangs whipped all over the place. I was trotting toward Melcher Hall, when this fellow passed me by, boping to his ipod and smiling...he yells at me, "You shouldn't let that hair hide such a pretty face!" I start to laugh, and after he passes he yells after me, "You know I'm right!"

I was also pleased because I made an A on my Ethics Case Analysis. Also, my claim that ultimately, by doing the "ethical" thing, the subject of the case study could keep the "Karma Police" at bay was met with a "YAY!!" from my ultra-hip-dad-type professor. I was very excited. I've also decided to apply a WWTYD (What Would Thom Yorke Do?) standard to all future ethical dilemmas.

I know I've been absent lately and I apologize. I had a great vacation (which I will comment on below) and immediately followed it with tons and tons of summer school work and constant busy-ness. I have also started this fitness kick, so anytime I'm not doing schoolwork, odds are good I am at the gym. Okay, and admittedly, I've been watching "Scrubs" episode upon episode, and of course now wish I was a doctor. (Side note: the epsiodes guest starring Brendan Fraser are amazing...and I don't think it's just because I secretly loooove most of his movies...)

Is it possible to be rapturously in love with a song? Because that's me and "Jesus, Etc." by Wilco. Oh man, it's wonderful.

Paradoxically, I also love Beyonce's "Check Up On It" but in a completely different way. More in the way that compels me to continuously inform Aneil "you can look at it as long as you don't grab it."

Here are some learnings from my vacation week:

1) Little brothers will remain about 10-12 years old in your mind, even as they are graduating from college. It doesn’t help that once we get to the restaurant, he enthusiastically orders the largest menu item and burns his tongue on “freaking awesome” blackened alligator tail (which, in his defense, WAS freaking awesome). He later burned the same tongue on bread pudding.

2) The Sam Houston statue in Hunstville is freaking enormous. For the first time ever, we got out of the car in order to take “Wilco Summer Photo Contest” photos with the big guy. I was slightly frightened. We continuously exclaimed obvious phrases such as “man, he is so freaking huge” or “why is he so huge” or “why does this thing exist”?

3) Ice Cream is wonderful. We ate it pretty much every day while on vacation. Here are the instances I actually recall: DQ Blizzards on Monday (Heath Bar, yes!). Dipped Ice Cream Bars at Six Flags on Tues. Braum’s shakes (and spur of the moment outlet shopping) in Hillsboro on Wed. Maggie Moos (best cinnamon-caramel-heath-chocolate flake cone ever!) on Thursday. At some point we also ate drumsticks and we also bought a half gallon of Blue Bell. It was ridiculous. Every time we ate it, we would feel pudgier, but would simply exclaim “Vacation!” and high five and everything was fine again. Note: I haven’t been able to stomach any more ice cream since vacation ended. Oh well.)

4) Knowing natives really helps keep you entertained. Gloriously self-employed Bo was able to hang out with us both nights we were in town (!) and totally charmed Aneil…heh. He took us to Campisi’s (yummie Italian I used to go eat with the Suggs) and Gloria’s (a Salvadorian restaurant that strangely became a club that played Bruce Hornsby and Hall & Oates remixes (?) about 30 minutes into our meal).

5) Anthony works entirely too much. My “you’re a lawyer shouldn’t you be working at 8:30 pm” joke was met with the not-a-joke response, “no, but I have to go back to work after I finish this drink.” Either that, or he was bored of me…I did, after all, force him to watch American Idol with me.

6) I miss friends such as Anthony, Erik, and Bo more than I realized.

7) I love Aneil more than I realized.

8) X-Men 3 blasphemously killed so many main characters and/or rendered them powerless (read: rendered them uninteresting) that it mostly made me sad...introduce and destroy The Phoenix within 45 minutes? Wha' happened? (Wow I'm nerdy)

9) I am too damn old to deal with the annoying kids who attend concerts at Emo's.

10) Being lazy and only getting up off your ass in order to go buy a huge burrito with your best boy basically amounts to my ideal Sunday.

Okay, I'm spent, and there's an America's Next Top Model marathon on VH1 so I'm out. I should probably also read some contract law, but that's probably not going to happen.