Can't sleep.

I haven't done one of these in a while...

If you knew you'd get away with it, would you murder your worst enemy? No. I don't even know if I could pinpoint a "worst enemy."
What is the wallpaper on your computer screen? Why did you choose that? It's two dogs--a chihuahua jumping up on a great dane. I chose it because it's freaking adorable!
What is the relationship between you and the last person you texted? She's my best friend.
How many people do you truly trust with everything? I'd say five.
Do you know anyone that would just drop everything for you? Yeah.
If you were in the hospital, who would be the first to come see you? Jordan.
How often do you hold back from saying what's on your mind? A lot.
Can you tell when people are lying or telling the truth? Maybe if I know the person well...probably not "people" in general, though. I sure don't have some kind of inner lie detector that I can switch on at any given moment...
Do you have a role model or hero? Who is it? My parents.
Are you someone who likes to get in arguments or fights a lot? No. Complete opposite. I hate fighting.
How do you make sure people know you dont like them at all? I'm not the kind of person that wants people to know that I don't like them...if I don't like someone, I will generally try to hide it.
Would you say you're someone who likes to cuss a lot? Not really.
Do you hate it when people copy the things you do? Doesn't bother me too much. It did when I was in elementary school and junior high, though.
Does it bother you when people say they're gonna call but never do? Meh, not really. It depends on why I'm waiting for them to call, though.
Are you happy with the choices you've made in life? Yes.
Are you the same person now that you were a year ago? Yeah, pretty much.
Will the last person you kissed be the next person you kiss? Yes.
Honestly, have you ever been in love before? Yes.
Do you know anyone who is pregnant at the moment? Yep.
How many times a day do you say I love you? Who to usually? I think at least once every day, to Jordan. And my parents, too, if I happen to talk to them or email them.
Do you have any friends you'd trust completely with your life? Yeah.
When was the last time you cried? What was this for anyway? Today. I found out that my sweet puppy Kobie died in his sleep last night...
Do you have a best friend who is of the opposite sex? No. Unless Jordan counts.
What is your sexual orientation? Do you flaunt that orientation? Straight. No.
Have you ever cheated on a significant other before? No.
Are you ashamed of anything you've done in the past couple weeks? No.
Do you know someone who is physically or mentally abused by someone? Not currently.
When is the next time you'll write something? Do you like your handwriting? Probably the next time I write in my journal...which will probably be tomorrow or the day after. It's okay.
Do you like talking to random people you don't know or is it odd for you? Sometimes I really enjoy random interaction with strangers. Sometimes it's awkward and I just want to keep to myself. It kind of depends on my mood.
Are you still in high school or have you even gotten to that point yet? Out of high school. Out of college. Man, now I feel way too old to be filling out these things.
Would you ever have a child just to get someone to fall in love with you? No.
Are you a confident person, or do you keep to yourself usually? Not super confident.
Have you ever had to have surgery before? What was this for? No, I've never had full blown surgery.
Do you listen to music simply for the melody or for the lyrics? Depends on my mood...generally, I pay more attention to the lyrics, though. Most of my favorite songs are my favorites because they have great lyrics, and a tune that complements them.
Is there a song out there that reminds you of a certain ex? Yeah. For sure. "Wishes" by Superchick was pretty much the theme song of my "relationship" with Joey.
Do people usually call you by your real first name or something different? Usually Amy, or some variant. Aim. Ames.
When was the last time you had alcohol? What kind? I believe it was the day after Jordan's birthday, when we went to Graze. It was a pink lemonade martini.
Who makes you the most angry in your life right now? Not being able to find a job as fast as I was hoping I would.
Are you someone who can easily keep a secret? Yeah.
Does it bother you to get shots, or not so much? I don't think so. I've only had one shot in the last fifteen years, but it didn't bother me. I'm not scared of needles.
Have you ever considered becoming a psychologist? No.

It's all so Dutch!

I'm currently in Orange City with my parents, visiting Grant. He's been a lovely host--he grilled us steaks for supper tonight, with green beans and salad...yum. For dessert, he took us down the road to the town Le Mars, where the Blue Bunny factory is. They have this amazing ice cream parlor where they bring menus to your table like you're at a sit-down restaurant (there's nothing but ice cream on the menu, of course). You can also take some kind of Blue Bunny tour, but we got there too late for that. Oh well...the fried ice cream sundae I had was delicious. Grant's house is so cute...and so is this town! I would love to live here. Everyone is so friendly--you can't walk past someone on the sidewalk without them smiling and saying hello. And I love all the Dutch architecture. Everything looks Dutch, from bakeries to banks to the Pizza Hut. The Orange City chamber of commerce is inside a windmill! There's a shop where you can buy Dutch wooden shoes...and except for the rough, dusty feeling of the unfinished wood, they're really comfortable. I'm glad that we came just a week past the tulip festival--the tulips are still all over the place. The red ones are my favorite. We're leaving in the morning...I'm a bit sad that we couldn't stay in the area longer. I would love to get to know the town better and write a story set here.

In other news...I got my final grades for the semester. To my extreme shock, I got a 4.0--for the first time ever in my college career...and this was my hardest semester! How crazy is that?? I think that I must have gotten an A+ on my European Lit final and that the professor wasn't nearly as harsh on grading participation as he claimed he was going to be. Same story for my essay workshop--when he emailed me an evaluation of my work in class, he didn't say a single thing about me not talking enough...despite the fact that he made a HUGE deal of it throughout the semester. Nice of him to make me sweat and fret all semester long for nothing...oh well. I'm certainly not going to argue!

So, I didn't get the job at Bank of the West. I'm not too surprised. They sent me an email saying that they were impressed with my customer service experience but have "identified another candidate with qualifications that more closely meet the position's requirements"...in other words, probably someone who has actually worked in a bank before. Good riddance. I felt kind of iffy about the job anyway once they told me that it's more of a retail-style position than an office-assistant position, as their ad led me to believe. The job search continues...

Well, it's almost 1 am so I guess I better call Jordan to say goodnight and then attempt to fall asleep (been having huge issues with that lately). This has been a fun mini-vacation, but I miss the hubby! Excited to get home to him tomorrow. <3

Ah, thunderstorm

Just got home from my interview...it went quite well. My only weak point was my horrible lack of knowledge about my own bank. They asked me how I would convince someone to bank at my bank and I had no clue what to say. I know that there are benefits to online banking and checking accounts, but I can't remember what they are. I had to tell them I was drawing a blank. Meh. Other than that though, I'm pretty happy with how it went. It'll be two to three weeks before I hear back from them. In the meantime, I think I'll apply for some other positions. To be honest, I'd prefer a job that doesn't require me to be so financially savvy. If I do get this job at the bank, I'll definitely have a lot to learn.

Graduation is Saturday! I'm not at all looking forward to the three hour ceremony...but I'm looking forward to being an official graduate! And to wearing my cute new dress. And going out for lunch with my family and Jordan's parents afterward.

I'm enjoying this thunderstorm that's been going on all day. Puts me in the mood to curl up with a good book and a mug of hot chocolate. Not too excited about the potential for flooding, though. Some FEMA person that stayed at Jordan's hotel told him that we have a better chance of experiencing floods this year than we did two years ago. Great. But the Coralville Reservoir has apparently been lowered, which is helping to prevent flooding.

Mmk, I'm off. Keyboard is calling me.

College: DONE!

And it feels amazing! My stress has literally evaporated. Mostly. My destressification (totally a word) will be complete when I know what my grades are...I'm a little nervous about my lit class, but I think I did well enough on the final that I may have secured a B of some kind. It all depends on how harshly he grades participation. I'm feeling pretty confident about all my other classes, surprisingly. All my final projects and final exams went exceptionally well. This week wasn't as horrific as I thought it would be. :)

Ooh, and I already have a job interview! For a customer service position at Bank of the West in Coralville. It's really close to the apartment building we're moving to in July--like a block away. The interview is next Wednesday and I'm super nervous! Sometimes I'm great with interviews but I've had some really awful, awkward ones, too. It's not full time, but I'll be making as much or a bit more than Jordan does per month. I hope they hire me. Is it weird that I'm really excited about a job where I would be able to wear nice dressy clothes as opposed to a stupid uniform?

Hmm. The longer I sit here blogging, the weirder it feels. Shouldn't I be reading or studying or writing a paper? It's going to be a while before that nagging feeling goes away. I imagine that getting a job will help.

Mother's Day is Sunday! And so is Jordan's birthday! Since Jordan is working all weekend and won't want to do anything but sleep on his birthday, we've decided to celebrate it on Monday by going to see the new Iron Man movie. And perhaps going out to dinner, if he feels like it. And on Sunday when he's sleeping all day, I'm going to head down to Burlington to spend the day with the fam...with zero homework in tow. :) Ah, life is good.

Paper: DONE!

After eight straight hours of writing, I'm done with my paper for human memory. SO PROUD OF MYSELF! Crossing that off my checklist is a huge deal. Too bad I still have several hours of fiction homework ahead of me. Also too bad that I'm super sick. It occurred to me today that my TA came to class sick on Thursday. And on Friday, I had a meeting with him at Prairie Lights. The tables there are tiny, so there was only a couple feet between us. I think it's safe to say that he gave me this wretched cold. I'm on the verge of losing my voice...definitely sounding like a man. It just figures that the first time I'm legitimately sick my entire senior year is the week that I absolutely cannot stay home. Boo.

Okay...time to make some lemon tea.

That's just great...

"Going a night without sleep may cause your hippocampus to go on strike. A new study has caught this crucial memory-encoding brain region slacking off in college students the day after they've pulled an all-nighter. The study is one of the first to investigate how sleep deprivation interferes with memory mechanisms in the human brain . . . just as sleep is important for consolidating new memories after they're learned, as other studies have shown, it's equally important for preparing the brain to learn new things the following day."

You can imagine how thrilled I was to read that in one of the articles I'm using for my paper on sleep and memory. How cruel is it that I'm going to end up having to pull an all-nighter to write about this crap? My week is going to be full of all-nighters, in fact. Take a look at my to-do this...

Sunday: finish paper for human memory
do journal and workshop letters for Monday's fiction seminar

Monday: go to fiction seminar
do final project/essay revision for Tuesday
do european lit reading for Tuesday

Tuesday: go to classes
do lessons 13 and 14 for memory
do lessons 15 and 16 for mythology
study for mythology exam

Wednesday: take mythology exam
read portion of essay at writer's gone public
study for european lit exam

Thursday: go to classes
take european lit exam
do lessons 15 and 16 for memory
study for memory exam

Friday: take memory exam
pass out in exhaustion

So, should I plan for three all-nighters in a row and do horribly on my exams because I'll be too sleep-deprived to think properly...OR should I get a decent amount of sleep and do horribly on my exams because I didn't study enough?

Stupid paper!

Uggghhhh...I hate this paper. And I haven't even started writing it yet. At the moment, I'm just taking notes on the random assortment of articles I have about sleep and memory. I know I said I was going to start it yesterday and finish it today...so much for that. (I did write my mythology paper last night, though!) I'm really worried that I won't make it to 8-10 pages. But I have eighteen articles in front of me, so if I can manage to talk about each one of them for half a page, I'll be golden. Much worse than the page requirement, though, is the fact that I have to use APA citation. Grr! I've been using MLA for four years--I know it, I like it. APA is stupid. APA is for psych majors. I'm not a fan.

I think I'm getting sick. My throat has been so sore and dry all day...and I've being sneezing five times more than usual. Perfect timing, eh? I'm sure being sick will really help me get through my all nighter cram sessions this week. /sigh.

I wish I could just skip this paper. It's 20% of my final grade...but that's not so bad. I'd be okay with a C. Too bad I have to complete ALL the coursework to get credit for the class. Boo. I guess I'll just have to write it. I'm going to continue dragging my feet a little longer though and fill out a survey.

Have you ever been afraid to get up and go to the bathroom? Yeah, at our house on South Garfield street. It was really old and had a bug problem...big nasty cockroach-looking-but-not bugs would come out at night. I was scared that if I got up to go to the bathroom, I'd step on one...or one would run up my leg.
Do you get any magazines in the mail? Nope.
How many websites do you have an account for? I think seven that I use regularly (3 of them are school related). I have half a dozen more that I haven't used in years, like photobucket and xanga.
Have you ever paid for any kind of online membership? No.
Do you try clothes on before you buy them? I always have to try on pants because it's so hard to find ones that fit me correctly. I only try on shirts half of the time.
Have you seen The Blindside? No.
What's the best movie you've seen this year? I don't know. I have seen very few movies so far this year.
Do you know how to fire a gun? No.
What would you do if you knew a robber was in your house? Wake up Jordan, call the police...probably lock our bedroom door and then lock us in the bathroom. We could always climb out the bathroom window...
Have you played the Sims 3 yet? Nope.
What's your favorite type of pizza? Pepperoni.
Do you have a favorite local pizza place? Nothing unique to the area--we always get Pizza Hut because it's half a block away.
Have you ever been afraid of falling in love? No.
How do you let someone know that you like them? Flirting, I guess.
Have you ever asked a friend to ask someone else out for you? No. I think that's silly. That's how Ryan Duncan asked me out in the sixth grade. And how he broke up with me, too. lol!
Who'd you last see in a tux? Nick and Ian.
Were you sad when Tim Urban got sent home on American Idol? I don't watch American Idol.
What about Jason Castro, 2 years ago? ...
Do you record any TV shows and watch them later? No.
Do you have difficulty pronouncing any words? Not really.
Would you rather take a shower or a bath? Shower.
How many times do you shower in a week? I shower every day...so seven.
What brand's your cell phone? Verizon.
Have you ever sexted? No.
How many contacts do you have? I dunno. My phone doesn't give me a number and I'm not going to go through and count them.
Do you have your own computer? Yeah.
Who would you want to have your back if things got tough? The people that already have my back.
Do you ever make up dumb words with your friends? Not really.
Have your friends ever given you answers to homework, last minute? Maybe in my high school math classes...I can't remember.
Have you ever dated someone who was real sportsy? Yeah.
Are you any good at writing? Yeah.
What's your favorite form of writing? Fiction.
What do you think about Lil Wayne? I don't really know anything about him.
Have you ever done something terrible, but took forever to feel bad? Don't think so.
Have you ever read Shakespeare? Yeah. A few of his plays, all of his sonnets.
How come no one knows what MGMT is? I dunno. How come people think they're super cool when they know bands that other people don't know?
What did you dream about last night? I don't remember.
Have you ever looked up the meaning to a dream? No.
Have you ever tried to change someone? Not really...not earnestly, at least.
Do you think that anyone currently has a crush on you? Besides hubby? I doubt it. Jordan thinks his friend Ben does, though.
What profession do you admire the most? The ones where people are actively putting themselves in danger, on a daily basis--firemen, soldiers, police officers, etc.
Have you ever made a fake profile, for any reason? No.
What's the hardest lesson you've ever had to learn? I don't know.
What are you wearing right now? Iowa sweatpants and my Cedar Point t-shirt.
Do you miss your ex? Yeah...even though it's been four years since we were together and I'm happily married now, I totally miss him. /sarcasm.
Have you ever questioned your sexuality? No.
If you could change one thing about your life, what would it be and why? I'd like to have a job secured for after graduation.