this week in antonia's life

Just as a quick update, I don't think I will be posting for a few days, and I feel like I need to give you loyal blog-readers something...hehe, at least I like to think you're loyal.

This week is a barrage of tests, my research paper, phone interviews, a career fair, a veterinarian with my main man (Satch), those 2 jobs I have, and continuing the post-graduation job search. There will be other things in there too, maybe even my CompSci programming lab, but most of those details will be inconsequential until about Friday afternoon. Actually at this moment what I am doing is that fun thing called procrastination, a very favorite hobby of mine.

Don't sweat the small stuff, right? And in the the grand scheme of things, this is all very small. I'll make it through the next few days, and with enough energy and guster to single-handedly propel the Tar Heels to move from the Final Four to the NCAA Championship game on Friday night. Mark my words. :)

long weekend

The long easter weekend has begun, although every weekend this semester is just as long for me, with the exception of me not having to work till midnight last night, which was pretty hot. I also in no way actually equate a religious holiday with this weekend, or try not to.

Last night we went to Fuze, which was kind of a nice, different environment. I used to hang out at Henry's there all the time back in my underage days. Its more eclectic than the main Franklin Street bars, and has a cool red-painted room. I wouldn't go without my own people to socialize with, but then again, I wouldn't do that anywhere.

March Madness update: I called the Arizona and Louisville games last night, which after being told I was an idiot to do, mostly the Louisville game...I have some bragging rights. Tonight I'm waiting on Kentucky, Duke (as much as I hate that) and CAROLINA to win! GO HEELS!

stressed

Yesterday was the day Antonia freaked the fuck out about getting a job, and when I get overstressed while being overtired, I crash and burn. Those are all the details I feel necessary, bottom line, some days you just gotta let it out. As my life goes, I crashed and burned approximately one hour before I was going to be taken to lunch by my boss at Best Practices, LLC. Way to go me. I composed myself and went and had a fabulous time, although I would like for them to have paid more than 8 dollars for my lunch considering I work for them for free. But good things come to those who wait, and Anna said they would take me to a much nicer dinner somewhere when my internship ends.

I also had a meeting with my other boss and another co-worker at Best Practices yesterday and presented my insights and recommendations on how to improve our website design and content for search engine optimization. They seemed impressed and are using my write-up as a presentation to the publishing staff on Monday. Total sense of accomplishment. I learned a lot doing this project, and I probably have even more I can learn about this subject.

Then I hung out with Paul and Mercedes and Miss Cara, we had a grand old time, as always. Which is part of the reason I am freaking out about this job thing...I am so scared to move and am completely dreading that soon I may no longer be a resident of the Chapel Hill area. Crossing my fingers just in case and trying to keep my head high.

Today is going to be a great day, its nice out, I am getting my errands done, and tonight I have dinner with the girls at Penang. I can't wait! Then Swetal and I will be rounding up her troops and mine to hit the town. Watch out. ;)

being funny

Today Mr. Baden told me I hadn't put a funny away message up on AIM for a while, and he was dissapointed in my recent away messages. I wasn't aware that I put up funny away messages in the 1st place, although I do enjoy entertaining people, so maybe thats it. But now I feel a lot of pressure to think up hilarious things, which makes it impossible to actually think of anything remotely interesting at all. Thanks a lot Baden. ;)

I am tired, my teeth hurt, and I am extremely peacefully/quietly freaking out about the fact I think I may not have a job 6 weeks from now and am going to fall flat on my face approximately the day after graduation. Hmmm...

And in extremely old news, since I am currently watching the best show ever, I love Jon Stewart more than words could ever describe, and also Lewis Black. (As a side note, CSI: Miami, CSI, Southpark, Reno911, the Amazing Race, Desperate Housewives, Seinfeld, Remington Steele, and Distraction are also the best shows ever, and I'm probably missing a few shows I also really dig from that list.)

Obviously making decisions is extremely hard for me. Its called dissonance, I'm thinking. Something I really learned about from my advertising/media studies in the context of "post-purchase dissonance," but I happen to feel "post-purchase" (haha) dissonance about most every decision I make. Thinking about that, it is slightly insane considering I will make about a bazillion little decisions over the course of my lifetime and very few will be life-altering or actually affect my happiness in any way, but yeah, I have that dissonance thing anyways. Although I know I'm not at all alone in that. Us humans are very weird things. Which reminds me of this mildly unrelated quote I heard...

"One of the hardest ideas for humans to accept...is that we are not the culmination of anything. There is nothing inevitable about our being here. It's part of our vanity as humans that we tend to think of evolution as a process that, in effect, was programmed to produce us."

Sweetness, time to go to my bed. Which is the best thing ever, but soon its gonna get hot and I have to take flannel sheets off, I might have to leave velvet duvet on despite the summertime. Cause its the hot shit. No pun intended, really.

dubya makes me goddamned insane

I just learned that while he was governor of Texas, President Bush signed into law a bill that was used only a few days ago to remove the feeding tube of a six-month old baby, against the parents' will. But yet, YESTERDAY, Dubya voted (ending his vacation early to return to D.C. for the 1st time since he has been in office) to put Terri Schiavo's feeding tube after it was removed 3 days ago. Holy shit, I am speechless. For a candidate that called his opponent a flip-flopper repeatedly in the 2004 election campaign. Hypocrite. And he is against abortion, but will let a 6-month old die, but not a 41-year-old brain-dead woman in the exact same way?! And he is for the death penalty, aka: for death occasionally, but for life othertimes. (We'll leave alone how I actually feel about these issues, since I'm not super conclusive on the death penalty thing, but again, I'm not the fucking president of the fucking United States). I seriously wanted to pull all of my hair out when I heard this news. I didn't even give a shit about politics until January 2001, when I realized that me and most of the people I know are more intelligent than the President of what is essentially 'the free world'. I seriously beg for the day where I can not give a crap about politics again because there are competent people in the White House to give a crap for me and the citizens of America, as well as the rest of the world.

Also, this whole Schiavo thing is driving me insane (yes, I'm as tired as the most tired person in the world who bothers to pay attention to the US national media). The Republicans, supposedly, stand for decreased central government, and increased power in the hands of individual states, but yet called an emergency congress vote in the first 3 days of their spring break to remove power from the Florida Supreme Court and try to reverse a decision it had a perfectly constitutional right to make without interference from the federal government. At this point I give up hope that anyone will ever be able to stand up and challenge the fallacies under which the current administration operates.

Ah, venting is good. So is beer. Paul convinced me tonight that Budweiser Select may possibly be better than Miller Lite, which I have become very attached to. I know, I'm a connoisseur as Cara pointed out the other day. ;) She also pointed out that "I am the best at drinking margaritas," yeah you know it... As a note, any mistakes I may have made in this post are due to the first good substance abuse I have enjoyed in a week. yum.

Oh and the job interview went great today, they want me like hell, because I am probably about the best thing that has walked through those doors in the 4 years they've been around. A very high-end pyramid sales and marketing scheme with big-time companies as clients as far as I discerned. Not horrible, but not what I want, and theres no point selling myself short from the start.

jobs, etc.

Over the past few days I have jumped full-force on the job search thing, although I have been contacting companies that don't necessarily have job openings, just ones I really want to work for. I think my main motivation is to get job interviews so I can wear my suits. Yeah, I'm a fashion whore, but damn my suits are hot. I just bought a dark brown pinstripe suit with a dark salmon-colored shirt and these brown suede heels, I like it even better than my grey suit, which is super sharp. I must be about the only non college grad (yet) that owns 3 suits. I am also broke, hehe, guess why.

Yesterday Kansas lost in the 1st round of they NCAA tourney since 1978, messing up my bracket, and I would have to guess a lot of other peoples too. Damn you Kansas. And haha, we have your Roy. March Madness continues...

Tonight I will go out to eat with the 'rents. Good luck to me trying to eat actual solid food for the first time in 6 days. I am also planning on drinking for the first time since my surgery. Fuck yeah, sense the excitement! :) Ciao.

march madness

Today began with a nice quick oral surgeon check-up and aparently so far, so good. I was in and out in 5 minutes, hotness.

But the real reason for this post...yesterday began march madness, and this year for the 1st time ever, I filled out a tournament bracket. There were 16 games yesterday, and 16 more today. Of the 20 games that have finished so far, I called 16 of them. Yay. Carolina starts playing any minute now. Go Heels! (I've picked us to win the tourney, duh, and I sure hope we do). Can't wait to be back in NC for Sweet 16 and beyond, here in Toronto I am missing the NCAA enthusiasm I've become accustomed to at this time of year.

remington steele on dvd!

http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0083470/board/nest/10471058

So I said this news would be "my best day ever" which may have been an overstatement...but exciting nonetheless. Now who wants to buy me dvd's?

Remington Steele rocked my world as a child, almost as much as Get Smart. Who knows how I fell in love with such ridicuously outdated tv shows, but I did. Laugh all you want, I'm super cool.

it begins

After all that, they took all 4 wisdom teeth, thank god thats over with. I'm definitely in massive pain and can't eat because my mouth is as good as swollen shut, good i had chubby cheeks to start with. ;) They did not give me good painkillers, but I'm a trooper and hanging in there with large doses of ibuprofen.

I took the time yesterday to update my resume and send it out to a couple of companies, and to my surprise I woke up to an email requesting an interview with a company called CK and Associates in Raleigh. I called them, despite my limited conversational abilities and I now have an interview first thing Monday morning. Woohoo, 1st real job interview, everyone, please wish me luck. Professional dress, I get to wear my hot new suit, sweet!

I was going to go and see Jill Scott perform at Massey Hall in Toronto with Daniel tonight, but unfortunately I'm not up to it. Boo. I feel bad I am not doing better and being more fun while Daniel's visiting here, although I think hopefully he's staying busy with everything else fun to do here in the city. Tomorrow I hope to shop, cause I have to go to Urban Outfitters and H&M while I'm here. I might die or something if I don't buy clothes for my pain this week...hehe.

a lil scared

Today I get my wisdom teeth out, or half my wisdom teeth. I don't trust dentists, so you may imagine how an oral surgeon is extremely far down on my list of trusted medical professionals. I am freaking out and have some pretty huge knots in my stomach. Plus I'm not allowed to eat or drink, even water, all day long before the surgery, which isn't making things more appealing.

Last night Daniel and I hit downtown Toronto for a few drinks, we had a good time, but he definitely made me walk around for 40 minutes in the cold looking for a good place to go before we settled back at the first place we had come to (Hard Rock Cafe). After that we went to some fun, kind of seedy place called the Imperial Bar which had 2 fish tanks with way too many fish in them. We also met a weird guy who had come from NYC to see his ex-girlfriend in a play she was in, and he hadn't talked to her in 6 months because she didn't want to see him...hence, he was at the bar alone after she ignored his note and phone call apparently. Stalkerish, just a little.

Now off to prepare for getting my teeth cut out of my gums. They better not gip me on the painkillers, I want the primo shit and lots of it.

in toronto

Well I just got to Toronto from going to visit my brother at Queens University, we had a freakin' great time, and I must say the bar scene in Kingston, Ontario might be better than the nightlife in good ol' Chapel Hill. Alistairs friends were also super and we stayed up into the wee hours of the night doing fun things like cooking salmon at 3am. Then I returned to the hotel to make use of the bed for approximately 6 whole hours...ah well...if I have no fun for the rest of my spring break, Friday night in Kingston absofuckinglutely rocked.

Daniel and his friend are out downtown in Toronto and I will not be venturing out alone to the city tonight, so I suppose I will be making use of digital cable and figuring out what to tape on the DVR that I can watch later this week when I'm doped up on painkillers. Woohoo.

Hope everyone else I know is having a great weekend, or spring break!

feeling pensive

Well I am definitely in one of those thinking moods, so I suppose I shall journal today...

Spring break starts tomorrow, my last spring break ever, and I definitely didn't make any exciting plans, although chilling with Daniel in the big T.O. (read: Toronto) will be a lot of fun, and its always nice to see the family. Free, good, homecooked food, yum!

I am at work right now and man, its boring, most of the students are gone and no one needs their computer fixed.

In super great news this week: Carolina beat Duke, and the game was far and above the best I've ever been to, it was absolutely amazing and something I wish every last one of my friends had the opportunity to experience. Franklin street was nuts, and Paul and I spent some time helping get one of the bonfires started and burning well, which was highly successful. I also talked to both my buds John and Sarah twice this week, which makes me immensely happy because they are both much too far away from me and I miss them dearly.

I also got this super new project at work (my internship at Best Practices, LLC) which I am stoked about because it is kind of fun and gives me more responsibility than some of the other things I have done. I am going to be making suggestions on how to improve our website and get higher rankings on google searches for the content on our site. Needless to say, I am becoming an expert on "spidering," how it works and what PageRank is. I am also starting a new marketing initiative for them which someone else will eventually take over, but I am getting the ball rolling and it feels good to be told I do good work.

Ok. Thats about all the writing energy I have. Ciao for now!

well hello

I have decided to start this blog to write random thoughts, share things I have seen or that people have said, and anything else I feel is appropriate when I'm in a playful mood or feeling pensive.

And in due respect, this started because my friend Aaron started his own blog today (which can be found here) and got me thinking about the whole idea. So thanks. :)