her982

Yesterday I came back to NJ after spending a week off of work. Today I am going to the see the New York Philharmonic's holiday brass concert. Tomorrow I start my new job at an ad agency. This weekend my parents come to visit. Next week my brother and sister-in-law come to visit and be in the audience of the Martha Stewart show. Martha Stewart grew up in the town I currently live in, in NJ, just a few blocks from where I live. The weekend after that I go back to PA for Christmas and I have a whole week off of work! I don't know what is going on for New Year's Eve. I am indifferent to it.

I like it when Shawn im's me at work about what he is doing at work because he always has such interesting stories:

Shawn: lianna is throwing her tampon at everybody

The train is usually relatively quiet because it is all commuters going into work, listening to their ipods or reading the paper. Not Friday. There was an unusual amount of children on the train and I was annoyed. They loudly played games like "Graffiti," which apparently means shouting out the word GRAFFITI!!!! everytime you see graffiti (which is like, 100% of the time) and somehow there is a winner...? It was some boy named Aidan. Three of them also held a spelling bee. Congratulations to some girl named Madison, who is in 5th grade and won with the word "assault."

In the movie Amelie, Amelie has several little pleasures, like sticking her hand deep into a bag of beans. One of my little pleasures is when the train switches power lines and for around 8 seconds the lights are off, the fan isn't blowing and everything is quiet and relaxed.

After work, in Penn Station, everyone stands in front of the tv's waiting to see what track their train is on, and it is cool to see. Hundreds of people in suits and business clothes, standing quiet and still, all looking up and facing in one direction. Then when a track is posted a bunch of them rush off in a herd, pushing through the crowd. Not listening to an ipod during this time means I hear amusing exchanges like this: I was standing next to an androgynous person in jeans and a loose shirt and a business man walked by and accidentally hit this person with his bag. The business man apologized, "Oh sorry ma'am," and the person said, "I'm a guy," to which the business man shrugged and replied as he continued walking away, "Oh, I thought you were a lesbian or something."

I love my new job. I have a desk! And filing cabinets! And I can hang pictures on the walls and take lunch breaks! It is such a good feeling to actually be living like an adult. I do alot of different things relating to ads and sponsorships during sports on CBS. It is interesting and I am learning a lot. I really like the people, too. The other sales assistants are girls my age and they are all fun people. They are laid back and I am sooo grateful for that. I think they all live with their parents, mostly in NY state. The three people I "assist" are all completely different from each other, so that keeps it interesting. I really want to do a good job.

I don't know when I can get my own place but I hope it is soon. It is a big adjustment for both Shawn and I to be living like this, and it is not an ideal situation for either of us. It is nice to not come home to an empty apartment, but I do want my own place to organize and fill with my own things. The cable man came yesterday so now we have internet and cable television, which is so great!

I am home for Christmas now. I love Christmas! I am excited for the presents I got my family, especially my parents. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve, my favorite day of the whole year. Next week I am pretty sure I am coming home for New Years as well, but I don't know if I will end up doing anything on New Years Eve. Actually, it would probably be pretty special to just go to bed early and sleep in my own bed for 8 hours straight. I don't know, New Years has just never been a thing for me.

I started working a second, after-work job at Midtown Scholar (where my siblings work). I figured that everyone else seems to be getting part-time jobs in addition to their full-time jobs or at any rate working two jobs, and I need extra money so now I leave my home at 7am and get home around 7:30pm. One week after I started working there, I was offered a job working for CBS television in NYC, which I accepted, and I will start there in December. I am a Sales Assistant and I work for the VP of Sports Sales. Yay! I finally got a job. I am so happy. It was worth the 1.5 year wait. I will be staying with Shawn in his apartment in Jersey and commuting in to the city each day. It is a 28 minute train ride. At some point I will get my own place, but that is not something I am concerned with at this moment. I am very busy trying to work as many hours as I can so I will have Christmas money, and trying to get everything ready for this new job. I need to buy work clothes, and that sucks. People wear suits four days a week there. I only own two suits. I wear jeans and sweatshirts to work.

I got a job, I got a job, I got a jooooob. I got a job, I got a job, I got a jooooob. I got a job. I got a job. I got a job. Job. Jooooob.

My brother got his own apartment. It is really nice. He lives on the block between the river and the street with all the restaurants/bars. Perhaps most importantly, he lives around the block from Dunkin Donuts. It's not really that weird not having him live here anymore since for the last year or so he was never really around anyway. So that's good.

My sister is also rarely home; she doesn't really even sleep here anymore...?

My cat is officially geriatric and had a health emergency a few weeks ago. She is doing better, but for how long? She is like a third sibling.

I wish I did not download the newer version of Rhapsody. I was perfectly happy with the older, correctly working version. Unfortunately, once you get the newer version you can't go back.

I finished The Feminine Mystique today, and I have not yet gone to the library to get another book so I guess tomorrow is a Wall Street Journal day. I still read The Wall Street Journal even though they did not hire me. I guess I like reading it still because I know where they are coming from now. I know what color carpeting they have on their floors.

The car wash near Giant is so great. One time they gave me a free car wash for no reason. One time they gave me a free car air freshener for no reason. Today I went to the self-wash section and put my quarters in and turned the knob and WHOA the water began to spurt out the side of the hose nozzle! I got soaked. It was not warm out today. I tried to hold it away from my body, which resulted in me, even after 5 dollars, not being able to get all of the soap off of my car. I was wiping the soap off with my shammies when the guy that works there came around to do something. He said, "Did you have a good car wash? Heh."
I answered, "NO. Look what your machine did to me! I am soaked! I am so mad! It is leaking and spraying out of the hose, and it shoots like 6 feet so I could not avoid it! I didn't even get all of the soap off of my car!" I was very upset. As a result he immediately apologized and offered me $20 of free tokens and sent my car through the auto car wash for free, and as I was leaving I saw him on a ladder replacing the entire hose. They are so great, and really the only reason that I go there is because they have such great customer service.

Tonight I had tuna casserole for dinner. I ate way too much of it because it was so delicious and now I feel sick. I feel like a giant walking tuna casserole. Last night I made cupcakes; I used store bought frosting and put festive jimmies on them. I usually detest store bought frosting, but this is whipped it says. It actually is pretty good. It would be good on crackers. After the tuna settles down, I am going to have some whipped frosting.

Today the kid sitting in front of me in church wore a shirt that said, "Messiah College class of 2010." 2010!

I've been working in the Messiah bookstore selling textbooks and there are so many classes I still want to take. I could take one class a semester for the rest of my life and still feel like there is so much more to learn about. They look so interesting. I also realized just how many of the books I read, or was supposed to read. Remember "Beyond Bumper Sticker Ethics," and "Knowing Jesus Through the Old Testament?" Those are two I don't regret not reading. Ugh. All of the writing guides, which I still own, like Diana Hacker, Strunk and White, The AP Stylebook.

This summer I averaged about two interviews a month. Needless to say I still work at the dry cleaners.

Summer went by so fast this year. I got really tan from going to the beach literally every weekend. It was a great summer; we did so much, plus then every Saturday and/or Sunday afternoon we went to the beach.

My bedroom is in the basement and it only has one small window, so I have gotten very used to sleeping in the dark. Last weekend at Shawn's house I slept in a second floor bedroom with 4 large windows, and consequently woke at sunrise (more like 6ish) every morning. Awful. I don't know how I ever slept in brightness.

It has been around 90 degrees out for the past few days, but not in my basement! It is like March down here. I am sitting here in a sweater and jeans, and I have a blanket around me. Upstairs, my parents are sweltering on the couch in shorts and tshirts. They had trouble sleeping last night because it was so hot up there. I tell them, come sleep downstairs where it is around 15 degrees cooler, come watch television downstairs (tv is even bigger and newer down here), but no, they enjoy the hot upstairs.

Last weekend Shawn and I went to the Bronx Zoo and it was fun, but the Asian monorail was closed so we did not see any elephants or rhinos or hippos. We saw everything else. One gorilla type animal decided to hang out for a minute against the glass I was standing in front of, so it was less than a foot away from me. There was a crowd behind us who wanted to see it and I was like, "haha, I get to be nearest to the gorilla type animal, haha." So that was cool. I got a tiger mask and my cat gets scared when I wear it. Really.

We also hung out with every single member of his extended family: his sister-in-law's family, his dad's side, and his mom's side. I listed them in the order that I enjoyed hanging out with them this weekend. They are all obnoxiously loud and have dark features.

We ate out alot, went to Seaside Heights and watched the kids there for their post-prom weekend fun, went to Jersey Gardens Mall, relaxed on the beach, visited a mini street fair, and did not see The Da Vinci Code even though I wanted to see it because I loved the book. After I left Shawn downloaded it and watched it (without me). This weekend was fun and yay it is summer now!

I am still applying to jobs, although it is no longer one job a day. Somedays I apply to three jobs, and the next day I apply to zero. This fall something definitive will happen, but right now I do not know if that will be me having a job, me teaching English in a foreign country, or me going back to school. I am excited, but I do not know what to be excited for yet. It will work out. Shawn will either be teaching or going back to school.

The household chore I dread the most is folding clean laundry and putting it away.

I love Lost and Meg.

her982: meg lets apply for jobs with the hanso foundation!
Meg: do you think they pay salary

I have decided to make a conscious effort not to complain. Numerous people, all people who I really care about, have told me that I complain way too much. I think this mainly stems from the fact that I never have anything interesting to say but I still feel the need to talk.

Also, I gave up the word "like" for lent. I am not into the whole lent thing, but it is a set time to accomplish this goal. So far it has been pretty hard and I am not doing so well. Hopefully this will make me sound less ditzy, another trait that numerous people have told me to get rid of. Thanks goes to Erin Hayes for inspiring me to do this.

I am trying to improve my posture. Allen told me once in homeroom in high school that I should sit up straight, and that was the first time I realized that I do slouch alot.

If only it could be April 2005 forever...

I thought I was miserable then, but look at me now. So now I think I am realllly miserable, what will it be like another 11 months from now?

her982: we should start our own bible study
Brian: we'll smoke pot and talk about religion
her982: yeah

Oh my goodness. Guess who was my last customer at George's today. Well, yesterday afternoon a girl got hit by a school bus and died a mile (if that) from my house.
Here is the article about it. Sidenote: Laona works with my mom, and they did not get along at all until like a week ago randomly. It is unusual because they are two adult grown women who don't like each other, and just the thought of my mom not liking someone and vice versa is weird. Anyway, so they were talking about this dead girl all day on the radio, and I watched the buses go by all day and I was like whoa. Then, at the end of my George's day, this woman comes in. She puts down a child's red coat, nothing seems wrong, and a white plastic bag of clothes. Her hands are shaking badly and she pulls out children's clothes from the bag and the first thing I notice is that there are underwear and we don't clean underwear but I didn't say anything because I just figured I would throw them away after she left. Then she says, "These have blood on them." And I was just like, "Oh, ok! Thanks!" So right after she left I thought, "Maybe these are the clothes of the dead girl! Ugh." But then I just figured that I had an active imagination and whatever. Then Courtney, the girl I was working with, says, "Hilary, do you know whose clothes those might be?" I was like, oh no. I looked at the bag, yes, it was a hospital Patient's Belongings bag. Someone brought in everything that poor girl had on when she died. The clothes do not have tears in them, and there was surprising not as much blood as the movies would have made you think necessary. It was horrible, cute little girl's clothes covered in blood, clothes that she died in and I had to touch them. And Courtney has to sit in the store all night with them. All the way driving home I was like, ugh, that is so creepy. Her underwear! She died in them; underwear are personal and I saw the underwear she wore when she died. Ugh. And that is my George's story of the day.

This is an interesting site.

There is a street in Mechanicsburg called Wineberry Street and alot of people who live on it come into George's. Isn't a "wineberry" a grape? Grapes are the "berries" that make wine. I made this comment to several coworkers but noone seemed to think it was unusual at all.

The Office is on tonight and I am looking forward to seeing it. It is a funny and great show.

Every weekday I work 7-3:30 at the dry cleaners. I am a morning person anyway, so I don't mind this shift at all, and I especially like it because I can watch the sun rise. Some days I really think it is the most beautiful thing in the world, because it is so symbolic, a new day and all of that, and the colors are so amazing. I think about how before humans had extensive knowledge about dyes this time of day may have been the only time they ever saw the colors pink and orange and purple. Other than flowers of course, but it is January so really there are no flowers. So every morning I sit on the counter at work and listen to the Kiss Morning Mess and watch the sun rise over Gehman's Furniture. I like how people can control everything today in our created worlds, but we still can not change which direction the sun comes up from and can't stop water from falling from the sky.

This past weekend Shawn and I threw a baseball around on the beach, with no shoes on, in January. Sooo great, easily the best hour of my week. New Years morning we got up to watch the first sun rise of the new year from the first vantage point in the US, the east coast, and there was this huge, 15 feet tall pile of sand that we sat against. Last weekend it was three feet tall. I love the beach.

It is supposed to snow more tonight. I would like to address one issue concerning the snow. I have been hearing lots of complaining about the way snow is handled in this area. "People get so upset and go out and stock up on milk and eggs and show shovels when they hear that there may be a chance of flurries," the complainers say. "They cancel school for two inches of snow?!" "No one around here knows how to drive in this snow; everyone is crawling around." Yes, these things are true. The dry cleaners was busy today because apparently it is important to have clean suits to wear during a snow storm. However, I enjoy people anticipating and getting excited and nervous and worried over two or three inches of snow. Rarely will harm come to anyone in only three inches of snow. One of the reasons I absolutely love living in Pennsylvania is because we are so safe; we do not have to worry about hurricanes or earthquakes or tidal waves or crippling blizzards or mudslides or tornados, or any of those sorts of things. I think it is great that people get so worked up about a few inches of snow. It gives people something to talk about, in a good way because they get excited about the snow, not like in Lousiana or somewhere where they dread the hurricanes because they will do actual harm. Whatever. I love snow, and I love getting excited about it. YAY! MAYBE I CAN GO IN LATE TO WORK TOMORROW!

I sent out the last of my Christmas cards today. I made several of them because I really don't like the standard Christmas cards with angels or cuddly bears on the front. I like my cards to be different; even if they are stupid, they are still different. Josh's address is a series of numbers and letters which make no sense to me. I like that it only costs one stamp to send something to the other side of the planet. I have made two types of cookies this week, and tomorrow I am going to try to make these Italian cookies; if I am correct they are cookies that Shawn really likes and I randomly found the recipe in my mom's recipe box so I will try to make those tomorrow. Saturday we are getting our tree and I am going to Candylane that night and then Sunday my parents are having this housewarming open house shindig. I am excited for this Christmas weekend. I still need to go Christmas shopping for my parents and my brother, and I have no idea what I am getting them, so that is on hold.

I got a new cell phone. I had the other one for almost 5 years. When I first got it only 6 or 7 of my friends had cell phones, and now everyone has one. My old phone had features that I really liked, such as buttons that were easy to press because they were raised up from the face of the phone. I had zero problems with it because Nokia is the best at making cell phones. Oh, the conversations that phone has transmitted and the places it has been. It really has been a trusted friend.

I knew I would like this new Nokia 6102 as soon as I heard about it. For the past year or two I have been looking at new cell phones but none of them really struck my fancy. I wanted a Nokia, but all of their phones are sort of "cutting edge," and out there (N-gage for example). This one is great though. I went to the store to buy it and they said they sold their first shipment of the phone in an hour. I am pleased so far. Obviously I have lots of things to figure out about it, and get things I need to get used to.

( Read more... )

My family moved and now we live across the street from Messiah. I can see it from our windows. The new house is ok. It has aspects that I love and aspects that I hate. Since it is fall and our backyard borders a cornfield, we have mice. We have a chart on our refridgerator keeping track of how many we have killed thus far. Five in two days. Now it has slowed down though. The exterminator is coming soon, so says my mom. I love having the entire downstairs to myself. Love it. I hate the scarcity and size of our windows. I love our neighborhood. We walked to the pond behind the greenhouse and it was such a beautiful day and a nice walk, so pretty. And since we do not yet have internet at our house I can just go over to the school to use it, so that is convenient. I hate the hills, and I hate our driveway, not only because it is on a hill but because we must park semi-single file so every night we have to go out and rearrange our cars depending on who is leaving when the next morning. I backed into my brother's car our second night there. The icy winters will be difficult. Etc etc.

I am back at George's today. I worked 7-3:30 today at Upper Allen and it was great. I love that store and that shift. And I had a Sheetz cuppocino this morning; I did not have time for a shmuffin but the cuppocino was great, as always. I bought the paper and Jane to read at work. So it was a good day.

I got a "spider web" hole on my windshield and took it to Cindy Rowe to get it fixed. They fixed it so it will not get bigger but unfortunately it looks exactly the same. A scar they called it. Now I have to get my whole windshield replaced, and though insurance covered the repair I am not sure if they will cover the replacement since I already had it repaired. I did not know it would look exactly the same. Then I backed into Kinsey's car, which scraped the paint off of my car and his, and his also has a dent. Hopefully it will not cost too much to fix because I do not want to have to tell the insurance that this happened. Ugh.

My mom refuses to cook until we replace our countertop. The former owners decided, right before we bought it, that it would be great to put stone tiles on the counter, as seen frequently on HGTV. However, it is ugly, not our style, and they used tile meant for floors. So my parents have been eating out and my brother and I are buying our own food and cooking it. The new countertop should be delivered next week.

I am getting excited for Christmas.

Since I am back at a job I actually like (like for now anyway) the urgency of the job hunt has lessened. I am so glad to be done with Pavone. It is on my resume and done. I honestly don't know if I can handle the office environment for the next 40+ years. I don't know what is going to happen.

I really like watching The Office, Tuesdays on NBC at 9:30pm. It is funny.

Shawn's mom gave me The Kite Runner to read, so I have been reading it at work. It is SO good. I thought it would be dumb, but I was wrong. However, when I was halfway through the book I read the acknowledgements and discovered that it is not a true story, which was disappointing. Still a good story though.

Most people cry during movies or weddings. I choke up during the Mechanicsburg Halloween Parade. It was last night; they schedule it on a Tuesday early in October so it will be the first parade in the area. The parade is over an hour long, which is long for a parade. And I just love how the community all comes out and everyone has such pride, and I belong. Aww. Love it. I will really miss living in town when we move in 9 days.

I talked to Jess and Sharon at George's this morning. Sharon gave me a raise. They are excited that I am coming back. I am too; people were nice there, unlike Pavone.

I am really stressed out about the job thing, and money, and just everything. I have really been missing Chris lately. Friday would have been 5 years for us. I wanted to get married a year from Friday. I read Gary Chapman's Five Love Languages and have been contemplating my relationships with everyone, boyfriends, people at work, everyone. Such a good book. Chris and I totally 100% spoke the same love language, quality time, which is why everything just clicked. We would both have big tests the next day and we would just sit in the same room and study, and it was enough to just be in the same room. For the years we were long distance we talked for an hour every night on the phone and on im during the day. And we are moving in 9 days but I'm not sure exactly what is going on with the house we were planning on moving into, so if that doesn't work out that would be dramatic.

I have been trying to think of jobs I could do in case I become handicapped. If I go deaf I could be a copywriter because I am good at that. If I go blind I could work in radio; my uncle works in radio. If I am in a wheelchair I can probably still work in business, maybe I will learn accounting. I thank God that I am healthy though.

Friday after work and dinner I drove down to Pete and Lacey's. It was a scary drive. It was through the country, at night. And the roads were not through fields, they were through scary woods with trees hanging over the street. There has been a commercial on television recently for some scary movie where the boy is driving his car down a road and there is a ghost girl who suddenly appears in front of his car and he drives through her. I kept envisioning that happening to me, and it was scary. Also, I had to stop and ask for directions two times because the roads were not labeled; they had no street signs. The girl at the one gas station was like, "Yeah, this is the correct road. We live in the middle of no where; we don't really have street signs." That is no excuse!

It was so nice to see Lacey and Pete and Aevyn and Brian again. We talked about college and people from school a lot, and it was a little depressing. Aevyn is so cute; I wish I had a son so they could get married. I am glad they seem to be doing well; they are so great and they deserve it. I am jealous of what they have! Brian is becoming a pilot. It sounds difficult, but he is a hard worker and seems to enjoy what he is doing. I wish that I could go to Florida and visit, but I am too poor.

I spent yesterday evening in Philly with the intent of making headway on the whole job thing. I now have 22 new places to send resumes to, so I am excited about getting on top of that. Now that I have a car I have so many more options.

My family is moving to across the street from Messiah College. You know where the enviro kids live, in the Greenhouse? It is a few houses up from that. We should be all moved in two weeks from now, so that is exciting. It is a smaller, one story, old person house, at least from what I have heard and seen when I drive by. We might go over there this afternoon so I can see the inside. There is still some remodeling being done so we are not moving in quite yet.

This evening I am going over to Heather's to see Ang and Sam, who came up for the weekend. Heather is going to make apple crisp.

Last night I parked in front of Heather's house on 2nd St. and someone stuck a handwritten note on my windshield. There was one car space in front and in back of me, and I was less than 12 inches from the curb. The note read, "Do to limited parking in this area, learn to park or turn in your license." As you can see, the note had a grammatical error in it ("do" versus "due"), and anyone who knows me well knows my love for grammar and spelling. And that is not sarcasm. Now everyone will be picking through my livejournal entries pulling out all of my grammar errors, and they can bite me. This note also made me think about my driving habits, and the habits of the average American driver. Driving is definitely the one skill that we are taught only what we need to pass the test. We learn to parallel park only good enough to impress the DMV employee unlucky enough to have the job of administering driving tests, and most people dread or never parallel park again (this is a skill I am proud to say I have improved so much on in the past year). We don't really learn what to do if we hydroplane or how to drive so it is easier on our cars, etc. Watching movies in drivers ed hardly counts for anything. Of course everyone will argue with the point I am making, because I have friends who like to be contrary. "My mom taught me how to back into parking spots." "My dad showed me how to check my fluid levels and change my oil." Whatever.

So you know how I love going to playgrounds so so so much? The company I work for is trying to get some playground company as a client so all of our employees went to a playground today to take pictures and video of us playing at a playground. Yay! It was awkward, but we were still at a playground and it was a happy time for me. Sometimes I absolutely love working there. Other times I abhor it...last night I dreamed that I wrote, "I quit" on a post-it and gave it to my supervisor as I walked out, and she was just like, "Ok bye! Have a good night!"

Phonathon called me! This was our conversation:

ring ring!
"hello?"
"hi is Hilary Rice there please?"
"this is Hilary"
"hi my name is Melissa I am a student at Messiah College. I am just calling to update your records, share some news..."
at this point I interuppted her
"omg is this phonathon?!"
"um, yes"
"I would like to donate five dollars ON MY CREDIT CARD!"
pause
"um, ok, can you hold on a second?"
I think this girl was new because she didn't really know what to do and she didn't have the schpiel down yet. It would be so great if I was her first pledge, especially since I did it on a credit card.
"hi Hilary, I would just like to inform you that you are now a part of a special group of 18,000 people..."
I interuppted her again.
"Can I earmark this to go to the Philly campus?"
"uh, sure"
"ok it is a Visa..."
then I told her about my card
"ok thank you Hilary. would you like to hear some news from Messiah?"
"no, please just make sure that goes to Philly campus, and have fun!"
"ok thanks!"

Today is my 23rd birthday. I came home from work sick today because I am so nauseous. I dreamed that I had a baby and it was a few months old but I wanted to change it's name. To Talan. As in, from Laguna Beach. Even though I don't like that character, or name.