Being Human

Over break I have spent some time watching this British series called Being Human on Netflix.  I'm in love!  It's a little like a mashup of another British series, Misfits, with a little bit of Buffy thrown in.  Mitchell is a vampire, George is a werewolf, and Annie is a ghost.  The three find themselves living together due to circumstances of fate.  Together they help each other come to terms with what they have become, and inevitably become close friends who stick by each other with each other's respective baggage and sets of personal problems.

Each episode is a straight hour long, but it's worth every minute!  Check it out!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00hqlc4

Its Been A Really Long Time...

Hello, everyone!

I haven't really posted more than one or two blog posts this past semester.  The truth is, I haven't really had much to say!  I've been too busy actually enjoying my life and having a great time of it to actually sit down and take the time to share.  So, here is an overview of important things that have happened this semester:

• Straight As!  Whoo hoo!!!
• Internship at The Arbors has been going well!  I'll be ready when I get back for next semester to pick up the pace a little and continue making my time there as awesome as possible.
• Making leaps and bounds through the Netflix queue.  Since Netflix split up its plan with the price increases, I've been subscribed online to the stream online plan.  Once I watch everything I can get through instant streaming, I'll switch to the physical disc mailing plan.  My most recent love has been How I Met Your Mother.  Words cannot describe...
• Grocery shopping and paying bills worked out awesome with my refund from the school up until the last 3 weeks.  I'll need to rethink that for next time.. Haha!
• Ryan and I are still going strong!  We sailed through our 5, 6, 7, and 8 month anniversaries.  April 5th of 2012 will mark our 1 year as an official couple!  YEEAHHHH!!!
• I bought fish!  I started off the summer with 5 guppies.  One died from the stress of the transfer from the store to my tank.  Then there were 4: Cappie (the only one with visible distinguishable marks), and "The Supremes" (the other 3 look-alikes).  Unfortunately now we're down to only two of the Supremes left (whom I have now dubbed Killer and Donna).  **Note, all my guppies were males--however, you have to admit that Cappie and The Supremes is kind of catchy...**  AND the newest addition to the family is a beta named Emmett.  He has his own tank and his own life, and I think that makes him happy.
• Space (my car) has thrived and deteriorated and thrived again!  We're hanging in the balance at around 160,000 miles.  We have winter tires but no snow....and we have oil and antifreeze that remains within the inner workings of the vehicle.  Win for all involved.
• Excellent drunken house parties have occurred: the very realistic Prohibition 1920s Speakeasy (where many of the attendees were underage [of course, this is college] so we all hid in the basement to manage the noise levels-good times), the famous Mustache party (yep-you guessed it. Mustache mandatory for attendance), ALL of Halloween weekend (3 parties in 2 days-not bad!), the quietish Christmas party between close Burlington-bound people in my life, and of course the other various nights that involved going to bars or staying in and mixing fun drinks by ourselves!
• Very few stressful nights worrying about homework and how I'm going to manage all of my classwork plus life in general.  4 classes per semester is PERFECT!  I'm so glad I put in all my hard times my Freshman/Sophomore years.  Senior year is a breeze so far, and I'm loving every second of it!  Sure there have been a few downs or hiccups in the general flow of things, but speaking overall, this has really been my best semester at Champlain so far.
• Oh, and I totally taught myself how to knit over Thanksgiving break via YouTube videos.  Oh yeah.  New life skills FOR THE WIN!

I'm so happy that this year has been going so well.  I can't imagine what this year would have been like with a schedule like my Spring semester of Sophomore year.  (That was when I broke up with Luke, was managing a 12 hr/wk unpaid internship, working as a Peer Advisor for as many hours/wk as was necessary, as well as working ~10hrs/wk for my mandatory work-study hours so I could have a paycheck).  I really wasn't sure I was going to make it that semester.  BUT-I did, and I'm stronger for it.  

I'm proud of myself for all I have accomplished so far.  I work damn hard and I deserve a lot of respect for all I do.  What is next on my list is to start applying for grad schools:  Boston University, Springfield College, University of Vermont, University of New Hampshire.  I'm working on getting all of my required application materials together over this break, and sending them out quite soon once I return to Burlington/Winooski.  

Lastly: I have been a busy beaver over break.  I got home on Friday evening, and it is now Tuesday.  In this time, my mother and I have switched bedrooms.  I'm enjoying being home SO much more.  I don't feel so depressed and aimless as I thought I would.  A big project like this is just what I needed to keep myself busy and motivated.  I seriously got rid of about 5 bags of garbage, and donated another 5 or so to the Salvation Army.  The reason for this is that my old room was about 1/2 the size of the basement (about 1/4 of the entire house).  I moved from this big room to my moms normal-sized bedroom that actually has windows!  She moved into the bigger room.  Therefore, I needed to really focus on getting rid of a lot of my old stuff so that it would all fit into this new, smaller, more manageable room.  I cleaned out everything: stuff from past boyfriends that have been sitting or buried in my room, things I haven't touched or worried about in years, stuff I thought I would definitely need/use but never got around to, and even some stuff I had been emotionally attached to.  However, it was time to let it all go, to let it be free.  While I may still have another bag or two of trash to take out, I feel great!  Cleansed.  Like I'm getting rid of everything so that whatever comes after Champlain will have room to take hold and lead me to where I'm supposed to be-without leaving too much behind.  So far both my mother and I seem happy with the trade.

Well, this wraps everything up rather nicely from the past 4 months of my life.  I feel like I need to find a new purpose for blogging again.  I wish I could be as dedicated as other folks in writing a fabulous blog-stuff other people actually care about instead of something that looks like a journal of my life.  I will gladly accept any and all blogging ideas and suggestions below.  Tell me what you'd most want to hear/learn about!  If it is something that lines up well with my interests or knowledge and expertise, I will try to move the blog in that direction--and work on posting more frequently.  :)

Auf Wiedersehen!

Netflix Queue

Hello, Blogosphere!

Today I'm here to chat with you all about Netflix, and what my queue currently looks like. 

Back in October, I finally decided that I was sick of trying to (illegally) stream videos and things to watch when I got bored (and deal with the stress of wondering if I had infected my computer with a virus in the process,) so I decided to give Netflix a try after noticing that it really wasn't a scam, and that many of my college counterparts are also signed up.

Long story short, I LOVED it.  I quickly went through and found literally hundreds of titles that I've wanted to see but haven't had the chance, as well as oldies but goodies.  Unfortunately, my excitement was capped when I reached the 500 title limit for the queue.  Hahahaha.  Awesome.

Since then, I've been working hard to bring down the queue to a more manageable level, which is sometimes really rather difficult considering some of the other stuff I have on my list (separate from the queue) consists of about 40 television shows I've wanted to see or have heard pretty good things about, but never had time/was able to sit down and watch them as they were aired on television. 

Now-I'm making up for lost time.  At 500 movies and 40 television shows (not counting the many seasons some of them have,) I definitely have my work cut out for me.

Now, what's taking so long?  Well, when I signed up for Netflix I told Ryan we would be able to watch a lot of these movies together, and when we were both satisfied, we could delete the title from the queue.  That turned out to be a much more difficult process than originally intended.  Our schedules are both very hectic, so it's becoming a 'Megan-watches-a-movie-and-rates-it-and-when-Ryan-watches-it-he-can-delete-it-from-the-Queue' sort of process.  Currently, I'm at about 450-something movies in the physical queue (the ones that physically get sent to your mailbox,) and about 48 titles in the Instant Watch queue.

In short-we're working on it.  :)  There's a LOT of really great media out there, and I'm proud to be supporting Netflix with my business.  They have an amazing company, and I think I'll be registered with them until the day I die (or run out of movies and television shows to watch.) 

XXOO

-Megan

Home

My bed never felt so good.  :)

Turns out, Kinney's doesn't have any hours to give me over this short break.

So?

I get to take 2 weeks and relax!  No work, no commitments, etc.  It's going to be wonderful.  :)  What will suck though, is no money.  Christmas presents from me are going to be pathetic, so be prepared.  Haha!

I'm going to try to read through as many of the 6 books I've still got saved from this summer that I have yet to read, as well as work on my Netflix queue.  I feel bad that Ryan probably won't be able to catch up with me because I've got so much free time, but hopefully he'll be able to fit in the majority of the things I've watched over break, and maybe even next semester.

This break in my life feels like it was planned.  This is a time for me to figure out everything.  A time for new beginnings.  To take the next few steps toward my big goals in life.  To start fresh.  To do things right.  Metaphor: this is a cocoon from within which I will begin my transformation from silly undergrad-college-student-caterpillar, to full-blown butterfly adult.  Whoa.

Get ready.  Because my life is going to be awesome.

Also, I realize that this post only had about 3 sentences to do with being home.  Bear with me.  :)

XXOO

<3 Megan <3

Letters I'll Never Send

Hey, ya'll.  Sorry I've disappeared.  I've been frustrated and haven't really been able to re-inspire myself to get back to our topic at hand-so here's something to pass the time meanwhile.

LettersIllNeverSend.com is my new crack for this year (as well as Netflix, but we'll get to that in a bit.)  This site allows you to go in and post an anonymous letter to this blog that others are able to read.  You can vent, profess your love for someone because you're too afraid to do so in person, share something funny, something life-altering, or offer guidance and support for those who seem down in the dumps.  I love catching up on what other people have been doing, are up to, or are going through.  It reconnects me with all of humanity, and with those basic, innate feelings that come with being human.  As I read each story I am able to let it all sink in, remember times I've gone through similar situations, remember those events that are still unsettled in my life, and know that no matter what I'm going through in life-there's always someone else in the exact same position.

LINS has been a partial life boat for me this semester as I realize I'm growing up and that who I am is not the same as who I was.  Life is different now-welcome to the adult world!  Some things have lost their appeal to me, other new things have been unveiled to me, and essentially life as I once knew it has ended.  Life as I know it is scary and unsettled.  This is weird to think about, but sometimes I wonder if I can feel and notice the times my brain is being re-wired to deal with adult life (i.e.-right now, this weird phase in my life.)  As teenagers move into adulthood, a lot of the hormones calm down and the raging impulses that we have through high school simmer down and can get put on a low broil.  Some of the pathways and synapses that your brain needed to deal with high school can be altered.  You might not need to take the fast-track pathway through the brain anymore as this hormone stops being produced.  Your analytical skills advance so the conclusions you used to draw in high school may no longer make sense in the adult world. 

Essentially this semester so far has really been about me increasing my self-awareness, and what's going on for me in certain times and at certain places.  I was somehow able to fight off a cold in the span of a week (I think it's all the Vitamin C I threw into my body,) by recognizing when I thought I was coming down with something and having the ability to spend money on medicine to prevent/treat any germs that were affecting me.  Knowing that I'm also still really in a weird place in my life and that things are changing, I've been reminding myself to try to be patient with others when I find myself getting annoyed or angry (same also with PMS symptoms.)  How is that working out for me?  Well, I'm still alive.  And I still have all of my friendships intact.  So-all in all, I think it's working out pretty well.

As far as Netflix goes, (ooh I'm salivating just thinking about it!!!!) IT IS A GODSEND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  All those movies and TV shows I've always wanted to watch/catch up on-I now have all of that at my fingertips.  Right now I have ~264 movies in my queue.  Yeah.....that's bad I know.  I LOOOOVE watching movies and TV shows.  Actually, when I find something I like I tend to get a little obsessive about it.  Which is probably really unhealthy, but I can't say that I don't like it.  :)  For $8.99/month I have access to SO many movies.  It's like a miracle in a website.  Seriously!

Okay, well to wrap up.  I'm still alive.  Things are going pretty good.  I'm sleeping about 6 hrs/night but for the most part-I'm hanging in there.  Visit LINS and tell me what you think!

-Megan XXOO