(Less Than) One Month!

Tuesday marked the one month countdown until move-in day at college!! It really is crazy how fast the summer can go. Just the other day it seemed I had ages and ages to prepare, enjoy the summer and relax with my family. And then it hit me: I have just one more month until, really, everything changes. The pressure is on to make this count…but there’s so much to do!

(Some of) What Needs To Happen This Month:

1. Set up a PO box. For the first time in my life, I will have a mailing address different from that of my parents! The application for it is very official-looking, too. Eventually I guess having a PO box will just mean yet another key for the lanyard, but I’m enjoying the idea of it while it is still exciting. :) 


2. Find a way to use all those address labels that charities keep sending me. While we are on the topic of mail and all its fantastic intricacies, it has come to my attention that I have an enormous amount of address labels. You know you’ve entered the adult world when charities start sending you address labels. And while I’m absolutely flattered that Amnesty International and Toni Morrison think my address is worth printing onto dozens of little stickers, I can’t help but wonder when I am going to get a chance to use them all. And this makes me frustrated. Grrr.


3. Read through all the Harry Potter books. I started the lovely projected of re-reading all the Harry Potter books way back in February and started off with some pretty consistent progress. By mid-March I was in the middle of the third book. And then things turned for the worst. Now, with just a couple more days of July left, I am still in the middle of the fourth. And seeing as there is less than a month of summer vacation left, I realize I may simply not have the time. But seeing as the last film just came out and the great big threat of not being able to take my Harry Potter books with me to college, I think I have more resolve than usual to check this off the list as soon as possible. But, like they always say: there are two sides to every stone. So with every ounce that it takes me to convince myself that I must. read. these. books., there is also something that I like to call Clinical Re-Reader’s Guilt. And this disorder is quite simple to understand: every moment you spend rereading a book is a moment less you have to enjoy a new book. Why read the fifth Harry Potter book when I could be settling down with Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth or Stephen  Chbosky’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower?


4. Stampede through the first thirty pages of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Now, obviously I get it. Particularly in New York, if you haven’t read The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo yet, then you are so out of fashion that it is insulting to the American culture. But I insist: I bought this book at the height of its popularity a couple of years ago, thinking I’d finish it in no time. In fact, I bought it in an airport for the flight back home but seriously could not possibly get through the first 15 pages. Now, I’m hearing that it’s really the first 30 pages that are hard to get through, and then it picks up. So that’s on my to-do list: get through the first 30 pages. I’m assuming everything else will fall into place after that.


5. Fill the blank pages of my current journal. I’m a sucker for the poetic symmetry of starting a brand new journal my first term in college. This is also necessary to do because I have so many empty journals waiting to be filled…a favorite being this journal package from Anthropologie.


6. DRIVE. As much as I can. Because it could very well be ages before I get behind a steering wheel again. Seeing as I won’t have a car while in college. And also because I need to get over this new phobia of going in reverse. Also because if I don’t drive I might forget where the defroster buttons are.


7. Google Map where I can buy laundry detergent. Note to self: don’t buy the individual packets of Tide that are only good for one load of laundry. Another note to self: Tide with Febreze is much better than Tide Original Scent.


8. Knit something. Anything. I really do want to get this whole knitting thing down, but once I know how to do it, it can actually be a really relaxing thing to do. But alas two months of summer have already passed and I haven’t yet picked up the knitting needles. But I did make a couple of these adorable citrus coasters, which I am quite proud of. And they were quite easy to make, too….


9. Stock up on shower gel. And razor blades. And Hello Kitty band-aids. Because I seriously do refuse to wear a typical band-aid when there are pink ones out there which are just as good.


10. Solve the mystery of the abandoned water-proof camera. So that past week has actually been quite busy planning and preparing for my trip to Costa Rica. And one of the many things we’ve had to do was buy these disposable waterproof cameras. So, how crazy is it that the very week I had to go out and buy three disposable waterproof cameras, I actually find within the depths of the many storage bins in my bedroom an abandoned disposable waterproof camera! And it was used! But this leaves many questions: what pictures are on this camera? When in the past did I possibly find a need for a waterproof camera? I can’t for the life of me figure this one out. Which will make it all the more interested when I go have the film be developed. :)

 

More later.

xx Marisol

Harry Potter + Bucket List #2

So, to cut to the chase July 15, 2011 was a really long day, starting at 12 :00 a.m. with the midnight showing of Harry Potter and ending, like all other days, at 2:47 a.m. the next day.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 was absolutely amazing. I’m no film critic, and I’m not even the biggest Harry Potter fan out there, but I thoroughly enjoyed the movie and went through a mild depressed state when I finally realized that I will never ever see a Harry Potter movie again with fresh eyes. But I really am glad I went to the midnight showing, even if it did mean having to get up really early to go camp counseloring. The movie theater lines were incredible. We got to the theater at around 9:30 and played a ton of iPhone Monopoly during the wait (I have since bought the app for my own iPod touch. Seriously, as a camp counselor I’ve played more Monopoly than I have in my entire life, but those games have been lacking in…well, the cutthroat moves and healthy anxiety of losing a cool $11 million).
But back to the movie: I personally thought it was well-handled and well-developed. The best of all eight films, in my opinion. And Alan Rickman’s performance was fabulous.

Bucket List #2: See all of Alan Rickman’s films. I mean, the guy really is amazing, and not just for playing the greatest hero in Harry Potter so well. A hopeless romantic, I cannot get over the fact that Alan Rickman (now 65) met his partner Rima Horton when he was only 19 years old and has been with her ever since.

So the movie was epic, and what made it even more epic was the fact that I got to walk (read: march) around in a Potter-esque cape at 2:30 in the morning while looking for my friend’s car in the parking lot.
But unfortunately the rest of the day did not go nearly as swimmingly as the early morning. On July 15 I passed a very upsetting but nearly inevitable milestone in life: I got into my first car accident. And so, as far as car accidents go, it was no big deal. No one was hurt thankfully, and no major damage was done, but I myself got pretty upset about it. Firstly, I was backing out of a freaking parking space. I mean really. Now I am forever afraid of going in reverse. Grrrr. But secondly I didn’t have my cell phone with me. So I couldn’t call my mom to tell her that my run to the library was going to turn into a 40-minute affair. Not having my cell phone also meant that I’d be dealing with everything all alone and on the fly. So I did learn a great deal about car accident protocol and playing phone-tag with the insurance people (you know you’ve hit it big when you’re playing phone tag with insurance people and student loan people at the same time).
In other news I received notice of my first paid assignment today! It’s exciting news for me, even if the one who assigned the project is my own mother!
What I Learned Today: It’s okay to do math in pen. Especially when it is for a college math placement exam that everyone fails anyway.
Happy last week of July!
xx Marisol

What I Learned Today: 7/12/11

As a camp counselor for five- to twelve-year-olds, I expect the unanticipated, the funny and the countless runs to the bathroom. But what one little five-year-old girl asked me today caught me totally off-guard. With the sweetest smile and the softest voice, she walked up to me out of the blue and asked me when I was going to get married. I guess when you’re five, anyone who’s a full 2 ½ feet taller than you looks old enough to be married. Being 18 and (you guessed it…) an incoming freshman in college, getting married isn’t really at the forefront of my thoughts. In fact, the last difficult decision I remember making was which quilt to buy for my dorm. I awkwardly answered, “Um, no. Not for a very, very long time.”

But then again, was marriage really that foreign to my mind? See, I arrive to camp a good fifteen minutes earlier than everyone else, and so obviously that time is wisely spent perusing the most recent tweets of Glamour magazine, @glamourdotcom. Just this morning I read an article about colorful stone engagement rings and another one about this week’s wedding dress style obsession. I can’t help but wonder now what was going through that little girl’s mind when she got the idea about me getting married. Was it me finding that Cinderella-like true love and starting a life with someone? Or was it me in the perfect dress, with the perfect hair, with a Barbie-doll smile?

In all, I’ve been perceived as someone in her mid-twenties a lot lately. Looks like I’m slacking on this whole aging business. :)

xx MD

Weekend + What I Learned Today

Well, this weekend was quite exciting.

For one thing, Derek Jeter got his 3000^th hit (and then some) on Saturday. And not only was it a hit, it was a home run. Props to you, Jeter; you did it with style. And so, though I’m a pretty steady Mets fan but a New Yorker all the same, I simply had to witness this moment in history for myself. I mean, this was probably something my kids will ask me about one day: where were you when Derek Jeter got his 3000th hit? My pretty awesome answer: in my living room, humming Katy Perry’s “Last Friday Night” and jumping up and down in excitement (but truthfully I was jumping up and down just to enjoy how bouncy my hair was after a fresh new haircut).

And little did I know this whole Derek Jeter thing would open the doors to a more expanded vocabulary!

What I learned today: In baseball, when a player hits for the cycle, he hits a single, double, triple and home run in a single game. See, Derek Jeter almost hit for the cycle in this famous game against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. He had a home run, a single and a double—all he needed was a triple.

On Sunday, among the many things we did, we made a visit to my future college to check out my dorm building! Having done a year and a half of college visiting, I know that all campuses are pretty in their own ways, so suffice it to say I felt very content walking along the tree-lined paths and greens and admiring the beautiful architecture (when college visiting, I also learned early on that all colleges “look like Hogwarts!” so need I really mention it?).

And what college visit is complete without another bagful of university paraphernalia? A lanyard, two car stickers and a t-shirt were among my loot.  :)

More tomorrow,

xx Marisol

Independence Day and Bucket List #1

I hope everyone out there had a fantastic Fourth of July. Unfortunately, our Independence Day ritual of meeting up with family friends by the pool was rained out :( but I was lucky enough to sneak in my fireworks viewing a couple days early, on Saturday, with some friends. I mean—what’s Fourth of July without fireworks?

But actually, really when you think about it the fireworks show was a Second of July celebration—and that’s how it always is when the fourth doesn’t fall on a weekend day. So on the Second of July I saw fireworks, and then the Third of July was supposed to be a big barbecue. What did I do on Fourth of July? Well…I slept in, for one. I watched Macy’s Fourth of July Fireworks show (seriously, how long have they been doing this? I thought they had Thanksgiving…but Independence Day, too?) I also had some of this addicting Asian Noodle Salad, so I’d call it a pretty successful day :)

So, while my friends and I were lying on the golf course lawn, watching explosion upon explosion of fireworks, an airplane passed overhead…which brings me to the first thing on my Bucket List:
Bucket List #1: Fly in an airplane on Fourth of July and watch fireworks from above.
So yes, the timing would have to be perfect, and the plane would have to be at optimal height to actually be able to see fireworks, but I think it’s definitely worth trying.

An Introduction

There really isn’t too much to say except that I wanted to start a blog…so I did. Having recently graduated from high school and looking forward to starting college in the fall, I realize I’ve never had this natural a break in my life as I do right now, so why not document it? It really is weird when you think about it. I can’t remember a summer where I wasn’t judged on how productive I was or how much volunteer work I did. And then there’s this whole college thing, a unique living situation in itself. Welcome to my personal blog—a blog following my life as a college student and legal adult.