I made Spring Break plans, Ronnie is on his way to visit, Katie asked me to be a bridesmaid....I couldn't be happier!

The past few days have seemed incredibly busy at work with tons of showings and trying to catch up on the zillions of Craigslist ads I previously posted and change them to reflect the changes in our rent specials!

Yesterday marked the first time Liz, Cait, Katie, and I were all here! We went over to Steph's place and watched the Bachelor (big surprise, lol) with Ashley H, Amy, April, and Mitch. It was a lot of fun and we ordered pizza for cheap! For those who don't know, you can sign up to receive online coupons from Toppers and immediately you'll get a $5 coupon, applicable to other discounts. So Katie, Cait, and I ordered a large cheese pizza and triple order of Toppers' Sticks on sale for $15, and with the $5 coupon, we only paid $10! Love it!

Thursday is our Board Game Night at Mirabel...I think it will be a huge hit since we are also buying pizza and refreshments for everyone! Ronnie will be able to come, which will be fun since I now know that he loves playing games (even though I'm not sure he's a huge fan of Clue or Monopoly like I am).

On to the more exciting news...

I am officially going to San Francisco for Spring Break! Of course, Mark lives out there and Beth will be visiting him and then leaving only days before I arrive! So it goes. I will be visiting Lauren, who I met while in Pylos, Greece. Hopefully her, Kelli, Amira, and I will be able to get together - but at this point it's just me heading out. I already bought my plane ticket, and was shocked that it was almost $100 cheaper to fly out of Milwaukee than Chicago. It set me back only $219, but it would have been $368 out of O'Hare! No thank you. She promised that we could do all of the touristy things as well as go out and have fun. She already warned me that the beaches would be a little cold, but they really couldn't be any colder than the beaches here! I am SUPER excited to go - this is the first time I have ever made Spring Break plans...ever!

Ronnie is coming out sometime today! He will be spending a majority of his time studying for the CPA Exam during the day while I'm working, but gosh, it will be so nice to see him!! He is such a wonderful person and I miss his company. There may even be a possibility of a double- or triple-date with Cait and Alex or Liz and Josh. Fun! I am sooo very excited to see him!

Also, I am very honored to be a part of Katie K's wedding! Her and Chris will be married August 14th at the Botanical Gardens - it will be be beautiful, but also very hot! As far as I know, Heather, Erica, and Chris's cousin will also be bridesmaids. Not having been in a wedding before, I am grateful to have Emily Post's Etiquette which Ronnie bought me for my birthday! I will have to work the next morning because August 14th and 15th, as an Madison student will tell you, are extremely busy days due to turnover. On the 15th I will need to be checking-in new residents and handling situations that arise. It will be nice to see the whole JSM staff in one place, but again, it will be extremely busy and EARLY!

I love my job!

I have never regretted taking this position at JSM (rather than applying for a job elsewhere once I graduate). Yesterday was the best day I've had yet!

We have been really pushing one of our properties because it had more vacants than we were comfortable with, and after many ads on craigslist and 4 unsuccessful applications, we finally got three that were accepted! I am so happy! These folks will love living with us :) Steve told Lisa and I to go have lunch on the company! So we went to Panera and enjoyed a nice break from the office. What a great day!

Liz and I then met at Dave and Bridgette's house where Katie was taking care of Wyatt and Finn. It was so good to see her and the boys. I wish that there was a way for her to live with Liz and I next year since she is such a great friend. I think I will ask at work whether or not this is an option. At the least, she is moving in this weekend before school starts :)

How busy life seems!

I can't help but feel a bit more busy now that I am beginning my real-life job tomorrow! I just finished bringing all of my things from home inside, and have spent the last half hour or so reorganizing my food in the pantry. Ha this is proving to be a very exciting night! Here are the things I hope to get done this week:

1. Take out garbage
2. Throw out things I don't use
3. Take keyboard tray off of desk
4. Vacuum room
5. Send books out to Kelli
6. Bring binder back to downtown office
7. Bring books back to professor
8. Return library books
9. Buy black shoes for work
10. Send card to Beth
11. Buy address book
12. Put holiday decorations away
13. Pick up prescription

I cannot wait until tomorrow! I have my outfit picked out already. I feel very lucky to work with Lisa - she is amazing! I have to admit though, sitting here by myself, I really miss Katie E. and Cait a lot! We were fortunate enough to have Katie stop by for a bit, but I haven't seen Keke since August. Beth is gone too, having graduated last month, but I know for sure that I will be seeing her in March (when I go to the MUSE concert!). I thought Liz would be home tonight, but I guess I'll have to see her and Allison sometime tomorrow.

Last night I was invited to Erica's 22nd birthday party, and I am really glad I went! It was nice to see her, Erika, Dianah, and Jenny in a non-awkward situation. I say that because the last few times we have gotten together, I haven't been able to feel comfortable. It is too bad that Katie doesn't get along with Jenny, because last night was a ton of fun and relaxed - I didn't feel like an outsider and spent the whole time dancing, laughing, and having a few drinks with some old friends. I had to bring an old school camera last night so the pictures will have to be taken in and put on a CD before I can upload them. :) Ronnie was a sweetheart and picked me up so that I wouldn't have to drive home. Whenever I return to Madison, I realize how much I miss having him around. He is so wonderful - I love him and always look forward to the next time we can see each other.

The end of fall semester

Wow. I cannot believe that I am only a five page paper and a Latin final away from being done with my final fall semester here at UW. In a little less than two weeks, Beth will be moving away to Chicago and Katie E might be moving in sooner than the date we had initially planned (January 15th). Caitlyn is also back from studying abroad and will be moving back in soon, which also means that Allison, perhaps the best subletter ever, will be leaving us. It is crazy to think that Beth is moving on to the real world in less than a month - I am really happy for her since it sounds like she got a job she wanted and will have her housing situation worked out soon!

As for me, I'm going home for break on Saturday and will return on January 3rd so that I can begin work as Sales and Marketing Manager for Mirabel and Muir Heights Apartments! I will have two full weeks of work before school starts, which will definitely help pay the bills :)

Only one semester left!

My thoughts on work

I truly do love my job. Of course, being well past the initial fear of showing apartments to total strangers when I may or may not have even been in a certain model or unit, certainly helps. I guess that I was kind of surprised to find out that one of our leasing consultants is no longer with the company as of today. This is the third person to quit in two weeks. I completely understand if one doesn't like the job - I mean, you really do need to be outgoing and enjoy sales. But, on the other hand, when you decide to take a job here when you have another job in the works...why bother taking this job? I am not going to discuss the merits of working at JSM versus other institutions, but it seems like a huge waste of time to train someone who may be intending to take another job offer.

Also, something was said at work that I disagree with completely. It was, "Yeah, well, it's each family's choice to decide [if it wants to pay for college or make their kids pay for it themselves]." I could not disagree more! Trust me, if it were my family's choice, I know my mom and dad would want to help out. But, because there really isn't a choice, finance school myself, with (a ton of) help from my scholarship. I guess that I thought it was a ridiculous thing to say, since not everyone comes from a wealthy background, and also not something to say in front of a group whose backgrounds are diverse.

April seems to have flown by

What a crazy, busy month this has been! I have been working my normal schedule at JSM, plus I decided to play bass guitar again for Humorology. We began practicing a bit later than we did last year, which means that the barrage of lengthy Humo practices seemed to blindside me. For the past few days I have been trying my best to do my homework during practices, since I have been waking up for class, then going to work, coming home to change, and then going to Humo until 11 or midnight. I am definitely looking forward to just hanging out tomorrow and doing nothing. I plan to sit down by the lakeshore path and get a nice tan, watch the boats, and maybe even go on a little canoe trip. We'll see. It's nearly 4:30am and I have Humo in about 25 hours. It will be the final show, so I might even go buy a new shirt to wear. We'll see.

I also had Relay for Life tonight, which made the night seem extremely long. I stayed until about 3am or so, because by then everyone else from APO had been gone for almost forty-five minutes or more.

I've been really thinking about Ronnie and I lately and what we "are." Techincally we're not dating, but we're not-not dating, so I guess you could say we're on a break. But what's a break? I'm not sure that I could define a break, since neither Ronnie nor I seem to be able to define it well. I've been trying to picture myself doing the things I like to do and aspire to do, and lately I'm having a hard time picturing him even wanting to do any of those things. Like going to the beach, hanging out at a bookstore or library, dancing, going out on the town, going on vacation, taking a road trip, and going to concerts/movies/performaces. It's not to say that we haven't done some of these things before, but we don't do them together nearly as often as I'd like. I guess that I'm just trying to be realistic. It's just taking a lot of time to sort everything out for myself, and I don't want to do anything rash just because I'm feeling lonely. Gosh I wish he'd come up!

Woot defines me

So today marks the start of my second-ever Woot-off. I have to admit that with all of the work I have to do, I am slightly less enthusiastic about impulsively spending my money on things I "need." Regardless, the HP touchscreen portable desktop (no, it's not a laptop) which is best described as "the giant mutant freak of iPhones" had a description that I feel fits me well:

"Are you like me? My home office isn’t an office at all. It’s just my favorite end of the couch in the common room, where the light’s good and the cushion’s broken in to fit my sittin’ parts."

Yeah. I like working in the living room. Is it because my room is messy? Probably. Is it because I never grew up with a desk in my room, have not once done homework in my room (with the exception of the dorms), and am really not used to it? Most likely. Thought I would share that.

I am in the midst of reading "High Noon" by Nora Roberts. An enthralling story, it has begun to wear on me. It is written in tiny font and has over 450 pages. If it were a movie, it would have to be divided into parts to get everything in. But, I guess, if it were a movie, most of the details would be left out anyway.

Today I posted showing notices with Cait (who came with to better learn the Mansion Hill area, despite not having to work today), and we stopped at Pinkus McBride Deli to get sodas. We were both excited to see that they offered a soda fountain, and I proceeded to fill my 32 oz. cup with Pepsi. Cait, however, went to get Mountain Dew and the fountain went crazy! None of the sodas worked! We thought that they might need to restock their carbonated water, and were surprised to learn that as a result of the city shutting of the water on that block, their machine would not function properly. I took this to mean that it must use tap water to mix with the soda syrup and create delicious fountain beverages. Trust me, Madison tap water will leave a film on anything, and I like to think that my stomach is ulcer-proof as a result of the protective coating of calcium it has established.

I think that when I graduate I would like to move somewhere warm. I love the southwest, and would love to live there (assuming I could find employment in such a location), but I still want to be near water. I love being able to ride my bike and go to the pretty, albeit stinky, lake. I guess what I'm saying is that I am tired of the cold.

JSM gets its 15 minutes!

The other day while distributing delicious candy-filled bags to potential residents on the corner of Charter and University for JSM, we were greeted by a company that sells shoes. Random, you say? Not exactly. Apparently the people that we met are traveling all over the world to get the word out about Tom's Shoes. They look to meet interesting people and take photos with them holding the Tom's Shoes shoebag and mini statuette (which they explained, but I cannot remember the significance of), and what could be more interesting than a giant red bird (Kelly), a duck (Jill), Kermit (Caitlyn), and his froggy lover (me)? Not much, I would argue. Here is the link to where we are featured on their blog. Below is the picture they took:

Shout-Out to being Shouted-Out

374. Thursday, Feb. 19, 2009 @ 2:09pm:

SO to the bunnies, reindeer and now elephants from JSM that have Bren giving out free food for the past few months. You have officially saved me from starvation. I hope your apartments stay empty so that you continue to feed me.

409. Thursday, Feb. 19, 2009 @ 5:44pm:

SO to upon seeing pink elephants on multiple street corners contemplating the probability of having accidentally dropped acid...

482. Friday, Feb. 20, 2009 @ 4:21pm:

SO to the person giant bunny on the corner of university and charter. how could i refuse you when you forced your bag of goodies into my hands?

And finally, this one might be about me and my unhealthy love of popcorn...

453. Friday, Feb. 20, 2009 @ 9:51am:

ASO to my roommate who uses a popcorn maker that is louder than the tv and vacuum cleaner combined! SO to her for being able to eat more popcorn than they produce at the movie theater.

Badger Herald - Madison, WI

Madison is my hot hot sex

Recently, things have been amazing! Since I'm helping out a MHR class at 11:30, I'm going to summarize why I've been so pleased:

• I feel like everyone at work is really starting to get how we do things. Leases seem to be running smoothly now, and my team is on top for the second week in a row!
• I am making bank with all of the leases I've gotten, despite showing a ton of properties on the east side :)
  
• Liz and I cleaned the common spaces (living room, kitchen, dining area) and it is a much more pleasant place to be.
• Someone put new batteries in the remote. Yay!
• I went to Wal-Mart with Liz and bought two movies for $5 each - Big Daddy and Along Came Polly, as well as a new package of socks, brake fluid, and plastic for the windows. mmmm....new socks....
• I nearly completed a crossword during class yesterday. The Herald features stumpers sometimes, and I rocked this one in the face.
• I put the plastic on my windows - energy savings here I come!
• I am making mashed potatoes for lunch
• I added brake fluid to my car all by myself in the dark!
• Beth's birthday is coming up
• I have no more exams until finals! And one of my finals is a take-home final!
  

And best of all....

• When I decided to watch Pirates of the Carribean: Curse of the Black Pearl, I noticed that this DVD, which I purchased at the DVD/Media Exchange store on State Street, had two discs: presumably a movie disc and a special features disc. I proceeded to place the disc which looked more like the actual movie into my PS2, though both had "Disc 1" printed on them. What happened? Well, it seems that my movie came with both the first AND second Pirates of the Carribean movies! Someone probably exchanged it and forgot to put the special features disc back in! Two movies in one case for $5 - amazing.
  

Skipping class to blog

Well, it seems that I've missed Troy class today. Oops. To be honest, we took an exam last Thursday and I am not particularly tempted to go find out what my grade is. Considering that the final is not cumulative, resolving my errors will be of little help for the final in December. Thus, I have resolved to update my blog, which I have neglected.

On a happier note, Sneak-A-Peek is tonight! I'm really excited about it since it's a good trial run for all of the new people, who seem to be nervous. I hope my team wins tonight because then we each get $25. That would be nice since rent is due on Thursday!

I'm really excited to sign up for classes since my schedule is going to be awesome! I made a critical mistake and misread my registration time; it is a full day earlier than I had originally believed. If everything goes according to plan, I will have one to two classes a day that would end at noon, and on Wednesdays I would have three classes, with two being longer powerlectures (1.5 hours each).

• SO to finding a class schedule that rocks
• ASO to having to take an ethnic studies class that focuses on Native Americans...

Well, it's about time that I go to Sneak-A-Peek!

Latin = Love

By far my favorite class has to be Latin. I'm still enthusiastic about it (whereas with Greek I was starting to become overwhelmed at this point) even though I swear a quarter of my class is freshman who had Latin in high school. For our last homework assignment we had to either create a paragraph in Latin or translate something into it. I took a risk and translated the first lines of Moby Dick, though I did struggle with the first line the most ("Call me Ishmael."). I was worried I would get some comment on the top saying that I should have stuck to something easier, but I was delighted to find that only my first line had been edited, and the word "excellent!" was written in purple marker at the top. I wanted to prove to my TA that even though I didn't have high school Latin I still understand how it works and what's going on in class. And I feel like I did so successfully. Yay!

This week has seemed to drag by. I'm excited to go home and see the dogs and my family. I'm also excited to see Ronnie, but I don't know how excited he is to see me. Hopefully things will be fine. I don't know what else to say about seeing him other than I'm getting restless and wish I knew what our futures hold.

Like I mentioned earlier, we renewed our lease, meaning that we won't be moving out until August 14th, 2010. It also seems that our football-playing neighbors won't be leaving anytime soon either - they also renewed their lease. Those guys are really nice (and at least 33% of them are without a shirt 88% of the time) and enjoy videogames as well.

This article is ridiculous and about how UW tries to ensure that athletes will graduate on time: Wisconsin State Journal. It also lists entrance ACT scores for athletes and regular students: ridiculous.