Switching gears

After having lived abroad for over a year now, I've had a chance to travel a lil' bit here and there. So here's to re-living those experiences and making sure they're well-documented before I forget.

Cheers!

DNA

I need genetic testing to determine whether I am adopted.

Shrinking?

Ever since coming back from Malaysia, I seem to have been losing a little bit of weight. Shocking! Even more shocking because I have not put forth any concerted to try and lose weight, but when I have tried (with little consistency) it hasn't worked.

I didn't even notice until I tried on these jeans, which before used to suffocate my thighs and calves, and found that they were loose!



I've got several hypotheses about this sudden weight loss. It must be that food here is so off-putting compared to the delicious and superior food I had for nearly a month that I haven't eaten as much as I used to. Plus, I don't force myself to finish everything anymore; I realize that portions in America are simply too big for my body. Lastly, without getting too graphic, I take a dump way more than I used to--like once a day or every other day. It must be a good thing, right? I've usually only gone once every couple of days, and that is when I presume I was eating more! On that same note, I think I am going a lot more because I just drink, drink, drink--a lot.

Thanks to my trusty new Stanley thermos cup, I have been taking advantage of the green tea supplies at work and and end up drinking all shift. As a result, I unwittingly skip what usually would be a cafeteria dinner and hold off on eating until I get home every night!

I hope these habits keep up, because I am horrible at achieving my goals and give up too easily.

The Last Year

My senior year just commenced, and I can't believe I find myself on this part of the journey already. I feel excited and anxious, nervous about whether I will be able to pull off this semester with good grades and a worthwhile experience.

On top of 30+ hours of work at the hospital, I have got 4 classes, and a 10-15-hour internship per week at Ascend Alliance, a humanitarian, non-profit organization headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah. Ironically, I feel dubious, not about my abilities to time manage this semester, but about whether I will even have enough time to accomplish everything and have time to take a five-day vacation to San Diego and Las Vegas over fall break.

By semester's end, I will need to have accumulated at least 160 internship hours.

Furthermore, I hope to take finals early so that I can head to Malaysia for a three-week vacation, which means that I've got to complete my internship requirements within a very compressed amount of time.

"Ah, summer, what power you have to make us suffer and like it."

Except, I don't like summer. But it's all that's been on my mind lately. I have been scrambling to find things to do, internships to intern at; I spend every spare moment I have speed applying for every corporate internship I can think of. Thus far, I have only received two replies, and both internships are based in Utah. At this point, I could care less where my internship is located, or even that it's in Utah. Staying here over the summer would minimize financial and re-location stress, but of course, I will always wonder about the wonderful internships outside of Utah I might have enjoyed more.

Things are not all drab, though. The one internship here that I am pinning my hopes on is at Mutual of Omaha, an insurance/financial-type company. The position is one of a financial planner/analyst-type thing. The recruiter mentioned something about outbound, non-sales calls to inform clients of financial products, but she mentioned something about handling clients' assets/finances. So I will be very excited if I get this, because I have always wanted to handle people's assets, but never thought that there was really any market for such a position, considering all people really talk about in the financial world is i-banking, accounting, brokering, and so on. My hope is that having this relatively big-name company on my resume will ease the job search post-graduation. The recruiter even said that if they like me as an intern I may be hired on permanently, and this company has offices nationwide, including in New York. *Fingers crossed*

For the First Time...

I feel quite productive. I lengthened two pairs of pants and fixed an unraveled hem on one of my skirts today. On top of that, I wrapped a bunch of Christmas presents and just started the wash. (Shit, that doesn't sound like much in retrospect.) This break I am taking advantage of all the time I've got, rather than pretending that it's going to be as long as it feels, because school breaks always fly by.

I work the next couple of days, so I have had to pen things in my planner to ensure stuff gets done before Matt and I's real vacation to San Diego on the 26th. I say "real" because despite not flying (as we'd hoped we would), we will be staying at a nice hotel in the middle of the city (rather than his grandparents'; they moved to a nursing home a few months ago), and we planned for this 5-6-day vacation to be, well... a vacation. All our previous visits to San Diego have been so short we'd barely spend more than one full day there, and we were in Santee (a suburb of SD) most of the time. I think most of those "vacations" were spent driving than actually vacationing. Despite expecting to visit Seattle/Vancouver, I'll take whatever I can get.

On my agenda this upcoming break is to search for and complete internship applications, finish my study abroad application, sell some clothes on eBay, and download lots of music.

What I hope to continue doing is not spend money on outside food if I am by myself. This has helped my finances considerably, considering how much I dropped last week on presents.

Wishing everyone a safe and happy Christmas. Hope you have a good new year, too!

A Few Things

Firstly, I realized today (bit late) that I must be an economics major because I detest inefficiency. I hope I hate it enough that I will work to combat it as a working professional. Mainly, I realized this today because I had bought nearly a dozen rolls of assorted ribbons for my cousin's upcoming wedding (this Labor Day weekend, in fact), fully aware that most of them would be brought back to the store for a refund. In my mind, buying more than was needed would save multiple trips to the store to buy additional things to compare and contrast. Why not just buy everything we may potentially need/like for the wedding and bring all the unused supplies back after it's all over?

Without asking my permission, and without any of the receipts which I had so methodically saved, she decided to return all of them to the store, only to receive in-store credit. But of course in-store credit didn't bother her in the least, because "you can always use the in-store credit when you shop at Walmart" and "it was on the way [to wherever she was going, presumably]." This is annoying because my original plans were disrupted, not by any uncontrollable circumstance, but simply because my mother didn't have the sense to consult me first (not to mention that I don't want goddamn in-store credit). Communication, people.

Secondly, it only hit me the evolutionary significance of eyelashes since I began using contact lenses again. It is such a pain in the ass to nudge those things onto your eyes. Removing them, however, is not nearly as much of a hassle but is still not enjoyable. I've worked with the contact lenses a few times already and am still not getting the hang out it.

Finally, it just feels a lot better to give than to receive. I think most people acknowledge this and do mean it, but rarely actually feel fully satisfied and fulfilled from doing it. Maybe I say this because truly giving is something I don't do too often, and usually the greatest satisfaction comes from giving to the people that mean the most. There is underlying reciprocity in all of this, of course. This point is probably getting a bit cliche.