The Moral of the Story...?

When I think about the conversations I have been having recently, it becomes all the more apparent that I am officially not only in a different life stage but also preparing for transition into yet another one. I'm finishing college soon, and looking toward what comes next. Friends and I have talked in all seriousness about the state of the economy. Stories about weddings are personal and in not only present but also past tenses. Life decisions become more imminent.
Right now I am coming to terms with the idea of applying for work in Japan. Hopefully I can get a job there. The demand for teaching jobs is supposedly high but one can't always rely on hearsay to be reliable. There are a couple issues with moving to Japan that I will probably expand on later. But there are other implications. Moving to Japan, an entirely different country. With Paul. Even if we are there with two good friends (one is definitely looking to go, the other is more tentative.) it has serious connotations. I'm not afraid of serious connotations, but it does put me in the early stages of The Rest Of My Life. It would be exciting, if it wasn't so serious.
Okay, it is kindof exciting.

Heigh-ho, Content!

How do I know when I am procrastinating? When it is one thirty in the morning and I am making lunch for tomorrow, washing all my bedsheets, reorganizing my books, locating studs in my wall for shelves, and becoming overly concerned that my blog is more or less lacking in any real content. And none of that is hyperbole. My mattress cover is currently tossing in the dryer, lunch is in the fridge, my bookcase is more efficient than ever, and I am sitting here typing.
In my defense, yesterday I was struck down with a very sudden and incapacitating fever. I was jittery and freezing whilst burning up and aching all over. It was weird, considering I don't get impressively sick very often. It dogged me all night, blinding headache and active sinuses thrown in to the mix as well. Then quite suddenly in the wee hours the fever broke and twenty four hours later I sit here perfectly fine with nothing to show for it except a nose that is not quite decisive enough to be stuffy.
On the positive side it's been warm lately. All the way up into the forties. We are pretty excited. Any day in winter where one can get away with only one jacket is cause for celebration. My window is even open. Astounding.
In other news, I have started searching for a roommate for next year. It's troublesome. Everyone thinks they are neat and not insane. How does one screen for such things? I have a prospect in one of Paul's friends which turned out well last time. Unfortunately the first year up here turned out so awesome that it's hard to deal with situations that aren't as perfect. Not everyone can be Sarah, Anais, and Cambria. It ruined me for all subsequent non-ideal living situations. So it's either Paul's friend, or an internet random. Randoms right now consist of a female grad student or a guy who prefers living with females.
I'm really craving a kitten. I miss having furry entities around.

Recent Distractions

A break from school. It has been amazing. Finals was so pressure packed and when everything was done I was so relieved that when I got back to the apartment I dumped everything on the floor, kicked it in distracted revenge, then wandered back downstairs and began walking around the hill picking up sticks. I went up and down the stairs multiple times until I had a sizable pile. There was actually a point to this since Paul and I had been using his fireplace lately but had mixed success with the initial lighting stages. Therefore I decided to gather kindling. Then I cleaned out my notebooks and made a pile for tinder. It was very satisfying.
Tomorrow he is taking me skiing, in theory, but it means that I have to find appropriate clothes and wake up in time to get picked up. We'll see. I'd like to do the outdoors thing more often.
In other news, does anyone else find onomatopoeia in other languages as interesting as I do? There are some adorable shirts here. Not that I can afford shirts these days.
Also, with Natalie's marriage looming large on my horizon I have been looking at a lot of wedding stuff. In my travels I (or maybe Rachel?) found some aggressively adorable wedding toppers. There are the skinny funny birds, and the little round wooden people.

And yea, I am undone.

Today, in the midst of cleaning and fiddling on the computer, I started watching A Walk to Remember. This is a movie from which I got a very morbid message from the first time I watched it. I laughed often and poked holes in the logic all over, especially when he bought her a star. Didn't they do any research? That whole thing was a scam!
And yet, I have apparently grown disastrously soft. I thought it was cute the first time around, I wouldn't have watched it again if that wasn't true. However this time I got misty eyed. It's not the same when I am not labouring under the false impression he is building her a coffin. A telescope is so much more mundane. And instead of laughing at the star and the state line, I flinch or ignore it.
Gah! What has become of me? The high school "me" would probably be bored or annoyed with my current state.
And worse still? I plan to watch The Notebook. It looks spunky and cute.
I still think the books are insipid though. There's no covering for bad writing and they aren't ridiculous like Twilight so there is nothing to recommend them.

Cite your sources!

On facebook there is an application called "flair".
You can send little buttons to people, of varying quality (both buttons and people, I'd guess), and they place them on a little corkboard on their profile. It's cute and I get addicted to looking new ones up. A cute one has a picture of Andrew Jackson on the $20, and says, "Irony is Andrew Jackson on a central bank note"
Sometimes I come across particularly atrocious ones. Such as one claiming Patrick Henry said "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it".
Which is almost always attributed to Voltaire.
Which was actually said by Evelyn Beatrice Hall.

In other news: I Love BBC and NOVA! Archaeology class is much more entertaining than expected.

I Am Afraid

That this movie will be every bit as bad as it looks.
And as bad as the books were.
And that I will watch it.
And like it anyway.

"I stopped reading [the book] when it said, 'Even in the rain he looked like he was in an underwear commercial.'"

– Twilight star Robert Pattinson, on why he initially thought he wasn't right for film's romantic lead, to EW

And Now We Shall See.

Our aim is not to do away with corporations; on the contrary, these big aggregations are an inevitable development of modern industrialism, and the effort to destroy them would be futile unless accomplished in ways that would work the utmost mischief to the entire body politic. We can do nothing of good in the way of regulating and supervising these corporations until we fix clearly in our minds that we are not attacking the corporations, but endeavoring to do away with any evil in them. We are not hostile to them; we are merely determined that they shall be so handled as to subserve the public good. We draw the line against misconduct, not against wealth.
Theodore Roosevelt, State of the Union address (2 December 1902)

Today is a special day. No matter what, there would have been something special about it. A woman VP, a black president, or a third party actually winning.
I didn't support either of the two frontrunning candidates. There was too much with each of them that I couldn't stomach. I thought my mind was made up, but when I stepped into the voting booth I just couldn't fill in the bubble. I gave my support to the Libertarians. Had I known Ron Paul was endorsing a candidate I would have chosen him.
This has been an interesting election and I am excited for what will happen. And, of course, nervous.
Good Luck, America!