busted face.

so this weekend was GORGEOUS-- perfect weather, just awesome. i decided it would be a good time to try riding my new bike, and it was. it was fun, and i really enjoyed it, until i lost control and flew face first into a brick mailbox. i was home alone so no one was around to come get me, my face was bleeding a lot, and i had to carry my busted bike like 6 blocks home. it sucked. i had ice on it all saturday and some ice on it yesterday and it's better, but it still hurts a lot and i feel like i look really busted. i have a dr's appt at 3 20 to have it checked out and i really hope i get a painkiller or two. it does't really super hurt right now, but still. thank god my older sister was there to listen to me and offer icing/advil advice!

at the moment, i am really sleepy. effexor? possibly. *yawn*

so here's a picture of me being sad and in pain. just for your viewing enjoyment:

anyway, that's really all i have to report. i had a good sat. dinner with jessica at my favorite place, Barnaby's, but i had to go home early because my nose was beginning to swell again.

in other news, who wants to drive to galveston with me this wkend? i feel like it's beach time.

3 posts in one day! wow!

tim my friend, i didnt know you had a blog! and thank you for commenting-- i appreciate it! i am stealing your game:
Game 1.0
Here're the rules: I get a point for each category that I do each day. We'll see how I do for the next week.
The categories are:
Think
Create
Learn
Move
Friends
Music
Challenge
Opportunity

today (since it's only 1 pm, we'll put what i plan to do today into account as well)
think: read jezebel and wondered why is every young person voting for obama? wtf am i missing here? i just dont really love him. hillary...i dont know.
create: 2 blog posts today! and i wrote some emails...does that count?
learn: lots of things, i read many blogs each day
move: not much yet, but i plan to ride my bike later
friends- chatted with a few people via gchat, plan to visit nessa at 3ish
music- am re-discovering tori's Scarlet's Walk
challenge- god, just getting up this morning? i was very very tired
opporunity- to be a good person, and i'm bringing nessa chicken soup because she is sick.

how's that for the first day of the Game?

today in pictures

ok, onto the pictures! the first is me driving in my sound of music sweatshirt. some of you know this sweatshirt-- it's from a sohompre high school performance of sound of music (it was terrible but the sweatshirt is awesome). i always wear it when im tired or not planning on going anywhere (here, i am just running out to dog sit). i wore it in college A LOT. its very comfy and kind of like a security blanket, you know?
anyway. the next pictures are the dogs i dogsit! the first one is Rocky-- he's a boxer. i love him because he's so cute! look at those eyes...

this is ginger-- she's CRAZY and runs around all over the place

<--aww murphy! so cute! she is the oldest and precious. very sweet.
below is murphy getting out of the way of rocky and ginger play fighting.

i loved the sky yesterday! this is the sky with the mormon temple near my house in front of it.

the sky as i drove home from work. (the last 2 are of me, today, in my office)

comfortably numb

hello all. this is going to be a bullet-point style blog of things, because my attention span is not very large right now.
- my coworkers shooting darts in the cubicle next to me doesn't even bother me
- i am sort of spacey and numb, like i'm floating on a cloud today. there is a reason for that.
- i had a really, really, REALLY bad weekend that involved going a little crazy and a lot of crying for no reason (well there are some reasons). thank you everyone who was there for me and who listened and offered advice. it helped A LOT.
- i am lonely. i'd love to hang out with people more but it's hard-- i have so much free time and other people don't. well i just want you all to know that for anyone, anywhere, not just me-- just a friendly call, or email, to say "hi, i was thinking about you" goes a LONG way. it's something that i try really hard to remember because it can mean so much.
- my cats are great, btws. a little destructive of the house (they've broken 2 glass hurricanes that had candles in them that my mom had on the dining room table, whoops) but none the less they are great and adorable.
- no new news from grad school. i will know prob. by march 7th or so at the latest. the suspense was killing me, but not anymore.
- i have decided i need some new projects. one of them will be to take a picture of myself and 1 other thing every single day and post it up here. starting today. (in a new post)
- weight watchers is going pretty well. i didn't do so hot this wkend, but eating crazy things helped my mood so it's kinda a trade off...
- i bought a bike yesterday. and even though i put the seat all the way down, my feet still can't reach the ground. it's been so long since i'd ridden a bike that i had trouble getting started and my mom LITERALLY had to hold the handlebars and push me along like i am 4. then i started going fast down the driveway and was like "whoawhoa MOOOM whoa help!" as she laughed hysterically behind me. i need training wheels.


- ok, so let's address why nothing bothers me anymore. i decided the anxiety i've had for the past couple months (aka years) was coming to a head and i needed help. my Dr. gave me effexor yesterday and i started it then. the effects shouldn't be felt until what, like 2 weeks? but he also gave me ambien to sleep and i still feel numb because of that. not sleepy, just slow and numb. but not anxious, nor am i really unhappy, or super lonely anymore.
i was feeling anxious (shocking) about my decesion to get back on anti depressants (i was on them for about a year or so in 03-04) because of how anti depressants are stigmatized: you are either crazy so you need them, or you are overmedicating because you just need to chill out. while i agree people are way overmedicated and i dont want to feel numb, i also dont want to feel panic-y and i dont want to be that person who is always neurotic on the phone and it's like "what's the crisis for today?" you know? i hate feeling numb but i'm going to do my best to find the balance between non anxious and numb.
i'll let you know how it goes.

ps-- who reads this blog? my bff, mikey, admitted to not reading it. it made me kinda sad, because do i have much of a readership? i think there's 4 of you?

Karen's Guide to Surviving Hangovers

having had some drinks in my day (and by some drinks i mean gotten blackout drunk on MANy occasions...what? i went to college), here is my Guide to Surviving A Hangover.

Step 1-- Don't drink so damn much! geez, alchy! calm it down!

if step 1 is not an option or you are always wasted, proceed to step 2.

Step 2: drink as much water at the bar as you can. get your friends to shove it down your throat, whatever, just get some water!

Step 3: DO NOT DRIVE. i say this very hypocritically but really, you could hurt yourself, others, and a DUI just fucking sucks. DON'T DO IT!

Step 4: get thee to an eatery. it can be a diner, McD's, tacos, whatever-- just EAT something! in fact, eat as much as you can without getting sick. and drink WATER.

Step 5: try to take some advil before your pour yourself into bed. keep the advil and a tall glass of water by your bed-- you're going to need it later.

Step 6: drunkenly wake up sometime in the early morning (7, 8 am). drink an ENTIRE glass of water and take 3 advil.

Step 7: GO BACK TO SLEEP. this step is VERy crucial so you can feel like the floor isn't spinning anymore

Step 8: sleep as late as humanely possible, and only wake up when your head isn't splitting in half and you must get food.

Step 9: get something to eat-- preferably something that's not too too heavy but nothing light. most people go for fast food, and that seems to work well. if you can, get a SODA of some kind. that always seems to help

Step 10: TAKE MORE ADVIL (keep in mind you can take 2-3 every 4 hours, so try to stay somewhat in those perameters).

Step 11: take it easy. try not to get too upset about how much of an effing idiot you were at the bar last night. and try to, next time, not drink so much okay?

This Message Has Been Brought To You By: the fact that Karen was a drunken effing crazy on saturday night, and while she will still go out with friends anytime, there will be no more crazy alcohol comsumption. because really, it's dangerous, and not good for me, and i drive home long distances, and act like a stupid crazy person. so we're going to chill on that for a while

YAY! PURDUE UNIVERSITY said YES!

YAY! i got into Purdue University for grad school! this is what the email i received today said:

"Dear Karen - I am pleased to be able to tell you that the graduate admissions committee in American Studies at Purdue has recommended your for admission to the M.A. program. You will be receiving official notification from both the program and the Graduate School soon.

In the meantime, we are working on possible funding packages for you. One of the areas we are looking at is a possible teaching assistantship in the Women's Studies program. They require students to complete an application and other materials. The application is will be available soon on-line at the following URL: http://www.cla.purdue.edu/womens-studies/graduate/assist_app.cfm. Once the application is available, I will notify you and have you complete it. You can then send it directly back to me so I can compile the other information they need.

We are also pursuing the possibility of a teaching assistantship in the Department of History. As I stated above, we will be back in touch soon with more information. Congratulations and I look forward to hearing from you!"

YAY! i wrote back this gibbering email saying thank you like 10 million times! great news! Purdue is in West Layfayette, Indiana. it's less than 2 hours from chicago and less than 1 hour from indianapolis (where my aunt, uncle and cousin live, which is awesome). Purdue is a great school, i had some wonderful responses from profs there, and the living expenses are CHEAP. plus it looks pretty:

so let's take a closer look at this school....the mascot is the Boilermakers, wtf? it's a train, and a "Purdue Pete" (aka someone in a crazy mascot uniform) acts like the conductor, or "boilermaker". unfortunately the purdue website is hard to navigate so that's one strike against it. the colors are black and gold (not bad). this is what it says about history: "Founded in 1869 and named after benefactor John Purdue, Purdue University began its journey with six instructors, 39 students and a mission to provide agriculture and mechanic arts education." there's about 5 campuses (i'd go to the main one, in west layfayette) with 70,000 students overall and 40,000 at the main campus (nice change from skidmore's 2500 people, thats for sure). it's in the top 10 for football, and apparently the "Big 10" thing was the president of Purdue's idea in the late 1800s. it's quite cold and snowy but NOTHING compared to saratoga. (and i miss snow so that's nice). it is 17 hours from my house, and i will have to travel 1061.75 miles to get there from Houston.

alright! this concludes (mostly) your (and my) lesson on Purdue! (to the left is an aerial shot of the campus)

so we have 3 more schools and 4 programs total to hear from (umassBoston, william&mary, and UT for american studies and women's studies). UT is still my #1 school, so we'll see. i kind of feel like it's a marriage proposal to each school-- kansas turned me down but purdue said yes!

purdue does have many great things going for it, and whatever happens-- i will be a grad student in 2008 somewhere! HOORAY! three cheers! HIP HIP HOORAY :)

new kylie minogue is great

hello world. doing the bored at work so i'm blogging thing again, and can i just say that im really ready for a long hiatus of my job? it's not any fault of my job, really, i am just really ready to take a break and go somewhere and play for a while. i bought a plane ticket to nyc in May, which is GREAT (2 weeks of debauchery and fun in the city, boston, marshfield MA, portland ME and freeport ME, possibly saratoga?) but it's also 15 1/2 weeks away (i just counted). at least i have smaller goals (i.e. weight watchers) in the meantime. but it's still a long ways away!
("ways away" is that even correct? where did that phrase come from?)

so i had the bright idea that downloading tv shows on my ipod and only watching them at the gym would be great motivation, right? well it's not working. what i have learned is that i need driving techno music at the gym to match my steps to-- when i try to watch tv i slow down so i can watch more carefully (plus the ipod screen is tiiiiiinnnnyyyy). so that great idea doesnt really work-- but watching the shows when i have 30 min left of work and im BORED and antsy could work :) sneaky. oh and my fav and almost only music i can listen to at the gym? daft punk's discovery. i prob. would just cancel my gym membership w/o it-- on friday it actually induced me to RUN. i cant remember the last time i ran w/o being chased...come to think of it, i can't remember the last time i was chased...

random gossip/celeb tidbit: ive never been any kind of fan of heidi montag but i just watched her video for her hideously bad song "higher" and omg. heidi, we are laughing AT you, not with you. jesus.

that's pretty much all i've got lately. until next time...

ps- mark down a NO from univ. of kansas. i'm trying to pretend like im not totally bummed but boo. :( i have 4 schools left to hear from but its hard not feeling like it may be a NO from all of them