word to the wise...

I have only pulled three all-nighters so far this year and all three have been for non academic related reasons. Applications don't really count as school work.

I'm on the tail end of my all nighter right now. I've been up since class on Monday morning and I will be up at least until Valeria gets all of her stuff moved in to my apartment tonight. I'm getting a housemate and an extra cat at least until her apartment gets inspected. I think that the company will be nice and from what I understand it's just for tonight, but I definitely don't have my apartment in any condition to receive guests. I also know Jeff will probably want to sleep over on Friday so I hope that I don't end up with too many housemates! I just realized and by just I mean right now realized that I was going camping this weekend. If Jeff is coming, there's no way I can actually go. I wouldn't miss him coming into town for the entire world, hiking or not. I am sure that it will be worth it.

In other news, I really have been happy with the way life has been going recently but I hope that I don't end up overextending myself in the wrong directions. I mean that on a variety of levels. On the plus side, there are a lot of really cool people who have recently come into my life and new fun people are always a positive thing. On the other hand, I've been getting a lot done in my one-on-one time with myself and I really hope that I can keep it up at least for a little bit longer. Another week or two of being really productive and I will be on the top of the world.

Speaking of the world, I have been trying to figure out what I want to do for Fall break. I'm considering driving up and spending time with Miranda but I would only want to go if I had some company on the road. Finding people to go and do things with me is always the hard part. I know mom won't let me drive all the way up there by myself. You know how moms can be. Maybe I'll convince someone to come with me. Someone delicious who will enjoy Miranda and Brown.

reflecting on thanksgiving

Well, I guess that in the line-up of holidays, this one was mediocre, but still, there was something worth thinking about. The trek for me was longer this year than most....usually we hold all of the major family holidays in my hometown, where my grandparents and mom still live, even though the other two parts of the family are other places in Virginia, but this year we went to Charlottesville. I guess since my grandmother died last year, they were trying to do things differently. Driving 3 hours home only to turn around and drive 3 hours (picking up my grandpa and taking the back way to Charlottesville) for the lunch only to do it all over again in reverse was not much fun. The interesting thing, for me at least, was finally sitting down with the two cousins I am closest in age with and laughing about how we all felt the same way, even though we never get to talk about it.

My one female cousin and I are the exact same age and have a lot of common interests and have always gotten along quite well. The interesting thing is that she's adopted, so our getting along and having things in common has nothing to do with us actually being related. Maybe that's the reason that she and I never really feel like we're in competition with each other...but for years her parents have always taunted my mom with all of her accomplishments in an attempt to get some sort of reaction...some sort of battle of resumes...in order to determine who has a better daughter. I have always thought it was ridiculous. This Thanksgiving she, myself, and our older cousin Drew laughed about how it's the same way for all of us. It never was something we really talked about before....but even though we're all 21 and older now, we all still sit at the "kid's table" so it gave us a chance to talk things over. They've all been doing it for years, "rewriting history," as Drew put it, in order to, I guess, teach the younger kids a "lesson" and make themselves feel good about the parenting they did with those of us who have and are graduating from college. We got fed up and went to the store and got beer. That is something I've been wanting to do with my family for years. Thank goodness for having family that I actually will look forward to seeing for Christmas. Maybe it's a generational thing. Maybe this will be one of the last years we'll all do Thanksgiving together. Once my grandfather dies, we probably will have little reason to all get together, so maybe it's good that I finally found something to enjoy in the holidays. If nothing else, I found out that our disdain for the way our family competes with each other over us is something that we all have in common, if nothing else.

Compared to my "usual" posts, this one is rather boring, but I guess that makes sense since I'm home. I always feel a little less "myself," or interesting, while I'm here. I head back to school tomorrow, I think. I can't wait.