Blood is Thicker than Water

Meet My World

What greater thing is there for human souls than to feel that they are joined for life - to be with each other in silent unspeakable memories.

- George Eliot

The Best 3:06 Minutes

**Don't mind the bullets. Blogger was being a bugger and wouldn't let me insert paragraphs. Naturally, I couldn't stand for that. **

• I go through phases.

• There was that phase in 8^th grade where I started wearing makeup, applying everything shiny, silvery, sparkly…apparently anything starting with an “s” and ending in “y,” which was only a little bit worse than the pluck-your-eyebrows-till-you-have-none phase that occurred not much later.

• Then follow my phases of (in no particular order) vegetarianism, scrapbooking, painting, sketching, crocheting, cream of wheat, poetry, running, saving the planet, yoga & pilates, Buddhism, etc.

• Now, I still do all of these things from time to time. I simply classify them as phases because when I did get into these…oh my goodness, did I get into these. It’s like 8^th grade Jaimie that can never get enough of shiny silver metallic lipstick.

Evidence of some phase products:

• One of the biggest phases I continually go through is in music. I get annoyed for other people on my behalf when this happens. Honestly. When I like a song or a band, I won’t stop listening to it. It’s ridiculous, really.  I even have a playlist on my iTunes titled “Best,” and that is where my current obsession is always placed until the next great discovery.  

• Some of the songs I look back on and equate with my sparkly early teens glamour phase, but others are always gonna be good.

• Last night I found my most recent phase. I don’t even know what it’s titled, but I heard it first on a Louis Vuitton commercial and googled the artist down. His name is Gustavo Santaolalla and his work is magnificent.

That's 41 plays since midnight. Like I said, ridiculous.    

• This morning I blended some phases and did yoga/meditation while listening to this song. Amazing.

• So after I learn everything there is to know and buy a bunch of stuff I won’t put to full use, I share. Even if people don’t want to hear it, I tell them--often in extensive detail--about my latest phase. 

• Hence this post.

• Here's a link to the commercial with the song if you're interested. The commercial itself is great, and I typically only say that one Sunday of the year. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5xCGZuvhWI  

• You can also get it for free on iTunes. Just search "Louis Vuitton Film Music." 

• P.S. I buy all my music, but not really for ethical reasons. So if someone knows how I can download some of Santaolalla's music that would fit the needs of a poor college student (i.e. free), you might be my new favorite phase.  

Time-Wasting & Barbie Face-Making

I have a problem. Well, I have a lot, but many of my negative qualities go around masquerading as quirky strengths, for my own amusement if nothing else. This, however, needs to be confronted without rose-tinted glasses.

I am...

A Perfectionistic Procrastinator.

It’s a bother, really.

I somehow manage to do everything under the sun except for what needs to get done.

*Some may recall my very first blog post where this presented a problem as well.

Example:

Since Friday, my plans for the weekend included two necessary tasks—cleaning my room and studying for my Spanish exam/completing Spanish workbook.

Since Friday I have done a lot of stuff, none of which have included these.

By Friday I say "It doesn’t matter." Procrastinator.

By Saturday I say, “I can do it tomorrow.” Procrastinator.

By Sunday morning I say “I’ll do it in the afternoon…” Procrastinator.

And so the story follows until we are now at Sunday evening. Oh, it’s still going to get done. I will study for my exam and do my Spanish workbook, AND I will get an “A” with a clean room because…the Perfectionist kicks in.

This has been my Sunday, and how my line of thinking goes to put off such necessary tasks:

Wake up.

Think…

“Oook, today I need to study. Ugh, it’s only 7:41.”

Go back to bed.

Wake up.

Think…

“I need to study."

Walk in to closet to put clothes on.

“But I should clean my closet first. I’m hungry.”

Eat breakfast.

“I have all day.”

Try to watch Bucs game.

Fail.

Watch The Office instead.

Read.

Look up picture mom sent to email.

“I should finally put up pics from my trip.”

Facebook (I’m not actually gonna say “facebook” for all the times I was on today, because that’d be a waste of space, and also a little embarrassing).

Make a recycling poster for our kitchen

Rake

Kill a spider

Read NY Times articles on iPhone

Eat lunch

Watch SNL

Oh my goodness, this is rather tedious actually.

So fast-forward to the most time-wasting thing I did today, which actually prompted this post…

**The most wasteful and useless matters happen as what I really need to complete gets closer and closer.**

Run face recognitions on MyHeritage.com. Face, face, face.

“Jessica Alba, she’s pretty.”

Google images: Jessica Alba

“Soo pretty. I think she looks better with lighter hair. I wonder what I would look like with lighter hair.”

Google: Hairstyle photo upload

Mess around with photo. Dye hair (virtually).

“Ew.”

Make Barbie Jaimie.

And so…here is my before and after:

Before: Jaimie the Time-waster 

After: Jaimie the Barbie

And it only took blonde hair, plucked eyebrows, pink blush, coral lipstick, and blue colored contacts. Ha.

 *If you look closely, you may be able to see that I also googled "perfectionistic procrastinator" to see if such a thing existed. Despite the fact that "perfectionisitic" isn't actually a word, I do have fellow PPs out there.

And I think it’s safe to say I will never go blonde.

Now that I’ve done one more time-wasting thing by posting this, I might have to do work.

It may take staying up a little late and waking up a little early, but I’ll deliver that “A” and my room will be clean come tomorrow afternoon.

Yours truly,

Perfectionistic Procrastinator.

Welcome to the New

Originally my blog was created to keep friends and family up to date on my summer travels.  Since I’ve been home, though, people have asked why I stopped. I said to one of my friends, “Why would I keep writing? I’m home,” to which he replied, “Why not keep writing? You’re home.”  That could be an entirely valid argument, or entirely illogical, but either way I decided that I’d keep writing beyond my travel adventures.

So here’s the continuation of my life at a time of stationary complacency (for the time being) in the little town of Monmouth, OR.

Current Status: Full-time student looking for part-time job.

Confession: Financial status leads me to steal food from my mom’s house.

Missing: Best friends, Ireland, summer.

Being a transfer student is only cool when you’re from another country (which I guess technically makes you an exchange student), or at least from a really cool school, and who’s gonna do that? So is being a transfer student ever actually cool? No.

Being a transfer just means you get to mess with credits and most likely stay in college longer than planned (especially for those of us with four transcripts in our file records).

So my first week of school turned out to be a game, actually, called “How many times can you fill out a blue Add/Drop slip, and Who Can Get on a First Name Basis with the Staff in the Registrar’s Office the Fastest?”

And I was the victor of this very lengthily titled, nonexistent game. Kudos to Jaimie the Transfer. 

An aerial view of WOU

Despite all that, I really like my new school. It’s a pretty campus, the people are friendly, and I’ve been enjoying my classes. It’s a refreshing change from the Adventist school system. I like that it’s still fairly small, though, and has that sense of community that goes with it.

*Note to self:

Some conversations and choice words are taken differently here than they would be at an Adventist school. Por ejemplo…

When you say, “Well, I’m not really interested in a serious relationship right now, but we can still hang out and have fun,” the “hang and out and have fun” part apparently does not translate to, “We can play board games on Friday nights and converse in coffee houses…”

Lingo on the watch.That’s the last time I’ll get labeled as, “that kind of girl.”

These bruises are compliments of volleyball class to the genius who dives for balls without knee pads.

I like my new house even more than my new school. I have three other girls living here and so far it’s been great.

Also, I found love in this little town, and it’s called Bedroom. In addition to playing the unofficial transfer game, I was busy getting my room together the first week or so. It’s not entirely complete, but it’s at haven status. 

When I tell friends they can sleep in my closet, they think I'm joking. It's deceptively small-looking, but cozy.