Country USA Prep (400 Days of Exile, Day 13)

I don't have much time to write today.

I'm going to Country USA in a week or so.

I'm trying to prep for the big day.

Here: you can too:



Little Tornado

Suspicious (400 Days of Exile: Day 10)

I have a growing suspicion that the parking garage by the train station doesn't actually ticket you for not paying.

Hear me out: It's super manual. You don't need a ticket to get in or out.

You deposit the money (cash or change) in slots with your parking spot number on it.

I understand that this used to be the most efficient way to do this - I am not naive enough to believe electronic parking garage devices always existed.

But I definitely missed how to pay for this as a teenager and never got a ticket. Also, it would be a very inefficient way to give tickets. I just can't picture someone walking through the garage comparing numbers on spots with cash in the slots.

But what do I know?

I'm still going to pay the $2.

Little Tornado

WHEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (400 Days of Exile: Day 9)

I passed BEC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Unfortunately some of this joy is stifled by the fact that I have three more tests to go - but I'm going to enjoy this small victory.

I am also choosing to ignore that after the initial congratulations, my mother was back on "Now don't go thinking you don't have to study now."

Today is going to be a great day.

Also, my outfit is on point!

[insert picture]

Little Tornado

Breakdown #1 (400 Days of Exile, Day 8)

So, I lasted a week.

I would be more proud if I wasn't shaking all over.

I got the majority of it out over text with Turtle Man - but my heart wasn't even in it.

My result for BEC could be posted in the next hour and a half, so I was trying to read - but the minutes were dragging by, where ten felt like an hour.

Whenever I sit down to write for this, I get consumed with exhaustion so I am hoping it will help me fall asleep.

My breakdown centered mainly around anxiety over this test score as well as some snide comments about my studying from my mother.

Textbook stuff.

I'm going to try to go to bed.

Little Tornado

P.S. Here's some more Mountain Goats, because.

CPA Talk: Anxiety (400 Days of Exile: Day 7)

So, I started studying for FAR 7 days ago. 3 days before that I had taken BEC. I get my result on Tuesday and I am freaking out.

I had already been freaking out about BEC. I'm taking Becker and I got an 83 and a 70 on my practice tests. The test in practice... I don't know. I don't even want to think about it.

I thought I had the perfect study schedule for FAR, but the problems are significantly longer than BEC and I feel so.... dismayed.

Why did I decide to do the Fast Pass?

I would write more, but I'm too high strung to write a long post.

#accountingforlyfe

Little Tornado

Wouldn't It Be Nice (400 Days of Exile: Day 6)

I miss sleeping with my boyfriend.

Literally sleeping with him.

I sleep much better when I can hold his hand.




Little Tornado

Prickly (400 Days of Exile: Day 5)

It has yet to erupt fully, but I can already feel myself getting prickly with my parents.

Nothing major has happened: a pointed comment here, an unwanted lecture there.

It is a familiar feeling that I remember from high school, though it is now coupled with something else: guilt.

Perhaps it took going away and meeting new people and learning about their family dynamics, but I've been feeling incredibly blessed about how wonderful my parents are. They are so helpful and willing to support me financially. They feed me, they clothe me. They are even granting me a remarkable amount of freedom.

Of course, I am going to feel like they are harshing my mellow when they ask me if I am studying enough or getting enough sleep. It would be easy to get mad at them - but I am trying my best not to. They do so much for me, they don't deserve my anger.

It will be tough to hold my anger - I can already feel it seeping into my tone sometimes. I will undoubtedly have to find some sort of way to communicate the negative things effectively.

The challenge is particularly strong with my mother. In many ways, we are remarkably similar. That causes us to butt heads almost as much as our differences.

Much like everything else I have mentioned, I will have to keep you posted.

So many challenges, so little time.

Little Tornado

Trivial Drivel 26: Another Day, Another Dollar

Today wasn't anything special.

I woke up around 11:30 - later than I expected to, but not altogether late.

I'm back in the suburbs staying with my parents for what I say is the last time but that is not entirely true.

I am in the last (and first) leg of grad school and this will be the last month of my life where I can officially say I have NOTHING going on. So, in a way, this is the last time in my life I will be slumming at my parents house with nothing to do. But it will not be the last time living at my parents house.

June waits ominously as the move-back-in date that has been inevitably approaching ever since I started college four and a half years ago. My job does not start until August 10th, so there is no hope of moving out AT LEAST until then. After that it I am walking the line as to how long I can live at home (difficult for 2 reasons) and how much money I want to save.

At the maximum rent I have budgeted for myself, living at home for a year will save me a whopping $20,000. If the sum was not so high, this would be a non issue.

I don't think I could handle more than a year - I'm not even sure I can handle just the one.

Part of it is the freedom I am giving up - not being able to come and go as I please and the ever present unspoken curfew (how late is too late?).  My parents are not unreasonable. They are a dream since how they were when I was in high school. But I am not in high school. I am 22 years old with a very serious boyfriend that I am used to spending a lot of time with. I have a crazy best friend who keeps me young in the same way that Turtle Man keeps me old - one that sometimes likes to keep me out until 5 in the morning. A lifestyle they do not approve of.

Turtle Man himself presents another distinct issue. I don't think I am shocking anyone by saying that a 22 year old has her boyfriend sleep over quite a bit. That would be done with me moving home. And even when he gets his own place, will I have to lie to go over there?

These are all mundanities that I will face when the time comes.

My biggest issue lies thus:

I will have to tell people I'm living in the suburbs.

The thought makes me cringe. Maybe I am a snob, but I've been looking down at my high school compatriots who went to their state schools and have moved back to the suburbs (whether with their parents or not) and gloried in the musk of suburb bars. I have not been to such a bar since I was under 21 (with my Golden Ticket to bar-land) and even then I went ironically. The thought of these bars swarming with not only my graduating class but my younger brother's graduating class? I shudder.

I don't even think much more highly of the ones who have moved into the city. They make a big show of inviting everyone from high school to stay with them and go out and... I know I'm being unreasonable.

In a previous post I mentioned that the scars from high school have not totally faded. What helped me was viewing Chicago as my own special club - one I had a right to. It didn't bother me that people were moving into the city - because I had been there longer.

I just know that if I go back to the suburbs... I won't feel myself.

This is the true reason why the year will be hard.

But I suppose I will have to suck it up....

I will return to this sour subject at a later date I am sure.

#

Anyway, today was fine.

I helped the mother make Christmas cookies - kind of.

And I walked Daisy and let her frolic through the tundra of the reservoir, but she seemed to enjoy it.

I drove Turtle Man and I to the city to go to the Chriskrindlmarket (tourist trap) and the ice rink at Millennium Park (another tourist trap and we didn't even skate. We have rescheduled for Monday).  We saw someone proposed to on the ice and that made me smile - I have ever witnessed a proposal IRL before. We went to the Billie Goat Tavern and Turtle Man made fun of me. We hung out at my apartment for a little bit and watched YouTube videos. And then I drove us home.

Nothing special, but I was still happy about the time.

I miss Turtle Man. Which is silly because I just saw him 3 hours ago - but it is the truth. A little over 2 years in and he is still my favorite person and my best friend.

I am very lucky to have him and my forever friends in my life.

Random Meandering 4: Choosing What To Share Online

I think I can sum up every issue I've ever had with keeping a blog updated was what can and can not be shared online.

It is quite easy and somewhat cathartic to express the issues and problems you are having in your life with the facelessness and anonymity of the internet. Except, of course, when you are not so anonymous. You have made your blog semi public, by hiding links to your updates in the midst of your silly Tweets. But it is not like you are explicitly advertising.

Your blog will remain obscure and largely unread, until you post something "wrong" or too personal - then everyone will read it and things can get... very bad.

I say this from experience. My experience being the one and only time I maintained consistency with any sort of blog format and that was when I had a video blog when I was 14 going on 15. When the boys of my grade discovered them, I was a pariah for the remainder of my high school career. The scars from their cruelty are still not fully healed, though, now, they are almost as faint as the scuffs on my knees from when I tripped and fell on concrete when I was 10. Which is to say that they don't trouble me much anymore, but I have not quite forgotten them.

But what am I afraid of?

I am 22 years old. I rarely/barely break the law and, if I do, it's unintentional. I've escaped the illegalities of my vices (drinking) when I turned the victorious age of 21 and I can now say publicly that a glass of wine never hurt anybody - without fact checking it's validity. I have a small, but stable social life. I have a cluster of forever friends and a slightly bigger cluster of fun-for-now friends that I enjoy being with - none that I believe I would offend by my unassuming blog.

So... fuck it.

Let's test what I can share and what I can't. I can't promise I won't be vague, but I can promise that I will try not to be.

Something Cool 5: Chicago: A Love Story

Second City from Arne Wossink on Vimeo.