Dancing Baby

This made my day!

10 Annoying Text Habits to Avoid

Thank you Cosmopolitan for publishing this list! I'm sure a lot of people think these things, so it's nice to finally have it in writing. For the record, #3 is rather high up on my list of pet peeves, and #2 is on the list somewhere after it!!


10 Annoying Text Habits to Avoid

#1. The Mass Text

It's Friday night, you're at home on the couch, and you get a text that goes something like this: "What are you getting into tonight?" You know for a fact that this very same text just went out to 20 other people at exactly the same time, and that the sender is just waiting to receive all his/her options before deciding what to do. So what if the only thing you have planned for the night is that lame (but sooo good) Lifetime movie at 11? You refuse to hang out with someone unless they make specific plans to hang out with you. You know how you can block those newsletters that you never signed up for by sending an email with "unsubscribe" in the body? We suggest doing the same thing in a reply-text.

#2. The Texting Cult

There is always at least one point in the night -- a lull in the conversation, a pause between thoughts -- when it gets really quiet, and you look around and realize that all your friends are busy texting. One person pulls out her iPhone while everyone else is looking at the dinner bill, and then someone else starts doing it, and before you know it, you're in the middle of the sacred circle of text. Resist the urge to choose some random person in your contacts to send a useless message to. Instead, pull out your phone and send a text to everyone at the table asking, "Should we order something else?" It will make everyone laugh but also point out the silliness of the situation.

#3. The Double Message

Of course you screen calls. Everyone does. Sometimes you're in the middle of something and sometimes you just don't feel like talking. But your phone is still working, and you see the missed call and the voice message alert. So why -- why?! -- do certain people feel the need to send a text letting you know that they just left a message? Don't they realize that if someone is smart enough to read a text, they're also capable of understanding what the little bobble head with the sound waves coming out of him symbolizes? Text back, "What's next, a carrier pigeon?"

#4: The Texting Tease

You're seeing a really cute/smart/funny/cool new guy, and your heart skips a tiny beat every time you get a text from him. In the middle of the week, you get one asking what you're up to this weekend. Assuming he wants to do something together, you let him know that it's looking pretty relaxed so far. Does he then proceed to make a plan with you? No. He responds, "Oh OK, cool." You stand there with a perplexed look on your face. Respond "Yeah, but call my secretary if you want to schedule something." This way, the ball is in his court, but ultimately you're the one who is in charge, thanks to your confident attitude.

#5. The Bulk Texter

An example of what a series of texts from this person might look like:

1. Hey!
2. What's up?
3. What are you doing tonight?
4. Some of us are going to Cool People Club tonight.
5. Around 10
6. It's gonna be me and Chris
7. Are you coming?
8. Let us know
9. Byeee!
10. lolz

An example of what that exchange should look like:

Text 1: Hey, Chris and I are going to Cool People Bar around 10 tonight. Let us know if you wanna come.

An example of what you could text back:

1. Please
2. never
3. text
4. me
5. this
6. way
7. again.(one minute pause)
8. For "realz."

6. The Bored Texter

You've just finished a sufficiently long and entertaining texting exchange with someone, and now you're ready to put your phone down for a little while. But your phone dings, and it's another text from said person. It looks like this: "Soooo..." Or, "What upppp." Or, "la la la..." Clearly, they have nothing else to say and just want something to do. Send a text saying, "Running, watching movies, reading books, baking." Your buddy will get the point that some people actually have a life.

7. The Show-and-Teller

Love is wonderful. We're huge advocates of love and being in love and enjoying that love. People gushing on and on about their amazing love life? Not so much. Not only do you have to listen to them tell every insignificant story about how cute it was that their boyfriends ate pancakes for dinner and woke up with a funny hairdo, but you also have to read all of their SUPER-cute texts. "Guys, look what he wrote to me! Omg look at what he said now! Haha aww, look at this one!!" The cure? A dose of their own medicine. "Hey, look what my mom said about her gallbladder! Omg you won't believe how I'm planning to organize my sock drawer! Aww, my dog is wagging his tail. Oh, he's doing it again!!"

8. The Goobers-and-Popcorn Texter

The previews are over, you've been waiting to see this movie for weeks, and here you finally are, snacks in hand. But the guy in front of you insists on ruining your experience by texting for the entire 96 minutes. Here's a little secret he doesn't know: EVERYONE sees his phone lighting up. And hears it vibrating violently every two minutes. When the lights come up at the end of the flick, call up a friend and loudly discuss how rude the guy texting throughout the entire movie was. Then get ready to start running.

9. The Lingering K

This one is especially aggravating if you're not on an unlimited texting plan. You get a message asking how your day went or if you'll be free at a certain time, so you send back a detailed and informative reply. Your phone dings again. You open the message and it says..."k." Do people not even have the decency to include the o? The offender doesn't even need to reply to the message. But if they feel the need to, could they not at least drum up something a little more personal/creative/not totally unnecessary? Respond by letting them know how much, to the cent, they owe you for superfluous texts the next time you're together. Then hold your palm out expectantly.

10. The Needs-to-Grow-Up Texter

Guys should never, ever get comfortable with using text slang and abbreviations. Whether he's a friend, date, or boyfriend, no girl wants to associate the men in their lives with tween-speak. The next time he sends you a "TTY L8ER" or "C U 2morrow," tell him that he should really consider an iPhone, BlackBerry, Sidekick, or "anything that gives you more room to text." He'll realize how outdated his text-talk is.

My New Place for the Week

My new place for this past week was Williams-Brice Stadium, the home of the South Carolina Gamecocks football team. It was very exciting, and I had such a good time!

Apparently I have been oblivious to college football outside of the Big 10 because I was missing out on a whole other world down here!

Williams-Brice is the 20th largest football stadium in the NCAA with its record capacity being around 85,000 (I think; I'm no Gamecocks history buff).


These are the seats in the south stands. I guess I should throw a disclaimer out there...I'm kind of guessing on some of the terminology. I tried my best to pick up on the Williams-Brice "slang" from my roommate and the others around me, but I could've gotten some of it wrong!

Those are the seats in the upper level in the east stands. I am still amazed by how steep the upper level seats are! You can't even really see them in this picture because they're so steep. I just kept thinking how I was glad I wasn't sitting up there so I wouldn't tumble down to my doom!

Way over yonder is the student section. I wish I could've had the full experience of sitting there for my first game, but for some reason I'm having some difficulties with accessing my student tickets (which are "free" btw).

My Gamecock football experience wouldn't have been complete without these two. The girl on the left is my roommate Crystal and the guy on the other side of me is her little brother.
All in all, I had a pretty splendid time. I still bleed black and gold, but I think I might be able to make some room for garnett and black too.

Waking Up Is The Hardest Part

For those of you that don't know, my mom died about 5 years ago. I have dreams about her occasionally, and I have very mixed feelings about those dreams. This morning I had a dream about her; I don't really remember a lot of the details except that we were looking at pictures of the two of us (which there aren't a lot of because she was always the one taking the pictures) from when I was younger. While I love getting the chance to see her face again and feel like I'm getting to spend time with her again, I also hate it at the same time. I hate waking up! When I wake up in the middle of one of those dreams I get so mad, and I just want to go back to sleep so I can see her face and be with her again. I so desperately try to remember every single detail of the dream, and it upsets me even more when I can't. I want to remember every single detail because as time passes my memory of my mom fades little by little and I hate that the most! I will never forget the things my mom did for me, the way she loved me unconditionally with all her heart, the things she did for others, etc. but it's the little things in my memory that fade like her smell and the sound her voice. Those things I think are looked over because who really thinks that they will forget the way their own mom's voice sounded? I wish there was a way to preserve memories in our brain...make it so there was no possible way you could forget. They say we only use approx. 10% of our brain...so why not use the other 90% as a permanent storage facility that is impenetrable by time or other memories, and we can access it whenever we want with no worries of any part of the memory being erased.
I just wish I wouldn't have to rely on dreams to see her; I, like a lot of people who have lost a loved one, wish she wouldn't have had to die in the first place.

It will heal...at least I sure hope it will

"Here’s to all those girls who used to be his number one.
(And partly to All The Guys Who Should Know Better)"
^That was the title of this when I found it, but I think the better title would be "Here's to all those girls who wish he would see us as his number one"

The ones who waited all night for him to call, only to check your cellphone the next morning and be disappointed. The ones who made it through that bitter break up, dried your own tears, and moved on with your life, only to have him walk back in it months later like nothing ever happened. Those of you who cried on the first day you talked again because you knew exactly where this phone call was going. The ones who listened to him say, “I only want to be your friend”, one day, then listened to him say that he loves and misses you, and the next when he doesn’t want to be anything at all. Here’s to the ones that took him back, hoping that maybe this time, he was different, hoping that maybe people really do change.

We listened to our friends tell us that we were stupid for even thinking about giving him another chance, got crap from our parents, and even snuck around to see him even for a while. We went through the great stage with no fights all over again. We started this out thinking it would be just friends, and ended up falling in love with him again. We wanted nothing more in the world than to hear him tell us he loved us too, that even though things were bad in the past, they would be different this time. And when we finally heard it, it was like we were dreaming. This is for us.

Here’s to the ones who believed what he said, sat around all over again waiting for a phone call that might come in a few hours, or a few days. Here’s for the tears cried and dried all over again. We wanted so desperately to believe that he was really busy, he couldn’t possibly call us at that moment, or even that he fell asleep early. We trained ourselves to believe the lies because we wanted to believe we had found the one for us. We learned to SETTLE for someone who didn’t treat us the way we should be treated.

Here’s for the ones who did their hair and make up and put on their prettiest everything, only to hear him say that he couldn’t see us today. The ones who never believed it when people told us there might be someone else. We just couldn’t believe that he could do this to us again.

This is for those great girls, who loved him more than words can say, and took him back no matter what happened last time because they couldn’t bear to look back on their lives one day and wonder “what if”.

This is for the girls that stayed up all night long listening to him whine about an ex girlfriend who cheated on him, and cried during the entire conversation. The ones who hoped he would realize that he deserved better, that he deserved us.
When he said that he loved you, but he was in love with her, he didn’t mean it.
This is for the ones that held on to something that was never there to begin with.

This is for us girls, who somehow managed to get him to forget about her, and get him to tell us that he was in love with us again, only to have him tell us three weeks later that “You’re just not the one for me.” or maybe, “things were going too fast, I’m just not ready.” (Then later on find out he has a damn girlfriend already.)

Here’s to the girls who couldn’t cry to their friends because of how stupid they felt.
The ones who held it all in when things came crumbling to pieces again. This is for the ones who couldn’t bear to even tell their mom what was going on, for fear of an “I told you so.”
The ones that could just TELL that they had made a mistake ever allowing him into their hearts, their beds, and their dreams again.

We knew that we deserved better the entire time, that we deserved a guy who would call when he said he was going to, one that would come see us whenever he got the chance, one that would really care about us. We just wanted the one that we loved like that.

Here’s for the ones that FINALLY realized that he never gave one thought about them.

Here’s for the time that he took to waste, breaking your heart … again.

This is for those days spent trying to hold back the tears, and the tears that turned into anger, then disappointment.
Here’s for us girls who finally realized that we deserve better.

This is for those confusing days, when you miss him, and want nothing more than to hear his voice, or feel his arms around your waist.

Stay strong, and remember that relationships are like broken glass, sometimes it’s better to leave it alone rather than try to put the pieces back together and get hurt all over again.

Remember the times you cried, and how long it took you to even be able to look at another guy like that.
When your song comes on the radio, turn the station.

When the day comes that he realizes what a mistake he made and tries calling, turn your phone off.
When he tries coming to your house, don’t answer the door.

Think of all the broken promises, and the lies, the manipulation and the tears, the wasted moments and staying up all night wondering where the HELL he was.
Think of how your heart used to jump when your phone would vibrate in the middle of the night, and how it fell to your stomach when you saw it wasn’t him, and realized that once again, he hadn’t called when he said he was going to.

One day, you’ll find a guy who’s worth all the tears, but he won’t make you cry. You may think that you’ll never care about someone like you did that guy that you always ran back to, but you will.

It’s gonna hurt like hell, and it’s going to need time to heal, but the point is, it will heal.


After I read the first paragraph of this, I felt like whoever wrote this had hacked their way into my brain and heart. Everything written in that unfortunately rang true to me. As I was reading it, I felt like I was reliving my relationship with Drake*. I'm still not 100% sure that I'm at the point where I fully realize that I really do deserve better. I still deal with the random "I miss you" and "I love you" calls. I know it's the same thing every time, but I still can't help but to think "maybe he really has changed" or "maybe it really it is different this time". I still have a really hard time talking about him or the fact that he still randomly calls me for the simple fact that I'm embarrassed/ashamed. I know that it is stupid of me to waste my time and yet I can't help but feel my heart skip a beat whenever I get those calls from him.

*Name has been changed to protect the not so innocent.

New Findings

Moving to a new place where I don't know a soul has been scary for me. To try and give myself more confidence and to get to know the area better I decided to go to at least one new place a week. The past couple weeks I feel like I've been taking the easy way out by going to the library, a new grocery store, you know places like that. This week was definitely something new and different, and I had a blast!

There is an upstate Purdue Alumni Association here which I recently joined along with a fellow Boilermaker who just moved down to South Carolina. The PAA volunteered at a jazz festival (which apparently happens once a week). It's a free event that happens in downtown Greenville (which I love and wish that I lived there instead of where I do live!)and all the proceeds go to a nonprofit organization. We were collecting tips to go towards annual scholarships the club gives out. The only thing you have to pay for at the festival is food, drink, and/or a wristband if you want to be able to drink alcohol. The band they had was great and the food and drinks were nowhere near over priced. I was in the beer trailer and I got the chance to work on perfecting the art of pouring beer. It was a lot of fun telling the beer purchasing patrons about Purdue and hearing their comments (some were hilarious, some were encouraging, and others were just plain mean! i.e. "f*ck the boilers"). Afterwords Jess and I, along with her brother and his g/f, went to a local bar there. The bar was free to get into for the ladies, and they had outdoor seating with a live band...not too shabby! We only got to hear the band play one song...Enter Sandman, but then the bar played songs such as Secret Lovers and Sexual Healing :)
I had such a great time, but it made me really miss having friends or even just people I know around me. Here's to hoping I make more friends soon!

I gotta feeling...

I love this video! First of all, I'm absolutely in love with this song; Secondly, I felt like I was watching something that should be happening in a movie! I wish I could've been in Chicago to either a) see it happen or b) be a part of the fabulous people dancing.

PS-I've tried like 4 times to get the video smaller, and I was unsuccessful (obviously).

Eye Opener

Can I just say that I had an absolutely amazing Labor Day weekend?? There were a lot of last minute changes in plans in many different ways, but I am really really glad things worked out the way that they did.
I felt like a real grown-up for a lot of the parts of the weekend. I was really nervous about flying out of Columbia...a) had no clue where the airport was b) I was taking myself to and from the airport and parking in long term parking for the first time c) I'm not a big fan of small airports and let me tell you...Columbia is a pretty small one. Rest assured, I found the airport (which is only 10 minutes away, note to self for next time) and everything went smoothly. I was greeted at the airport by the lovely Meredith and then we were off to stay at my new friend Becca's house! We got to eat some life changing cake compliments of Becca's mom...and wow, my life definitely changed!!! I'm not even really a cake eater, but this cake was delicious and I could definitely go for some more right now! The next day we traveled up to Fort Weezy for Alyssa and Rob's wedding which was beautiful in every single way, with the bride being the most beautiful of course =)

My Ft. Weezy travel pals and I with the beautiful bride

Sunday was a huge reunion for me. My dad and I went to dinner with a family we used to be really close with. I hadn't seen them in such a long time, and man do I miss them. I'm pretty much guaranteed a gigantic laugh fest whenever we get together, and this time was no exception.Here's Kate crawling under the table so that she wouldn't have to make people get up to let her get out. This is a prime example of why I love her :)

After I got home, I ventured over to my adopted family's house for the usual holiday weekend festivities. I am so glad that the Dants moved across the street 13ish years ago. I can't even begin to imagine what my life would be like without them.

This weekend really opened my eyes up. I just felt so at home and welcome at my friend's places and with my friends. My family is no where near perfect (not that any family is) but this weekend I felt like I was a burden to them. I felt like it was my fault that there were so many hassles for them and their mini-vacay. Being around my friends and their families made me even more aware of this. I realized that parents/families actually show that they miss their kids when they're away and want to spend time with them. I didn't even feel like my family wanted to see me. I'm sure if they read this, they'd get mad or say I'm crazy or something. They just don't/didn't really show it if they did miss me or wanted to spend time with me. It's not like this is a new thing but it really became apparent this weekend to me.

But like I said earlier, I'm really happy with the way things worked out. I couldn't imagine a better Labor Day weekend! Except for maybe next year's :)

Fresh Start...New Beginnings

So I'm going to give blogging another shot. I think I got discouraged my last round of blogging because I felt like I was the only one reading it. Who knows, maybe I will be this round too but now it doesn't really matter to me. I'm really good at talking about things and my emotions, but I'm not so good at actually showing my emotions. I'm hoping this blog will help me to express my true emotions.
So about 2 and a half weeks ago I packed up my stuff and moved down to South Carolina. I thought that once I got down here, everything would just fall into place and my life would just make sense...The move itself, to my surprise, went really well. I was so glad that my dad and his girlfriend were able to go with me and help out as much as they did. Up until that point, I'd been pretty calm about uprooting myself and hadn't really gotten emotional; after they left for good a wave of sadness went over me. I just felt 100% alone in the world. I really miss my friends and family. I know I haven't been here for very long so I really am trying to give myself time to adjust to this new setting. I'm also frustrated because I don't have a job yet. This is the longest I've been without having a job in like 7 or 8 years, and it's killing me. I have an interview next week and a job I just applied for that I really really want; so I'm praying that something will work out. In other news, grad school is not what I expected. I still feel like I'm in undergrad except that I'm not at Purdue :( I thought that once you were in grad school, you wouldn't have to do any general theory introduction; I thought that information is stuff you already learned or should have learned at least. Switching topics, I've been looking for a church to get involved with since I've been here, and none of the ones I've been looking into feel like the right fit. This is really discouraging me. I had really been growing in my faith and I just keep waiting for that sign/signal from God telling me that this is THE church for me. I feel like I'm at a plateau (if that's even possible in this subject) right now.