On December 19th I left Tempe in the afternoon and drove straight down I-10 to El Paso, TX. On the 20th I drove from El Paso, TX to Forth Worth, TX. Monday the 21st I drove from Forth Worth, TX to Little Rock, AR. That drive was about 5 hours and so I had time to relax before my mom’s flight came in. The next morning we drove all through Arkansas and Tennessee. We stopped in Roanoke, VA for the night because I was exhausted. Roanoke is about 4 hours from my new apartment. The last day, December 23rd, my mom said she would drive because I was going to be driving from North Suffolk to New Jersey on Christmas Eve. The last day of driving was the most beautiful. The mountains of Virginia were by far the best part of my drive. They were covered with snow and I just really wished I had a reason to go back through that area sometime soon.

My boyfriend has been talking about getting a dog for a while now. He basically told me this was something he was always planning on doing. I made us watch the Puppy Bowl before the Super Bowl and we started at looking at pups online. We came across a female pup named “Tinsel” who was said to be about 3 months old. She was really cute and was a black [with white splotches] hound mix. It was pretty obvious to us that she was part labrador too. We realized she was about an hour away and started getting excited about her.

At some point Keith called or emailed the humane society where she was to see if she was still available. We found out she was still available but they couldn’t hold her for us. It made sense. I assume that they put a dog on hold before and then they weer screwed over. We went up to the humane society on February 12th. “Tinsel” was still available. She was about 4 months at this point and very cute. I had my reservations because I never had a dog before, but she seemed pretty well behaved. We took her home and named her Sasha. She really is the sweetest puppy and I love her so much. She is playful but sleeps a lot. I can’t wait until she meets my family later this month and earlier next month!

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While the things in my life were not always the way I wanted them to be I really grew up in the last 10 years. People always talk about growing up as if it happens when you’re younger, [i.e. "where did you grow up?"] but I really believe that I became who I am after I turned 18. I have made many mistakes in the last 10 years in how I have acted towards or treated people I claimed to love, and I believe I have mostly made amends with that. I’ve also made some bad decisions in how I let other people treat me. But this isn’t about that right now, this is about moving past that and the good things in my life.

With that, I am extremely looking forward to my move across the country with my mother. She is flying out here on Saturday and we are going to start driving that afternoon. If you told me 10 years ago that I would be living in Arizona and moving to Virginia at the end of 2009 I would have thought you were crazy. After high school I had no interest in being outside of New Jersey. While I didn’t always get along with my parents back then, deep down I wanted to pull away from them without really pulling away from them. To an 18-year-old me that meant going to school less than an hour and a half away and to not go to Temple anymore. I am so glad I am close enough with my mom that we are making this trip together. I think it’s half because she wants to drive and half because she wants me to be safe, but either way, I think it will be excellent.

One thing that I really have NOT struggled with in the last 10 years was my decision to live a secular life. People love to talk about their God and their religion. That doesn’t really interest me. I don’t say whether or not I believe because I don’t really think it matters since it’s a personal choice and should have no affect on anyone else [including policy changes - sorry had to throw that in there otherwise I wouldn't be me]. Whether I believe doesn’t mean that anything better or worse is going to happen for me, or that I would change the way I live my life. And for this reason I still live secularly and have faith in myself and my life.

I am so happy that after 8 years of knowing each other my bf and I are together and really happy. We will be together 3 years on Dec 31/Jan 1 and have been living together for 2.5 years. I am not one for anniversaries, but I love that ours is on New Years. It is just a meaningful time for me. I don’t usually set or stick to resolutions, but this year I have a big one. Well I guess it could be my resolution for the next decade. My goal is to be open to things I normally would say no to. I don’t mean for that to sound like the cheesy Jim Carey movie “Yes Man” or whatever. I just want to broaden my horizons and not be as judgmental. Anyone know who knows me, knows this will be no small task. I guess that is kind of cliche, but I don’t think that makes it any less true.

I guess it just boils down to the fact that I am so happy to have a partner I can go anywhere with and feel safe. Home is where he is, no matter where that is. Too bad it took me so long to realize it. (But I needed to grow up.)

I am sitting outside, in between my two classes. It seems so dreary out, but the breeze is really nice. The sun is hiding, but I enjoy not sweating my ass off today. It is November. The fact that it has been like 90 degrees out recently is ridiculous. I don’t remember it being this hot last year. Today is supposed to only be 80 degrees. I miss wearing sweaters and socks.

I’ve been listening to a lot of podcasts lately including “WTF with Marc Maron”, “This Week In Google”, “Bill Moyers Journal”, and “This Day In The Past”. For those that don’t know him, Marc Maron is a comedian that used to be on Air America Radio. He is the most neurotic person ever and its lovely to see someone being so honest.

“This Week In Google” is an offset of TWiT. Leo Leporte , Jeff Jarvis, and Gina Trapani talk about what is going on with Google. They break off into discussions on other related tech things, but they are informative and entertaining to listen to. Gina Trapani is a Java developer who founded Lifehacker, which she still contributes to occasionally, and Smarterware, which she is still running. I hate to be a super nerd but she is basically my idol. I long to be as knowledgeable as her. Jeff Jarvis has the blog BuzzMachine and Leo Leporte runs TWiT.

The Bill Moyers podcast is pretty self explanatory. It’s news and he is pretty fair to everyone. “This Day In The Past” is usually a 30 second clip everyday by the hysterical John Hodgman (PC Guy in Apple Commercials, and currently guesting on Bored To Death on HBO). You have to hear it to understand its amazing-ness. The picture associates with it says “At Last: A Page-A-Day Calendar Without Pages” and has a picture of John Hodgman holding a ferret. So random!

I have misplaced my headphones! I’ve been using my ipod headphones for a while now and they don’t fit in my ears and keep falling out. I need to look around my entire apartment for my food ones that go around the back of my ears. My bf and I have checked both of our cars with no luck. They weren’t expensive, but I really don’t want to have to find and buy them again. Blah!

I am in the midst of finishing my Felicity marathon from months ago. I started watching Season 4 (after the previous 3 seasons) months ago, and was kinda bored by it, but I picked it up a couple days ago, and I’m back into it. My boyfriend is out of town and it’s been interesting having the apartment to myself. It’s been pretty lonely, but I’ve used the time to clean up a little bit. Unfortunately, I haven’t really been motivated to do much school work. I’m totally stuck on this Visual Basic program I need to finish by Tuesday. Blah! And I have to write something in Java for Tuesday too. I really need to sit down with it.

Last night I had dinner with my friends Rob and TJ. We went our for sushi at Sushi 101 at University and Rural in Tempe. It was a lot of fun and I had some yummy cocktails. Afterward, we got frozen yogurt at Yogurtini in the same shopping center. Yummy frozen yogurt that is mostly non-fat. Woohoo!

I’m looking forward to my boyfriend coming home tomorrow afternoon. I saved all of our shows for when he gets back.

Last week was supposed to be my week from hell. My Linux OS class was ending on Wednesday, I had a Macroeconomics Midterm the same day, and a bunch of homework. Thankfully I finished my Linux work on Monday evening. Tuesday night I decided, stupidly, to get this seafood/shellfish platter from this place I shouldn’t have. Basically, I really shouldn’t be eating seafood anywhere in Arizona. There are no oceans nearby. When I go for sushi I can taste that it’s not as fresh as it is in New Jersey. I am sure you can see where this is going.

All night I was having these horrible, weird dreams and I woke up every 40 minutes frantically like I was late for something. I woke up extremely sick at about 6-7am. I was puking and experiencing other scenarios you can use your imagination for. It was terrible. I don’t remember having food poisoning anytime recently, but it was the worst. My original plan was to wake up early that morning and study until my exam at 1:30pm. There was no possible way I was able to concentrate. Thankfully once I puked out all of my food, I was able to sleep sans weirdo dreams. I obviously didn’t wake up early and slept until almost 11am. I debated emailing my teacher and saying that I really couldn’t come in, but then I thought about how it was a midterm and while I had a mild fever and a bathroom problem, it wasn’t the worst situation ever. I took some imodium and just dealt.

I got through the exam with no idea how I did. I skipped my last Linux class and Visual Basic and Microsoft Access on Thursday. I just couched and laid in bed the whole time. By Thursday afternoon I was basically fine. It had passed!

I relaxed the rest of the weekend because I really didn’t have any homework to do and was eating normal by Friday. Friday night my friend from high school was driving through Phoenix because he is moving back east from Los Angeles (apparently Firefox doesn’t know what Los Angeles is, since it’s getting that red line underneath like it’s spelled incorrectly). He got here around 12:30am Saturday after much traffic and we went for a drink or two. It was awesome catching up. Sunday night my Linux grades were posted online and I got an A in the class, yay! Yesterday I got my Macroeconomics midterm back and I got a B with room to get extra points if I do some work on the questions I got wrong. I did that extra work tonight and am handing it in tomorrow.

Today was pretty exhausting. I got 6hrs of sleep last night, went to class this morning, and had another one early afternoon. Came home and basically did nothing besides eat meals and do homework. Is it Friday yet?

So even though I don’t care most of the time, these are my teams:

Hockey: NJ Devils
Baseball: NY Mets
Football: NY Jets
Basketball: NJ Nets

Also I totally root for the Arizona teams now that I live here, unless they are playing these teams. Also, I actually enjoy hockey a lot, but it’s hard for me to get into any sport on the TV. I like to be there!