Conclusions, Inspired By This Week

I'm on my second cup of coffee today...weeeeeee!!!! And we all know that coffee brings out our highly intellectual side (smart people are always hanging around in coffee shops, right?). So here are the concluding thoughts to my week:

• I was brave for opening up to a guy for the first time in a long time...and when I say a long time, I mean years.
• I was braver for telling him to hit the road when he was trying to manipulate me into doing exactly what he wanted...jerk. face.
• I am PROUD of myself for making actual deadlines for a Turkey departure...think end of February, early March. NO LATER.
• All of these things combined have made this one super week in which I've realized my worth and uniqueness.
• Dancing around your room to "Dancing Queen" is a fantastic way to symbolically celebrate said worth and overall badass-ness.
• All failures in life encourage self-evaluation. This makes me welcome failures with open arms.
• Settling for someone else's demands is never an option. Don't even make it an option. STAND UP FOR YOURSELF.

Don't know why I had this much fun taking pictures with a tiny fuse bead heart :P

MacBook Photo Monday (With a side of Ins & Outs)

Photo of my nephews messin' around with my MacBook camera. They adored it!

Happy Labor Day! Not too much to say today (cause my head is up in the clouds), so I provide you with a list of Ins & Outs that Krystal tagged her blog readers in:

Ins:

• Sheryl Crow's new song. I love her and her sultry smoker's voice :)
• Getting a new Ipod Nano in a svelte black.
• Hearing your baby nephew put together his sentences...ADORABLE!!
• DRESSES: ALL YEAR LONG!!
• Getting measured for a bridesmaid dress (my friend's wedding is October 23rd).
• The Other Guys. I haven't laughed this hard at a movie in a LONG TIME. Now I can't keep a straight face when I see a Prius. hahaha!

Outs:

• The lack of summer weather in Cali this year. So not cool.
• The Back-Up Plan. Don't see this horribly done chick-flick!
• Girls who pluck their eyebrows way too thin. MAJOR pet peeve of mine!
• Un-flattering boyfriend pants!!
• Getting stuck in Labor Day traffic for an ungodly amount of time :(
• Doing dishes (this is never in style for me).

MacBook Photo Monday & ♥

Hello to my lovelies! With this "MacBook photo, " I'm simultaneously giving out a questionnaire for some of you fine people to fill out and spread the love!

But really, we are going to SPREAD the freakin' love!

So here it is, 3 simple questions I will be forwarding:

1. What makes you beautiful? Yes, YOU.

2. Name YOUR three best features (I'm talking about physically, so don't chicken out).

3. Pick one blogger friend and say what you think makes them beautiful.

My answers:

1. My caring ♥. I feel like I have a lot to care about in the world.

2. My legs, my eyes and my imperfect, but lovable curly hair.

3. I pick Krystal over at the Village. After reading her blog for a few months, I can clearly see that she is a giver. The way she is able to build lasting relationships online shows that she must have even stronger relationships in person. I find her modesty endearing, and how great are her posts on pretty things? Well, I've got news for you Krystal, you should post about YOURSELF because you. are. pretty. (yep, inside & out).

I'm tagging 3 other people to do this: Krystal, Emily, Stephany.

I made this little thing because I hear too many chicks bad-mouth themselves and their bodies...we all need a little love up in here! For once, lets not talk about how much weight we need to lose, or how many body parts we need to change...let's appreciate what we have. It is extremely fulfilling to accept the natural.

Now, pay it forward!

Day 08 - Post a picture from your commute

Heh heh.

So this is a picture from my commute yesterday. I was driving up with my friends Ryan and Colleen (pictured above) to see the musical "In the Heights."

One thing to know about Colleen: she can fall asleep anywhere.

One thing to know about me: I will take pictures of you when you fall asleep anywhere. This brings joy to my life, and I'm not sure why, other than that I have a very weird sense of humor. But here's the deal--if you fall asleep in a public place, why shouldn't I be able to take your picture and post it on the internet? Yes, I'm a tinge bit evil.

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In other unrelated news, I made a Pimm's cup beverage a couple days ago. I had to share this so Jax could be proud of me. Let me give some background: Pimm's is a delicious drink that Jackie introduced me to when I met her in London. I fell in love instantly. Here is the recipe I found, although I'm sure there are a lot of variations:

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup Pimm's No. 1
• 2 cups ginger ale, chilled
• 1 1/3 cups sparkling water, chilled
• 4 lemon slices
• 1 medium cucumber, halved lengthwise and cut into 4 spears

Preparation

Fill 4 tall (12-ounce) glasses with ice cubes.

Pour 3 tablespoons Pimm's into each glass. Pour 1/2 cup ginger ale and 1/3 cup sparkling water into each glass; stir to combine. Garnish each serving with 1 lemon slice and 1 cucumber spear. Serve immediately.

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Lastly, I wanted to talk about the insaneness that was Inception. This movie was just WOW. How do I explain it? It's frustrating...but in a good way. It is a never-ending labyrinth of mysteries and hypotheses, all tested and re-tested in your mind to try to figure out that darn ending! Oh the ending!!!!

Go see it and tell me what you think. This movie still haunts me a little, and I'll give it: ★★★½

Take off a half for the frustration of it all!! One star is definitely in there because it's Leo and Joseph Gordon Levitt in one movie. Oh yeah!!

MacBook Photo Monday (And In a Darker Mood)

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haha. I'm not sad, I've just dyed my hair a little darker!

You can still see a lot of blonde, but I eventually want to ease toward more brown so I don't have to worry about keeping up the dye job in Turkey. I can just see this totally bad scenario where I try to explain to a Turkish hairdresser how I want my hair dyed, and ending up with green hair. haha.

On top of that, I've been a blonde for about 3 years. Long enough! It's time to enter the dark side again!

Speaking of Turkey and that whole plan, this is probably how it's going to go down:

I was going to go to Turkey in September (if offered a job); however, I've changed my plan to November for a few reasons:

• One of my best friends (Jaclyn) is getting married, and I am the maid-of-honor, and would like to be there for her big day (er...days. She's having two weddings). Those weddings happen in late October, early November.
• Because of this, I will have more time to learn Turkish. YAY!
• On top of this, I will have more time to save some money. ALWAYS important.

So yeah, that's the plan so far. As we know, plans don't always work out the way we want, but I'll see how this pans out as time goes on.

MacBook Photo Monday (With the Morning Monster)

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This is what the morning monster and I think of Mondays.

This, of course, can always be remedied with a cup of coffee.

Hope you don't have a "Case of the Mondays."

You May Say That I'm a Dreamer

I guess I shouldn't have presented that "news" as news in my last post...it's more of a final decision.

First of all, I did hear back about the internship in Turkey for the summer. They asked me to pick from some obscure cities in Turkey, so I turned it down. But not just for that reason.

My "news" is that I have made the decision to pursue going to Turkey for a year, and I'm going to pursue it wholeheartedly.

If you couldn't tell, I gave up this idea a couple months ago. I was thinking about continuing my life, here in San Diego. However, as I started searching for temporary summer jobs in Turkey, that enormous desire to just go, just fly away to my motherland (hehe) came back to me.

To get the full experience, I know a year is what's needed. And I want that full experience. And I know that I will fully regret it if I don't try for this. Obviously, God has etched this idea on my heart. It's something I've wanted to do since childhood--from the first time I can remember visiting Turkey, and realizing in my 7-year-old brain that I wasn't just a visitor. Turkey has always been a part of me, and I part of it.

What is discouraging, and is bringing me down a bit, is that my family is still concerned about how I am going to do this and being very vocal about it. I don't mean to completely glamorize Turkey: there are criminals, Americans often get ripped off and Turkish men seem to have the idea that American women are easy. Hmmm...could that have anything to do with Hollywood?

My family is only looking out for me, but I am being perceived as pretty naive, like I'm going to fall for all the traps set out before me. I am the baby of the family, the youngest cousin on both sides of my parents, and I've always been treated as the baby. I am, of course, arguing the timeless complaint of every youngest child ever born: "You tell me not to go, so I don't fail...but I'm telling you that I want to have the room to fail."

Anyway, there is a lot to research in all of this. But I just wanted to let you all know that I have to go for this. There is a chance that this won't come to fruition. But I need to try, and put my all in it.

"There is no destiny worth pursuing that doesn't face huge obstacles." --Erwin McManus

P.S. I'm not just looking for jobs in Istanbul, I'm also looking in Izmir (my mom's favorite Turkish city)--right by the Greek Isles, and beautiful!

MacBook Photo Monday (and a side of High Fidelity)

Thought this would be a fun and colorful addition to dreadful Mondays...and MacBook photos are addicting-ly fun to take. So why not share them on my blog?

Me in different pop-art-inspired colors! YAY! ^

Also, I wanted to share this quote that has been circulating in my head. It's from the book High Fidelity, where Laura tells Rob:

"You just...you just don't do anything. You get lost in your head, and you sit around thinking instead of getting on with something, and most of the time you think rubbish. You always seem to miss what's really happening."

Hmmm...I feel like this is ME. I do this all too often. Well...I am proactive on some things: I wanted to volunteer, so I did it; I wanted to travel last summer, so I did it.

But I can do more. And I need to do more, before my life runs out. haha. Funny thing to say in your 20s, but it's coming from an old soul (I get called that a lot) who realizes that life is gonna fly by faster than I can say "Carpe Diem."