Exercising

About a month or so back, Guy and I joined Fitocracy. If you aren’t familiar with it, it’s a website that you sign up with and keep track of your workouts, and it gives you points for everything you do. You start of at level one and go up levels as you get points. If you are remotely competitive and have a friend to sign up with you, I highly recommend it. So far, Guy has been ahead of me to whole time. All he does is works out more than I do- it’s completely unfair that he’s always ahead.

The worst part about starting to workout is the beginning.  Lets say you go for a jog.  You run for about 1/10 of a mile, feel like you’re going to die, and stop to walk for a bit. You start running again, run for about 1/11 of a mile, feel like you’re going to die again and stop to walk. You start running again, run about 1/20 of  a mile, realize you’re hopelessly out of shape and decide you need to walk the rest of the way.

Well Hello again

I haven’t written anything in awhile.  You may have noticed.

You may not have, depending on how much else you have going on in your life.  I hope you have lots of other things going on.

I have not had a lot going on.  Hence, the long silence.  I’ve been rather bored, to be honest.  In order to save you, the reader, from 30 or so posts in a row about our cat, I took a little break.

Granted, Maru the cat got a book deal- so perhaps I took the wrong route there.

Recently, things have picked up- interesting things wise.  There was the whole Thanksgiving/ Christmas/ New Years deal, which involved lots of lovely chaos with both sides of the family.  There was also FINALLY getting hired by the library that I had been volunteering at since April.  There have even been a few creative-ish side projects with which to keep myself occupied.

So now, with life seemingly back on track to being interesting,  I might start blogging again.  I say might because  there’s a pretty even chance that there will be another 9 month break.  We can all hope that doesn’t happen, however.

I know, you really came for pictures of the cat.

Kitty!

Just because I know everyone is dying for more cat photos….

 

Mariokart!

"There's a monkey on my back......"

Oh kitty. You're too young to drink.

 

"Stop disturbing me while I'm being adorable."

"Oh, you wanted to do the crossword? Here, let me shred it for you."

 

OOooh, String!

 

 

College costs too much.

First, go read this.

Every time I see a statistic on how much the cost of tuition at private colleges has risen compared to inflation, I get mad.

Every time I get an email from my alma mater (Syracuse University) explaining the plight of some poor prospective freshman who can’t afford to go to school unless I donate to the scholarship/ grant/ whatever fund, I get madder.  Maybe if you lowered your tuition, poor students could afford to go to you school without ridiculous amounts of financial aid.

Anyway.  The article I posted at the beginning has some great points about why colleges cost so much, and where their priorities truly lie (hint: its not with the undergrad students).

Its not that I regret going to an expensive school.  I got a great education (go SUSOA!), and had a great 5 years.  I was fortunate, however, to have gotten a combination of scholarships and grants that paid for most of it- leaving only  a small portion to be covered by student loans.  I read somewhere that your student loans should only equal half or less than half or your expected first year’s salary.  This was true for me (luckily, since I read the article several years after I graduated), but I know many other people that have so much in loans that their loan payment is almost equal to their rent.

What have been your experiences?  Was your college/ degree worth it?  What can colleges do to cost less?

I want to hear your thoughts!

How to make friends

Maybe that should be more of a question. How do you make friends? It was a question I posed to a friend (see, I do have them!) of mine online. Online, because, although I have lived in Georgia for 4 months, I have yet to make any friends here.

This particular friend is the opposite of me in many ways. Most noticeably, she is extroverted, and I am introverted. Actually, perhaps the most noticeable difference is that she is short and dark-haired, and I am tall and red-headed. But I digress. Given that she has more friends than I can count, I asked how she makes them. Her answer in essence was, ‘it just happens’.

In detail, it involved talking a lot. Not particularly helpful for me, as I am most often described as ‘the quiet one’, or, if someone is feeling particularly clever, ‘that girl who doesn’t talk’.

I know I don’t talk a lot.  As a side note, the most offensive and annoying thing you can do to a quiet person is to point out how quiet they are.  Even when its in the form of a joke, like “hey, stop talking so much!  You don’t give anyone else a chance”, when I’ve said about 5 words all evening.  Have some common sense people.  Pointing out someone’s weakness to their face isn’t nice.

Anyway.

Without a complete change of personality, ‘talking a lot’ just isn’t going to happen.

I know I’ll make friends. I always do. For example: Proof! and, More Proof!  I have great friends, and I know I will make great friends here.  I just need to find them.  So I ask you,  how do you make friends?

My favorite thing growing in my garden…

Who knows what it is?

Introducing Artemis

Charles and I adopted a cat.  Well, a kitten.  She’s three months old, loves to sleep, play and sounds like a mini-teradactyl.  I thought kittens were supposed to mew?

She also has this great habit of getting in front of your foot as you are stepping forward, effectively getting herself kicked.  Kitty hasn’t quite learned personal space, or foot space yet.

I know what you’re thinking- enough of the talk, I want pictures!  I hear ya, cuteness is better seen than described.