Just Floating

Wow! It's been over a month!!! I've had a No Boundariez post waiting to be published for a while, and I got my pictures for October 12th, and yet... I've been gone.
I shouldn't have kept you waiting. But I'm here now.

So this post is mostly just an update so my readers know that I am alive. Here's what's going on in my life.

My fall classes are going well!

I'm taking four classes: Literary Realism, Magazine Writing, Studies in Magical Realism, and Novel Writing. I like all of my classes, which for some reason are really reading-heavy. One semester I took four English classes... and I feel like I'm reading more this semester!

The good thing is that I'm really enjoying the reading (except for Robinson Crusoe). Still, I wish I had a little bit more free time. The other night, I was lying in bed and playing with my phone when Delisa asked, "What are you doing? Shouldn't you be reading?"

I'm the president of ink!

This semester I'm president of my school's creative writing organization. I was a little nervous that I would be a bad president since I can be pretty sassy/abrasive/mean, but I think I do a great job at pretending I'm nice and welcoming! Yay!

It's a lot of fun being president after being in the club since freshman year, and I hope I leave behind a positive legacy.

I'm applying to graduate school!

Definitely the scariest part of my senior year is prepping my grad school applications. I'm not applying anywhere near New Jersey, so if I get in, I'll be making a big move away from my home for the past 21 years! The moving is not the scary part; I'm fine with relocating and never have any anxiety about being somewhere new with no friends/family members around. The scary part is going to be waiting for acceptances/denials.

Grad programs are EXTREMELY hard to get into (some accept as few as 8 students a year, more generous ones accept about 20) and although I think I have a strong application, I have no idea how I compare to the rest of the world. And grad schools tend to accept students who have had time off after getting their undergraduate degree... which I'm not doing. On top of that, I'm applying for American Literature, which is the most competitive field in English.
Honestly, I'm not sure I'll get in and I'd be OK if I didn't. I'm determined to go, so I'd reapply every year until I got in and would work somewhere else in the meantime. But getting in would be nice.
So, in order to get into grad school....

I'm studying for the GRE!

The picture says it all.

Also, there's this, for now at least.

My Digs

I moved! Well, I moved at the very end of May, so it's been a while. I've been meaning to blog about my new place, but I haven't been here very much. I live about an hour away from my job so I've been staying at my friend Megan's house (as you see in the 12 of 12) since she lives 10 minutes away from my job. I'm home this weekend, so I took pics of the digs.

I now live in the beautiful town of Lambertville. I live only blocks away from New Hope, PA, so I'm as far west in New Jersey as you can get. The town is only 1.3 square miles, so it's very similar in size to Ocean Grove (where I grew up).

Here's my apartment from the outside.

There's a little area in the back where you can sit and read, watch the squirrels play in the yard, or eat burgers feat. cancer and birth defects!

Then through the gate, you reach the backyard/garden.

So once you open the front door, you're facing the living room.

To the left of the living room is el cuarto de Ross y Christie.

And to the right of the living room is the kitchen.

That door in the kitchen leads to the bathroom.

You may have noticed the stairs to the left of the kitchen sink (feat. Britney Spears poster). They lead to my bedroom, the loft.

While the loft is kind of small, I still love it! I'm a small person and since I'm not afraid of being in the rest of the house (...) I can stretch out in the living room. I'm also thrilled to have all that space for books! I used to have books in boxes and desk drawers and under my bed. Now they all fit neatly on my bookshelves.

SO DO YOU LOVE MY APARTMENT OR WHAT?!?!

My Summer Vacation

Hello all. June is almost over, it's almost time to start being brave again, and I figured you might all be wondering what I'm doing this summer. Clearly, I'm not blogging.... So anyway, since I'm a busy bee, I thought I'd let everyone know what I'm doing.


I spend most of time working. I'm technically supposed to work 8-4:45, but I usually don't leave work until around 6:30pm or later. One night, I was even there till 9:30! While you may think that leaves me lots of free time, I live about 1.5 hours from work, so I usually don't get home until around 8ish, and then go to bed around 10:30... So that only leaves a few hours between work and bedtime.

I work at a super famoso publishing company. My job title is Workshop Coordinator (or Workshop Manager if I want to sound fancy). I'm in charge of sending complimentary textbooks to Advanced Placement* summer workshops that happen all over the country. This summer, I'm sending to almost 2,000 workshops, which is a much greater number than last year. I was told the job would be super stressful when I got hired, and it can be tedious. But I'm a pretty relaxed person and I haven't felt too overwhelmed yet. I like the job a lot, love my co-workers, and have gotten a lot of compliments on my job performance, which makes me happy. So I spend A LOT of time at work, but at least I like it!


I guess reading is how I spent most of my spare time. Since I'm an English major who needs to read every book ever, summer is my ideal time to read. But since I work during the week, I try to make time for reading on the weekends. So far, I've sucked at reading and have only read Official Book Club Selection, by Kathy Griffin, Sula by Toni Morrison, Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel García Márquez, The Collector by John Fowles, and my I'm halfway through my current book, Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton.


Luckily, I'm allowed to listen to music at work, so I haven't abandoned the music scene. This summer, I've discovered a new band I love and got new music from some of my long-time favorites.

Based on the suggestion of my friend Todd, I got the debut album from a band called The xx. According to allmusic, some of the album's moods include: Melancholy, Cathartic, Brooding, Wistful, Gloomy, Autumnal, Stylish, Elegant, Nocturnal, Sexy, Different, Reflective, and Bittersweet, so clearly, this is an album I love. If you like laid-back music, you should definitely check them out.

And of course, I got the new album from the MileyBird!!! Destiny Hope has unleashed her latest collection of pop songs on the world, and just like Waynes Burger, McDonald's, I'm lovin' it. My favorite tracks include "Robot," the sequel to Bieber's "One Less Lonely Girl," called "Two More Lonely People," and the rumored next single, "Liberty Walk."

And thanks to the United Confederacy of Bloggers CD Exchange Extravaganza, my buddy John sent me a song with which I am obsessed! It's a song from Swedish pop star Robyn called "Dancing on my Own" and it's amazing. Listen to it and dance please.

Speaking of dancing, I guess I kind of have somewhat of a social life... if you consider a social life hanging out con mi mejor amigo y dancing con tears in my eyes!!!


This summer, for the first time ever, I went to a bar to watch people drink and make fun of their dancing. Since I don't drink, I buy Josh buys me a pineapple juice so that I don't feel left out. I didn't dance the first time we went out, but now I do sometimes and it's fun. But they better play "Girl From The Gutter" next time I go and not just stupid GaGa songs!

How is your summer vacation?

Paper Kitten Dream

Something pretty exciting happened to me today!

After I got home from work around 1pm, I hopped in my car with Ross and we drove through the rain and into Trenton.

Nope, I was not going to get drugs or a gun. Trenton is also home to an animal shelter, which was our destination. The shelter itself was kind of sketchy, but we made it there and picked up our new cat!

Isn't she adorable?!?!

We brought her home and she had a lot of fun in Ross and Christie's room, playing with plastic bags and cat toys, and running around the room exploring.

As we were documenting her first day home, she used the litter box for the first time! AWW!

That was her first visit, where she just peed. Her second visit was....... more interesting. It resulted in her first bath.

She is clearly not a fan of water, but as Ross pointed out, we need to get her accustomed to it for when she goes fishing!

After her bath, she licked her wet foot sadly.

And then continued to play. When Ross and I had to go to school, she tried to prevent Ross from tying his shoes

and then perched on his shoulder.

If you're wondering why I keep calling her "she," it's because we haven't agreed on a name yet. Ross and I want to call her either Esther Greenwood (after the main character in Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar) or Remedios the Beauty (from Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude, one of my favorite characters ever), but Christie doesn't like those names, so we're still thinking.

But in the end, her name is not that important I guess. What's more important is that we are happy to have saved her from being murdered and we're excited to provide her with a nice home and train her how to do sweet tricks like doing the dishes and updating my blog when I'm too busy.

Now I just need to introduce her to Richard Parker.... or maybe not.

Off To The Gateway City

I'm going to St. Louis tomorrow!

This will be my third time flying on an airplane (in just over a year -- lucky me!) and I am so excited to visit another state! I always talk about how much I want to travel around the country/world, and I'm finally getting the chance to do that now.

I'm definitely going to visit this big famous thing.

Apparently, this used to be a huge sculpture of the McDonald's golden arches but one fell down or something. But I'm still excited to see the other one.

And I am SO excited to visit the zoo!

I've only been to one zoo before and I love seeing animals. This zoo has lots of monkeys, naked mole rats, zebra, rhinos, giraffes, owls, puffins, snails, and even a tiger and an elephant!

Although I'm excited to travel in general, I'm also excited about the real reason I'm going. I'm actually going to a conference to present a paper I wrote about the 'cruel spring' motif and it's correlation to corruption of motherhood in Toni Morrison's novel The Bluest Eye.

I presented at the same conference last year and it was fun. At the conference, you read your paper to the audience and then they grill you. Some peepz are terrified of the grilling part but I actually like it. They say stuff like, "Why is your paper so terrible?" and "Did you do any research before forming those unfounded arguments?" and you cry and say that your professor gave you an A on the paper and run out of the room in tears. FUN!

So I'll be in St. Louis for the rest of the week and won't be online very often. I hope you all miss me!