Things I've Learned in the Last Six Months

I've been on my own for six months now. Here's what I've learned so far:

1. There is nothing like a nice, clean apartment to make me feel like staying home.
2. I have two great methods of losing weight: exercising, and sleeping all day.
3. There is nothing wrong with being angry sometimes.
4. If I am trying to be fair to everyone, I am probably not being fair to myself.
5. It is not a good idea to put a male betta's fish bowl anywhere near a mirror.
6. Living by myself means never having to shut the bathroom door.
7. I am as entitled to voice my opinion as everyone else is.
8. Eating at the table makes me feel more civilized and less like a college student.
9. It's very important to have girl friends.
10. The older I get, the more I think like my dad.

Being a Grown-Up is Boring.

It's just as I suspected. Being a grown-up is boring.

Here's what's happening in my life: I go to work. I come home. I eat something. I go to sleep. I wake up. I work out (sometimes). I take a shower. I go to work. And that's my week. And even though I'm used to the schedule, my work week still feels more like one really long day during which I just take lots of long naps. Honestly, the best part of my day is from 5 to 7 a.m. Now who else in the world can say that? I have the most fun of my day when we're doing the morning show.

I talked to Ryan yesterday and literally had nothing new to tell him. Because there's nothing new in my life right now. I have a few things to look forward to, but other than that, I'm just doing the same thing every day.

I feel like things will pick up this summer, and here's why. As you may know from reading my last post, I have two major goals for this summer: to get a puppy and to be in at least one summer civic theatre show. I really hope I can be in a play for this summer because once I started rehearsing, I'd have something to do other than work, which would be great! Also, once I have a puppy I will have a lot more to do, like clean up after it, take it outside all the time, and train it. Even the hard parts of owning a dog sound fun! That's how boring my life is right now.

Don't get me wrong; I love my job. It's just the rest of my day when I'm not at my job that's so boring.

And lately I haven't been motivated to do much of anything, like clean my apartment or go work out. I'm just tired of doing this stuff every day! But, welcome to the rest of adult life, right?

Oh! Here's one thing I'm excited about: For the first time since living on my own, this month will be the first that I've actually been able to save a significant amount of money! Tomorrow is a pay day, and I'll be able to pay all my living expenses and still have money left over to speak of! It seems like a small accomplishment, but it's actually a big deal to me, especially since I'm budgeting for a dog in the future.

OK, quick media picks.
Movies: I went to see Katherine Heigl's "27 Dresses." It was great, and I am now completely in love with James Marsden. The movie was one part "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days," one part "Runaway Bride," and one part "My Best Friend's Wedding," add James Marsden, shake, strain, and pour into a martini glass. Yum...everything a chick flick should be! My favorite part involves a slightly drunken duet between Heigl and Marsden singing "Benny and the Jets" in a packed roadhouse...it was very adorable (especially Marsden...did I mention I'm completely in love with him?)

TV: Thanks, WGA for not letting anyone get back to work. This is getting really old. I did see that NBC.com posted episodes 1, 3, and 5 of season 4. I still need to watch season 3 on DVD, but now I'm caught up for the most part on the current season, so I really hope the strike ends soon since I'm almost ready to be a weekly Office watcher! Plus I'm waiting for more "Pushing Daisies" on NBC. On the other hand, Big Brother is just around the corner and I can't wait! CBS has been promo'ing its new show line-up for February sweeps, and so far the only thing I'm interested in is Big Brother. Although for Survivor fans they're doing a "Fans vs. Faves" season, which I think is a great idea. They need to do that for BB as well...that would be hilarious.

Music: I don't listen to music anymore. Just kidding. But I haven't listened to anything new lately. I need to dig through my CDs and find some old stuff that I haven't heard in awhile.

Ok, that's it for now. Hopefully next time I write, I'll have something new to say!

(not) Busy

I really want a dog.

How great would that be? I'd have someone to keep me company, we could go for walks, drive around together...and I have plenty of time to train it and stuff.
So I'm saving up for a dog.

Also, I'm going to get involved in civic theatre this summer, or at least try out. I don't know what musicals they are doing yet, but I know one of them is HSM...and of course I'm enough of a 12-year-old to be totally excited about that!

I need to find someplace to sing, because I miss it so much and I really freak out sometimes about losing my singing voice. I sing in the car all the time...not really the same thing!

I'm just not used to not being busy...I go to work, I come home, go to bed, and I work out, and that's pretty much it. I started a video blog so I spend some time editing videos and stuff, which is really fun, especially when you have plenty of time to work on it. But for some reason my camera isn't reading my SD card, and I had a lot of stuff on there, and now I can't get the camera to recognize it. Plus, for some reason the internal memory only hold about 3 1/2 minutes worth of video (which doesn't seem right). So I'm going to take it in to Best Buy tomorrow and see if they can tell me anything. The problem is my sister bought it in Hong Kong or Singapore or something, so it's not like I can take it back to where I got it and get their help. I'm sure it'll be fine, it's just annoying to not be able to figure out what's wrong with the thing.

Speaking of memory...I apparantly ran out of it on the computer I use at work! I was trying to save my videos to the server we use for stuff we put on the air, and I couldn't save the videos because the drive had run out of space. And of course, this is at 4:30, so it's half an hour before the show and I have no video ready. Luckily one of the anchors let me use his computer to do the rest, and the video guy helped out by dubbing some tapes I needed into the server in the sports office. And everyone was really flexible. One of the PAs was like, "Lisa, you seem concerned but calm," which I guess is a good thing...I didn't feel calm, but everyone else was being really patient with me, so that was keeping me from having a meltdown! There was a point in the morning when I felt like snapping, but then I realized I didn't have time for it! It would have been pointless anyway. No one was causing me any problems; quite the contrary.

I was talking to one of the anchors after the show about how easy it is to come to work with this group of people, because everyone has the same goal in mind: to do a good job, and to enjoy doing it. We all can goof around and tease each other, but we all feel like it's important to put a good show together and get it on the air, and we're not trying to discourage each other. I think that's really rare, not just in TV but in any workplace. I was talking to some friends who were asking me how I like my job, and I told them I'm really blessed to have been put in the right place at the right time with the right people. Yah, I complain about things sometimes, but it's pretty rare to have any reason to. And sometimes we get frusterated because things break or don't work the way they should, and we can't always depend on our machinery. But we can always depend on each other (as corny as that sounds). Not many people are as lucky as me, to find a job they love with people who make it fun, right out of college...or ever!

Moving on...I don't really have any new media picks right now. I'm actually trying really hard not to spend money on movies (arf arf!).

Oh! I did see "Uptown Girls" at a friend's house. I had always wanted to see it; I thought it looked cute. It really surprised me. It wasn't just a fluffy chick flick. It was a little deeper emotionally than I thought it would be. If you're not familiar, it stars Brittany Murphy as the orphan daughter of a rock star couple who died in a plane crash when she was eight, but of course left her tons of money so she didn't have to actually work or be accountable for anything. (She did go to college, but I don't really know why.) But the cool thing is, she's not exactly Paris/Nicole...she's got this quirky, super-eccentric flower child vibe and though she's very materialistic and extravagant, she's not snide or witchy or uppity at all. She's got a flair for fashion, but it doens't have to be couture. In fact, the opening sequence shows her crushing a tiny wire candle-lampshade and pinning it in her hair. She's basically a little girl who didn't mature much past the age she was when she lost her family.
She has a super-preppy best friend, which I don't understand at all. They were apparantly college roommates, but I don't see how their friendship works...I guess it's that "opposites attract" cliche. Her best friend is like a Martha Stewart disciple, with a bob cut, headband, high neckline, and pearls. Yah.
Of course, what happens is that "Bob," who takes care of Molly's (Murphy's character)parents' estate, runs off with all of her money, which means she has to get a job. Her other best friend, (played by Turk from Scrubs!!!) who is some kind of associate music producer, gets her a gig as the nanny of his boss's bratty daughter, played by the creepy Dakota Fanning.
In this movie, Fanning's character is like a cranky 65-year-old lady trapped in a 9-year-old's body. She is OCD, germaphobic, and militaristically precise. She is, of course, the exact maturity level but polar opposite personality of Molly.
There are some hilarious interactions and adventures with the two "uptown girls," but they also find out that they are both acting out of fear because of the hurt of losing their parents (Fanning's character has a dad who is a vegetable). And they influence each other to better balance having a good time and being responsible ("fundamentals are the building blocks of fun"). The best analogy for thier relationship is the fact that Fanning's character is in ballet class, which for her is a perfect outlet for her love of order and discipline. For Molly, dancing is an outlet for individuality and spontinaety. At the end of the movie is a scene where Molly goes to the dance recital to see her charge mixing her own precise technique with a mimick of her nanny's freeform version of dance. That was probably the part that made me want to cry the most.
It's a rather predictable movie, as most chick-flicks are, but it's not what you'd expect from the previews. I realize everyone else has probably already seen this movie as it was released on DVD like two years ago, but that's my insight on it.
Go check it out.

OK, time to go work out...I totally didn't mean to spend that much time writing on here.