New Tegan and Sara song~

"Give Chase"

Words cannot express just how much I love them...! Actually, what helped me a lot this past semester was finding these guys and listening to their music. Sorta saved me. So my family + friends + Tegan and Sara = mentally stable Megan.

Once I aquire a job (*knocks on wood*), my first investment will be an acoustic guitar. I've wanted one for a while now... *wants*

AND... they're just hilarious...

It's the most wonderful time of the year...

... when the air is super-dry and messes with my sinuses! I've got a sore throat and my nose is driving me crazy. Last night I couldn't even sleep in my own room because the air is too dry and it hurts too much. So I slept downstairs on the living room couch... I got some saline spray for my nose thinking it would help, but all it does is burn my throat where its sore. So I will be spending another night downstairs on this couch. What I need is a humidifier...

Life continues to be pretty uneventful. Went shopping today with my older sister with the little amount of money I had left on gift cards. Enjoyed some Starbucks, took my dogs for a walk, and played some Wii with my mom. An overall good day :)

I think my New Years plans have fallen through with my sister, so now I have no clue what I'm going to do. Probably just going to hang out at home or something~ last year I was in Japan with a friend's family, so maybe I should spend this year with MY family, ya know?

Well, I'm going to try and get some stuff done before hitting the hay. Maybe some wiifit? Who knows.

Until next time~
XOXO

Three more days until a fresh start

Yes, I am alive! Sorry for break in updates! The holiday season sorta threw me into a time-warp where I didn't really realize how much time has gone by~ I look at the calender and, after seeing we only have three days left in 2008, proceed to pinch myself in disbelief. Where the hell did this year go??

I'm not sure if its because I spent half of my year in Japan, which threw my time-perception into hyperdrive, or if its just because I am getting older, but this year feels more like a quick dream than a steady 365 days. I remember being 8 years old and looking enviously at my older cousins, thinking to myself "being that old is such a long way away. But I can't wait that long!". And at that time, time DID move slowly. The minute hand on the clocks moved so much slower... I can't recall when the clocks began ticking faster! Now I'm at a stage in my life where I feel like the minutes are just flying.

My christmas was uneventful and quiet. I couldn't really afford to buy gifts for anyone, so I instead painted for my sister and parents. I feel so cheap -_-;; It's been so hard to find a job! I've been turned down more times than I can count and it is really discouraging. Meanwhile, I have bill collectors calling me countless times a day... so I feel like I have my hands tied behind my back and I'm not able to do anything. I've also learned that I've failed a few classes this past semester. Whoo reverse-culture shock! Apparently I wasn't alone in the returning exchange students who were met with poor grades and difficulties re-adapting to our home country. We had little time to recoop after coming back before the school year started (for me, NO time. I moved back home from Japan and almost immediately moved into my BG apartment...). Sorta just... snapped and lost it. I equate it to a super hot pan suddently being put under an ice-cold waterfaucet. NOT a good idea! There is a hell of a lot of steam and the pan will get warped and fucked up, no matter how strong it is... not sure if thats a good analogy, but it works for me haha

But not everything is so bad! In just three days it will be 2009 and I will have a fresh start. There will be a new semester waiting for me to make up for my failures this past semester. I've started doing yoga and meditating more often. And I've found an absolutely amazing person who can make me smile almost effortlessly :) Despite how shitty these past few months have been and how difficult things may be or might be, I am happy.

Lets hope I can keep this up.

Until next time :)
Lots of love!
XOXO

Have you ever felt that you just want to disappear....?

Meg's Current Musical Obsessions

Watch, listen, enjoy~

Kaki King- Pull Me Out Alive

Uh Huh Her- Not A Love Song

P!nk- Sober (live)

XOXO

A Slave to My Hormones: Why Women Can't Cook!

In my Japanese Literature class this past week we were discussing the male-dominated field of cooking in restaurants and chefs despite the stereotype and gender roles of women in the kitchen. Because you would think that if women were to spend a lot of time in the kitchen and cook a lot, why are there not many female chefs?? (ah, don't you just love gender roles?)

According to my professor, (and this was not HIS way of thinking, he was just expressing other people's reasoning) the reason why there are not many female chefs is because of the idea and myth that because women have periods, their hormones and chemicals change a lot and it might affect how they taste things and will then change the taste of the food.

...

WTF??? I tend to not be too radical when it comes to my feminist side (although its been healthily growing over the past year), but my inner femmenazi was about to bust out "EXCUSE ME?", but I refrained and instead just dropped my jaw in disbelief.

My professor went on to explain to us that many male chefs and chef schools believe this and tend to dismiss women as having less of a true ability to cook. We can't cook because... we what? Menstrate? Really? Are you guys THAT chauvanistic? I really couldn't believe it... I was just dumbfounded that people actually believe this. I don't know, my mom is a hell of a good cook, so fuck all you guys. So now me and my feminist friends who are in the class with me always use the excuse "its because I bleed out of my vagina" or "It's a bad chemical day for me today..." to why we can't do things.

Does Pauala Deen have to choke a bitch?

Nearing the end...

... of the semester, that is! Only around one week left of classes with one week of final exams. I personally cannot wait until this semester is over. It has been, by far, my worst semester ever. In both academic and mental terms... Next semester will be better. I think a fresh start will do me some good.

(I love tea...)

My dogs will be coming to my apartment this weekend! I was going to go back to Cleveland this weekend and just stay there to watch my dogs, but decided to bring them back to school with me. It's almost the end of the semester and some of my good friends will be graduating, so I want to spend some time with them before they leave. And they love dogs, so it'll be a big fun party haha :)

Last night was a lot of fun! My friends Michael, Michelle, and I decided to have an impromptu drinking/video game party. Not really a party, just... hang out session. It was a lot of fun :) We ate lots of greek food (gyros, hummus, baklava, grape leaves), drank a bunch of imported Japanese beer and white russians/mudslides, and just had a ball. We ended up going back to Michelle's place and playing Rock Band for a few hours before falling asleep on her futon haha It was AWESOME!

Here is a video to demonstrate our silliness...

And just because its funny as hell... PROP. 8: THE MUSICAL!!

See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die

Until next time~
XOXO

Haircut?

Who is writing a post while in class? Oh wait, I am! haha

I just cut my hair earlier this month, but for some reason I am already itching to cut my hair again. It was short, but its starting to get long again and its bothering me. So I'm sorta at the point where I want a short cut that will stay short long enough so I don't feel like I'm cutting my hair every month or so.

So I've been thinking of what I can do with my hair... because honestly, I can't even afford to keep cutting my hair every month to keep it at a good length. So I was thinking ".... what haircut can I get away with that is really short but still stylish?? hm... omg FAUX HAWK!!!"

(I have no idea who these girls are... but I like their hair so I'm using their pics!)

When asking people about it, I've gotten mixed reactions and opinions. What do you think?

Wedding

My sister Bridget and I went to a wedding yesterday and it was a lot of fun! I was Bridget's date, which was pretty interesting... like, "No, I'm her sister." haha As a rule, I don't wear

dresses. So I got to wear my favorite suit ;)

The ceremony was really nice. You could really tell that they loved each other, so it was great to see :) Afterwards we went to the reception for a few hours, ate an amazing vegetarian dinner, drank, and danced a little bit. It was all live traditional music, which was nice.

Today I'll be going drive back to my university... I gotta clean my apartment and write a paper. Not looking forward to that...

Until next time!
XOXO

Thanksgiving

Yesterday was Thanksgiving, and I ate far too much! haha It was a lot of fun though. In the morning my mom and I woke up early to deliver food to people who can't afford a thanksgiving dinner or are shut-ins and cant leave their homes. It was a really great experience :) My mother and I do it every year on Thanksgiving and Easter; its become a little tradition of ours. (This is our box of food to be delivered. Looks smaller than it was.. haha)

After that was pretty much just thanksgiving auto-pilot... just went to my aunt's house, saw and chatted with my relatives, ate a lot, then went home. We also had birthday presents for our relatives whose birthday was in November (we have a party each month for birthdays :) ), so we had some amazing ice-cream cake along with pumpkin pie! So good...

I was supposed to wake up early this morning to go shopping with my sister and mom, but... I was too tired haha I decided to just stay home and sleep. And now that they're home and napping, I might do the same :)

As a random side-note, as horrible as this semester has been, I've gotta say that I'm happy again. After everything that's happened, I've moved on and I think I'm a better person than before. I don't even think about the person who broke my heart anymore! Completely over her :) I'm with my family and friends, I'm happy, and I'm happy with myself. Life is good :)

(my sister Bridget and I on the way to my aunt's house..)

Until next time!
XOXO

Meg's Big Gay Post

I feel need to write about this due to the recent news with California and a bunch of other states banning Gay Marriage. And I believe it was another state as well prohibited gay adoptions.... ok people. Lets talk, shall we?

In this past election, we had the greatest voter turnout in generations. People waited in lines for HOURS, for Christ's sake! It was amazing! America's slogan became "Yes We Can!", but after the smoke cleared and everything was said and done, our slogan was "Yes We Can! But Gays, No You Can't..." We had the greatest voter turnout for African Americans in history, however in their huge turnout and call for "equality", they voted to deny gays the right to marry. Wow... its must be really easy to go from the oppressed to the oppressor, huh? Thanks.


Honestly, what do people have against Gay marriage? I heard a lot of people say that homosexuality is wrong because it is sex outside of marriage. Well... wouldn't this fix that little problem? Let gays marry and it WON'T be outside marriage, right? That's a simple fix.

I've heard another argument say that homosexuality is wrong because it can't produce children, and that is what sex is for. So... sex without being able to have children in general is wrong. Ok, fine. What about people who are sterile?? Are they not allowed to get married or have sex because they can't have children? That makes sense, right? What about old people? Are old people not allowed to have sex? Granny can't push out any more babies, so sorry, no sex for you. really? Come on...

Then I heard the argument against gay marriage be that "Marriage is a tradition, damnit! A union between man and woman!". Ok, ok... lets take a quick break though to look at marriage in a historical way. HOW many cultures in the past have let men marry multiple women? Yeah, LOTS?? Why? Because at that time, you needed as many babies as possible because they probably wouldn't live through their teens, and out of the ones that survived, you needed to at least have 1 or 2 sons to carry on for you. So there goes your 'one man to one woman' crap. Even Abraham had a baby-mama cause his wife couldn't have no kids (uh-oh! sex outside of marriage! so much for that sanctity thing, huh? "Marriage is holy and should be upheld... as long as your wife can push out babies. otherwise anything goes). But over time, marriage has changed as culture and ways of thinking have changed.... TIMES CHANGE. You don't see a man marrying three woman and panicing because his children won't survive the winter and he won't have a male heir for his thrown or farm... come on, people. Use your heads!

Gays are citizens. Gays are people. Gays love. And when has love ever been wrong? How can you deny two people from loving one another? Shouldn't we be encouraging this?? With our high divorce rate in this country, why aren't we encouraging marriage, no matter who it is between? Two adults who love one another... it's as simple as that. I personally am tired of being a second class citizen. I want to get married, I want to have a family... does it matter who with? Is it up to the government to tell me who I'm allowed to love? No, it isn't.



I'll end it here, i'm getting too emotionally involved with this post now. I will write a post dealing with my actual life sometime later haha

Until next time~!
XOXO

Posting again??

Yes, I'm posting again!

why? Because I'm sick and have slept so much today that I can't sleep now. Damn me...

Ok... Ok.... Meg's juicy post? Sure.

I got a request from Ben (HA I said your name! :P ) to elaborate more on everything from this past semester and to write more. I won't use names or anything, because I'm sure the people involved won't want me telling people (so don't worry!). So here I go!

After returning home from Japan I only had one week before my classes began. But instead of relaxing and getting over jet-lag or reverse culture shock, I had to move into my new apartment and get ready for the semester. So in a sense, I didn't really ease myself back into normal American life and culture, I was violently thrown in... so that in itself was hard to adjust to.

Add in the fact that after coming back, I got sort of lost again as to what I wanted to do after graduation. I knew I wanted to go into graduate school and generally knew what I wanted to study, but hadn't a clue as to HOW to go about studying it (gays in Asia isn't exactly a widely studied issue). You know how frustrating to get lost while already on a path? It's silly.

And here is the major issue that kicked my ass into pathetic-town: I fell in love with someone who doesn't love me back. I know what you're thinking, "Meg, that happens to everyone? Why are you so whiny?". Well, shut up. :P Because this situation is a little different from most others. I won't go into the details now, but... yeah. Falling for someone who doesn't love you have really hurts.

So with all of that compiled together, I hit rock bottom and just lost all motivation and drive to do anything. I stopped caring about everything. But recently i've been getting better. My friends are here for me and always listen to me and give advice, and my family is always there to tell me to stop being stupid and pick myself up haha (Thanks Bridget). The person I fell in love with and I don't really see or interact with each other that much anymore... they have been really busy with their new person and doesn't really have the time to go out anymore. Maybe it's for the best though, right? I want to move on and forget everything that happened. I'm better off :)

And that is that. I will save my Army enlistment post for later... this post is long enough! Ah!

So yeah, thanks for everyone who has supported me throughout all of this despite my silly stubborness and stupidity. I love you guys :)

Until next time~!
XOXO

Why Blog?

Good Question. Why should I blog, anyway? It will probably be boring to most people who read it... which is true. But I don't care :)

I'm starting this blog because I've decided that I need a fresh start with a lot of things. Ever since coming back from Japan in August, there has been a LOT of crazy stuff going on for me and it's affected my school, family and friends, and mental health... so after talking about a bunch of stuff over with my awesome sister, I've decided that I just need to start fresh.

So what does "fresh" mean, anyway? Well, basically I'm letting go of and tossing aside what was driving me crazy and work on figuring myself out while just living out my life and having fun with my friends and family.

I'm not exactly sure just how many people will read this blog, but for those of you who do, thanks :) I will probably keep this blog going for a while. Over the next few years I've got a bunch of new things going for me (like graduation, joining the army, basic training, language training... yeah, I'll explain that later!), so I will have things to write about.

Until next time~! :)
XOXO

PS: I'm getting sick...

First Post!

It's almost 2AM and should be sleeping, but I want to write a short post for my new blog. I used to have an old blog on LiveJournal but don't really like it so much.... so I want to try this blogger thing and see how it goes!

LONG day tomorrow... I have a presentation tomorrow night that I have yet to write, so I will be spending more of my day doing that. But after that, most of my week is pretty free. Whoo~~ :)

英語だけで書かなくて日本語でも書くかな。。。いい練習でしょう？だけど、Mixiがもうあるから、要らないかもしれない！

whatevs haha

XOXO