that rosebud girl

all sorts of transition going on …

eh…my life hasn’t been all that interesting lately. no near-accidents or bug bites. hahaha. well, i did trip in the middle of a best buy parking lot on tuesday afternoon…with some guy walking by….that was kind of embarrassing.

but otherwise, life is kind of blah. i think my move to the copy desk is finally going to happen. i’m working five days on the desk this week. so i can kiss reporting good-bye. yay.

rachana left last friday because her internship was done. so we went and partied up in philly with tiff, jamar and nick. nick, being underage, couldn’t sneak into any clubs, so we ended up in front of some irish joint, drinking away (they didn’t ask for id when we drank — so nick got his alcohol fill.) that was all i needed — a bunch of bacardi and cokes and some yuengling and it was all good.

we had a cappella rehearsal on tuesday night, which went okay. i found out the music i had written out for “sailing” had a billion errors in it. oh, well. there’s a reason i’m not a professional musician. hahahaha.

i’m also sitting around, wondering when to blow my last three days of vacation. edgar sent me and a bunch of other people an e-mail about the upcoming trojan football season….and i want to go to one game at least. so maybe i’ll blow my vacation on going to chicago and notre dame. i don’t know yet. feeling kind of wishy-washy about it.

*sigh* hopefully my life gets a little more interesting. hahaha. or maybe some routine is what i need.

near-death … and a new cat.

tuesday was a pretty busy day. mark, pete and i went to the phillies game in the afternoon. it was so hot and sticky. i wanted to keel over from the heat in the sixth inning. and the game was pretty long (about four hours). so long that i couldn’t get back in time for ballet class.

but that wasn’t even the worst of it. i drove us to and from the game and narrowly avoided getting into an accident on 95. some person in a big ass SUV tried to change lanes the same time i was changing lanes. so i swerved out of the way, but was going pretty fast, so the wheel jerked back and forth for a minute or so. i had to keep the car from going out of control and i seriously thought we’d spin into the wall in the center of the freeway. so it was herky-jerky for a while, and we went into the shoulder and the rumble strips briefly, but i eventually got things straightened out. just took the foot off the gas and slowed down that way. dude, driver’s ed training kicked in. i swear. when we finally got under control, the three of us looked at each other and said, “man, that was almost our last baseball game.” it was freaky. but at least we were all okay and in one piece — and so was the car.

i still had a cappella rehearsal after that. and i walked away from michele’s with a new cat. just like that. she and her boyfriend had gotten a kitten from her boyfriend’s stepmom, but they decided they couldn’t keep it. so michele gave the kitten to me. she’s very cute — michele named her chloe, but i think i might rename her daisy. she’s so tiny (fits in the palm of my hand) and gray-striped. i’ve always wanted a gray cat.? i’m too lazy to put up pictures right now, though.

the only problem is that my cat sadie is sort of cat-phobic. sadie keeps hissing at the poor kitten. sadie also took a dump on the carpet upstairs — cats are such vindictive little creatures. she keeps eyeing the kitten warily, and they keep having this stare-down contest. i hope sadie warms up eventually. i’m giving these two cats a week-long test run. if it doesn’t work, i’ll have to give the kitten back to michele. but i hope it works. two cats are fun.

the meaning of your name.

i saw this link on someone else’s blog:
http://miva.zodiacal.com/acro.mv

it analyzes what your name means. it’s so cool (and very true). here’s what it said about me:

NAME ANALYSIS FOR: jennifer santiago javier
jennifer: You have a love of travel and adventure, and you enjoy sports. You also have a very strong sense of fair play and want justice. You can be quite inventive and quite curious. You can handle details well. You have a methodical mind. You must learn to give ‘wise’ service and not be a martyr. You are relatively demonstrative in your affections. You enjoy being stroked verbally and physically. You are naturally friendly. You can be the life of the party. You need to learn to be expressive. You are a person who cannot tolerate being misunderstood. You enjoy a challenge. You can take thought-directed actions.
santiago: Status is important to you and your ability to achieve success and earn money. You have a need to be noticed and seek status. You have much enthusiasm with a driving attitude toward achievement in life. You must learn to give ‘wise’ service and not be a martyr. Your privacy is important to you. You have a rich inner life. You need to learn to give and receive love for love’s sake. You have a need to be assured of affection. You have a need to be up front. You are a hard worker when you make up your mind to do a job. You have a great deal of loyalty to those you love. You have much inner strength.
javier: You conduct yourself in a fair and just manner. You enjoy watching or participating in sports. You have a need to be up front. You can easily detach from people and situations. You enjoy unconventional friends. You need to learn to give and receive love for love’s sake. You have a need to be assured of affection. You need to learn to be expressive. You are a person who cannot tolerate being misunderstood. You have a lack of confidence in your mental abilities and do not like being forced into giving your opinion.

like i said, pretty damn true. and i guess i was destined from birth to be involved in sports. hahahaha. it all makes sense now.

otherwise, my life has been relatively boring. work, working out, a cappella, losing countless hours of my life playing sim city 4, blah blah blah. oh, and getting devoured by mosquitoes. bleh. i have more bug bites than i care to have.

on sunday, i hosted another dinner party — this time, the theme was italian. another smashing success. elisa, rachana, tiffany, jamar and nick were all there. mike didn’t show up for some reason (he might not have known about it). but it was all good and fun and everyone loved the food, which always makes me smile. elisa also brought her friend michelle, a sports copy editor at the inquirer — she was really cool. i’m going to meet up with her at a phillies game on tuesday. i love meeting new people. and all of elisa’s inquirer friends are cool.

now, off to do something. even if i don’t feel like doing anything. mondays suck.

bbq!

ed and i hosted a barbecue party at our house today. it was pretty sweet. elisa, pete, mark, rachana, mike and nick all came along. ed was a pretty popular guy because he made the burgers (and they were good). lots of beer, lots of talk, and way too much food — it was a great way to end what has been an otherwise slightly shitty weekend.

i was glad to hang out with some people, particularly mark and pete, since i hadn’t seen both of them in a while. we’re all supposed to see a phils game next tuesday, so that’ll be cool. i have to hang out with mark as much as possible before he skips town. at least it looks like he’s not skipping too far (albany or new jersey) so maybe i can visit him down the line somewhere.

so, the bbq was a smashing success. unfortunately, i have a lot to clean up and ed went to sleep. *sigh*

ballet!

it’s been a pretty productive tuesday. i got some time to recover from my drive to and from montreal and managed to get a lot done. i cleaned the upstairs of the house and will clean downstairs tomorrow morning in preparation for this big bbq party ed and i are throwing on sunday.

i also had my first ballet class at the Y this afternoon. my teacher is a little psycho. well, maybe that’s not the best word. but she’s a total perfectionist. but it’s cool. ballet is fun. my feet hurt, though, since i probably used a bunch of leg muscles that i didn’t even know existed. i worked out after that too, in aquacise class, so now i’m really tired.

and i saw mike corey at the Y before ballet class. dude, everyone works out there. i’m waiting to see who will pop up next when i’m all sweaty and stuff.

montreal!

it’s been a pretty busy holiday weekend. haven’t been able to write about it, though, because i’ve been out of the country. so here’s a quickie recap:

july 4: independence day was pretty awesome. i headed up to philly to matt’s because he was throwing a barbeque. elisa came along later, along with some inquirer people i knew. parking was a bitch, though. but that was the only bad part. food was good, beer was good, fireworks on the parkway kicked serious ass.

saturday: began my long ass haul up to montreal. yeah, i decided to go up to canada since ed was going to be up there for a phillies game. it was about an eight-hour drive — i got into montreal around 8:30 p.m. it was an uneventful drive, too. just went up through scranton, pa., and syracuse and had to drive an extra 150 miles or so through ontario. didn’t do much once i got there — ed and i had some dinner and that was pretty much it.

sunday: a full day in montreal. dude, montreal kicks serious ass! it’s a mix of old and new, of french and english. i sort of remembered some of my high school french. i went and saw olympic stadium, wandered around the old city and the old port, and had a seriously good steak-and-crab-legs dinner at this steakhouse. fantastic. i enjoyed the vibe of montreal and definitely have to come back. i have lots of pictures, but i’m too lazy to put them up. (they’ll probably be on my own website sometime in the next week.

monday: drove back. took a different route and went through the adirondack mountains in new york. very pretty. so pretty i took pictures while i was driving — just pretty much hit the button at random while i had one hand on the steering wheel. hahaha. it took a while to get home because of a giant rainstorm i drove through, but i am back in one piece. and tired.

but oh, what a grand time. i ?Ǭ†canada. must return again….

yay, a cappella!

well, technically, i had half a day today. i didn’t wake up until 12:30, which kind of pissed me off. i felt like i?Ǭ†wasted my day. i didn’t show up in the office because i woke up so late, but at least i got a little bit of work done.

anyhow, we had our first official a cappella meeting today. so exciting. a bunch of people showed up late (rain and traffic — not a good mix) but it was pretty cool. it was two other girls (lauren and lisa) besides michele and me, and two guys, jim and bob. the guys were older and pretty cool; lauren was 21 and lisa was 30. learned a quick song, chit chatted, all that stuff. i’m very excited that this is getting off the ground. we’re supposed to meet on sunday, but i’m going to be in montreal. but now i have something to look forward to and be super excited about, music-wise. hopefully, the other people will show up and this will kick ass.

now i have to get crackin’ on arrangements. hehehe. i’m glad i’m finally doing something about the singing bug.