And that's what it's all about

I had a great Easter weekend!  I must begin with the shallow points:  

• I bought Clinique Happy Heart body wash for the first time and it smells soooo wonderful, and since it was Clinique Bonus Time at Macy's, I got a free bonus kit with my purchase which included a cosmetics bag, a "youth serum" (which I gave to my mom), mascara, lipstick, moisturizer I'd been thinking of buying anyway, and a blush stick.
  
• My mom bought me an actual sports bra (It had been years since I'd owned one, and I'd grown sick of yanking on the bra straps of my various pushups and other inappropriate for working out undergarments during fitness classes) and silky beautiful pantyhose (I'd been buying pairs at Walgreen's, and these are Donna Karen.  BIG difference.)
• My mom also gave me the pair of silver ballerinas she had to wear when she played on Oprah.  I could tell she loves them, but she said she wouldn't ever wear them for a normal occasion in public.  Anyone who knows me knows that I am not above that at all!

     I got to see my sister this weekend, which was awesome because we don't see each other very often anymore and she's going to North Carolina for music camp (is that the right term?) this summer, which is awesome, but it means that we won't get to hang out much this year.

     I also got to see the rest of my family and friends of the family, and we had a really fun time eating at Lulu's in downtown Evanston saturday night and going to church and having Easter dinner at our house in Evanston.  I have more chocolate/Easter candy than I know what to do with.  Please help me eat this!  I also have a new iTunes card to spend.....

     I spent enough time with my Latin books for my family to think I'm studious.  Ha.

     One friend of the family told my mom that I'm "too pretty to be a professor" and her daughter told me to my face that I'm "too young to be a professor".  I kindly reminded everyone that I'm not a professor, and just wait five or how many more years and see if they still think this is true, but thanks anyway.  Although I suppose that if I look like a 16-year-old now and the my rate of aging does not accelerate, I have a good chance of still looking youthful at 27....  Right?

     My mom broke out the scrapbooks of ancestors we have in our house, but I neglected to take pictures of any of their contents, and am really kicking myself because I need to do a presentation on my family's immigration history for Italian class on Tuesday!  I have no idea how I'm going to pull this off because now I have no visual aids unless I search the Internet for my family, and the only information I have on most of my family's immigration to the US consists of "family stories" because parts of my family came over here before it actually was the United States (i.e. they were British and came over in the 1600s, most likely for religious reasons.).

     Shout-out to those who ran the half-marathon at U of I!  Congratulations!

Product review Wednesday

     The things that have changed in my life recently can be told through a series of reviews concerning changes in products I have made.

Ocella

Ocella is the generic pill for yasmin, and it was prescribed to me by my dermatologist along with spironolactone, a potassium sparing diuretic (My acne is hormonal, so he said that these medications would be quite effective for my kind of acne).  Before beginning Ocella, I decided to look up this specific pill because I had never heard of it before and I was excited to learn all that I could about a medication that might actually relieve me of my flocks of zits.  Upon googling the drug, I found many distressing posts on various blogs (with acne bents as well as medical ones) explaining the horrible side effects some women had experienced upon beginning this pill.  Although my parents warned me not to get worked up about these posts, that could have been written by anyone, after having started the pill, I became more and more anxious every day.  The first week I was on it, I had such a severe panic attack that I had to go to the emergency room in the middle of the night.  In subsequent nights, I had panic attacks (nearly every night, in fact) but I was able to talk myself out of them, telling myself that my problems were probably psychosomatic and that I was just expecting to experience side effects from this pill.  Unfortunately, the heart palpitations and breathing problems became more and more frequent, happening almost every night and starting to occur during my classes during the day.  Even though I had had my potassium checked (Ocella paired with a potassium sparing diuretic such as spironolactone can increase your level of potassium) and found that it was high, but not too high, and even though I knew that I was in good health, I realized that even with my anxious, worrisome nature, this level of anxiety was not normal for me and it was affecting my life on way too many levels.  I stopped taking the medication and now I am much calmer, and haven't had a single panic attack since (This is my fifth day off Ocella and my fourth day off spironolactone.).  I read online that panic disorder can be linked to Ocella, and although I'm not sure how credible the sources I read are, I am highly tempted to claim that it was Ocella that was causing the problem (My dermatologist had me go off both pills, though, because we don't know for sure what could have been causing the side effects.)

I did notice a dramatic change for the better in my skin, acnewise, but the side effects were not worth clear skin.  I am still using the topical treatments that I'd already been using, so we'll see how it goes.

Maybelline

I love Maybelline products, and have been using their powder (sometimes I buy their mineral powder, others their shine proof powder or something of the like) for about a year now.  I've noticed that their plastic cases have a tendency to crack easily, though.  I have a set of their blush in a broken case, and the lid to my powder, which had been cracked for a couple weeks, finally broke in two.  I have had this happen before with Maybelline powders (not with the mineral kinds though, which seem to be in a sturdier case) and with the caps to their foundation sticks and it's always annoying, but I deal with it because I like to use their products.  I know plastic breaks, especially if it's thin and you occasionally carry it around with you, but I wish the company would come up with some more durable packaging.

Clinique

I loooove the Clinique Superfit liquid foundation I bought from Sephora.  The only complaint I have is the same one I see in some of the comments of the product on their website, posted by other extremely pale people, apparently, which is that even the lightest color is not really that light.  For me, it is not only a bit dark, but it is too yellow (a problem that I often have with makeup foundations).  I have pink undertones, but it seems that some makeup companies tend to make their lighter shades only in yellow undertones.  Although yellow is good for concealing purposes, and sometimes I wish I had yellow undertones, but I don't, and so I look a little weird in this color (My Italian teacher thought I had gone somewhere warm for spring break.  I didn't tell her that I had stayed in Illinois and simply switched to a foundation that was too dark for me!).  My Maybelline powder is a lighter shade, though (however still more yellow than pink), so it evens out well enough (I'm a powder AND liquid girl.)

That's about it.  I'm so ready for this semester to be over (but not ready to turn in my term papers!  Agh!)!

Big long post-spring break update

     I've been meaning to post a spring break recap, detailing all the fun one can have over spring break without leaving the midwest, but I've been "busy" (and lazy).  Today does not seem to be a particularly productive Saturday (although I went to kickboxing and cleaned my oven and my sink, so...  I feel somewhat of a sense of accomplishment.), so I give you the salute to the midwest (i.e. Illinois and Iowa, which are the only states besides Michigan that I really visit around here), followed by some pictures from last night's celebration of Mica and DB's birthdays:

     Unfortunately, my sister's and my vacation only overlapped by one weekend, but it was fun to visit Iowa City when we took her back the first Saturday of my spring break.

     Here is a picture of the family in front of Pagliai's Pizza, one of the best pizza palaces anywhere!  You can't see it in the photo, but there are people flipping the pizza dough in the window behind them.  My sister has her viola, because she takes it with her pretty much everywhere.

     I brought my Tigger backpack on the trip, much to the amazement of every child I encountered, who would inevitably follow me around like the Pied Piper (not my metaphor; we went to a new age store the next day where the shopkeeper complemented me on my bag, and I told him about the children, after which he made the reference to the dude with the pipe) or, in the case of this dinner, turn around in their booth and point out to their parents that Tigger was behind them every five minutes.

     On Tuesday I saw "The Watchmen" with Christine.  It was her third time seeing it, and my first.  It was kind of creepy, but really good; it held my attention for its full 2.7 hours.

     The next day I had good old American hot chocolate (at Starbucks) with Ravinia coworker Kate, where we had lively conversations catching up on our lives and gossiping about our coworkers, until the Starbucks employees started sweeping the floors and cleaning out the cash register, or whatever businesses with cash registers do at the end of the night.

     Kate later convinced me to come into work on that Friday for a "Rising Stars" concert, during which we stuffed envelopes for returning workers and tried to decide who was really worthy of coming back ;)

     On Thursday, I was a "teacher's helper" for my mom, and played violin with her violin, cello and bass students.  It was pretty fun, and according to my mom, the kids were calmer than usual since I was there.

     On Saturday, some high school friends and I met Karthik at Gameworks in Schaumburg.  Gameworks is essentially a Chuck 'E' Cheese for grown-ups.  At the beginning of our Gameworks experience, we played arcade games such as Road Rage, Blow Up The Death Star ("Star Wars"), and Shoot Zombies With A Plastic Gun and Get Really Angry When The Zombies Slash Your Face (I don't remember the actual titles in any of these games.)  I was getting progressively more and more angry because these games did not distribute any tickets at the end and I had SEEN prizes on the main level of the complex.  We took a break for dinner, during which we had pretty good food and I cooled off by eating and talking out my anger.  In the middle of our dinner break, I had to go to the bathroom, and on my way there, I found what I now refer to as the "money games" (the ones that dispense tickets), which I later played for almost the entire duration of our time there after dinner)Then, some college friends stopped by (Karthik had told them we were going, and apparently they were inspired) and seemed kind of frightened of my crazy-eyed talk of my plans to get to the money games after we'd finished dinner.  It was a good time, though, and I ended up winning some prizes with my tickets!  I'm planning on going back sometime.

Goodbye, Gameworks!  Now let's take these pictures quickly because it's cold and raining!

Mica, Chris and Jessica at Esquire to celebrate Mica's and DB's birthdays:

Sean and friend:

Anna and Julie:

Rebecca and Dan:

DB (right) and friend:

Dan eating chips out of a bag without his hands....  Unfortunately the waxpaper from his empty french fry basket is obstructing the view:

     After dancing at C-street for two hours, I took my shoes off at the bus terminal.  Chris decided to put them on and show us his catwalk skills (which are way too impressive for any of these pictures to give them justice.)

"When you're fed up shedding too many tears...

... and your memories seem like just so many souvenirs, I will come to you to ease the pain."

-Paul McCartney

     I miss Paris.  

     I really have never wanted to miss Paris, as much as I've enjoyed my times there, but it's really hit me how much I long to be back there.  Yes, I said "long".  I long for my spartan-esque dusty bedroom in my friendly foyer.

      I miss the de-stressing catharsis sessions at the local McDo (where the patrons actually look as trendy as the ones in the commercials we see for McDonald's in the US and where they constantly play the Top 40 instead of obscure 60s tunes.).  I miss having a gigantic grocery store across the street, even though its delivery trucks would wake me up at 6am every morning.  

     I miss taking easy and convenient public transportation, mousse sold in little cups right next to the yogurt, little old ladies who would randomly initiate pleasant conversations on the street and even the creepos who wanted me to stop and bavarder with them.  I miss eating a croque aux 2 fromages.  Yes, they have vegetarian croques and they're amazing, and I want one now  (ooh I just found some recipes online!)!

     I miss browsing in any of the Gilbert stores, walking all over the place, buying cheap teenybopper clothes at Jennyfer, walking past history and fantastic architecture.  I miss going to the free contemporary art museum...

... and chilling on the Pompidou plaza. 

     Oh yeah, and easy access to the musée du Louvre was also cool.  

     Yup, it's spring again.

Lights out frustration

It's the middle of the day and in the mid-sixties, so no, a power outage does not seem completely dire at the moment.  However, I'm a bit frustrated.  I was skating at the Ice Arena at approximately 3:25pm today when the whole rink went black.  Some back-up lights soon came on, but the skate guards soon ushered us off the ice, anyway.  Thinking that this blackout was probably going to last longer than 35 minutes, when Public Skate would have ended, I packed up my bag and hauled ass (not without effort, since the wind kept blowing me gallywest (actually east) part of the way) to Walgreens, only to find that although they must have backup lights, their cash registers were off-line.  I continued down Green Street, trash swirling low around me, past all the stores with no lights on, and ended up in the Union bathroom, in which there was no light, and no one around me was speaking English (I felt like my aunt in the CSO lockeroom).

     I was pretty apathetic to the inconveniences that I'd come across since, as I said, it is a nice day and it's still during daylight hours.  But then I realized, I'm on my LAST glass of Diet Coke, and the vending machines probably don't work, nor do any stores' cash registers.  I thought, well, so what, I'm out of Diet Coke, I can always make coffee.  ENHHH.  No coffee.  That would require a coffee MACHINE powered by electricity.  But WAIT, I have some leftover coffee in the refrigerator.  Wrong again.  I can't reheat it without my microwave or my stove, both of which are electric.  It's got milk in it, which is going to go bad and make it nasty and rancid by the time I want to drink it.

     Still, I'm really having trouble getting angry.  I know everything is going to be all right, and although I may lose some groceries which I'd been trying to stock up in the name of being economical, but it's no big deal, right?

Semi-drunken life ramble

     As I lie in my dark bedroom listening to my "///////Stressless" playlist being overpowered by the noises blasting music of unidentifiable genre alternating with possibly awkward bathtub sex taking place next door to me, I ponder the fact that I am wiped at 11pm on a Saturday.  Is it because of the extra-jumpy kickboxing session I had this morning?  Possibly the overwhelming and looming stress that's been hovering above me like a dark purple cloud of doom that continues to push forward along with me?  Is it the fact that I had 3 margheritas this evening and I generally get happy after half a cerveza?  I think I'm just getting old.  Every time I look in the mirror, I'm shocked at how old I've gotten and how much it shows.  I get "pooped" (yes, I said, "pooped"!) so much earlier than used to when I was younger.  I even checked on next week's homework (gasp!) out of a hybrid mix of a feeling of responsibility and boredom.

     Aging scares me, as it always has.  I worry that I won't "be" anyone when I'm older, that I'll just have a boring job and no one will know who I am.  I worry that I am missing some calling that's been trying to buzz me for years, except I'm in the underground part of the "L" and I don't have US Cellular.  I see comfortable middle-aged people sipping on their beers and seeming content with their lives.  These people are not famous.  They have greying hair, are overeducated, and have anonymous professions with which they are satisfied.  I don't understand this.  I've tried to think that way, or at least to imitate that way of thinking.  I've tried to believe that I can be content being anonymous, having a "normal" life, getting married and having 2.5 children and barbecuing Boca burgers every 4th of July.  Maybe I'd grown up for a while, but I can't fool myself into contentedness anymore.  Yes, I am happy in my life, and I feel so blessed to have been given all these opportunities and to have all these wonderful people in my life.  But I cannot just accept existence at "face value".  I can't ignore all the questions I have about life and whether I have a predestined journey.  I can't accept my situation in apathy.  But that's just what I've been doing.  I stay away from controversial topics and am often too lazy to work on the things that interest me (I haven't been in a practice room since last semester, for example).  I've been floating through my classes without caring about grades very much and barely freaking out (at least on a conscious level) about the massive quantities of work I have.  I've shut down, and I don't know how to restart.  I don't even know if I should restart; sometimes I think I'm happier when I just let go of everything.  But when I start thinking about what I should really be doing, whether I am just tricking myself into thinking that I am happy with my current situation, I realize that I am truly not trying my best.  I lie around thinking about doing things without actually doing them.  Sometimes I'd rather take a nap than do anything else in the world.  I want to "find myself" but it seems so hard!  When I look back on the way I used to be, the girl who dressed up every day for whom singing was her whole life, who drew pictures and mimicked British accents, who looked disdainfully upon drinking, who dreamed of being famous is virtually gone.  I fell into French because I was too shy to try out for music school and I happened to do well in French classes.  I took an introductory linguistics course and fell in love with the subject.  Now I can't imagine having majored in anything other than French, but I don't know why.  I wonder if I am really the same person I used to be, because I just don't recognize myself anymore.  I feel like a more "worldly" person, a wiser person, but the girl I used to be seems like a distant shadow.  I don't want to be her anymore, but I fear that I'm leading a fake existence sometimes.  

     So my project henceforth (actually the project I've been working on since about the age of 9) is to figure out who I truly am.  Maybe it is "the journey that counts", and perhaps I'll figure that out along the way.  I just hope I have the courage to follow my dreams instead of clinging to a path that just might be "easy" for me.  However, that is the question.  Are we to follow the path that is easiest, and the most comfortable for us?  Would that not be following "fate", if such a thing exists?  Or are we supposed to follow crazy dreams that are uncertain and may not lead to prosperity?  Maybe personality plays a part.  Maybe my timidity is what has caused me to follow this path, which is perhaps indeed the path of my fate.  But maybe I am supposed to overcome my timidity and challenge myself (waaay more than I am now!).  I suppose I should figure out what I really "want" in life, as a first step, and, unfortunately, this is going to take some effort.

Good things sometimes come in stay-fresh packages

     Delicious things, even!  As you may know, I've been trying to cook more lately, which includes introducing more variety to my meals.  I figure I'll document my progress, in case one day I actually learn how to make more complicated, creative dishes.

     Last night I made homemade pizza, which turned out to be great (I'm so modest, haha), to my surprise, since it was probably the most easy/lazy pizza to make:

(Meijer 7-inch crust, Bertolli's five cheese sauce into which I mixed a little pesto, Kraft finely shredded mozzarella cheese, tomato and onion)

     I also made confetti Angel food cake (from a box) and topped it with vanilla frozen yogurt and chocolate syrup for dessert:

     Unfortunately, I ran out of plastic wrap and my refrigerator smells like onion, so the cake is getting a bit dry :(