I am Victorious!

Ebullient

\ih-BUL-yuhnt\

Overflowing with excitement or enthusiasm; high-spirited.

Huzzah! Actually make that a double, triple huzzah! Because low and behold I have vanquished the wild beast sometimes known as grad school applications. I am officially 15 for 15! I mailed off my last two just yesterday and got myself a victory honeydew boba to celebrate.

Mine looked like that ^ only better. Seriously. Also, when I was driving back from the post office the local radio played not one, but TWO Weezer songs. In a row! That's gotta be a good omen.

So I enjoyed my app free today by taking a hike on a trail just a few minutes walking from my house. I saw a very beautiful deer and got yelled at (quite dramatically) by a nut crazy squirrel. And tonight I'm heading to downtown C-mont with a friend for a drink or yogurtland or maybe sweet potato fries (YUM!).

So, huzzah!

Happy New Years!

Novation

\ noh-VEY-shuhn \

The introduction of something new.

Well, it's the first day of 2012 (the end of the world, yeah?) and I'm going to follow in the footsteps of some of my friends and do a quick recap about the happenings of 2011.

In somewhat chronological order...

• I lived with 3 fantastic ladies in a fantastic town house.
• Officially finished a hell-ish biology article for my senior project, that I was actually really proud of.
• Had easily the most chill semester at college (also my last semester).
• Entertained quite a few guests over Spring break.
• Finished my 65-page thesis in creative writing.
• Won some nice $$ for the best non-fiction prose and being a bad ass biology "scholar" (ha!).
• Graduated with a Bachelor of Science. And somehow managed to scrape departmental honors in CW and Bio.
• Lived in Istanbul for awhile.
• Fulfilled an almost life long dream and went to Greece (and did it properly. I was there for over 3 weeks and hit the Peloponnese, Athens, Delphi, Meteora and Thessaloniki).
• Had my first real, messy break-up.
• WWOOF-ed in Greece and Bulgaria.
• Visited 8 new countries (Turkey, Greece, Denmark, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria).
• Saw some of the Davis Cup in Denmark.
• I'd always wanted to travel alone, with no real plans, and I did this year for a month in eastern europe.
• Had some wonderful and strange times traveling. Like: riding dark mountain roads with a crazy Greek man in a broken car with no headlights, grabbing dinner with 2 Ecuadorians, a Mexican and 2 Bulgarians, running into a British and Belgium guy 3 times while in Romania, tromping around Istanbul getting lost and being late with a friend and so, so many others.
• Spent Thanksgiving at home with my family for the first time in 4 years.
• Applied to 13 (out of 15 total) graduate schools.

So, all in all, not a bad 2011. I hope 2012 is as exciting. I do have a few resolutions/goals...

1. Get into graduate school (please, please, please!)

2. Write, write, write. Basically write every day, even if it's just a little.

3. Submit some writing to lit mags.

4. Get a story accepted into a lit mag (or maybe more than one!)

5. Read 50 books.

6. Jump back into my Mayan/Modern WIP a bit more. I really want to focus most on research this year, which means reading more books about Mayan civilizations and also trying to figure out String Theory. Gah.

Well Happy New Years to all!