mydarling

I think I'm suffering through a migraine - I've never had one before, despite the fact that I'm relatively frequent sufferer of headaches, and damn, IT IS PAINFUL. Like, I couldn't even find a comfortable sleeping position because of it; the right side of my head hurts, and I usually sleep on my left side but couldn't due to the intense pain. I'm trying to take it as easy as I possibly can, and acetaminophen seems to be helping. Although the fact that it's coming in tandem with PMS isn't a lot of fun. So.

( I realized I haven't talked about American Idol in awhile. )

Also, Glee! Where has this show been all my life, especially during my three years of choir&drama in high school? Seriously, it is that wonderful - so wonderful, in fact, that it led me to sing a medley of songs from my high school choir days as I was taking my shower last night. I have the slightest of crushes on Will, and I'm a little weirded out that the cheer coach is played by the same actress that plays Reid's schizophrenic mother on Criminal Minds, haha. And I'm obsessed with the music! So glad it's been put up on iTunes - and if they were to continue doing so (like that a capella version of "Gold Digger" from the promo? I WANTS IT), THAT WOULD BE AWESOME. The only thing that worries me about this show (and it seems to be a pretty common worry, from what I'm hearing) that it's on FOX, so a) Glee could be canceled without much notice, despite critical acclaim; and/or b) it could do a lot of unpredictable time-slot switching (as of now, it's set to air on Wednesdays from 9-10PM - up against Criminal Minds.) So I guess we'll just see how things go, but I definitely plan to watch!

One week without an update, woo. I've been keeping up with the flist and twittering quite frequently over the past few days, but never actually had the time or the energy to post an lj entry. I have a lot to say, so here's a rundown of what's happened over the past week:

1. Monica made her confirmation last Saturday, taking the name Hope. It's different (usually candidates take a saint name; I choose Catherine, Graham choose Anthony), and I don't know if this was a factor in her decision, but it was one of the themes of Obama's campaign - and if she did, I'm so proud that she's showing her political pride. Both get-togethers were incredibly loud with all the little cousins running around, but relaxing enough that I could lay on my bed and read and do homework without getting incredibly frustrated. It's rare that extended family comes to visit us, and there's a possibility that we aren't going to Omaha this year, so it was nice to see everyone.

2. Grandma took me shopping at the mall! It was a lot of fun getting to spend some alone time with her, and she paid for everything, which was a huge plus. I got two scarves (this one and this one) as well as this top (in a fun print) from American Eagle. H&M yielded a sophisticated black light-weather jacket, a grey boatneck sweater, and a short sleeved white button down. And I bought clip and magnetic earrings at Claires, since I don't have piereced ears but would like to wear earrings occasionally; I'm still getting used to having them on. I feel so sophisticated with all my new purchases!

3. My parents are in Scotland visiting my dad's great-aunt Mary this week; they'll be back tomorrow. When she came here last July, she begged my parents to come visit, and they decided this would the best week to go since Grandma's already in town for Monica's Confirmation. I miss them dearly, but there is one upside to them not being here: I GET TO STAY IN THEIR ROOM. And let me tell you, it is absolutely wonderful. I've likened it to staying a hotel room by yourself - bigger bed, large private bathroom, TV in the bedroom. There was nothing better than watching The Daily Show in bed and just turning off the lights and going to sleep. Plus, almost all of the shows I usually watch were repeats this week, so I'd watch Countdown with Keith Olbermann and The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC and get obsessed. It was awesome.

4. ( I watched American Idol and the ER finale. )

5. Registered for all of next years' classes at Grand Valley; it was quite possibly the most stressful thing I've ever done. I got shut out of all the broadcasting courses I was recommended to take, and it turns out I can't take the marketing course they recommended for me until I'm at least a junior. So I've planned to take as many political science courses as I can this year (for my minor) to get those out of the way, and take broadcasting/communications courses afterwards. Either way, I'm pretty pumped. I can't believe I'm actually going to be a student there in a few months!

6. Wrote my entry for inrevelations - it's here if you'd like to read it. Despite my early assumptions that my story was going to suck compared to other entries, it turned out really well - I even surprised myself by writing over 1,000 words! The next challenge involves photos as prompts, which I'm absolutely thrilled about, because I do really well when writing with a visual prompt. Plus, it's getting me back into writing things (that actually sound good), which is ace.

7. Still busy with school, as always. I've only got a few weeks left, so my professors are trying to cram as much as they can into these last few classes - another exam, paper or project - all due within the next two weeks. Thankfully, all of my finals are either non-comprehensive or in-class essays, which takes a huge weight off my shoulders when I'm distracted over the fact that I'll be nearly done. So I probably won't be updating on here very often (I want to pour all my writing efforts into school assignments) until school is done, not that anyone really cares. I'll still be twittering lots, so if you want, follow me!

I'm pretty much cured of the sickness I had towards the end of spring break, whatever it was - although now I've developed a cough, much worse than previous ones. It seems to be decreasing, which is always a good sign, but it's gone on a lot longer than it should. I'm debating whether or not to bring it up with Mommy and see if I can get it checked out, but I'm pretty sure she'll just tell me to let it run it's course because it seems to be getting better. No one has mentioned anything during the 590633246 times I coughed over the past few days, especially those times I was coughing so hard I could barely talked, so I'm guessing I shouldn't really worry about it. I just hope I'm better soon, because I haven't been in the best mood lately.

-

( Weekly television round-up. )

-

I was hoping my Amazon order would be here earlier this afternoon, since I checked the website as often as I could to see where my stuff was at and I was pleasantly surprised to find that it arrived at the post office earlier this afternoon, when it wasn't expected until Monday. But it hadn't arrived at my house yet, which means that if it's in town, it'll be here tomorrow. At least, I hope so. If it doesn't get here until Monday I'm going to be pissed, because I'll spend the weekend thinking about that instead of all the school things I have to do this weekend.

Now if the Converses I ordered could get here in less than 11 days, I'd be golden.

-

I have not done any homework today, despite how eager I was yesterday to get working. I planned on doing my Anthropology exam today (just to get it out of the way) and typing up part of my English paper, but of course, none of that happened - I showered and listened to music all day while anxiously checking on the status of my Amazon order. So the revised plans now are to do the Anthropology exam and essays tomorrow and my English paper on Sunday and Monday morning, if I need it. I also have my Film review, but I'm going to save that for Monday/Tuesday and turn it in on Wednesday because a) I still have no idea what I'm going to do, thus the need for extra time, and b) I really don't want to watch the movie we'll be watching that day. I think I can still do well if I turn it in later - the professor hasn't penalized anyone for a late assignment yet, I probably won't be the only one turning it in late, and I have late coupons if absolutely necessary. So we'll see how it goes.

Yesterday was the real "last day" of my spring break :( Both Graham and Monica are around this weekend, so it's gone back to being super-stressful around here. I no longer can get the computer to myself for long periods of time, stay up until midnight and wake up at noon (like I did last night), or spend the days bumming around in my pajamas doing absolutely nothing. Plus, we "spring forward" an hour tonight, which is totally going to mess up my already-screwed up sleep schedule. Great.

I had to be actually productive yesterday, since I hadn't done anything school-related the entire week. I printed out a few sources for my research paper (which I've decided will be on realism in The West Wing - an absolutely ace topic, given it's been something on my mind lately since I re-watched the last two seasons and has actual sources for me to cite.) I didn't do the research proposal yet, but it won't take as long now that I've got a topic in mind, so I'm planning on doing that during my break on Monday. I'll annotate the sources sometime this weekend, along with reading those stupid, unrelated-to-the-class essays and writing summaries and answering questions about them. But I did watch The War Room and Annie Hall last night for my Film review, both of which were incredibly good. I have a feeling I'm going to have a hard time picking a film to write a journalistic review on.

The Office was pretty meh this week, but ( American Idol was surprisingly good. )

I'm still sick, by the way. And I think it's getting worse, which is absolutely great when I have to go back to school. Really.

At the library right now. I haven't actually stayed here longer than a few minutes - I came in briefly a few weeks ago to pick up The Thumpin'. I really don't like using the computers here (the one at home or the ones at school are a heck of a lot better), but I'm making do. I picked up Anderson Cooper's book Dispatches From the Edge (thus continuing my streak of reading political non-fiction/memoirs) and the sixth season of The West Wing on DVD. Season 7 was already checked out, and I'm nearly done with the 6th (only about 5 eps left, plus I watched the finale this morning when it was on Bravo), but I can watch them on TV instead of the computer, in time to spend spring break marathoning it. That is, if I don't have tons of homework to do then. I've got two weeks to figure something out.

( a few television related thoughts - House has sort of redeemed itself! American Idol continues to be lame! a fave character returns to 24! Lost! Plus, I think I could be a better scheduler that the NBC guys. )

It's Conan O'Brien's last show tonight :(((( I'm buying this and this to remember it by.

Turns out we get to keep our deluxe cable package until the weekend; after that, we're switching over to WOW Basic Cable. We'll eventually get HD and DVR service from them, once we get back on track. I'm sad to leave Comcast behind. For all it's problems, it did have some pretty nice features. We also gave back our leased Flex today. I'm going to miss its high tech navigation system (which I so fondly named Julie) and it's Japanese-sounding beeps. But now we have a Honda and a Toyota, which are adorably named Ernie and Bert.

Hi, my name is Maureen and I don't adapt well to change.

( Thoughts on House, 24 and American Idol. )

There are some recent spoilers for The Office that I'd really like to discuss, but I think I'll wait until tomorrow when I have thoughts on tonight's episode as well. And I have yesterday's episode of Lost yet to watch and talk about, so that'll come sometime tomorrow as well.

( Something from last night's 24 that I forgot to mention earlier which caused major flailing. )

I'm finding the American Idol auditions to be a bit boring this time around; I can't believe I put off my school-related readings to watch. Although Kara DioGuardi does bear a striking resemblance to Katharine McPhee. And despite my earlier assumptions that bringing her on would totally ruin the dynamic of the show for me, she's turning out to be my favorite. But things may change as the show progresses. We'll see.

Three very brief things:

1. NCIS is having a two-hour season finale next week. I AM SO THERE.
2. Barack Obama was in Metro Detroit today, and I didn't know about it. WHY, I DON'T KNOW.
3. I'm off to attend an awards ceremony at school which I'm certain will be boring and stupid since I'm not getting any awards. SERIOUSLY. I failed Pre-Calc and got knocked off the Honor Roll, and I know I'm not getting the foreign Language award because I failed Spanish. I can only hope I get an award for Choir. I WORKED HARD IN THAT CLASS, DAMMIT.

Apparently this is going to be the theme next week on American Idol. I CAN ACTUALLY WATCH NEXT WEEK BECAUSE NOT ONLY HAVE I BEEN TO THE ROCK & ROLL HALL OF FAME (AND SEEN THIS EXHIBIT), I ACTUALLY KNOW/HAVE HEARD OF SEVERAL, IF NOT MOST, OF THESE SONGS.

However, there's 500 songs listed and only 8 songs to be sung. And they're all so... VARIED. It's a really good theme, but possibly too broad for this stage of the competition. It would've been better if there were more contestants, because there would be more variety with the songs.

But seriously, if anyone sings A Change Is Gonna Come or Your Song and DOESN'T MESS IT UP (I'M LOOKING AT YOU, DAVID ARCHULETA), I'll be happy.

I just don't want Mama Brooke to go home tonight, then I won't watch at all. THEY ALREADY VOTED OFF MY BOYFRIEND, who would've been totally perfect for this week.

-

Off to make Ramen, then take a nap for a while. No studying will get done here!

I'm very, very tense because I can't find a clip of the preview for next weeks' New Amsterdam episode ANYWHERE and I really need to see it just so I can get all these "OMGYAY!" feelings out of me so that there's at least some coherency when it comes time to talk about the past two episodes. SERIOUSLY, I CAN'T STOP THINKING ABOUT IT AND I DEFINITELY CANNOT WAIT 5 DAYS.

(I suppose I could watch the commericals during American Idol tonight, but a) I didn't watch it last night, so it would be pointless; and b) there's a strong possibility that they won't show them, due to the timespan between Wednesday and Monday nights. Plus, I've truly missed my Wednesday night TV nights; American Idol is not a part of them.)

-

In other news, Criminal Minds returns tonight, and I've long suspected (at least, since CBS showed commercials over the weekend), that Paget has gotten bangs, and those suspicions were confirmed this morning as I was reading the newspaper. I promptly wept.

Also, an The Office spin-off is coming post-Superbowl in 2009. What I've read generally seems to be negative reactions (which I totally agree with), but as it gets closer to the premiere, I'm hoping we'll hear better things. I'm just excited to get the original The Office back in EIGHT DAYS!