Restless.

I have been home for about a month now. Probably the longest month that has ever flown by. I say that because when I think about my road trip home, it feels like all of that happened so long ago. But, I'm also wondering where June went? Don't get me wrong, It is nice not doing anything of importance on a daily basis. I have a very nice little daily routine set up for myself that involves improving my mind, body, and soul. I have been taking classes, waking up and going to the gym daily, and trying (not hard enough) to improve my relationship with God. All of these things are great and I love having a routine. I haven't been spending enough time with people that I have missed while I was away though. This may very well be the last summer I am home, I really plan on being off and doing something epic the next summer ahead. This is really the last time I have time to spend quality time with life-long friends here and it's just not the same. Some things never change, but we do grow up and maybe grow apart. Most of us have taken the last year to get out and see other places and experience new things and new people that they haven't known almost their entire life. We've seen that the world is larger than Tahlequah, OK and while it is home, there are better things out there. On the other hand, some of us have gone out there and stumbled a bit, now they have returned home a little more jaded than before. Life is stagnant here, change is not welcomed, people may not be happy with their lives, but they're going to continue living the same way in most cases. It's not a very inspiring environment for an ambitious dreamer like me. Now I see why Rae thought I was so passive aggressive in comparison to her. Everyone has that attitude here. In some cases I am the pushy one, because someone has to be to get anything done around here. People operate on "Indian time" which is basically a synonym for sometime, eventually, or lets just sit and watch our lives pass us by. 

I am starting to miss my somewhat glamorous life or at least eventful life away from here. I miss dressing up and going places, I miss having a full calendar, and I miss feeling like a grown up. I do have to admit that this trip home has been a lot better than others when it comes to my relationship with my mom. I finally figured out that being a mature adult requires me to follow by the rules of the house. When I respect the parents and their rules, they respect me. Yes, I have to be home at midnight but we get along and that is better than staying out at all hours. 

Tomorrow morning I am leaving for Milwaukee, WI to go to a Concert Management Institute for the weekend. UIB is sending me on an all expenses paid trip to learn some skills for Wahoo next year. I will also have the opportunity to tour some concert venues and behind the scenes Summerfest, as well as see the Mindiola's and Kate Spurr! I am in total denial of my trip, that is why I am blogging instead of getting things ready for tomorrow. 

That's my rant for the day, until next time...

Summer (because I can't think of any other title)

For the past week I have been housing 2 of the Mindiola's here while their father was down working at Hastings. The family has very recently moved up to Wisconsin. I love having house guests. It makes me realize how I am so accustomed to having a lot of alone time in my house. It's fun to have people to sit around and watch Instant Netflix with me all day long. Netflix was great for keeping them entertained while I was in class in the afternoon. We also had to incorporate some key Tahlequah things before they left. We ate at Kelly's Tea Room, went to Sonic Happy Hour, ate at Sam and Ella's, got snocones and went to the park, and of course went to the river. The first day we went to the river, of course it started to rain. The second day was a success though. Marissa and I adventured down the flowing river, certain parts got really rough, we left with a few battle wounds but all and all it was fun.

Saturday I went to Tulsa to see Toy Story 3 in IMAX and 3D! It was AWESOME! Did you know that Tulsa Cinemark is the only IMAX theater in the state of Oklahoma? I can walk to an IMAX theather in Providence. I went with Ceyeli, Ben, Brenda, and 2 guys I didn't know, Michael and Levi, along with Ceyeli's 3 little nephews. I loved the movie, I can't even explain it. I love when things that we liked when we were younger have a way of growing up with us. I love that when we were kids, the characters in movies that we watched were kids like Andy. Now after all of these years, Andy has grown up right along with us. This movie was about him going away to college and deciding what to do with his beloved toys. While the little kids in the theater might have enjoyed the movie, I think we enjoyed it tremendously more because we could relate. I have the same theory about Harry Potter. Harry Potter books became popular right when I was 9 years old and Harry was 10 years old in the beginning of the series. Ever since then, then story kept progressing and Harry, Ron, and Hermione grew up right along with me. The older the characters got, the darker the books would get and the more age appropriote it would get for my generation.

It's fun hanging out with some different people from time to time. Coincidently Levi lives in the Carolinas and is here visiting Michael for a really extended time. Levi was at the same concert I was at when I was in Charlotte on my roadtrip. Turns out he's a huge Switchfoot fan too. He was actually one of the people with the VIP pass that I was extremely jealous of. If I learned anything this past year, I learned that it is an incredibly small world and crazy things do happen by chance. I think that that is one of the coolest things about life. How if you would have made any other decision than the one that you chose, your life could potentially be completely different.

Time For A Routine

Today was my first day of summer school! I have class Monday through Thursdays from 1:30-4:30 from now until the end of July. I am going to do my best to not sleep the entire day and then go to class. I plan on waking up and going to the gym at 9am, go home to shower, lunch date with someone, then go to class. I had intentions of doing that this morning but the morning started with rain and it through me off of my game. I went to the gym after class today, that could be a Monday thing possibly so I can do yoga at 6:30pm. I really enjoyed doing yoga today, it had been a really long time. I am definitely out of shape and not quite as limber as last summer. I finally got some new tennis shoes, my last ones were from the 8th grade, it was time for an upgrade. Running on the treadmill is very different than running around Providence. I used to think it was easier to run on it but now I am used to actually running outside. Too bad it is way to hot and humid here to run. 

At JWU we are required to take 2 arts and sciences electives, if you pick 2-3 class in the same department you can claim a concentration in that area. I am getting my psychology concentration here at NSU thins summer. Mondays and Wednesdays I have Life Span Development with Beth Bowin. She was my Intro to Psych professor my senior year and I just love her. Her class lectures are always so interesting, but not necessarily correlated with the exams. At the beginning of each section she gives us the 100 question study guide for the exam. She picks 50 of those questions to be the questions for the exam. I remember doing these back in intro and they are difficult, but the actual exam only takes me 10 minutes to finish. I can already tell I am going to love this class. It should be mandatory for parents to take a developmental class before pro-creating. Today we went through a list of age old parenting myths and disproved them. Tuesdays and Thursdays I have Personalities with some professor I don't know. I really hope he's interesting because I am fascinated by personalities, I hope to actually learn something. 

We'll see how class goes tomorrow. I'm going blueberry picking tomorrow if weather permits. Gotta be up bright and early. That's all for now, until next time!

Only in Tahlequar

This has felt like one of the longest weeks of my life. I'm not sure if I am complaining or not. I feel like I have done a lot, but I have also done nothing. I can't believe I have only been home for a week. It has been such a great week though. I have gotten to spend time with pretty much everyone I cared to see once I got here. I have gone a few places while I was here too.

Tuesday I had a little cook out for some of the girls (Misty, Linsea, and Emily). I am so over eating out every meal, it's fun to have a home cooked meal. It was fun to catch up with them. It's kind of a random bunch but we had so much fun, we decided to make it a weekly thing. I had my mom around to help me with the grilling but I would really like to be able to get the hang of it soon. I don't like when she has to help.

Yesterday Madison, Marissa, and I went to Joplin, MO to see Darien and help the Art Feeds people splatter paint t-shirts and make bracelets. My GPS was still set to avoid toll roads and traffic from the road trip so it took it the craziest way on curvey and hilly county roads and small highways. It wasn't terrible because we drove that during the day so it was pretty scenic compared to I-44 which was the easiest way to get there. The GPS also took us on the dirt/grass road to get to Darien's grandmas's house instead of just staying on the road we were driving on already. We literally drove on grass, but the GPS thought it was an actual road. It's so strange that Darien doesn't live in Tahlequah or Oklahoma anymore. It was fun to sit around and talk in funny accents play mad-libs, and make up stories about trolls and whatever shenanigans we talked about. I don't know anyone else who isn't from here who could do that and be perfectly entertained for hours. I laugh more with my home friends. It's most likely things that are only funny to us. We develop a strange sense of humor living here, it must be in the water or something.

Today, the Mindiola girls and I went to Fayetteville, AR to hang out with Beki. We went and ate fro-yo at Orange Mango, then we went to the farmers' market. Instead of going out to eat dinner we decided to buy produce and cook dinner. Beki's boyfriend just recently bought a house so we used his kitchen. We had a salad, pan seared chicken, mashed potatoes, and sautéed carrots and snap peas. I really love cooking for people, I still need some practice with timing of when to cook what so that it is all done and still hot at the right time.

I have to earn my weekly spending money in the morning. Good night! Until next time...

Trashy Television

Today has been a quintessential summer day. I woke up late, put some laundry in the washer, and turned on the TV. The TV theme for the day was New Jersey. I happened to stumble across True Life on MTV while I was flipping through the channels. MTV and VH1 are like train wrecks, you know you shouldn't be watching but you can't look away. True Life: I am a Jersey Shore girl is pretty much the story of my life in relation to some of the people I go to school with. Watching that would give a pretty accurate representation of some of the student body I deal with. Terrifying isn't it? After that ended, I flipped on over to Bravo to watch The Real Housewives of New Jersey for the remainder of the day. This gives a full circle of the two types of Jersey people. It is much more fun to watch these shows now that I can sorta relate them to my life and realize that these people are real. Some of the places they drive, I have driven before. Some of my classmates live in those communities where these shows are shot. I love it because they find the most "Jersey" kinds of people to be on these shows. They are Italian and they are flashy. If there were a show about people in Oklahoma, the people would probably be missing teethe, Indian, and probably a storm chaser. 

Yes, my entire day was consumed by trashy television. I hope to have more exciting things to blog about but I am in the middle of nowhere, I can't make any promises.

Sweet Home Oklahoma

Finally made it home Thursday afternoon. Sorry for the delayed entry, I've been busy, lots to do, lots of people to see. In the short time that I have been back, I have managed to check off a lot of things from my "Things to do in Tahlequah" list. It's so nice to be home though. I've missed everyone here. Not too much has changed except for my house. My mother gets bored and remodels. Every time I come home there is something different about my house. Shirley's latest project has been our backyard. It looks fantastic, she's made it a space that we can actually use. She has her outdoor kitchen that she has always wanted and a nice seating area. She's also putting in a hot tub.

Today Madison had a going away party/TOMS Style Your Sole party. The Mindiola's are finally heading back home up north in Wisconsin for good. They leave Friday. I've been trying to hang out with them as much as possible before they go. It's weird that the only time I will be able to see them in the future will be if I go up to Wisconsin. I will actually be up in Milwaukee later in June for a Concert Management Institute at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee. There I will be attending workshops on how to manage a big concert like the one that we have at Wahoo for UIB. I will also get a behind the scenes tour of Summerfest and I get to see Tom Petty perform. The best part about the trip is that it is all expenses paid, courtesy UIB. Another plus is that I get to see Madison! Woah I got off track. So back to the party. Today I decorated a pair of white TOMS. This was a big decision, I just stared at the shoes for a long time. I didn't want to mess them up. I finally just had to dive in and decorate them. I started off with painting a heart and star, then it turned into me writing my name all over one section, then all sorts of greetings and good-byes. It's hard to explain, I'll post a picture of them later. We also tie dyed t-shirts. I am so glad that tie-dye still hasn't gone out of style. It's so fun! After that I headed over to Richard's for my mom's 50th birthday. You heard me right, Shirls is 50. I do have to hand it to her, she ages gracefully, I hope I inherited that gene. This party was the best way to see all of our close family and restaurant friends all at once. Grand China parties always end up being such a melting pot of cultures. Mainly because of Saadia's family being Moroccan and us being Chinese, but it's still a good time. The multiculturalism varies throughout the years, sometimes we have more ethnic employees than other times.

That is pretty much all for now. I hope all of you are enjoying the summer and handling the heat...it's only gonna get worse, Phew, I can't handle the heat well at all, I've been up north too long.

Extended Stay

Tuesday Rae and I drove up to Dallas, the half way mark from San Antonio to Tahlequah. We left SA a little later than expected but we did manage to make it to Arlington to Cowboys Stadium in time for the very last tour. We splurged for the V.I.P tour of the stadium which included a tour guide and access to the almost most exclusive parts of the facility. We sat in the club seats, visited a club house, walked through the Miller Lite Club onto the field (the same route the cowboys take to enter the field), and we saw the players' and cheerleaders' locker rooms. This facility is massive.They say everything is bigger in Texas, and they were right. So many "World's Largests" was put into that. I didn't realize that the Cotton Bowl was there and OSU played at that stadium. That's a big deal. Nobody told me this. I even watched that game on tv. Rae can tell you a lot more about the facility since she did her Facilities Operations term project on it, (raerosen.blogspot.com). 

After we saw the stadium, we ate dinner at Chipotle and went to meet a dear friend of mine, Danell. Danell took care of me when I was a kid. Her family is like my second family. They moved away from my neighborhood right before I started high school and moved to Texas. They are now living in the Dallas area and Rae and I were fortunate enough to stay with them. I am so glad Rae got to meet Danell, they are a lot alike in a few ways I think.

After sending Rae off on the airplane back to SA, I went and spent the day with Danell and the girls that she nannys for. They are so precious and so fun. This is the best job Danell could ever ask for. She also took me to go see the Gaylord Texan, a big hotel and convention center, because I told her I was into stuff like that. After that we went to downtown Grapevine and had a picnic and shopped around before picking up the other little girl from school. After school they always go to the playground near the school and all of her friends are there too. There were a bunch of 9 and 10 year olds running around with cell phones and I thought it was ridiculous until I remembered that I got mine shortly after that age too. It's so funny how when you are 10 you feel SO old...at least I did. Now when I see a 10 year old, they are definitely still children. After the girls were fed, we met their dad at the soccer field and that's where we left them. Danell and I went and got some mexican for dinner and then she took me to a nature preserve, we hiked off our meal for a bit then headed back to her house.  I helped her husband set up a Netflix account that streams through their DVD player...I may have created a monster with that. But he seems pretty excited about it. We watched Air Force One last night. Good movie. Intense. I like Harrison Ford. I apologize if the verb tenses are off on this post, it has taken me two days to finish it.