This is how I do et

Yes, anyway. Today I'm gonna talk about my experience with CS. Mostly I've just complained about it. Today I'll try not to. ;)

Last week a guy I graduated with gave a nice talk on campus about his experience interviewing with several large companies. Very prestigious jobs in the CS community. He was offered several and accepted the coolest job of all. Bravo, you.

I went to the presentation mostly to see my friends and hear what this guy's experience was like. He was wanting to give students a peek into what the CS job hunt is like. Now, I already have a job. Yes, it's in CS. :P I really freaking love it, too. I get paid well and have (at least so far - I've only been there about 2.5 months) a pretty high level of job satisfaction. But listening to him talk about his interview experiences still freaked me out.

He told people about these super intense interview sessions and programming questions they had to solve on white boards. Said he spent weeks doing nothing but sitting in his room studying everything he had ever learned. On and on...if I had heard that as an undergrad I would have wet myself and changed my major. ;)

Don't get me wrong - I'm a lightweight Computer Scientist. Although, I'm starting to think my low programming self-esteem is due to some negative influences in my life. Even still, I'm never going to be the type of person who is going to interview with Amazon or Google. I just don't care enough about programming to try that hard, frankly. If that's bad, so be it.

What I found most interesting about his talk is the fact that I did everything he said not to do! I worked with a contracting firm - TEKsystems, actually. I love those guys! I got a great contact who got me a great job and everyone I interacted with was extremely friendly and helpful. I know the negative aspects - I'm a glorified temp worker, I don't get sick leave or paid vacation, to TEKsystems I'm just a product and not a person, blah blah blah. But it was perfect for me. Also, I only interviewed at one business and accepted their job offer immediately. Ha! In your face! Someone...

So here's my story:

A friend of mine was working for a company through TEKsystems and contacted me a few weeks before graduation, saying he could give someone my resume if I wanted. Now, it should be noted that since then he has dropped TEKsystems like it's hot, but still. He recommended them. He has a child and I think the lack of paid vacation/sick leave was not good for the family life he wanted. But anyway - I sent my resume off.

Not too much later I was contacted by a lovely lady who wanted me to come in to discuss interviewing and resumes. She had a copy of mine and pointed out a few things to change, delete, or flesh out. (One thing she said that was a direct contradiction to the talk on campus was that she encouraged multiple-page resumes. If you have the experience, tell them! What the guy on campus did, though, was provide a link to an online resume that went into greater detail. So that was pretty cool.) We also discussed basic interview rules - how to dress, act, etc. She gave me a couple of sample resumes and told me to email her an updated one as soon as possible.

Since it was near the end of the semester, I didn't have a lot of free time. So it took me awhile. But I finally got my resume to her, and she said it was great. She told me about a few job openings and discussed how the contracts would work, how much I would make, and what kind of work it would be. I graduated on Saturday, May 5. My ceremony was supposed to be over around 11:00, I believe. I was walking out the door at noon. As I stepped out of the gym I felt my phone vibrating. I look down - it's the TEKsystems rep. It was too noisy to answer, but when I listened to my voicemail later that evening she told me the main company we were looking at wanted to interview me!

I believe my interview was on Wednesday? Or maybe it was Tuesday. Hmm...probably a Tuesday. Anyway, I had an interview the week after graduation. When I arrived at the location (my current office), a TEKsystems rep met me. Not the one I had been meeting with, but the liaison between the company and TEKsystems. He was also really nice and sat with me prior to going up to the interview, reviewing some interviewing tips and calming my nerves. He rode with me up to the office and stayed with me until someone showed up to take me to the interview location.

I was interviewed by three people - an HR rep went over basic questions such as what type of personality I worked best with, how the office worked, etc. Then the guy who is now my supervisor came in and asked me some basic programming (very, very, basic) questions and those "tell me a time when you <did blah blah blah>" questions. I could sense he had never interviewed someone before - I was right. I'm his first underling! :) After that, the man that I now call my grandboss (my boss's boss) - the CIO of the company - came in to talk to me about how the company has a whole worked. Fascinating stuff, really. He's a really personable guy. Actually, everyone at my office is great. And they all freaking know my name! It's awful... I'm so bad with names!

After the interview, my usual TEKsystems representative called me to ask how it was and said she would let me know as soon as she heard back from the company. The company asked TEKsystems to test me over C# and SQL, since that would be what they focus on, programming-wise (it is not a tech company). This was by far the worst of it. TEKsystems has these multiple-choice tests you take online that have incredibly (incredibly) specific questions about programming languages. They are made so people claiming 10+ years' experience can show they really know what's up. So I did terribly. :P But my rep emailed me with my results (they really did look terrible) and said that, for my experience level, I had done really well.

Then I had to wait for forever two weeks. Apparently things got busy at the office and they put off making a decision. It was dreadful. They kept saying "next week" "tomorrow" "by 5:00" and then finally, finally, I was offered a job. (!!!!!!) Now, I am married and was a GTA for two years. My last summer as a student the job I took only lasted 1.5 months. My husband is a tattoo artist. So...money was tight. And I was offered a fairly impressive amount of money. It's not $100k or anything, but for someone who was making $1k a month...it was Heaven. So, if you have the luxury, I would definitely recommend shopping around for a job. Me? If I had waited another week or two we would have been screwed financially.

My first day the liaison met me again and again went to the office with me, dropping me off with my now-supervisor. An HR rep took me on a tour of the office. The company itself is fairly large - global, even - but the HR, where I work, is relatively small. There are probably less than 60 of us in the office, but I'm running into the CEO, CIO, C<insert letter here>O, in the break room every day. Everyone is super nice, and everyone FREAKING KNOWS MY NAME!

As far as my work goes, for the first couple months I was just making minor changes to the company's 20-something Web sites. Everything is Windows-based, so .NET in VS with touches of HTML and CSS to tweak the minor details. These past couple weeks I've been updating some software in C# to prepare for a new insurance company they're using. I have learned waaaaay more about insurance than I ever cared to, for the record. Today I began testing my code - 20 functions and ~1400 lines. And (after a few stupid mistakes corrected) it worked! We will run a few more tests, and then we need to send the generated files to the insurance company for them to test, but the bulk of the work is over. And that is an amazing feeling. Your first actual "real world" project....it's an amazing thing. :)

We have also begun the process of switching all 20-something Web sites over to a WCMS we purchased. So I've been watching a ton of Webinars, especially during my first few weeks when I didn't have any actual work. But before I can do that, I have to finish up the testing on the project I mentioned before, as well as make some fairly extensive changes to their Open Enrollment (more insurance stuff) Web site.

So. I've kind of lost the point of this post. I started it, then Mr. T and I biked to a bar and I had a drink. Now it's my bed time (another downside of being an adult - I need to be in bed before midnight) and I just don't care to read back over this to see if I've left anything out or left a story incomplete. Let me know if you want to know more! I think what I was going for was not to say that le presentor was incorrect, but that there are many roads to travel upon graduating with a CS degree. I did pretty much everything he said not to do, and I turned out fine. But, if you want to get a job with Google you should probably listen to him.

I'm going to bed now.

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Friday Tunes

Day Eight: A Song That I Know All the Words To

2011: "If I Didn't Have You" by Tim Minchin

I said: "I heart this man."

2012: "Big Girls Don't Cry" by Fergie

I just heard this on the radio for the first time in years, probably. Still knew all the words. I don't like Black Eyed Peas, but I loved Fergie's solo album. Someone buy it for me.

Dancing Machine

Mr. T gettin' his groove on to some Britney Spears:

Friday Tunes

Day Seven: A Song that Reminds Me of a Certain Event

2011: "Sanctuary" by Utada Hikaru

I said: "Call me a nerd if you must, but I walked down the aisle to (about the first...minute of) this song. Awesome game, awesome song, awesome husband. :D"

2012: "Just the Way You Are" by Bruno Mars

I know this song came out in November or close to it, because Mr. T was participating in the dreaded no-shave November so he had nearly a months' work of ginger facial hair going on. I would sing it to him every time it came on the radio, only I would change it to "When I see your face/there's only one thing I would change/it's your beard..."

Side note: How on earth does the chick in this video even begin to think she's not attractive? Stupid slut...

TMI Baby Update

No babies this month!


Time to make a doctor's appointment and get back on birth control - wooo!!

Craptastic Crafting

So I just discovered this new (to me, at least) show on TLC called Craft Wars. As far as reality TV goes...it's pretty good. I like shows like this, though. They have a ton of them involving food, but this is the first non-food one I've seen. Project Runway (coming back this Thursday, happy early birthday to me!!) doesn't count because it's a totally different kind of show.

Anyway, Mr. T came in a caught the tail-end of the 2nd episode and was scoffing at the contestants. At the end he said "I want to be on this show." So... I thought maybe we could start making YouTube videos? Like...take the projects from an episode...give Mr. T a budget so we don't go totally broke and turn him lose in Hobby Lobby for 20 min or so, then when we get home give him the same time constraints as on the show to build whatever they had to build. And of course film the entire thing!

What do you think?

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I Googled "crazy crafter" and this was one of the results. I dunno. I just liked the shirt, so why not?

Birthday

So.... Just in case you didn't know, my birthday is Saturday. Woo! I'm actually not interested in it at all. Once you get past that great glorious 21st birthday (we walked to a bar...I broke a beer bottle within the first 10 minutes and started crying for no reason on the walk home - and Mr. T still married me!) birthdays aren't all that interesting anymore. I mean...meh. I'm not taking any time off work, and Mr. T and I aren't doing anything special (that I know of). He better not do anything special, because I don't have anything planned for his birthday in August...

BUT! The one thing about birthdays that is always good is.....the presents!

CRICKET IN THE HOUSE!!!!!!

Oh gawd - I saw a cricket and grabbed Chairman so he could take care of it...and then it was gone. I don't know where it is. Don't panic. At least it wasn't a soft-shell. Those are the worst. WORST, I SAY.

I'm itchy all over right now. Blech.


Anyway, since my birthday is soon, I made an Amazon wish list and emailed it to my family. Here is what I said:

Just sending out my Amazon wish list. :)

A few things to mention:

1. Books and Blu-rays are probably the things I want most. If someone gets a Kindle (a girl can dream, right? I did pick the cheapest one, you know...), then you can purchase digital copies of the books instead of the paperbacks - I do prefer paperback over hardcover, just because they're cheaper. Quantity over quality, you know. ;) Except when deciding between Blu-ray and DVD. I much prefer Blu-ray. Especially the ones that come with Blu-ray, DVD, and digital copy.
2. You, obviously, don't have to buy this stuff from Amazon. Most of the clothing comes from different sites, anyway. This was just the most convenient way for me to display it all at once.
3. I kind of went crazy with clothes. I especially didn't realize how expensive Gap clothes were until I had already added a bunch to the list. So if you want to just look over what I've picked as sort of guidelines for style and size, that's fine. Old Navy is probably my favorite clothing store, if you're looking to get a gift card. I do need work clothes - dresses, skirts, pants, and blouses.
4. I have a weakness for heels, and since I'm sitting so much I can get away with wearing them a lot now. Off Broadway (clearance) is probably my favorite store for quality shoes. But you have to purchase them in-store and not online. I do like higher-heeled shoes/platforms over the shorter heels. If my feet are going to hurt at the end of the day I want something to show for it. :)
5. Todd and I still haven't printed off any wedding pictures. So maybe if you buy some awesome collage frames and stuff like that I can get motivated to print some off. Even though we did get a handful of frames as wedding gifts and they're scattered about with the stock photos still in them...
6. I tried to add a priority to most of the items. I think I added more items after I prioritized, though...but you can sort the wish list by priority and see the things I wanted most - back when I added priorities to things. :)
7. Don't feel like you need to spend a ton of money on me. $100-200 is plenty. ;) I kid, I kid. But definitely no more than $300 unless you really want to prove you love me the most.
8. Hang on to this link - it's going to be my wish list for birthdays, Christmases, and anniversaries (Todd) to come. Have no fear if you misplace it, though - I'll make sure to send out reminder emails before all important life events (and probably even some unimportant ones).

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A Friendship in Pictures

So I started doing this on my Facebook page, then decided it should maybe be a blog post. I don't know how often I've talked about it on here, but Miss C is pretty much my best friend ever. Stupid ho moved to Vegas for awhile, but now she's back in TN! (Until she moves somewhere else stupid, like Kentucky or somewhere equally lame.) I'm going to go back as far as I can with pictures of us throughout our friendship. I'll try have as few as possible. We'll see how it goes. :)

2003

Okay, we met the summer after our Freshman year in high school. Alright, alright - technically it was winter break, but I didn't like her the first time we met, so it doesn't count. ;) These two pictures are from the summer we became friends. In the picture on the left, we are covered in sunscreen and baby powder because Miss C and our friend from South Korea thought it would be an appropriate birthday present for me to attack me with...sunscreen and baby powder.

2003-2006

I'm pulling pictures from Facebook here, so the dates aren't perfect. But from 2003 to 2006 we saw each other probably every day at school. For your viewing pleasure we have...I believe a trip to Warmth in Winter, our senior prom, and my 18th birthday trip to West TN. It was over 100 degrees outside every day, but the cabin we stayed in was set to be around 50 degrees, I think. We all ended up catching colds in the middle of summer. I don't remember why we didn't just turn the temperature up. I do remember watching the movie Powder.

2006

This is where it gets a lot easier. I got Facebook!! So all my pictures are in chronological order. Except for these past random ones that I uploaded all crazy-like at odd times. First you've got our graduation picture. Yellow robes are a terrible idea, FYI. The other picture I have chosen is just a random picture I took in my car. I can't remember if I had just gotten my hair cut, Miss C had, or I got my eyebrows waxed, or what. But I saw this on my FB and I was like...whoa - we look totally different now! There's also a fun one from the afternoon we played with the Photobooth on my Macbook in my dorm room for hours.

2007

There's only one picture for 2007. This was at a...holy crap, what was the name of that group??...it was a pro-life group we were involved with. Yes, I'm pro-life. Save the babies! I do admit there are gray areas when it comes to health problems/rape, but I don't believe "I don't want it" is a valid reason to abort. If you were having consensual sex, deal with the consequences. Keep it in your pants. :P Whoa, anyway. It was at a pro-life candle-lit vigil or some such thing. Both of us had much smaller boobies back then.

2008

By 2008 Miss C had left MTSU and moved to Manchester. So we kind of lost touch. :( Muy no bueno. (I took three semesters of Spanish, can you tell???) But this is a picture from when CK Dub and I went to visit her. It's kind of a terrible picture, but things were all awkward from not seeing each other for awhile so I didn't take many pictures. Does anyone else do that? There is this awkward amount of time when you're like "Are we still going to be friends? Have we changed? Does she think I'm weird? Is she weird now? What do we talk about??"

2009

I don't believe I saw Miss C at all in 2009. She had joined the Air Force and got stationed in freaking Las Vegas. But here is a picture of CK Dub and I (and a friend who I can't remember if I've nicknamed and I don't want to think of a nickname right now, so I'm just not naming her at all) at her birthday party way back when we were roommates. We lived across the street from a Walmart, so we often would walk over there and just walk back with the cart (yes, we would return it on the next trip, geeze). This one made for an awesome ride that night. We pushed each other all through the parking lot and got invited to a random dude's party in another building. Rock on, shopping cart. I believe this is the year I started drinking seriously... (On cue - Mom calls me!) (Mom rant: she always calls me when she has a terrible signal! She ends up either cutting out a lot or dropping the call altogether. And she knows it's going to happen! The call usually starts with "I'm going through xyz, so I might lose you." And immediately the phone cuts out.) (Mom called me back.)

For funsies, here are a few drunk Sarah pictures. I went through this weird hat-stealing phase. In the first picture, notice I am going for a hat. I do believe it is Little Hippo's. That was a different party at the same apartment. In the second picture you'll see I successfully stole (at least) two hats. This was a party at Little Hippo's house. Well, outbuilding. It was winter and FREEZING. People were wrapped up in coats and blankets and...at least two people were desperately missing their hats. ;) The third picture is from a Halloween party back at that same apartment (we had lots of great parties) with the same unnamed friend from the picture above.

2010

In 2010 I got married!!!! Miss C was, of course, My maid of honor. So she flew in for the week before my wedding to do all sorts of fun things. She also caused the most stressful part of the whole day. ;) Little Miss C had asked her aunt to make her dress for the wedding. Without much communication (including asking for measurements), her aunt made her a dress she wasn't able to pick up until the day of the wedding. And then it didn't fit. (Thank God - it was super ugly, lol!) So she and another bridesmaid had to go to the mall on the day of my wedding and find a green dress to wear! But it all worked out, and I really didn't get stressed out about it. Because I was an awesome bride. :P Here are pictures from the  bachelorette party and wedding.

2011

In 2011 I went with my friends...let's see if I can remember all the nicknames...Banana, Geddy, aaaaaand....Tony? We'll say Tony for now. I went with them to Vegas to see Miss C myself. It was a ton of fun and also kind of awkward. Miss C and I enjoyed drinking more than everyone else that went (two of them don't drink at all), so that caused some complications when making plans. :) But I think we all had a good time anyway. We survived, at least! And we didn't gamble at all. Well, Tony played slots in the airport when we were leaving. We saw a Cirque du Soliel show and The Phantom of the Opera. Both were excellent. Here is a group picture that Banana isn't in, for some reason (sad face!), and then a picture of Miss C and I together.

2012

Oh thank God it's over. You have no idea what I've been through! Stupid stupid Blogger. I've had to go into their awful, awful automatically-generated HTML to try to make sense of all these pictures. This post has taken me, no joke, at least an hour to put together. And it will probably be my least read. It's just a bunch of pictures of me, for crying out loud! Anyway - we are now to 2012 and Miss C has moved back to TN!! She went with me to a friend's wedding and we took these pictures. (Mr. T had to work, which was kind of a blessing since that meant Miss C was able to help me with hair and makeup.) Couple of notes - yes, that is my bra strap. I was wearing a strapless dress with a...shrug?...over it at work, but it was 115 degrees and my car doesn't have A/C. So I took the shrug off. There was an outline of my body in sweat on my seat when we finally got to the church for the rehearsal. The second picture was supposed to show off my fantastic hair/makeup, but all my pretty hair is on the other side of my head, so you can't really tell that I look any different. And Miss S hadn't had a chance to put any makeup on after sweating it all off, so she'll probably kill me for posting this.

Friday Tunes

Day Six: A Song that Reminds Me of Somewhere

2011: "Hey There Delilah" by Plain White T's

I wrote this: "For some reason this song reminds me of being in my car on Bradyville Road driving from my sister's old house on Lakeshore to Walmart when I worked there the summer after my freshman year at MTSU. Don't ask me why it's so specific, but I always get that image/feeling in my head when I hear it."

I'm not sure that that still applies...I mean, maybe. But I haven't heard it on the radio in so long I'm not sure that would happen. I mean, maybe?

2012: "Tight Pants Body Roll" by Leslie and the LYs

I was sitting at my desk at the apartment I lived in when Mr. T and I got engaged. He was watching TV and I was exploring the great interwebs with StumbleUpon. I...stumbled upon...this video and rolled. And then rewatched it. And then rewatched it. And was hysterical. And watched it again. Mr. T almost murdered me. Then I made sure to play it at every event we had on campus for the next three years. I think I'm going to go to the first ACM meeting of the semester and Body Roll them (it's like a Rick Roll, but better).

I'm not sure that that story fits the "Reminds me of Somewhere" criteria, but suck it - I don't care. :P

Things That Piss Me Off

#1: Coming over to my house and changing the music playing on my computer without asking.

My Response

First and foremost, I don’t want to get Dooce’d. This is important to me. I like my job. I love the people I work with. I never want to say or do anything to compromise my career. At least not right now. You’ll be the first to know if that changes.

So, with that said, I’m not going to be discussing work. At all. Ever. Maybe my commute, or the city I’m working in. But nothing about my office, my coworkers, my responsibilities at work, anything. Which is partially why I haven’t posted in awhile. All I’ve done is work. Work, work, work. And then I go home and veg out in front of the TV, or computer, or a book. Or I just pass out. None of that is interesting.

mmmm...so what do I talk about? Hobbies? That was mentioned in my post begging for topics. That only one person commented on. Unfortunately, I don’t really have any hobbies. I read. That’s not interesting...

I read 50 Shades of Grey! That was fun. I wouldn’t say terrible writing, but...it was sub-par. But she was writing fan fiction! How many good fan fic stories have you read?? To be fair, I’ve read 0. Well, 1, now, I guess. There are probably some good ones. But I imagine there are far more not good ones than good ones. No, don't bother sending me links to "good" fan fiction. I'm not really all that interested. Sorry. I mean, unless you really want to. I might read it.

I also read My Booky Wook, by Russell Brand. I do love that man. I’m getting him tattooed on my thigh. Actually, I probably will have already gotten him tattooed on my thigh by the time you read this. Because I’m not writing a blog post, I’m writing a Word document. Don’t ask. I just started My Booky Wook 2: This Time It’s Personal, but I’m going to take my Barnes and Noble fancy edition of Anne Rice’s The Vampire Chronicles to read during the tattoo because reading his autobiography while getting him tattooed on me is just...too much. lol

Oh, if I haven't added a link to the post with the picture of my Russell Brand tattoo by the time you read this, make a comment about it, because I'm planning on doing it, I've just post-dated these two blog posts so I don't have a URL yet.

I think I was going to write more on this post way back when I wrote it. But that was at least a week or two ago. So I've forgotten. I'm just going to stop now. Peace, homeslice(s)!

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Best. Day. Ever.

Dude, last Thursday was (one of) the most fantastical days of my life. Kind of. I mean, I guess not really. That was a big of an exaggeration. BUT! I'm very happy with the outcome of that day. What, you might ask, happened on this day, the 5th of July? (Gah, that would have sounded much better if it had happened in May.) Good grief, ANYway - I'll stop the chatter and just show you, shall I? I think I shall.

Russell Brand portrait by Pat Bennett at Icon Tattoo and Body Piercing in Murfreesboro, TN

Dream Post

*wake up to alarm*
“WHOA - baby! I just had the craziest dream!”
“mmhmm...”
“Do you want to hear about it?”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“...will you be able to stay awake?”
“Yes!”
“Okay, so...

I was at Mom and Dad’s for some reason - I guess my brother was in town. But I had to go to work, so I was getting ready, and for some reason I wanted to wear one of my old “save the rainforest” t-shirts as an undershirt. So I had that on, tucked into my nice dress pants, and I was getting ready. And then all of a sudden I was driving to work! I had no recollection of anything in between, but I was only half-dressed and didn’t have any lunch. By now I was already off Mom and Dad’s road, so I didn’t want to go back - I figured I’d just call Mom and have her bring me a shirt (since for some reason my job was at the high school). I stopped at a grocery store to get food for lunch and realized I didn’t even have my purse, but Mom’s was in the car and it had cash in it, so I used that to get food. Anyway - I get to “work” (the high school), and Dr. Punch is there helping Little Hippo with homework. I got there super early since I hadn’t actually finished getting ready, so I was able to help for a minute...and the screen on the computer monitor was super resizable. Like...we grabbed the corners and stretched it from a square monitor to a super wide-screen. Anyway - Lil H. had copy/pasted his code from some other IDE into VS, so it destroyed all the indentation and stuff and we were trying to figure out the VS commands to auto-format the code. We finally figured it out (it was some crazy swirly design on the keyboard...super weird) and then Dr. Punch went off on this weird rant about someone’s cute kid and how you shouldn’t draw that design on a kid’s forehead or else the parents will think you’re weird...

Are you awake?”
“. . .”
“You fell asleep, didn’t you?”
“. . .”
“I knew you would!”
“No! I’m awake - I heard what you were saying!”
“Wha-” (“What did I say then?” Is what I was going to ask.)
“You decided to get rid of the shed/out building/outhouse thing, and *mumble mumble mumble - something about Supernatural and people and it would make a great show, or something*”
“What??”
“Yeah, they all turned out to be silhouettes and *mumble mumble*”
“Yeah, that is not at all what I was talking about.”
“Oh. [. . .] You’re going to write this, aren’t you?”
“Yes. But now I have to get up and get ready for work.”
“Okay, I’m going to go back to sleep and keep having weird dreams.”
*rolls over, farts*

FIN

Fun story - I GIS'd "sleeping baby mongoose" for this post's pointless image at the bottom so I'll have an image on my FB page, and I got these pictures:

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Friday Tunes

Day Five: A Song that Reminds Me of Someone

2011: "You Are My Sunshine" by The Pine Ridge Boys

My dad sang the chorus to this song to me all the time when I was little. It was supposed to be our father/daughter dance at my wedding, but the stupid rain meant our stupid wedding couldn't have stupid dancing. *pout*

2012: "Such Great Heights" by The Postal Service

Mr. T made a mix tape CD for me when we had first started dating. He said it was our song. :) Even though our first dance song was going to be "The Most Beautiful Girl" by Flight of the Conchords. Stupid rain... But when I hear this song I can remember the night he gave me the mix tape. It was the sweetest thing...no one had ever made me a mix tape before. We were in my car and I was driving to our friend's house for a party. I have a Spotify playlist with all the songs if you want to take a listen.

30 Days of Songs

Ha! I made a new page! It's up at the top and says "30 Days of Songs" - if you click on it it will take you to the list of thirty songs I'm going to be picking over the next...twenty-something weeks. As I publish the posts I will add the link to that page. Woo!!

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Sunday Movie Review

**Okay, I wrote this the Friday I watched Rock of Ages (June 15). I just never posted it. SORRY.**

My review of Rock of Ages:

Overall: pretty good
Recommendation: Redbox - not theaters 


So....if you know me at all you know I <3 Russell Brand. It didn’t matter to me what this movie was about, as long as he was in it. I watched Hop for the same reason. I love the man, but he chooses some weeeeird roles, guys. lol 


Anyway, even outside of Russell B. being in it, this movie seemed pretty funny. You’ve got Tom Cruise playing an aging rock star, which is ironic because he’s an aging movie star. Well, the “star” part depends on who you’re talking to. He had the body of a 40-something...it was sad. And then there was Alec Baldwin, who plays the same character always. I think it’s just Alec Baldwin. Also - he can’t sing. Oh lawd, he can’t sing. Mmmmm... Mary Blige was in it. She was cool. Someone told me most of the movie takes place in a strip club - total lie. Maybe 20 minutes. And you don’t even see boobies. It’s PG-13, people. The pole dancers had MAD skills, though. I was impressed. Okay, who else? Paul Giamatti. He looks so skeevy in the movie. It’s gross, and awesome. AND - he sings. Terribly. It’s great. Then there are the two younger people I don’t know. The chick was in Burlesque, which I’ve seen and liked. She’s apparently a Country singer. The dude? No idea. But I didn’t really like him. As a singer or an actor. There was also the chick that I thought was Emma Stone for about 50% of the movie, until I asked Miss C and she was all “Oh no she innit!” and I looked it up on IMDb. (Don’t yell at me for using my phone in theaters - there were only like 10 people there. It was seriously the worst turn out for a midnight release I’ve ever seen. I still don’t understand why it was a midnight release.) 


Well that paragraph kind of ran away from me. I was just going to say my idea of what it might be, not actually what it turned out to be. Oh, well. I thought it would be good, and it was...well it’s wasn’t bad. But it wasn’t great. I can definitely see how it would be a great Broadway musical. But that stage-to-film translation didn’t go...well. It’s worth a Redbox. Or maybe even a purchase after it’s been out for awhile and the price drops. 


The best part (to me) was this: 


SPOILER ALERT 
Russell Brand and Alec Baldwin own the club that 90% of the movie is in. About midway through the movie Russell starts singing “Can’t Fight this Feeling” to Alec Baldwin and it turns into a duet and they reveal that they’re in love...there’s this whole montage of their “special moments” from the past...it’s great. And then they kiss! Apparently. Somehow Miss C and I missed it I think it was because of the story I’m about to tell you. 
END SPOILER 


Okay, so about ¾ of the way through the movie, Miss C flails like Miss C do. She’s freaking out over a spider she felt crawling on her. I’m 99% sure she’s flailed said “spider” onto me. She’s convulsing, and now I feel jittery because I’m sure it’s on me. Well, about 5-10 minutes later my fears are confirmed - I feel it run across my hand. After a small panic I think “I’m going to be the mature one here and calmly smush it on my pants.” so I smear my hand all over my leg. And then proceed to feel bugs all over my body for the next 20 minutes or so. Both of us are scratching and flinching and twitching...I was convinced they had an infestation and when the lights came up we were going to be covered in tiny demon insects. But at the same time a small part of my brain was saying “This is all psychological - chill the f out.” Then, out of nowhere, it’s on my arm again. So I turn - very calmly - to Mr. T and gently ask “WTF IS THIS THING ON MY ARM?!” and once he sees it moving, tries to flick it off. I carefully whisper to him “STOP THAT - WE NEED TO KILL IT!!” Then we look closer and realize it’s a tick. That is why it was so indestructible. So I place it in his hands and Miss C and I try to not think about it again for the last bit of the movie. That totally didn’t work. 


 I feel itchy and crawly again just thinking about it. 


 It was around 3:00 when I got home, and I had to be up at 6:00 to get ready for work. My lunch break turned into my nap time - I brought a pillow and blanket and crashed so hard in my car. It was glorious.