Have you heard about cell phones?

So I started my first "real" job a few days ago and I had my first "rea:l day today, and so far things are quite excellent. I am going to attempt to be professional and not blog details (although there is no formal police against blogging unlike say another organization I worked for that's name rhymes with Monde Blast).

However, I will say that my new job got me a cell phone, which at first seemed like a score. But I don't think this is so. Today I was I was completing my last interview of the day on my land line and was about to be the last person to leave the office at 6:30 to catch the 6:50 Metro-North (one of the biggest downsides to rocking the suburbs is that trains home are infrequent) when my work cell phone rang. Should I answer it, I thought? No, I decided. I'm about to leave the office, and I can't be a slave to my cell phone. The PR guy who called got my cell number off my e-mail signature and totally didn't need to talk to me that minute and in fact had just sent me an e-mail saying to call in the morning. I found calling my cell phone sort of unnecesary, but then I realized I put it in my signature so I guess it's on limits? And I realize I'm not at a totally 9 to 5 job and I'm not in a 9 to 5 city, but I feel like I shouldn't be always accessible.

Ok, this is totally rambly and makes no sense, but I had a memory of being in high school when one of my first friends got a cell phone. I remember feeling awkward calling his cell, as opposed to his home, because I felt like I'd be interrupting. Now, a mere 6 years later, I call everyone on a cell phone, even when I'm calling them at home. I try my parents on their cells before I call the landline since I know they'll be available.

I know at 22 years old I am in no position to be falsely nostalgic about a world I barely existed in, BUT I think it's kind of a little sad that I'm part of the last generation that will remember a time when you couldn't reach people at a moment's notice.

New Rules

So I've been trying to motivate myself to lose weight for, oh, the past 22 years. But I am very rarely successful. This whirlwind year was particularly bad particularly since I always had an excuse, "Benny's Burrtos is right across the street!" "I'm only in San Francisco for another month!" "But this apple pie is free for Investigative," "I can't drink like this after college" or the ever popular "I'm in South Africa!!"

But now that I am living at home until tbd, I have an adult job that I don't think I'll hate, and the excitement of the last year is over, I really have no excuse other than boredom which isn't an excuse for not eating well.

So since Weight Watchers never worked (and I can't stand those annoying old women at meeting) nor did positive reinforcement, I made myself a list of 15 rules (that I would post, except if someone else did, I would totally ridicule them) that I know that, if followed, will allow me to lose weight or at least live a "healthier lifestyle."

However, for every one I break I have to give $1 to charity. At first I was trying to think of a good charity, but where's the motivation in that, since then I'll just feel guilty for withholding money for a worthy cause? And I was going to give to an evil charity like the Christian Coalition, but I just couldn't bring myself to it.

So I will be donating to the Boca Raton Museum of Art, given zero stars by the Charity Navigator, So every time I find myself wanting to buy a brownie at Starbucks, I just have to think that not only will I have to pay for that brownie, but I will be paying off the $251,120 debt the Boca Raton Museum of Art amassed purchasing crappy art.

I'll keep in touch.

Since you been gone

So I'm back blogging here after my foray onto zafrica.blogspot.com. But now that my adventure though africa has sadly come to the end, it's back to the real world. Actually, I begin the real real world next week, kind of. Now I am bumming in Evanston for a week, living in the sun room without a door of the apartment I stayed in quarter.

In the 6 or so weeks I've been gone, things have changed. People don't really care about classs. Granted, about half my friends hae already graduated, like me, but even those taking class aren't taking many. Like I hear the regular murmur of "I should be writing my paper right now" but it's less frequent and easily silenced. As Ashu said, "Think how fun Northwestern would be if everyone had been like this from the start."

And I'm trying to soak up every last ounce of Northwestern (even though I'll be back two more times). Yesterday I panicked when I realized it was NU Day at Wrigley. My LAST CHANCE, to see the Cubs, not that I'd ever cared before. But when I realized I was lacking a sold-out ticket I went on overdrive gchatting and IMing everyone I coud think of until someone came through.

And the game was fun. I went with Daniella and Ash and an assortment of people and the group wanted to stay the WHOLE game, even though that meant 15 innings, which we then lost. While I was tired around inning 11 (after all the alcohol wore off) it was all worth it for the 14th INNING STRETCH. I didn't know such thing exist! Learn something new every day!