Moving Out!

19 may be a little young in some people's view, but when I'm financially stable and in a committed relationship with my 24 year old boyfriend still living at home with his parents, it is a perfect time to get out own place. We've done exactly that! The move in date is May 22nd just before the NASCAR race that Sunday that we're going to! That weekend is going to be eventful. We first tried going to an apartment complex in Matthews near the Aboretum, but that fell through. Thankfully that same day we found another place. It is cheaper, but beautiful and much closer to work and school than the other place. Charlie and I are thrilled. We've already started painting our furniture for our place and planning what we have to buy and how to decorate. My parents are supportive and of course are openminded. I am glad we both come from very supportive families with good backgrounds and morals. Our parents love us and always want the best for us.

Yankees

As an avid Yankee fan, you stick by your team through their good times and bad. Red Sox fans know this drill. Unfortunately, now Yankee fans have become accustomed to Yankee losses. The Yankees are on a losing streak so far this season and it's aweful! The game last night against the Red Sox was sad. They were tied 1-1 almost throughout the entire game, then gave aways 3 runs to the Sox! One run was a runner stealing home! I give props to the guy for that daring move, especially because he was abnormally fast, but still, as a Yankees fan, I was mad.
Back in 2000, a Red Sox movie was released only in the Boston area movie theatre called "We Still Believe". It was a documentary movie filming behind the scenes at the games and at fan's houses showing the pessimistic views of Red Sox fans. If the Yankees don't improve soon, maybe they'll produce a similar movie! What I do hope happens is that when A-rod comes back when his knee is healed is that we automatically start winning. He may just be the winning factor of that team, since he's not here and the rest of the guys cannot pull of a win.
No matter what though, I love my Yankees and always will. Coming from Boston was definitely a challenge having all Red Sox fans as friends, but in the south now, it's been a litle easier on us. I actually work with a few people who like the Yankees too! I even got my boyfriend to watch the games with me and choose the Yankees as his team in the MLB video game THE SHOW.

Hello Again

I haven't blogged in a really long time and I apologize for that. My work schedule and then trying to fit in homework time is to blame. I work almost forty hours a week and I'm still a full-time student, and no, I can't quit my job to have more time for school work because I'm moving out next month and I need as much money as I can get before then. My life has not changed much since I last blogged. Besides getting another raise at work, attending a few concerts and getting ready to move out, my life is still as its always been.
This past weekend I went to a Twiztid concert with my boyfriend. They are a two-man white, rap group in Pyschopathic Records. I know the name is harsh, but it's excelent music! The show was exciting and blew my mind! Their music is not like the rap you see on television. It is a little more hardcore and dark, but not scary! Before the show we went to a signing at Manifest in Charlotte. One of the guys, monoxide, said that my boyfriend has "the finest girl" there. Haha. I thought that was funny. I'm sure Charlie was flattered.
A couple weekends before that, we went to Atlanta for a Kottonmouth Kings concert. The room was filled with potheads, so that was entertaining, but the music was still fun! Upbeat, loud, and relevant to today, anyone can enjoy that kind of music! I had never been to Atlanta before, so that was an adventure. It was quite ghetto, but our hotel was nice. This coming weekend we're going back to Atlanta for the Braves game against Astros!

AB CONTOUR BELT

So has anyone seen the info commercials on t.v. about that ab belt that without working out, works your abs? I never purchase anything off t.v. normally, but I had to give this a try! Besides, what's a better time to start such a thing other than just before the summer starts? I'm going to need some abs anyways because I'll be going on my first cruise this coming October with Charlie and his family.

It feels great to be doing something for my body again, since I am out of high school and not involved in sports like volleyball and tennis anymore. I had my doubts, like all of you do probably about the belt, but surprisingly, what you see on the commercial is really how it works! I can sit down in front of a mirror and see my abs contracted and releasing as the intensity increases. The belt used microwaves exerted through gel pads to make the muscles contract and release. It basically feels like vibrations, which with time, become stronger and hurt just like a strenuous ab workout at the gym.

I started with intensity at about 30% and I am now, three weeks later, at 100%. I love this belt! I use it probably four times a day while doing homework and watching t.v. Especially if I am not tired at night, putting on the belt for 45 minutes does the job! With four payments, this belt was very affordable under my wallet. I can feel the difference and see the change and I couldn't be happier with my purchase!

Future Nursing, Here I Come!

I'm a little late in talking about this, but it's better late then never! So most my friends know that I originally applied to SPCC to get into the Radiation Therapy program so I could help future cancer patients. Well, to make a long story short, that did not work out. Almost, but not quite there. I've decided my next closest doorway to helping cancer patients would be to become a nurse, which is a much easier process, and work in a cancer ward! After talking to nurses at my doctor's office and my boyfriend's mom who is a nurse, I have decided this path is so right for me!

The first thing I had to do was switch my degree program from Associates of Science to Nursing. After doing that, I was informed I must take the CNA course prior to getting into the program. That had a requirement list of its own! I first had to get my TB shot, which formed a bubble under my skin and if infected, I would have a worse reaction. Obviously I didn't. Next, I got a titer blood-test done to test my immunity to the chicken pox. Of course, I am immune since I had the chicken pox as a young child. Every other shot I have already had and next was to sign up! After a whopping $310 later for entrance fee and shot fees, I am now signed up to be a certified nurse assistant for this summer!

My sister's friend, Devin Hasty, took the course last year and told me I'd basically "eat, breathe, and sleep CNA." I thought her choice of words were funny, but she's right. compacted into less than two months of material, I will be working very hard! I am going to have to cut down my work schedule at Carolina Made, which sucks, but oh well. I really could use the money so I can move out, but I'm going to move out anyways.

I'm so excited to be on my way to becoming a nurse!

NASCAR

I've been an avid fan of NASCAR for a few years now. Dale Earnhardt Sr. and Jr. cover my bedroom walls. Watching the race has always been exciting enough just by watching it on t.v. I never imagined I would ever go to a race! My dad always joked about it, and perhaps attempted to be serious, and saying he'd buy tickets for us to go as a family with my cousin, Brandon, who is a bigger fan than I am. I never take my dad seriously when he speaks of aspirations because a lot of the time they never happen. I know it is just his attempt at making everyone happy.

Luckily, I have a boyfriend who has taken my love for the race more serious than anyone else ever has. He is the one who has gifted everything NASCAR in my room. He never was a race fan himself, but compromised into letting me watch the race in between commercial breaks of Panther games. Through this, he's even grown to love the sport himself. I'm sure not as much as I do, but still that means something to me.

May 24th the date! Charlie bought us tickets to go see my man race! The one race I've missed was the one last year in June with Jr. won! Of course, I missed that one, because I was at the beach. Like an old Red Sox fan, I will always be prepared for the worst and not exactly expect my man to win. So, Charlie and I decided, that is Jr. gets screwed over, either in a wreck, or penalty, like he does often, we'll still yell loud and clear with excitement, not just to cheer Jr. on, but to hope and yell for Kyle Busch to lose. That will make the race just as joyful!

I couldn't ask for a better gift right now, and I cannot explain how excited I am for that day. I want to go all out, get all decked out in Jr. gear, since I already have some (obviously) I'll have to get Charlie Jr. attire. I'm thrilled, so I thought I would share my excitement on here to you guys!

To a Daughter Leaving Home

To a Daughter Leaving Home, by Linda Pastan, really struck home for me when I found it in our Lit. book. This past year I graduated high school down the road at Sun Valley High School and the only thoughts I knew were occupying my parents' minds was that they were losing another daughter to college. My dad is quite the emotional type and expresses his feelings, thoughts, worries and concerns on a daily basis to my sisters and me. My older sister, Hillary, is off at graduate school in Michigan and my twin sister is at UNCW. I know my parents were worried about losing me to, but at least I stayed right down the road.

The poem talks about a father teaching his daughter to ride a bike for the first time by herself. The speaker, the father, states in the first sentence "When I taught you" which implies this poem was going to be looking back on a memory. This father put a lot of thought and concern into teaching his daughter how to ride a bike, which kind of symbolized him teaching her to be independent, to grow, and learn on her own. I remember when I first tried riding a bike on my own as my father pushed me down the slight hill we lived on. You could tell he was nervous, like the father in the poem, and that he was worried and waiting for me to crash, but after a few times, I rode on my own with dignity and pride, alone, without my father.

The father in the poem describes the sight of his daughter getting smaller and smaller as she rode farther away. In this way, the poem shows how the daughter is getting further and further out of reach, exploring the road on her own as her father tried desperately to catch up. The words "more breakable with distance" shows that the father views his daughter as very vulnerable on her own. He, like any father, is probably used to always being there every step of the way in his daughter's life, and this bike riding lesson is what tears that tie between a father and daughter.

The girl is the poem is noted as screaming and laughing with excitement as she ventures on her own as her hair flaps in the wind "like a handkerchief waving goodbye." This last line of the poem jumps out at me. The father sees this as a goodbye, even though his daughter, still young, is only learning to ride her bike and will return home. This instance is like a foreshadowing for the father as to what years from then will be like when his daughter starts her own life and leaves home.

I think that the daughter leaving home later in her life is what made her father look back in time and remember when she first learned to ride her bike on her own and how it reminded him of her goodbye.