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Yay October! And September update [Oct. 1st, 2013|11:46 am]

anoel
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[Current Music |Laura Veirs]
[xpost |http://anoel.livejournal.com/153016.html]

Happy October everyone! As I posted on Twitter, I'm really excited about this month because it's my birthday month and I have some super fun stuff planned in store. This coming weekend, I'm going to see Gravity with a friend of mine after we do some hiking and on Sunday I'm going to see Maroon 5 (and Kelly Clarkson) in concert!! Soooo excited as I've fallen in love with Adam Levine after watching him being a hilarious, competitive, adorable dork on The Voice who can't stop flirting and being in love with Blake Shelton. HAVE I MENTIONED THEY ARE SUCH BOYFRIENDS??? Who say things like, "I would never cheat on you Blake?" THAT IS A THING THAT HAPPENED.

Ahem. I'm getting ahead of myself. The weekend after that or rather, pre-weekend on October 9th in the evening I'm driving to Las Vegas to go to Wincon! I'm going to be rooming with some awesome SF people and I'm looking forward to seeing [personal profile] nikibee again along with [personal profile] cee_m and many others! October 11 (friday) is my birthday and there will be fannish panels, hanging out with fannish people, a VIDSHOW (of which I have two vids, one premiering), Once More with Feeling and Rocky Horror Show screenings and hopefully a drunken birthday party full of fangirls. I'm sooooo excited! Plus I'm totally going to ride that roller coaster I saw last time. I am going to be going back early Sunday morning but that's because I have tickets to see the Blind Auditions (ie Adam/Blake FLIRTING NONSTOP) of The Voice with [personal profile] elipie! I can't wait!! Other fun things I'm planning on doing is getting a tattoo on my right ankle. It's my first tattoo as I've wanted one for a long time but could never justify the expense. It's going to be Nala from The Lion King like in my main icon. I figure I've been a fangirl of it for 21 years, I think it's a forever thing plus I've always felt my spirit animal, what I've been in another life, etc is a lioness so it's really important to me. The biggest thing for me is I'm going to go skydiving! It's always been in the top 3 things I want to do in my life since I love flying and want to feel like I am if only briefly. Will probably save it towards the end of the month.

A month ago I had an amazing time Labor Day Weekend getting to hang out with [personal profile] nikibee in the Bay Area. We watched Game of Thrones, Teen Wolf and Parks and Recreation and had a vidparty where we watched Vividcon vids with [personal profile] franzeska (who I had a great talk with!), Alice, Michelle, Dani and I think that's all? It was so much fun! We (Nicole, Alice and Michelle) also went to Oakland Pride and got to see En Vogue in concert and it was so great to get a chance to have some good talks with [personal profile] nikibee all weekend. I also went back to San Francisco near where I used to live and work and got to have lunch with someone from Dev Bootcamp which I also visited and got to talk to the founder who changed my life with letting me go to it. Unfortunately I left my favorite hoodie there and haven't been able to get it back :( I also visited the Berkeley campus which is SO BEAUTIFUL! Probably the prettiest one I've ever seen, it's like half nature reserve. Finally I went to a Haven party [personal profile] franzeska (who else? ;)) was throwing and got to say goodbye for a couple hours before I had to leave to catch my flight. Gotta say Southwest was awesome, they gave me a better seat when I complained I didn't know I had to check in for the return flight. It was a super fun weekend and I'm so glad I went!

Other than that, I've been working a lot. We had a big deadline a few weeks ago before our company presented a website at a conference. Some of the weeks I worked on interesting things and that was fun especially getting to pair with my mentor here but a couple weeks I didn't like what I was working on and kept getting distracted by the internetz at work which was less fun. We did go bowling last week as the conference went awesome and that was really fun! I've also been running more and I paid for a personal trainer so I can actually get a REAL strength training workout and that has helped a LOT with developing some muscles. I've always wanted to do chinups so that's my long term goal. I've been thinking about running a marathon next year as I need a big running goal to get me inspired to run more and I want to beat my last time (5.5 hours) and hopefully have a rain free experience. I've been eating a lot cleaner lately and did lose a little weight but got a little bored with it and regressed last week. No worries though, I varied my diet up and am doing better now. If there's anything I learned in the past it's not to give up and let little backslides trip you up.

The big news is I've decided to quit my job soon and go back to college to finally finish my degree. It's something I've always wanted to do and I've had enough of a taste of the real world working on something I kind of like but not love (even with the nice money benefits!) to want to go back to school and work on finding what I really want to do with my life. I'm going to continue study programming on my own and help code for the AO3 along with working on personal projects I'm hoping will lead to possible job opportunities or at least direction. I'm going to go back to community college for Spring 2014 and I'll be applying in the next two months to UCLA, CSULA and CSULB as a Philosophy major. Yes, Philosophy because I've loved the courses I've taken in it, I've always wanted to learn it and it requires a very low amount of credits so I can graduate fast as I'm aiming for May/June 2015. I'm also planning on volunteering at College Track during the time and maybe seeing if after I graduate I can get a job there or at a similar organization. Or maybe I'll do another programming job to save money/pay off debts, I don't know, we'll see.

Let's see...a couple weeks ago, [personal profile] elipie came over to watch vids, vid and talk with [personal profile] jetpack_monkey and I and it was a lot of fun! I've been trying to go to more meetups lately to meet new people and feel less lonely and so I went to a happy hour and met some cool people DTLA and also went to a hiking group last Saturday where I had some good talks with a couple people. The weekend before that I went hiking with my friend, Jen who has turned out to be one of my closest friends in LA even though she's a bit older than me. She used to be in a rock band but now is learning to program so we hang out a good amount to do that. But we hiked in Griffith Park and had a really long talk about life, fun things in our history and the future which was really great.

I've been missing my mom a lot lately. I didn't fully appreciate that when I felt lonely and couldn't reach any of my friends to talk, I could always call my mom and know she'd be there for me. It's just tough sometimes and earlier in the month I was feeling really lonely. I think of her every day whether in small moments or longer memories and it just hurts a lot. I just really wish she was back again :( Last Sunday was the three month anniversary of her death and it feels so far away and yet so close like I can vividly remember getting the call that she had died. I called my dad the other day and it was good to talk to him and hear he's doing well especially after my brother freaked me out saying he couldn't get a hold of him. I'm still terrified he's going to die, I just heard that statistically spouses are more likely to die after one of them dies so even with my dad's health issues, it's even scarier. I'm really looking forward to going back to see him for the holidays and my cousin and aunt as well, both who've been there for me a lot. I went to a meetup last Saturday with a group that's about women who've lost their mothers and it was really helpful talking to other people like me there. Someone said that the worst part is even if you have other people who help fill the hole your mother left, it's not the same as having MY mother there, she's mine and no one is mine in that way. And that's totally how I feel. It was helpful though and we got to smash plates and mugs to help let out the anger :)

On a happier note, I'm so happy fall TV season in back! I'm watching sooo many shows right now, omg. Monday I have How I Met Your Mother (ahhh THE MOTHER, brb happy crying), The Voice (Adam/Blake are SUCH BOYFRIENDS who flirt constantly, yay Christina and CeeLo being back and I love so many of the contestants already), The Blacklist (reminds me of Alias with Sydney and Jack (and Irina)) and I'm watching Mom purely out of love for Allison Janney who is a goddess. Tuesday I'm giving Agents of Shield a couple more episodes before I give up as I didn't like the characters (minus Coulson) and the plot, Brooklyn 9-9 (I really like it! it's funny and GREAT characters), New Girl (close to letting this one go again), The Minday Project (still sadly only love Mindy) and The Voice again (Blake is not doing an all country team again yay!!). Wednesday is Modern Family (yay gay marriage!) and I'm going to give Super Fun Night a try. Thursday is The Big Bang Theory (still sometimes funny, I love Sheldon but my god the gender issues), OUAT in Wonderland (going to give it a try), Glee (KURT/BLAINE DYING FROM LOVE AND SQUEEEE) and Parks and Recreation (still perfect and still LESLIE IS THE BEST). Sunday is Downton Abbey (I need to catch up actually), Once Upon a Time (MORE SWAN QUEEN, less boys pleeease) and Homeland (didn't really like 301 although I LOVE Carrie still). Lucky 7 is getting cancelled soon but I enjoyed the premise and focus on working class families so I'll continue watching. I didn't like Sleepy Hollow at all so I cut that. Any other good shiows I should watch? I'm currently catching up on Scandal (OLIVIA IS SO AWESOME and I love the addicting plots), Spartacus (deserves its own post but AWESOME!!!) and Twin Peaks (so pretty and I enjoy the plot).

On a happy/sad note, Breaking Bad is over :( But it went out on top! I was lucky enough to get tickets to the Hollywood Cemetery to see the Breaking Bad series finale live with the cast and creators of the show. I went early to get good seats and spent the day reading books (including Clash of Kings! still working on my reread) with blankets and my pillow until [personal profile] elipie showed up and we got to go in. We got good seats near the center but further back because there was a big VIP section for all the industry people who showed up. I went to checkout the RV where Walt and Jesse cooked their first meth and people were getting pictures with it and then AARON PAUL showed up and I quickly got in line but then he left but right near me so I was like 6 ft away from me. I got a picture in the RV though and it was so cool! We saw the Pilot of Breaking Bad (introduced by Aaron Paul being amazing) and then saw the Finale which was AWESOME!!! I'm so happy and fully satisfied with it. Sooo much better than The Sopranos and many other shows that can't stick the ending. I'm looking forward to doing a rewatch of the whole show and hopefully making some vids to it because it still needs ALL THE VIDS!! I read Sepinwall's review like my usual tradition (he helped me get into the show) but not reading any more because I'm sick of the negative stuff. I really loved seeing the cast Q&A after the finale, it was great to see it in person.

I've been working on a Game of Thrones vid that I'm really excited about so I'm looking forward to posting that sometime this month. I need to clear these vids off my plate because Festivids is starting!! I nominated some things and I have some requests but mainly I'm excited about making vids for people because I'll have more time than last year without the OUAT exchange. I already have 7 vids I want to make and I'm really excited to get my assignment and start. Last year was amazing and I'm hoping to have a wonderful experience this year as well.


Oh and I'm going to Europe next month! I can barely think about it, it makes me too excited and happy. Some background: I've been dying to go to Europe since like 2005? Since college started definitely especially London and Paris. It's something I want to do before I die and I've had to cancel every plan I've had to do it because of money but now that's no longer an issue! So Thanksgiving week I'm going to go to London, Paris, Munich (to visit [profile] infiniterain!!!) and Belgium (to visit [personal profile] indybaggins!) and I'm sooo excited to see some of the touristy stuff I've never seen in person. If you're in the area, let me know as I'd love to hang out! It's going to be an epic adventure I'm sure.

Wow that was long. This is what happens when I don't post for a month. I love that people are posting more to DW/LJ and am going to try to do the same, weekly is a good goal for me. I'm gonna see Laura Veirs with [personal profile] beerbad tonight which I'm excited about! A great start to my October :)
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