new year's resolutions

i know that i'm extremely sporadic when it comes to actually updating this thing but i've decided to make myself a list of new year's resolutions to try and make myself better over the course of not only the next year but my life. yet again, it's another list. go figure.

- try to learn more. this is a particularly good gem because i feel that while i may be fairly knowledgeable in certain aspects of worldly subjects, i am severely lacking knowledge in most of them and honestly, does anyone like feeling like a hurr durr? i think not.
- surround myself with better people. self-explanatory.
- move to atlanta and find a good job for me.
- read more books.
- go out more and enjoy the life i have.
- GRADUATE.

i think this is a decent start for me. the end.

random blurbs

- once a pretentious douchebag, always a pretentious douchebag. i'd rant more but this statement probably applies to a lot of people. blanket statement ftw!
- being gone from orlando for any period of time makes me miss it and yet makes me want to leave that much more.
- insomnia is both friend and foe.
- my attempts to be witty and deep and thoughtful suck. it leads me back to the first statement i made. i am basically a pretentious douchebag. that being said, here's some la dispute to use as awkward transitioning music away from my blog.

i love ryan anderson so much. i wish the magic would let him do something like this.

i am a bad blog mommy. bad bad blog mommy.

my life is crazy. i don't even know what to say about it anymore. things are ridiculous. it's very funny but very boggling.

back from said brief internet hiatus

i caved and got a tumblr. i have hit every freaking internet phenom.

thisurlwastaken.tumblr.com

lulz at myself

okay, i don't feel much like full on blogging but bullet points ought to work just fine. so away we go!

- my aunt is still in the hospital. we're in week 4 now. there's no set date for her getting out. she has to have surgery to fix a prolapsed rectum (cue the ew's). she's still batshit crazy. highlight of her nuttiness- she told her doctors that she cooked our cat and ate it. note: the cat is totally fine. some of what's going on with her is hilarious, most of it is terrifying. it's just one big game of limbo.

- i'm planning on applying for grad school(s) within the next few months. i really want to go to georgia state for historical preservation but i'm also going to apply to ucf and university of west florida as backup. i also need to rework my resume, curriculum vitae, get my letters of recommendation and write a personal statement. oh, and look for internships. no sweat. i'm stressed over it but it's totally manageable. i really am excited for this next chapter of my life.

- school kind of bores me right now. only having two classes doesn't cut it for me. i need shit to do. i need the challenge and the busyness of school, not of life.

- i'm going to atlanta in december officially to see lydia and norma jean and gsu and suno and the vortex. i am so excited that i can't even wait. i want to go now.

- my halloween costume is a housewife gone commando. i'm calling it gi june cleaver.

i'm bored and stalling on my class reading. whatevs.

i have started the process of looking for/applying to grad school(s). my stress level has jumped about fifty notches in two days. not cool.

i remember what it was like to see him sitting at the kitchen table in the mornings, waiting for everyone else in the house to get up and get going. when he was here, i would always wake up because the smell of coffee brewing would get to me and i'd know he was up and ready to do whatever he wanted with his day. if i was lucky, i'd have him to myself for a whole hour and i would sit and eat cereal while he drank from his never ending cup. he used to leave puddles from his cup that would pool and that i would drag my fingers through gleefully to make patterns that made us both smile.

i remember when he would call when he was home and the two of us would talk about pro wrestling. about who would win and who would lose and we would argue over me liking ultimate warrior and how he thought he would do nothing. he would call during bears/packers games and talk smack about the bears and how the packers were guaranteed to win and when they'd lose, he'd chalk it up to a fluke. he'd call me a good girl and i'd reply with the word poison.

i remember the time we went out to kennedy space center and my uncle wanted him to be in a wheelchair. so distinctly, i heard "not a fucking chance. i'm not fucking crippled. i can walk." and walk, he did. i think he did it to prove to my uncle that he didn't need wheels to lug himself around, even when he had to slouch over or lumber.

i remember tugging on the jowl of loose neck skin and him sticking his tongue out to make me laugh.

i remember the picture of him with a smurf.

i remember the flannel shirts he used to wear and how soft they were underneath my fingers.

i remember being the first person of my family to learn that he died.

i remember telling my dad to tell him the night before he died that i'd talk to him later, that i was busy studying for finals.

i say i don't regret anything in my life but this is the one thing i regret fully. i regret not talking to him before he died. i regret blowing it off for something so trivial as a test. what i would give to hear his voice one more time, calling me a good girl. telling me he loves me.

i miss you, grandpa

i have been slacking on the blog front. nothing important or exciting has been happening, though, so it's kind of justifiable. besides, i think only my-linh ever reads this anyway. let's do a quick recap since the last time i updated:

- i'm done with being sick! yay!
- my aunt is still in the hospital. things are still pretty bad there but they don't know what they can really do there.
- me and my-linh went to our first magic game of the season! we won and it totally rocked. i got to explain to people my crazy love for marcin gortat. mmm, gortat.
- i have to go to my grandpa's thursday-saturday as his chauffeur. it blows because he lives in the middle of freaking nowhere with a whole group of old people. blargh.
- been working a lot. been doing the school bit a lot. been doing a lot, haha.
- i have officially curtailed my spending in an effort to save up money to school next semester so i can, you know, graduate and also for my trip to atlanta in december.
- on that note... i am planning my annual trip up to the atl to see one of my besties, lydia. this year, the trip is planned around us seeing norma jean but i also am going to try and feel out the city a little bit and maybe even poke around for jobs while i'm there.
- i have to start looking into post-college life stuff now. like jobs. and grad school. and where to live. it freaks me out. so. much.

so basically, if you made it through that, congrats! here's a gif(t)!



when i have anything valid, i'll make this shit better.

health post

i'm sick. i think i caught the creepy crawlies from my-linh, which i'm fine with, because i boucne back from illness relatively fast. i just feel like poop.

my aunt is really sick, though. they thought her lady parts had prolapsed, which means that they were poking out when they're not supposed to. the doctors in the e.r. said it's actually her rectum sticking out. that terrifies me. her immune system is suppressed from chemo, which keeps her disease in check, and if she gets an infection she could die. they're thinking they need to do surgery on her and that could kill her too. she had clotting disorders that can kill her while she's in there. there's so many things going on with her right now that it scares the fuck out of me. i get annoyed with her sometimes but she doesn't deserve this crap. i don't want her to be pain like i know she is and i don't like thinking that this stuff can kill her. i know i'm thinking of the worst case scenario but i have to because it's always a possibility with her and the way her disease is. i just wish i could make her not hurt or make this shit go away.

i'm working on my paper for my us history class and while not hard, i seem to be struggling with finding the right words to put down. stupid wars.

i'm listening to cursive while i write, though, and it helps a little bit. tim kasher makes me aspire to be smarter and happier. idk why.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHh

that is how this paper is making me feel. my bank account won't post the rest of my check yet so i can't get what i want in the american apparel sale on hautelook or my effin books! THIS IS CRAP!

random musings

- luke hoskin from protest the hero is probably in all seriousness the cutest canadian man to ever exist. arguments could be made for wade macneill from alexisonfire but wheelchair jimmy from degrassi will never qualify.
- that being said, i very clearly have a thing for canandian men. i'd say canadian musicians but they gave us bryan adams and i'm unsure as to how i feel there.
- when you realize you're about to brush your teeth with bath & body works liquid antibacterial vanilla sugar soap, you sure as hell become a lot more grateful for those dang blue beads they got.
- president obama calling kanye west a jackass is by far the funniest and saddest thing ever. when the president of the nation puts us on an official love lockdown like that, you gotta wonder what's going on.
- the anna sui for target line was a serious letdown. it's bad when the only dress you thought was ugly ends up being the cute one on you that you buy and the pretty ones look like shit on you. seriously, the blue dress from the blair line made me look like violet beuregarde from willy wonka. not cute. let me repeat, NOT. CUTE.
- this is all an elaborate ruse to avoid getting ready for school.

and here's a gif because i need flashy things to distract me always.



i love me some toki wartooth.

yeah

i got nothing right now

well....

i was planning on writing a post about my love for basketball BUT that one is just going to have to wait because upon my departure from my nightly shower, i find out that katrina is doing a monthly giveaway!



i mean, look at how effin cute that is! that one's not up for givesies this time but she is giving away both a wishbone necklace and a i <3 paris necklace. so, if you really love me, you're gonna go and enter this shit too and win it and give it to me! the link's below!

http://elementnineteen.wordpress.com/2009/09/09/september-giveaway
http://anirtak.etsy.com

protest the hero

okay, my obsession with this band is continuing to escalate to epic proportions. it all started at warped tour 08 when lydia, one of my besties, decided that we needed to see this band called protest the hero. by the end of the set, i was hooked. any band that says that miami is built on cocaine and murder and breaks the rule of not swearing in public by dropping the f-bomb all over the place earns my love.

it's just growing from there.. youtube videos of them. twitter posts. blogs. it's getting to be bad. if there's ever a dvd, i will be dead.

sigh. i love this band.

for some ungodly reason, my blog apparently can't be viewed. go figure. fml.

lists and gif(t)s that have nothing to do with nothing

i feel like doing a brief overview of myself because a) i can't remember if i have or not and b) i'm too lazy to go back through my previous posts to look. i'll break up the monotony with gif files....per usual.

name: jillian leigh. aliases include jill, jilly, jillybeans, jillarin, jill the robot and various other things that have been dealt to me over the years.



birthday: march 24th, 1987. that makes me 22 if you don't want to do the math. i'm both a young 22 and an old 22. a contradiction, yes, but that's the story of my life.



family: mother, lynn. father, tom. older sister, kelly. her husband, ricky. her kids, isabella and nathan. older brother, brandon. younger sister, caitlyn. grandpa, howard. aunt, susie. uncle, pete. crapload of cousins and such.



pets: one crazy kitten named burglar. love her but she destroys everything.



origins: born in oak lawn, illinois. lived in alsip and great lakes, illinois until the age of 5. moved to orlando, florida in 1992 and have been here since.



schooling: durrance elementary, waterford elementary, cypress springs elementary. discovery middle. university high school. valencia community college where i got an aa in general studies. university of central florida where i am going for a bachelor's in history. as of now, ucf is looking to hold me a few more years because the possibility of grad school. ew.

music: for this one, i'm linking my last.fm account because it's too much work to get the dang list up. http://www.last.fm/user/ifoundyou. there

interests: clothing. internet shopping. bestie hangouts. food network. travel channel. anthony bourdain. bizarre foods. harassing tourists. random car trips. naps. eating. the plaza theater in downtown orlando. the enzian. the social. backbooth. going to shows. reading ontd (biggest guilty pleasure). history. museums. field trips. love. laughter. life.

random factoids: i refuse to eat bananas and eggs. tomatoes were on that list but i've been exposing myself to it more slowly and it's not that worst form of torture. i have a phobia of bridges. i have a crush on practically every bearded man under the age of forty. i talk to our cat in a baby voice. i love collecting odd bits of jewelry and crazy purses. i'm a tomboy but i love the color pink.

okay, i think that just about sums it up so boo and yah. next time, we'll be back to our regularly scheduled program.

tuts mi barreh

EPIC LOLZ

my mother gave me a lecture tonight about me being pretty. i find it really funny because this is probably the time in my life when i've been most accepting of myself. growing up, i had a hard time being accepting of myself and my body. but now, i finally hit a point where i think i'm somewhat attractive and work (sometimes) to make myself look pretty and dress up when i never used to and she calls me out for not thinking that i am.

i've never been skinny. it's not meant for me, either, i don't think. i have a bigger frame on my body and while i'm not fat, i'm certainly not thin and i'm fine with that. of course, there's always things i want to improve upon. tone up different areas, eat healthier, exercise more but overall, i'm finally at a point in my life where i can look in the mirror and be okay with what i see. i'm not a supermodel, i'll never win a most gorgeous person award but i like how i look and i like who i am and i accept myself, flaws and all. most of the time.

i have tattoos and i have piercings and i dye my hair but these are things i want to do. they're things i choose to do. my mother brought them all up and let out a sigh and flat out told me 'i don't think you realize just how pretty you are." for her to say this is a small miracle. for me to feel it is another one. i am pretty in my own way. i'm not perfect and i love that about myself. and yes, mom, for the record, i do realize that i'm pretty now. so in a weird way, thank you.