Happy Halloween

OK, so normally I have no free time but feel like a chicken with my head cut off, so I decided at the beginning of the month that I needed to give myself a break; so far no break has happened so I am planning a Halloween Party at a friends place this weekend. Looking for costumes sucks when you aren't willing to wear the skimpy little outfits that they have for women my age, which set me off looking for something that wasn't too skimpy, and since its Dr. Who themed party I decided to be Amelia Pond, aka the Girl who waited.


It kinda helps with my costume that I am in fact, a ginger, just like Karen Gillian the actress who plays her, and our hair coloring is very similar. Looking through my closet however led me to have to go shopping, my clothes are rather  high schoolish in style still, having only been adding so much to my wardrobe. A few key pieces have been gotten rid of and a few added and now its starting to look like a soon to be college graduates wardrobe. Back to the costume; had to go to Goodwill (college students best friend when coming up with a costume or getting super cheap but good suit type jackets for things). I got a black suit jacket to add to my ensemble and my outfit is complete. I was going to add the eye drive to my outfit, however, since I am vision challenged and wear glasses I decided against it.
The outfit also works for this photo of her and I am unsure of what to use as the tally marks so that it does not take me forever to scrub it off. This is the second costume i have used that works around how pale I am. I had a photo taken of me recently and it looks like I am reflecting sunlight in it :/
Onto life, lets see, awesome boyfriend got to stay for five days and we went to a fencing thing up in new york. I hate long drives but it was worth it. His GPS though hated us and took us the longest possible routes without a bathroom on it. Got to stop and see my family who I missed very much, and especially see my sister, her dog Blackie, died a few days before I went home. Blackie, who I nicknamed bubbles to annoy her when we were kids, we had since he was six months old, he passed away at around fourteen years, he had a long life, and his last few years were spent with Roxy who kept him young with her puppy ways.
Blackie gets to spend time with Ladybug, my moms dog who passed away almost three years ago, and Lucky, who when we got him became Blackies older, crabbier brother. I miss Lucky, he passed away before I was eighteen. I'm just worried that my baby, Angelbeans, will follow since she has been having health problems again. I don't think I will take her passing very well, she's been my baby since i was eleven and has been my protector against everything. She got mad at my parents for trying to take her off my bed my first night home from the hospital after I was diagnosed with cancer, that night she became my baby forever.
Enough sad stuffs, I am applying to graduate school and have it narrowed to three schools so that I can start in the spring semester (hopefully). Edinboro, Duquesne, and Villanova, all three have nice programs, but my dream one is Duquesne, I even have all my classes picked that I want to take there. Have to get my transcripts released and the money together for the application fees but then I  get to play the waiting game and finish my thesis paper, then GRADUATE!!!!!!!!!!! sorry bit excited for that. I liked my undergrad and all but I am ready for the next step and to do more in depth research, after all I want to be a professor someday (of which I have been told I am insane and should reconsider but what fun would that hold, no challenge whatsoever).
So for now ta-ta and Happy Halloween everyone :)

So, summer is almost over, thank God, i want to be back in school (i am an uber nerd deal with it), even though it means being farther from my boyfriend. the kinda awesome guy i met in may is actually more than kinda awesome, and he gets along great with my family which is awesome. The fact that he is in the SCA as well makes things that much better because its easier to get rides to the same places to see each other. Speaking of SCA, Pennsic War is coming up, it is by far (at least to me and many others) the highlight of my year/summer. Mainly because i get to see a bunch of people i don't get to see very often and also get to spend an entire week away from the real world. My vacation is awesome, even though my parents think i am insane for going out in the heat and the lack of electricity for an entire week. I am looking forward to getting to fence and take classes, especially since i have found that the people teaching some of the classes i want to go to are also professors elsewhere and i can pick their brains about becoming one myself. I am an academic, still dont know how that one happened : D
summer also stinks since the last few weeks have been mother nature slamming my area with storms. I had my last day at my internship last thursday and there was sightings of a tornado just north of where i was. i didnt see too much damage up there, but my car needed its windows resealed apparently, i had a lovely little pond on my floor boards on the passenger side. I will miss my internship, tomorrow is the first day that i dont have to go in, and i am looking forward to my first day off with just me and my kindle in what seems forever. I love books, and with my kindle the free books they have are awesome, but then i want to get the rest of the series and dont have the money to spend on them :( My mom and me went through my clothes the other day and i got rid of maybe a sixth of what i have, and saddeningly the majority of what went is all stuff i have had since high school. I was quite attached to some of them, the rest were mostly hand me downs that my sisters, failing to take into consideration that i am a twig, gave me. Mom also helped me start packing for pennsic, apparently my rushing around like a chicken with its head cut off like last year is not an option.
Lastly my doggy is getting up there in age and seems to be following me with health problems, we have been trying to get the back end of her to stop causing her such problems since she was a puppy, she has what the vet calls hot spots, she bites them incessantly and its gotten so bad that she barely has hair back there :( beans has been my baby girl since we get her when i was eleven and she was six weeks old i think, and she has been my dog ever since she "guarded" me against my parents the first night i came home from pittsburgh after my surgery to have a broviac put in so the chemo wouldnt hurt my heart. She became my shadow through all of that. My doggy is awesome. she gives me the "i am so mad at you but i missed you" act when i come home from college. She loves me one minute then gives me the glare the next, but when it comes down to it, she doesnt go to mom and dads room when i am home, she comes to mine. I love that i have a room that is mine at home again. my middle sister took over when she moved back in so i have been carting my stuff back and forth all college.
I have applied to my first graduate school. I am nervous but excited, and have decided to graduate in the fall. I had originally been planning to go the entire year, but i am ready for a new challenge and need to see what i can do in graduate school. my list of schools have everything from University of Penn to Columbia, and even some of the state schools. Suprisingly Catholic University of America in DC made the list, they have a Byzantine studies program, and i would love to take it.

Ok, so I haven't really said anything about the illumination I do, I enjoy recreating illuminated manuscripts. According to others I'm good at it, and since I am way worse than my own worst critic I am going to err to their judgement. My goal for the summer months is to get some of the scrolls I have designed made, I base them off of some illumination from pre1600 Europe, and others are just ones that I want to do. Painting lets me focus and block all else out, something that I can only do when I am reading most of the time. 

I created a scroll based off of the above image, everyone said it was good but I'm not so sure. I want to work on my skills over the summer though ^.^ First summer since starting college that I will be home for, and I am looking forward to some much needed time with my family. When I went to school I never thought I would want to go home I was so deadset one getting the heck out of there, but I miss my family, and I really really really miss my doggy. Beans (her real name is Angel Lynn) is my baby, even if she is almost 10. She will always be my baby but I am facing the reality that she may not be around much longer :( When my moms dog passed it took a long time for her to get over it, and she still misses Bug (her name was Ginger Lady but she wouldn't come to Ginger not that I blame her lol.) and I can't believe that I miss her too, she hated any of us girls who got close to mom, but if mom wasn't home we were her best friends, my moms 

new dog Beau is like that. We haven't given him a middle name yet, somehow all of our dogs end up with multiple nicknames. 

Haven't posted in a while, might as well i guess. Been home for the summer, and surprisingly loving it, the stress and drama isn't here. We got hit by a really bad storm here last night which meant having to keep the basement from flooding, the area under our back porch kinda channels it to the back door :/ thankfully our power only dimmed after we had a close lightening strike, apparently my father is amused by my reaction to it it made me yelp. I normally love storms, but this one reminded me of one when i was a kid, and all i could remember is my sister tackling me as i was trying to get our dog so we could go to the basement. A tree in our front yard came down on our porch at our old house. part of the same tree hit our car, surprisingly only denting the hood of it.

I love my internship, but so many files, the entire research collection of papers and other materials needs sorted, and i am trying to do it according to library of congress. I have so much new found appreciation for those that put the museum collections online. So far at Drake Well i have cleaned, cataloged, and organized some of the collections, done so much filing, made card catalog cards, and done so much typing that it has greatly improved my typing skills. I love working with the collections, but since it isnt my time period of choice, it does kinda make it boring at times. I found a file on the local Native Americans and can't wait to go through it. I am also doing a research project on ancient and medieval uses of oil (petroleum is why drake well exists after all), and some of it is actually kinda fascinating to read about. Apparently Babylon used natural asphalt in its construction, and ancient Baghdad used pitch if I remember right.

I've actually gotten to go to a few events for the SCA this summer, which makes this summer better than last, where i only got to go to pennsic. I really cant wait for pennsic, an entire week with friends :) I have a new guy in my life, and he's pretty cool i guess ;) he makes me laugh a lot which is kinda amazing for me. He also loves that i am goofy but serious. He came out to visit and met my parents, and they all got along pretty well, but my youngest nephew didnt like that there was someone here for his aunt. He came in the house, got me to pick him up, and until his mom took him to leave he stayed in my arms glaring at the new boy lol. he laid his head on my shoulder and glared, and my lil monster (he is adorable but has a redheads temper lol) normally wants to play when he gets to nannys house. I really like this guy, which suprised me at first, he was a jock in high school, and i am like the supreme geek. I am a book worm and everything. Hes pretty awesome, and it sucks that he lives over on the other side of the state :(

I love that i get to spend time with my nephews this summer, i missed a lot being away at school, the oldest is now 6, the middle is almost 4, and the youngest is one and walking. I miss my niece horribly, she lives out of state right now and i havent gotten to see her since they left in march :( My family  means the world to me, and when i was younger i didnt realize how much i would miss them.

I have new fabric for a roman style doublet for the SCA fighting that i do, its going to be based off of a roman lorica segmentata.

Tired of being the bad guy

I dated someone for ten months, and although i care about him a lot, i am no longer in love with him. I stopped being happy because of a lot of stuff. I have had hurtful things said to me before, and i can normally brush them off, but coming from this person it hurt a lot. In the past month or so I lost one of my friends, i hadn't known her long, but she was one of those genuinely nice ppl. It sucks that so many ppl that i know have been dying lately. idk if its just that i notice it more now or what. 

I'm happy to be home, and my parents are awesome and are helping me out with car etc so that i can have a job and get to my internship. speaking of, i start work on monday, i am going back to mcdonalds, and on tuesday i start my internship at a local museum. idk which i am looking forward to more: the idea at getting to work with a real dark room and learning manuscript restoration and preservation, or the pay check from work. 

This coming weekend, if i get off like my boss said i could, i am petitioning to join a household in the sca. this group is awesome and my sponsor is an amazing woman who has so many interests that i do. she is such a nice lady and she is going to help me with illumination and calligraphy, everything that i have done so far has been oh this looks like it would work and the tidbits that friends have told me to try. This week i am going to work on finishing my gift to her, its a token of thanks for sponsoring me. me and her had a talk today of what i want to do with everything i am learning, and when i told her about grad school she told me about what she had gone to school for, our interests match up perfectly :) 

So the title is tired of being the bad guy, bc i am honestly tired of everyone trying to make me feel bad for things that they cause or have a hand in. i am not perfect and neither are they, one difference, i admit it and lately they have been trying to make me the sole bad guy. and its not just the ex that has been doing it which is the sad part. out of everyone that has tried it the only one that gets away with it is my dog beans, mainly bc we're now even for me going to college and not taking her with me, she ate the beading on one of my dresses. kinda sad about it, hopefully i can save more of it. I know that my policy of brutal honesty is not the nicest one, but i would rather tell you the honest truth than try to "protect" you from it. just how i am. there are times where i will not say something, if it isnt my place to, but other than that all bets are off if you are doing something stupid or something you know is wrong. bc i dont like those shenannigans. 

and as it is now close to bed time, i looked over and guess who stole my teddy bear and half my pillows: beans, looks like she is one upping me again lol. Honestly, i missed my dog something fierce, she has been my baby since sixth grade, and in eighth grade, after i came home from the hospital the first time, she cemented herself as mine for life when she growled at my parents for trying to move her away from me. she protects me, and as much as i can i protect her from the dread *gasp* bath. well, until she smells like a goat. then she has to get one. hasta luego

catch up

So its been since January, I have been working my  butt off so that I keep up in classes and such and try to avoid as much drama as I can. Life is hard as per usual and I am finding more and more often that I am way different from people my own age, my mom might be right about me being 21 turning forty, its how I view the world.

Doing all my work hurts my social life, it is pretty much non-existent. I am getting more and more stressed as I try to get everything finished but I have been able to get six papers written, all of my citations are now done for my big 25 page paper on the Salem Witch Trials, and I only have one last test in my online cyberpolitics class. It was a pretty cool class but def. ready for this summer.

I am going to be doing an internship at one of the local museums, and I am nervous about doing it, mainly because we are moving everything from one of the maintenance buildings to the new site which is bigger than the old building. The museum is about twenty minutes to thirty from my house, and since I dont have a car yet and my brother in law has to have knee surgery I may get to use his until I can afford my own.

I called and asked for my old job back at McDonalds and am waiting one them to call me back. Hopefully I get that one back and I plan to get a few more applications to work as hard and as much as I can this summer. More money means a better car, and I need one that can get me to and from school which is about two and a half hours away from home.

I still find myself thinking about Ella, and as much as I try its still hard to not feel guilty about still being here when she isn't. I try to not let it bug me, and remember that there is a reason I am still here, and right now I am trying to figure out what that is, for the last about seven eight years i have wanted to be a Professor of History, but I find myself thinking I want to see the world more and more. Got to write some more on my other papers and get them all finished with citations and all.

life sucks

Many people do not really know my whole story and recently a little girl named Ella McNellie, a family friend, passed away from cancer, she was seven years old and was an angel on earth, there was not one person she met that wouldn't smile or have their day brightened by this little girl. When I found out that she had passed away i couldn't stop crying, it wasn't fair that she passed so young and her family will now miss her. 

<3 Ella Kathryn McNellie 10/21/2004-12/21/2011 <3

Ella passing opened up a very deep wound in me, I don't talk about what I went through very often, and it is both easy and hard at times. My mother suggested that I start writing about things, that it might make it easier for me to get over feeling guilt over still being alive. Survivors guilt is a strong and powerful thing to have to deal with and it is not easy. The best thing to do for those that have died is to live your life to the fullest and to live your life in memory for them. 

In another saddening turn, there have been a lot of deaths in my area, over the summer three boys, still in high school, crashed and died. Two of the boys were brothers and I am friends with their sister Isis. It hit the family really hard because the third boy was their cousin. A lot of the deaths have been senseless and meaningless, the teenagers here still do the same stupid stuff and think that they are invincible. 

I am tired of seeing the obits that are in my towns paper, its too saddening and I wish that it would stop happening, but again life sucks.

The hardest thing to see is a child dying, its even harder when you see them in a coffin. I broke down and could not stop crying. Her father Chad told me to think about that she wasn't in pain anymore. Ella looked like a doll. I went to her funeral mass as well as her wake, but there was no way that I could see her put in the ground. Just thinking about her makes me ball like a baby because it hurts so much. In March, on the 16th, I will be cancer free and considered cured. Its been a long road and one that will continue for the rest of my life, with doctors appointments and check ups, and i would do anything to have traded places with Ella, so that she could live the life that got cut so short. I have gotten to live part of my life, and it was more then she was allowed. I do not have the strongest faith, but I have to believe that Ella is looking down on us today.

I stayed at my boyfriends for new years, and on new years eve I remembered Ella and balled again. I had fun over the holiday but am glad to be home, my sister is due to have her baby any day now and its my first niece. I have three nephews from my oldest sister and this is my middle sisters first child.