Nothing can compare to when you roll the dice and swear your love's for me

Hallmark had their big ornament premiere this weekend, and my manager overcompensated the number of hours she thought would be required to fill the rush. I got something like twenty-five hours this week, which isn't bad, especially when you consider that summer is typically a slow time for retail merchants. My manager hadn't posted the new schedule until today, and when she did, we were all shocked to find that our hours had been cut drastically across the board. I'm only scheduled for one day this week -- tomorrow -- and it's a seven hour shift. Seven hours at barely above minimum wage. That sucks. It's barely even worth my going in. And I requested off next weekend so I can go home, so the next time I work will be Monday the 20th -- at the earliest.

I'm so glad that I arranged to borrow against my Simple IRA. Otherwise, I'd be up the creek without a rent payment. So now that I've got six days off in a row, I feel like I need to come up with a self-improvement project to fill the time. 'Build some shelves or something.

My parents sent me a fabulous book, The Complete ACOA Sourcebook, which I intend to hit hard with some of my time off. Plus, I have my prompt for cuddy_fest to write, so that will take up some time, too. I don't know. Anyone have any suggestions as to what I should do with my mini-vacation? Todd and I want to go to Chicago before September to see the Harry Potter Exhibition, and it would be nice to visit the Field Museum again, too. Maybe we'll make a day trip out of it.

I can't wait until school starts again. I miss that whole enriching environment. And I'm really excited about my courses for the fall. I'm taking this great comparative studies course: Chinese and American landscape paintings. I guess when you're the dean of the college, you can teach a course in whatever you want. And I got the sweetest e-mail from one of the students in my TESOL class from last semester. We met at the grad student orientation before fall semester began and we were pretty buddy-buddy throughout the whole class. I love that. I love getting in there and meeting new people, experiencing new cultures, inventing myself as this sort of "world traveler by proxy." Everyone in the TESOL program is so wonderful. I've never felt as accepted or welcomed in a class before. We'll have to see how the semester goes, but I'm more and more interested in the prospect of teaching English as a second language overseas. Going anywhere in Asia would be fantastic.

And that sweet, wonderful co-worker who invited me to be one of her bridesmaids told me that she's taking her bridal party out in the next couple of weeks to look at dresses. She showed me a picture of a dress that she likes; it's dark blue, strapless, with a white sash and an empire waistline. By far, one of the prettiest bridesmaids dresses I've ever seen. At least it's not green taffeta.

I keep thinking a lot lately about how all of the things I'm going through lately have been acts of Fate or dumb luck. Coming to Valparaiso was only possible through my connections at Big. Since being here, I've established myself at university and met some really fantastic people that I can't imagine not having in my life. And being on my own -- living with Todd -- has really brought to light some of the things about myself that I need to work on and improve. I don't know if I would have had this kind of insight had I stayed where I was. I suppose that's the sort of hindsight you're supposed to have as you're growing up.

Say goodbye to the world you thought you lived in

Also, this is definitely my anthem for the week: "Any Other World" - Mika

'Love those moody strings.