oh my gosh my brain feels mashed in. my eyes are sore and heavy and there is absolutely no reason for this.
tomorrow i start my new internship. i'm nervous and excited and a little bit wary but i know how important it is to have experience, really any kind of experience, when you leave college and are looking for a job. so hopefully this will be an awesome experience on and off paper.
also, i checked my weight at the beginning of last week and then again this morning. how is losing 11 pounds in one week possible? i mean, i'm sure most of it is water weight but still. i felt pretty shocked and proud of myself. it's been difficult but the past few days have been much easier. the dull ache of hunger doesn't send me into a tizzy anymore. i just realize i need to snack, grab a decaf, or eat a meal. it's no big. saturdays make it easier to break up the week. as long as i survive the rough week, i know i have one day where i can eat like a queen.
new york is, as always, an adventure. i'm getting more self confidence here and with that comes the cat calling. normally its something i'd shy away from or even get nervous about but, it doesn't really bother me anymore. for some reason my hair just really lights the fires of the local puerto ricans here.
saturday was our beach day. mary and i woke up and hurried as we got dressed. we met her friend mary south at a local coffee shop to get breakfast to go. we walked to the metro and after a couple of transfers, we were headed to rockaway beach. the commute was long but definitely worth it. it was fun leaving the city, even if for just a five hour block. we met my cousin brooke there, and mary south had friends trickle in over the hours. we played in the atlantic for a while, bracing the cold and actually getting completely covered in sea water. it was very freeing.
after our bout in the water we walked to the rockaway taco stand. from what i understood, this is kind of a necessity if you visit the beach. the line was long but the tacos were delicious and worth the wait. they didn't have chicken tacos (anto) which was a bummer. while sitting down we heard a few french guys talking. i starting speaking with them in french and asked where they were from (paris) and what they were doing here (working for a short while). it was so interesting talking with them. i had no qualms about language boundaries. even though i'm not fluent in french by any means, i am confident i can get across what i need to. and i did. we spoke in english and in french about summers and what each of us was planning on and experiencing. they told me my accent was very good, which made me beam. always a high compliment to receive.
after the beach had lost its luster we packed up and headed home. by the time we got back i realized i was really quite badly burned on the right side of my body... probably should've prepared myself for that but i wanted to feel the burn of the sun one last time because.... that evening i started accutane. as many people know that is a very powerful acne medication. no, my acne is not that bad but this medication will, hopefully, make it so that i don't break out anymore in the future. so its a little freaky to be taking a medication that has a pregnant lady with a giant line through her belly over every tab but hopefully all will turn out well.
because the diet i'm on is so healthy and well balanced, my body has been dealing with its weird issues much better. i sincerely hope i can keep this pattern of living up through the rest of the summer and into the school year. its hard because it mostly involves cooking at home and i run out of easy/ quick methods of food preparation very quickly. so i need to prepare for that. also, walking all over the place in new york helps a lot, too.
anyway, i have many more adventures ahead of me. i still need to stroll through central park, shop for a dress for my cousin's wedding, explore the area near where i work, the area near mary's apartment. i need to go farther north, maybe to maine, and see the trees and that freezing ocean. i need to find quirky shops and explore this city with as much tenacity as i did in paris.
anyway, that's about it for now. i'm very tired and i need to rest for my big day tomorrow! more to come, as always.

well, it cooled down a few days here in NYC which was a nice gift. it was getting really unbearably hot. this past week was very productive. i got myself an internship (yaaay) with a clothing manufacturing company. it feels good to have a purpose, and to get an experience in a field. i hope it will help me in the future when i'm applying for things.
mary and i went to a show called "sleep no more." it was a very interesting take on one of shakespeare's plays, macbeth. all the non-actors had to wear masks and it took place in an abandoned hotel. you were sort of left to roam the 1st through 5th floors, running into actors and different scenes from the play. some touched you, some stared at you. they fought, knocked things over. they had candy shops and mini streets, a creepy wood, a cemetery.... it was so cool. all the actors were awesome dancers as well and they did some really interesting fight scenes and interpretive dancing. at the end everyone was kind of herded to the first floor where macbeth was hung. no one was allowed to talk and you never knew where you would stumble. it was TOO COOL. you got to search through all the drawers, look through whatever you liked. it was awesome. very mystical. totally up my ally. mary and i met up with some of her friends at the bar there where there was a live big band playing. too awesome! we hung out for a while and then mary and i and mary south split cab fare to brooklyn. such a cool night! i got home covered in fake blood.
oh that day was also busy because i hung out with my friend nick whom i've known since like... 8th grade. he and i went back to brooklyn and hung out. we watched videos and talked about 80's bands, big hats, and how people just aren't nice anymore.
other than that, i've been walking a bunch, reading, roaming, exploring, dieting, the whole shebang. i've been watching/ reading a lot of stuff where there are these amazing friendships. it's a topic i've been thinking about and talking about a lot. because as a kid, and even now, i daydream about the perfect friend. the one who is completely loyal, who puts aside homework and comes over to you when you're having a bad night, who knows all your favorite things, who goes on vacations with you and is with you through all the hard parts of life. mary says thats what a husband is. but so often people are portrayed as having these kinds of friendships. do these actually exist? i'd like to find one. and i really think i used to be that friend, but i've gotten kind of selfish in the last few years. or maybe i've given up. but i'm on a renewed mission to find and make that friendship, because friends are so much more important than people realize. i'd definitely thank friends for getting me out of a lot of rough patches in my life.
and this isn't to say i don't have good friends now. i do. but we're just not at that level yet. you know? and i want to have a friendship at that level.
let me think what else. tonight mary and i watched "forgetting sarah marshall," and i laughed so hard because i related to it so much. saturday is coming which means eat-whatever-you-want-dayyyyy!!! yes.
that's all i got. i'll take more pictures and do more cool things i swear.

quick update of things seen around/ near brooklyn:
it's summertime so all los idiotos are out bustin' open the fire hydrants which are OH WAIT filled with sewer water. whatever. anyway, so unfiltered water is spraying every three blocks all day every day.
the ice cream truck comes around all the time. i am certain this ice cream truck also sells drugs. what kind of ice cream truck is out past 8pm? drug trucks.
started the vampire diaries today OMG can't stop watching.
spotted a mutant cockroach in our house WTF that thing was as big as my big toe NO LIE.
have interviews for internships next week.
started the diet it's so extreme but my pants are already falling off so yay?
did i mention the vampire diaries thing?
today mary and i ate at atlas (a coffee shop around the corner). the girl working there was a complete delight and mary and i had pressed sandwiches and water blech. also i got a decaf with soy and then we wandered through the neighborhoods of brooklyn. such great shops and restaurants! i love this part of new york.
tomorrow we're supposed to go to the beach but it's looking like stormy skies so.... oh and tomorrow is our cheat day so lunch and dinner are splurges so i'm thinking pizza and vampire diaries? OH YEAH.
here's hoping i don't dream about freaking ginormous cockroaches.

well, its my third or so day in new york. the last time i was here was last summer, i want to say july 15-22 but that could just be speculation. it's been an adventure so far. i was picked up by edgar (my parents "driver") from the airport. i dropped my things off and then met my sister mary and my cousin brooke in the city for some indian food from a street car. or whatevs. then i wandered around the area of mary's work.   not full from the indian food, i ate some chipotle while reading. then i went to a starbucks to read where a creeper man who brought his business check books SLASH homeless bags was staring at me from across the table. new yooooooork.
then mary and i walked from 52nd street allllll the way down to 157 houston, which is like i don't know 70 BLOCKS slash a million. i thought i was dead by the end of it. oh yeah, i hadn't slept the night before. so.... we saw the movie the tree of life which i think got bad reviews but was actually a very beautiful and very visual movie. there were definitely areas that could have been edited more, cropped out even, because much of it was repetitive but boy oh boy it was a sight to see. then i ate pickles and read and slept. the next day mary and i had to ourselves, which was yesterday, so we woke up, ate brunch at the lodge (very fun but unfortunately hipster as all things in williamsburg are) and then decided to go see thor. all the lines were screwed up (new york metro really needs to get its act together on the weekends) but we ended up going to the theater in times square (because "there aren't going to be any bed bugs on the seats" -mary). thor is great. i love thor. he is funny and hot.
then she and i walked to one of the very few taco bells in manhattan. then we went home and i read and slept AGAIN.
today we went to church. it was kind of awkward. men were polite to us and a crazy woman sat across from me and stuck knives in her syrup bottle. then mary and i watched archer and america's next top model while eating mac and cheese and brownies. we unpacked most of my things and now... now i am tired and will read and sleep. as you do.

i can't believe its JUNE. i feel like it should be may forever. sure, the tornados around here have been a little scary and totally threw flight schedules off for a long time, but its also been beautiful here. i've gotten to hang out with friends from high school (and i'm really starting to feel like me again!), relax, read, watch desperate housewives, find some great music, shop, etc. i also got to see chace crawford running in plano. not in one of those "i'm pretty sure i saw him ways," like in one of those, "we looped around a million times until parking in such a way that he ran in front of us and am now 100% sure that it was him in town for his sister candice's wedding" kind of... a way...

i'm trying to think of all the fun stuff i've gotten to do that i really should have written down or journaled or blogged about or something, but my memory isn't so good for these things. we DID try and stalk chace crawford that night, unsuccessfully, by going uptown and bar hopping. to no avail. we could not find him. mary took me to a trunk show for some jewelry at her friend bonnie's house and she bought me a really cute necklace. um... i got to see thor and am now in love with thor... and the actor who portrayed him (from melbourne omg i've gone to heaven). i also saw... something borrowed (cute and fluffy) and.... i feel like that's it. i haven't gone to the movies as often as i thought i would. yesterday antoinette, caroline, annie, and i all hung out at anto's (whose mom went ALL out for the mavs party she was having) to watch the game and just laugh and have a good time. after the game we watched titanic II, possibly the worst movie i've ever seen? maybe not, but it is for sure in the top 5. 

hmmm... what other things happened? i read caroline "oh, the places you'll go" out of a bathtub. ate at desperadoes lsat week, and it was YUM. um.... yeah, that's all i can think of.

anyway, in two days i'm flying out to new york city. i'm really sad to be leaving all my friends and family, but i will be staying with my sister mary. we already have plenty of fun activities planned for us. also, courtney might be getting a job in nyc, as will a few other people i knew from high school, so if i get homesick i can always hang out with them. i'll hopefully keep a much more detailed journal while i'm there so i don't forget any of the good bits. it's going to definitely be a challenge. mary is planning on totally detoxing me-- she's putting me on a japanese food diet, we're doing yoga together, i'll be running through central park. we're going to go on weekend trips to fun places and all in all i'm pretty freaking excited. 

ok, i never posted any photos from hawaii so i'll find a few. then, that's it, i have many things to do like pack and read and bond with family. 

mary

brothers. my dad and my uncle dan.