Hello Blogger, It's Me Danielle

Wow.  It has been a hell of a long time since I've visited this blog.  So long, in fact, that google apparently now owns blogger and I had trouble logging in.  Truth be told I had no intention of posting this today, but I happened to literally stumble across my blog this afternoon.  I spent 5 hours reading every post I made.  I guess I didn't realize how dedicated I was to blogging back then.

Four years have passed since my last blog post and while re-reading I found a comment someone (Jess) had made in 2010 asking how I've been and basically what I'd been up to since abandoning my blog.  So, I thought I'd fill you in!

My last post was in 2009 when I was just a baby 20 year-old.  I believe where I left off was that I was done with Ex-Boy and I had met my dream guy.  Wow!  What a way to end a blog.

Well, let me first start by saying Dream Boy turned out not to be dream boy, although for a while there I really thought he was.  I left to travel various parts of the world in 2009 and I was still dating Dream Boy.  My first leg of the trip, DC, ended up proving that we just weren't meant to date and we stopped seeing each other.  I spent the rest of the summer having TONS of fun in Israel and then London and then LA before heading back to good old MSU.  I even had a secret affair with a Teaching Assistant during my study abroad!

I should probably also let you know that Ex-Boy and I never dated again.  In fact, we hardly ever spoke again.  I'm not going to lie, I was kind of an asshole when I ended it and I broke up with him for good in a text message.  He wasn't too happy about it, but what goes around comes around.  He ended up getting back together with his ex (the girl he cheating on me with) and stayed with her until, wait for it... just a couple of weeks ago!  That's right, they dated for 4 years!  I found out a couple of days ago that they broke up- she kept the dog they bought together.

As for the rest of the characters I wrote about, here's a breakdown:

Mom: She's still as nutty as always!  Penny ended up moving with her and my Dad to California.  They're both total socal babes now!

Dad:  He's improved his array of jokes thanks to the comedy channel on sirius XM.  He didn't like LA much so him, mom, and penny moved to Irvine, CA.  They are loving it.

BPhil:  My brother ended up moving to California as well and has a cushy job at a big time movie studio and is on the brink of engagement with his girlfriend whom I adore.

Penny: She's such a babe of a dog.  She still looks and acts just like a puppy.  The cutest!

BJ-M:  After my trip to London I ran against BJ-M in elections for Film Club president.  I beat him and our friendship never really was the same.  We didn't see each other very often after that and my senior year he moved back to his hometown.  I hear from friends that he's well.

FA:  I can't believe I liked this guy.  He doesn't like music...wtf!  He's also an aspiring actor and looking back I think I liked his abs WAY more than I liked him.  I think he's still in East Lansing.

The Let Down:  Believe it or not, after I graduated from MSU I moved to the cottage my parents bought close to my hometown.  I ended up hanging out withe LD a couple of times.  The last time we ended up making out ( I always was a suck for a good make-out session).  I realized immediately after that I was no longer the 17 year-old that met him and decided that it was a bad idea.  I recently chatted with him and asked him if we could be friends and nothing else.  He got really big into the Detroit music scene so he's pretty busy but agreed to our friendship.

Neighbor Boy:  Never saw him again after I moved.

NNBoy:  Never saw him again after I moved either.  Although at the end of that semester I did find out that he had been accused of sexually assaulting a girl back in his hometown.  Not sure if it was true or not, but I blocked him out of my life anyways.  He was a player and he was bad news.

Summer Fling:  I'm pretty sure Summer Fling is married now, although I'm not sure if it's to that girl that moved to MI for him or not.  He's definitely in the military.  I'm glad I never went back down that road.  Military life wouldn't have been for me.

And I bet you're wondering what happened to me!

Well, the final two years of undergrad were crazy.  I had a lot of fun, I had a lot more heartbreak from new and different boys, and I really learned about myself.  After graduation I was offered a job working on a movie in Detroit so I packed up and moved to my parents cottage for that summer.  When the job wrapped in July I moved to Los Angeles and have lived there ever since.  I've worked for a production company, as a personal assistant to a TV actress, and on the behind the scene features for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.

In the beginning of September of 2012 I began dating the real man of my dreams.  On March 27th, 2009 I wrote a blog post titled "Adventures of a Thursday Night".  In that post I mention a Shy Guy- a cute guy I met at a B-Movie Beatdown.  Turns out he was the man of my dreams.  We had run into each other all throughout undergrad and we always exchanged pleasantries.  He had just started dating a girl when I met him in 2009 and he dated her right up until I moved away to Los Angeles.  Every time I ran into him during school I always thought he was flirting with me a little but I new he had a girlfriend so I blew it off.  When I moved we started to chat on facebook every now and then.  And facebook led to texting.  I was beginning to really like him but thought it was crazy considering I lived 2,222 miles away from him.  In September 2012, while I was visiting Michigan for wedding season, we finally went on our first date.  The date lasted the whole day and went into the next morning.  I ended up spending my whole vacation with him (I even ended up staying at his place the whole time) and at the end of it we decided not to see other people- we were head over heels.

Shy Guy and I have been doing the long distance thing ever since.  We have flown out to each others homes every 2 months and have spent every holiday together.  In 10 days I'm actually moving back to Michigan to live in the cottage again and give our relationship a real "In Person" shot.  I plan on working for a year to save and in 2014 I have every intention of starting grad school and if all goes well it will be at MSU.  I plan on going all the way- getting my Masters, my PhD, and then hopefully getting a job as a professor of Film Studies.

That's pretty much everything!  I hope you all have been well.  So much has changed for me over the past 4 years and I'm sure so much has changed for you as well!

I must admit that re-reading all my posts today made me both happy and sad.  I wrote about so much heartbreak and only now do I realize how much fun I really did have in college.  I'm glad I could share that with you all.

Danielle

It Has Been Way Too Long!

My last update was 1/20/09.  That was 11 days ago.  It feels like it has been a year.

Really, I don't have a great excuse for not updating.  I mean, I have been pretty busy trying to keep up with all my reading and homework for school.  Then there has been auditions, and film club, among other things.

Probably the greatest consumption of time has been fighting back and forth with my parents.  Why, you ask?  Three reasons.  These three reasons, however, combine nicely to form one main reason.

I'll start from the beginning.

My parents have always said that they want me to study abroad.  They wanted me to go for a whole semester because that way the cost would be equal to what it would cost me to study at MSU a semester, with no real additional cost (maybe like 200 dollars more, total).  After joining film club, and meeting BJ-M, I learned about a study abroad program that is perfect for me.  Basically, it's 6 weeks over the summer in London.  The program is called 'Film in Britain' and it consists of 9 credit hours (more if I'd like) and making my own film, pre-production to post-production.  There isn't another study abroad like it,  because it was created with the intent to cater directly to my major.

I told my parents about the program and they, obviously, wanted more information on it, cost, etc.  So, I sent them a heartfelt letter about how much I wanted to go and why, also including all of the finance information.  The program is expensive, I'm not going to lie.  It would be about 8,000 dollar more than it would cost for me to just take classes at MSU over the summer.

My parents said no to the program, after already letting me apply.  I understand completely that my parents can't afford it right now, however I really really want to go on this program.

I then asked my parents if I could take out a loan to finance the Study Abroad.  A note I should make is that my parents pay for everything for me- food, rent, utilities, tuition, everything (they never let me get a credit card or take loans out to pay for anything).  They said no to the loan.

This is where I get really upset.  I understand them not paying for it, but I don't get how they won't let me pay for it.  Most normal students have taken out at least one loan.  The worst part is- I'm in this position where I can't even take one out on my own without them cosigning.  My parents won't give me their financial information to fill out a FAFSA (document needed to get loans w/out a cosigner), and they won't cosign, plus I have no credit to apply on my own because they never let me build credit.

This leads me into reason 2 why we are fighting.  My parents never thought about the fact that their financial situation or the economy could change in the future.  So as I was young, and my brother was growing up, he got a lot that I never got.  For example, my parents financed two cars for him, out of state tuition, a 15,000 dollar study abroad program when he was in High School, study abroad when he was in college, and only a year ago they cosigned a 50,000 dollar loan for his graduate school.

What pisses me off the most out of all of those things is the loan.  They can trust my brother to pay back 50,000 dollars, yet they don't trust me to pay off a fraction of that.

I have a job.  I wouldn't even need to defer payments- I could start paying the interest now.  But no, my parents don't have that much faith in me, I guess.

The third reason is part of the second, in the fact that my car, Betty, is a total piece of shit.  She broke down on me in the middle of a main road the other day, and my parents weren't the least built helpful.  They payed for a car for my brother, then, when he sold it, put some more money into another car for him.  Yet my car, a hand-me-down from my grandma, keeps breaking down, and they aren't doing anything about it.

I may sound really ungrateful for all that my parents gave me, but I don't want you to think that.  I'm so grateful for everything my parents have given me in life, however, by giving me so much, they've debilitated me, in a way.  I'm so financially dependent on them because of it, that I can't even take out a freakin' loan on my own, whereas most students, who've had credit cards and such, could just get one without a cosigner based on their credit.

I have more to say on the subject, but this is long...

To be continued...

Home is Where the Crazy Is

It would seem I can't get through even one day of being home without fighting with my mother. I love her to death but we both have our resentments.

My relationship with my mother is that of a middle school style friendship. We fight all of the time, but we're best friends.

However, when I come home, a lot of the times I feel like her slave. She sees it as I'm being lazy, but I don't think it's really necessary for me to have to go into a different room just to change the channel for her. She's very well capable.

She's already pretty much told me to go back to MSU. Yeah. Ridiculous.

Lets just hope I get through this week without us killing each other.

A Dream...A really really annoying dream.

Have you ever woken up from a dream and just thought t yourself- "I hate my  mind for letting me dream that?"

This just happened to me.  Literally, like 10 minutes ago.  I had to go do a PBT this morning so when I came back I went back to sleep for a couple hours because I am exhausted.

Well in this course of a couple hours I dreamt this-

I was with my parents and Ex-Boy showed up (in whom my parents actually like in the dream- and they kind of liked him in real life.. weird.)  So Him and I start talking and we end up kissing.  I kind of tell him something like, "Maybe I'll see you tomorrow."  He's actually down for it.  So it's all set to see him tomorrow.

All of the sudden I end up at a Rite-Aid.  I'm shopping for make up and apparently they sold fashion boots there, in my dream, so I was shopping for those too.  They didn't have my size however so my Mom, who was with me, told me to call their hotline.  I called and they never actually helped me, which was fine, cause I forgot about it.

At one point a women came and was helping me and then she was locking up the store so we all left behind her.

Cut to a situation in which I have NO CLUE how I got there, how it came about, etc.  I'm at 'The Let Down's' house.  It's him, I, his *cringes* wife, his mother, some male family members, my mother, etc.  It would seem we were celebrating something that reminded me of a superbowl.

Some people leave and it turns into a murder scene.  There's a killer going around killing people.  So some of the people go for help (I think LD went to go get help but I'm not sure).  I come around the corner of the hallway to the family room only to find LD's wife getting her throat slit.  I try to stop the killer but can't, so I take their mask off.  It was some girl whom I can't remember he significance in the dream.  She ends up leaving.  I try to save LD's wife but it's too late.

Now everyone for the most part is back.  It's almost as if they forgot about LD's wife, or they don't care, like it's no big deal.  He didn't seem to care either.  He's in his room and I go in.  We start to have a serious talk about the past.  Sometime between this and us being in the hallway together we decide we need to be together.  We need to be in a relationship.

We kiss, we hug, we become inseparable.  We tell EVERYONE how happy we are and that we decided to be together.  I tell my mom, and she's very wary of it.  Then I tell her that we are in a relationship, deal with it, and we'll be getting married...

In the dream I change my  FACEBOOK RELATIONSHIP STATUS (SO LAME) to in a relationship.  However I strictly remember LD's last name from the dream and it's not his real last night.  In the dream it was something like 'EB is now in a relationship with LD Libb.  It was either Libb or Libby, but it was so strange.

Cut to the bedroom.  We are laying together talking, happy as can be, and we decide, this is our happy ending.

Someone...Please please please interpret...

My Mother is Crazy...and I'm Running Out of Time, Apparently

There will be two topics in today's discussion, class. First one being the fact that my biological clock is ticking.

In my head, I know that this is a ridiculous statement. I know that I am young, and I have TONS of time before I need to find the man of my dreams (read: the poor schmuck who ends up marrying me). However, it's difficult to keep this in mind when, literally, 6 of my friends/people I knew in high school have gotten engaged in the past 3 months. That's right. 6 people, all of whom have only been out of high school, at the most, 4 years. This is scary for me. At my age, my mother and father had already met and were engaged.

They say that this is the time in your life when, physically, your body is looking for a mate. You appear more attractive, you peak, sexually, and emotionally, that's what most people are looking for (women, at least). Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that all women in their early 20s are automatically looking for their mate to marry- but most of them are at least looking for a relationship.

I know it's a ridiculous worry. It's probably one of my vices, worrying about stupid things. Yet, for some reason, it seems to be looming over me, and I can't shake the feeling that I'm going to come up too little, too late.

Topic two, in our discussion.

My mother is psycho. We all know how obsessed she is with my puppy. I'd be lying to myself to say that I'm getting Penny back from my mother. My mother is so disillusioned to the point that she will call me on the phone to tell me the most trivial of facts about what my puppy was up to today.

For instance- today Penny took a nap on my mother's lap, then played. She, apparently, missed her doggy friends down the road, so they went to visit them. Then she spied out the window on the neighbors. The house started shaking and she got scared, but when my mother told her it was only a helicopter, she calmed down.

Am I the only one that thinks that it's utterly insane that my mom considers my dog to be another daughter. Her excuse for not coming to visit, for example, is that it would be too much of a strain on Penny to drive an hour to come visit me...

This is an issue.

The aftermath.

Well, as if yesterday couldn't be worse, on my way home from jail, I had to puke. Roomie A so kindly picked me up, and was not so happy when he had to pull over to let me puke all that nasty alcohol that had NOT been absorbed by the food they DIDN'T give me.

So I get home, call the rents- ball on the phone for a couple more hours before I'm finally tired enough to fall asleep. I drove home to my hometown today, crying the whole way, only to get home to cry some more..needless to say- I'm all cried out.

The talk with the parents made me want to die. My dad is super disappointed. My mom too. It's going to be a shitty semester..that's all I can say.

Emotional Mothers, Un-home-like Visits Home, And Lonely Texting

Does anyone else's mom get ridiculously emotional at complete random?

My mom and I are talking about how Penny will be recovered in a couple weeks and then she'll come to State. I also mentioned how in the spring I'll help her find a good puppy and then Penny will have a friend on the occasional weekends that I come home. All of the sudden my mother started to burst into tears. "I'm just going to miss her so sooo much," she bawled. Seriously? If you didn't know, my parent's house is only an hour from my University. It's no big deal.

Moms are crazy. For real.

I can't wait to get back to my apartment. Luckily I'm only staying another night here.

Speaking of sleeping at my parent's house, I found it really difficult last night to sleep in my bed and feel at home. I know that's weird since I did live here for 18 years, but it just doesn't seem like home anymore. Needless to say, I ended up passing out on the couch to one of my all time favorite movies, Closer, only waking up to a couple texts in the wee hours of the morning.

Does anyone else experience this? I would call it drunk texting, but I don't think that's necessarily the words I'm looking for. I think I'm these people's lonely textee. As in when it's late at night and they're all alone and bored, I'm the one they turn to to fill that void- but only between the hours of 1:30 and 4 AM. Oh, and of course only on weekends when there isn't a home football game, as in most people go home and there are less parties to attend.

Anyways, more to come on those texts at a later date.