i hate this country.

i truly, really, honestly do. i need to get out. not out of state. out of country.

everything is better in a bread bowl.

today was great. did no homework, but it was great. read some more p&p (god i love that book) then drove to jen's. we went to the mall and were shopaholics for a day. i got this adorable little dress from charlotte russe (see side, haha). and jen got the same one in black. we plan to clubbing in them some day, yep. then we went to dinner at panera, and met up with andrew and matt and their friend from work jessica. it had been two months since the last time i saw andrew and matt, and it was so very good to see them. i'm so happy with them. i had a mini heart to heart with andrew in starbucks about c, and he pretty much told me what i knew all along: he's just fickle, and has phases. it felt good. and then we got married. right after, we stood in the parking lot and laughed/froze our asses off waiting for my dad to come. my head still hurts from heaving for so long. haha. in other news, the habitat guy e-mailed me back. he seemed kind peeved, like he was already sick of me. we've exchanged like two e-mails. should i tone down on the enthusiasm? gah. whatever. i'm gonna go read some austen.

OH AND BY THE WAY

this week was really good.
why you ask?
WELL

• right now it's snowing. it's thursday, and i got out of school early. snow day tomorrow for sure.
• yesterday i successfully memorized 12 lines of a victor hugo poem and recited it to the class- EN FUCKING FRANCAIS. whaddup.
• tuesday i wore a really cute outfit, and everyone complimented me on it. one girl even stopped in the hallway and said "aw juliana you look really pretty today!" and it was genuine.
• the same day i finally heard back from the H4H people. and guess what. the president is a parishoner at st. mary's and is super excited to work with mater dei. steve pulled me out of peer counseling and told me, over and over, how proud of me he is. he gave me a high five and even spoke about the work i'm doing during the F&F meeting. oh my god, it was great.
• and i've generally just have a fucking good week. :)

i so called it. *smile*

juliana is ______.

"Well I'll do the best i can answering this question. Juliana is perfect comes pretty close to a decent description but it doesn't do it justice so i'll expand on that. Juliana is as perfect as I could imagine anyone being in this world; she is smart, beautiful, funny, cute, amazing, my best friend, my girlfriend, always worried, kind and caring, the greatest person in the world, a math hater, an anglophile, a grammar slut, and someone who means the world to me.

uoy evol I
eilrahC (kcuhC)"


this is from january 16, 2008. i found it going through my old e-mail account today. i just goes to show how superficial our relationship was. it was love, but not the real, deep deep kind. in this, he just reiterates old adjectives and phrases. i'm sure i did mean the world to him, but was that enough to keep us together- in a relationship and as friends? no. because those phrases could just as easily be applied to any other girl. i knew i was all those things to some extent. what new thing did he ever show me? nothing. the only thing i gained from the 2+ years we were on and off was a new perspective on life and how i want to live mine. i suppose that is a good thing, but i didn't need him. high school did that to me, too.

it feels good to say this now, since for the longest time i hated him. when it rains it pours, right? we were never in between. it was either madly in lust or really good friends. but i couldn't be on the sidelines, ever. i remember him once saying that as one girl leaves his life, another one comes in. i know now that i was merely the girl that was always in between. a transition, if you will. and now he has someone new to please him.

he hurt me so much, in every sense of the word, but i don't hate him anymore. i know now that then i was merely caught in the moment. it would have never lasted. i'm in such a good place in my life right now. without him. without the drama associated with him. and it feels great.

state of the union- february

1. it still hurts. it hurt it hurts it hurts. it shouldn't, but it does. i keep running his words through my head- even the ones from two years ago- trying to figure out why they had to be said.
2. i wish i had known how long he was lying to me, and why he felt the need to. "I don't intend to replace you anytime soon, it's good to know someone out there cares about you." "Oh, it's not like that with her, i would never let it happen." and the biggest one of all, "I love you."
3. the other day, i had this really intense moment where i ranted at my reflection, pretending it was him. one of these days i'll get to do it for real.
4. i went to semi-formal with a group of girls. i've never done that before. they're not girls i had ever associated myself with, but they were simply amazing. lately i've gotten to know them a lot better, and quite frankly, i think they're lovely. they really are.
5. the next few weeks are going to be amazing. a schedule of events: this thursday is matt's NHS induction. then march 5 is the muse concert. march 7 i have to do this really intense reading for palm sunday mass *gulp*. march 8-11 is MONTREAL!! then march 13 is my first SAT. i'm excited :)
6. i've been thinking a lot about the fact that in a little over 3 years, i'll be 20. holy fuck.
7. i adore my short stories class at brookdale. it's fantastic. i sit next to these two characters: erric, with 2 "r"s. he smokes menthol cigarettes, wears a hat all the time, has a pair folded headphones in his pocket, is left handed, and write poetry. sometimes i look at his open notebook, and i love what i read. it's fascinating. he has lovely eyes and is soft spoken. he has nice hands. and then shannon. she lives in asbury park, and is originally from south carolina. she has a gap in her two front teeth (a sign of independence and beauty for women in medieval times), also wears a hat all the time, and is just really nice to listen to. when we discuss our short stories, she is the one that will find meaning in even the smallest details. i love to listen to the two of them talk. throughout class, they write back and forth on erric's notebook about their writing (i think they're both lib arts majors) and such. i thought at first that they were maybe being flirtatious (even though she seems older than erric, who i assume is between 18 and 20) but then she blurted proudly once that she was gay in the middle of a story. that made her even cooler, haha. i want to talk to erric more, i really do. maybe this wednesday i'll sidle up to him a bit more.
8. vancouver 2010. enough said <3

KP

there's a saying that we need to be comfortable in our own skin. yeah well, that's impossible for me, in every way. i have this skin condition, keratosis pilaris. it sounds serious, but it's pretty common and often goes unnoticed or is mistaken for eczema. it's when this structural protein, keratin, is over-produced and then builds up in skin. it causes all these little bumps to form around hair follicles. mine in particular is called keratosis pilaris rubra- it's red, it's itchy, it's gross. i mean, i don't ooze or anything. but people who brush up against me for the first time often recoil and say "Ew, what's wrong with your skin?" or they comment that i must be cold (KP looks like goose bumps). it's just something i have to deal with and people have to get used to.

today in the shower, i had to shave. for most girls, it's an annoying process, but a neccessity. for me, it fucking hurts. my legs are covered in KP bumps, and i'd rather feel like my skin is on fire than be hairy. plus, it kind of clears a few layers of dry, dead skin. but oh my god, it hurts. there will be blood droplets all over my thighs because little bumps are decapitated by the razor. not to mention the fact they my skin is just ugly feeling and looking no matter what.

i just want it to go away. but there's not cure. i mean, i moisturize like a beast, but there's only so much i can do. it just really bothers me.

in addition, my entire body is dry. my hands were destroyed by all the balloons i tied yesterday. i have cuts all over my fingers. it's just a bad season for my skin.

it's in our nature

Iain Thomas (author of pleasefindthis.blogspot.com) said in his TED Johannesburg speech that part of the reason why his blog strikes a chord with so many people is because his posts are ambiguous. they're not aimed at anyone or about anything in particular. they're just raw emotion that everyone feels, no matter what the cause. he said that sometimes, we have a hard time grasping the idea that we're not alone. that we're not unique. (i'm pretty sure he was the one who said all this. if not..oops.)

on facebook, there are groups and fanpages that you join because you read it and go "omg, i totally do that, too. i thought i was the only one." meanwhile, there are like 100,000 fans.

no one is original. no matter how much you try to pass off as someone you should "gett to knowww". we all have the same feelings, emotions, wants, needs, desires, vices. we're all humans.

and we hate it:

"Everything you like, I will find some reason to dislike and if we find we like the same thing, I will insist that you like it less than me or for the wrong reasons, like you don’t really understand the things you like. Because that makes me feel better about who I am. What I am." (pleasefindthis.blogspot.com)

just take twilight for example. before dear john, it was the biggest fad. you were the shit when you had the t-shirts, the game, the DVD, the poster, the life-sized cut out...and then the book. you had to know everything and anything about it.

another example, the jonas brothers. you thought you were just so renegade when you openly bashed them. or how about just music in general. you're at your finest when you're listening to the most obscure music, and once it goes on the radio and becomes popular, it's all "I knew it before it was popular!"

i do it, you do it, we all do it.

but really, in the end, who gives a shit? i'd rather embrace the masses then try to one-up them. i have my likes and dislikes, but really, i'm not going to parade around and state that i am original. i'm juliana, and, sometimes, people are just like me.

bitch in heat

so, polly jean the boxer wasn't spayed. so right now, she's in the middle of her doggy period. no lies, polly jean is in heat. we have to walk around behind her with a spray bottle and paper towels to wipe off droplets of ickyness on the floor. my dad went out to buy doggy diapers, but she just took them off. she's also really emotional, and whines a lot. we have a lot in common during that time of the month.

in other news...there really isn't anything going on. i mean, there was the whole "Snowmageddon" thing (i have a six day weekend because of it).

hm, what else. bleh, i'm a bore.

i did have a weird dream last night. i was at st. benedict's, and i was trying to make plans with matt on the phone, and then i came across him while walking in the hallway. and then i woke up. i am seeing him tomorrow, possibly.

not even my dreams are interesting, haha.