Confessions of Jersey Girl

Okay, so we started out with the best of intentions.  I was going to answer the questions you guys sent in to Sara via twitter earlier today, we were going to head to the bar and generally have a wonderful night.  After a shot (or three in Sara’s case) we got a little bit off track… Meaning we decided to get drunk, video blog a thousand different little snippets of randomness and then spontaneously go and actually get the tattoos we have been talking about getting for the last eight years or something ridiculous like that.

I have like… nine videos to post here.  I only intended on picking the best ones, but these really are the best ones.  theres videos of us doing shots for IRELAND!  There’s video of me in the bathroom.  There’s video of Sara expressing her undying love for all things WaWa for all of you states that don’t have a WaWa.  There’s video of the bar, which was empty because we were the only crazy pants people in there at 6:30p on a thursday night.  There’s video of us jumping around outside the Shamrock in the freezing cold.  It’s all pretty hilarious, so if you have ten minutes, watch them all.  the rest of the videos can be found on my YouTube channel.

See?  Funny, right?  It was a great night and I absolutely love Sara to pieces.  I’m so happy with my tattoo and I’m so glad we spontaneously just decided to go get them done tonight because planning such a thing would be SO out of character for us.  Also, I love that I was at the bar, got drunk, went off and got tattooed, hung out with Steve, sobered up and came home all by like… 10p.  Fabulous.

Before January 20th, 2009, it had been five years since I sat my butt at a desk and endured the tourture of a three hour lecture class.  I’m a little over a month in and I’ve definitely learned a few things…

- Test scores are always up for debate.  My Soc 109 (Society and Individual Development… How Fun!) professor grades our exam and the following week we are allowed to try to argue a defense of our answer.  If our arguement is deemed viable by him, we (and anyone else in the class that had the same answer as me) are awarded the points for the question.

-  It is apparently acceptable to sit in class and braid the hair of the girl that is sitting in front of you.

- It is possible to attend all three classes and then score a 26 on a test.  Even without studying, you should just be able to learn enough via osmosis to pass the test.  This, I have found out, is not the case.  The guy sitting next to me got a 26 and has yet to miss a class.

- I am a bullshit artist extraordinaire.  Bottom line.

- Jessica is an AMAZING editor and i’m pretty sure that it’s because of her that i’m going to get an A on my Lit paper.

- Lit Professors like to throw students off.  I was assigned a paper this week and the topic was “Proving a Story is a Story”.  This is not something we went over in class and it’s a British Lit Class.  NONE of the pieces we were given to use in our paper were british or literature.  In fact, we were given four pieces to choose from and they were all a paragraph long.  SOMEONE PLEASE EXPLAIN THE RATIONALIZATION OF THAT TO ME.  I turned the paper in yesterday, but i’m still irritated by it.

- College campuses are BIG.  In February, my beloved flip flops are not ideal footwear for the mile jog from parking lot C to the doors of my building.  I do not like walking so far in the snow, but on the up side?  I get to sneak in a mile jog holing my purse and ten pounds of school books.  I’m not exaggerating, it really is a mile.

- It’s a small world.  REALLY small.

- I look 18.  I have had so many people tell me I look like I’m just out of high school, even when I come to school in bussiness casual clothes because I didn’t have time to get changed from work.

- Juggling work and my classes is WAY harder than I thought, but I am enjoying the challenge and I’m really happy.

What, besides the obvious class stuff, has school taught YOU?

This weeks feature is the always lovely Kim from Kimmers for life!  I’ve been following for a while now and i’m so excited to be interviewing her. :)

Who are you?

I’m Kim. I’m a 25 year old lover of designer jeans and Sephora makeup. An animal loving shopaholic bookworm. A baker of pretty damn good cupcakes and cookies. Among other things.

http://kimmersforlife.typepad.com/

Oh jeez what a tough question… I guess I just want people to enjoy what I write. To read a post or two and like it enough to come back and read more. To laugh when I write something funny and feel moved when I write something moving. To read what I’ve written and feel compelled to comment on it. I love seeing new commenters and I love seeing familiar faces too. As long as people are interested in what I have to say I’m happy.

I started blogging last March. I had been reading a few favorite blogs daily for years and had just started leaving the occasional comment. I was talking about blogs 24/7 and one day Nick said, “Why don’t you start one? You’re a great writer.” (See why I love this man?) It was the gentle push I needed to put myself out there. I did some research and I started my blog that very night. I think initially, I wanted a place to get back to my writing, and in the end I got that plus some great new bloggy friends to boot. Never turning back!

Bottom! My boyfriend is a top puller and it drives. me. bananas.

Actually I roll it… I hold the edge between my thumb and forefinger and loop the rest around my hand a few times (possibly I’m using too much toilet paper?)

Bottled water, lots of Coke, salad stuff, green apples, eggs, cheese and lots of condiments.

I honestly can’t remember a time when I didn’t want to be a writer. When I was little I was constantly writing picture books, complete with an “about the author” section on the back page. As I got older I briefly toyed with poetry, and from there I moved on to short stories. In junior high and high school I wrote for the school paper and made up silly stories for my friends. All of my teachers always told me they knew I would be an author one day and in my heart I always knew it too. After high school I sort of fell away from writing until I stumbled into this whole blogging thing. In my professional life I work as a claims adjuster, so in response to how becoming a writer turned out for me? On the one hand I’m tempted to say FAIL… but then again, in my personal life I do have my blog and even if I haven’t made a writing career for myself yet? At least I know I’m putting my writing out there and keeping it in my life. I still hope to one day answer that “What do you do?” question by saying, “I’m a writer.”

Stick my tongue out right back at her… we have a pretty loose work environment and I’m friends with a lot of my coworkers.

I think I’m gonna have to say haute pocket (http://hautepocket.wordpress.com/) This girl cracks me the hell up. She seems like the kind of person that you could bring to the bar and always come home with a hilarious story.

The Bachelor, just so I could be the FIRST EVER hopeful candidate to be offered a rose and say “Thanks, but actually I’m not really feeling it”.

Oh man, not nearly enough! (Interesting that I seem to never have enough blogs to read yet I can’t manage to be a good commentor on the ones I love.) Really though I am always looking for new blogs and I get ridiculously excited when I find one. Chances are good that if I read your blog regularly, I’ve also read most or all of your archives. I’m not a stalker I promise.

Don’t ever sell yourself short. Always just be yourself. A lot of friendships come and go but your true best friends will always be there, whether you see them every other week or once a year at Christmas. The usual stuff I guess but somehow it’s different when it’s coming from your mom.

Amy of amalah.com, so I could see some of her interactions with Jason firsthand, because those stories never fail to make me laugh inappropriately at work.

It was 1998. I was a freshman in high school and I had a crush on a boy in my Spanish class. There was a lot of very shy, mutual flirtation of the 14 year old variety. Whenever we partnered up for activities he would make whoever got me for a partner switch with him (oh he was smooth, for 14). (Unless this other guy – a junior! - was the one who drew my name, because he had a little crush on me too and always refused to switch. Oh, the drama.) Anyway back to the boy I liked. Our lockers were close to each other and at the end of the day he always used to sneak up behind me and slam my locker while I was bent down rummaging in my backpack. It scared the shit out of me every time which he of course thought was hysterical. Plus then he had an excuse to walk outside with me (I was onto his game). Well one day I got to my locker a little late and he was already over at his… bent down, rummaging in his backpack. I thought I had the perfect opportunity to turn the tables on him for a change. I snuck up behind him, grabbed the edge of his locker and gave it a good slam… JUST as he stood to grab something he’d forgotten in his locker. The door slammed into the side of his head so hard it bounced back into the locker, and the poor kid turned beet red and teared up in the middle of the crowded hallway. I wanted to DIE. I was so mortified I literally can’t even remember what happened after that moment. I do know it didn’t end the flirtation… that got murdered the day Little Miss Popular decided to set her sights on him. *sigh.

Mac or PC?
PC… Macs are pretty but I’m a hardcore Dell fan. Also, my new one is red and shiny.

Hmmm. I suppose I go with Justin…. automatic good ratings.

Those thin, round rubber bracelets that you twisted together on your arm… hopefully someone knows what I’m talking about.

I’m gonna have to go with disaster-in-a-can, sorry!

Treacherous enemy… when they’re officially your enemy you don’t have to feel bad for talking smack about them!

I can tie a knot in a cherry stem with my tongue… and I picked up that skill on my first attempt.

you all are going to get so sick of my faceeee.  sorry i look disgusting.  i don’t know why i thought taking my har out of a pony tail would be a good idea.

also, k.. i think spike and bacci should totally be BFFs.  and haute pocket, i totally love you.  and i want hair like kerris.  and i can’t wait for a philly blogger meet up with jess and amanda.  that’s all.  oh wait! mad shout outs to KALI (not kira) for asking me to do this.  this is for you you gorgeous piece of irish greatness.

Untitled from rachel gallagher on Vimeo.

So, here’s the third and final installment of this weeks video blogging extravaganza (And subsequently, my triumphant return to the world of blogs.  Expect floods of comments soon!  I miss you guys!).  I’m pretty sure in this clip, you get a close up of the freckle on the bottom of my foot courtesy of Sara.

I feel like I should put a sort of disclaimer out there and tell all of you guys that I don’t endorse or condone the use of the f-bomb that many times on my blog.  I’m sorry to those of you that weren’t expecting it… All I can say is that it happens from time to time.  (I’m not really apologizing as seriously as it may seem.  We’re all adults here, right?  Right.  I’m just saying… My friend is foul, but she’s a gorgeous and talented as she is foul so it all evens out.)

Also in this clip, you will hear Sara singing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”.  The greatness of these thirty seconds might make your head explode, she’s THAT GOOD (seriously, the video doesn’t even BEGIN to do her amazing, beautiful voice justice.  Back in high school, we sang at a nursing home and she made an  old man cry.  Wait, that might have been Becky (nobody liked Becky. She was kind of a bitch. And fat.  Really, really fat.), either way… she was better than Becky.).  She was a smidge bashful about putting it up I think, but who knows… maybe some big time recod exec is going to just stumble onto my blog and offer her a million dollar contract (and me some sort of job just for jumping around the video like a midget on crack.).

Video Blog Take Two! from rachel gallagher on Vimeo.