Chocolate madness.

For the record, I’ve eaten an absurd amount of chocolate today. Then, I saw Katie’s chocolate giveaway. Needless to say, I’m entering. But I hope you aren’t, because you’ll lessen my chances of winning.

Heaven.

Ri-donk weekend.

This is what happens when Barefoot wine goes on sale. 10 dolla for the big bottles!

I have nothing to say for myself.

I love the dress I was wearing, which you can get a better view of here…

Snowball of last year with my old roommate, Em.

…but the dress seriously needs to see a dry cleaners before I’m putting it on again. Sweaty dancefloor, much?

I had an awesome time, though, on Friday night with some sorority sisters. Going to parties in my boyfriend’s fraternity house is A-OK with me, just going out to other houses feels strange since I’m “that creepy alum,” or so it feels.

Saturday morning, however, I definitely didn’t feel like getting out of bed to run a 5K. No. Thanks. But when my coworker, Morgan, texted me that if I didn’t go with her, she would be alone, I dragged myself out the door and jogged across campus to the starting line of the Girls on the Run annual 5K. This is an organization that sponsors after-school programming for 4th and 5th grade girls, and teaches them about self-respect and personal wellbeing through running. Awesome, right? It was still terribly painful to wake up. Only Morgan and the thought of a free t-shirt got me there.

The funniest part of all? Morgan and I placed 1st and 2nd in our age group! I felt great about that, and crossing the finish line at 28:30. Morgan could smell the beer I was sweating. Gross! At least it was premium ale and not Natti Light…

I walked back to the fraternity house, got back into bed, and didn’t get up again until 2pm. Job well done.

Applications will be the death of me.

I hope not, but it certainly feels that way sometimes. I’ve kicked into high gear with filling out online applications, revising personal statements, statements of purpose and my writing sample. It’s endless! Here’s my progress so far.

Schools I’m applying to

• Yale
• University of Pennsylvania
• UC Berkeley
• UCLA
• University of Michigan
• Cornell
• Harvard
• Stanford
• Brown
• Columbia
• Johns Hopkins
• Rutgers
• Indiana University at Bloomington
• Princeton

There may be more eventually, unless I run out of money for application fees. Stanford alone is going to cost me $125, plus the $20 it costs to send my GRE scores there. Ridiculous. By the way, I’m applying for two jobs. Surprised? Take another look at that Stanford fee and multiply it by, say, 12. That’s how much it could cost me just to apply to schools. So two jobs it is!

At the moment I’m trying to make sure that my letter of recommendation (LOR) writers have been contacted by every school I’m applying to. Most of the work is streamlines online now, though I have to admit that applying to law school last year was a lot easier. Those applications were compiled on one website, and you simply hit “add to shopping cart” when you wanted to send an application. It was online shopping. For law school. Brilliant. English? Not as easy. And UCLA insists on making applicants print and mail about half the paperwork, which is odd, since Berkeley doesn’t and they’re both California schools…

Well, the last week of February should be interesting if not heartbreaking. Wish me luck!

Ashley Tisdale

I never was part of the High School Musical bandwagon, but I have to admit that there are two contributions the movie series had added to my interests: Ashley Tisdale and Vanessa Hudgens. Gorgeous! Both are such beautiful and talented young women, and style icons long before most performers conceive their own style at all.

Tisdale, for instance, has been inspirational and trendsetting when it comes to dark, rock n’ roll look.

This sequence was from People, illustrating the frequency with which Tisdale uses her Alexander Wang bag. Her acid-wash jeans are also featured in each outfit, but by changing up her top and shoes she creates different looks with the same rocker vibe. I also really like her long, dark hair. Since mine is short and blond, I definitely get hair envy.

The green of this dress is a bold choice, but she pulls it off really well. The studs on her belt further prove her fashion chops. Nothing takes this cocktail dress to the next level like a punk-inspired belt.

Here, her legs look about a mile long. But, with dark sunglasses and her Alexander Wang bag in hand, what might have been a simple LBD becomes a definite fashion statement. And though her darker locks are gone, she’s still totally fierce and rocker. Love ittttt.

Sometimes I definitely wish I was a celebrity, but I think that if someone was taking pictures of me whenever I went outside, I would take even longer to get ready than I already do. Bad news. As it is, I’ll just feed my inner shopaholic with my current obsession: a little cowboy, a little motorcycle, totally badass boots.

New tunes for running!

I have to post about visiting my friend who goes to school in West Philadelphia, but since I’m watching game 2 of the World Series (go Yankees!), I’m only going to quickly put up the songs (new and recent) that I’ve bought off iTunes for my running playlist.

“All the Above,” Maino

“Down,” Jay Sean

“Party in the USA,” Miley Cyrus

“Whatcha Say,” Jason Derulo

“Empire State of Mind,” Jay-Z

“Run This Town,” Jay-Z, Rihanna, Kanye West

Yeah, I pretty much went crazy because I finally loaded all my music onto iTunes on my new MacBook. And as much as I love GirlTalk and Super Mash Bros., new music was necessary.  Also, fun fact: I thought the words “All the Above” were “I’ll be your boat,” and sang it like that at many a fraternity party.  Awkward!

See ya on the pavement!

My tummy hates me.

I feel like such a fatty right now. This is the start of parents’ weekend, and my boyfriend’s roommate’s parents took us out to dinner. Let’s just say there was a lot of grease involved, which isn’t part of my normal diet and for good reason. I am so bloated and gross right now. I ran a quick 3 miles before getting ready for this evening’s cocktail hour, but any kind of pride that comes from knowing I take proper care of myself is long gone. Tomorrow, a new day. And a lot more vegetables.

You know what would suck?

Having a Victoria’s Secret model wear the same dress as you. Sorry, Tori, there was no chance in the People fashion match-up.

Bad luck.

Running Update

In order to reward myself for living in Pennsylvania (nearly) 6 months, I’m going to register for the Shamrock half-marathon in Virginia Beach.

Considering the race is in mid-March, I have a good long time to train. To be specific, the race website notes that there are 150 days left, and I want to build a good base of weekly mileage in that time while also increasing my long runs. There are tons of training plans available online for free, and Runner’s World magazine has one that is easy to follow for first-time half-marathoners here. This training plan is based on 10 weeks of preparation, whereas I have around 22 weeks. I’m going to start just running several times a week, around 3 miles at a time, until I’m comfortable with running between 12 and 15 miles/week.

If I’m outdoors, I prefer running miles rather than minutes, so I also like the plan that blogger Allison used to train for the Columbus Marathon. I’m going to keep track of my miles and such on another tab. So far, it’s felt great to go out for a few miles at a time. The weather is getting cooler (rather suddenly, I might add) but I’m layering well. And I even found Powerbar Gels (here at Amazon in tangerine) and Energy Gel Blasts at my local grocery store; I’ll review those once I start going on longer runs when I actually need them. I also plan on purchasing an iFitness running belt once I start hitting 8 or 10 mile runs.

Woo hoo! Running is starting to be something to get excited about again!

Coming home!

Or homecoming, that is! Here are some photos from this weekend…

So glad to see these girls!

We spent the weekend running between happy hours, fraternity parties, and other assorted events/locations.

Hanging out at Em's before going out.

LK, reppin' Yankee pride.

Reunited, and it feels so good.

It’s the little things

I’ve had a lot of fun the past few days, and I feel like overall my mood is elevated. I hope this lasts! Aaron has definitely had a lot to do with it; I see the effort he puts in, and it’s times like this I know I’m here for the right reasons. ALSO, holy cow, my sorority sisters were in town for Homecoming, and we had an absolute blast! I might have struggled with hangovers at work, but I was so happy to be with my girls again!

Also, I got an email from Amazon.com about their Best Books of 2009, which intrigues me because I tend to read many more classics than contemporary books. I’ll try to draw ideas from this list for my book reviews.

I’ll post more later this week! I’m starting to run again, and it feels really good. I know I’m the only thing holding me back, so I’m going to work on not letting that happen again.