Diet Coke

As we speak I am in the ACRN studio and I have just completed a delicious can of diet coke. I am a diet coke-head, the only drink I can honestly say i am in love with.
Diet Coke is a simple pleasure because it has been with me through thick and thin, good days and bad days. Diet coke gets me going in the morning and helps me rewind in the evening. If i could I would marry diet coke.

New Classes

Here at Ohio University, our academic year is divided into quarters which makes the joy of having all new classes come three times a year (or four times if you do summer quarters). I love having new classes because each fall, winter, and spring it is a fresh start to do something great. Each class affects me in a different and exciting way and each quarter I always seem to welcome one class that will forever change how I view the world. Although, going to class can sometimes be a drag, at least that first class can hopefully motivate you for the entire quarter.

ice cream!

Ice Cream. It's my greatest treat and my greatest vice. Each bite of this cold, sloppy goodness brings back great memories of childhood, sunday afternoon dates and gabfests at Cold Stone Creamery.
Ice Cream is the one food that can always make me so much happier as soon as it falls upons my taste buds. The sun suddenly shines brighter, the world becomes vibrant, my life becomes complete.

Honestly, if the government would pass the bill to make marrying inanimate objects legal, I would be know as Mrs. Ice Cream.


Side Note: If Cold Stone Creamery wanted to create a signature "Erin S." dish, it would be banana ice cream with brownie mixed in.

Reading!

I have been such a slacker in a number of ways this summer, updating the blog, keeping up with cleaning house, and getting myself organized for going back to school (four days now!), but most disappointingly I have been seriously slacking in my reading for the entire summer.
This is a huge shame because those hazy humid days of bad hair and sticky thighs always allow me to lock myself in my air conditioned bedroom and snuggle up with some good reading. But this summer I have been too focused on either working or losing my mind to daytime television (my guiltiest of all pleasures). Luckily, I have a boyfriend who has his own personal library and allows me to take as many books as I like. So in these last remaining days of Summer I have been trying to catch up on all the reading I have allowed to escape me. However, there will be absolutely no way I can finish up my reading list which includes:

1. Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov (a library book that I need to finish by friday)
2. Ariel by Sylvia Plath (I'm not usually a big poetry advocate but Sylvia Plath's writing is so beautifully tragic it's hard to ignore... also a library book)
3. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad (I bought then when Jill and I went thrifting during my trip to Athens, a complete steal at 35 cents)
4. Inherit the Wind by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee (One of Alex's books, a play based on the Scope's Monkey Trial, I'm not exactly that keen on reading plays)
5. Stranger Than Fiction by Chuck Palahniuk (I never finished Fight Club in the Spring, blame my Sociology class)
6. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers (a book I bought Spring quarter Freshman year and have yet to finish, but was around to entertain me during the most beautiful of Spring mornings after my BIOS 103 class. Ms. McCullers and I shared a few good moments in Emerti Park)
7. Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald (I've had this one for a long time, it's the time to read it!)
8. We Were the Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates (After reading Where Have you Been? Where Are You Going? in English 201, I have always wanted to read more of Oates' stuff. It's about violence and what not. big surprise)
9. Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote (a lender from Alex)
10. Euthyphro, Crito, Apology, & Symposium by Plato (an obvious borrowed book from Alex)
11. Islam (another lender from Alex)
12. Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
13. Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse
14. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
15. The Plague and The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus (Existentialism! WOO!)
16. Lucky by Alice Sebold (I loved The Lovely Bones, here is another book that will freak me out so much that I won't be able to leave my house)
17. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (I began it when I was in Australia but never finished

This fall will be the perfect opportunity to lounge by the Hocking River and tackle some of these books.

Visits home...

As most college students spend their summers rotting away at bad jobs in their hometowns, I've spent this summer rotting away here at OU. You see, they pay me more to rot here.

After a stint as a popcorn bitch last winter break, I swore I'd never again spend more than a couple weeks at a time in my hometown of Hubbard, Ohio. It did, however, feel nice to head back to Hubbard for a bit last week.

My mom's cooking is always appreciated, as is the gas my dad puts in the car when he knows I'm coming home. Driving around town with the windows down and the stereo bumping feels like freedom, even if I'm just driving to get a haircut downtown. And laundry is free! It felt good to be back on my old stomping grounds, especially when I knew I'd be back in Athens, my home, in a few days.

The best part of my week at home (you know, besides the two concerts I went to) was definitely hanging around my friend Billy's digs. Casa de Billster is a place where you can find puppies with bladder problems, fat cats, video-game-playing moms, a Chinese exchange...man..? named Tang (not a student, just this Chinese guy who lives with them because he teaches little kids or something) and most importantly, brand new Mac desktops sprawled out on the dining room table (because eating is so very over-rated these days).

Billiam and I made several ridiculous YouTube videos in Photobooth, in addition to taking many ridiculous photogs. One of the videos somehow got 141 views and 1 comment overnight. Upon viewing, the Chinese man Tang seemed convinced that we were YouTube stars. Give the guy a break, he's real foreign.

Anyway, here are two of the videos. I'm warning you, they're silly as hell, especially the second one:

U Street D

even the food is happy!

I have been pretty lame at keeping up with simple pleasures, but this is one that Jill and I can completely agree with: Union Street Diner.
Last week, I went down to beautiful Athens, Ohio to visit Jill, Rika, and Jason. It was a wonderful time. We had chinese food, watched 90s dramas (My So Called Life is my new fave teen drama*) and Jill and I went to our classic dining spot, Union Street Diner.

During the school year, U Street D is a staple for the weekends. They're open 24 hours so after a good night of party hopping or hanging out with friends, it is the go-to destination for a cup of coffee and scrambled eggs (my favorite late night food).
Union Street Diner holds so many memories, from the first time I ordered chocolate chip pancakes at 8pm to the time after $2 Prom (an annual event that ACRN.com holds at The Union) where i ate there with Jill and my boyfriend Alex and ended up spilling syrup all over my Junior year homecoming dress.
Union Street Diner is a wonderful little hole in the wall place that offers crazy good meals (spicy chicken sandwiches, breakfast quesadillas, and a plethora of different kind of melts). If you're ever in Athens and you need a good meal for not much dough, Union Street Diner is your place, plus it's a wonderful place to gather all your friends (just don't be alarmed by the holes in the seats of the booths).

*except for this "so bad it's good" drama on ABC family called The Secret Life of the American Teenager.. I watched a marathon of it today.

Uplifting songs...

These past two weeks have been the most stressful, discouraging and downright frustrating of the whole summer. This week saw much improvement, but I must say that I crucial factor in modifying my mindset about my recent struggles has been uplifting songs.

Now, I'm not usually one for really, really positive music that features messages that will encourage people like they're popping Paxil or anything. Whether music is truthful or harsh or thoroughly depressing, what matters to me is if I can relate in some way. What I've been needing lately, however, has been uplifting music, especially two specific songs that I've listened to a lot.

There's something inherently beautiful, completely pure and eerily ethereal about the music Icelandic rock band Sigur Ros create. I love most of their music, but one song in particular, "Hoppipolla," truly speaks to me. The visual imagery that this song conjures for me is the sight of bright sunlight shining through throngs of tall, bushy trees atop a hill.

Even though I can't understand the song's lyrics, the piano let-in alone is enough for me to have a visceral reaction...in a good way, you know? It's like the encouragement I feel from the beautiful polyphony of the whole song hits me right in the stomach. It's undeniable. This song not only gives me hope in music, it gives me hope in myself. Maybe it's the blaring trumpets. Or the glockenspiel.

After listening to "Today Will Be Better, I Swear!" by Stars on repeat for a half hour last Saturday, I really wanted to believe what the Canadian band was preaching. The lyrics are so dead-on (at least for me) and much more original than that awful "Bad Day" song from a couple years ago, that I believe stemmed from American Idol. Why am I not surprised? American Idol might be the root of all evil.

ANYWAY, this song is perfect, even down to the exclamation point in the title, which is grammatically uplifting in and of itself, don't you think?

And everybody only wants to fight
You're up against never being right

When the worries of the world hold your feet
And there's little left to believe in

Today is going to be a better one
There's nothing more to take in
That's going wrong

-- Stars