To The New Year

New Year's Resolutions. I never make them. Ever. In fact, New Year's Eve is one of my least favorite days in the entire year because on that day, and the week leading up to that day, every news station rolls footage of every big headline news story of the year, many of which make you go "Oh yeah, I remember that!" and point your finger to the TV screen, nodding along.

Meanwhile, during the duration of these montages, you find yourself doing one of two things. You're either quietly musing to yourself, "...what did I do this year? Seriously now, in terms of advancing and evolving as a human being or at the bare minimum, maturing enough to cut down my fart jokes. Uh yeah. I'm not remembering much...little help here brain?"

Or you're trapped in the second option, the worst one, the one that knows precisely what you didn't do or what you did and gave up on or what you procrastinated on until it literally became 15 seconds to 12am on the eve of the new year and by George, if you still didn't do it or have a basic outline prepared yet. This is when your brain bitches you out hardcore, "See? I told you 2011 was looming and you still didn't open your own bakery yet! What if next year your credit score falls to pieces and you can't get the loan? Do you realize your parents will have been right THE ENTIRE TIME?? You can't let that happen!"

Thus, to relieve our minds of the stress of not being incredibly successful at 25 and to save our remaining brain cells from death by too many glasses of Moet Chandon, eureka! The resolution is born!

We resolve to be better people. No longer will that extra slice of chocolate mousse cake land accidentally in our mouths! Instead of buying hilarious dirty joke books at the bookstore, we will donate the money to charities. The good kind that support the children. Our grades will be higher, our pants will fit looser, we'll talk to our family members regularly (all of them, even our cousins), and our ability to listen and absorb all of our friends' stories about their girlfriends/boyfriends/hook ups/single life will be fully listened to and not zoned out after the first 6 minutes. Maybe we won't be perfect, but you know what? There's always next year to resolve for perfection. This year is just a test run.

With the image of how I spent some of the more outstanding New Year's Eve's in my mind's eye (most of these follow Number 2 Scenario up there), I decided to make some resolutions for next year.

And for the most part, I truly intend on keeping them.



Paying Down My Debt

I'm going to keep this one pretty vague and nondescript since money is not something I'm ever comfortable discussing, but all you need to know is I graduated from college and I'm in the grips of one evil wench by the name of Madam Sallie Mae. Personally I'd love to see her go the way of Fannie Mae, but alas, the government has decided to not make it so.



Hair Style Change

It's either going to be short and bedhead sexy like Marion Cotillard.



Or stay long and get styled and dyed red like Rita Hayworth.

I'm such a wuss when it comes to major hair changes. If I get my hair done like either one of these vixens, it's going to call for hardcore pictures to be taken and placed everywhere I blog.



To Be Lucky in Love

With love, this is not just a reference to physical relationships. When I define Love, I think of a feeling that absorbs your entire being and takes you with it on the ride. It's scary and sure all at once. Love can be with wonderful people, with beautiful memories, with good melodies and soft fabric, etc.

I just hope to fall in love repeatedly this coming year. Just not too much. I really can't risk screwing up the debt resolution up there.



Moving On

I'm getting the moving bug again...

This time next year, I hope to be in one of two places. New York City, if not for the fact that much of my career path leads there. Plus I need to log in some East Coast adventures in my life.

But mostly, I'm finger crossing for this one:




London.

I want to live in the land of a million great accents, live in a flat, and get a work permit to work in the Queen Mother's country (because I've been working since I was 11 and won't stop no matter what oceans or time zones I cross). It's a journey that will resemble that memoir "Eat Pray Love" only my version will be known as "Kiss Kiss Kiss", chronicling makeout sessions with British guys all over the UK from one very strange, but very likable protagonist.

Yeah, I know you'd all read it.



Please let me know if any of you are making resolutions and if so, what are they?

Until then, cheers (an early cheers!) to the New Year!

Love to you all,
Heather

The Van Wilder Effect

This weekend, I went back to school. At the tail end of the semester when finals were only a week away. I know, I never did well transferring at the right time of the year ;)

My college experience was definitely different than most people I know. It was also a far cry from those commercials you see on TV of kids moving into their dorms. There was no direct entry from high school into a 4 year university, no parent co-signing my loans for me, no big move-in day with my entire family present.

What happened followed like this. I was enrolled in advanced college credit courses in high school. Originally, my plan was to attend a school on the East Coast until one autumn day when I received the postcard that would change everything, the tiny liberal arts college on the West Coast that my heart, mind, and soul knew was the one. When you consider the sheer amount of colleges in the United States alone, the rate of acceptance, and that receiving that postcard occurred by pure chance, it seems like only a crazy person would throw everything out to the side and place all of their gambles onto one school.

I call it fate. Crazy is as crazy do.



My acceptance arrived, but in order to go to school, I would have to pay my own way through. I was 2 years from being able to legally sign a private loan for myself, by myself and spent much of the rest of my senior year moaning about this fact to anyone who would listen. Then I applied to a local community college to get the general education courses out of the way and was accepted on the last day of high school (I DO NOT recommend anyone apply to school that late.)

Upon graduating, I had 22 credits to transfer over to any college of my choice. I took the semester off to work and rest and decide on what major I would study. At my community college, I majored in communications with an emphasis in PR and advertising and began attending school that spring. 1.5 years until I could go to the school of my dreams. At the community college, I studied hard, pushed myself with credits each semester (with full class loads in the summer- I was a year-round student), and worked hard too at my jobs as well as writing for my school newspaper The Montage where I wrote movie/book reviews and later on, a column that discussed a bevy of issues I found relevant to life.

I was still undoubtedly, and eerily, calm I would be accepted again to that little liberal arts school and once more, placed my bets against fate by having no safety school lined up. The summer of 2007 was when I reapplied to that West Coast school of my dreams again and was accepted. From then on, life began running at top speed to get arrangements made for the impending move. I signed off on loan documents, gathered together the transcripts from my 3 universities (including the schools from my advanced college credit honors courses) to send off, put in my two weeks notice at work, and began packing my world away to leave. The next two years went by quickly, as it seems all years do, and majoring in Journalism this time around, I began to discover that I genuinely enjoyed everything Communications had to offer. All of the little subdivisions of the major I genuinely enjoyed. They say you change your career up to 7-10 times in your lifetime. If I'm to change careers within the field of communications, at least I chose a field I would not mind picking a new job from.

And now here we are, the graduate who returns to her alma mater.



The word "nostalgia" is composed of two words. Nostos which means "return" and algos, "pain", so if you couple them together you get something along the lines of "painful return." Sometimes when I visit certain memories in my mind, no matter just how wonderful they were, they hurt to think about. If only because we were all different people then, some of us still children or on the brink of maturity. The best memories seem nearly Utopian to reflect back on, almost as though they were gently wrapped up in cotton candy pink cellophane. And the worst ones. Generally we wish we could erase them or try to shut our minds from conjuring up imagery.

I've returned to school a few times after graduating. The first two times made me ecstatic to return. I came back on the weekends, didn't tell many if any people aside from my old roommates, and would spend an afternoon wandering around campus, its familiar and small pathways being traced by my sure footing once more. Each of these times, I clung to the nostalgia in my heart, remembering when, trying to replay the college experience once more, and pretend I never graduated.

This time, the third time, was different. I was there for more days this time, one of which was a Friday. I got to see many of my old friends who were all stressed out over finals and behaved as such, keeping our visits short and sweet and hurrying out to the library to study. Meanwhile I strolled around campus (yes, I do stroll from time to time and additionally I languish on sofa couches), unburdened by homework and tests and projects and even my work day having taken the day off from work, feeling light and free and impossibly older. Kind of like Van Wilder. I tried to convince my roommates to go to the club with me on Friday night as a means of study break, but they needed to work. Maybe not like Van Wilder. I think he would have been resourceful enough to bring the party there.



This return, I didn't think of as being a painful one. I didn't reach into my heart and spread all of my memories out on the cement and try to re-enter them. I went around and told everyone what I did, where I worked, how I loved my work, and the aspirations I had for my future. In some small ways, it reminded me of when I was little and my Dad would parade me around at his office to everyone working there, listing off like clockwork my grade point average, the extracurricular activities I did, additional writing I was acknowledged for, etc. I remember these visits starting off okay and gradually growing more uncomfortable the more people I met and had to blush and smile very hard for. I'm a pretty modest person when it comes to discussing my accomplishments. Plus, back then I was just about to hit puberty and was on the cusp of being irritated with just about anything my parents did for me.

Back on campus, circa now, I didn't feel that way. I felt proud of everything I had done since graduating. I had gotten a job in the line of study which I graduated with a degree in. Not only did I have a job (which, is in of itself an accomplishment), I managed to get one in the highly competitive field of advertising. As a copywriter, I spend the majority of the day doing what I love: writing. And recently I had some success at work which paid off nicely for me and cemented my place solidly at the company, giving way to the dream I have to move up in the world of advertising and later work for different agencies, going through entry level, associate, junior, and finally senior copywriter. If ever was a time to brag about my success, it's now. I'm determined to not sacrifice my dreams and I know if I work hard, I can fulfill them.

I will have my cake and eat it too!



So I told everyone about my new life and the great things that have occurred in it. They were all very happy for me, as I was to hear about what they were up to. After the day was over, it dawned on me that my visits to this school were also (in essence) over. It was a time in my life that I worked for, grew as a person at, and had some of the best memories ever come from. It was a decision I will never, ever regret or look back on with much "painful return" because even from the sadness and occasional lonely moments, I learned. I grew. I became who I am now.

It was simply a time, a chapter in the book of my life. It ended, as they all do, but ended with a follow-up chapter not even I could predict coming. If the book of my life keeps moving at this pace, there will be more unpredictable chapters on the way, with some of them I'm carefully moving in place even right now. Even though much of my future looks blurred, I already know certain portions I want to be easier to see and will once more, gamble the highest stakes to go where my heart pulls me.

Fate, you've met your match.

Love to you all,
Heather

I've Got a Remedy

Some of you may be aware of my general frequent behavior of getting weak in the knees in the presence of anyone or anything British. For those of you who don't know, let me quote Sienna Miller's character from Alfie when she finds out her limo driver is from jolly old England:



"You're British? I love British."

Such is the life philosophy of your blogger Miss Taylor here. Since much of my heritage is composed of Welsh and English blood, I feel very connected through some odd force I don't quite understand myself to the Brits...even though I've never been to the Queen Mother's country. But never fear, I'm in the process of fixing that as I type (more for a later entry).

My favorite guilty pleasure is British pop music. Good or bad, I love all of it. I don't judge either. I'm willing to give all of it at least one listen. It all started with Sophie Ellis-Bextor and from there, escalated. Girls Aloud, Sugababes. Robbie Williams. Alcazar. Duffy. Rachel Stevens. Well, technically it started with Robbie when I stayed up late at 13 to watch the video for "Rock DJ" on the MTV2 special Most Controversial Videos. Y'know, the video where he pulls his skin off and dances as a skeleton with all of the girls on roller blades? Maybe it's just me on this one.

In any case, a few weeks ago I got on my Pandora to my handcrafted Sophie Ellis- Bextor radio station I've spent a sizable amount of time editing and sat and listened whilst writing. Then I heard a voice, of a song I never heard before, the voice of someone that sounded intriguing and just wonderful. I felt that weird prickle you get when you know you're listening to someone who will infinitely make you feel happy, even for no apparent reason, even when you feel like you'll never be happy again. The sound like peppermint candy canes crackling apart in the cold wind with the echo of laughter and gasping for breath with sleigh bells ringing. It's this wild intrigue that just tells you things are going to be swell. Your heart knows it, because it just popped 12 times its size to inflatable proportions and is know doing a wacky sock hop dance next to your lungs. It's just how I felt for those 3 minutes and 16 seconds.

Check the name.

Little Boots



I adore her.


Victoria Hesketh is her real name. Her voice is a touch difficult to place in comparison to someone else, but her music influences include a solid list of greats from Kylie Minogue to Pink Floyd and even Gary Numan.

She sits cozy in the 20-something girl singer group comprised of Lady Gaga, Florence Welch from Florence and the Machine, and Pip Brown (Ladyhawke). If you're inclined to listen to these ladies, I highly, highly recommend giving Little Boots a shot.



Key tracks to listen to include:

New in Town (note: I am aware that this song was on the Jennifer's Body soundtrack. Do not worry. I promise, it's fun and not irritating. Then again, Hole also had the song Violet on this soundtrack, but they did have an album with the same title as the movie so I guess Courtney Love had to get roped into the soundtrack somehow.)
Remedy
Stuck on Repeat
Hearts Collide
Earthquake
Catch 22

Very much worth the listen indeed. Especially if you're in the mood for an accent.

You know I always am.

Love to you all,
Heather