Whew!

I'm finally all caught up on my blogs! Well, that's almost true. My book blog is still almost 2 months behind but I need to read more books to fix that problem. Considering my movie and my vegan blog were both about a month and a half behind and this blog was lagging a couple weeks, the improvement feels immensely satisfying.

Catching up required about three nights of working until at least 5 in the morning. This past week has felt productive though strange in terms of hours. It's like I get off work and I have another shift.  Since writing is something I enjoy, it's a entirely different feeling.  A good one!  I enjoy the feeling on being able to sit, be warm, eat, drink, and use the bathroom as needed.  And I love the feeling for doing something I love.    

Is it deceitful to play catch up and change the post dates? I hope not. I don't want to be deceitful, I just want to be up-to-date!

Smells that Send Me Back a Ways

Due to housing and financial issues, the past few days have been stressful but I don't want to go into details why.  It's not that I don't want to, it's just that I've learned from painful experience that it is unwise to blog about people so instead of blogging about specific happenings of my life, I will share something unrelated to the week.  This idea occurred to me as I opened the bookstore I where work.  As I turned on the air conditioner, a familiar smell blew at my face and I suddenly felt like I was seven-years-old and sitting in a closet under the stairs in my playroom.

According to Discovery Health, "A smell can bring on a flood of memories, influence people's moods and even affect their work performance. Because the olfactory bulb is part of the brain's limbic system, an area so closely associated with memory and feeling it's sometimes called the 'emotional brain,' smell can call up memories and powerful responses almost instantaneously."

The smell of hot glue and solder takes me back to my middle school and high school days when I was working on a project with friends in a basement for a program called Odyssey of the Mind.  You can see some music videos I made at one of the competitions here.

Sometimes, such as this morning, I think to myself, "It smells like bagpipes."  This thought comes from the fact that my dad played bagpipes when I was young.  He kept the case in the closet under the stairs.  I'm not sure if the smell I associate with the pipes are from the case or the actual instrument.  The scent is aged, airy wood.

When I was 13, my dad came back from the park with a pair of goslings.  My dad said that a couple had dropped the goslings off and left.  Knowing they wouldn't make it on their own and being as the goslings started following him, my dad took them home.  I attempted to raise them before giving them to a wild animal shelter.  They were precious.  If I had the describe their aroma I would say they smelt of warm fluff.  They had a very distinct smell.  So much so that I remember after one piano lesson I was walking to the car with my dad and I sniffed the air and observed, "It smells like goslings."  He agreed.

Job Search in the Big Apple

The most exciting thing that happened to me this week was I went to New York City in search of a job.  The day was eventful and adventurous.  My sister came with me for moral support and it was both needed and appreciated.  The bus ride was great, especially because I was on the stand by list and it could have turned out that I had to wait an hour for the next bus while my sister headed to the city.  Luck was on my side because I not only got on the bus but, I scored the front seat on the top level of the double decker!  Awesome!

My sister and I got to New York and we got subway day passes.  Great value!  Afterward, my sister and I attempted to find Chinatown which was harder than we imagined.  Eventually, our persistence paid off and we enjoyed delicious spring rolls and bead curd!

In the late afternoon, I got dressed up for an interview.  My sister was walking with me when one of her flip-flops broke.  Since I brought my heels for my interview and I had sneakers in my bag.  Fortunately, my sneakers fit my sister's feet.  Unfortunately, I only have four pairs of shoes, and without my sneakers I'm left with my flip-flops, ill-fitting tennis shoes from trash picking, and my heels.  Soon, I will visit my family, at which point I will be reunited with my go-to-shoes.      

Also this week, my roommate moved out and she took with her three cats that I have come to love and take care of over the months.  It was a tough week.  I cried most nights.  I'm sad that the cats are gone and my place seems empty.  At the same time, it feels like a relief to not have them around knowing they are leaving soon.  I think they got tired of me crying on them. 

Time Financing

When people have problems with money, often the problem is, they don't know where their money is going.  Many experts and websites advise keeping a record of what these individuals do with their money and they can discover where their problems lie. 

I have a problem with time.  I don't know where it's going.  What am I doing with it?  I must be using it to do something.  I'm hoping that blogging will inspire and remind me to invest my time wisely.  I recently read a book that encouraged me to live a life worth reading a memoir about.  I can't be sure that my daily doings as a recent college graduate will be memoir-worthy but working to make them blog-worthy is a decent place to start.