2008 is almost over, so...

It's list time!!! (All is in no particular order)

Favorite Albums of 2008.

01. The Glass Passenger - Jack's Mannequin.

02. Bring Me Your Love - City and Colour.

03. Illuminate - Lydia.

04. Folie a Deux - Fall Out Boy.

05. Youth Novels- Lykke Li.

06. Don't Forget - Demi Lovato.

07. Razia's Shadow: A Musical - Forgive Durden.

08. Only By The Night - Kings of Leon.

09. Sometimes Things Just Disappear - Polar Bear Club.

10. (A tie between) Duffy, Death Cab For Cutie, Alkaline Trio, Sigur Ros, Katy Perry, The Cab, M83, Charlotte Sometimes, Ra Ra Riot, Have Heart, Laura Marling and Danger Radio. 

Favorite Movies of 2008.

01. Milk.

02. Slumdog Millionaire.

03. The Dark Knight.

04. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

05. Funny Games.

and a million other movies that I cannot possibly remember. 

Favorite Shows That I Attended in 2008.

01. Fall Out Boy at Harper's Ferry. (Had to wait 5 hours in the rain to see them play for two hours to less than 400 people. Amazing.)

02. Jack's Mannequin at RIT. (I met Andrew.)

03. Jack's Mannequin at Paradise Rock Club. (Favorite venue.)

04. Jack's Mannequin at the Blender Theater. 

05. Bamboozle. (Jimmy Eat World, Vinnie's Movielife set, Lydia, Snoop Dogg, Bret Michaels, etc.)

06. Sigur Ros at the Bank of America Pavillion. (Stunning.)

07. Polar Bear Club at Great Scott.

08. Envy on the Coast and I Am The Avalanche at AfterHOURS.

etc. etc. etc.

Best Moments of 2008. 

01. Getting into Northeastern.

02. All of those shows previously said.

03. Meeting Andrew McMahon.

04. Turning 18.

05. Moving to Boston.

etc. etc. etc.

Bands That I Got Into In 2008.

01. Paper Rival (RIP)

02. Fun.

03. The Gaslight Anthem.

04. Annuals.

05. Passion Pit.

06. Margot & The Nuclear So & So's.

Bands That Will Be Big in 2009.

01. Fun.

02. The Gaslight Anthem.

03. Cash Cash will turn into the next Metro Station and it will be unfortunate, but good for them, I guess.

And all I want in 2009 is to have as good a year as this one was. I want to be happy and I want to meet more people and I want to have a good time. I wish the same for all of you. 

Send me your lists if you read this. Make up a list. Do whatever.

I am not the perfect girl.

I am not easy, or easy to get ahold of.

I am a challenge, and I make myself that way.

I will not tell you what you want to hear.

I will not give in easily, and let you win.

I am not what most people want in a friend or a girlfriend.

I am nothing like the girls that are never lonely, the girls that always have boyfriends, the girls that have all of the friends in the world. 

I am NOTHING like them.

But, I do have one power that many of them do not possess.

I have the power to love with every bit of intensity that I have. I have the power to give and give and give, but rarely ever receive. I have the power to fall in love with new acquaintances almost instantly, even if they will not remember my name the next time I see them. I have the power to drop everything in order to make someone else happy. I have the power to always love, and never hate.

Do you have that power?

Chances are, you don't. 

You rush into relationships, emotional or physical, merely because of your own loneliness and desperation. Sure, I have been lonely and desperate, more than you will ever know, but I have NEVER rushed into a relationship on those terms. You allow yourself to be put into these pointless relationships, not because of love, but because you are bored. I will never do this. I am still waiting for the good relationships, because I am convinced they are more than just a band aid for mutual loneliness. 

I will only give my heart to those I feel are worth it.

I have so much faith in people, and one of these days, someone is going to have the same faith in me as I do in them. 

And that will be the day that I win, and you lose.

Because I never settle unless it's worth it. 

I never give in without full faith and trust in that person.

I don't waste my time on people who aren't worth my love.

And because of that, I will be happy.

I will be happy once someone loves me with the same intensity and same amount of heart that I love each and every person I let into my life with. 

I may not be perfect, and I may not be the girl that everyone loves automatically, but I have so much love that I am willing to give, and soon, somebody will realize that.

1001 Lists To Make Before You Die

When I spent the summer of 2007 in Portland, Oregon with my cousins, I came to the conclusion that I HATED lists. They had them plastered all over the house and in notebooks scattered about, and I could not deal. At the end of their lists, I would add my own personal addition: STOP MAKING LISTS. Needless to say, they never stopped. Their birthday and holiday cards to me in the future were in the form of lists, just to piss me off. It annoyed me for awhile, until I realized that I actually loved lists.

I now have post-its all over my dorm room.

I take full advantage of the Stickies application on my Macbook.

I make lists of all of the bands and movies I have seen, and I write down all of the books I have read.

I make lists for EVERYTHING now.

Which is why, I am obsessed with these books filled with lists.

1001 places, books, albums, songs, movies, etc. Books filled with things that I should waste my time experiencing, just so I can die knowing that I accomplished something. This will either drive a person crazy, or it will drive them to do things they never thought they would do before.

I love these lists. I want these books. And I want to get out and do all of this.

I'm going to go crazy. 

I am ready to be alone.

My greatest learning and growing experience happened in an airport. 

I am both proud and exhausted to say this. 

I'm not going to get into the details, but let's just say that mother nature thought it would be fun to blow a lot of snow into the Northeast today, well yesterday. I had a layover in DC in between Boston and Syracuse and I became stuck in our nation's capital, even though the airport isn't really located there at all, as I found out after the fact. But, I had to deal with two cancelled flights, one awful airline, no refunds, no vouchers, no hotel rooms, nothing. They basically told me, "you can leave here on Sunday morning, at the earliest." So I said, "fuck that," and of course my family came to my rescue and got me a flight home at 6 am, Saturday morning, on a different airline. So, with no luggage and no one to keep me company, I had to travel throughout this massive airport alone depending on texts and wireless to keep me sane. In fact, I have no idea where my luggage is right now. It could be here or it could be in Syracuse, who knows? But let's just say, I need a toothbrush and new clothes. It's awful living and breathing in yesterday. 

It's 1:48 am and I have to check in around 4. I have no idea what I am going to do until then, but I figured this would help. Earlier, someone sat by me and was talking about how airports are kind of like purgatory. This immediately made me think of Chuck Klosterman, because I remember him talking about this. I can't find a particular quote, but I remember all of this being said. If it wasn't him, it was definitely someone who talks like him. I just remember it being said that the lucky ones would be the ones in the plane crash, because they would be getting out of purgatory, but they wouldn't know this. Oh, I don't even know. It's so late. 

Oh, I found it.

"This hypothesis becomes especially clear inside any airport. It's like a warehouse full of dead people rushing from gate to gate to gate, all of whom are unaware that-if they are lucky-they will have the good fortune to board a 727 that crashes into a mountain. Then they'll be out of purgatory."

I guess, I knew my Chuck after all. I have read all of his books and they are all highlighted like crazy. Except Downtown Owl was kind of boring. Maybe because it was fiction. I enjoyed the end though. Most of them died in a freak snow storm. Sorry to ruin the ending, but it's ironic.

I need sleep.

But someone will rob me and steal my laptop. My bones and eyes will hate me later. 

But I'm alone and I'm alive, and that's really all that matters, right?

I'm convinced I am a hopeless romantic.

You are too, if you happen to be in love with Missed Connections on Craigslist. I have the page bookmarked and I check it at least six times a day. I disgust myself, but it's so entertaining.

If you don't know what it is, it is basically where instead of asking someone to buy your old bike, you can post an ad for a person that you may have seen on the train or at a store or even on the street. People tend to either creepily ask these people out on random dates, or they may just say that they thought they were cute. Some also go a bit deeper and profess their love for people from their past. It's like a truth box, where people can say anything they want about someone else, but not be identified. It makes you want to look better when you ride the subway or when you go to a show, just in case some attractive stranger is watching you. No matter what people write though, it's always entertaining. 

I found this one today:

Some days are harder than others, yesterday was awful. I'm not sure when it's going to get better, when it only seems to be getting worse. I miss you and hope you are well....Merry Christmas, L

I wish it was written about me. I mean it could be. It was m4w, and it was for someone located in Boston. But no one would ever say that about me. At least no one that I know of. I can dream though. 

This website gives me faith in love.

It's out there. Maybe even on some random street corner. 

It might seem like a dream, but it's real to me.

I had a dream once that still haunts me to this day, almost a year later. I have no idea why this particular dream has stayed in my mind for this long, but I can tell it to people almost as if it actually happened. Sometimes, I wish it had actually happened. It's one of those dreams where it hurts to wake up, because you want it to be true. It never is.

In this dream, a boy picked me up early one Saturday morning to drive to Boston. Along the way, we listened to popular 90's songs and sang along to ever song. We were driving on the Thruway and we stopped at every rest stop that we came across. At one of the first rest stops, he bought me a pair of huge glasses as a joke. I never took them off, and we continued driving. 

By nightfall, we realized that we never even made it to Boston. We made it to Massachusetts, but we never made it to our destination. It didn't matter, though. I don't even know why we were going there in the first place. I think we just decided on it, because it seemed like a nice place to go. But instead of continuing on, we ate at a diner and then turned around and continued towards New York. 

On the drive home, he played Jimmy Eat World songs and I sang along with my head to the window. I ended up falling asleep and at one point, I woke up, realizing that we were stopped on the side of the road. "The World You Love" was playing and he let it play really loud as he led me out of the car into the dark field. He told me to close my eyes, and he led me behind a set of trees and then let me open my eyes. Standing before us was a carousel, full of blue lights and broken down horses. It was running, but it seemed as though no one had been there for awhile. We stood there for a little while, not talking, but just watching. Then we decided it was time to go back.

I slept the rest of the way home. When I woke up, the sun was rising and I was in my driveway. He told me he was leaving for good, but that he loved me and that he always would. He kissed my forehead, and I got out of the car and watched him drive away. I went into my room, and threw the glasses he bought me across the room. They didn't shatter or even crack. They just fell to the floor, defeated, but not broken. I didn't cry, because I figured he would be back. He was such a liar. I would never let him leave me. He would be back, no matter what he said.

Then I woke up.

I finally did make it to Boston, in real life at least, because it's where I go to school. Funny thing is that I had this dream before I got accepted here. I had this dream back when I had absolutely no hope that I was going to get in. 

As for the boy, he never really had an identity. He reminds me of a lot of people that I know, none of which are in love with me. He's a combination of everything I tend to like in a person, and I think that's why he was there. No one has ever left me like he did in the dream, so I don't really understand where all of that comes from.

The one thing I learned from this dream is that if I ever meet anyone like that, I won't let them go. That kind of happiness is worth fighting for, even if it is short lived. I'm in love with the concept and idea of him and the dream. I've never wanted a dream to be real, until I had this one.

A new beginning.

College is a funny place. 

When I first got here, I was so excited, yet so scared. Excited to be in Boston, scared to be away from everything and everyone I knew. I was running into this face first, alone for the first time. I knew absolutely no one except for an orientation roommate, and for someone who has always had a hard time meeting and opening up to new people, this was a challenge for me. But, I quickly adjusted and found a solid group of friends. The first month was good. I loved all of my classes, and I was always busy doing things. I had my friends and I had my new city, and I was happy. Jump to October, and that group of friends underwent some changes. It was a difficult month, but it all worked out for the better. I was experiencing more new things more than ever, and I was not going to let some misunderstandings get in the way of that. Things were hard, but I was happy, at least for awhile. Then things changed. I stopped going out. I stayed in my room all the time. I abandoned my friends and I stopped making an effort. I went to the occasional show and I would sporadically hang out with people, but not as much as before. In the beginning of the semester, I had the entire city at my feet, and within a matter of a month, it had all changed. It's the end of the semester now, and I can honestly say that I am the happiest and the saddest I have ever been. I love everything about this city and my major and this school, but I need to find people that make me happy. I need to get back to where I was at the beginning of this year. I'm changing for the better, but I need to be happy again. I plan on working on it.

I deleted all of my old entries from this journal. 

I plan on using this to tell stories. Nothing too personal though. That is what my livejournal is for. I have been meaning to write and observe more, so hopefully this serves that purpose. This will probably be full of ramblings and stories. Basically whatever I feel like saying. We'll see how this goes.