Arizona has been pretty good to me lately. The weather, while still ungodly hot during the day, cools down to like 85 at night, which is perfect. I also love the U of A's library and have no shame admitting that. Last week, I found an article that was like perfect for my thesis, entitled something like The Grotesque as Feminist Revision of the Southern Lady in Carson McCullers's and Flannery O'Connor's Fiction. It was only 7 pages long, though, and I couldn't find the actual article ANYWHERE. JStor, MLA online, EBSCOhost from U of A and Uni Westminster all didn't have it. Then I found out about this thing called InterLibrary Loan, which means that because Arizona's library is a "research library," they can pull articles and books from other research libraries across the country. Luckily, the University of Kentucky had my article, and two days after I processed the request, the PDF file was in my inbox, free of charge. How cool is that! It makes researching so much easier. I had always heard about InterLibrary Loan, but figured it would be too difficult or annoying to do in the midst of a big paper. And perhaps because it is the summer, it was responded to more quickly, but either way it makes me so excited, in the nerdy nerd way I am.
Another thing that made me happy about Tucson deals with the movies. I am from the East Coast, where there are absolutely no drive-ins. Arizona has drive-ins, Tucson has a drive-in and Harry Potter was playing there. It was only $5 and I got to see HP on the big screen! It was my second time seeing the movie, but it still remained just as good. I never knew that in drive-ins, you had to une your radio to a station and that's how you got the sound to the movie. I thought for sure my battery would die, but it didn't, even in that long-ass movie. Another movie-related exciting thing was that (500) Days of Summer came out. I had been excited for this movie since I saw Away We Go with Chessi earlier this summer, and I read online that it was coming out to different major cities at different times. I thought July 31st was late, considering it came out in NYC and LA much much earlier, but I found out a lot of other places still don't have it. That doesn't really matter; it doesn't further my enjoyment of the movie whatsoever, knowing others can't see it yet; it's just, it was a really good movie and I was glad I was somewhere where I could see it.
The last thing I will mention about living in Tucson is how easy it is to be poor here. I get so many things for free, it's out of control. As you may or may not know, I have had the hardest time ever finding a job this summer. Now that it's August, the summer is winding down, and although I have applied to about 40 places, nothing is happening in my favor. It worries me, but not as much as it would if I were living somewhere else. Luckily, my favorite cafe gives me things for free all the time. That is a definite plus. Also, you can walk into a bar here and get a beer for a dollar. That's not out of the question. I usually only go out with like $8, and that's enough. Sometimes people buy me things, but it never depends on that. I also have been getting into shows for free. One of my good friends here, Nick, is super well-connected within the city and twice has let me tag along with him. I have seen the Cowboy Junkies and De La Soul, two bands I never would have really considered paying money for, but two entertaining nights nonetheless. Being at those shows has also introduced me to Tucson's downtown, which is remarkably small, but a new arena of exploration nonetheless.
Enough about, that, though. I think I am writing this post because after my last super-emo one, I realized that it's impossible for me to change the past, I acted the way I did and that's what happened, and now instead of wallow in it I can only focus on making the present the best it can be. That has translated to many different things, but I have decided to try to get back to a healthier lifestyle for the next two weeks. Some motivation lies in the fact that my cousin Shannon is getting married on August 22 and I want to look presentable for that, but it also stems from a general recognition of how blase I have become about being healthy. I have made a couple of rules for myself: no eating "late-night," which means after a bar basically, exercising everyday whether it be swimming or running, achieving a more healthy balance between carbs and protein, fast food only once a week if that (I'm such a sucker for in-N-out and Subway), more fruit and veg, cutting processed sugars and preservatives in some ways. I think these are all relatively attainable goals, I mean I have eaten like this in the past.. and I am going to do it now until August 16, so it's not forever. I kind of want to prove to myself that I can do this, probably because I am not getting challenged in any other way. That's fine though, might as well prove something to myself and gain some sort of physical something in the process.
I also want to cut my hair. So badly! I want something between
and 
.This is a good representation of my hair now:
SO. I like the longish-bangs type look. I have a huge forehead so I think I can pull it off. I want to also cut my hair shorter, because it's so damn hot here. I don't care if it's long enough to put up. I like the legnth of Uma's hair there, but that's probably too short for me. I just want it to basically be the shortest layer in my hair right now. With some bangs. However, since it IS so hot here I was thinking about waiting until the winter to get bangs because it's impossible not to sweat out 1 liter of water everyday when you live in the desert.
Alright. Enough rambling. Feel free to tell me what you think, I have to go swim now.
No comments:
Post a Comment