Note: This post will not include good writing. I'm too tired for that. Deal with it.

Most of the summer I was perfectly happy. I realized that I had gotten used to--what with tests, endless reading and hours of lost sleep--being cranky and unhappy at school. Not that college means unhappiness for me, but it definitely means stress.

This summer felt like wiping the slate clean. My schedule was 10-6 and otherwise, I could dedicate my time to whatever I felt like--whether it was just lounging around, reading, exploring the city or writing, I was doing what I wanted to and making the most of my time.

Even this fall has felt somewhat the same--I work 10-6 and come home to Brooklyn. There are a few differences--John isn't here, it's darker and colder earlier, and with my commute, the hours are more like 9-7. But still, I'm not staying up until 3 am writing or reading. I'm getting the job done, making dinner, watching TV and reading, talking on the phone, and that's about it.

Tonight I finally started my LSAT class. It's intimidating to think I will be taking a test I know nothing about (as of now) in less than two months. I kept telling myself I'd prepare more and I'm caught between thinking that I don't really need to do more than six intensive weeks and kicking myself for not spending more time doing logic games on the subway. Whatever. The first session was a practice test, which I took--I think--with the wrong section. In fact, I can check that.

....

Again, I'm not very good at keeping this thing up to date. These days, it's not so much that I'm absorbing all my free time with fun with John or running about the city. It's more that I simply don't have free time. Then, when I do, I'm too exhausted to do anything at all.

Work is okay. I definitely appreciate that I'm writing so much and getting so much experience, but I find the personalities around the office a little grueling and the subject matter a little boring. It's strange that I'd find building houses more interesting than nutritional information, or maybe it's not. I remember clearly wanting to be an interior designer in middle school and thinking I'd love architecture (if only calculus wasn't so scary) in high school. There were times working at TOH that I thought that I'd love to drop my career mid-stream in my 40s and start working at some construction firm. Now that would be hutzpah.

Anna and I are like two peas in a pod. We usually spend most nights watching TV and eating our dinners together. It turns out we have a lot more in common than the usual thrown-together roommates do, and that's great. She's also not what I like to call the "girly-girl," but she definitely has enough femininity going on to make nights on the town a lot of fun. What I mentioned in my last post, going out with her, Andrea and Sam, was so much fun. Aside from numerous guys hitting on us and a bartender taking shots with me, I found that hanging out with girls really can be fun. Shocking, I know.

I have started loving New York. The crazy people in the subways and the ridiculous people in the street; the colors in the trees and the way the skies sometimes just light up at night; the rush of midtown and the easy cool of the Village; it's just hard not to fall in love with New York once the city cools off and stretches in the space left by a dwindling (yet still thriving) tourist population. It's great. Great enough to leave Chicago? you ask. I don't know yet.

That's another thing altogether. Leaving Chicago. Graduation. Getting a "real" life. How boringly stereotypical. John and I had a big argument about our futures a few weeks ago and it left me feeling simultaneously a lot more calm and a lot more scared about the future. More calm because John and I talked about trying to plan to be together beyond college, which makes me happy because John is my best friend in the world. It's hard to imagine taking on the next step without him. (If he's reading this, I'm going to punch him in his zippy pants.) More scared because it made the reality of a gigantic life-precipice all the more real. "Graduating" and "real life" are not vague, frightning words anymore as much as they are ominous but concrete concerns.

In the same vein, I'll be starting my LSAT Kaplan course on Monday. This will be the first time I take the LSAT in practice test form and I know I will stink royally. Regardless, I'm feeling pretty certain that the magazine industry is not for me. At least not the consumer-driven magazine industry of fluffy-puff blurbs and garble. I love everything substantial and social. I want to write something meaningful and keep meaning to get to it, but never really do. I don't think I have anything to say yet, but I'm learning, and that's all one can do.

Amy is visiting. Or rather, staying at my apartment. Right now she is somewhere in the city, I don't know where, and not really returning calls. Some things really never change.

I'm getting better at things I mean to get better at. My temper is cooling, kinda. I'm following through and working harder than ever before. I don't let me nerves drive my motivation anymore either. I frequent thrifty sales ($50 makeup for $1!, 9 books for 50 cents each!) and am now considering a new party idea for Evanston... adopting an African child in donations. Maybe that's a little ambitious/crazy, but I'd love to do it. I'd like more opportunities to do good. College has been about biting off more than I can chew (taking on genocide at rallies, for instance), but I feel like that is something (donating $20/month to a charity toward the education and health of a child) concrete and certain I can do that will help. And doing good makes me believe in something Higher and something better and bigger than myself or the world around me, which is a very reassuring thing.

Who knew being green was so easy??

From a how to be green forum, posted by a nytimes.com reader:

Posted by Paulboy, 7:13 A.M.:

1. Get rid of the indoor bathrooms and use an outhouse, or at least urinate in the backyard.
2. Stop showering everyday — it’s really not necessary and unhealthy.
3. Wear underwear for at least three days (as does the average German male per a survey).
4. Play the guitar and sing more, and turn off the TV and radio.
5. Drink at home, stay out of the bars. Invite the neighbors over to join and converse.


Let's all get green, dirty and shit-faced.

-Baked Doritos really ARE good. (And much better for you than Sunchips!)
-My Catholic father was once Jewish and taught at Temple (I find this out after 21 years of believing my father to be an Irish Catholic!)
-Those AA batteries on the subway may not be the mischief of one irate battery-vendor, but just the discarded batteries of subway riders. (I cannot quite accept this. I prefer to think of the battery-vendor.)
-Yoga is life. (Self-explanatory.)
-I may or may not be addicted to baked potatoes.
-Alex Jamieson and her husband Morgan Spurlock (of Super-Size Me! fame) live in my 'hood. (I interviewed her for an article I'm writing.)
-I miss Evanston a lot, but I actually like New York (finally).

I haven't been very good about keeping this thing up to date on many things but "feelings." So, I think I'll take my late Sunday afternoon and do some updating.

Work at R. New Product Development/YL Magazine is doing swimmingly. Where many other TM'rs complain about boredom, fact-checking and even errand-running, I find myself loaded with stories and tons of research for future stories (that I will get to write). In fact, I am a little stressed about an online piece that needs to be completed tomorrow but has yet to be started. I've found, however, that when I get stressed, I crank out my writing more fluidly and quickly than if I'm given plenty of time to mull over it. Other exciting news is that for my story on "Snack Attacks," I will get to interview Alex Jamieson, wife of the infamous filmmaker-turned-McDonalds-fiend Morgan Spurlock of Supersize Me. She got him back to his healthy-self with her "detox diet." That should be interesting and she'll be a great additional source to my story.

The most bizarre part of my job is my coworkers. YL is comprised of myself, Amanda Junker who was my fellow Chicago Unzipped publisher this past year, Paige Greenfield another Medill 06 alum, and our two editors, Dennis and Kristen. Our edit meetings are like little Wildcat Pow-Wows with supervision. Paige, however, has left to move to Park City, UT and will be freelancing long-distance. This set-up is a huge change from my TOH elders and definitely preferable.

Last night I went out with Anna, Andrea Bartz and Samantha Beerman.