A Girl's Gotta Pay The Bills

Staff Potluck, Fall 2010

The Gals, Welcome Back Party, Fall 2010

Staff Christmas Dinner, Dec 2010

My Bosses, enough said.

SAO Staff, Welcome Back Party, Fall 2010

Student Staff, Spring Orientation

President Zingg and I

Peer Advisor Night Out (One of Many)

Shasta Caverns, Sept 2010

...and boy do I have an expensive lifestyle.

Even sans the great credit card max- outs of '08-'09, I still have trouble keeping up with the Jones's, in a proverbial sense anyway.

In a literal context, I'm just a poor college kid with an unfortunate taste for couture... aren't we all?

Luckily, I am without any decent places to shop, so True Religion jeans go un-worshipped and Tiffany's is just a 1/4 karat glitter in my sparkling eyes.

This post however, is NOT about dreaming of Juicy. It's actually about work...which is related directly to the green goods.

I recently quit my job working for corporate America -the "man" as a current co-worker so affectionately called it. Rude.- making lattes and dealing with cranky coffee drinkers of all ages and incomes marching in the doors of Starbucks.

While working for the coffee giant gave me all the social stimulation I could handle (and more), I just couldn't swing working in a green apron and on campus at the Study Abroad Office - plus that little thing called school.

Isn't that what I'm actually paying for? Talk about the green goods.

Since resigning my post as a professional barista extrodinaire, I have really been able to focus on my job as the International Intern Coordinator for study abroad.

All that extra time (as if) also gave me the time I needed to land a solid spring internship as the -drum roll please- the Social Media Director for Tehama Group Communications, the award winning, student run PR agency on campus.

As this semester came to a close, however, a Lorelei Gilmore quote kept playing in my mind:

" I want to stay here, in this place, just a little longer."

Late November and much of December was a total blur of serious classwork deadlines, Christmas cheer overload, stressful secret santa shopping, menorah lightings, flight delays and the need for happy hour on a Tuesday afternoon; despite all of that, I spent much of those last weeks observing my life and f(r)amily, wishing I could freeze us all together, in that place.

The only other semester I can remember feeling this way about (aside from my time overseas) is my second fall in Rexburg, at BYUI. It was me, Emily, Hannah, Alli and David against the world.

This fall, it mostly felt like just me against the world, but as I look back on the Monday morning staff meetings, Saturday orientations, Wednesday nights at Tres Hombres and countless hours at and around megadesk, I realize it really was us, trying to live our lives in the States, while our hearts were always somewhere else.

MOW: Love and Other Drugs

Size does matter.

Yes, I am talking that that outer appendage that seems to guide the hearts, souls and minds of the patriarchs of our society.

One such example of a hormone driven XY is Jamie Randall (played by the Jake Gyllenhaal) in the latest and greatest romantic comedy to hit the big screen, Love and Other Drugs.

Set in 1996, the movie takes viewers through the day-to-day life of a pharmaceutical rep in the earlier days of pill pushing, when Prozac was a new phenomenon and before Pfizer pens were in every desk drawer in America.

Gyllenhaal, a new rep on the force, works his way onto the prescription pads of his doctor clients, and into the pants of their secretaries by laying on the charm of those big blue eyes.

During an effort to woo a doctor into prescribing Zoloft, Gyllenhaal meets an early onset Parkinson's Disease patient, Maggie Murdock ( played by Anne Hathaway ). His efforts to woo are then directly focused on her, and he succeeds, falling for her (for real) in the process.

Gyllenhaal and Hathaway have undeniable chemistry, and it helps that they are half-naked for the better part of the movie. Their lust is temporarily put on hold when Jamie ( Gyllenhaal) drags Maggie all over the country trying to find her a cure, when really he is trying to soothe his own anxiety about her serious condition.

These days, I don't really love a love story, but there's something oddly real about Gyllenhaal and Hathaway. His underlying insecurity (always?) and her desperate fierceness to remain independent as her disease takes away her dignity feels less Enchanted ( Patrick Dempsey, Amy Adams) and more My Big Fat Greek Wedding.

Just two fairly ordinary people with ordinary jobs, who find themselves fighting a common battle: being in love.

The final scene shows Jamie chasing after Maggie, who is in a bus to Canada to get drugs ( a not-so-subtle jab at the pharmaceutical industry and the state of American health care), where he promptly orders her off the bus and claims he can't live without her.

The best part of the movie: when Maggie asks Jamie to tell her four things he likes about himself. I've started doing that.