I think I missed my calling as a cat burglar! My mom came into town and took me out to brunch today. It was nice actually. (shock) but when we got back I realized that I had left my keys in my house and locked myself out. I tried to force the back door open, because one of my house mates had been able to do it last month when she locked herself out. Sadly the landlord had fixed it so that you couldn't push really hard on the locked door and have it pop open anymore. (Stupid safe living conditions!) I was kind of worried then because almost all my roommates have moved out and their replacements have yet to move in, so there wasn't anybody i could call. So I went to the back windows to see if i could get in. I noticed that the bottom of one screen was already broken so I was able to pop it out. Then i managed to use a stick to unlatch the window and slide it open. Then it was a simple matter of using the top of the window frame to hoist myself up and into the window and jump down (this window let into the basement so it was a bit of a height). All in all I felt very smooth breaking into my own house. lol. The screen is still broken, but I'm thinking i won't have the land lord fix it, so that if i ever lock myself out again I can get in. I do get locked out a lot, so it's a good thing to have a way in.
Well, now that you all know how to break into my house...

I am now officially a licensed Commercial Driver. I went to the MVA yesterday and took my driving test. It was so incredibly stressful. The trainer who took me was not one that I knew and he wasn't really a big one for the talking. So that made it slightly more stressful because it was awkward. However, it took a surprisingly short amount of time. I wasn't sitting around waiting for hours like i expected too. I only had to wait about ten minutes before i started the test. The test itself was not short of course. It was about 45min for the pre-trip, an hour on the range exercises and then an hour on the road. The inspector took me up 355 to 270 and all around. Several people cut me off or nearly collided with me in an attempt to merge in front of me. Fortunately all accidents were avoided (obviously). Then as i was getting off the highway an ambulance started up its siren right behind me. I swear they must have paid them to do that just to make sure i knew what to do. It was too perfect. I was half sure i was going to fail because on the range I had to pull up in every exercise, which i usually never have to do, but i guess i was just to nervous to do the parallel parking or the alley dock exactly right. I don't think i even needed to pull up most of the time, i was just so paranoid about hitting a cone and instantly failing that i erred on the side of caution. Then on the road I thought i was doing really well, but then after i went under an over pass he asked me if i knew the clearance of the bridge i had just gone under. I had not even looked. I had passed under it on the way there and I remembered checking then, but the number completely escaped my mind. Well, that was not enough to fail me apparently, though I'm guessing that if i had managed to wedge the bus under an over pass or scrapped off the top of the bus i would have failed. lol. But i didn't and I passed!!! When I got back to shuttle I saw John and Rene and everybody and told them and they were all very happy. I got congrat's and hugs and then the dispatch manager told me that i had not choice I had to become a dispatcher. I am actually really okay with that idea. I would in fact be really pleased. It's a 75 cent pay increase and I would get to have some work hours in which i was not driving. I am licensed to do it now, but I still don't like it that much. I'm sure once i learn my routes I'll settle in, but i don't think I'll ever really relish the time i spend driving. It's stressful. I did find out by shifts, or most of them at least. I need to get a few more training sessions/drivers orientations out of the way, and then I can drive my routes. I do have one problem though. As a new driver i am required to work one grave yard shift. Mine is from 12:30am until 3:20 am. That's fine. I got an easy route and i don't have class the next day. My problem is going to be getting there and back. NiteRide doesn't service my area, or anyplace near my area actually, and no buses run that late. So i have to figure out a way to get to work and back once a week. Well, so far the only plan I've come up with is to get a NiteRide as close to my neighborhood as possible and then walk from there. It's still a long walk. As far as I can tell, the closest that I can get a NiteRide is the intersection of Berwyn House Road and Route 1. It's still at least a mile and a half from there to my house according to Mapquest. I plan to walk from here to there tomorrow to make sure I can walk that distance. After that the only problem will be the fact that i have to walk it at 3:30 in the morning. I'm not sure I should be advertising this plan, as I'm pretty sure not too many people I know will like this idea. It is the only plan so far aside from paying ass loads of money i can't afford to take a taxi or something. I don't think it will be a huge problem. I mean, greenbelt road is a pretty populated road right? ...maybe i should get some mace?
oh and I got a call from that guy again!!! He called me and asked me to a party, but he wanted a snap decision. Initially i thought, "No! I shouldn't go!" but then i decided to call somebody to get a second opinion. Sadly, i couldn't get a hold of anybody. I really just wanted confirmation that I had made the right choice, but nobody would answer the phone. Well, then i started to panic. I started to think that i should go. I should call him back, say I'd love to go and get all dressed up and...but that was where my plan ended. I couldn't imagine going to a party with this guy. I hate those kinds of parties, plus it was painfully obvious that this guy only wanted one thing from me. I mean every time he asks me out (or himself in) its clear what he's looking for. so i shouldn't go...but really isn't that what all guys are looking for in the beginning. So maybe i should go and just not get drunk and sleep with him and keep him coming back? Isn't that what your supposed to do? But does going to some stupid party even count as a date. Not in my book. Then I start thinking that this is why i don't date. Because I won't take any risks. I mean i have found perfectly solid, legitimate reasons to reject every guy that has asked me out. (except for the guy i avoided on the grounds that he 'just gave me the creeps' though i still stand by that one). I think maybe i aught to take this risk and go to the party, but at the same time going to an unknown party where you know no one and with a guy you hardly know just doesn't seem like the brightest of all ideas to me. That seems like the kind of risk that you are not supposed to take. You can see my problem. I almost called him half a dozen times. Instead I sat down to have a nice long, crazy one sided IM conversation with Jesse's away message. (A rant to which she later responded simply "1 I love you, 2 You're crazy and 3 that was damn entertaining.") It was too late to call him back and go to the party, but i started to think that i really should have gone. It was a perfect opportunity to take those risks i regret not taking all the time, to do something kind of crazy and possibly wind up with a life as a result. I was afraid that i had not gone because i was a chicken, and not because i was rational and/or too self respecting to go out with a guy like that. Then i started to get mad because how in the hell can one guy with a thirty second phone message make me call in to question my entire approach to life. Why should i start questioning my life because some guy was hoping he could get laid if he got me drunk? I mean, what the hell is that?
So, yeah. That's my life at this point in time. Except for the fact that it's also that time of the month...no not my period, silly. It's time for the monthly game of 'How Is Erin Going to Pay her Rent?' And this promises to be the most funnest game yet, cuz Erin has no freaking clue and neither does anyone in her family. :D That's happy.
Wow, and this post started out so happy. Marvel at my supper stressing out powers!

My house-mate/friend of...14ish years just went to Spain for the semester. AHHHHH!! This is slightly huge!!! I'm so excited for her/sad that she's gone/really jealous. She is going to have such an amazing time, even though she's freaked right now. So am I actually. It hasn't really hit me that she's gone yet. I want to study abroad. It would be soooooo awesome. I hope to live in a foreign country for a little while, though I haven't really figured out why or how to assign some kind of legitimacy to this yet. I'll figure something out. Adrienne says that I should teach English in said foreign country, but I think I would have to learn the native language a bit more. I guess I could go to Italy (that is actually the country that I would love to live in). If I brushed up on my Italian I could probably be passable enough to teach advanced English speakers. (Maybe I should learn my own language too. Like any native speaking American person knows grammar.)
Damn this house is gonna be empty without her. Who's going to sing loud country music at all hours of the day and night making me giggle from my room?

When i was little, i remember looking down at a line of little red ants. I marveled at how they all followed such a precisely straight line. I asked Nana how they kept to such a straight line, and she told me that they had to. She said when they left home they left a chemical trail that they followed back and they needed it to get home. If something wiped out part of that line they would be lost. I didn't think i had ever heard anything so strange, and i wasn't sure i believed it. So when Nana wasn't looking, i picked up a rock and put it directly in their path, breaking up the front of the line from the back. Nana was right. The ants scrambled, confused, lost, panicked.
I'm not sure why that memory came to me now. But i started to think that if there is a God, and we're really so small and insignificant by comparison then we must seem like ants to him. If that's true who's to say that all these things that happen to us, these sad, horrible things that are supposedly part of God's big, incomprehensible plan, aren't really just rocks he's dropping in our path so he can watch us scramble. When he's looking down at us from heaven, maybe he doesn't really see us and weep for our pain. Maybe all he sees from way up there is a broken line of ants, scrambling around trying to find there path again.

Just took my Psych final. It wasn't that bad. Only one more left now. *sigh* Afterwards i had to call my dad to give me a ride home because the bus schedule is all messed up for finals week. Speaking of buses. I have training tomorrow. I have to learn to drive the gigantic bus without hitting curbs, tree branches or people. *cringe* I'm still not real comfortable with this arrangement. I wish i could have gotten a desk job or a waitressing job or something. That's much more in my comfort zone. Tomorrow i will just have to cross my fingers and take a few deep breaths and do the best i can to go the speed limit and not scrape the mirror off with a light pole. That would really be a problem. I just keep reminding myself that i wasn't comfortable driving my car at first either, but now it completely natural. (I try not to think about the fact that there was a major car crash between uncomfortable and natural.)
i'm trying not to worry to much about it right now as there's nothing i can do until i actually get behind the wheel. Right now I will continue to watch random movies online and waste time in other completely non-productive ways.

This is another entry that was floating around on my harddrive waiting to be put someplace.

February 2,2006
2:20pm
Ithaca, New York
Today started off pretty bad. I still didn’t feel great, because the day before I accidentally started to eat a rotting orange for breakfast. I had to get up at eight and I was running late when I left. But that’s pretty much were it started to pick up. I got to my class, panting slightly, but two minutes early and found a note on the door
”Class canceled due to illness 1/02 and 1/03” so I had time to go to the library and find new Cole Porter songs that Kelly wanted me to sing. The lady at the library actually found the books for me when I asked for help, usually they just tell you to look it up by the call number. (thanks!) I found a functioning photocopier on the first floor of the library and actually got all of each page on the first try (except once). In Wo.Cho. we didn’t actually sing but rather heard a marimba player perform for us, just because and presented our silly little art work that we had to do for each movement of the winter cantata. Some of them were really cool. My favorite was the girl who did the last movement. She made a giant snow flake mounted on a piece of poster board. The snow flake spun and through each of the holes you could see part of a picture representing each of the movements. It was really amazing. It fit so well with the piece because the 12th movement is a hodgepodge of short phrases from the previous movements.
Then I had a really good lesson. I was really prepared, with my photocopies of every song I was thinking about doing, log of practicing and questions I had while practicing. Plus I just knew my songs really well. She got all excited and told me to go get song books and now I’m going to do O Mio Babbino Caro by Puccini and some songs by Fuaré like “Le Secret” And I’ve started using a vocalize book. I’ve never had a book like this for voice. It’s kind of like the grant book except for voice. I think it will really help me make progress with my voice. I’m really excited!!!! Finally I feel like I am going to make her proud and I feel like I will definitely deserve to get into the performance program if I can keep this up. I’m determined to. I work once a week in the Terrace dinning hall on the Deli with Scott, who is really nice. I work out at the gym everyday except Sunday usually, with Jesse, and on Monday night’s Rebecca and I go to Ballroom Dancing at Cornell. It’s really fun. I learned foxtrot on Monday. And we went to the intermediate class. It was a little challenging, but I got good partners almost the entire time! (that was a rarity in beginner classes) And I practice like crazy, but not so much that I feel like I won’t be able to keep doing it. I love this. I always have done better at everything when I’m more active. The busier I am the Happier I am. As my mom used to say “If you want something done, give it to a busy person. They know exactly when they’ll have time to do it.” Amen to that.

This entry is kind of sad in retrospect seeing how i did keep it up, but Kelly was never proud of me. She stopped showing to my lessons half the time and I never got into the Performance Program anyway. Instead I transfered to UMD, where i am now an English major with aspirations to become a writer...oh, well.

I'm going back to Ithaca in a few days. I'm a little nervous about it actually. Mostly because I still haven't found a new accompanist for this upcomming year. I could always still use Kristen, as i havne't fired her yet (Which i feel bad about by the way) but I know Kelly would not be happy if i did. I'd really like to not start off the school year by pissing off my teacher. perferably i will be able to avoid that this year, but it may not be possible. Anyway, yeah. My room is still in chaos, so packing for ithaca is really difficult. but you know what i'm also really excited. I miss people and junk. Plus, I am determined that this year is going to be better. I even have an outlined plan of action. I know i'm a dork, but i'm also going to be a dork who gets into the performance program.

Yay I finaly figured out how to hook up the internet to my computer! Yay! I found a job! I'm gonna be working at Shoppers in New Carrollton as the Deli Clerk. I'm a little nervous actually...hmmm...interesting.
anyway, thats all.
plus,
Damn I miss my soul mate!

Excitement tonight. We're sitting in our living room visiting, Joy came into town Yay, and we keep seeing the same few cars driving around in the parking lot a cross the street. They go away and come back a few minutes later and come back three or four cars. then after a while there are two cars parked side by side across the street.I've seen one of them a lot so we're ignoring them, thinking, "O a drug deal! No, big!" and we hear three or four gun shots in rapid succession and the cars across the street peal out. STeph and I jump right up out of the window, but we have to call for Joy and Mom to get up. Then mom calls the police to tell them what happened. Of, course they won't show up. They don't really care, but all our doors are double locked tonight.
Sleep tight! Lol!

Ok so i'm leaving for college in four days. And i'm going really far away. i'm kinda freaked out and by kinda i mean really really. but i'm also kindof excited. but i'm going to miss everybody soooooo much and it really scarey!!i mean, this is kinda the begining of the big leagues for me. it's weird how all my life has been aimed at getting into a really good music school and now i'm in and i'm going. It's rather sureal. I guess i need a new life goal now. but i kind a worried that i won't make it in college and that'll be the end of my carreer, kaputt before it even starts. !!! I know i'm being a little silly. but i'm seriously freaked out. Maybe it's just that i'm going really far away, really soon.