Not just any toenail, mind you. The precious big toenail on my right foot. Four days later, it’s still a bloody mess, and I don’t mean in the expletive sense of the word.

It was a good old-fashioned Monday–up at six, nice hot shower… of course, I enjoyed that shower for about a second before sliding the door closed, only to have it come off its track and fall on my poor toe, breaking the nail deep in the nail bed.

Oh, I cried. I cried so hard. And let me tell you something: I don’t cry from pain. This fucking hurt. I mean, to give you some kind of idea, the door was difficult for me to lift with both hands. That, and it had to fall about a foot before reaching my toe. One of the off-ice personal trainers at my old ice rink (I used to figure skate competitively) used to say that even a little two-pound weight could break a person’s foot if dropped. I believe it.

End result: I had to go to the doctor to have my nail removed, it refuses to scab over, I can’t run until it does (it’s been a week since my last run and I’m dyin’ here!), and I’m on my third roll of gauze wrapping. Oh, life.

On the off-chance you’re concerned, the nail will grow back given time, hopefully not more than several months. The doctor says there’s a good chance it will grow back normally given that the break looked pretty clean across, but there’s also a chance it may grow back in some kind of weird state. Honestly, I just want the thing to stop hurting. And, you know, to form a damn scab.

Wearing open-toed shoes when it’s 40 degrees (about 4.5 degrees C) in the mornings is quite a treat, not gonna lie.

Any injuries of your own recently? Do share! This is a topic I strangely enjoy.

Life has been good. I’m finishing up this summer’s first full week of just work and no classes or exams. I say full week, but the building was actually closed Monday for some repairs, so I guess it doesn’t count. I will still have worked 32 hours, anyway.

I worked full-time all last summer and I’m doing it again this summer at the same job. You probably hear “full time” and think “oh wow no time for anything”, but I actually have abundant amounts of free time because I don’t have to worry about studying or doing assignments when I get home. As I said to my mom–and she agrees–working is so much better than school. I know people say that once I graduate I’ll want to go to grad school because I’ll get a taste of working and hate it, but it is seriously so much less work than being in school, maybe because while in school I also work as much as I can.

I put on more jewelry than I normally wear today because I was feeling really down this morning and for some reason it made me feel better. I guess it makes me feel like I look better, or something, which makes me feel better about myself. I put on some extra rings and bracelets, but now the rings are really starting to annoy me. Georgina is like totally addicted to rings, but I don’t understand it. I think they look nice, but my fingers are like, “Get these damn things off me!” I guess I’m just not used to them. Imagine if I get married–I’ll have to wear two rings all the time. The horror.

I’ll cut this short. The topics on my brain include school, grades, school… boring shit, really. I’ll spare you.

I think my coworker just left for the weekend without so much as a “goodbye.” Ah, social skills.

Important disclaimer for those of you named Jan who are reading this: it’s not because of you, for the last time.

Okay, moving on.

Not that I need to move on in the relationship sense. That ship has sailed, baby.

I guess I just kind of wanted to get that out there. I don’t have much more to say and I need to get to sleep if I want to go running before work tomorrow, which I do. I do I do I do. I’m going to have to keep telling myself that come 6am.

See you on the flip side, yo. And tell me about your boys, eh?

My stomach is feeling very unsettled right now. I don’t know if it’s the stress of the end of term, what I had for dinner, or what, but it’s sooo uncomfortable. I’m toasting up a slice of bread to eat in an effort to settle it.

It occurs to me that this post won’t even really be relevant a half hour from now, as there are so many “right now” references already. Snapshot in time? Maybe. My toast is done.

I took a bite. It’s yummy.

Is this whole play-by-play thing okay with you?

I think part of the reason my stomach doesn’t feel right is that I tend to have a hard time knowing when I have eaten enough. I’m usually worried about eating too much, so I think I tend to stray on the not enough side. Early this afternoon, Jan and I went out to Buffalo Wild Wings for lunch. I ordered a six-piece of traditional wings (with sweet barbecue sauce, very yummy) and had carrot sticks with ranch on the side. I felt satisfied when we left, but then we walked to the other side of downtown to visit a museum and walked another mile home, so I was quite hungry by the time I got home and had a second lunch of cereal, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and a granola bar. I felt good after that, but it seemed like a lot of food to me, so I decided to have a small dinner. For dinner I had a slice of pizza, a small salad, and a peanut butter cookie. Maybe that was actually too little. I really couldn’t tell you.

I’m having another slice of toast, this one with peanut butter. I think it was too little.

How do you know when you’ve eaten enough? It seems like people always say to eat until you’re not hungry anymore, but that never works for me because I obviously feel less hungry after every bite I eat, and even if I’m hungry for a whole meal, I won’t feel hungry anymore after something like a granola bar. I didn’t even feel hungry for dinner today, but it was getting late and I knew I had to eat. Hungry for me means stomach growling. I honestly can’t identify any other hunger symptoms. Hunger symptoms? Eh.

Every time I write the word “symptoms”, I remember how that’s the word that knocked me out of the school-wide spelling bee finals in fifth grade because I spelled it too quickly and left out the P. Just a note.

For my degree, I have to take this class called “Managing the Information Environment”. It’s only worth one credit (the minimum) and I’m taking it pass/fail (as is required), but the work still gets on my nerves sometimes. We’ve “learned” things like how to “use” Photoshop. I’ve ended up teaching the teacher so many things. Well, several things, at least. I feel kind of bad for her because she doesn’t really know how to use the programs she’s supposed to be teaching and it’s not her fault they’re making her teach this class, but I still really dislike her. Maybe in another context we could be friends, or, you know, the teacher-student kind of buddies, but this subject, man. This subject. It irks me so.

That said, I rather enjoyed the assignment I had to do for today. Since the class is all about the whole new-fangled “information environment” what with its lessons on InDesign, Dreamweaver, etc., this week they decided to teach us about The Blogosphere. Caps, that’s right.

Anyway, we had to make a blog using Blogger a few weeks back, but they never had us do anything with it besides give it a title and choose a default template. This week, though, we got to upload a banner we made in a previous assignment, mix the colors around, and best of all, BLOG. Put anything in blog form and I’m like “okay, no problem!” Sometimes when I have to write an essay with a specific word minimum, I like to think about roughly how many blog posts it is. Put it in those terms and it doesn’t sound bad.

For this assignment, we had to write two blog posts, one introducing the purpose of the website (group research fun-time) and one going more in-depth about the research we have done. Each post was supposed to be a minimum of 100 words and I’m pretty sure that’s all she’s expecting, but I definitely took it a bit far. :X I mean, I wrote relatively short posts by my standards, but I totally took the assignment far more seriously than it needed to be taken. If you want to see what I did, you can go here, but basically I spent an hour on the second post because I wanted to go totally in depth and find a quote to elaborate my point. I’m just the coolest.

I’m also taking this class called “Hooked: Addiction in American Culture”. My professor and some of her colleagues run a blog related to the topic, so for one of our assignments we either have to write a response paper about one of the posts on the blog, or write something to be posted on the blog ourselves. Naturally, I’ve already chosen the latter. I swear everything is just so much better in blog form! And considering the essay-like nature of some of my posts in the past on my own personal website, I’m sure posting to the addiction blog will be a piece of cake. Just gotta make sure I follow the tone and format of the pre-existing posts.

Each of us in that class also has to write a comment to be posted on any post we choose, but we have to print it out and bring it into class before posting because our teacher wants to go over “comment etiquette” with us. She says she’s had some “real zingers” on her posts in the past. I mean, not everyone who’s going to comment is going to be a scholarly user of the Internets, lady. That said, there are definitely plenty of people who could use a lesson in how to post a constructive comment. There’s no place for YouTube-style trolls on an academic blog, bro.

Do you remember the days when those “How to Comment Properly” and “What Not to Do When Commenting” articles were all over the place on everyone’s personal websites? The days when people got 30+, 50+, even 100+ comments on a single post… those were the days. The Golden Days of Blogging. Although there are arguably far fewer idiots around now, so maybe not.

I saw someone say once that they wouldn’t want now to be the golden age of anything because that means things can only get worse. I like that train of thought.

I decided to put my hair up in a cool little mock bun with a slightly teased top and a twisty thing down below. It stayed for like two minutes before starting to fall down. My friend Maddy thinks it still looks good with a couple pieces hanging down behind my ears, so I’m just going to leave it because I can’t be bothered to put MORE bobby pins in and I don’t really want to take it down, but maaan. I wish my hair would grow a little faster.

I just discovered last week that my hair is now long enough to put into a ponytail. No more feeling silly wearing a half-ponytail to the gym! I was so excited that I texted like three people about it. I don’t think any of them cared quite as much as me.

I just got up to look at the back of my hair in a mirror. I think I’m way too concerned about this poor little hair style. If it falls down more before I leave for my next class (it shouldn’t if I would just STOP TOUCHING IT), I guess I’ll just stick it up in a ponytail and let the top stay teased up. It’s the twisty back thing that’s giving me issues.

Anyway, I’ve been having so much fun experimenting with my hair now that I’ve realized it’s long enough for a ponytail, which means it’s long enough for a lot of other things as well. If you don’t mind, I’d like to show you what I did Tuesday that I thought was super fun.

While we’re at it, I might as well show you what I did today, yeah? And you can decide for yourself whether the fallen pieces look stupid as fuck.

Boy it’s hard to take pictures of the back of my head.

I go back and forth between “It looks so cool omgzzz” and “Rachel, take it down. Now.” I guess I’ll leave it up…

Go ahead and tell me it sucks so I can never do it again.

I still don’t know what I’m doing this summer. I know it seems far away, but I actually finish up the school year at the end of April, so I’m almost done. I have a place to sublet from a friend, but I don’t know yet whether I will be able to take classes over the summer since they still haven’t processed my summer financial aid application. It’s especially annoying because registration for the summer is in only a couple weeks now and I’d really like to know what’s going on. I guess that’s just me trying to jump ahead too far, though. I can always register and then drop all the classes if I don’t get funds. There’s really no need to stress. I guess I’m just tired.

I wrote probably a couple months ago now about how I wanted to get on a better sleep schedule, sleeping relatively early and waking up at a nice time, like 7am or earlier (my earliest class is at 10am). I can say now that I’ve been on that schedule for at least a few weeks. The only problem is the amount of freaking loud people there are in my dorm. I mean, it’s a college dorm, so what did I expect, right? We do have “quiet hours” starting at 11pm, but many people don’t follow them and I guess the residential advisors have a pretty hard time enforcing the rule. Sometimes I go to bed before 11, but I think I actually get woken most often between 12 and 2am. Once, I was woken by some guy outside my door yelling at the top of his lungs about how “hopped up on Mountain Dew” he was. Cool, bro.

I’m really looking forward to my run tomorrow morning. I’m only planning to run 2.5 miles to give my legs a little rest before I try to run 5 miles on Friday, but I’m excited to devise a new route and feel the wind in my face, so to speak. Of course, unless there’s any actual wind, there won’t be wind in my face. I don’t run that fast. After my run this past Saturday, though, I did come home to find a small fly squished on my forehead. Must have been one slow fly.

Rachel, the human windshield!

That should be my new thing.

Georgina and I are doing this thing we’re calling The Seventy-One. Basically, we’re trying to get rid of 71 things, or groups of things (e.g. a stack of magazines counts as one item), by the 17th April since we both own way too much stuff. Especially for someone like me who moves twice a year, I definitely own too many things. I’m at 28 items on my list so far, and I’m trying to go through one area of my room every weekend. Yesterday I did my dresser drawers and the shelves above them, and next week I want to do either my desk drawer and shelf or the big black trunk of doom under my bed. I have to move again in about six weeks and I really hope I will have a much more manageable amount of stuff by then.

It’s possible I’m too excited about throwing things away, you know?

It was really nice outside all last week, so on Wednesday after class I decided to walk the two miles to work instead of taking the bus. Funnily enough, I got there in 25-30 minutes, which is about how long it would have taken had I ridden the bus, seeing as I would have had to walk to the stop, wait for the bus, etc. It was still nice out after work, too, so I decided to walk back home as well. My legs were SO TIRED by the time I got home since I had already done cardio at the gym that morning. I didn’t know in the morning that I was going to want to walk four miles in the afternoon.

Anyway, while I was walking, I thought that it might be really nice to run that same route sometime, so I opted to have a go at it on Saturday morning before it got hot outside. It’s 2.3 miles from my dorm to my work and of course the same distance back, so that makes 4.6 miles if you’re good at math like me ( ), which is the farthest distance I’ve ever run. I ended up running to work, stopping in for a drink and the bathroom, and then running home. I kept telling myself, “Just make it to the medical campus, just make it to that weird naked statue…” but I ended up running all the way back home. I was so proud! It was hilly and everything.

I feel like it’s a bit pathetic that 4.6 miles is the farthest I’ve run, but I realize that’s pretty far from the perspective of someone who doesn’t run at all, so I suppose it’s alright.

I like running outside so much better than running on the treadmill. So much better. It’s a lot easier to push myself to go farther when I have a destination in mind or when stopping means it will take me longer to get home because I will have to walk. On the treadmill I have trouble pushing myself even to three miles because it’s just so BORING. I’m so glad it’s spring now and I won’t have to go back to treadmill running for about five months, maybe six if I’m lucky.

I might sign up to run another 5K race (5km; 3.2 miles) on 1 April, and there’s a 10K (10km; 6.4 miles) coming up in June in conjunction with the Ann Arbor half marathon that I’ve been thinking about trying for as well. I wonder if one day I’ll actually be able to run a marathon. I think my cousin ran one once and got her time tattooed on her ankle.

Yesterday (Sunday, surprise surprise) I had such a long list of things to do. Suuuch a long list! I didn’t get through the whole thing–I didn’t get to practice the song I have to bring to my voice lesson on Tuesday, nor did I wash the dishes or get ahead on homework like I had planned, but I did get through a lot as well and I felt very proud.

I used to hate Sundays because I had school the next day and because Sunday is my weekend homework day, but I guess now I like them. I like that it’s my homework day because I feel so damn productive when I get a lot done. These last couple weeks I have made it my chores day, too, and again, I feel so productive and accomplished and amazing. Saturday, which used to be my favorite day, is turning into quite the bum, disappointing day. I should try to let some of my productivity trickle down!

My biological clock has been pretty wonky the last few days. I would say it’s because of Daylight Savings Time (we sprang ahead Saturday night), but wouldn’t that mean I was inclined to wake up later? I went to bed around 10:45 last night and woke up this morning at 4:45… my alarm was set for 6:15, but yeah. I mean, I’m not complaining… mostly. It’s nice waking up early and having extra time in the morning, but at the same time, I’ll probably be much more tired a lot earlier tonight, now.

I’ll deal with it. Maybe that just means I’ll have to have a really productive night and get a lot done quickly so I can sleep early. Yeah.

Lately I have really felt like playing video games. I finished playing Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood a couple weeks ago, but I haven’t bought the next game, Revelations, yet because I’m reluctant to spend the money. I only usually play on the weekends anyway because I don’t have time during the week, but I’m still feeling the absence of something to play. I’ve felt like playing some kind of whimsical kid game lately, so I ordered LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga yesterday and I am SO PSYCHED for it to come this Wednesday. I had Silent Hill: HD Collection on pre-order as it’s due out the 20th March, but I cancelled that because I want to get through the LEGO game first. I barely have time for one game… can you imagine me wanting to play TWO all the time? I wish I had all the time in the world and didn’t have to exercise any discipline whatsoever, man.

Jan has borrowed my DS so he can play Pokemon White. He keeps complaining that it’s pink.

My fuzzy pair (my only pair) is dying. Or rather, has died. The fuzzy lining has been rubbed completely off the heel and toes, and the sole has separated so much from the bottom of the right slipper that I actually trip over it quite often.

I know some people like to spend a hundred dollars on slippers and get a nice Ugg pair. I think they’re supposed to be really warm and comfortable, yes? But like, mine were too until they died, and I only paid $10 for mine. Also, mine lasted over a year. So unless a pair of Ugg slippers is going to last ten years without wearing down, I don’t see the point. It’s not like anyone is going to judge me on my fashion sense based on the slippers I only wear inside my own home. I guess those Ugg slippers are indoor-outdoor, but so are mine and I have worn them outside briefly on occasion. I might feel kind of undressed if I wore them OUT out, though.

Like, admittedly, these are pretty cute as far as slippers go. And they even come in purple–badass!

But what’s the difference, really, between those and these, on sale for $13.98 from Target?

My current slippers from Target, these in grey, match seemingly exactly these from Ugg. Someone said on that pair of Ugg slippers, “Since I wear these often, the fur lining is wearing down and I need to get a new pair soon.” So there’s no difference in that regard, which is the most important aspect to me in a pair of slippers because once the inside wears down, they’re not NEARLY as comfy. At $10 a pair, I could buy TEN pairs of my Target slippers for the price of one pair of the same Ugg slippers, alternate which pair I wear so no one pair gets worn down too quickly, and have happy feet for a really long time.

I get it, sometimes more expensive items are better-made. I definitely believe my MacBook Pro was worth the extra thousand dollars. But slippers? I don’t know, man. That purple color is really quite tempting, but there are SO MANY OTHER THINGS I could buy with that money. Like the ukulele I got it in my head to buy yesterday. (Which is stupid because I don’t even usually like how they sound.)

I used to have a pair of blue slippers. They weren’t fluffy on the inside, but they were really warm and comfortable. I wore them for quite a while, and my mom actually wore them for quite a while before that. Now THOSE are slippers built to last, and I’m sure they were cheap. Maybe I should get over the whole furry inside thing.

Yeah, right.

Secretly I want a pair of slip-on clog slippers like the ones I have now AND a pair of moccasin slippers that would look less conspicuous to wear down to the cafeteria. Both fuzzy, please.

I’ll have a look at Target next time I’m near one. They always come through for me.