I read this post about a movie called "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" from HealthyFellow.com (which is an awesome, interesting blog about health-related things):
http://www.healthyfellow.com/233/the-diving-bell-and-the-butterfly-movie-review/#more-233
It's about the editor of a magazine who becomes nearly completely paralyzed, but still has a fully-functioning mind. In essence, he becomes trapped in his body.

His story reminded me of Stephen Hawking and countless people with Parkinson's. It makes me feel lucky that my body works the way it's supposed to, and I can communicate and move freely. I remember thinking whether I'd want to have Parkinson's or Alzheimers, and I've always thought it would be better to have Alzheimers so I wouldn't know how trapped I was.

I did read a book recently called The Brain That Changes Itself by Norman Doidge, which talked about really incredible recoveries from strokes that people made by a couple of methods. One of them which sticks out in my mind is constraint-induced therapy, where for example, if the left side of your body is stroke-affected, then you put a contraint (a sling) on your right arm so that you're not tempted to use it all the time. Then you're forced to use your left arm and start from simple tasks like picking buttons out of a pile of coins and buttons and putting them into a jar. People made amazing recoveries doing this.

Here we are, in the midst of the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression, and the members of U.S. Senate are busy dispensing pork in a shameless fashion.

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Things are moving along. I'm starting a marketing internship in NYC next Thursday. I was worried that I wouldn't be able to pull it off, but I just booked a plane ticket today, so now it really seems like it's going to happen. The only hitch would be if these apartment people are either flakes or scammers, which I hope won't happen, especially since I have 2 apartments lined up just in case one of them falls through. I found them off of Craigslist so I'm worried that, shrug, they won't be there to meet me when I arrive so I'll be wandering the streets homeless, or that I'll show up and they'll be like sorry we gave it to someone else, or that I'll give them the money and they turn out to be scammers and run off with my money so I'll be homeless AND poor. I don't even want to give them the money until I'm actually holding a key and standing in the room. The other thing is that I'm in CA, so I can't even come by to check out the apartment and meet the landlord/roommates. Neither of them have sent any pictures yet, either, though one of them said she would tomorrow morning.

I reallllly hope I can pull this off. I'm excited thinking about having to cook for myself and hopefully getting to see a lot of NYC (which I've never been to before). I'm not sure how I would make friends though outside of meeting people through roommates, and it would be nice to do fun things with friends instead of by myself.

I'm working on my paper on NEOPETS that's due in about 5 hours. Eep! I'm at about 10/15 pages, although I don't plan on stressing about it too much if I can't make it to 15 pages. All this makeup and reading stuff on the delicate undereye area and not tugging there makes me feel really disgusting when I remember the times I needed to take my contacts out, and I would pull down REALLY hard on my undereye area so that nothing would block the contact. I just feel gross about it, like I damaged the skin there and I'm going to have gross eyebags.

I'm pretty stressed at the moment, but I suppose I'm just going to focus on finishing my paper and then worry about the other stuff later. Plus I get to see Rob after I hand my paper in, which is something to look forward to. He also said he'd help me pack, LOL.

I feel pretty accomplished though for getting ANY work done at all when I haven't been able to work for the past 2 months. I was feeling like maybe I was just incapable of getting work done, but it looks like I'll finish this paper.

I hate having to touch round doorknobs because they force you to wrap your entire hand around the knob to turn and open the door. It just feels so disgusting because I think about all the other people's hands that have been completely wrapped around the knob. Handles are much better because I can just use the sides of my fingers instead of my entire palm. I always have to wash my hands after touching round doorknobs. Is this OCD behavior? I can stand not washing my hands if a bathroom isn't available; it's not like I go crazy and start tracing woodgrain lines in hardwood floors. It's just that I feel much better and cleaner after washing my hands when I've handled round doorknobs.

It's 6:30 am, and I can't believe I just spent another $33 buying more makeup. I've heard some good things about E.L.F. cosmetics, and at a dollar an item, it is too easy to just toss it into the shopping cart! I keep thinking of that saying: "A man will spend $2 on a $1 item he needs. A woman will spend $1 on a $2 item she doesn't need." I just can't resist a good bargain. :-(
http://www.eyeslipsface.com
I can't believe the stuff they sell for $1 each:
eyeliners, brushes, eyeshadows, quad palettes, lip glosses, foundations, concealers, eyelash curler, blushes
It's like, for $1, you might as well try it out! Except there are too many things to try out. I even used the Buy 1 Get 1 50% off code ECTUTAY, which took off about $8. There are a lot of other good codes floating around (50% off, free shipping, free gifts with purchase) so do a search for coupon codes if you want to try the stuff out. And as always, http://www.makeupalley.com/product for super helpful product reviews.

Help! I'm addicted to MAC/makeup! In the past month or so I've bought:

First makeup haul was about $70 - 8 brush set, blush, smokey eyes quad, black eyeliner, eyelash curler, mascara, tinted moisturizer, concealer
Half of this stuff I don't even use

That was acceptable... what ensued was not:
Wet 'n Wild Ultimate Expressions Eyeshadow Palette in 396 Sand Castle - $5
BNIB UDPP - $12
All MAC:
Sock Hop - $16
Prrr Lipglass - $9
Whirl Lipliner - $7
Northern Lights MSF - $23
BNIB Light Flush MSF - $27
Lollipop Loving l/s + Eyes x 11 Holiday 2002 Palette - $55
Black Tied e/s - $10.50
Shimpagne MSF - $24.50
Springsheen blush and Mulch e/s - $16.11
used 217, BN 219, BN 239 brushes - $55

And misc clothes/accessories:
Skirt, tank top, 2 pairs of earrings - $22

Total spent on makeup: $330.11
Total spent on stuff I don't actually need: $352.11

I mean, I feel better about some purchases than I do others, but I really don't need any of this stuff.

HELP! What's the worst part? I need more stuff! I need eyeliner, shadesticks, mascara, more more more eyeshadows, more brushes, more lipglosses, foundation, primers, concealers.

Does anyone else have a makeup addiction? =( I ought to just leave mac_cosmetics because I can't resist the sales posts, plus reading about what everyone else likes and looking at all the pretty FOTDs lead me to read reviews on http://www.makeupalley.com and develop lemmings for products. It is also annoying because since I only read mac_cosmetics, I only know about MAC, so I only feel comfortable buying stuff from MAC even though MAC is the most expensive makeup brand! If I had better knowledge of other less high end brands I think I could save a lot of money. =(

I'm leaving for my spring break trip in a couple of hours. Wow, no internet access or computer for a week. The only other time that's happened was when I went to Taiwan, and I missed the internet dearly. Bye bye, laptop. :-(

My roommate WTF?! I am so annoyed. She plays loud black music with vulgar lyrics and sings along loudly. I want to put on my headphones, but when I put them on she assumes that I can't hear her music so it's okay for her to pump up the volume even more. Screw this I'm going into my passive-aggressive mode where I play my own music loudly. She also likes to play music in the morning when I'm sleeping, which I NEVER do to her. I never do anything noisy with my computer when she's in the room, be it playing music or watching TV episodes or anything. I always put on my headphones like a good, considerate roommate. I'm pissed off. I don't want to hear her crappy shitty music.