C showed me this song and we recently analyzed and discussed just how good it is. It's the kind of song you can sit back and enjoy while you let the lead singer translate all your thoughts on your recent breakup into words. The regrets, the regret of having regrets, the confusion, the what the hell is wrong with you/why the hell did you change your mind, the desperation of wishing it could have worked. And of course the concluding universal disgust with love- "One more fucking love song, I'll be sick-"
Levine's voice has always been good at mastering the self-reflective and honest realities of heartbreak, but in this track in particular his voice fluctuations carry another kind of power, a way of making irrational, messy pain sound logical and even wonderful.
Kind of makes feeling shitty about yourself after getting dumped seem.. normal. Because you know it never does. It has a way of making you feel like someone's on your side. Even better, it has a way of making you feel like Adam Levine is on your side. "You can't expect me to be fine, I don't expect you to care-" The structure of that line is so simple while carrying so much meaning and truth. He removes his emotions from the situation and makes them his own. So smart.
And on top of the song writing, the record successfully draws on pop and hip hop influences while staying true to the band's pop-rock identity.
Wiz takes it away like he always does, coming in strong with a plain, straight-up "Man fuck that shit" line, only to introduce his quintessential empowering rap style that nails the "I'm ok, I'm doing me and you're gonna miss this" outlook we all come to know after that period of hurt.
So thanks anyway Taylor and Chris Brown, but I think Maroon 5 and Wiz Khalifa can take it from here.
Tuesday
When Tuesday feels like Monday and other reasons I'm laughing too hard to care
See the colorful one on the far right? She's leaving for Thailand in ..too soon to study abroad and meet monks and boys that don't wear shoes. And it scares the 8tracks outta me to think that for an entire semester I won't have anyone to share berry-infused beers with or talk about guys in tanks with or text during work about what playlists are getting us through endless hours in cubicles. Usually the ones with titles including words like summer/passports/rage.
Waking up at 7 am this morning was fun! #thingsiwon'tsaytoday. My memorial day weekend was also pretty fun, can't you tell by the picture? Hope so, because I think it's the only one we have. It started in Wilmington at 8 pm Sunday night with a Shock Top lemon shandy and ended in Target at 8 pm last night with -$240. Did you read that right? That's a negative sign. Thanks dad! You know you'd think because I try and be so grown up and independent these days that I could spend my own $240 at Target. But why do that when you can call your dad in the middle of the bathing suits racks and explain how you really, really, really need new hot pink pants. And bras. The trick is to say you need new bras, he'll stop asking questions. Men..In other notes, C is like the funniest person I know. Like I don't think I've ever laughed so hard as I did during our drive home from Wilm. I'm not sure if the sugar high from all the 25 cent Kangaroo slush helped that case, but I physically woke up laughing this morning remembering some thing or another we talked about in those 2 hours. It actually took like 4. Blame nonsensical traffic, long lines at Meadow gas station, driving back and forth down Wrightsville Avenue hunting down sketchy Dominos/ Kangaroos with slushies..... who knows..
I want to show you everything I got at Target! But half are cool underwear and half are cool shoes and then there's the hot pink pants that I think you could probably get a good picture of in your head. And don't tell anyone, but I got a Target triangle top bikini with removable padding. No indie fringe, no trendy neckline, no zippers. Triangle boobs. Like I'm in middle school or something. But I love it. My little chest and I love it.
Here you go
OMG How could I forget to tell you!!! SACI said yes. I'm going to Italy!
And one more reason I am the luckiest girl ever.
Thursday
For when you don't have anything to think about
So start listening and by the fourth song you'll be so zoned out that you're thinking about so many things and don't even realize it. My philosophy class would call this introspective consciousness. The example our professor gave for it was like a truck driver driving down 95. She is still physically attending to the road, but consciously she is attending to her thoughts. I like how our professor uses "she" when talking about a hypothetical person. #subconsciousfeminist
Anyway I was done with it after the fourth song... but that doesn't make the first 4 any less good.
Here's a little flashback I copied and pasted from my Facebook from Tuesday, February 3, 2009 at 12:09 a.m. Looks like I was a night owl on school nights! I'm pretty sure Feb 3rd was during swim season, and that I had to be up at 6 a.m. for swim practice. I was probably tired that Wednesday.
no life!
RULE: Once you've been tagged you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you it's because I want to know more about you.
To do this, go to "Notes" under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag 25 people(in the right hand corner of the app) then click publish.
1. when im on Word, I have to be able to see the whole page that im typing on.
2. I love when chapstick has been sitting in the car for a long time in the sun so its soft when you put it on.
3 .I dream about being able to walk into a dessert bakery and eat everything in the glass case display for free.
4. postsecret is one of the very few good things about technology
5. shania Twain is a goddess
6. I like Sunday football but not for the football
7. microwaved leftover bread rolls annoy me
8. Sometimes I wish gh was small
9. I miss believing in Disney princesses
10. I hate sticky counters
11. And short lunches
12. Josh Hartnett is cute
13. I love peas!!!
14. I never make my bed
15. in hotel hallways the carpets are faded in the middle but really vibrant on the edges and in corners where plants are and the vacuum marks stay.
16. It annoys me when guys have bad posture
17. Breakfast is the best part of the day
18. I still haven’t set my clocks back.
19. Three words: vanilla bean noel.
20. Two more: pop tart
21. you try too hard and its very apparent
22. I could live off of tv show episodes on dvd
23. theres over a hundred reasons why my grandparents are the greatest.
24. camping is the best escape
25. but music usually does the trick
To do this, go to "Notes" under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag 25 people(in the right hand corner of the app) then click publish.
1. when im on Word, I have to be able to see the whole page that im typing on.
2. I love when chapstick has been sitting in the car for a long time in the sun so its soft when you put it on.
3 .I dream about being able to walk into a dessert bakery and eat everything in the glass case display for free.
4. postsecret is one of the very few good things about technology
5. shania Twain is a goddess
6. I like Sunday football but not for the football
7. microwaved leftover bread rolls annoy me
8. Sometimes I wish gh was small
9. I miss believing in Disney princesses
10. I hate sticky counters
11. And short lunches
12. Josh Hartnett is cute
13. I love peas!!!
14. I never make my bed
15. in hotel hallways the carpets are faded in the middle but really vibrant on the edges and in corners where plants are and the vacuum marks stay.
16. It annoys me when guys have bad posture
17. Breakfast is the best part of the day
18. I still haven’t set my clocks back.
19. Three words: vanilla bean noel.
20. Two more: pop tart
21. you try too hard and its very apparent
22. I could live off of tv show episodes on dvd
23. theres over a hundred reasons why my grandparents are the greatest.
24. camping is the best escape
25. but music usually does the trick
I feel like it's one of those time capsule things you make in
Off to visit C's little sister at her place of work which conveniently happens to be a bar in Raleigh with 1500 different types of beer. And good pretzels. Cheers to that.
Monday
Things to do in the summer when you don't have anything better to do
Summers are for being bored and free ($$). (Only on the afternoons you don't have class/work/internships.) Because if you're like me, you need to save your money up this summer for things of the future, like growing up and traveling and continuing your education. Some of these ideas might cost some $$, but less $$ than it'd cost to.. say.. go to Wet n' Wild water park for the day or.. rent a beach house. I don't know. But I decided I'm allowed to spend a few bucks here and there as long as it's not on beer.
Put cool barrettes in your hair
Pull sweaty hair back out of your face with no effort and still look put together from the back.
These starfish barrettes are from etsy.com. While they are precious, I just said I didn't want to spend any money, so I'm going to go rummage through old drawers in my mom's house in search of those plastic snap kind from '96 instead.
Make a picnic
Yea this picnic is a joke. I bet they have fake scones on those Pottery Barn plates, too. But you don't have to have lacy throw pillows and billowing sheets hanging from trees to make a picnic adorable and delicious. If you have one of those wooden woven baskets with a checkered table cloth in it- that's awesome. But if not, I think those reusable grocery bags from Harris Teeter or Trader Joe's work pretty good. Basically bring cheese, Ritz crackers, strawberries, french bread and spicy hummus, cold asparagus with a container of melted lemon butter for dipping, tortilla chips and guacamole, and anything else berry-like or having to do with dipping. Also friends that play guitars or ukuleles so you can have strumming and sing-a-longs for dessert.
Get ice cream
It's different than scooping yourself a bowl from the pint in your freezer. 1, you have the option of getting a cone. 2, you can sample all the other flavors before you order the kind you knew you were going to get all along. Get off your couch and pay someone else 5 bucks to do the scooping so you can do the licking and showing off of the sailor outfit you put on this morning.
Wear sweatshirts with shorts
Like when you're in England in July and you're wearing flip flops and shorts thinking it'd be hot like summer in Chapel Hill, but really it's 50 degrees and rainy and you're wearing flip flops and shorts and there's no hiding you're American.
Ride bikes
This actually used to be something to do before cell phones and driver's licenses. It was like -"Hey can you play? Ok wanna ride bikes?" And then you'd go wheel over to your friends and take the adventure from there. Something about hipsters and beach bikes and 2011 has made riding bikes cool again, but I think even still the activity is underrated. You don't have to go anywhere, you can just cruise around a close-by parking lot, and you certainly don't need to go anywhere that takes you down hills -unless you have calves that will take you back up- But there's almost no argument I can think of for why you shouldn't. It's free and fun, and, well, that's all you should really be concerned about in the summer anyways.
Pick flowers from people's yards and arrange a bouquet
You might get yelled at because I'm pretty sure this is illegal, but there are tons of great flowers blooming around Chapel Hill right now, and every time I pass by a little garden of colorful ones, I always want to snatch one. Do this until you get a good sized handful of stems and design a summery bouquet for your house. I guess if you find long stems, you could put them inside your rainboots near the front door like this idea from Funky Junk Interiors. Or just use a rinsed out jelly jar. Or any vase-type container. I just think glass looks best, because you can see the water and the stems sitting in it. I have this empty glass bottle of linseed oil that comes to mind. If you get a bunch of glass bottles of different shapes and sizes, you could create a series of bouquets and line them up in a varied pattern. Yea, that'd be cool.
Friday
Free air conditioning and sunscreen
Is how I like to think of the lab on sunny days.
Playing roller-chair bumper cars in here is kind of the best. Especially while you're waiting for seventeen hours for seventeen sediment samples to filter through a 0.2 micron filter. Especially on floors like this:
Playing roller-chair bumper cars in here is kind of the best. Especially while you're waiting for seventeen hours for seventeen sediment samples to filter through a 0.2 micron filter. Especially on floors like this:
Thursday
Some people just get it
Like the people of Aer. I know that pretty much no one besides me it's just E thinks Aer is as cool as I do, but maybe one day it will be quiet where you are and you might want something to press play about. Enter: any of the 8 tracks playlists I've shared with you on this blog or on @shanlife /any of the playlists you find on that magical world of a music site yourself/ this catchy little single I'm sharing with you right here right now:
Other things I like about this summer so far:
1. Working for hours on end some days of the week so that on other days of the week I can do absolutely nothing besides get in the sun and stretch out in nothing but a bathing suit. And the weekends spent playing all night on Franklin Street or taking road trips to places we've never been. This summer has really given a new meaning to the term "Work hard, play hard."
2. Dog parks. Basically just the one, which isn't even much of a park, just a smallish link-fenced-in yard with some muddy patches and a bunch of happy pups running around.
3. my iPhone. And all the pictures it takes.
4. Seeing C, her sea-spray blonde hair and addicting laugh and awesome colorful pants. It's been the longest time since we've been within single digit miles of eachother, but time ain't really got nothin on us.
Gosh I missed her
Wednesday
Hey baybayy, I think I wanna marry you
That's the song I caught the person in the elevator with me listening to on his headphones. Maybe he will propose to his girlfriend tonight. Gosh that's romantic. Too romantic for this blog! Hurry change the subject!
Everything has been happening so fast! Within 72 hours I was granted a second opportunity to apply to SACI for fall study abroad, ran around, physically, collecting a duplicate transcript and second recommendations from professors, and got it all sent to New York for consideration one month before the deadline. Now I'm waiting patiently to hear back from SACI, whilst listening to patient songs like ones by Ben Harper. Which are calming because I know all the words to every song (not that it's hard to) and it's like some kind of source of reassurance. Because there are too many unknowns right now, it is not the time for obscure indie songs with unknown lyrics. Get it?
So SACI'll either say sorry, the odds were never in your favor! Or yes! Come on over Shan! And I'm terrifed it wont be the second. Ive never been more nervous for a 50/50 outcome in my life. Not even when taking other equally intense risks such as your last roll in a game of Yahtzee or the first time you lay down your cards in a round of Rummy. So nerve-racking. My nerves are literally being racked. Did that sound dirty to you? Like, hey baby, let's nerve-rack tonight. Yo girl u tryna get your nerves racked later? AYy rack tonight, ya dig? Ok enough of this neurologically-themed bedroom talk, let's talk about something else. Like how Avengers is out and I haven't seen it yet but really want to. Also in that category of movies yet to see is Dolphin Tale. But that's so unbelievable to admit that I think I'll just stop here.
Bye have fun at work, I will if you do!
Everything has been happening so fast! Within 72 hours I was granted a second opportunity to apply to SACI for fall study abroad, ran around, physically, collecting a duplicate transcript and second recommendations from professors, and got it all sent to New York for consideration one month before the deadline. Now I'm waiting patiently to hear back from SACI, whilst listening to patient songs like ones by Ben Harper. Which are calming because I know all the words to every song (not that it's hard to) and it's like some kind of source of reassurance. Because there are too many unknowns right now, it is not the time for obscure indie songs with unknown lyrics. Get it?
So SACI'll either say sorry, the odds were never in your favor! Or yes! Come on over Shan! And I'm terrifed it wont be the second. Ive never been more nervous for a 50/50 outcome in my life. Not even when taking other equally intense risks such as your last roll in a game of Yahtzee or the first time you lay down your cards in a round of Rummy. So nerve-racking. My nerves are literally being racked. Did that sound dirty to you? Like, hey baby, let's nerve-rack tonight. Yo girl u tryna get your nerves racked later? AYy rack tonight, ya dig? Ok enough of this neurologically-themed bedroom talk, let's talk about something else. Like how Avengers is out and I haven't seen it yet but really want to. Also in that category of movies yet to see is Dolphin Tale. But that's so unbelievable to admit that I think I'll just stop here.
Bye have fun at work, I will if you do!
Sunday
Wild awake
Hello again Blog! Sorry I've been having too much fun in my little college town to pay attention to you. This doesn't have anything to do with anything, but I saw my neighbors from home the Patels today on a crosswalk and the graduater Patel is so beautiful. Like so beautiful, I've never seen anyone so beautiful in my life. Anyway, you might have been wondering where I've been! And I'm here to tell you that all this time I was either rain-storm camping at Carolina beach or overcast-poolside at an apartment complex that I do not live in or in my front yard at 9 o'clock in the morning learning battle formations from several snipers of the U.S. army's special force.
What
Also this song rocks a lot
Even if it's the one that always comes on the ESPN commercial that makes Twitter blow up with people tweeting "SOMEBODY LEFT THE GATE OOOPEN"
I love how you can't tell if LP is a guy or a girl
What
Also this song rocks a lot
Even if it's the one that always comes on the ESPN commercial that makes Twitter blow up with people tweeting "SOMEBODY LEFT THE GATE OOOPEN"
I love how you can't tell if LP is a guy or a girl
Tuesday
When you sit on a metal patio chair for too long and you get intricate imprints on the backs of your legs
Basically, I need more underwear. My laundry-doing habits just can't keep up with me. And running out of clean underwear is like the worst because you always end up realizing it when you have absolutely no time to do laundry.
My roommate just got a million cute things from Victoria's Secret, so for starters I went onto the site and made sure I got back on the list that gets free panty cards every so often. Then, I decided I probably wanted to spend more on beer this month than underwear, so I checked out Target. Then, I decided I probably would rather have cute underwear than beer, so I checked out Gilly Hicks. (A girl in my design class who's about to start a big career with them told me about this place. It's actually kind of the best.) It's cute and their underwears don't say things like "PLAY BALL"
I guess I could do the kind of post I usually do when I find good things to buy online, but I think you can take it from here. Also, I guess I'm not really interested in showcasing my new underwear on this thing.
Anyway, you can drink again soon. But this month, buy some down undies and give your liver bank account a break. She's still trying to figure out this college girl thing, too.
Thursday
Single man task of the week: Sing every word of this song to the coolest girl you know
TONIGHT.
This one's for you, male reader. Who came to me concerned he was being left out of the strictly single-girl content of the "Single girl task of the week" post. I'm only doing this for you because you kept your lips sealed when I confessed to you that I once ate ice out of the "Not for human consumption" ice machine at the lab. That's a blog-post worthy male if I've ever seen one.
This one took a while to think of. I mean, what even is a single man task? Hey here are some cute deodorants under 20 bucks, get that debit card out and go crazy! So scattered thoughts here and bad ideas there, I finally decided what you, single men of the world, should do for yourself this week.
And that is to sing your precious little scruffy faces off to the most single girl you can find.
I know I said to sing this to her tonight, but since it's a task of the week, you've got a few days left. To work on tempo and memorize lyrics.
Warning: Upon completion of task, you incur high risk of not being single. If she's as cool as you said she was. Because this song kicks single girl ass.
This one's for you, male reader. Who came to me concerned he was being left out of the strictly single-girl content of the "Single girl task of the week" post. I'm only doing this for you because you kept your lips sealed when I confessed to you that I once ate ice out of the "Not for human consumption" ice machine at the lab. That's a blog-post worthy male if I've ever seen one.
This one took a while to think of. I mean, what even is a single man task? Hey here are some cute deodorants under 20 bucks, get that debit card out and go crazy! So scattered thoughts here and bad ideas there, I finally decided what you, single men of the world, should do for yourself this week.
And that is to sing your precious little scruffy faces off to the most single girl you can find.
I know I said to sing this to her tonight, but since it's a task of the week, you've got a few days left. To work on tempo and memorize lyrics.
Warning: Upon completion of task, you incur high risk of not being single. If she's as cool as you said she was. Because this song kicks single girl ass.
Wednesday
Wait I forgot to tell you about the cherry on top
Death by Jack Rogers. I try people, I really do.
Ok are you done? Yea, me too.
Lab life
It's 80 and sunny today and I'm in a -20 degree lab wearing a fleece. This is a source of recurring angst for me. Happy summer! Also disappointed iPhone doesn't have a degree symbol. Also while I successfully made it to my bed last night, the phone successfully didn't make it to the charger. Happy 27% battery! Also ate too many baked potatoes for lunch, and apparently sometime between the last time I ate a baked potato and now, I decided it was good idea to eat the skin, too. Conclusion-my stomach is experiencing awkward pains. Some girls go on summer diets. This girl goes on ogre diets. Do ogres eat potato skins? I feel like they do. One last thing- don't look at the pimple that showed up on my cheek this morning. Concealer? Naah. Today's a good look for me, eh?
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