I meant to do this a long time ago

My sister had a baby, giving everyone in my family a new title.  Her name is Kaydence and she's a very even-tempered and pretty baby.  She's almost 8mos old and I think she's 5mos in this picture that my dad took of her, but I'm a bad auntie and I don't really know for sure.  But yes, when she has the ability to talk I want her to call me Auntie because, personally, I think Aunt Mandie doesn't have much of a ring to it because the two short a sounds make it a little repetitive and Auntie Mandie is even worse in that aspect so I've opted to just be "Auntie" because she doesn't have any other aunts.  Plus it's a little cuter.  Anyway, I'm in New York right now and I haven't seen her for a few weeks but from what I hear she's almost a toddler and is insanely cute.  Having a baby around is tons of fun, though, and the baby-talk that goes on around my house is just insane.


As far as academics, I learned more in this year than I've learned in any other year and that's probably because I'm finally out of community college.  I'm really happy I went to UCLA and it was really reassuring to find out I'm able to keep up with the pace of a four-year, especially UCLA.  At the beginning of spring quarter I got an internship at the Daily Bruin as a copy editor.  I worked there for five or six weeks, I can't really remember, but in any case I haven't been there for long but I would say that this is the first time I'm learning something that is actually valuable in the job market.  Sorry John Wooden Center, but I don't think the opportunity you gave me to fold towels will jump out on my resume.  So anyway, I'm very happy I got that internship and I hope to continue copy editing when I get back from NY.  I'm hoping I can get a job that's somewhere in the same vein as editing after I graduate, because I'd really rather not continue doing anything Sociology-related.

I met Shaun this year, and we've been officially together since Valentine's Day :-)  I don't want to gush excessively, but he is a very significant part of my life and I am madly in love with him.  If there are still people out there unfamiliar with our story, I'll summarize it.  We both worked at the John Wooden Center, so we met when I got hired fall quarter.  He made me laugh and he has fantastic cheekbones (I think I mentioned them in my last post), so I was interested.  He started telling me stories about a former roommate of his who believes that he is a dragon and claims to date supermodels.  Anyway, Shaun had a lot of stories about this kid, so we started hanging out more during and outside of work.  He would usually come into the gym to work out while I was on shift and wait until I was off to walk me home.  It was very sweet and did not go unnoticed by our coworkers, who apparently "saw it coming from a mile away."  On February 14 we went on our first date and decided to make it official then, because I believe having that as our anniversary gives us cute points.  And we crave cute points.  He came out to visit me here in New York for my birthday because he's just sweet like that, and the picture that I've included is from that trip.  And the dress that I'm wearing (not like you can see it that well) is one of the things he gave me for my birthday :-)

Now, I'm sitting in a crappy dorm room in New York on a UCLA Travel Study program for Sociology.  The program ends this Thursday and I fly home on Saturday.  It's been a fun trip, but I will be sooo happy to come back.  Mostly I'm excited to come back because I miss Shaun, but also I hate the filthy room I live in, I don't like being able to eat for free only between the hours of 7:30am and 8pm Monday through Friday, I'm ready to have a break from school, and also, I'm broke.  That probably made it sound a lot worse than it actually is, because I have had good times here as well.  I love that I'm in a city where I can walk around and that there's an actual night life here.  I like the wide variety of restaurants they have, even though I can't afford a lot of them.  I also really like that I knocked out 14 units in four weeks and it was incredibly easy.  It has been worth it, but it'll be nice to be back home.

After this program, I'll be finished with my degree after two more quarters.  I'm not anxious about being released into the "real world" at the moment, but maybe it'll hit later.  I guess it'll suck to not having summer, spring, or winter breaks but it'll also be really nice to not have stacks and stacks of reading to do and pointless papers to write.  I'll need to get a job pretty soon because my student loan payments will be due and I'll have to support my penniless boyfriend who will (possibly) be in med school.

I hope that if you actually read this entire thing you enjoyed it, have a good rest of the summer everybody!