So a lot can happen in a month or so.

And I suppose the best way to tackle it is chronologically.

I have turned twenty-three, and I am loving it.  The sound of it is immensely better than twenty-two, in my opinion.  My birthday was absolutely fantastic, especially in light of how horribly it could have turned out.  Possible birthday scenario: I don't know anyone in Chapel Hill that would give a damn about my birthday, Brian away on business, and me spending my birthday alone.

Actual birthday scenario: My best friend in the entire world flew to see me, Brian got his training rescheduled, and a few Chapel Hill friends made sure we all got to go out to dinner to mark the occasion.

Leslie flew in the day before my birthday.  Leading up to it, I was so excited I could have peed my pants.  Things are exactly the same between us - the same as they were when we were 9 and going to the same elementary school, the same as when we were 12 and tackling puberty at different middle schools, the same as when we were 16 and finally could drive ourselves to each other's houses, the same as when we were 19 living two hours apart, and the same as when we were 21 living less than 2 blocks apart.  Now we are (or both will be shortly) 23, both in incredibly foreign environments, tackling grown up problems and relationships, 500 miles and several states apart, and not a thing has changed.  I am immensely thankful for that; words just will not do.

On the actual day of my birth, Leslie and I went thrifting to find some decorations for my house (increasing your square footage by 300 after getting rid of most everything that wouldn't fit into a Honda Civic leaves you with one bare looking house, believe me).  We discovered that the good people of Chapel Hill are not very interested in thrift.  Then we went to dinner with Brian at a relatively good sushi place - though not as good as west coast sushi, of course - and played around Wal-Mart before selecting a new game for the evening.    The photo illustrates what happens when you have a few Shikitinis beforehand.

The day after we went to Duke Gardens, which is not nearly as pretty in the winter time, but lovely still.  Leslie insisted it looked like Hobbit-Land, which I recently discovered is called "The Shire", my dear.  Then the three from AZ met two from NC (I've made friends with two Courtneys, and although I feel bad about doing it sometimes, calling them "the Courtneys" is very convenient).  We had dinner, and it actually went really great. I got some wine from one and two wine glasses from the other - gifts I was not at all expecting, and the fact that they thought to do that really meant a lot to me.  Conversation flowed very well between all of us, and it was such a nice night to not have to force anything, to not worry about interactions or anything at all.

After birthday comes finals (as always seems to be the case, being the perpetual student, lol).  I came out of my first semester of pharm school with a 4.0, though just barely - I wound up with an 89.8 in one of my classes that I had just given up and accepted the B in.  Ohhh, the power of rounding.

I flew home for Christmas.

Although I don't like the cold, I have decided that I appreciate the change of seasons because it makes me *feel* the holidays.

My time home has been a mixed experience.  With the problems at home, Christmas Day started off just as badly as I had been envisioning for months, though it shaped up by the end of the day.  My family drives me absolutely crazy sometimes, but I still want to be around them, and I guess that means I love them to the core ;)  I'm very lucky to have a family that loves me so much too, and so much of a family that feels that way on top of it.
There are some things, though, that just reinforce my need to have my own life - one that likely won't be very intertwined with theirs. That's an adjustment from the way I thought pretty much all of the time I was growing up, and it's a little sad too.  It'll all work out.

Went out to spend New Year's with Brian and his family in California.  I do love that bunch, and the mini vacation within the vacation was just what I needed.

And here we are in 2010.  Resolution? Sure, I made one.  I resolve to be less of a hypocrite.    Ways in which I will accomplish this:

-Do what I tell others they should do.  Sleep more, eat better, exercise more.  No good just advising others that this is what they need for optimal health.  Mostly exercise more - I sleep as much as I can and eat fairly decently already.

- Stop being jealous of others.  I can be what I want to be if I just apply myself to it, and there's no sense in feeling inadequate because of others.  This mostly applies to looks, as vain and shallow as it sounds. My nails can be kept, my face can be put together, and my hair can be as done as anyone else's.  No more feeling badly - just do something about it.

- I need to stop feeling insignificant while touting and championing the positives of those around me.  While others do deserve their praise, it is feasible that someone could find something about me so irresistably interesting that they wish they could copy it.  (Please do not misread: I am not looking for a fan club.  I simply am going to stop saying - man, _____ is so great about her.  I wish I could be like that.  Instead I'm ____. Boo me.

-Reach out to others more.  I want people to come talk to me, but I'm too afraid of rejection to walk up and talk to a good majority of them.  << That sounds NOTHING like the me I was 6 months ago, but moving across country away from my safety net has really rocked my confidence.  I want to get that back; I want to exude my true self.  There's no sense in expecting everyone else to make this easy for me.

-Be more sustainable.  One objective in this arena - plant a garden.  I don't have much space, so I won't be growing all of my own produce or anything, but I think I'll start small with an herb garden.  (I would also like to plant begonias.  Beyond herbs and begonias, I don't know how far my green thumb will hold out.)

All that said, if I fail to achieve my resolutions, as many of us do, it will be okay.  For as much as I'd like to change the above things, I'd still be pretty damned happy with my life as a whole if not a single one of them gets accomplished.  That's a pretty fantastic place to be.

Things I do not want to change in 2010:

-My relationship.  Brian makes me phenomenally happy every day, and coexisting with him is effortless.

-My location.  For one thing, I can't forsee why I would move before school is done, so if I did move, it would probably not be good news.   Also, as slow and challenging as it has been to adapt to a new life, I like North Carolina.

-My weight.  Many people resolve to lose weight, but not me.  Granted, I wouldn't mind changing the composition of my weight a little, but I've been this weight for 6 or 7 years, and my body seems happy here.  Plus, I don't really have the coin to spring for a skinny wardrobe right now, lol.

And I think that's it.  Much less grand than I had intended; for weeks I've been thinking through what I wanted to put in here, and then when one sits down to actually do it, it's hard to piece it all together.  No more month long breaks!