So, guess what? i passed my boards!!! I am officially a General Merchndise Manager. I have my own store and everything. I’m in the south setauket store, which is east and north of me. it’s about 20 minutes away. it’s a beautiful store though. it’s only a year old. i have my work cut out for me though because it’s huge and hasn’t had a gm manager for 3 months. there’s a lot of cleaning up to do, but i’m excited. the bad news is that i’m having problems with my hand again and it’s really hard to work one handed. anyway, i’m gonna cut this short. i miss you all! i hope everyone is well

For all of you who do not read the comments…Dawn posted a message:

Hi everyone!! Stupid hotmail deleted all of my old messages, so I lost the link that Shira had given us to post messages, and I haven’t actually figured out how to do it yet from the website…I know you all find that hard to beleive…so I hope everyone reads the comments!! It was so good to read all of your messages, I miss you all soooo much!!!!!!! Nicole, I’m so sorry to hear you’re having a difficult time, but it is completely normal to be upset that he has a new girlfriend…it will keep getting easier though, and eventually you’ll have a new guy of your own! Jen, I’m glad to hear your new job is going well…I can’t believe you’re a manager!!!! And I also can’t believe you missed the Dave concert…Caitlin K., CANCUN???!!! That’s so awesome!! Congrats on almost being done with your first semester! I hope your cadaver is doing well, and that you didn’t butcher her too badly 🙂 Shira, how are you? I love the uniform…they’re kind of fun aren’t they?? And htey greatly decrease the amount of time it takes to get ready in the morning! We’ll be in the same state again tomorrow…yay! Frances, I just talked to you, so I know things are going pretty well…you neglected to mention this boy though! Yay for drunken hookups 🙂 Jess, that sounds like a really tough decision…have you picked which job you’re going with yet? I’m glad to hear wedding plans are going well! Laura, I can’t believe you hurt yourself already. Actually, yes I can. That sucks about your commute, but I hope you’re enjoying what you’re doing and learning a lot! Caitlin L., what’s up girlie? I’m actually kind of glad you didn’t move yet, you were making me nervous talking abotu moving to NYC without a job! I think the pharmacuetical thing sounds great though…you guys give us free stuff!

As for me…RI was an adventure…I will tell you all more about it later, but Shira kindly posted the first two weeks for me. Awful. The middle was ok…hte last week was a blast. We were pretty much on our own…we went out and got drunk a lot, like only sailors can, we went to Boston for a day…I actually did have a mini thing going with one guy…you can’t really have much of a thing, they’re not allowed. But Caitlin K., you would be so proud…he’s black, bald, and has an incredible body…if I can figure it out I’ll post a picture. AND…he’s stationed in Great Lakes, right near you. Wierd, huh? Going out in public in uniform was the oddest thing in the entire world. You get so used to being anonymous…but people actually took pictures of us, bought us drinks, thanked us, we got discounts…really wierd, but really cool! I’m going to stop now cause this is really long, but I will update again soon, and can’t wait to hear from all of you! I leave for Cali tomorrow…yikes!! Talk to you soon! Love and miss you all terribly!

Posted by Dawn at October 12, 2003 04:39 PM

I have a confession to make… I now watch felicity. it’s on 7pm on “WE” every weekday, and while I don’t catch it all the time, I get it a couple nights a week. it’s a pretty good show, although I am glad I didn’t get hooked during college, wednesday nights was the one time I actually got stuff done! I think it helps with the missing of you all. (which I’m doing a lot of, I just got all teary-eyed in the middle of the library reading everybody’s entries)

Things around here are going ok. work is just work, but I have four applications for grad school sitting on my coffee table, and I’m going to actually start looking at them and filling them out, etc. I think I’m going to give Grad Student Mike and that English prof Jen and I had (what was his name again?)a call and see if he feels like writing me a stellar recommendation.

I’m in a bit of a funk at the moment (probably the main reason for the tears). I know it’s not supposed to matter to me or anything, but Steve’s got a new girl. I went to the movies with Lynn, Kim, and Matt last night, and when we got back to Matt’s house (aka Steve’s) he was sitting on the couch with this girl, and I saw his hand on her leg. BIG HUGE IMMEDIATE STOMACH ACHE. I didn’t run away, and I didn’t flip out, but I was shaking a little as I introduced myself, grabbed a glass of water, and promised myself I would stay till the end of the cubs game and then go home. Her name is Lori, and she was nice, cute, had good things to contribute to the conversation, and was perfectly ok with Steve acting like himself. I have absolutely no problem with her. she’s a good girl for steve to be seeing. and I’m happy that he’s going out and being happy. but if all that is true, why do I have this huge stomach ache and feel like I’m in a big near tears haze? I think it’s purely selfish reasons, like the fact that I miss somebody telling me I’m pretty and somebody holding me, and all that mushy stuff. and it probably doesn’t help that being a girl is going to suck in a couple days (aka getting zapped, T.O.M, etc) I think I’m in shock. it keeps going in waves of feeling ok about it, and feeling like we just broke up all over again. and I’m incredibly frustrated with myself for feeling like this. it’s been almost a year for crying out loud!! and he’s been on dates since then!! and I don’t even really want to be with him again because, by the end, he wasn’t that good to me in the first place! grrrrr… I can’t wait to get out of here and not have to deal with any drama related to him again. that probably sounds cowardly, and I don’t know if that’s really what I mean, but sometimes it feels like the only way I can move on is to get him out of my life completely, and that’s just not going to happen as long as we are in the same town. on the other hand, I don’t want to lose the friend that I have either. I just need to be able to sort out my feelings, ditch the annoying mushy ones, and only keep the good and healthy ones. in fact, I already feel a little bit better for talking to you all about this, so thank you a whole whole bunch. for those of you who are SO sick and tired of hearing about steve, I apologize for you having to read that last marathon paragraph. 🙂

on to better things!
the red sox are going to kick some yankee tail, and that will make me ecstatic. the Bingamton Senators hockey league starts tonight and Lynn and I have tickets. RENT is playing at the forum tomorrow, and kim and I are planning on going, and Monday is supposed to be a good day, so I’m celebrating Christopher Columbus’s discovery of america by discovering Watkins Glen and the beautiful leaves and waterfalls. woohoo!!
next weekend I get to crash at my brothers apartment (which is bigger than the one I had last year, although my new apt kicks his) and then my mom, my sister, and I are going to massachusettes to visit family. I haven’t seen family in a while, including my immediate family, so I’m wicked psyched.

congrats to caitlin and sam for 5 years and I’m sure an awesome to trip to cancoon, can’t wait to hear about it, and double congrats on the first semester of med school!! I think about dawn-the-girl a bunch and get wait for her to get back to the communication world. Shira, I’m glad things are going well for you in california, I think it’s time we started arranging a time for me to invade (if that’s ok). Frances, I am sooo proud of all the stuff you are doing, it sounds really cool, and interesting to boot! if you’ve got time in that busy schedule of yours, we should set up a day trip or something. caitlin l. good luck getting ready for the big move, and although you haven’t found an art job yet, I think volunteering at the museam (man, I can’t spell, I just tried tha three different ways and it kept looking funny) is a great plan. Jen, congrats on the grown-up job!! how exciting, your off in the world and kicking tail. laura, haven’t heard from you recently, so I hope that mean work is going well and that things are a good kind of busy. jess, did you decide which way to go as far as a job? and you’ve found your tartan right? so I hope plans are going well.

my love to all of you and your significant others. I love that we have this to keep in touch. I feel so much better after “visiting” with you all. hugs to everyone!!!

Hey Ladies!! Things here in Chicago are going pretty darn good! This last friday was me and sam’s 5 year anniversary. We went to this really romantic fondue restuarant. We ordered a bottle of champagne and had a 3 course meal (which ended in chocolate fondue of course!). The restaurant was so fancy (a coat check, waiters in tuxs, everything lit by candle light)! It was really nice to finally spend our first anniversary together! We didn’t really exchange gifts cuz we are trying to save money.(except he did get me 2 dozen roses, can we say spoiled?!!?). Why are we saving money you may ask? CUZ WE ARE GOING TO CANCUN!!!!! I can’t tell you how excited I am for this vacation!! We leave Oct 25 and stay till Oct 29. We are staying at a great hotel

Hi there everybody. Otto and Lilly say hi too. Yes, they are still both alive and doing well. Did i tell you that i think we may have mixed up their genders. I read a thing online a few weeks ago that makes me think otto is female and lilly is male. But i’m just going to pretend i never knew :). I think changing their names now would mess them up even more.
So, the other day i got a package in the mail. It’s my retirement plan. How crazy is that. I have a 401k. Who knew life would come to this? The envelope said “life after work?” and i laughed so hard because i’ve been working so much lately that there really is no life after work :). Training is giong really well though. There was a bit of a mixup…my trainer got transfered to another store last week, but i stayed in the store i was in for a week because they were gonna be short a person in the department. So tomorrow I go to the store that my trainer got transfered too…but she will be on vacation. so i will train with the full timer in GM. It’s kind of crazy. If i calculated correctly, Dawn will be done with officer training camp when i am doing with gm manager training. I just thought that was kind of cool. what else what else…i think i’m going to plan on taking my first official vacation next may (i know, it’s a while away, but still exciting)…my cousin is graduating from high school in florida and i want to go. The exciting part though is that i will get paid for it!!!! Hehehehe…can you tell this is my first grown up job? anyway, enough about that. I’m gonna go get dressed now because tom’s out of the shower. I miss you guys so much, i really do. I was updating my parents last night on what all of you were up to. ok…peace out

(hehehe, i don’t really say that :))

Haven’t written in a while so here’s a little update! Things with my friend in New York kind of got weird so I decided that I would move in with my cousin’s best friend and another cousin, thinking that it would be best rather than ruin a perfectly good friendship by moving in together. I took a look at my finances and decided that I wasn’t ready to move just yet but will probably be ready to sign a lease no earlier than Dec. 1st, ideally Jan 1st. The whole arts job seems hopeless so I am temporarily changing tacks and will be applying to pharmaceutical companies where I jave a better chance of getting a job, with my experience, and volunteering at a museum. I, too, ladies am going crazy without contact with all you guys and watching several hours of TV by myself is not nearly as satisfying as when you all are there to laugh, cry and argue with me. Caitlin – going to Cancun! that’s wonderful – take LOTS of pictures and show me only the clean ones!! I am proud of you Frances and how you are becoming child psychologist extraordinaire. Dawn, altough you will not be able to read this until you come out of the trenches, I hope you are meeting lots of new people, especially hard-bodied soldiers! Jen and Laura- I hope your new jobs are going well! Shira – send me a yummy cake!! My keyboard may no longer function due to the excessive drooling I have done over it as I read your entries! I did see 2 seconds of your video. Nicole – WASSSAAAAPP!