My photo
Nice to e-meet you! That's internet for Hello. And that's also about as far as I got in planning what to say in this thing...but as a lover of spontaneity and the inability to edit my own words because that would mean actually having an awareness as to the nothingingness that I am about to ramble on about for far too long...I'm just going to go ahead and keep typing. Apparently...

We Have 'Standards', We Just Don't Have Morals

After every semester my nursing class celebrates that we have made it one step further, and this time it was especially meaningful because we have now officially made it past the hardest and last ever academic semester of our nursing education.


After all of the stress and pent up anger of classes, we usually go all out at our parties, and even name them the annual 'Nurses Gone Wild' party, to which we generally live up to pretty well.

One of my classmates' girlfriends generously offered to have the party at her house which was awesome because there are about 60 of us just in the class and most of them have significant others on top of that. There was a ton of food as everyone brought something and of course even more alcohol.



(looking guilty as I generally don't eat meat...)

At some point someone found the hosts little sisters' bunny mask which was a hit for the rest of the night, making appearances in almost every photo. I admit to being a major part of this, photo evidence to follow. Although I think I gave it up when at some point during the night I had the rabbit mask on and a girl from class pretended to have sex with me and a guy from class laughed and said 'hahaha, classic Brandi'.
I feel pretty confident that I have never been in that situation before so I am not sure what exactly he meant by that comment. Imitating animals whilst getting fake raped is not something I'd quite like to be a classic representation of me...


(I won't mention names, thank goodness you have a mask on ;) )


I have an amazing nursing class and it was so much fun to celebrate with all of them! We definitely deserved it!

From this point on we now will have 4-12hour shifts, 4 days off (all unpaid of course) until graduation in December! It feels good to be so close to the end! I'm thinking I will take a month to travel before settling into my career, any ideas where I should go??

Who doesn't love a girl that smells like Tangerine

Prepare to be jealous of my wonderful date (I was there and I'm jealous of it). Just remember that I am still single and lonely. Minus the lonely bit just for this day. But single. Definitely single. And cursed.

So if you remember Swiss fellow from a previous post...well we have been out a few more times and it's still nothing serious but we always have a lot of fun together and have been hanging out more often lately (but I promise myself not to get too attached because he actually just found out he is leaving back to Switzerland in 2 weeks. Perfect).

Well yesterday we started out the day by having a lovely brunch together after which we sat at the piano and butchered played a few songs together. Did I mention that he did the dishes?

From there we decided to walk to the ocean-side park. It was a beautifully sunny day out and there was a concert playing at the park so the scenery just happened to also be pretty much perfect. As we were walking along, he jumped off the path and down to the beach where he continued to take off his shoes and walk along the sand, encouraging me to follow. I was a little more hesitant as it's quite messy and seaweed-y and ocean-y. But I agreed to walk a few steps, shoes on.


As he dragged me we walked further along, the sand/mud became extremely slippery (as the tide was really far out) and I had no choice but to give in a take my shoes off. Immediately my feet sunk ankle deep into the sand and my toes filled with the squishy mud. It was disgusting and felt icky and gross, but I later decided that I actually quite liked the feeling.


He held my hand and picked me up every time that I got stuck in the sand (which was many). We walked and walked and walked, picking up seashells and pointing out crabs until we finally came to the water and again I was persuaded by him to drop my inhibitions and get my feet wet. Literally.


He tied my dress for me so that it wouldn't get wet (or at least that was the idea) and we walked what looked like a mile out to sea, still only knee-high. It was such an unexpected way to be spending the way, when I had just assumed we would go for a walk along the trail and was now wading in the waves of the ocean. And as I was standing there thinking this to myself, he picked me up out of the water and kissed me. He then proceeded to hold both my hands and slow dance with me in the middle of the ocean (with the band still playing lovely jazz music in the background).


So there I was, being swung, dipped, and twirled by a handsome swiss lad in the middle of the ocean.

It was kind of perfect.

After splashing around in the water for hours and helping some kids build a wall of sand, we continued to walk on the normal people path, and out onto the dock.

He offered to hold my purse for me which I thought was awfully gentlemanly of him, until of course I realized it was only to pick me up and carry me into the children's water park and hold me over top of a fountain, drenching me completely. What he didn't perhaps realize was that my dress goes see-through when wet. (I need to stop getting wet on dates [no sexual innuendo intended]). But I guess that just added to the sponteneity of it...?


He then continued to convince little children to spray me with water guns. But at least he kind of made up for it by giving me a movie moment and kissing me under the fountain.

I guess that was...cute?
(Who am I kidding, I was completely taken by the whole event. Hitting him girlishly and saying 'oh my gosh, stop this immediately!' really meant, 'Swoon, swoon, swoon-swoon Is anybody seeing this? Swoon. I hope people are seeing this.Swoon. Of course they are, they are soooo jealous right now. Look at their faces. That's right, I'm THAT couple right now. Swoon.

After being completely soaked, we headed back to the apartment where we figured we were already wet, we might as well go to the swimming pool.

So we played around in the pool for the evening which I have never done with a boy before and it was so much fun! I was a 12 year old all over again, splashing around doing somersaults and handstands. It was romantic to be swimming around together but at the same time it's not the most prone to good-lookingness of environments. Having my hair slicked back (especially for someone used to having bangs/fringe 24/7) and what was left of my make-up running down my face, maybe not my best look. Oh and even more so when he dunked me underwater unexpectedly and I came up and accidentally spat out a mouth full of water directly into his face. Oops.

We decided to have a race but 3 seconds in when I realized that I had no chance of winning, I pretended that I had choked on some water and had to stop. He bought it and kissed my cheek... I guess I'm kind of competitive.

I did however win another bet we had on whether or not this young guy and girl were a couple. When they kissed I cheered in excitement, not realizing how loud I was when they stopped kissing and both looked at me. I'm not the most stealth human being.

He carried me over to the pool 'rule' sign and told me that I'd better read #7 which read 'all persons with long hair are required to wear a hair cap' and tsk tsk'd me that I was breaking the rules.

So I told him to read #3:
'No animals allowed'.

When we were all swam out we went back upstairs and had some spaghetti on the patio while watching the sunset after which we cuddled on the sofa and watched movies.

C'est magnifique!

Good dates are the best!
I hope I'm not doomed for dating from now on.

hide and seek -- trains and sewing machines

So after listening to a few of my brother's comical stories about ad's he had read on craigslist, I figured it was time I indulged myself a little in this crazy online community. And to my delight, it was not to disappoint. 


Craigslist. It's not just for psycho's and sex maniacs anymore! 


At first I just enjoyed reading ad's from people with really bizarre requests, such as a young man who just really wanted to know what it was like to make-out with someone with braces. He promised that it did not need to go any further than kissing, but it would mean a lot to him to have this experience. 

No, I did not reply. 

Or the one titled "dim sum" which caught my attention. It was a man who just wanted people to meet up with once a month to go out for dim sum. I mean you have to understand where he's coming from, you can't dim sum alone!! 

And who doesn't love reading missed connections! Like this one...

We were checking each other out on a romantic downtown sidewalk today at around 10:30am. We were both outside the homeless shelter, though I'm hoping you don't live there. I know I don't. You had a beard and were wearing a hat, and you were manishly lifting heavy things. 

The turning point in this addiction was when I actually took the next step and replied to one. But it didn't stop there, it became an obsession to reply to them all the time. My most recent fascination was this post:

Is there anyone out there who would just respond to the word "grapefruit" with some witty remark or question? I am curious to see what I will get. 

That is all. 

You can't tell me that you wouldn't be intrigued to reply...

As uncool of a thing as it is to scour on craigslist, I admit that my friend list has gone up quite a bit. I am currently teaching 2 people English (one in exchange for Spanish), and offered to show another around the city. 

I was tempted to reply to a few 'hiking partner wanted' ad's, but my friends (who already can't stand my geeky antics) seemed to think it was a bad idea to meet up with strange men off the internet and go off into the woods alone together. I guess I just don't see it that way. I admit that I trust people to a fault. To be honest, I still think it would be fine. 

Well just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, I went off the deep end. 

That's right. I met up with someone off of craigslist. 

I've always wanted to go geocaching (fyi: just by reading this post you are becoming less cool) but as I have somehow managed to always have 'cool' friends, I've never had anyone to go with. In fact I've been banned from even mentioning the word geocache. 

So if you don't know what this is (and if you are still reading this) it's basically just hiking with an added bonus of finding treasure. It's a huge 'sport' that people become pretty involved in but it seems as though a lot of people still don't know what it is even though millions exist all over the world. 

When I was a child, my grandpa was a huge geocacher and would always take me into the wildness to these places in the middle of no where (wow I realize how awful this is sounding right now but I promise he never touched me there, there, OR there). It was actually a really fun memory. At the time I never understood what the whole thing was but I loved opening the treasure boxes and finding little toys inside. 

Anyways, after replying to the ad of a guy looking for ppl to go geocaching with, we exchanged emails back and forth for about the next month, just talking about it and other stuff and trying to figure out a time that we could both go. He had only been once before with a friend who was quite experienced so we knew it was going to be a challenge. From emailing back and forth I had a pretty good sense that he was a decent guy, but again it could just be my belief that people are generally good. 

We finally sorted it all out and he came over so that we could pick a few coordinates close to where I live. (Yes, I realize that inviting a stranger into my home while I am alone is maybe not the smartest thing, but clearly if you know me you know that this is just something that I would do and despite efforts, I really can't be helped). 

The second he walked in he saw a guitar, picked it up and started playing. It was a little weird as I was just meeting him for the first time, and as I'm thinking this is my head, he suddenly starts full-out singing. Also, considering the circumstances, I suppose playing musical instruments upon introduction > murdering me in my home. 

I would normally be pretty weirded out (and kind of was) but his voice was so amazing that I was just trying not to swoon all over him. Oh, did I mention that for an internet geek on craigslist, he's actually really good looking...In fact, even for a normal person, he's still quite good looking. Having a cute guy serenade me with a guitar (and be good at it) is kind of attractive. I've also been single for a while now so it really doesn't take a whole lot to flatter me anymore. You basically just need to make eye contact with me and I get flustered. 

When he was finished singing, and I awkwardly congratulated him on his musical ability, we picked the coordinates and headed out, gps in hand, ready to find some treasure! First, we stopped at the looney store to buy some cheap toys to put into the cache. (The idea is that you take what's in the cache and replace it with something else).

We took off to the place we thought it was and followed the gps as best as we could, stopping every 5 steps completely confused and unsure of which way we were supposed to be going. I do blame him for this because I was quite upfront with the fact that I am directionally challenged whereas I was lead to believe that he was quite good at this sort of thing. 


We finally made it within a 5m. radius of where the cache was supposed to be hidden. I did not have a clue what I was even supposed to be looking for, but regardless, I jumped into the brush, sticks, and piles of leaves and started eagerly looking for treasure. 


I think we were probably quite amusing/confusing for the many people walking by us wondering what on earth we were doing digging around in the bushes, but we continued regardless. 

(photos by Alicia)

For what we had figured out of the gps, it was basically leading us off the edge of a cliff that neither of us were too fond to go over. We dug around a little more and covered ourselves in dirt, leaves and spiderwebs just enough to finally give up and call it a fail. 

I was quite disappointed that we never ended up finding any, but it was still a lot of fun! 

We sat down on a nearby bench to reflect on our sad attempt at geocaching and debating over exactly whose fault it was that we were so terrible (conclusion = 90% him, 10% the gps)

We ended up sitting on the bench for nearly 3 hours, talking about everything from his experiences with drugs, and our views on one night stands, to favorite music and the philosophy of lululemon. 

He actually seemed to be not crazy at all. In fact, I was a little disappointed with just how sane he seemed to be. 

And although I never actually got to find a geocache, I did get to have quite a unique experience of a day. And I'm still alive and un-raped which is always the sign of a successful adventure.