New Friends, Old Friends, Far Friends, Near Friends

A couple of weekends ago I went to Tampa for three reasons: to get together with my favorite (and only) yahoogroup, to say goodbye/good luck to Colleen Herr, and to show Rohan (one of Ojas's best friend) a good time in Florida.

And now thanks to my wonderful friends...I can steal various pictures to show you how much fun we had :)

Friday was my day to hang out with the Interior Design girls. We got together at Blair's house for a tye-dye party in honor of Kayla's birthday. I cannot state how much I love the 6-pack of Hanes underwear that I dyed. I wear them everyday...well with appropriate washing every now and then.

THE ACTION

THE SUSPECTS

Blair

Antoinette

Marissa (thanks for the pics!)

Britt

Kayla (The Birthday Girl)

Needless to say, we had lots of fun. I was sad that we only got to hang out for one day...especially since I never see these girls. We are from all over the place: St.Pete, Gainesville, Orlando, and LA. I also am sad that we were missing Melanie and Lindsay...but they were there in spirit.

Saturday night was spent at McDinton's. It was my last outing with Colleen for a while. She is now a grad student at Clemson! I'm so proud! Rohan also happened to be in Florida that weekend and had some time alone before spending time with his family. So naturally, we told him to come out. The result was a group of mixed friends...one I knew from high school, two I knew as roomies, one I knew from architecture, and one I knew as my boyfriend's bestfriend. We had a really good time...such a good time that a few of us ended up at IHOP at 3 in the morning. Oh how I miss the days of college.

Rohan, Colleen, Ryan, and Me

Look! I got a bullseye! Ok...so maybe it took me a few tries.
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On the topic of friends...I went out last Friday with a group of friends to the new Blue Martini in Naples. The place was nice, the drinks were expensive (When are they gonna invent ladies night in Naples?), the music...good at first, then techno crap took over. Either way, it was good times. It's always fun going dancing with Victoria...reminds me of high school days when we would bust it out during Homecoming and Prom.

Vic and Jesse

The girls...Kristina and me with our $12 drinks. Ay.

Dealing

It's been a while since I've posted...sorry about that. Let's face it...things haven't been going so great at the Patel residence. As if my own unemployment wasn't enough to deal with. I really won't go into detail about the main issue but basically this economy sucks...and so does the mall management. Along with this big issue, there are smaller things that I having to deal with. For instance, my car and camera have both decided to die on me.

But I'm not gonna make this all about the bad things. Instead I'll focus on the things in my life that have been positive and have helped me get through the day.

Some of the things that make me happy:

Knowing that I will be seeing Ojas and his nerdy face soon.

Deciding that my free US Airways ticket (obtained when I volunteered for an overbooked flight) will be used to go to DC around New Years Eve. I really really really miss that group of friends. It's time to go see them in their new habitat.

Hanging out with Holly, Erika, and Victoria...without them, my social life in Naples would be pretty much non-existent. They're always up for anything :)

Working out...especially spinning. My mom and I go spinning twice a week. What used to be a chore has turned into a bi-weekly meeting of what feels like a biker gang of middle-aged women...and me. Yesterday my mom and I were late and when we got to class the "usuals" were holding our usual bikes for us and told us that they were worried for a minute that we weren't gonna show up. Chatting it up with the Usuals before and after class is pretty fun. There's Doreen (the New Yorker), Gail (the newbie middle school teacher), Latin Lady #1 (whose husband and dad had a heart attack in the same week), Latin Lady #2 (who told me that she used to settle for the cheapest liquor at my age), and Dr. Reed (our instructor's dentist. first name...unknown). Good people, Good music, Good class. I can't think of a better way to burn calories.

Books. Books. Books. I think I'm making up for all the times I wanted to read for fun in school and never got a chance to. I've been averaging one book every week...which is pretty unreal for me. These are all of the ones I read in the 3 months that I've been home. I think I've started liking reading more than watching TV (that is until Lost and the Office come back on). If anyone has any book suggestions...lemme know!

I freaking LOVE the library near my house. It's the only place I can get the satisfaction of shopping...for free. I mean how many places can you walk in empty handed and leave with like 5 books, a few movies, and a couple of CDs??

Song of the Day

Lately I've really been into foreign songs. I don't know what spurred this interest. I think it had something to do with the mix CD Marissa gave to me because I really liked the Russian part in Regina Spektor's "Apres Moi".

So after checking out the soundtrack for 500 Days of Summer, one song really stood out to me. It was "Quelqu'un m'a dit" (however you say that" by Carla Bruni.



I knew she was a supermodel and is married to a prince...but she's a good singer too?? Some people just have it all.

A Paint-tastic Sunday

My mom and I decided it was time to update the room we all spend so much time in -- the family room. So with a fresh new can of Behr's "Purple Statice"...that is just what we did. I'll just let the pictures do the explaining. Again, my camera's broke...so we used our crappy phone cameras.

BEFORE (disregard the mess...these pics were taken midway through the paint prep phase):





AFTER (the picture just doesn't do it justice):


We are soo happy about the result! Although...I don't know how my brother's gonna feel about watching TV in a predominantly purple room. Oh well...he's going away for grad school so what does it matter anyways.

In other news...I cannot wait to paint my own house someday. It's amazing what a can of paint can do for a room.

Celebrity Lists

So I should probably let you guys know that my camera has stopped functioning. I don't know what happened but it just stopped working one day. Last weekend I went to Tampa and had so much fun! As soon as I'm able to steal some pics from my friends, I will post about it.

For now I have to tell you about what a good movie 500 Days of Summer was. It was probably the cutest movie I have seen in a while...in the non-corny kind of way. This movie has also created a new crush for me.

I know I've told some friends about this but Ojas and I have two lists...the first is the three celebrities that we're allowed to cheat on each other with and the second is celebrities we'd go gay for. So here they are...

Celebrities that I'm allowed to cheat with if the opportunity came up:

Joseph Gordon-Levitt (he was just so adorable in the movie...and very grown up looking after not seeing him on-screen for a while)


Robert Pattinson (i'm sorry. i know. this would be a sign of the obnoxious 14-year old, Twilight fanatic in me)


John Krasinski (his goofy smiles and weird faces make me melt a little)


Notice how all of the above are skinny white men. Hmph...figures.


Runner-ups: Ryan Gosling, Brandon Flowers from The Killers, Ryan Reynolds, Jason Segel, Bradley Cooper, and Aamir Kahn

And celebrities I'd go gay for:

Rachel McAdams (does anyone NOT like her?!)


Natalie Portman (she just seems like she'd be a cool person in real life...and she has a nice smile)


Beyonce (i know i know...but come on. she has a rockin' body)


Runner-ups: Zooey Deschanel, Jessica Alba, Aishwarya Rai, and Mila Kunis

Who'd be on your lists?

Career dreams

With lots of time on my hands, there are many times that I think about my chosen career path. I don't want to work in a boring office that doesn't allow for any creativity. Most of my friends know that I would LOOOOOVE to do theme park design. I mean...come on! Isn't half of what makes Disney and Universal great places to go the fake buildings and structures throughout the parks? (ok so maybe my mom calls me a loser for never growing out of my theme park obsession)

Enough about that. The other day I watched a Hindi movie called Saawariya. Yeah it had the same story as any other Indian movie but...man oh man...the sets had me mesmerized. And so now I have one more career to add to my list of "Awesome Careers that I Dream About but will Probably Never Get" -- a production/set designer.

It didn't help that the movie sets/costumes consisted of all of my favorite colors.







All of this was made from scratch and was filmed indoors. (So maybe I watched the bonus features.)


Who wouldn't wanna live here?!


I'm guessing they got a lot of ideas from Moulin Rouge.








This is what my wedding will look like. Except I'll be in red...and there will be a boy.


Wah! I want. I think the theme park idea is more likely (if it's likely at all) but...I can always dream for now.