"I love you, always. Time is nothing."

I finally finished The Time Traveler's Wife. It made me angry and happy and sad. It almost made me cry. So, what can I say about this book? I think the title of this post says it all, really.

This book is one of the truest examples of waiting for true love. It is tragic and painful sometimes, but as it questions in the book: "But don't you think that it's better to be extremely happy for a short while, even if you lose it, than to be just okay for your whole life?" No matter what fate brought them, Henry and Clare endured it and held onto each other. It's amazing and beautiful how strong they are.

Even though the book is a bit girly, the elements of time travel and how the events are connected would make the book interesting for guys too. If you want to read the book, don't watch the trailer because it gives some things away.

After I finished the book, I wasn't sure if I wanted to see the movie (coming out in August), but I've decided that it will be interesting to see the book come to life, even though I will cry. Even the trailer chokes me up. And Rachel McAdams will be amazing in it.

Your thoughts?

We'll have it good, we'll have the life we knew we would

I wrote a few weeks ago about fear, but the subject always seems to come around again. Even though I know that everything will turn out all right in the end, it doesn’t calm my fears. Today, it was a different fear than what I wrote about before. Today, it’s more of a feeling of uneasiness of the unknown.

Today, someone asked me if I had started looking for jobs after I told her I was graduating in December. Whoa. I did the math in my head, and the real world is about six months away. Six months. And I’m sure those months will fly by as football season and classes start. (You can see where priorities lie, huh? Wink.) So I panicked. I’m scared. I’ve always thought that I would find a PR job in Austin, but it is a competitive city, and PR is a competitive industry. I feel like I’m not doing enough to be ready, and it’s too late to try for so many things. I’m not sure.

It doesn’t help that I just started reading the blogs of some older people I know. People who have succeeded in starting a career. And not only that, but in mysterious (as in foreign to everything I’ve known in Texas, which makes it sound magical) places in California and New York. It makes me question if I really want to stay in Texas and if I would be brave enough to venture to another city on my own. It also makes me question what opportunities I would miss if I did and didn’t go. Maybe I’m just itching for a vacation. Or maybe the adventure of living in another city is calling to me.

So here I am. With so many questions in my head and no clue how to solve them. It’s a scary place out there in the job hunting world, but no one is going to do it for me and I’m glad. You can’t get spoon-fed things like this. I’m making lots of lists and starting to research a lot. And I need lots of things. I need pro and con lists. I need professional advice. I need stats. I need charts. I need to breathe…

Movie v. Book

Dang Lifehouse songs are following me. I watched the trailer for The Time Traveler's Wife today, and it has their song "Broken" in it. I like that one too.

I love reading the books before I see the movie adaptation. Sometimes I don't do it in time (like The Watchmen...which I still haven't read and my brother still has?), but reading them after I've seen the movie is still great. Here are some:

Twilight: reading the book beforehand might have made the movie better. I'm still not sure if I want to dive into that sappiness. The way vampires are portrayed in the movie are pretty cool though. I always had a thing for Angel. Remember that TV show?

P.S. I Love You: Oh what a sad book. I'm pretty sure I cried a couple of times. It was a good book though. I haven't seen the movie yet, and I'm not sure if I want to. It might be a sob fest, and the trailer looks pretty bad.

The Devil Wears Prada: I liked this movie, but liked the book even more.

The Nanny Diaries: Yes, another chick flick. The book was good, but I think I liked the movie better. The only thing better in the book was the ending.

Sherlock Holmes: I'm currently reading one of the novels, and the trailer looks awesome! It comes out on Christmas though so it'll be a long wait.

The Time Traveler's Wife: Finally, the trailer that prompted this entry. I'm going to pick up this book this week, but the trailer looks really sad.

So, anyways. I think it's cool to see what you imagined while reading show up on the big screen and be able to pick out things that are different. That's all. Really. I love summer reading.

Whatever it Takes

I'm not a big Lifehouse fan, but some of their lyrics are my favorites.

The following lyrics are from their song "Whatever it Takes."

"A strangled smile fell from your face.
It kills me that I hurt you this way."

"She said, "If we're gonna make this work
you gotta let me inside even though it hurts.
Don't hide the broken parts that I need to see.
She said, "Like it or not, it's the way it's gotta be.
You gotta learn to love yourself if you can ever love me.""

At first I read the line "you gotta let me inside even though it hurts" as the hurt inside who she's talking to, but it can also be interpreted as the hurt that she feels. It reiterates the truth that relationships (friendship or romantic) are not dependent on one person. It takes two for it to work. You give a bit of yourself and take a bit of the other person. Letting someone inside you and showing him/her the truth could hurt that person, but it's a good hurt that helps the person understand you better and a chance for you to be vulnerable. It's a way to make your relationship stronger. The end.

Insecurity or a reason to be insecure?

The hardest thing for me lately is fear. Fear that I'm not being the best person I could. Fear that I'm not taking care of my friendships as well as I could. Fear that I am too vulnerable. Fear that I won't have a successful career. Fear that life will change all of a sudden.

I see bits and pieces everywhere of a possible destruction. Some I could control, some in the hands of others, or even both. Another slip-up at work? Lack of communication with friends? Pouring my heart out when the time isn't right? Seeing parts of the past peek through to question the future?

It's hard for me to just be and let life do its thing. I need reassurance that I'm doing things right, that I matter and that things will be ok. I'm a big middle-of-the-road kind of person. I can be strong and deal with things, but just the same, I can be so vulnerable, fragile and so scared.

But I fight to be different. I am enduring to be accepting, understanding and forgiving. Sometimes I don't understand why I need to be in certain situations and why I need to do these things, but I do anyways. I hold my breath. I make excuses. I take it internally and fight myself instead. I suck it up and endure. Will it ever feel different? Maybe. Maybe not. I hope it will.

To help me through it I listen to these inspirational words: "sometimes love comes around and it knocks you down. Just get back up when it knocks you down." (partly sarcasm)

Memories are hard to think about, the future is maybe even harder

I was hanging out at home when I found my brother's orchestra banquet book. At the high school he will soon graduate from (and I went to), it is tradition that seniors write a "will" that is put into a book that is given out to everyone at banquet. Mostly the seniors write sappy things like "omg you are the best friend ever, and I will miss you so much next year" and inside jokes. The graduating seniors this year were freshmen my senior year, and a lot of them wrote things like, "ever since I saw the banquet book my freshman year, I've been anticipating my turn." Sorta weird to think about people outside of your circle reading things that were meaningful to you and knowing that it had a little impact on them.

Well, after scanning through his book, I pulled out mine and started reading it. It was a little rough. It's hard to think about how things are different. I've always been a sentimental person, so, of course I didn't really see how things would change. I miss people a lot. People move on and apart. You're not as close to some as you were or as you wish you could be still. But I'm happy for the people who are still here. For the people who still really know me and that are important in my life.

It's also crazy to think about graduation and being seniors. It seemed like nothing could keep us from doing all the things we wanted and being as successful as possible. It seemed like the whole world was waiting for us. All of that excitement and craziness seems like so long ago, and it will start up again at different times, but all within a year. It feels weird to be excited for graduation and "real life" but at the same time, wanting to be "young" and protected. There isn't really a "stage" after you leap into the real world, so what happens when you get there? Do you just keep looking for the next best job to make more money? Scary.

Lastly, I think it's funny that some of the graduating seniors from my brother's class are going to UT and wrote about "partying it up in Austin" in their senior will. Oh, little freshmen. But then again, you always think you know everything and you're so much cooler when you're older. wink.

Oh, I do love cupcakes!

That's right! I've finally made a separate blog for all my cupcake talk. Blogger wins again because I was originally going to make it on Word Press, but it wouldn't let me have more than one blog for one e-mail address. Now, if you go to my Blogger profile, you'll see this blog and my cupcake blog listed. I've copied my cupcake reviews from this blog to that one, so the new blog already has a couple of entries that you have probably already read. If you look on the side bar at the Blog Archive, you'll see two entries that are new: Formal Introduction and Make Cupcakes, Not War.

Please let me know what you think about the layout, colors, etc! I'm not really that tech savvy, but hopefully I'll figure out how to make a cool header and maybe even a background...?

Ok, ok. Here is the link to Anita Loves Cupcakes! http://anitalovescupcakes.blogspot.com/