the best date so far

All these crazy mixed up emotions have been great for my blog! I can't help but come here and write just about anything right now. I feel so expressive and open, even if some of the best post are unpublished and labeled "private", I feel so thankful that I have such amazing blog-friends who have helped in providing me this space!

It's love month and I feel like I should come clean about some of the amazing moments I've been having lately. Bananas is right about vague posts and frankly I don't like 'em either! That's why we blog! We do it share all the juicy details- right? What is going on right now is a little too fresh and green for me to be writing about it just yet on the internet- I'm trying real hard not to mess things up because I'm my world, I inevitably goof up and ruin things. I'm just gonna stay really happy and mum about the past couple weeks but I did want to write about the best date I've ever had. Try and give a little of all the mushy gusuy I've been feeling to you folks.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It all starts here, at Egdefest of 07, a music festival they had about 5 minutes from our place in QC with acts like Flyleaf, The Bravery, Jimmy Eat World, Social Distortion, and Tiger Army. I went with my mole eyes girls, Sara and Sarskie and had a fantastic time just lounging around in the great weather and enjoying stellar music.

edgefest 07

We were all really excited to Jimmy Eat World and they came on just as the sun was setting and we shimmed our way up front- as far as we could. The shimmying up front was probably not the best idea because here I was momma hen, trying to protect my short friends from the mosh pit next door and from us being separated when a rouge crowd surfer suddenly comes crashing into Sara! I'm scared that she's hurt or bleeding and in talking to her, asking her if she's is alright I get a tap on my shoulder. I turn around and see this really handsome tall guy with dark brown hair, green/brown eyes, a Led Zeppelin t-shirt and a friendly smile. Wow. He asks me if my friend is alright, and I of course being astounded by how cute he is gurgle out something incoherent and grin like a fool before turning back to my friends and melting into a giant puddle. After melting, recovering with some small "battle wounds" from the crowd surfer, and some more dancing and jumping around my friend Sarskie points out that "there's this dude staring at you" and I turn around to see smile guy looking directly at me and I grin again like an idiot and re-melt. We did this turn back melt thing about 5 or 6 more times during the concert until Jimmy Eat World finished their amazing set and we hi-tailed it out of mosh pit zone before people started pushing each other again for a better spot for the next band. We're waiting right outside of the circle for some other friends when I see smile guy following me out and I brake apart from my group to talk to him. "Now or never, right?? Got to be brave" I tell myself.

Jimmy Eat World at Edgefest 07

"Hi, I'm Ross"

"Hey, I'm Marisela, nice to meet you"

"Nice to meet you too"

(God only knows what the heck we talked about for the next minute or too, I was trying to pat down my hair, not smell like stanky mosh pit people, and trying oh so hard to be super cool at the same time)

"Here let me give you my number"

"ok" (phone out-grabbing number)

"It was nice meeting you Marisela"

"You too Ross"

and then we walked back to our friends and I super melted one last time.

I didn't text him that night, I practically stuck my phone in the freezer to try and be coy and wait awhile. I lasted until the next evening, Sunday night where I texted him that "Hello" message and our phones just about blew up over the next couple days...

Cut to about four weeks later and about three dates in. It's a Thursday evening and I was living off campus with a family friend whose neighborhood had this huge man made lake in it and we are set to have a moonlit picnic right by it.

He shows up and just about every time I see him my heart feels like it's going to pop out my chest and I'm thanking God I chose not to eat anything because it would surly be coming up right now from how nervous he makes me feel.

We toasted some sourdough bread with a balsamic vinaigrette thing and pack up a picnic basket (that I had scrambled to get earlier that day) with some wine, cheese, the bread and a blanket that matched the picnic basket (that I made earlier that day too) I was so nervous and definitely feeling the butterfly with ever glance we sent each other's way.

We walk together, basket and acoustic guitar in tow, around the lake until we come to a spot where the moon is reflected and looks oh so big in the water and lay everything out. We drink some wine, eat cheese and have some great conversation. After a bit I request some music and he pulls out his guitar and just starts playing and OMG am I in love with how good he is. By far the best guitar playing I've ever heard and after I ask him what he is playing I get a "oh I'm just sort of making it up" response and die a little more at how amazing he is.

Then it hits me. Here we are sitting on nice warm blanket, under the moonlight by this beautiful lake, sipping wine and I'm getting serenaded by the most incredible guitar playing I've ever heard. "How lucky am I to be living in a movie" I think to myself because it was all just so perfect that It could only be a dream.

The rest of the night was equally special and I'd like to save it for me to keep but I'll just say we talked a whole lot more, kissed like crazy and got caught in the sprinklers just like in the movies.

♥

However cute that night was we didn't last. We went on a couple more dates and made it official too soon. We ended up wanting different things; me, this being my first real time dating wanted a relationship and commitment; him, just getting out of a serious relationship wasn't looking for something so concrete so fast. I took it a little bad when things ended because he had been pretty much been everything I was looking for in guy. He's really tall, smart, well read, funny, into great music, sweet, romantic, and original, so I kept my crush on him for a while and we ended up staying friends and keeping in touch over myspace and facebook and the occasional text messages so things turned out pretty well.

About 2 and half years later and still nothing has come close to being as sweet or memorable a night as that Thursday night moonlit picnic...

Well that was until this past Valentine's day, or how I like to call it "The Best February 12th Ever", since I wasn't quite expecting to do anything for Valentine's day.

And here's the funny part the sweet guy who took the time to plan out such a great night as February 12th for me? Yeah his name is Ross.

I guess it pays off when you part relationships amicably and stay in touch. =)

sometimes wish

It's Monday and I am already tired. The weekdays are just too long and I'm really feeling exhausted some days. Is it worth it? yes I know it is but sometimes it gets so hard to just keep going...

I sometimes wish my parents weren't immigrants and that we had more money or knowledge when I was growing up...I would mean I wouldn't have to work so hard now

I sometimes wish I didn't have to work and could go out on Tuesday night like I see plenty of other college kids doing

I sometimes wish I could have gotten to live in the dorms and have more a 'normal' going away to college experience

I sometimes wish I didn't have to help raise my nephew, playing babysitter or handing out discipline or checking homework. I didn't sign up to be a part-time mommy at 20

I sometimes wish I could just let loose and forget my responsibilities, get shitfaced like everyone else...

Then I remember how selfish these things sound when I sometimes wish it and remind myself to be grateful for every single opportunity I get.

I thank my mom and dad for coming here and working sometimes horrible jobs and facing deportation and discrimination because they loved their future babies so much that they would do anything to give us a better life

I thank my job for giving me a chance to do something creative and for employing me and working with my school schedule so I can not be a huge financial burden to my family

I thank my parents, brothers and sister, teachers and friends for supporting me in each and every one of my scholastic endeavors. School can be tough but I am so thankful for every book I read, every lecture I go to, and every assignment I have here at ASU. Going to college has been my biggest dream since I was a little girl.

I'm so thankful I have a family that supports me in everything I do and I'm grateful to get to be there for the next generation. It takes a village to raise a child and now that I'm not a child anymore I relish my place as a villager and helping cousins, nieces, and nephews in any way I can.

I thank my mom for making me into a reason filled young women who realizes that at a party with a couple of strong drinks I can have that one night...but with a good education, strong moral fiber, and deep determination I can reach my goals and have for the rest of my life.

Sometimes I get into that woe is me category and start to bring myself down..

♥

this post is to remind me to be grateful and thankful for everything I've had an opportunity to do and the great things I am blessed with in life.

Nobody can hold you back if you don't let them...

not even yourself.

I hope you have a fantastic Monday and have the strength to do great and big things this week.

floating on a cloud

♥

I've started about 5 or 6 different posts but then either don't have the time to finish them or my writing suddenly goes into more personal topics or a retelling of some amazing nights that just can't be done quite as publicly as on this blog.

School is school and I have a full course load with 18 credit hours but have some interesting classes and the finish line to graduation is just getting closer and closer. If I'm creative with my course schedule for the next semester and fit in a class or two over the summer I could be graduating in Dec- at the tender age of 20!! I still have to figure out what would be best for me as in terms of graduate school or summer programs or applying for jobs but I can see the finish line and it makes me so happy.

Work is not to bad, I go in and make cakes when they need me and have more of a focus on school so I really enjoy when I get to go in. Being broke almost all the time isn't as fun but sometimes we just have to sacrifice.

I'm on day like 9 or 10 with the 30 Day Shred and I'm really bad at taking breaks on weekends. I think I'm going to get a locker at ASU's gym and figure it out in my schedule to get there as much as I can too.

I'm deliriously happy and smitten! I tried to write a post about my epic and unexpected Valentine's Day but I just can't figure out a way without being to mushy gushy about it all so I'm just going to say I'm relating to this post by Liz so much right now.

and yes... he is totally blowing my mind...

here are a couple pictures from the past couple weeks and hopefully I can sit down again and post about these nights and my other amazing nights...

First Friday

That Collegetown Party

A night at The Big Bang with Liz

I hope you all are loving life right now! I am so happy it's like I'm floating on a cloud. I just hope while I'm up here that the hail and thunder stay far, far away from me...

say what you mean

I had a comment to do a post about what my tattoos mean. I feel strongly that anything that goes on my body has to have a meaning and a story or significance to me or else it just ends up some cool looking thing to look at. Tattoos are that for me too, don't get me wrong, it's very much an aesthetic thing but it has to have meaning just about as much as I like the way it looks.

Tattoo # 1

Right shoulder, clavicle, and back

This tattoo got on my 18th birthday and wanted something that was big and made a statement. "No wimp tattoos" for me was what I was thinking going in asking for my first tattoo to reach from my clavicle to the middle of my back. I liked the idea of swirling and that part is pretty much because I think it looks cool but the lotus flower has 18 petals for my 18th birthday. I got the idea for a lotus flower because of a little pond they have in the parking lot of the stadium for ASU (Lot 59- it's the farthest and cheapest parking permit available) and would see these beautiful lotus flowers growing in this yucky pond with beer cans and trash all around it. Walking to campus everyday ipod in two I feel in love with how they just grew prettier and prettier no matter the condition of the pond and they gave me inspiration. Being 17 and a freshmas at ASU, moving out and really experiencing life for the first time, I was changing and starting the transition into adulthood. During high school I had let the people around effect me too much as to how I acted or my tastes in style and music and I decided on a louts for strength to be myself and to blow into the person I really wanted to be no matter what was going on around me.

Tattoo #2

left shoulder/back

This tattoo was a spur of the moment where I just instantly needed a new tattoo. I had been envisioning and wanting music notes for a long time and new it had to be a Beethoven song. I had played viola (pictured with me) since 4th grade and sang in high school and know bits and pieces of some piano music but basically live my life in music. My piece is a bar of music from Moonlight Sonata from the bass piano part. I printed off the sheets, found an open tattoo shop, and within about 2 hours went from idea to new tattoo.

Tattoo #3

NOT PICTURED (YET)

behind left ear

This one was another spur the moment thing. I went with a good friend, Liana, to get get her first tattoo but it took about 3 hours and I do not do waiting well. There some free tattoo artist so I asked one to draw up a little moon and write the word luna underneath. I got this idea from a song my mom used to sing to me when I was little about tuna fish, lagoons, and asking the moon for replacement tuna fish. It's simple and sweet and reminds me of my mom and makes me smile.

Tattoo #4

left shoulder, upper arm

This tattoo I got about two weeks before I moved back home. I planned it for then because I had the money I would have used for next months rent, no longer needed to pay rent, and knew that moving back home meant respecting my parents rules and not getting another tattoo until I moved out again. This is the start to my sleeve piece where it will all be Mexican iconography, this is a Dia de Los Muertos skull, done in traditional american tattoo style. I wanted to do this for my heritage. My parents are both from Mexico so these are all images I grew up with but me and my siblings were all born and raised in the US so I wanted to honor all the traditional and up-bringing from my mexican parents in an american style media for the place I call home. I plan to add Loteria cards, a virgin mary, and some more flowers and scrip. You can read about it here.

Thanks everyone for the awesome comments on my ink and the photo-shoot- made my day!

Tattoo Photoshoot

Back in November a friend of mine, Caitlin, needed tattoo models for a class project. Not only was it fun to hangout with her for the afternoon but she takes beautiful pictures and gave me a cd filled with all of them from the shoot. You can see some more or different ones here and the video Caitlin put together here.

The only tattoo I have not pictured is an outline of a little moon on the back of my left ear with the word luna written underneath.

What tattoo's do you have??

Lassst Nighhhtt..

"Last night, she said:

"Oh, baby, I feel so down.

Oh it turns me off,

When I feel left out"

So I walked out:

"Oh, baby, don't care no more

I know this for sure,

I'm walkin' out that door"

I love that song from the strokes and while this party wasn't technically last night it was a thursday night that all this shizz went down. It was a birthday party for a new collegetown buddy and informal mini-reunion for everyone..

There were tons of people that made it our from camp...

so there was ALOT of this...

which makes the night feel oh so good...

do see how sweaty we all are? yeah well it's January in Arizona and while it may not snow here it still gets pretty chilly from time to time, and that night was a cold one. Why are we all sweaty you may ask?? It was from the bitch'n rave going on in the basement. In-house DJ, strobe lights, and fully stocked bar made this like a mini dance club- it was pretty awesome which had me leaving telling myself "I need to make it out to these college parties more often"

We were dancing like crazy and drinking like fish. Thank God this wasn't a repeat of New Years but boy did I have fun.

you can pretty much see how much fun I was having here.

Happy Friday everyone! Hopefully I will be back Monday with the long awaited pictures from my Tattoo Photo shoot from November.

What is everyone doing tonight and this weekend??

I'm making it out to Downtown Phoenix for First Friday!! My first time =)

The Last Day

Like how I'm such a good blogger?? yeah like two weeks later and I now just posting the ending to my week up north...

The last day we're pretty much all in love with each other (honestly it's like getting 20 hugs per hour everyone loves everyone else so much!) and we have a variety show during lunch and one final big activity left.

The variety show was amazing, I didn't know everyone had that much talent! Here is Joshua with Jon (not pictured) and he solved a rubix cube while Jon read Lady Gaga lyrics a la Christopher Walken style (only much, much funnier!! they were hilarious)

They're was a jam session thing too that was just amazing...

and during the week and the day before the last day I learned how to do The Jerk!!! It took me forever to do, I also fell down twice trying to get the skip-hop-backwards thing right but that's actually pretty good for me =) They did a full jerk dance lesson and we all got up and did the jerk...one of my shinning moments!

There were tons more amazing/hilarious/crazy good acts during the skit but I couldn't find photos I really liked for 'em.

Before the variety show we had our last discussion groups and it's pretty usual that everyone is camera happy that last day of camp -so my delegates had a mini photoshoot...

and I love my delegates so they pretty much only had to me ask me once for them to get me to do this pose....

I must have been nuts...

Our final activity was a camp wide empowerment builder where we symbolically smashed our monsters or demons by smashing wooden boards!

Here I am holding Cera's board while she prepares to bust through it...

Like the safety goggles?

And here I am getting ready to plow through mine.

There are photos around of me actually breaking my board but I still haven't found them on facebook so when they surface I'll post them. I have done this activity before when I was about 15 and the first time I did it I broke the board with 1 try but this time it took me 3 tries to brake it and I think it has to do with all the struggles I've had to overcome this past year and how I really can't give up when shit gets hard. It was sort of embarrassing that it took me so long to brake through it but I know it meant more to me in the end, when I finally broke through it, because I had to struggle.

Here is all of us in the best group picture we could get...

That was one of the best week's I've ever had =) There was a birthday party/ mini reunion that happened last thursday night and If I can stay on my blogging roll I'll post about that soon.

In other news,

school is in full swing and I am doing really good with keeping up with reading for classes so far and even getting some of my personal reading in there too!!! Somehow I've been able to fit in work and some awesome social time too but how to fit a regular blogging schedule into that mix too, is still an anomaly for me...

I started the Jillian's 30 day shred and love it but I kinda, sorta want to die right now it hurts to move so bad. I was surprised at how good I was at doing the workout though and even got my butt out of bed this morning at 5am to fit in a session before school today. The only problem with doing that was that by the time I got to school my calves hurt so bad I was clenching my teeth with every step. Did I mention I park about 15 min walking from campus, and that my campus is a square mile with classes spread out all over the place??? yeah sucked! I do feel good though and have more energy and I'm feeling happy but just stuff hurts...

I have some interesting guy questions/situations and funny stories but I'm not sure if I can post on here. I don't know if the reach is wide enough that if I post something here the person/people I'm writing about might read it (obviously planning to use fake names but I'm positive even with that they could end up recognizing themselves) but I also think it would be just downright fun to read about how much of a spazz I am in the dating scene. It could be titled "The Dating Diary of a Love-Dumb Girl" or "Why do I Suck at Life?: The dating chronicles of a girl who will no matter what manage to f-up a good time" but I'm just wondering if people would find that interesting or if anyone has posted on that topic before in the present tense (like when you're actually out there dating and not in the past tense) Plus I could probably use ya'll advice...

I'm hoping everyone has a happy hump day! I'm spending mine making this and hopefully out there reading and commenting =)