Nailophile

I started to bite my nails pretty much as soon as I learned to chew. That may be an exaggeration, but it was long enough ago that I don't remember it. I tried everything to stop, and Lord knows my mom did everything to try and make me stop.

Then one day, a few weeks before junior prom, I decided that I wanted to have a French manicure for the dance and would therefore have to stop biting them.

And I did.

Just like that. But even though I stopped biting them, I'm still abnormally obsessed with the condition of my nails. They have to be smooth and usually painted, but can't have any chips in the paint so I change my nail color constantly. And they have to all be the same length. I've been known to put my fingers nail-to-nail to make sure both pinkie nails are the same length, thumb nails, etc.

Anyway, my first week of work this summer, I realized that everyone had very nice nails. So I went to get a manicure. But the lady next to me was getting acrylic nails. And I though, "Wouldn't it be wonderful to not have to worry about the condition of my nails? If everyday they looked perfect and were all the same length?!"

And it is. Week 9 with my fake nails and I've got to say, I love them. I never thought I'd be that girl to be at the nail salon every few weeks, but for a $15 fill in that makes me feel this good, it's worth it. And no matter how many times I do my nail-to-nail comparison, they're still the same length.

And you know that sound it makes when you have long nails and you drum your fingers on a table? I love that.

So along with my summer nail-beautifying, I've started researching nail colors. This is the kind of nail color I've been wearing for work:




But after exploring all the nail polish colors, I'd rather be wearing these:




I've been known to wear some adventurous nail polishes, and all this light-pink-professional stuff is making me antsy. Maybe something like this for UNC:



And since rush workshop is about to start for all the panda sorostitutes, I recommend this, courtesy of SwatchandLearn.com:



I'm sure it's under dress code.

PS- I do recognize that I just posted way too many words about nail polish. I appologize to my father and the one or two other men that might read my blog.

Will & Grace

I have two new gay best friends!

Ok, well we haven't met yet.

I moved most of my stuff into my wonderful apartment in Chapel Hill this weekend and as we were leaving, two guys were moving into the one next to us. Now I don't want to make any assumptions, but my gaydar was maxing out.

My plan of action is to woo them with my Human Rights Campaign car sticker and my knowledge of marriage rights. And then...we'll fall in love. (Best friend love...obviously.)

I'm officially moving up in less than 3 weeks, so I'll keep everyone updated during the mission.

Humble Beginnings

Today I broke the printer. To the point where neither I, nor one of my coworkers, nor the tech guy, nor the print shop guy could fix it. So we've had to call Xerox and have them send a technician out. He'll be here sometime in the next 48 hours. Luckily only about 12 people use this printer, printing hundreds of sheets a day, using this exact machine for all their printing needs.

UGH.

So after I rolled my eyes and laughed that I had done yet another intern thing, I started to explain to the tech guy some of the other "Intern Moments" I've had in the last nine weeks. Here is a sample:


I am ALWAYS carrying something strangely shaped and hard to hold. I carried a gigantic orchid up from the mail room in such a way that I had to peer through the stalks to see where I was going. There were stares.

I accidentally turned off a fancy-pants manager's light on the way out of his office, leaving him sitting in the dark.

I rolled a cart out to my boss's car to get "a huge bucket" just to find out it was one small empty tub. I looked extremely weak rolling it back in on a cart.

I regularly trip trying to walk in heels, fell into a guy one time and he thought I had broken my ankle. (This came just minutes after I was asked if I was a model, and was feeling pretty high and mighty. I imagine it was God's way of knocking me off my high horse.)

If you walk through the badge-swipey-things without swiping your badge it alarms at you. This gets tricky when you push a cart through AND try to walk through. Multiple times I've had to do something similar to the electric slide to shuffle my way through the sensors without setting the alarms off. Still haven't been successful.

My new shoes get air pockets in them when I walk so it makes very un-ladylike sounds. I suspect there may be a viral email that the new intern has the walking farts.

Went in to make coffee one day and somehow the Keurig machine just started spewing water everywhere. Naturally 3 people walked in right then as I was panicking and dodging the boiling spray.

I thought I broke the copier cause it wasn't printing in color and tried to fix it for like 15 minutes before asking someone and being told it's only black and white.


I come home every day with a different story, so I'm sure I've left most of them out. It's a humbling experience, being an intern. Hopefully this will help me to work with interns someday when I'm in my big girl job.

In honor of 235 years of your citizens bickering

Per usual, I'm reading the CNN Belief Blog on my lunch break.
Per usual, I'm seeking out the posts about church & state.

And I found this gem.

In honor of Independence Day, it's a post called "Why the U.S. is not a Christian Nation." And it's fascinating.

If you don't feel like reading through the whole thing, here are some quick facts that interested me:
- Thomas Jefferson was the one that coined the term "separation of church and state", but it wasn't part of the Declaration of Independence, his most notable work. It was in a letter to a Baptist church in Connecticut.
- The author says that most of the founding fathers were Protestant (I was taught in my religion classes that they were mostly deist).
- The Constitution states, "No religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States." Then at the end of the Constitution is a "Year of the Lord" reference. (Hey, they tried.)
- One of America's earliest foreign treaties, signed under John Adams, says, "As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion, -- as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen (Muslims) ..."
- "In God We Trust" was first stamped on American currency after the Civil War, and didn't become the national motto until 1956.
- "Under God" was added into the Pledge of Allegiance 60 years after it was written (for a children's magazine) in 1954.

And the most hilarious:
- The "Ten Commandments" statues in various places around America were mostly established as a publicity stunt for the 1956 movie "The Ten Commandments."

I blame the 50's.

Now I'm not saying that we need to immediately remove all evidence that anyone in America ever believed in God, I'm just saying that maybe we shouldn't get our panties in such a bundle when someone threatens to. The symbols of "America's faith" are not the cornerstone of our country.

All this being said, the money doesn't say "In the Christian God We Trust" and in the Pledge it doesn't say, "one nation, under Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior." The argument should be whether we're a country of theism or not.

Either way, Happy birthday, America! And thanks for the ability to criticize you and blog about you as much as I want. You're still my favorite.