eff yeah 2012

this is what happens when you spend all of your time thinking about condoms

by ameena on July 25, 2012 · 10 comments

in a day in the life, favorite posts, half-baked ideas, olympics, random musings, real girls like sports

Ever since Olivia and I learned that 70,000 condoms wasn’t enough for the Sydney Olympic games and that the Olympic Village now orders 100,000 condoms, we seem unable to discuss little else. Mostly what this means is that we spend all of our time obsessively discussing how we are going to sneak our way in to the Olympic Village.

Before you go judging me, just remember we are talking about Olympic-caliber sex, people!

As one athlete from the article put it, “even if their face is a 7, their body is a 20.”

At first we thought we would take the traditional approach and become Olympians ourselves. After a thorough brainstorming session (ten minutes) we concluded that our height gives us two ways in: through the basketball court or through the beach. Since dribbling a basketball is a concept that is entirely lost on me but I have been known to spike a volleyball or two in my life time, we decided beach volleyball was the way to go.

Thus, we present to you Misty May Treanor and Kerri Walsh 2.0! Coming to an Olympic games near you in 2016!

I mean, it is the most brilliant plan, right? Well, except, there is one teeny tiny problem:

oh hello, mister ryan lochte. (source)

This fine, outstanding gentleman will be at the 2012 games and we just don’t want to risk missing out. I’m sure you understand.

This led us to Plan B:

Step One: Find two free flights to London by Friday.

Step Two: Sneak in to the locker rooms at the Olympic pool.

Step Three: Locate Ryan Lochte and Ricky Berens.

Step four: Use our charm to get in to the Olympic Village (By the way, if “charm” were an Olympic event we wouldn’t have to be resorting to Plan B, I’m just sayin’ (okay, now you can judge me)).

Clearly Plan B is in the early development stages. If any of you could help me out with steps 1-3 I’ll try to bring you back some Official Condoms of the Olympic Games.

So yeah, this absurd number of condoms being used by thousands of Olympic athletes in the span of about 16 days pretty much consumes 80% of my brain function at all times. And because it is all I can think about, I had this thought today:

If there are about 10,000 athletes competing at the Olympic games that would mean that each of them goes through about 100 condoms each. But since they are all sleeping WITH EACH OTHER that is just straight-up crazytown, right? Even for an athlete.

Don’t worry, about three seconds after I sent that enlightening text to Olivia, I realized the severe error in my math and readjusted the number to the accurate 10 condoms per athlete. Which, once you’ve started thinking about 100 condoms per athlete, “only” ten condoms per athlete is the world’s biggest disappointment.

Clearly Olivia agreed because she responded with, “I bet you and I could get Ricky Berens and Ryan Lochte to go through more than 10 each.” To which I say, HI MOM.

Then we realized we forgot to take in to account the athletes from more conservative countries that probably won’t engage in the crazy sexcapading of the Olympic Village. We also decided to take married and relationship-committed athletes out of the equation since non-athletes are not allowed in the Olympic Village (besides us, OBVI) and we’re just gonna go ahead and assume no cheating will be going on (Sorry K Stew, you’re out! (Too soon? (Call me Rob!))). Based on our highly unscientific research and some borderline stereotypical assumptions for which I am certain I will be frolicking in Hell, we decided this knocked the number down to about 7,000 athletes dipping in to the condom supply.

Which now puts us at 15 condoms per athlete.

BUT THEN I struck gold when I learned that this year the Village’s condom supply has been increased to 150,000 FUCKING CONDOMS.

WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE?!

This means that on average each sexually active athlete is going through about 20 condoms. That just sounds so much better than ten, don’t you think?

And now you know how I spend the majority of my free time.

Now to find that free flight….

how to submit your first essay

by ameena on January 30, 2012 · 7 comments

in how-to guides

Read Stratejoy’s announcement regarding their First Annual Essay Contest. Get really excited in the pants because it just so happens to be one of your goals for the year to submit a piece of writing.

Immediately set off for the library to begin working on your masterpiece. Spend the next two hours Facebook stalking your crush and catching up on your favorite blogs. Get the writing jealousies. Move on to Pinterest. Get the everything else jealousies.

Repeat for the next week.

Curse that instead of two weeks to work on your essay you now only have one. Grow frustrated that you still don’t know what to write about. Obsessively ask yourself and everyone you know how you live life on your own terms. Have a glorious epiphany one night as you drift off to sleep and bolt out of bed to begin typing away. Proceed to work on essay like crazy for the next two days.

Realize you hate it. Begin to panic that maybe the reason you can’t write this essay is because you aren’t living life on your own terms at all. Have a mini existential crisis. Start looking in to life coaching. Get lost in a sea of self-doubt.

Take a deep breath. Remind yourself that your goal for now is just to submit a piece of writing. Accept that your mom is right and you have been over-thinking the whole thing.

Decide to scrap the old essay and start over. Find your groove.

Rapidly approach deadline. Type faster. Frantically email drafts to your mom and best friend. Obnoxiouslly text and call them for feedback.

Proudly hit send and smile as your essay disappears in to cyber space.

***

not your average how to guides:
how to survive the mud 

please excuse me while i check my humility at the door because LOOK WHAT I DID YOU GUYS!

by ameena on January 29, 2012 · 9 comments

in a day in the life, life and times of bilbo baggins and mr toad

One of my goals for 2012 is to have a crafternoon at least once each month because, well, one can never really do enough crafternooning if you ask me. My crafty goal for this month was to paint something for my fireplace mantle on account of it has been looking rather naked ever since I removed its Christmas dressings. Scandalous, I know! I’ve been obscenely obsessed with this print that I found on Pinterest and decided to attempt to recreate it.

I’m madly in love with the result:

But THEN, I realized that I had accidentally purchased a two-for-one canvas set and just couldn’t stand to leave one canvas untouched and also because I’m equally obsessed with this pin, I ended up with this:

And just in case you wanted to see them one more time:

Okay, I’m gonna stop humblebragging and put my humble pants back on.

Thank you for indulging me.

bloggers in sin city the sequel

by ameena on January 17, 2012 · 5 comments

in bloggers in sin city, blogging about blogging

image courtesy of Kelly

It was about this time last year that I emerged out from under my rock and discovered all of the amazing that the internet has to offer. Or, more specifically, the blogs of the cool kids. While obsessively stalking reading about the exciting lives of others from the creepy darkness of my bedroom, I happened upon an exciting event called Bloggers in Sin City. It was love at first sight. Deep down in my gut, I knew that come May 2011 Vegas was where I needed to be. But me being me, and in spite of all of the awesome staring me right in the face, I couldn’t get myself to sign up just yet. For about a month I agonized on whether or not I should go. All of my social anxieties seemed to present themselves at once. The self-doubt. The shyness. My fear of crowds. My general discomfort around strangers. Worries that no one would like me.

But even as I curled up in to an anxious heap – I couldn’t let the thought go. Finally I said to myself, “Self, May is going to come whether you like it or not. And you can either a.) spend it watching from the creepy darkness of your bedroom as people tweet and blog about all the awesome that is BiSC OR b.) you can sign up for the time of your life and actually be one of the people tweeting about it.”

And I am so happy to report that I listened to myself and signed up, because May 2011 did in fact come and to say that BiSC changed my life doesn’t even begin to do justice to the magic of that weekend. I yearn for it always.

Which made it all the more surprising that as of 72 hours ago I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to make it for BiSC 2012. This time the reasons were entirely different and sadly all too adult: mostly having to do with money, summer class conflicts, uncertainty about my future, and some seriously messed up priorities thrown in. So once again I found myself having a peptalk…with myself.

“Self, what is your phrase for 2012? WHAT IS IT? That’s right – we are young. And newsflash sugarplum, two weeks in to 2012 and you are still young. Now go read your recap from 2011 and try to say you won’t hate yourself if you are not in Vegas come May.”

Oh self, you are so wise sometimes. Once I had some sense knocked in to me, I then proceded to spend the next twenty-four hours legitimately re-prioritizing my life so that I could make it again for round two. YOU GUYS THERE IS GOING TO BE A PART TWO!

And this year is sure to be a kajillion times more glorious. I mean LOOK AT THIS AGENDA.

And don’t even get me started on the fact that it is sponsored by Paper’d. The incredible iPhone App full of the prettiest wallpapers designed by the enviously talented Jamie. Not only is Paper’d pretty but they are generous, too! They’re offering to reimburse one lucky attendee’s registration fee! PICK ME PICK ME.

So, you know, if you want to join in on all of the fun May 17-20 you should sign up RIGHT THIS INSTANT because spots are flying. And then we can have all the fun and do all of the tweeting and you can be part of THE booze-guitar rock band and have the best time forever and ever amen.

the secret to being an adult

by ameena on January 15, 2012 · 3 comments

in random musings

A couple of months ago I accidentally stumbled upon what I like to call the secret to being an actual grown up adult version of myself. It was totally one of those Oh! So this is what being an adult feels like moments. But like, it was one of the good this is what being an adult feels like sort of moments. Not the oh shit I am an adult when did that happen somebody make it stop sort of moments. Do you know what kind of moment I am referring to? All you need to know is that it’s a really great kind of moment. The best part is it kind of hit me when I was in the middle of actually doing it without realizing just what I was doing.

Are you ready for it? Here it is, my secret to being an adult:

Do the thing you are supposed to be doing.

There it is. That’s it. And how gloriously over the mother effing moon happy does it make me when I finally stop procrastinating and do the thing that I am supposed to be doing! As a chronic avoider of all the things in life, I have spent plenty of time and energy avoiding the exact thing I am supposed to be doing. Procrastinator extraordinaire at your service. Let’s just say that stress and I, we’re old acquaintances.

But when I do the thing I am supposed to be doing suddenly I find that I have more time (and energy!) to do more of the things I actually enjoy doing – guilt-free! Like, when I actually clean the kitchen I waste less time stressing myself out over how messy the kitchen is and more time dancing in my underoos. The most surprising part? When I regularly clean the kitchen it actually takes me less time to clean it. WHOA. And that’s pretty much how a lot of things in life go. Do the crappy stuff first, have all of the fun later. ALL OF THE FUN!

Since discovering my adulthood secret a couple of months ago I have found that I have started being less talk and more action. I’ve gotten in to this crazy-pants habit of making a to-do list every night before bed. Crazy right? It gets crazier: I then spend the next day actually checking things off my list. INSANITY. And now I have the added benefit of Nicole’s insanely awesome Eff Yeah 2012 goal template to help my neurotic, list-obsessed self kick it up a notch. Fifteen days in to this new year and my goals have already revolutionized my life. So many lists! So much happiness!

As always, my old habits never disappear without a fight. Not long after I found myself happily doing the thing I was supposed to be doing, my inner child rebelled. It was like I was taking two adult steps forward and then three tantrum induced baby steps back. I absolutely, positively refused to do any of the things I was supposed to be doing. Instead I binged on True Blood, slept half my life away, and avoided studying for finals by any means necessary.

Fortunately, I have found that the baby step tantrums are becoming less frequent and my more adult strides are finding their regular rhythm. I’m learning to tackle the most important pieces of my day first and do what it is I am supposed to be doing.

Oh hey adult me, you’re looking good.