Caitlin Christian

Leaving Orange County

2010-01-12T22:58:00.000-08:00

Yes, that's right. After spending 4.5 years in the land of Santa Ana winds, Disneyland, and orange trees, I think it's time for me to leave Orange County. I've finished college, which is why I moved out here in the first place, and in the last year I've seen most of my friends disperse to other parts of the country (or they got full-time jobs with actual adult responsibility and were never heard from again.) My point is, I don't have much holding me here anymore. I have a handful of family members here, and a couple of friends who I would of course miss very much, but I've started from scratch before, and I can do it again.

Settling down in one location has never held much appeal for me, especially when said location is a place that I've never been completely crazy about to begin with. (On a side note, I think my college English professor would be horrified by the amount of dangling participles that are found in my blog.)

Now, this doesn't mean that I know when I'm leaving. Or where I'm going. Or what I'll do when I get there. But I figure I'm at the point in my life where it's leave now or get stuck with some job that makes it difficult to get out of here. Maybe something will happen to make me stay- but that's pretty doubtful. If I want to work in non-profit, it's time to head for a metropolis and start fresh.

I have no idea where to go from here. I'm applying to any job that appeals to me at this point, some of which are in cities that I have never before visited. Is this an unwise move? Maybe. Doesn't mean I'll take a job in, say, Washington D.C. without first visiting. This just gives me all the more reason to travel in the next few months and figure out where I could see myself living.

Adult life is scary and weird.

Twenty Ten

2010-01-09T15:06:00.001-08:00

I don't believe in resolutions. I believe in goals. To me, resolutions almost always fail because as soon as you break said resolution, you give up. As in, "Oh I resolved to stop eating candy, and today I broke down and had a Snickers. Guess my resolution failed so I'll start eating candy again."

So rather than resolutions, I'm compiling a list of goals for 2010. And I will not give up on them if I occasionally slip.

1. Maintain my finances to the point where I always have at least $1,500 in my bank account.

2. Teach myself a foreign language. Be able to speak this language conversationally by the end of the year. I'm thinking Italian?

3. Travel, travel, travel! And not just to Colorado. That doesn't count. In 2010, I want to visit three new states and AT LEAST one new country.

4. Get a real adult job. Something that pays the bills, but also something that I enjoy.

5. Eat better and work-out more. Lose twelve pounds by April and then maintain this weight. Ughhhh...

6. Continue writing. Now that I'm done with school, I need to make sure that I don't lose my ability to write.

7. Find a new hobby, or maybe revisit an old one. Everyone needs a hobby!

8. Be fabulous, enjoy life, and meet new people.

9. Start cooking more. I used to be a fairly decent cook, but apparently I've lost that skill.

I feel like everything on this list is doable. So, we'll see how this goes. I should probably add "updating my blog more frequently" to the list so that people can continue to read about my fascinating life and my health and financial goals. ...right?

On Moving

2009-11-20T11:44:00.000-08:00

For the last ten months, I had the pleasure of living in what one of my roommates dubbed the "Brangelina house." Located on Angelina Dr near Bradford Ave (hence the name), this gorgeous home was built in the 1920's. And for those of you who saw the house while we lived there, you know how fantastic it was. Hardwood floors, a living room that was actually more of a grand foyer, five huge bedrooms, access to the roof... it was a dream for those of us who had previously been living either with our families or in crappy little houses that reeked of cat urine. Yes, Brangelina was paradise. Sure, we had our share of crazy roommates, and the neighborhood occasionally proved to be less than safe. But overall, as a group of college students and young professionals, we were spoiled rotten by the house.

Which is why it sucked to move out last weekend. While we had planned on staying through the end of January, life intervened. New career opportunities, location changes due to school, and financial instability caused us to break our lease early and leave Brangelina. We had some great times in that house, but everything happens for a reason (cliché alert!, and as time goes on, it's becoming more apparent that it was our time to move out. And so I've prepared a a pro and cons list- the things I'll miss and the things I won't. Because I like making lists.

What I'll Miss

Roommates

Well, not all of them. In fact, only a couple of them. These two, most importantly. The three of us found the home together, and while other roommates came and went, we were the ones who stuck it out for those ten months. From sipping on gin and tonics while playing card games, to having a dance party while one of them played the piano, to... other recreational activities, I always looked forward to coming home after a long shift at work and hanging out with them. I'm not sure if I'll ever be in another situation where I'm blessed to live with such incredible people. I also need to give a shout-out to Allison, who was a great roommate for the month that she lived at the house. It should also be stated that I will miss Chris' cooking.

Location
Other than the occasional "well we live in Placentia, what did we expect?" moments that we sometimes ran into (to be further discussed later) the house was in a great location. Within walking distance of some cool restaurants and bars, as well as CSUF, we walked everywhere! Ok, that's not true at all. I think we walked to El Faralito twice. And one of those times we made Chris come pick us up because we were too tired to walk the two blocks home. But my point is that we could have walked almost anywhere, which is still cool even though we chose to drive to all of the places that were located within a half mile of us. Also, living next door to a middle school was annoying when we had to listen to the Pledge of Allegiance over the intercom at 8:13 every morning, but was so worth it when we sat on the roof with a beer watching a bunch of prepubescents practice their marching band routine.

The House
That's right, the best things about the house was the house! Man, if I turned this in to my English 101 professor it would come back to me covered in red ink. Anyway. Let me make a list within my list to tell you some of the coolest things about Brangelina- we had a piano, a cool patio, the aforementioned hardwood floors and accessible rooftops, a small room under the stairs that had no purpose but was still cool. We also had a PLAQUE. You know, an official "this house is a historical landmark" plaque located next to our front door. (This was always the grand finale whenever I was giving someone a tour of the house. They were never quite as impressed as I believe they should have been.) We also had a pool for about ten minutes, which was awesome until we realized that it needed to be cleaned. Then we were over it.

What I Won't Miss

The Occasional "We're Going to be Murdered" Moment
Ok, so our friend Kami's car was broken into. That sucked. And two nights before we moved out, someone set a car on fire in the parking lot next door to our cul-de-sac. I shouldn't omit the fact that on any given night, a myriad of men that you wouldn't want to meet alone in a dark alley passed by our house, staring into our windows while we gaily played showtunes on the piano. To be fair, though, we kind of knew when we were getting into when we moved into Placentia, also called "Placita Santa Fe," also called "Little Tijuana." I'm not going to spend my time defending what could be misconstrued as a racist comment, because I've been told that the people who live in Little TJ are the ones who gave it that name. All I'm saying is, the area is notoriously sketchy, and we chose to take that risk. Like sleeping with somebody who is incredibly good looking but also notoriously whorish. Enjoy the sex, but don't be shocked when you contract herpes.

Broken Doorknobs
Several of our doorknobs straight up fell off. And getting in the backdoor was quite a production. The plumbing in the upstairs bathroom was pretty much nonexistent for the last three months, rendering it useless.

So basically... good friends and great times vs a tricky backdoor (ha) and creepy leering men. It's incredibly sad not living in Brangelina anymore, but like I said, things work out the way they're supposed to, so for now I will just cherish the memories. Oh man, I just made myself throw up in my mouth a little.

Blog 2.0

2009-10-16T13:18:00.000-07:00

Oh, Caitlin. Another blog? Really? I've actually had this blogspot account for quite sometime, but it was previously used to write dark and scary thoughts at four am when I was stuck in a bad relationship. And not only am I not a dark and scary person, but the stuff that I wrote on here was a) nothing that people should or would want to read and b) always embarrassing in the light of day the following morning, somewhat akin to reading the text messages that you sent the night before while inebriated.

Those moody blog posts aside, however, I've actually been blogging for over seven years now. I kept a blog over on livejournal for all of high school and most of college, writing about typical teenage girl stuff- crushes, family and friends, school, and (in my case) theatre and dance. It's embarrassing to go back and read those blogs now (how did I even have friends in high school?) but at the same time, it's nice to be able to revisit who I was at 15, at 18, and throughout my first years of college.

Which brings me to why I'm once again attempting to start a blog. I'm at a very interesting point in my life- I'll be finishing college in a few months, and my future career plans and location are completely up in the air. I like that I'm able to go back and remind myself what I was doing in October of my junior year of high school, so I think it's important to have a way to look back on this time of my life in the future.