An overdue introduction

Today, the blog is four months old.  And while that's not an impressive feat, it made me realize that I've neglected to write an introductory post...whoops. With the new banner and design format, I think now is as good a time as any for the preliminaries. 

What's with the blog's name?
Sometime around 2 a.m. a few months back, I had a slew of possible names scrawled down including such kitschy titles as "The Neverending Nautilus" and "The Night Writer" — don't ask. I couldn't think of a unifying theme for the blog since my interests are all over the place, so I turned to something more general, like my favorite color. Tiny problem there: Blogs with "green" in the title are typically eco-friendly in their content. While I'm all for conservation and green living, I'm no expert in the field.

On a whim, I pulled out Hailstones and Halibut Bones—one of my favorite childhood books that explores colors through rhymes. The poem dedicated to green includes the following lines:

Green is a grasshopper
Green is jade
Green is hiding
In the shade

Sure it's simplistic, but it works. Plus, I get a plant for a mascot.

What's J&S about? Your posts are all over the place.
If the posts come across as disjointed, I can only credit that as a reflection of their creator. My interests are so across the board (books, movies, travel, fashion, food, satire, music, science, sci-fi, coffee, etc.) that there's no telling what the next post will be. In college, I was one of those students who declared her major as undecided for as long as humanly possible, before picking one and then changing it twice. Ultimately I graduated with a degree in journalism— a popular choice for us indecisive folks who love writing— but that doesn't mean I'm any less scattered.

Expect more disjunctions.

And who exactly are you?
Ciao! My name is Nicole and I am a 23-year-old writer who dreams of getting published, visiting every continent at least once, owning a Diane von Furstenberg wrap dress and having a coffee named after me (do I ask too much?)

I grew up in a small city named Spartanburg in South Carolina but have no Southern accent; go figure. I moved four hours northeast to North Carolina in 2001, graduated from high school and made a beeline for the wonderful UNC-Chapel Hill where I had the best four years of my life (so far!) In 2008 I graduated and landed an internship with a magazine in DC. Due to the economy and iffy job market, I moved back home after the internship ended. Cue quarterlife crisis and trailer to Post Grad, i.e. my life, more or less.

Up next on my agenda: working overseas.  As a friend so eloquently explained, "People who have midlife crises buy sports cars; people who have quarterlife crises go abroad." Should all go according to plan, I will be moving to an international city this January. No details on where I'm going since it's not definite yet, but I'll blab as soon as possible.

In the meantime...
Thanks for stopping by Jade and the Shade!  Feel free to ask questions or leave remarks in the comment boxes.