great timing

this morning we took our connecting flight from boston to dc and arrived in dc around 8am. we got in our car and were on our way home when we got a call from my mom's best friend from high school who's family was housesitting/dogsitting for us while we were away.

the phone call bore bad news...my dog, Max, had died this morning. he had been seen awake and walking around around 6 or 7am, but by 830, Max had crawled under our dining room table and died.

the moment my dad turned around and said "Max died," K, L, and i all simultaneously burst into tears...i've never had an onset of sobbing come so quickly.

Max dying came as quite a shock...he'd been kind of slow and sleeping a lot for the past year, but we just figured he was getting on in years and was slowing down from the wildness of Max as a puppy, but now i'm wondering if he maybe was developing cancer or something? his seventh birthday was yesterday...and we weren't even home to celebrate it for him...i feel kind of bad, and i was wondering if he was putting off dying until we got home, but about an hour before we got back just couldn't keep it up anymore?

either way, i miss my pup terribly and am sad i didn't get to say goodbye :(

Max

12/29/2002--12/30/2009

who is john galt?

hahah i love this:

"you're the kind of person who just wants to know everything about everything, aren't you?"

ps: i know i've mentioned this blog before, but i absolutely love it, and upon browsing it this afternoon i found a post-it that i really liked. while i'm more the type of person who would rather know something about everything, i also appreciate the concept when flipped around :)

this christmas

yes, i'm aware i've slacked in my blogging for....well the whole month of december pretty much.

and sure enough i couldn't keep up my photo calendar for more than six days (ha!)

but here are my excuses:

-tampa trip

-finals week

-rowing winter training camp

-travel home, being home, etc

satisfactory?

anyway,

it's christmas morning, well rather, afternoon, as it's 1 o'clock, and as usual, things are unconventional in my house.

my grandparents have yet to arrive, which means we can't eat lunch or open presents yet...

and to further the disappointment, the thrill of my christmases is officially depleted.

looking over my pile of presents, i already know exactly what is contained in each one.

i'm kind of bummed that my family either doesn't know me well enough, or is just too uninspired to gift me anything that would be a true surprise upon opening.

so, basically it's a lot of waiting in the living room to eat, to open gifts, for my grandparents to arrive...and the rest.

the good news, is i go to london tomorrow :)

can't wait!

five & six

december 5th:

& december 6th:

more on my tampa trip tomorrow :)

A double C, got 'em beat already!

today, i depart for the beautiful tampa, florida!

i'm driving down with my friends Bt, Tl, and Ml in Bt's tiny little mustang (it'll be a cramped trip to say the least, but nonetheless deliciously fun!

we were each required to make a mix cd for the drive....i ended up making four (i couldn't pick just 20 out of the 72 songs i dragged to the playlist on my itunes...) and i'm excited to pop 'em in the cd player.

anyway, most of today will be taken up by the 10 hour drive to tampa, but tomorrow we have until 8pm to do basically whatever we want...which of course we will spend much of our time sleeping and tailgating out of Bt's car (haha)

at 8pm....the ACC football championship starts....and let's hope clemson beats out georgia tech!

december 4th:

altered book :)

j3r$3y sh0r3

that's right.

tonight marks the premiere of MTV's new show "jersey shore"

and i am SO THRILLED

my dad grew up on the shore, but the good news is he is not a guido. he does, however have cousins named "vinny" and "ronnie" so it's quite amazing he made it out alive. as a result, i have a strange sort of fondness for shore-life, guidos, and jersey girls. or maybe i just enjoy making fun of them....we'll see.

anyway here's the december 3rd picture:

piano typewriter! i love it :)

advent calendar

i arrived back in clemson monday morning tooooo an advent calendar from elav's mom! yay me i was so delighted...a chocolate a day to count down the days until christmas.

so, in the spirit of christmas and advent calendars, i will (do my best to) post a photo i find interesting here every day (in addition to any other daily musings i have).

and i know i missed yesterday so here is the december 1st photo:

i love mural-type pictures like this

december 2nd:

this man paints himself into backgrounds....can you spot him??!

trail blazing

went to the barn today for my routine (not unwelcome) visit while home

rode my horse, zip, and a horse who looks just like him, hershey, and spent a good two hours on both combined, including a trail ride i took with my sister, K. we took Hershey and Zip behind fox chase (the new location of MEA haven farm) and across the rolling green hills of virginia (not to sound cheesy in description but that is exactly what they are, and the scenery is beautiful!) and into the woods. i let zip take the reins at one point (oh haha, my punnery is both futile and awful this evening), and, letting the reins sit loose in my hands, had him choose his own path. zipper trail blazed for a good ten minutes before he ran us right up to a dead end at which point he promptly spun around and headed back the way he came.

...horses are remarkably intelligent in that way :) haha

in the rest our explorations, we ran up along the edge of a cow pasture and were about ten feet from a big black bovine just standing in the middle of a creek, as well as found a creepy tree with red berries amongst the middle of nothing but dead winter trees, which reminded K and i both of the movie the village...at which point we each urged our horses on just that much faster.

minus the creepy tree, the scenery was probably the best part...nature is absolutely wonderful, and the landscapes of middleburg and aldie, va make it just that much more so!

black friday

for the first time ever today i engaged in the hysteria that is black friday shopping.

K and i woke up at 5:30 and drove to fair oaks to join the shopping scene by 6am.

running on merely white chocolate mochas from starbucks and some fruity orbit gum, K and i met up with some of K's friends and co. and traversed fair oaks. i came home by 9am, successfully having purchased some fun goodies for myself, as well as completing my gift search and purchase for S :) (a whole month early! rare for me, when i usually prefer to buy the gift as close to christmas as possible because i hate having to wait so long to give it to him!)

later, i met up with the usual panera lunch crew, E, T, and D (missing H unfortunately) for...you guessed it, panera (tragically, the mac n cheese was a fail...curse you panera) in order to have a routine thanksgiving luncheon and catch-up sesh (not that i don't talk to T & E almost daily...). afterward, T somehow tricked me into going BACK to fair oaks for a 2nd black friday shopping spree...

i went in insisting i couldn't spend money and she'd somehow trick me into buying something i'd regret.

sure enough...

first store we enter i pick a silly little winter hat off a mannequin and buy it, without thought.

but the thing is...i kind of love it...i've been wearing it around the house ever since i got home :)

wordle

we used wordle a lot in high school (in wendy's english classes!) but i'd largely forgotten about it until today when my english professor assigned us a wordle for extra credit

so i figured today i'd blog through wordle (i know it's small, the website wouldn't let me save it any bigger)

torn

i'm really torn between teaching either history or english...

english has always been my strongest subject but i really really enjoy history courses and learning history and geography and government and such (okay so aka i love to learn social studies).....

so that's what's basically been plaguing my mind and continues to do so

suggestions?

house on a rock

i want to live here:

just another reason why rhode island is beautiful

weekend home

my weekend home was everything i wanted...

i went shopping with my mom (got a delicious cute new jacket!)

chilled with dad

visited Pk, Kpmk and Agk (oh and bailey)

watched scary movies with M, K, and Ae and made fun of everything in them (i've missed being able to do that)

ate chipotle (cravingg, clemtown needs to get one)

spent time with S and his family :)

watched clemson beat fsu!

and basically just enjoyed everything about life back in the fax

returning in two weeks!

monsters of folk

in a fit of classic college experiences...

(one of multiple gorgeous mountain scenes we saw on the way to and from louisville)

Kt and i drove 9 1/2 hours (including an hour long detour to avoid a rock slide on i-40 that involved obtaining directions from a country gas station, passing through "luck, tennessee" -which incidentally is just a store on the side of the road- driving past hot springs, tennessee -a natural spa location since the 1800s?- and on never-ending winding roads up and down and around two mountains before making it back to i-40 having bypassed the rock slide) to louisville, kentucky for the monsters of folk concert at the louisville palace theatre on halloween night.

the trip was made epic

a) by the sheer absolutely illegality of it all (in terms of....forbidden by our parents-oops?)

b) by my ability to cut an hour and a half off of our trip by certain driving skills...

c) by the complete bright eyes discography played off Kt's ipod/new moon book on tape?

d) by the car bed

-put down the seats in the back of the car, both Kt and my's bedding spread out=CAR BED

the concert was epic because of

a) conor oberst. mike mogis. montgomery ward. jim james.

b) dancing neon robots and "that fuckin' rabbit" (okay....everyone who was in costume)

c) the lousiville palace theatre

d) monsters of folk rendition of "at the bottom of everything"

e) monsters of folk dressing up as kiss after the intermission and performing dressed as such

for the record....i'm in love with monsters of folk.

Kt and i also made the obligatory trip to whitecastle (burgers are in fact amazing...in an admittedly gross way, though), and spent an hour driving around louisville trying to find the university of louisville boathouse, and ended up sleeping in the car bed in a hotel parking lot. we woke up at 8 the next morning and drove another 8 hours back to clemson in time for me to shower before my 6pm freshmen athletes' etiquette dinner :)

(bridge we drove under on the detour around the rockslide on the way home

...i think this is a cool bridge/picture)

failure to blog

yes....i've been busy. whoops...

i guess i should to be continued on my fall break sooo...

anyway sunday/monday/tuesday i hung out at uva with E, T, Lr, and others

had a lot of fun at the "robinson" dinner monday night in which all the fun robinson kids at uva plus me went out to dinner downtown and St got mistaken for a transvestite.....classic.

tuesday was fun too...i saw the house E and Lr might live in next year ...aka are going to (they signed the lease) and then we went to dinner at lemongrass.....amazing thai food *drooool*

...i love thai food.

long story short.....i fell in love with uva all over again.

since fall break i've basically been busy catching up on classwork missed while mono-ed up, working through papers and exams, and coxing my ass off at rowing (yesss i get to cox again, by the way! as well as run)...

today Kt and i enjoyed a 40 minute interval run/walk/chat :) and i loved it....my heterosexual life partner is sooo awesome...i dont care if we're weird hehehe.

this weekend i'm getting pretty pumped because i'm headed to kentucky for the monsters of folk concert featuring none other thaaannn

m. ward of she & him (i would explode if say....zooey deschanel just popped onstage by the way)

jim james (yim yames) of my morning jacket

and mike mogis and conor oberst of bright eyes....

Kt and i have a delicious 7 hour drive and then the most delicious indie-folk concert ever...and then CAR-BED...(yes, sleeping in the trunk of her car) and then 7 hr drive home...

so stoked for halloween...as a result

(!!!!!!!!!)

rule #2: double tap

so i'm on fall break and thus far it's been incredible.

Kt, Kl, Am and I kicked off fall break by having an intimate late lunch at ruby tuesday's that involved a lot of loving and a lot of laughing (and lots of nargle-yness on my part)

friday night i left via train for charlottesville, an overnight trip. i arrived in c-ville at about 7 in the morning and met up with T and E as well as D who was visiting from elon. we hung out in E's dorm briefly and then over to T's until around 930 when S arrived from h-burg to pick me up. S and i took the a little less than an hour drive from uva to jmu where i finally got to see....everything in his life :) Sm and Cr were just waking up when we walked in, and I was introduced to S's roommate and suitemates (all very nice, despite my inherent dislike for his roommate...whoops?). We all hung around until S's dad and sister showed up (it was family weekend at jmu). All of us went to el charrrrrooo ("el ghetto" from netta times), and then went to see zombieland (a surprisingly hilarious movie) and then played v-ball outside S's dorm (very fun even though i suck). A showed up to visit Pj and I surprised her by tackling her from behind.....it ended poorly with muffin all over my pants.

after S's family left, Sm and i had naptime and then we all rolled out to fiesta jmu-style. it was fun drinking again (i've been sick and thus prohibited) as well as smoke cigs with some of my favorite people (S, Sm, Cr). S and i headed home in the early late-night and watched planet earth and ate ramen (and partook in loving activites :D ) and then fresh prince in his bed with gummy worms. S said the cutest thing while watching fresh prince that made me half want to cry half want to hug him forever. ps: falling asleep with S is my favorite thing ever.....i want my life to be that every night.

anyway the next morning Cr and Sm escorted me back to uva, where i began part two of my fall break adventures...

to be continued

wake up

arcade fire

is so good i can't stand it. you know what's even better? S playing/singing "wake up" for me on ooVoo. i love him.

besides this...i really want to see "where the wild things are"...that movie looks beyond precious.

also, i really want to be max for halloween. cutest little pajama bunny costume thing ever....wouldn't that be an amazing costume??? but i only have second dibs on it (Kt found the costume first...curses!) so we'll see how that plays out.

working on fall break...c-ville and h-burg :) <3

for now

sooooo

thursday i discovered i had mono, friday i discovered i had strep......aaand saturday at 539 am S stepped off a train and into clemson (to see me!!!). yes, for the record, he's the best.

because i'm sick i'm banned from practice so S and i went back to s9 and slept til around noon at which point we woke up, and S made us cheesy eggs and toast (delicious oh my goodness, i've missed S cooking). we ditched on the game cuz it was rainy and i was drugged up on mono pills, strep pills, and dayquil. we ended up lazing about and watching i love you, man with Canada, Kt, and Ln (which of course, S, Kt, and i quoted the rest of the weekend)

"laters on the menjay"

"see you then or see you at another time"

"...i'm really confused now i don't know if you're coming over or not"

....that film never fails to make me laugh.

anyway, due to the mono i'm not really good to fiesta on weekends and therefore, Kt, S, and i drove over to Tr's apartment. Tr's boyfriend, Jm was there as well as her roommate (who doesn't drink), however Tr and Jm were already fairly intoxicated. Jm ended up providing S with a self-replenishing supply of beer while the rest of us chatted, and Jm made us this epic "japanese rice" ....aka rice and eggs....but it was still amazing.

we came back to s9 where everyone was fiesta-ing...but S and i went to watch observe and report and then went to sleep.

sunday was maybe one of the more perfect days in my life...

S and i walked in to town and had delicious subs at firehouse subs and then walked home, changed and went to the lake with Kt, Ky, V, Am, Elav, Srm, Ns, Ht and Tv. S unearthed his hot pink sparkly speedo for the occasion, and we all swam and played and laid out in the sun and tanned and S even jumped off the bridge--3 times!

we left the lake in the late afternoon and drove over to the bi-lo to pick up supplies for a cookout in s9! Ky stole a grill from the calhoun courts grilling area and S pulled out all his manly skills and grilled burgers and hot dogs for us, while V set up an assembly line of condiments, and Elav and Kt were on fry/potato salad duty. We all took the bar chairs outside and sat and talked while we grilled and then all indulged in an epic "family dinner" (we've all since agreed to make sundays family dinner nights).

then elav, S and i headed over to the bo burnham concert!!!

bo is so much more hilarious live than he is just on youtube...and worth every dollar of the sixteen i paid to go see his show :) ohhhh and i finally got a photo with a (pseudo) celebrity!!! so that was an accomplishment in itself

when we got back everyone was eating funfetti cupcakes (drooolll) and we all watched across the universe, then S and i slept on the futon.

this morning i had to get up for class, but afterward i brought back hot chocolate and bagels and woke up S for a late breakfast. while i went to english class, S bused into town for a haircut (it looks cute surprisingly...it doesn't always haha) and then we came home and napped and watched donnie darko (i've never seen it!).

unfortunately i drop S off at the train station late tonight for him to head back to school, but before then V is making a big delicious dinner for everyone, which i'm looking forward to

sooo basically i had a deliciously fun weekend and hopefully i'll see S again in another two weeks or so, but if not, the weekend was nevertheless rejuvenating and all is looking good for now :)

thursday

still sick...which is totally weird....i'm never sick...let alone sick for this long. it's absurd and i just want it to be done with. ugh.

also kinda bummin....not totally sure clem is the place for me...needless to say i'm looking at the trans apps...

missed my history exam today due to illness...my professor was very understanding though, just concerned that i've already missed two lectures...but hopefully all that will work out.

i really need to do laundry but my head hurts too much for me to lug a basket of laundry from my house to the commons building, despite the fact that i literally have no more underwear and only have one pair of shorts left....problem.

i have a doctor's appointment at 2 today at which point im hoping they'll drug me up good this time

i just hate being sick because everyone shuns me...Am and Elav are the only ones who are any nice to me...it sucks.

also i think people think i am faking sick which is my number one fear when i get sick....i dont enjoy missing practices and classes...honestly....i LIKE working out/coxing and i LIKE learning....i dont skip them on purpose...

so basically this week is just getting worse....hoping visit from S saturday-monday will make me infinitely happier :)

flightless bird

I was a quick wet boy, diving too deep for coins

All of your street light eyes wide on my plastic toys

Then when the cops closed the fair, I cut my long baby hair

Stole me a dog-eared map and called for you everywhere

Have I found you

Flightless bird, jealous, weeping or lost you, american mouth

Big pill looming

Now I'm a fat house cat

Nursing my sore blunt tongue

Watching the warm poison rats curl through the wide fence cracks

Pissing on magazine photos

Those fishing lures thrown in the cold

And clean blood of Christ mountain stream

Have I found you

Flightless bird, grounded, bleeding or lost you, american mouth

Big pill stuck going down

i've figured it out. and now we can move forward :)

rain rain rain...

woke up this morning to.....

(no surprise)

RAIN. (it's basically been raining non-stop for four/five days)

after doing my ritual morning facebooking/gmailing i stepped over next door to s9d (only Canada was awake) and chilled there til Kt, Kl, Am, and Elav woke up.

theeennnn we went one of my top favorite places ever:

PANERA

we bothered to take the like......20 minute trip out to anderson (i drove) to get there but ohhhh it was heaven....summer corn chowder and asiago roast beef? thank the sweet lord and his baby jesus too.

anyway now we're back in s9d, V's parents are still here (oh by the way it was parents weekend)

making brownies next door ( in s9c ), H is driving home from....home (va beach), but the rest of us are staying in on a rainy day to watch movies!!! (my favorite thing to do on sundays if i'm not going to the lake!)

we rented three films, that we're going to watch in the following order:

nights in rodanthe

obsessed

and

i love you, man

which should carry us to about the time H gets home....at which point we will watch twilight!!!

basically the perfect rainy day :)

:)

S IS VISITING ME NEXT WEEKEND :)

if you want to sing out, sing out

i've always loved (read: adored) cat stevens, but with the introduction of the sprint "mytouch" commercials featuring cat stevens' song "if you want to sing out" i've been set off on a rejuvenated cat stevens kick.

he's kinda a badass...he was huge hippie peace-train type of guy with a ridiculously delicious voice/songs and then abruptly converted to islam and changed his name to yusef islam and was out of the spotlight.

(this always happens, some of my favorite artists go into hiding of some form/break up before i am old enough/am in existence to appreciate them --prime example: the format)

so being as i've been confined to bed rest for...mmm...two days or so now, i've had to find ways to entertain myself (being as no one will come near me for fear of possibly swine...)...and what better way to do that than to download the entire cat stevens 12-album discography! :)

illness

so yesterday i woke up feeling poorly...you know, the usual

headache
sore throat
fever/temperature
body aches
tummyache
fatigue
slight congestion

...etc

i headed over to Jervey (athletic center place thing....whatever there's a doctor for athletes there) and got checked out...turns out i'm legitimately sick! was prescribed dayquil/nyquil/cough drops (i'm sure i could've done that myself...) and was instructed not to go to practice til at least thursday...and only attend class if i truly felt up to it. oh and to "self-isolate" because it may or may not be flu (or swine!) and may or may not be just mild or sever symptoms...

i went home and slept for a good couple hours, was awake for a good couple more, tried to make macaroni, ate four bites, then took some nyquil and went to sleep.

i woke up at 930 this morning (missed psych class...oops..) but felt shitty as it was and couldn't summon the energy to actually move and/or get out from under my blanket (i was freezing...) so i filled out my class absence form online and fell asleep...again

around noon i tried to eat some crackers but i honestly just have no appetite...it's rather unfortunate. i took a shower and was feeling better...but the illness is getting back to me about nowsap...my head hurts and i'm getting chills...i think i'll go take another nap in a bit.

regardless...i hope i get better soon...it's parents weekend this weekend and i don't want to ruin that for the mother and father by being sick...it's also parade of athletes....which primarily means free t shirt ( haha...) and plus....i really hate missing practice :( especially when we've only got a month and a half til the hooch (and i'm really tryin to get in that novice 8! --there are 4 coxswains fighting for one spot--)

i'm missing music and reading...i don't really have time to work on my musical/literary enlightenment here...compared to the time i did at home. so my ipod usually sits lonely right on top of the book i never finished reading from when i got here (a month ago...) on a shelf above my bed.....

i'm trying to make a goal to devote more time to all that and such...cut down on sleeping?studying? haha....i'll work on it.

(ps: hoping S will make a visit down here by fall break <3)

also really kinda thrilled...it's looking like if K makes it to the NC invitational, i'll be able to hitch a ride up to charlotte that saturday to see my sister/see her race...otherwise i won't see her til thanksgiving! (so i'm really hoping that works out...i miss her, i'll admit it)

i'm ill!

polo & charleston

I really want to learn to play polo...

things with S are better ...I'm happy even though i still don't know what's up.

in the meantime...

planning a trip to charleston, sc for fall break! i'm really excited...i'd be going with Kl, Kt, V and perhaps others....all of us in one hotel room and just clubbing all weekend....so much fun :) i hope the trip works out :)

david bowie, among other things

in study hall ("EEE" -"engage, enrich, empower") a study hall set up for student athlete to make sure we don't fail off our asses in college what with practices and such....we're required to pull out 10 hours a week in here from sunday at 3pm by friday at 3pm. it's not too bad (yes, it has forced me to develop study habits) it just gets old fast when you've already done literally all of your homework and you're just in here killing time...aka what i'm doing now. i've already been in here for two hours this morning and i read a good half of my book for history as well as did my math homework...i have to fill up three more hours in here ...but the only thing i have left to do is 40 pages of my history book....so needless to say, i'm killing time blogging and ffffound-ing, which is a pasttime to say the least so i'm not complaining (why would i complain???? i love photos and blogging....goodness i almost want to delete that but i think i'll leave this post as a stream of consciousness).

anyway, chatted with J today about.....relationships, her Z, my S, complications, and difficulty making friends outside of the rowing team...we've vowed to join a club (right, with what time?) and meet some cool people...but we'll see how that go. considering our "vow" to go on a run this afternoon ended up as a leisurely stroll over to the '55 exchange to pick up a tub of caramel cookie dough ice cream...

speaking of......going to "spill the beans" with J as soon as we're done with EEE :)

anyway fffound/flickr/photo favorites for the day:

(ps: don't even get me started on how much i love david bowie...)

it's pretty much one of my life's ambitions to be invited to have a ffffound account...

speaking of...

present life ambitions:

-get invited to ffffound

-get the black kids here to think i'm cool and not a stupid white girl (i asked this one kid last night what he meant by "homeboy")

-MAKE FRIENDS OUTSIDE THE ROWING TEAM!

-read 3 (leisure) books by fall break

-secret beach on sunday :)

-drunk adventure at a waffle house

also,

trying to pick a new party/fiesta/late-night drive song for september...something funky, upbeat, catchy, fresh.....suggestions?

silver fox

no, i'm not talking about sexy old men.

i'm talking about how....i'm gonna get a silver fox. seriously...

i've been reading up on them. they're immensely adorable...

and since the soviets domesticated them, they've been for sale as pets in the U.S., totally legal, no lie, and they're just as tame as dogs, and apparently very affectionate toward humans...

so basically, as soon as i'm living off campus i'm getting a fox kit as a pet :)

finding out true love is blind (brown girl)

missing S...this is hard. it might just be me....but i feel like S needs to get his shit together sometimes and want to talk to me....every time i squeeze in a phone call (like once a week at this rate) judging by his one-word responses i'm clearly wasting his time or boring him. ugh.

basically spent that past three hours on ffffound.com delicious :) also found a fun post-secret-y type blog...things we forget ...clever idea :)

in other news, i dyed my hair dark brown yesterday.....i absolutely love it. and i have that blue eyes/brown hair effect goin' for me which is also fun.

this weekend was wild...

friday i went to alpha sig lake house...bumpin' fiesta until a new pledge fell 20 feet off the balcony and had to be flown to greenville (still don't know if he's okay :/ ), but i had more fun pre-gaming with Elav, J, and Elav's boy toy e-rock and his friend sFn (we made a vat of macaroni and four million margaritas and just chatted for like two hours).

saturday, 12 hours, 9 different locations....epic. i'm gonna say meeting baracuda boy and or corderoy blazer boy were highlights of the night...but given that things are STILL coming back to me...haha we'll see how those hold up.

anyway, Sunday i slept in til 2, went to lunch with hs friend Cy at Moe's and exchanged epic tales, came home, e-rock/Elav picked me up to go buy hair dye, came home, went to a S.O.S. interest meeting...S.O.S. is a service organization for student athletes run by one of our varsity girls on rowing, so i hitched a ride there and signed up....maybe i'm a dork but i'm actually pretty excited about it...we get to work with middle school students (who are at-risk of not finishing their education) throughout the year by having a "TigerTalk" buddy who we email with all year, as well as going out in teams of 8 or so to talk at assemblies at schools about being a college student athlete and things like that....it sounds really fun :)

ffffound favorites for the day:

ugh

i get irritable when people can't just be straight up. just got shot down in thirty different ways all in one day....i need real friends....college is frustrating in this respect. i thought i was making friends but apparently something about me is expressly wrong and therefore i deserve to be treated like shit. thanks guys. so now i'm miserable again....i thought college would be the place where i could finally be happy...wtf is wrong that i'm not happy??? i just wanna drive for like five hours. oh and i really want to find that waterfall DAVY has in his photo album...

bo burnham

officially searching for a date/buddy to attend the bo burnham concert with me.

Hi, my name is Desperate.

sweet tea

getting increasingly discouraged.

southern people are not my cup of tea.

convergence and the office

first day of classes....went well!

my psychology professor was basically michael scott reincarnate...i can't decide if this will prove amusing or annoying...we'll see in the coming day, right?

english i can i'm going to love, our teacher? professor? is a grad student here and is super young and almost schwarzy-ish (which of course, is comforting). the class is small, and i'm one of 5 girls out of 19 people....nice? but all the people in the class seemed nice and fun so it seems like it'll be great fun. i can tell wednesdays and mondays will be nice...only two classes and all done by 1:10...success!

also, ran into Ry on campus for the millionth time, it's crazy i've seen him and another kid from high school all over the place, but have yet to run into Cy....weird how paths converge and don't like that.

meanwhile, S moved into school yesterday and i miss him terribly...i hope he's having tons of fun, it certainly seems like he's loving it... (but i hope he's not forgetting about me in the process :/ )....this is gonna be hard.

have a physical for rowing this afternoon, then sleeeepingg forever sounds about right :)

orange roses

huge welcome back festival downtown yesterday, in which Ln, Elav, Srm, and i got soo much free stuff...including FREE BOXES OF MAC N CHEESE (huge win, trust me), as well as fifty cent orange roses (gorgeous :) ...Elav and i promptly trimmed the length and put them in a vase in our room). also checked out the secret back-alley ice cream/smoothie/coffee shop "spill the beans" and had an amazzziiinggg pineapple mango smoothie....so real.

yesterday also marked my first time eating at a dining hall, Srm, Elav and i had both lunch and dinner at "shitter" ....surprisingly fantastic food believe it or not!

later, V, Elav and i went about lookin for parties, had a ride to a toga party but weren't inclined to dress for that...so we waited for a pick-up to sigma chi (missed two rides....fail), then arbitrarily were picked up by some random people and were taken to a house party with the rugby team...wild. we are now biffs with the rugby team....random? much so.

got back around 2:30 am, and Elav and i sprinted over to wish happy birthday to J (18!), then came home to drink lootttsss of water and fix ourselves mac n cheese (the free kind...tastes so much better than purchased), then crashed.

off to shitter again, then soccer game, then throwdown for V not having stds, and for J's 18th :)

hello, stranger

i am aaaatt....college!

it rocks.

yesterday dad and i drove five plus hours from the beach all the way across grimey-lina to school. i got there all of five hours BEHIND my roommate, Elav and she had already filled the room with her personal touches. Elav was out to lunch with her fam, and my other apartment-mates, V and Am were out to lunch as well, so it was just my father and i toting things into the apartment (with the generous assistance of some orange-shirted upperclassmen).

we made the bed first

(i'm top bunk, which is proving to be a ....er.... "fun" interlude hopping up and down from it)

then my mother, K, and L showed up, later trailed by my grandparents and uncle. after everyone had taken a look at our living space, they let me be for a few hours to organize my room and decorate and such.

i tackled my clothing and hung up everything in the closet, and put away clothes and such in the dresser, then collaged my various clippings and such on my cork board as well as the built in cork board on my desk

V and Am slept with their families at their hotels so they left in the early evening and i didn't see them again until this morning. around seven or so, my family came to pick me up and we went and had dinner at the campus inn...or whatever. the food was AMAZINGG i had a swordfish trio with salad and a lobster bisque i believe? i ate as much as i could and still had plenty of leftovers for lunch today :)

after getting dropped back at my apartment and saying goodnight to my family, i ran over to another crew girl's apartment to get schwasty with Elav and four other girls. some baseball team guys were there for a bit, as well as two kids Elav knew from high school; it didn't get too wild, but when C started throwing up we dipped...

i decided then would be a good time to call S, and a simple phone call turned into a skype chat while Elav and i enjoyed cupcakes and the apartment to ourselves for the night. I crashed around 12:30, move in day was exhausting...

today, mom picked me up at nine to get any last-minute purchases at a target ten miles away. we trekked there and back, picking up primarily more hooks and more hangers! who'd've thought those would be the things i used most abundantly...hmm!

we had our new student convocation in the afternoon, and after that i said goodbye to my mom, L, grandparents and uncle (dad and K i said goodbye to the night before)

after Elav, V, and Am returned from Fike (the fitness center) everyone showered and we made chicken quesadillas in our kitchen (they were delicious, for the record) with Srm from the apartment across from us. we had intentions to then go out for ice cream at spill the beans in town, but imminent thunderstorms and loud siren warnings (school induced) suggested we "head for shelter-ground to ground lightning!" and so on, so we modified our ice cream plans to just run over to the ice cream place at the student center. V, Am, Srm, Elav, Ln and i sprinted across the street JUST as the APOCOLYPSE OF RAIN STORMS occurred....only to discover it was closed, we were both soaked and slightly miffed, but agreed to sprint back to our apartment to enjoy cupcakes and ice cream while watching pineapple express.

tomorrow, Elav, Srm and i have the foreign language placement test (bleh) and then everyone has various orientation activities, but what i truly can't wait for is the welcome back festival/block party downtown tomorrow night!!!

lots of free stuff and lots of fun :)

the crew girls are great, but i do recall that i should make friends OUTside of crew (ha! necessary? meeehhhhh...) and hope to acquaint with a few strangers tomorrow

ps: alice in wonderland comes out on my birthday...i'm so excited

pss: can you tell i've been ffffound-ing it again?

rental bikes and the end of north carolina

today, K and i rented bikes and rode them along the beach about 3 miles down to the end of the island (also happens to be the end of north carolina, as sunset is the last island in nc). at the west end of the island, you can see across a little inlet over to north myrtle beach, and the last two miles or so of the island is uninhabited, and generally fairly secluded. the ride there was taxing on the body, riding a bike on the sand and into the wind was tough! K and i stopped halfway to take a break and jump into the waves (and alright we did have fun faux posing as "abercrombie" and "hollister" models)

(K standing in the water of the inlet between sunset and north myrtle)

now, besides a fun ride down the beach, we had a purpose in trekking down to the end of the island. K insisted, from her memory, that there was a submerged submarine at the end of the island, and wanted to go down and take pictures to prove it to both our family, and her friends from back home...

it ended up just being a submerged boat engine...

regardless, the afternoon was tons of fun, and i loved spending a day with my sister :)