Coffee, Converse, and Life After College
Thanks for taking the time to check out my blog, enjoy!
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Showing posts tagged friends
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I love when friends Skype me and I get to say hi to their pets!
Liv Eda and her kitty chatting with me from Oslo, Norway!
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Making the ridiculous wonderful.
Friday night my wifey (aka my amazing friend Rebecca) drove up to Saint Mary’s to hang out with me for the evening (resulting in an amusing opera sing-along to the Sound of Music) so that we could leave the following morning for Tahoe.
We headed up to Tahoe early yesterday and, although we had three GPS devices, still managed to get slightly lost and take the very scenic (and MUCH longer) route to Tahoe Donner Downhill Ski area…
Upon (very late) arrival, we realized that one of the people we were meeting, who had my snow gear courtesy of my mother, had accidentally unpacked it and left it where we were staying later that evening. Which meant that I was at the slopes with my board, bindings, and boots, and not much else besides the jeans and tshirt I was wearing.
Thankfully we made the ridiculous wonderful.
I found some extra clothes in the trunk of the friend’s car and, combined with my scarf (aka makeshift belt) and some ingenious layering techniques, built a snowboarding-semi-appropriate-outfit and hit the lodge to scarf down some food, rent a helmet, and buy a half-day lift ticket.
Rebecca and I finally made it to the slopes and spent the next 3 or so hours having the time of our lives. We tumbled and fell, laughed and chased each other, careening down the sparsely covered (0-8” of snow/ice in most places) slope. It was just what we needed.
After a good 3 continuous hours of boarding the slopes closed and we headed back to Squaw, where we were staying for the night.
Hilarious conversations, story-telling, and rapping ensued.This morning we all headed out, back to our respective homes, none worse for the wear. Besides some sore knees (courtesy of the ground instead of snow), we were all better for the wear.
Good times. Friends and fun.[Now I’m off to write a 9 page paper, clean my room, work on some science independent study, and hopefully still go to bed early, because tomorrow is the first day of my new internship!]
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You know those people who…
make you a better person?
I’m lucky enough to have some amazing friends and the more I hang out with them and meet new ones I realize that I know some truly amazing and talented people.
When I’m with them, it makes me a better person. More productive. More spontaneous. More adventurous. More everything that I love about myself.
Just had to share.
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Packing. For the umpteenth time.
Other news.
-My mother drove me over an hour to hang out with my friends Bethany and Micah today. I love Bethany to pieces and lived with her this past summer (talk about best roommates ever, her and her sisters rock my socks). Anyway, went to Gilroy outlets with them and bought a cardigan, dress, and tank top from Forever 21 for like 12 whole dollars (buy one get one free for clearance items). And had a FABULOUS time with Bess. I hate that she lives in Pittsburgh, PA because I never get to see her! :( But yeah, great day! (plus I tested out my new 50mm lens and am in love).
-Went to Starbucks for my free coffee of the day (I bought the daily-coffee-free-for-January-mug back in December)…they only had Pike’s and decaf and I hate both so they made me an Americano with an extra shot :D
-Dorothyla visited before heading back to SMC!!!!
-I am now cleaning my room, packing, and watching Castle season 3!
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Really want to go for a run…
Here’s to hoping that I’ll get to bed in the next half hour and wake up in time to go for a run and straighten up my room before my hair appointment (getting my hair dyed/roots touched up, finally!!!! I will be providing the hair lady with like 10 photos of Beckett’s hair for inspiration and guidance lol.) and then my friend Breezy is driving up from LA and I can’t wait to see her because I love her and miss her like 24/7 (she’s like me. she takes too many photos, travels to too many places, and is vegetarian. perfect friendship!). Anyway, better go polish my Statement of Purpose some more and then call it a night…
Also, HAPPY 21st BIRTHDAY NATALEE!!!!!!!!!!
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Naked Senses: The Pursuit
Last night I had a dream about Connor Redd. I’ve though a lot about him since I have been in Australia; his smile, his carefree attitude, his strong character, his family in Arizona.
We have one shot, my friends. One chance to seize the day. That is the reality. That’s it.
I came to Australia…
(Source: ptunzi)
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600th post!
Today is the last day of JanTerm 2011. I cannot believe that after today (and after I turn in all of my work January 25th) I will only have one more JanTerm left in college…where does the time go?
Anyway, this is going to be a short post because I have to hurry up (I’m running late because Dorothy was online and we haven’t skyped in a while so of course we had to catch each other up on everything!). And thankfully all the places I want to go are open late because it’s Friday…Plan for today:
-Visit London MoFo (just cause I can and I want to see what the building looks like and it’s by a place where I wanted to shoot some street art)
-Canary Wharf (still not sure how I’m getting to the right place via tube but it will happen)
-Tate Modern (already went once, wanted to do a follow up)
-Starbucks (need to do some writing for my JanTerm paper, need 4 more pages, and just need to think about my plan for gallery set-up, etc)
-Drinks with Caitlin near London Bridge
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Here goes! Bye for now!
***To make everything even better, Gonzaga lost to Santa Clara last night :D
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London Photoblog Week 1
*Dec. 27th, 2010 - Arrived in London in the evening, after a very tiring bus/ferry journey that covered 4 countries. Highlights?
-departure: Schiphol, Holland
The bus took FOREVER to arrive and was uber late. I thought I had missed it and might have freaked out a bit. It was freezing outside, where I was waiting. Literally freezing. Actually, below freezing. So dang cold.
-1st Stop: Brussels, Belgium
I found yummy Belgium chocolate [and also accidentally ending up wandering around in the Red Light District, before giving up and seeking refuge in a fast-food restaurant where the only things I could read on the menu were “Cheese Burger” and “Pommes Frites”….guess what I had for lunch? Yup, french fries. When I ordered the fries, in hesitant english, the server definitely asked me about 10 questions about fry sauce and what kind of fries I wanted. Not being able to speak English, I replied “normal fries with ketchup”. Someone should have told me we were stopping in Brussels for an hour, I would have looked up a few key phrases in French.
-2nd Stop: Lille, France
I was in the middle of watching “Erin Brockovich” on my laptop when I was rudely interrupted by a French lady who wanted to sit, out of all the empty seats in the bus, next to me, in the seat occupied by my insane amount of luggage. Apparently I took so long to move my stuff that she gave up and found a new seat. I didn’t know the bus would stop in France so I was a bit confused (to say the least) about our stop in France.
-3rd Stop: Border control in France before boarding a ferry to England
France border control was fairly nice and mumbled some French and waved me through. UK border control yelled at me, made me cry, and almost didn’t let me into the country because I didn’t have my BnB address memorized. I had it written down but apparently that wasn’t good enough. I hate UK immigration, every time I go through, they decide I’ve done something horribly wrong. After I got through UK immigration, I got back on the bus to board the ferry. Unfortunately, our coach (bus) was chosen randomly for luggage inspection and I had to lug all 140 total pounds of my luggage through a building and run them through a machine, while giving the inspectors confused looks because they only spoke French to me. FINALLY, the coach boarded the ferry, and I must say, that was definitely the highlight of the bus journey. A MASSIVE ferry housing semi-trucks, coaches, cars, and people sailed across the channel to England. I had a delicious dinner, Bulmers/Magners cider and really enjoyed chatting to others on the ferry about their journeys!
-arrival: London, England
I was so amazed to be in a bus driving past things like the Tower of London, and a combo of exhaustion and wonder was just intense. I then lugged 2 54lb bags, and 2 carry-ons across 3 different tube stations and up and down more staircases than I can count. I only made it thanks to the many people who helped me out!
If there are PHOTO CAPTIONS, they will be UNDERNEATH the corresponding photo. I received feedback last time stating that the captions above were a bit odd, so this time I’m placing them below the corresponding photo.
[no photo]
*Dec. 28th, 2010 - My friends Gil & Ido were in London for a few days and I was VERY excited to hang out with them! I met up with them at Covent Gardens and grabbed a delicious lunch [best veggie burger ever]. Then we went to Brent Cross Shopping Mall [Ido had to buy a few last-minute presents for his girlfriend] and enjoyed wandering and exploring the giant mall. It was super fun, and finding the tube station afterwards was a definite adventure.
*Dec. 29th, 2010 - Gil, Ido and I met up at the British Museum, and enjoyed walking around and observing the mummies. Mummies are SO COOL. We ate a light lunch in the museum, and then quickly met up with their Aunt and cousins, and went souvenir shopping for their dad’s birthday present. I went with Gil and Ido to grab a light dinner and pick up their Les Miserables West End tickets. When we arrived at the theater, there was a sign advertising 10 standing-room-only tickets on sale for 10 pounds each. I quickly decided to snatch up one of those tickets, it was too good an offer to miss! Best decision ever, it was FANTASTIC.
*Dec. 30th, 2010 - Out sightseeing with Breezy! Unfortunately Parliament has lots of scaffolding covering it. Big Ben sounds AMAZING when it chimes.
*Dec. 31st, 2010 - Happy New Year’s Eve! Setting up for fireworks off the London Eye!
*Jan. 1st, 2011 - Happy New Year! Breezy and I spent the lounging around our BnB and working online…we did run to a convenience store to grab some much-needed food. That’s when I found this. Who DOESN’T want PRAWN COCKTAIL FIZZY MELTY SNACKS *gag*. Yuck.
*Jan. 2nd, 2011 - Hillsong London for the first church service of the new year! After an amazing church service, Breezy and I looked into how to become involved with the East Finchley community group. The lady in charge happened to appear and invited us for lunch. We had the great pleasure of eating lunch with a bunch of British people and laughing at all of their funny words!
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Lazy Day.
It’s 4:43pm and I’m still in bed.
Ok, let me rephrase that.
I have no school on Wednesdays. I was going to spend today taking a trip to the Aran Islands but, as I am going to the Aran Islands with Caitlin in a week and a half, I thought it would be better to save my money for that trip. Instead I woke up late (although I did get some much needed sleep), made a lazy lunch (potato waffle, irish yogurt & honey) and have spent the last 2.5 hours sitting on my bed sifting through papers. Paper after paper after paper.
Papers about scholarships, Ireland, Turks & Caicos, JanTerm, NDS, birthday thank-yous, insurance etc. You name it, I have papers about it. I’ve been organising and trying to cross out things on my to-do list. To-Do: SFS final papers, IMAlive training, JanTerm application final draft, NDS Street Team flyer, Gilman Scholarship app, FlirtFM Radio app, birthday cards to Rebecca, my mom & Raisha, look for a small part-time job etc. The list is never ending.All in all, days like this make my world go round. Seriously. And they make me feel productive, if not super-thrilled. At least I get to rock out to Superchick while I work [I’m cranking out the Karaoke Superstar tunes and thinking about when I was 12 and was rocking out to it in my room…good memories!]
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We’re never gonna survive unless we get a little crazy…
*title from “Crazy” by Alanis Morissette
-Went to a pub last night with about 9 others to celebrate my new friend Ellen’s 21st birthday, enjoyed loads of wonderful live traditional Irish songs :)
-This morning THE BATHROOM FLOODED. ok well I am exaggerating a little bit but not really. Courtney turned on the sink in the other bathroom and, before you know it the sink was full (the drains work but drain slowly) and the faucets would not turn the water off. Courtney turned them back and forth both ways and the water just kept pouring out and over the sink, onto the floor. She called me in and I frantically looked for where to cut the water supply while she tried to use a bowl to siphon the water out of the sink, but could not keep up with the pouring water. FINALLY the water shut off (no idea what caused the problem) and after much mopping, the bathroom is back in order.
-Class went well this morning, just another lecture on Algae and. Dear Prof. Capriulo, I cannot thank you enough for all that you taught me, especially during that last lab together (about algae, zonation and turkish towel), it’s paying off big time!
-It’s Socs Day at NUIG [societies day, societies fair]! I spent about 2 hours wandering around the society booths, joining some, and accumulating free things! It looks like I will be participating in….Photography Soc, FlirtFM Radio Soc [plus the Snowsports Club & Mountaineering Club] I absolutely love it here, the amount of student extra-curriculars and involvement is INCREDIBLE and I wish SMC was like this, it’s amazing!
Random note, I got a free bottle of Coca-Cola and decided to read the ingredients. They’re different than in the US (and my different I mean better!). Now, it’s still not a healthy drink, nor would I buy it or make a habit of drinking it, but it doesn’t have high-fructose corn syrup, has less calories than in the US and has less additives. Coke isn’t the only product I’ve seen with different (better) ingredients. Hardly anything has high fructose corn syrup or even corn syrup in it in Ireland, which makes me soooo happy. It’s also much easier to find clear labeling regarding being Suitable for Vegetarians, free of genetically modified food, etc.
-Wandered around Shop St. and stopped to listen to an awesome band on the street. They played some Irish and some American music and were quite good!
-Went shopping at an Irish store down the street. All the clothes are made in Ireland, and they’re super cute. Up until today I had withstood the temptation to buy any clothes but today I finally gave in and bought a cute shirt (Made in Ireland, not China!) for only €9.
That’s one thing I haven’t mentioned on my blog yet, the pride in this amazing country is FABULOUS (so much better than America). Store receipts state how much (in euros) of your purchase was Irish, as well as how many (ex/10 out of 20) products were Irish. Irish product labels have the Irish flag on them and proudly say product of Ireland. Sometimes America is so behind (wouldn’t it be great if I could buy products MADE IN THE USA?) The only place I seem to be able to find things made in the USA is at American Apparel ( I <3 American Apparel, I hope they are able to bounce back and get their budget and business under control! I saw their Dublin store and it made me happy :D )
-Hanging out at home putting my free stuff away, finishing some School for Field study details and helping my apartmentmate Lisa cook, and getting ready for Ellen’s 21st Birthday Taco Party this evening!
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I made it to HHS Band Camp 2010 despite the fact that I got my wisdom teeth out the afternoon before. Went with my friend Jennifer and am soooo glad I made it, totally worth it to see all of my lovely friends. This will be the first year I have not seen a HHSMB show since I was 12. I’m turning 20. Kinda crazy. Oh well, I’ll see it when it goes up on YouTube and until then, I wish them the best of luck and a ton of fun :)
<3 LM
