I have a new obsession... if you want to call it that. When I was back in CT I watched all 5 Star Wars movies with Brian. I had never seen them before and Brian wants me to see the 6th one with him in May so we rented them all. No, my new obsession isn't Star Wars... I'm going to keep you in suspense for awhile about what it really is. At this point only Brian knows my new obsession... well there's really two. I mention both of them in here, but you'll probably only catch one of them. I flat out state it later. Three gold coins to anyone who figures it out. Back to what I was saying though, I did enjoy the movies and I'll admit I got pretty into them. I had fun watching with Brian. I liked C3PO the most... mainly because he waddled like a penguin. Yoda was fun too. I kept telling Brian that I thought he sounded exactly like Fozzy from the muppets and then laughed when I found out it was the same guy who did their voices. Brian and I "argued" for a bit over Natalie Portman and which character she played... I eventually realized he was right... but I didn't let him know that of course! ;) Plus, now I want to have a cat and name it Palpy, and only Brian and I will know why! I love sharing secrets but not explaining what they mean online... so much fun! =) Here's another secret you won't understand... I want to hibernate! Since I'm in the sharing secret mood I'll let you in on one of my obsessions. I didn't fall in love with Luke Starkiller in the movie, but I did fall in love with the music. Whenever it was playing in the background I HAD to sing along, complete with composer-like arm movements... with the words being "da da da, dun dun dun, dun dun dun". I still have the songs stuck in my head. Ever since that I've been obsessed with movie music. Like, I saw Finding Neverland the other day (amazing movie by the way) and got sooo into the music. Then, when we were watching The Matrix in my FYS it was the music that impressed me, more so than the movie. Yea for movie soundtracks!!! This is the shortest blog I've written in a loooooong time... probably because I just blogged yesterday. This WAS going to be the topic of yesterday's blog before the blog decided to take control and head itself in another direction. Can you belive it? Two blogs in a row!!! I'm so proud.
Monday, November 29, 2004
So my blogs have been diminishing in number.... as my faithful readers constantly remind me. If you notice, I've started the last 3 blogs or so with a very similar opening sentence to the one I just wrote. The topic is always how long it's been since my last blog. Do me a favor and let's just get over it. I'm at college and I have more to do than just sit at my laptop and type out little stories for you to read. Although I guarantee that if I fully "broke up" with blogger.com my addiction would force me to return in a month or two. I already tried giving up altogether and permanently stopping.... didn't work.
I just came back from Turkey Day break... a good 6 days off (thatwasonlysuppossedtobe5BUT... Iskippedaclassandleftadayearly) **stage note** read part in parentheses very quickly, as if one word, only pausing after the drawn out "BUT". I guess it would have been better if this came before the line I'm talking about. **fine**. Yup, one day short of a week in the town that I called home for fifteen years down in good old CT (note: that's C.T., pronounced "see tea", not "connecticut".... just because that's how I said it in my mind while I was typing and it's more amusing than just saying connecticut). Okay, I'll stop with the authors side-note-scribbles now, I promise. This time I really enjoyed being back home and wanted to stay longer.... versus October break where I was happy to come back to Wheaton. I wonder which one will win in the longrun as the "better" place to be. I could draw a comparison for you.... a rather, nontraditional one that is.....
Why nontraditional? I've got friends in CT, friends at Wheaton. A bed in CT, a bed at Wheaton. Poptarts for dinner in CT, poptarts for dinner at Wheaton. The traditional stuff is there wherever I am. It's the nontraditional stuff that's more fun to analyze rather than just saying Brian and Missy are in CT but freedom and dance are at Wheaton. Much more fun. So here's the real list....
1)At Wheaton I'm after quarters. I scrounge around like every other Wheatie.... waiting for my sixth sense to kick in whenever I'm within 20 feet of a loose quarter. It's like a radar system that every college kid who has to pay for laundry and vending machine munchies is equipped with. Much too lazy to walk to the bank and ask for a roll of quarters, we bargain to give friends a dollar bill for merely one of their precious quarters. We're careful to check they're not handing us any Canadian coins which the machines dutifully spit back at us. (How do the machines know the difference anyway?) Cheap kids we thought were our friends who try to jip us with their "counterfeit" money. Face it... at college, quarters are gold. You're lost without them. Or at least you're a hungry kid who has smelly clothes. It gets just about as crazy on campus when the change machine is broken as it did the day that Kerry lost to Bush. Now in CT do you think I would ever hand someone a dollar bill and only ask for a quarter back? Wouldn't happen. I live in Orange remember, where you need at least $600 to spend when you go to the mall or else you'd become the "poor kid" who only left with three bags of Abercrombie clothes instead of four. At college quarters are gold. In Orange, gold isn't even gold..... unless it's diamonds. ..... I confused myself.... nevermind.
2) At Wheaton my only "chore" is to do laundry. At home, pretty much my only chore is laundry too. The same chore can be so different depending on the location. I already mentioned the quarter situation. Conversely to what you may be thinking, the fact that I have to pay for laundry at Wheaton makes the task of getting it done at school easier. You see, if I'm doing laundry at school, then that means I've raked up enough quarters to actually get it done.... which is an accomplishment in itself. At this point, I'm so happy that I've managed to find $2.25 in quarters, that doing the laundry itself is a sort of perverted reward. Whereas at home the only reward is that I stop getting yelled at about it. Plus, at school I have to do it for myself so I don't start rewearing dirty clothes and become known as the smelly kid on campus. At home I have enough random clothes that I could probably get away with not doing my laundry for a good few months before running out of clean ones became an issue. The only reason I "have to" do it at home is because my mom tells me so. What kind of incentive is that?
3) While the outside weather only differs by a few degrees, the inside temperature of my home at Wheaton and my home in CT differ by a good... oh I'd say.... 70 degrees. A bit exagerrated? Yes. A lot exagerrated? No. My dorm room is directly above the boiler room. It's a constant 80something degrees in here. Tanktops and shorts are the norm, as well as four fans which haven't been shut off since the day of arrival. In CT my mom prefers not only to not turn on the heat, but also open all the windows to let in the cool 20 degree air. It requires layering to survive. You think I'm kidding....
4) homework in Wheaton, cable in CT
Well... this was a short list of the many comparisons I could make. I guess it comes down to whether I prefer quarters or dollars, laundry or laundry, heat or cold, and homework or cable. Hmm... somehow CT seems to have the benefit when I look at it like that. So I'll say I prefer heat and Wheaton's laundry to even it out. There's no place like home....
I just came back from Turkey Day break... a good 6 days off (thatwasonlysuppossedtobe5BUT... Iskippedaclassandleftadayearly) **stage note** read part in parentheses very quickly, as if one word, only pausing after the drawn out "BUT". I guess it would have been better if this came before the line I'm talking about. **fine**. Yup, one day short of a week in the town that I called home for fifteen years down in good old CT (note: that's C.T., pronounced "see tea", not "connecticut".... just because that's how I said it in my mind while I was typing and it's more amusing than just saying connecticut). Okay, I'll stop with the authors side-note-scribbles now, I promise. This time I really enjoyed being back home and wanted to stay longer.... versus October break where I was happy to come back to Wheaton. I wonder which one will win in the longrun as the "better" place to be. I could draw a comparison for you.... a rather, nontraditional one that is.....
Why nontraditional? I've got friends in CT, friends at Wheaton. A bed in CT, a bed at Wheaton. Poptarts for dinner in CT, poptarts for dinner at Wheaton. The traditional stuff is there wherever I am. It's the nontraditional stuff that's more fun to analyze rather than just saying Brian and Missy are in CT but freedom and dance are at Wheaton. Much more fun. So here's the real list....
1)At Wheaton I'm after quarters. I scrounge around like every other Wheatie.... waiting for my sixth sense to kick in whenever I'm within 20 feet of a loose quarter. It's like a radar system that every college kid who has to pay for laundry and vending machine munchies is equipped with. Much too lazy to walk to the bank and ask for a roll of quarters, we bargain to give friends a dollar bill for merely one of their precious quarters. We're careful to check they're not handing us any Canadian coins which the machines dutifully spit back at us. (How do the machines know the difference anyway?) Cheap kids we thought were our friends who try to jip us with their "counterfeit" money. Face it... at college, quarters are gold. You're lost without them. Or at least you're a hungry kid who has smelly clothes. It gets just about as crazy on campus when the change machine is broken as it did the day that Kerry lost to Bush. Now in CT do you think I would ever hand someone a dollar bill and only ask for a quarter back? Wouldn't happen. I live in Orange remember, where you need at least $600 to spend when you go to the mall or else you'd become the "poor kid" who only left with three bags of Abercrombie clothes instead of four. At college quarters are gold. In Orange, gold isn't even gold..... unless it's diamonds. ..... I confused myself.... nevermind.
2) At Wheaton my only "chore" is to do laundry. At home, pretty much my only chore is laundry too. The same chore can be so different depending on the location. I already mentioned the quarter situation. Conversely to what you may be thinking, the fact that I have to pay for laundry at Wheaton makes the task of getting it done at school easier. You see, if I'm doing laundry at school, then that means I've raked up enough quarters to actually get it done.... which is an accomplishment in itself. At this point, I'm so happy that I've managed to find $2.25 in quarters, that doing the laundry itself is a sort of perverted reward. Whereas at home the only reward is that I stop getting yelled at about it. Plus, at school I have to do it for myself so I don't start rewearing dirty clothes and become known as the smelly kid on campus. At home I have enough random clothes that I could probably get away with not doing my laundry for a good few months before running out of clean ones became an issue. The only reason I "have to" do it at home is because my mom tells me so. What kind of incentive is that?
3) While the outside weather only differs by a few degrees, the inside temperature of my home at Wheaton and my home in CT differ by a good... oh I'd say.... 70 degrees. A bit exagerrated? Yes. A lot exagerrated? No. My dorm room is directly above the boiler room. It's a constant 80something degrees in here. Tanktops and shorts are the norm, as well as four fans which haven't been shut off since the day of arrival. In CT my mom prefers not only to not turn on the heat, but also open all the windows to let in the cool 20 degree air. It requires layering to survive. You think I'm kidding....
4) homework in Wheaton, cable in CT
Well... this was a short list of the many comparisons I could make. I guess it comes down to whether I prefer quarters or dollars, laundry or laundry, heat or cold, and homework or cable. Hmm... somehow CT seems to have the benefit when I look at it like that. So I'll say I prefer heat and Wheaton's laundry to even it out. There's no place like home....
Monday, November 15, 2004
Wednesday, November 10, 2004
This past weekend I went to NYC to visit my good friend Miss Amy Gonsalves (and her roommate, who is also my good friend but not good enough to mention outside of the parentheses, Miss Meghan MacAlpine). Please note, (and take this very seriously), I'm just kidding about Meghan, I love her dearly! Anyways, to begin my story I'm going to tell a side story so be prepared for some non-NYC related discussion. Well... it's related in a sense but it gets further and further away from the topic of NYC as it progresses. I'll just tell you one more thing and then I'll begin my story. I want to live in New York City. Now I will begin my story.
In order to go to an area which you are not in already you naturally need some way of getting there. This was my problem. The only option available to me was a rather time consuming one. I had to take a shuttle from school to the T station which brought me to South Station in Boston which had a five hour bus that went to Chinatown in NY. But, since no other options existed, it's the one I went with. I think I made the right choice. I was a little nervous because the first time I went on the T I got terribly lost. This time I not only had to know what I was doing on the T, but I had to navigate myself from the T track where I was let off to South Station (harder than it sounds) to the bus terminal in another building, to the right bus. I eventually ended up in NYC so I can say that I'm proud of myself. I only wish I could say that I did it all on my own. Let me take you back to the beginning of my journey...
On the shuttle from Wheaton I noticed some guy talking on the phone in a language I didn't recognize. I began trying to guess what language he was speaking in, (Russian?, Creole?, Algerian?) when my thoughts were interrupted by someone with a British accent asking me if I was a senior. I turned around to find out that the British accent guy is the foreign language phone guy! My initial thought, ignorant as it was, was don't British people speak english?!?! Anyways, I tell him no, that in fact I'm a freshman and he replied "wow! you don't look like it". I still don't know what to think about that. I look 18. So... I find out he's Greek but was born in London and lived there just long enough to develop an accent. Answers my question. I find that he too is going to South Station and without him I guarantee I would have gotten lost. We get to talking on the shuttle....
Then we're talking about differences between Greece and America while waiting for the train.... then we're talking about politics and our families on the train.... he offers to pay for my train ticket, I say "no, no".... you know, the usual friendly get-to-know-you conversation. I don't know if you know this or not, but I'm not one who's big on small talk. Haha... big on small talk. Pun intended.... well, if that's a pun that is.... I'm really not sure. Anyways, I'm also not the type of person who easily becomes friends with a guy. I always find it awkward trying to talk to them as a friend because I'm always wondering if they're thinking anything sexual. Too much info. So, where I'm going with all this, and I swear I'm going somewhere, is that I was actually enjoying talking to this guy. Which got me thinking.... three years ago I would have killed to be in this situation.... trapped on a train for 45 minutes with a nice looking guy who has an accent, and is very smart and easy to talk to. So I was amazed that I wasn't attracted to this Greek God in that sort of way. All I could think about was my Brian.... and I loved how that made me feel! I'm beginning to miss him more and more and I constantly feel like I'm falling in love all over again. I've been all bubbly and happy like an idiot lately, just from thinking about him. That gorgeous greek guy made me realize even more how much I love being with Brian. Go figure!
That's the end of my sort of related side story. Now begins the fun of NYC. Once I arrived in good old Chinatown I realized something. 1) That I never want to sit on a bus again. 2) That I never want to be in that part of Chinatown again. It was scary. I got nasty glances from three Ghetto Chinese men who I later found out also "ran into" Amy and Kim. Then, there was some homeless guy who asked me if I knew of a safe place he could stay. After the fourth time I said no he began to instead ask where I was staying. I managed to play it safe while being polite.... I told him I was going to be uptown. "But where?" he'd ask. This process continued for quite awhile and my answers changed from uptown to upper West Side (even though I would be on the east side), to with a friend, to with a friend at my dad's apartment, to with a friend at my dad- who is a cop-'s apartment. He dropped it at about that time and I was relieved to finally find Amy a few minutes later.
I really liked Amy's dorm, but other than hitting my head on Meghan's desk, the rest of the night was pretty much uneventful, considering I arrived around midnight. After waking up to a tie-dyed pillow being thrown at my head the next morning, we decided to make french toast. What came next? We ate breakfast. I shouted that I was freezing about 85 times and then we went to Times Square to try and get tickets to a show that night. We wasted time and a good $5 or so in Starbucks where we each got drinks that we decided... well, I decided.... matched our personalities. Me- White Chocolate Mocha, Amy- some Pumpkin Pie spiced latte thing which was actually pretty good and Kim- apple cider plain with none of the flavor junk they normally add in. We then proceeded to the theater where Chicago is playing. We asked the guy if there were standing room tickets left. He said simply "yes". So what did we say...."YES!" He then added "Okay, at $100 each that will be $300". A moment of panic.... then laughter as we realize he must be kidding. Or was he?..... he was. $20 later we had our tickets for that night's performance. Woohoo!
We then hopped on a subway to St. Mark's place, stopping to see a Michael Jackson impersonater along the way. That wasn't the only time we got sidetracked, however. Once we got off the subway it took us a good 15 minutes to actually find St. Mark's place. We were all over Noho, Greenwich Village, and saw most of NYU before we finally found St. Mark's Place thanks to an NYU map attatched to the side of a building. Once we were headed in the right direction I got overly excited by a sidewalk "alternate route because of construction" thing which led us to where we wanted to be. We walked around there alot and Amy went to get her nose pierced. Super cute! I can't remember if it happened now or not, but for the sake of my story it will.... when getting on the subway to go back to her dorm, we somehow ended up in either the Bronx or Brooklyn... we were confused about which one and then we figured it out but now I forget. Wait........ it was Queens. I remember now.
That night we went to Planet Hollywood and had the best set of burger, fries, and a smoothie I've had in a long time. Then we went on to Chicago! Wayne Brady was suppossed to be in it, but he had an understudy that night... much to the disappointment of Amy (and me, but I don't count as much). Amy started to feel quite a bit better though when she saw one of the male performers who had an 8 pack, (or 10... if that's possible) and the most gorgeously muscular body I've ever seen in person. We had fun in our standing room seats because we were able to dance around and move to the music without annoying anyone but the other people who only paid $20 for their ticket. I was amazed by the actor playing Mary Sunshine who had the most gorgeous soprano voice I've ever heard and yet was a guy. Roxie was hysterical and Velma was the best performer. It was a lot of fun!!!! Well worth the twenty bucks.... with or without Wayne Brady.
The next day Amy, Meghan, Chris and I made cookie-dough pancakes/half-baked pancakes/cookiecakes/pancookiedoughcakes/pancakes with bits of M&M cookie dough dropped in. They were surprisingly pretty good! Amy and I spent much of the morning trying to remember old Spice Girl songs... I don't remember how it came up exactly but now I have "I moonwalk the foxtrot... and polka the salsa" stuck in my head. Overall, it was a fun weekend! And now that I'm back at Wheaton I realize how much I want to be going to school in a city. At the same time, if I were there I'd want a campus. There's no solution!
In order to go to an area which you are not in already you naturally need some way of getting there. This was my problem. The only option available to me was a rather time consuming one. I had to take a shuttle from school to the T station which brought me to South Station in Boston which had a five hour bus that went to Chinatown in NY. But, since no other options existed, it's the one I went with. I think I made the right choice. I was a little nervous because the first time I went on the T I got terribly lost. This time I not only had to know what I was doing on the T, but I had to navigate myself from the T track where I was let off to South Station (harder than it sounds) to the bus terminal in another building, to the right bus. I eventually ended up in NYC so I can say that I'm proud of myself. I only wish I could say that I did it all on my own. Let me take you back to the beginning of my journey...
On the shuttle from Wheaton I noticed some guy talking on the phone in a language I didn't recognize. I began trying to guess what language he was speaking in, (Russian?, Creole?, Algerian?) when my thoughts were interrupted by someone with a British accent asking me if I was a senior. I turned around to find out that the British accent guy is the foreign language phone guy! My initial thought, ignorant as it was, was don't British people speak english?!?! Anyways, I tell him no, that in fact I'm a freshman and he replied "wow! you don't look like it". I still don't know what to think about that. I look 18. So... I find out he's Greek but was born in London and lived there just long enough to develop an accent. Answers my question. I find that he too is going to South Station and without him I guarantee I would have gotten lost. We get to talking on the shuttle....
Then we're talking about differences between Greece and America while waiting for the train.... then we're talking about politics and our families on the train.... he offers to pay for my train ticket, I say "no, no".... you know, the usual friendly get-to-know-you conversation. I don't know if you know this or not, but I'm not one who's big on small talk. Haha... big on small talk. Pun intended.... well, if that's a pun that is.... I'm really not sure. Anyways, I'm also not the type of person who easily becomes friends with a guy. I always find it awkward trying to talk to them as a friend because I'm always wondering if they're thinking anything sexual. Too much info. So, where I'm going with all this, and I swear I'm going somewhere, is that I was actually enjoying talking to this guy. Which got me thinking.... three years ago I would have killed to be in this situation.... trapped on a train for 45 minutes with a nice looking guy who has an accent, and is very smart and easy to talk to. So I was amazed that I wasn't attracted to this Greek God in that sort of way. All I could think about was my Brian.... and I loved how that made me feel! I'm beginning to miss him more and more and I constantly feel like I'm falling in love all over again. I've been all bubbly and happy like an idiot lately, just from thinking about him. That gorgeous greek guy made me realize even more how much I love being with Brian. Go figure!
That's the end of my sort of related side story. Now begins the fun of NYC. Once I arrived in good old Chinatown I realized something. 1) That I never want to sit on a bus again. 2) That I never want to be in that part of Chinatown again. It was scary. I got nasty glances from three Ghetto Chinese men who I later found out also "ran into" Amy and Kim. Then, there was some homeless guy who asked me if I knew of a safe place he could stay. After the fourth time I said no he began to instead ask where I was staying. I managed to play it safe while being polite.... I told him I was going to be uptown. "But where?" he'd ask. This process continued for quite awhile and my answers changed from uptown to upper West Side (even though I would be on the east side), to with a friend, to with a friend at my dad's apartment, to with a friend at my dad- who is a cop-'s apartment. He dropped it at about that time and I was relieved to finally find Amy a few minutes later.
I really liked Amy's dorm, but other than hitting my head on Meghan's desk, the rest of the night was pretty much uneventful, considering I arrived around midnight. After waking up to a tie-dyed pillow being thrown at my head the next morning, we decided to make french toast. What came next? We ate breakfast. I shouted that I was freezing about 85 times and then we went to Times Square to try and get tickets to a show that night. We wasted time and a good $5 or so in Starbucks where we each got drinks that we decided... well, I decided.... matched our personalities. Me- White Chocolate Mocha, Amy- some Pumpkin Pie spiced latte thing which was actually pretty good and Kim- apple cider plain with none of the flavor junk they normally add in. We then proceeded to the theater where Chicago is playing. We asked the guy if there were standing room tickets left. He said simply "yes". So what did we say...."YES!" He then added "Okay, at $100 each that will be $300". A moment of panic.... then laughter as we realize he must be kidding. Or was he?..... he was. $20 later we had our tickets for that night's performance. Woohoo!
We then hopped on a subway to St. Mark's place, stopping to see a Michael Jackson impersonater along the way. That wasn't the only time we got sidetracked, however. Once we got off the subway it took us a good 15 minutes to actually find St. Mark's place. We were all over Noho, Greenwich Village, and saw most of NYU before we finally found St. Mark's Place thanks to an NYU map attatched to the side of a building. Once we were headed in the right direction I got overly excited by a sidewalk "alternate route because of construction" thing which led us to where we wanted to be. We walked around there alot and Amy went to get her nose pierced. Super cute! I can't remember if it happened now or not, but for the sake of my story it will.... when getting on the subway to go back to her dorm, we somehow ended up in either the Bronx or Brooklyn... we were confused about which one and then we figured it out but now I forget. Wait........ it was Queens. I remember now.
That night we went to Planet Hollywood and had the best set of burger, fries, and a smoothie I've had in a long time. Then we went on to Chicago! Wayne Brady was suppossed to be in it, but he had an understudy that night... much to the disappointment of Amy (and me, but I don't count as much). Amy started to feel quite a bit better though when she saw one of the male performers who had an 8 pack, (or 10... if that's possible) and the most gorgeously muscular body I've ever seen in person. We had fun in our standing room seats because we were able to dance around and move to the music without annoying anyone but the other people who only paid $20 for their ticket. I was amazed by the actor playing Mary Sunshine who had the most gorgeous soprano voice I've ever heard and yet was a guy. Roxie was hysterical and Velma was the best performer. It was a lot of fun!!!! Well worth the twenty bucks.... with or without Wayne Brady.
The next day Amy, Meghan, Chris and I made cookie-dough pancakes/half-baked pancakes/cookiecakes/pancookiedoughcakes/pancakes with bits of M&M cookie dough dropped in. They were surprisingly pretty good! Amy and I spent much of the morning trying to remember old Spice Girl songs... I don't remember how it came up exactly but now I have "I moonwalk the foxtrot... and polka the salsa" stuck in my head. Overall, it was a fun weekend! And now that I'm back at Wheaton I realize how much I want to be going to school in a city. At the same time, if I were there I'd want a campus. There's no solution!
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