Newport Folk Festival 50!! Oh, and six months :)

Imagine, if you will, the most ear piercing, high pitched squeel of glee you can possibly imagine. That's the story of my life right now. I got an email saying I can get discounted tickets to the Newport Folk Festival, the first weekend in August, where JOAN BAEZ WILL BE PLAYING *insert another shriek*.

I just... I think I may have died when I read that Joan Baez, Pete Seeger AND Judy Collins will all be there. Just thinking about it gives me palpitations. I'm totally going, whether I go by myself or with other human beings. Probably the closest I'll ever get to utter, pure bliss in my whole life.

Oh, and today is my six month monthaversary with Hillary, heres to many more monthaversaries to come :)


Those are our serious faces... for serious.

Because I'm Mushy Now (yuck), Couples Meme

Found this on my friend's page on Facebook, thought it looked interesting. Also, my boredom at being home has to be utterly apparent by now.

♥ Who asked who out first?
Well, we decided we were dating on November 27, but we had effectively been together for like a week or two prior to Thanksgiving. I guess since I was the forward one I asked her out, but I'm definitely not the kind of person to ask someone else out, I like to try to convince myself that I'm tough and not getting attached :P

♥ How old are each of you?
19, almost 20 (me) and 21, 22 in the fall (Hill).

♥ Whose siblings do you see the most?
I guess that'd be my sister, since we hang out at her house and play with the kids from time to time. Hill has three older half siblings, two of whom she doesn't speak to and one whom she is very close with, but I have yet to meet him on account of her parents told her she shouldn't "come out" to the family (besides them) yet.

♥ Who gets embarrassed more easily?
Hillary is super klutzy (example: we went out to breakfast with her parents and her roommate a few weeks ago and Hillary shook her bottle of iced tea... after she had already removed the cap. Got iced tea all over herself, it was brilliant.)

♥ Which one likes to go shopping more?
We both like to shop, but I think I'm more wasteful when it comes to money. We go grocery shopping together a lot, raspberry sorbet :)

♥ Are there wedding bells in the future?
Ummm... Well I'm 19... I know it's cliche and probably sending up red flags with anyone who reads this... but I do love her a great deal and I can see myself spending the rest of my days holding her hand, missing her when she's not around, eating raspberry sorbet (50% sorbet, 50% whipped cream) at midnight, going to the Peace Abbey on our days off, blah blah blah mushy stuff. But definitely NOT before I graduate from undergrad, and probably not until I at least have my LMHC.

♥ Do you have any children together?
Yes... her name is Alycia... :P

♥ What about pets?
That's my department. When Hillary sleeps over she has to fight off Kitty for a spot at my side (at least when she sleeps over I make the dog sleep outside of my room... or else Hillary would probably be sleeping at the foot of the bed). At the moment I have five cats (my beloved Kitty is the only one I really care about, but I'm pretty fond of Baby too, she was my first kitten), one dog (her name is Puppy, she is eightish, and I've determined that she has ADHD), and two bunnies (Buns, the gentlest soul I've ever known and Russel, the least gentle soul I've ever known). When we get the apartment in 2010 we're planning on getting some type of animal (I've been forbidden from bringing Kitty or Puppy, and Buns is too old and Russel is too much of a handful) because I can't function without animals.

♥ Did you go to the same school?
We went to the same school, I s'pose, now that Hill is a big bad college graduate.

♥ Are you from the same home town?
No, Hillary comes from East Jesus Nowhere, MA and I'm from a suburb of Hartford, CT. About a two hour drive if traffic is cooperating.

♥ Who is the smartest?
Well, Hill graduated cum laude and she was in three honor societies. We're both very intelligent human beings, but I don't often use "intelligent" and "smart" in the same thought, because I personally feel that intelligence is more important than whether or not one is "smart." Smart is subjective, intelligence is lived.

♥ Who is the most sensitive?
Me, totally totally totally. I give off the tough guy facade but I get all weepy about... well... pretty much everything.

♥ Where do you eat out most as a couple?
I'm disgusting, I know, but this question is just so hilarious to me that I can't answer it. It's just too priceless.

♥ Where is the furthest you two have traveled together as a couple?
Florida to Disney over spring break '09. We drive long distances a lot, like when we went to Maine to see Brandi Carlile and when we went to P-Town in late April.

♥ Who has the worst temper?
Me, unfortunately. But we fight because we love each other and we spend a lot of time together (actually, a lot of it had to do with the fact that I am leaving for London in the fall and we're not going to be together for a long period of time until January). We get along very well though, and the "worst temper" isn't really that bad at all in this case.

♥ Who is more social?
Hillary is. I'm reserved (see shy) and quiet whereas Hillary lights up an entire room when she enters. She just has one of those personalities that draws people to her.

♥ Which one is more optimistic?
We're both very optimistic, perhaps too optimistic for our own good (perhaps that statement in and of itself is a sign of pessimism?).

♥Who is the neat freak?
I have OCD when it comes to things like bed sheets (I tend to have a meltdown if the sheets aren't up to military standards), the arrangement of the clutter on my desk, etc. which doesn't qualify me as a neat freak, but it does make me a freak. Hill, on the other hand, likes to keep things neat and tidy, but not overly so.

♥ Who is the more stubborn?
Me. Le sigh.

♥ Who wakes up earlier?
Well now that Hillary has a big girl job (with her own cubicle!) she has to get up at 6 am in order to leave the house by 7 to make the 2 hour commute. However, during the academic year I am in the habit of getting up an hour and a half before my first class (usually that means getting up around 7:30-8:00), something Hillary was appalled by when we first started sleeping over each others' dorms.

♥ Where was your first date?
The Peace Abbey :) We're old hippies at heart.

♥ Who has the bigger family?
Me in the regard that I still talk to and regularly see most of my extended family. However, my immediate family is just me and mum, whereas Hill has two parents.

♥ Do you get flowers often?
I don't think I've gotten flowers... except for Valentines Day when Hill cooked me dinner and I got to keep the flowers that she used in the table setting. I give her flowers pretty regularly (sunflowers, and live flowers because I feel like giving dead flowers is purposeless). Hill knows I have enough flowers to care for (the garden is going to be so pretty this year!).

♥ How do you spend the Holidays?
Which holidays are we talking here? I suppose when I get home from London, since the plan is we will be living together, we'll probably be holidaying together also.

♥ Who is more jealous?
It's a pretty even mix. I'm a little jealous of people from her past (I also revel in the fact that she chose me and she wants to be with me, I win), however Hillary is jealous of some of my friends (straight girls who like to flirt with gay girls... aka gay girls) because they like to make her jealous (and always succeed).

♥ Who sleeps more?
Not sure, maybe me? I dunno. Hill would sleep like a cat if she could though.

♥ Who eats more?
We both came to the conclusion that we were meant to be because we absolutely LOVE food, so I'd say it's probably about even.

♥ Who does the laundry?
Depends who has money on their laundry card when we need to do laundry. I find laundry to be very therapeutic (because I'm deranged. I also enjoy dishwashing, seriously. I should have been a housewife) so I do the laundry whenever I get the chance.

♥ Who’s better with the computer?
Probably me because I have a lot more patience than Hillary does. She'd probably throw it out the window or have a meltdown before she stopped to figure the problem out.

♥ How long have you been together?
Six months tomorrow :) but I've known her for almost two years. She's my best pal, my confidant, my strength when I need it. I truly believe that, if she isn't the one, she is the greatest friend I'll have ever found on this earth.

Schools (Not) Out for Summer

Today was my first day of my summer statistics course, and it actually went very well. It's two hours a day, four days a week, for a month. Not bad, not bad at all.

If I want to graduate in May 2011 I need to finish the statistics course that I already started. It's kind of a long and convoluted story, so I'll give you the brief version. And please, don't judge me because I know that a lot of students use the excuse that the professor is bitch or the professor hates them, and in this case both of those things are true and did happen to me. It's not an excuse at all, it's simply a fact.

I took AP statistics during my senior year in high school. Now, to get into an AP course you need permission from previous teachers, often you need to take an entrance exam, and you need to have taken all of the pre-requs. I did fairly well in AP stats, but I didn't score high enough on the AP Stats Exam for it to count as my statistics requirement for my college. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, because I need stats for my psychology major and a lot of the research aspects of psychology draw heavily from statistics. Anywho, moving on.

I took Stats I Fall 2008, and did fairly miserably (but well enough to move on to Stats II). I got As on all of the exams (all 3 of them), did the homework assignments, etc. but absolutely bombed the final (which speaks volumes for my ability of lackthereof to take finals). Such is life, so I moved on to Stats II.

As it turns out, the professor got the impression that I was, more or less, taking up space and air in her classroom and proceeded to ignore me (when she would address psychology majors, of which there were only 2, myself included, in a class of about 15, she would purposely not address me), to take points off of exams and assignments for arbitrary reasons (I didn't "word" an answer to her liking so she would take an automatic 20 points off my exam, when my answer was similar to the answers of other students and my math was completely correct).

So I sent her an email and basically told her how I was feeling, that I felt like I was being treated unfairly and also that I felt that my situation was hopeless. She emailed me back and confirmed that she did think I was "unresponsive" in class (she cited some occasions during first semester when my eyelids would get heavy and I would look like I wasn't paying attention, for example THE DAY AFTER OBAMA WAS ELECTED sdf;ldhrewnc;welfdsfsdlf) and that she was sorry that I took it to heart.

So I emailed my advisor, at this point we had taken 3 of 4 exams (not including the final) and asked her what I should do, seeing as my situation was borderline hopeless. I had a 100 on the first test and a 50-something on the second test and a 50-something on the third test but I hadn't done the makeup test yet so the grade might have changed. My advisor informed me that it was the last day to drop the class, that she was out for the day but she has informed the psych department, my class advisor, the student success center and registrar to be looking for me (basically it was her suggestion that I drop the class immediately).

So I scrambled around, crying because I felt like a failure, and got the drop class form signed thanks to the speedy work and kindness of the staff at my school, no thanks to my c*nt of a professor.

I'm taking the second section of statistics at a university near where I live, totally different scene than I'm accustomed to but I'll get over it (I go to a college in the woods, 12 miles out of Boston, where I know all of my classmates names/majors and probably what kind of trouble they were getting in to last night, I don't know anyone in my class in CT and none of them know me... ahh the freedom of anonimity). At least my professor doesn't hate me yet, so maybe he'll grade me fairly and impartially and I'll be treated with respect this time. For the most part, though, this class will be a review for me because I've now taken statistics for almost 2 full years, and I basically know it like the back of my hand by now but now is my chance to prove that I know it, I can do the math, and I can give the professor what he wants (because he doesn't overtly disdain me).

So that's where I am today, and tomorrow, and the next day, and every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday until June 25. I at least have some things to look forward to, like Hillary's grad party this weekend (Hill graduated from college May 17, poor dear), Hillary visiting next weekend, my 20th birthday (oh my GAWD) June 12, me visiting Hill the following weekend, my baby niece is predicted to be born the first weekend in July (here's hoping for July 4!) and so on and so forth until I get on a plane bound for London on September 2. Should be a good summer :)

Just a Thought

Home brings out the worst in me.

Literally and figuratively. Just sayin.

Day six of poison oak, still itchy and rashy. Probably going to amputate all affected areas, leaving me with two intact feet.

Food for thought (literally): Rubbing the inside of a banana peel on the affect areas seems to help with the itch and I think it's helping to dry it out. However, I now smell like rotten fruit. A scent to match my personality :P

Home Again Home Again

I haven't even been home for a week and I (with the help of the best pal ever, Molly) have laid fresh mulch (9 bags so far, still need about 10 more), dug up all the brush from underneath the trees and bushes in the front yard, moved all the brush to the far back yard (not the easiest thing to do) and put together a new fire pit.

And I managed to get head to toe poison oak.

Now, I was a girl scout, I know what poison oak, ivy and sumac look like. I saw them all as I was moving brush into the back, I even saw the rouge poison ivy in the front, nestled behind the rhododendron. I took special care to avoid them. And I am still covered in poison oak. I guess I just have to chaulk it up to fate. I get poison oak probably twice every summer, never especially bad (though I have had it around my eyes before, no fun), but always spread all over my body. I guess that's my lesson for not using gloves when I work outside, alas.

I did manage to finish off my sophomore year with a 3.6 (I got a B+ in Research Methods, holy crap!), and now I can look forward to coasting through fall semester in London, with my two art courses, Shakespeare and dundundunnnn Cognitive Psych.

It's nice to be home I s'pose. My cat and dog are cuddled up together on the couch while I watch tv and do nothing for my last week of freedom before I start a summer course. I think it's funny that if I want to graduate with my class, even though I take more courses than I need to (last semester was the exception) and I'm technically more than a junior (but not quite a senior) I still have to take a summer course and if I weren't studying abroad there would be no way in hell I'd be graduating on time, simply because my school isn't offering the courses I need for my psych major and it's not even pretending to offer the courses I need for my English major.

Well, everything is going to fall in to place I'm sure. For the time being, I'm just itchy and uncomfortable, but glad to be home :)

Oh Hey There!

I haven't blogged in a dog's age it seems, and something just isn't right with that.

So I'm back! I may be writing sporadically, but sporadically is better for me than never. Also, summer is rapidly approaching, and if this summer is anything like last summer I am going to be migh-tee bored (considering that no one is hiring... oi).

So it's the end of the sophomore year in college, next semester I'll be in London from September 3 until a few days before Christmas, taking two classes in art, one in Shakespeare and one in cognitive psychology.

A lot has happened since the last time that I blogged, but I can't really get you up to speed in one blog, so I'll just give you the basics:

The demands of my courses were such that I could not play lacrosse this year, which was a huge mess that I spent many hours weeping over but in the end it just could not happen.

I eventually had to drop statistics (I will be taking it closer to home this summer) because I wasn't getting along with the professor and it was either drop the course or risk failing. The situation is still very new and the wound is very fresh for me so I'm just taking it in stride right now and being happy with the fact that I'll just be taking it elsewhere and I'll have the time and energy to give it my all this summer.

I'm still with Hillary ("still" probably isn't the right word choice there, because we are both very happy together and basically everything is right with the world). Today is our five month anniversary, actually. We took a trip out to Ptown last weekend and we're going to see the Dalai Lama speak next weekend, so we do a lot of fun and new things together. It's going very well, she's effectively part of my family and I couldn't be happier to have her in my life.

I decided that I'm not living on campus when I return from London, I'll be getting an apartment off campus with Hillary with spring semester and potentially for the next few years (as I plan on attending graduate school in the Boston area). It was a huge decision for me, particularly because my roommate and I are (or were) so close up until now, but I think it is for the best both in terms of finances and in terms of growing up and moving on.

My roommate and I are still very close and very good friends but she had a more or less psychoatic break recently and that has severely damaged our relationship both as friends and as roommates.

Tonight I was inducted into Alpha Lambda Delta, the National Honor Society for college freshmen who were in the top 25% of their class freshmen year (we recieve the award in the spring of our sophomore years).

So life is going well for the most part, some bumps in the road but that is to be expected, particularly when you're me and you're always finding ways to get yourself into trouble. But I always manage to find a way out, and that's what matters. I'm glad to be back, and I'll try to STAY back this time :)

Hope all is well out there and that I haven't missed too much!

Though I've Tried...

The weekend started out wonderfully. I spent Friday doing laundry, watching Indiana Jones and napping (I never nap! It was fabulous!). On Saturday my mother and Naveen came up to school to visit us and to celebrate my acceptance to the study abroad program and Naveen's visa extension.

NAVEEN'S VISA WAS EXTENDED! How awesome is that?? Everyone is super happy about it and I couldn't be more glad.

We went out to the macaroni grill for linner, and then we went to a Boston Blazers (MLL) game at the garden (they won!) and proceeded to check ourselves in to the courtyard marriot. The beds were so comfortable and it was probably the best sleep I've had in a very long time. Needless to say, it ranks in the top of the best weekends ever (the weekend of Tegan and Sara is number 1).

We got back to campus today and did homework, etc. until a GSA meeting at 9 pm.

As Hillary and I were entering my dorm, where the meeting was being held, a girl (a former very good friend of mine) burst out of the front doors, weeping bitterly. She was on the phone with her mother and I went to open the door for Hillary when I heard the words "Mom, one of my friends just hung himself."

Why do people do such senseless things? Don't they know that there are people who love and care about them? Don't they know there is help for them?

I held this girl in the snow and the wind while she sobbed into my shoulder. I moved her into the lounge while Hillary made sure we weren't interrupted by club members filing down to the meeting. She kept sobbing and wondering and repeating "Oh God." I've never had a friend commit suicide before, and I don't think I'd be able to handle it it ever happened.

Tears were streaming down my face as I walked her up to her room and made sure her roommate was there to take care of her. Luckily we had a snow day today, or perhaps not so luckily, since she won't be able to have her mind taken off of the present events.

I went down to lead the GSA meeting but I quickly found myself unable. I got up at the beginning of the meeting, walked out of the doors, walked down the hall to my room, opened the door and burst into tears. Hillary was there to catch me and hold me and tell me it was okay. She thought I knew this kid too, why else would I be so upset?

I was upset because people shouldn't hurt themselves, in any way. Why do people have to take their own lives? Don't they see how much it hurts the people who love them? Why do people have to be sad? Can't everyone just be happy to be alive, be thankful for every moment, good or bad?

I was crying because I can't save everyone, no matter how hard I try.