4 Things...

that happened this week.

Saturday, October 24th- I worked at the school Open House giving tours. All the tours guides had to work. Trainees, like myself, were paired up with Senior Guides. We were supposed to be paired up with Senior Guides that were not part of our regular work hours, so we could see a different style of tour. For myself and my friend Candace, a trainee who I work with on Thursdays, that didn't happen. You see Jackie and Laura, two senior guides who we work with often (Jackie with Candace, and myself with Laura), told our boss that they were indeed claiming us for the open house, which was alright with me. Then Pedro, another guide I love to go on tours with, claimed that since Laura was feeling sick and we would probably be going on only on tour during the day, that he planned on taking me on his second tour. I love these guys! Losing half of my Saturday was worth the $40 I made and feeling very loved.

Wednesday, October 28th- We had a mandatory floor meeting, and we were informed about the new residence hall that is going to be built right in between New Hall (this second New Hall will be called, New Hall B), and Eddy (where I live). We were told to expect noise after 8am, power outages, and the water being turned off. Oh joy! At least they won't be doing construction during finals, if they can keep on schedule.

Thursday, October 29th- Over the summer all the freshman had to read a book called "The Unheard." It was about a young deaf man who joined the Peace Corps and was sent to Africa, and his experiences while he was there. I absolutely loved it. So of course I had to go her him speak. He had a cochlear implant a couple of years ago, and can now hear "400 times better" than ever before. He talked about not taking things for granted, loving life, and having goals, but also living in the moment, because nothing you do will save you from death. It was beautiful.

Friday, October 30th- The screen on my phone broke sometime around Wednesday. And while I could still make calls, and receive calls, not having a screen turned out to be a very big problem. I could only make calls to numbers I had memorized (so basically my mom), and I could answer calls only if I happened to hear my phone vibrating (the ringer broke last week), once I missed it I had no idea anyone had even been trying to call me. I also couldn't set alarms, send or receive texts, or know what time it was. Nicole was nice enough to take me to the mall to get a new phone. So now I have an LG enV Touch, which I LOVE! I'm so buying an orange case for it, because the black is very boring. We also went to the bank where I deposited my checks (why on earth it take 3 checks before direct deposit will work, I have no idea), and signed the forms so that I can get my own student Visa card. The night also included some Victoria's Secret trials and tribulations that ended with Nicole using my $10 off coupon my mom had the smarts to send to me, and myself getting a free pair of panties worth $8.50, just in case you wanted to know.

Spontaneity

So last Sunday Regina and I decided that there could be nothing better to do than take a completely unplanned, spontaneous trip into Manhattan. We had no unfinished homework for the following day (although we probably could have stayed at school and gotten ahead on homework or done some studying for the tests we had during the week) so with nothing pressing to do we took the 9:28am train into the city, so we could have as much possible time there as possible.

We had absolutely no plans for the day, which is very unlike Regina and me. Pretty much we walked up to Times Square, saw Bryant Park in disarray as they prepared to install the annual ice rink, and then decided since neither of us had ever been to SoHo or NYU, and Regina had never been to Chinatown (she is from Lancaster, PA), we would make our way down there.

Pretty much all day we just walked and went into little shops or stopped to take pictures (Regina agreeing to model for me). Regina and I only get to talk during our 2 1/2 hour class once a week, which by the way is the easiest class ever, and the best thing we have gotten out out it so far is a list of hilarious quotes from our teacher, so we found out that we are actually very alike (I mean, how many people share orange as a favorite color, and want to have an orange fall wedding?).

To get to Soho from Penn you have to walk through the Flatiron district, so this was my first time ever seeing the Flatiron building!!

We had lunch there, NYC hotdogs! This was Regina's first!

Probably the highlight of our day is when I talked Regina into going into Anthropologie in SoHo, just to look around. Obviously we can't afford anything there, but everything is just so pretty we had to take a peek. We were very excited to find a few dresses and shirts for the low low price of $19.99. After trying them on in the dressing room that smelled like the pumpkin spice candles that used to be lit anytime I was in my bedroom at home during the months of October-February, we both decided on buy the same one.

Because people, when you find a dress that looks good on you for $19.99 at Anthropologie, you don't ask questions, you just buy it.

The dress is a strapless, knee length salmon color dress that we are either just going to wear in the summer time, or dress up with cardigans and leggings for fall.

We then walked around NYU, which was very sad because it is just way too expensive of a school for us to afford. Regina, a performer, was extremely distraught when we walked near a building that turned out to be Tisch. I had to get her away from there, fast.

We battled our way through Chinatown, where we each bought a scarf, and then headed back to SoHo and had, according to Zagat, New York City's best icecream! Pumpkin flavor for me, chocolate for Regina, and yes, it was VERY good!

I miss ice cream.

On our way back we found a wonderful wall of graffiti, and Regina just had to pose in front of it!

We then walked all the way back to Penn station.

That is right, we WALKED back to 34th street! We took no cabs, no subways, no buses this entire day.

We estimated, including walking to and from the train-station, that we walked 150 blocks in that one day.

We had dinner at TGI Fridays near Penn, and we downed our water very, very fast, and we were very annoyed when our waiter didn't come by to bring us more. And he KNEW we had just walked 150 blocks, because we informed him of it, and yet still, no water.

I wouldn't have been surprised if when I took my boots off that night, that my feet were bleeding, because that is sure what they felt like.

Here is an estimate of where we walked, the red line is before we got to Chinatown, the blue line is on our way back.

My facebook status that night: Over 150 New York City blocks walked, 2 matching Anthropologie dresses, 2 scoops of New York's best ice cream, 6 aspirins, 4 very sore feet, and 1 amazing day.

Hamlet!

So in the Honors College at Adephi students have to participate in 3 cultural events each semester. These events can really be anything, but for the most part they are shows. We can go to on campus ones, or off campus ones. The school does provide, however, a limited number of tickets for high profile shows in the city, we are talking $150 tickets here, for the low low price of $10!

So imagine my excitement when I found out they had 40 tickets to Hamlet, featuring Jude Law!!!!

I got up bright and early one morning and found myself number 32 in line for the tickets (roughly 300 honors college kids and only 40 tickets was a pairing I didn't see ending well).

Finally, last Friday we went to see Hamlet in the city. I really could care less that Jude Law was in it, I LOVE Hamlet. I studied it in 7th grade as my first taste of Shakespeare, studied it again in Sophomore year in Drama, and even performed as Ophelia in an original version of Hamlet, and then again in Senior year we studied it in AP Lit. I am possibly the only person I know who has the DVD of Kenneth Brannah's version of Hamlet, and yes, I actually DO watch it...often.

I was freaking out I was so excited, and no one really understood why, but that didn't matter to me.

Alicia, Nicole, and I planned to take the 2:19 train into the city. The train costs $13 and we were not about to waste a ticket on just a couple hours in the city. We found Caitlyn at the train station, and invited her to come along with us. We walked around between Penn Station and Times Square for a while, shopping, trying on silly hats, buying $3 headbands, and chose Juniors to eat at for dinner.

Caitlyn, Nicole, and Alicia

I had this thing called "Something Different". It was basically brisket in between two potato pancakes, AMAZING!

Then it was time to see Hamlet. Honestly you guys, I'm surprised I didn't cry out of excitement.

Alicia and I in our ketchup and mustard coats! It had rained all of Wednesday and Thursday, so we were so happy it remained dry for us.

Hey Jude!

The show was absolutely amazing! I understood 95% of what they were saying, and not just the gist of it, word for word (I still can never quite make out the player's speech). I have Schmidt to thank for that!

Jude Law seriously blew me away. I didn't realize he would be so great, so emotional. The set was very minimal, but the lighting beautiful. The costumes were pretty modern, but you almost couldn't tell because they were so simple, and they were all in gray and black tones (they even had to take out the line about Ophelia being kept afloat by her large dress before she drowned because we had yet to see her in a Elizabethan dress). I could go on for hours about the pros and cons of this show, but all you really need to know is that it was amazing.

My life is complete.

Tri-Kathalon!

Saturday Nicole and I participated in our very first Circle K Event! It was called the Tri-Kathalon! We would be working with all age groups of the Kiwanis family to make Boo-Boo Bunnies for local elementary school, clean up a local bird sanctuary, and make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the Mary Brennan INN. Unfortunately Nicole and I could only participate in the first two events, since she had to leave early to meet her family for homecoming, so for us it was more like a Di-Kathalon!

When we first got there no one wanted to sit with Nicole and me. We even had two high school kids come up to us and ask us if anyone was sitting across from us. When we told them "No", the didn't sit with us like we thought they would, they stole the chairs and took them to another table, lol. Eventually they split everyone up into teams, and Nicole and I were separated.

We then had to come up with a team name. At first we had only two young girls with us, and they were very shy and upset that they weren't sitting with all of their friends. So I asked one of them what her favorite animal was, and the other what her favorite color was. This left us with a team name of "Blue Monkeys", when our team grew to more people of all ages, they seemed fine with it, so we kept it. The girls them came up with a simple cheer that they presented to the whole crowd. It was very cute.

Our first task was to create a "Pillow Hug", which means we basically had to decorate a pillow case with a patriotic theme to give to a Veteran's Shelter. This little girl wanted to draw a horse on it. I figured it would probably come out looking like a little girl drew it, looking more like a dog than a horse, but boy was I wrong!

Look how cute!!!!!! Although why we were using washable markers on pillow cases I don't know. Am I missing something as far as what these pillows will be used for?

Then we had to make Boo-Boo Bunnies out of wash-cloths. You put a plastic ice cube in them and use them as ice packs.

Our team made 70 Bunnies. If it were up to me I would have bought different color wash cloths, but perhaps the budget didn't allow for that.

Next we caravanned to the bird sanctuary, which resulted in a quick left on a yellow for us, and a totally illegal left on red for the guy driving behind us. We got our gloves on and were ready to clean up some trash!!!

Honestly this picture doesn't do the disaster justice. The bird sanctuary is basically 7 acres of land that no one can build on or trespass on, that has certain trees which attract birds, as well as a body of water. Unfortunately rain brings in tons of trash. In one particular area (pictured) you had to duck through a mess of trees to get to an opening where literately the entire ground was covered in bottles and other trash. I heard "ew" screamed more times by the Elementary, Middle, and High School girls that day than I may ever hear for the rest of my life. The little jumping spiders didn't help.

Nicole and I felt disgusting and tired after this activity...so what did we do?

We went to Ralph's Famous Italian Ices for some Cream Ices, my very first. SO GOOD! And worth it, especially after picking up trash!

I went home and took a nice long shower, and then a nap. I had had to wake up at 7:00am, and let us face it, I'm just not used to waking up before 8:30am anymore.

Blog Worthy Fruit Snacks

Last night while eating my fruit snacks I purchased at the Stop and Shop a block from my school, that are usually shaped like those funny little stars no matter what flavor they are, I found two happy face fruit snacks which are sold exclusively at Wal-Mart. Obviously they are made by the same company, in the same factory. It was a nice little surprise to be reminded of the many times we have eaten the smiley face fruit snacks (bought because of how cheap they are) at school, sleepovers, or two week long road-trips across the Midwestern United States.

Child's Print Fleece

So this Sunday I desperately needed to go to Target. Catherine, who is from Washington (State, duh, if I had meant DC I would have said DC, lol), has a friend who lets her borrow her car, so she offered to take me, since she needed some things herself.

On my list of purchased items was a very adorable umbrella, long sleeve shirts in a variety of colors so I don't have to buy a whole new east coast wardrobe, I can just layer my west coast one, a swiffer and wet cloths to go with it so I can could clean my grimy, disgusting dorm room floor, and more laundry detergent.

This item, however, did not make it into the basket.

Girl's size XL footy pajamas.

We then headed to JoAnne's to buy fabric so Catherine could make this.

Not for herself of course, she is much more of a "My Little Pony" kind of girl, the recipient however, shall remain nameless.

Mail Thanks!

Special thanks to Kellie for her post-card from Berkeley that totally made me laugh. And from the cards from my mother!

I can't actually get my mailbox open, so I have to wait until I see an RA sitting at the desk to give me my mail, so sorry I didn't get your mail earlier.

If anyone else would like to send me anything I can tape up on the wall along with Kellie's and my mother's cards, I would LOVE that.

Comment with your email if you would like the address.

Thanks Yom Kipper!

This weekend, seeing as it was a long weekend since those of us here in New York got Monday off for Yom Kipper (by the way, I didn't even have to look up how to spell that, thank you Ari) , my lovely friend Nicole was nice enough to invite myself and her roomate Catherine to her house.

So after working an info session until 3:00 on Saturday. Side note: for those of you who don't know I am currently being trained (while being paid) to be a tour guide. Saturday was great, we had actual families and my senior guide let me give a lot of the tour, I may be ready for my evaluation (which means a $2 pay raise and senior guide status) by the end of this month! Anyway, at 3:00 we took the thirty minute drive to Nicole's town of Dix Hills.

I was wonderful to be in an actual home and eat home cooked meals. Her family was so nice and welcoming, as well as loud and a little bit crazy, so obviously I felt right at home. Her 4 year old niece Emma was there for a while Saturday night, we quickly bonded over having the same name.

The rest of the weekend we did pretty much... nothing. Which was perfect!

Her parents left Sunday morning (after cooking us a delicious brunch), and didn't come home until Monday night.

Here is what three (honors) college freshman did on a weekend with no supervision and a house all to themselves.

Catherine and I made flash cards and studied for our Art History slide quiz. We had to know the title, general date, culture, artist, as well as the significant points about 40 pieces of ancient art, out of which we would only be tested on 6. This is her being the missing head on the Statue of Queen Napir-Asu (1350-1300 BC, Elamite, concerned with permanence, inscription with a curse, ect, ect). I totally aced that quiz, by the way! So obviously sitting back on two recliners, drinking soda, eating chips and peanut M&M's, and quizing each other with the flash cards during the commercial breaks in Fight Club at 2:00am is the best way to study ever.

We also played a four hour epic game of disney monopoly. Which I won, although for a while it was leaning in Catherine's favor (Nicole went bankrupt about four times). We didn't even have enough castles, or $500 bills. You see all those green cottages by my stack of $500s, they represent $500 each.

Other than playing with her mother-daughter set of cocker spaniels, I don't really know what we did. Catherine and I watched mindless television about wedding cakes, wedding dresses, Wedding Crashers, and a boy with "White Trash" tattooed across his chest (not all in the same show, obviously).

We went to the mall, but apparently Dix Hills is a very fancy-smancy sort of place, and all the clothing was plastered with designer labels. We then went to Target where I bought a pair of dark brown "Uggs" for $30.