debbie

November 26, 2005

Mother Nature is Messing With My Head.

Oh no! Who told Mother Nature to put New England in the icebox? I came home from Boston on Tuesday and there was snow on the ground! It snowed most of Wednesday and Thursday, we got a break on Friday, and today [Saturday] it snowed the whole day. I am not used to this…It’s going to be a strange winter…I have also developed a disconnect from the winter I am used to. Being in the warm, rainy weather of Boston gave me a culture shock coming home. I know it’s going to be strange to return there, and there not be any snow on the ground.

It’s nice to be home again. I know that it’s going to be hard to get back into the swing of school when I go back Monday. Reason? I will only have 4 more class sessions before it’s time for finals. So ultimately three more weeks of school. Then I head back home again. It’s going to be the hardest three weeks. It’s also hard to believe that the semester is almost over with. Where did the time go? I have already begun research for graduate schools. Oh man. There are so many decisions.

I am seriously thinking of applying back at Simmons. From the minimal research I have done, Simmons has one of the better graduate degrees I am looking for. English anyone? I have been so far impressed with the English department, they are very helpful. I am also looking into Central Connecticut. I have to pay for Graduate school myself, so I am going to have to find relatively cheap schools, good scholarships, and a job [like TA] to get through it.

Anyways. Tomorrow is going to be a load of fun. We will be celebrating my Dad’s and Chris’ birthday, since I won’t be home next weekend for Chris’. It’s a big one for him. Let’s just say there is a 0 involved in the number, and he isn’t turning 20. Debbie’s robbing the geriatric ward! We are going to the movies, Chris and I are going to go see “Walk the Line” while my parents go see “The Ice Harvest”. We will then have homemade pizza with the cake that I made tonight. I am looking forward to it.

Time for bed! I am exhausted! It’s been a long weekend. I have been so bad…I haven’t done any homework! Well, that’s a lie - none of my teachers assigned any work. So there was nothing to do. Unless I wanted to get caught up/get ahead. But shh…we won’t talk about that.

Heh heh. ~Debbie

Posted by debbie13 at 11:45 PM

November 20, 2005

Whatchu looking at yah Hockey Puck!?!

Oh man. What a busy weekend it’s been!

I was afraid that I would be stuck inside all weekend working on a paper for my China History class - but fortunately I was able to balance it out with some fun AND got the paper done. Not bad. :o) Sarah went to a NACA conference, which is the regional conference for Campus Activity Board’s. So I have been roommate-less for the weekend. It worked out good because I was able to work on my paper and not feel bad for being anti-social. ^_^

Friday was a lot of fun, I was invited by Natalie to go to her friend’s first college hockey game. Rob, plays for UMASS Boston and they were going to play against Bowdoin. I have never been to a hockey game before, so I thought ‘why not?’ I invited my friend Anna from my Critical Interpretation class to come along [we had planned to go out for coffee that night anyways]. Emily and Nicole joined us, and we were on our way to Dorchester to watch the game. The ride over was pretty uneventful, although we had a pretty meaningful conversation about the mice at the Park Street red line platform.

Anyways. Every picture tells a story…

anna
Anna at the Fenway stop…waiting for the T.

natalie
Natalie all bundled up.

emily and nicole
Nicole and Emily on the train.

hockey1
At the Hockey Game. The players in blue are UMASS, and the one’s in white are Bowdoin.

rob

27 is Rob. Go rob!!! Yay!!!!

rob2
Here’s another shot of him.

zamboli
I decided I wanted to get this to help me get across the Emmanuel campus in the winter time.

The game was a lot of fun. A lot of people were thrown into the walls, sliding across ice and just generally wrecking their bodies. At one point, some player hit the puck so hard at the right angle, that it came flying up into the stands and missed Anna by a foot. I ran over and grabbed it. My first hockey game and I get a souvenir!!!

Unfortunately for UMASS, and Rob, Bowdoin won - 7 to 0. I still think he played a good game. We were all happy for him. After the game, we headed back to his apartment where we had some pizza and watched South Park. It was interesting to see the contrast between girl’s rooms and boy’s rooms. I almost forgotten what boys my age are like, being surrounded by girls all the time - and then dating a guy who is older. I tell you what, it made me appreciate Chris a whole lot more. I had forgotten how immature some boys are when they are trying to get a girls attention.

Hah hah. It was funny. This one guy was falling all OVER himself to get Emily’s attention. He even pulled Natalie aside to ask her if she would help hook him up. Fortunately we were back at the JFK/UMASS T-stop before she told us about that, because we all burst out laughing. He was sweet, if just a little unrefined. I can imagine Chris being like him when he was that age. It was good times.

We got to the red line T-stop so late that we were worried we missed the last inbound train. Fortunately we didn’t, and were able to make it back to Park Street to catch the VERY LAST train of the evening/morning. The funny thing was, is we ran into a group of girls that also go to Simmons, one of them being Amy who lives across from me.

amy
Here’s Amy!!!

We had to wait on the car for about 5-10 minutes because it was waiting for all the other lines to pull into the station so no one would miss the green line.

Anna and me waiting for the train to go.

So then yesterday, I worked on my paper all day. I was able to get it done - holy cow! three days before it’s due! That’s a first for me. I am going to take a break from it today, work on my other homework for a bit, and then edit it tomorrow. I always need to take a break from a paper so I can look at it with a fresh, new perspective. But last night, I got a visit from an old friend, Ariel came up to visit me for a couple of minutes. It was nice to be able to talk and re-connect with her.

After she left, I bugged the ladies next door. By that point it was midnight. Priscilla had the idea of going over the StarMarket to grab a couple of things. I wasn’t even sure if they were open - but apparently they are 24 hours. Good to know when you have a late-night craving for ho-ho’s. So we dragged Saira with us, strength in numbers sort of thing. It was funny shopping in a grocery store after midnight. You can’t tell that I am from the boonies…

We came back, Priscilla and I had some fish that we bought and listened to Maria read a conversation that she had with a guy she likes. It was just like a slumber party, laughing, giggling about boys and what not. It was about 2:30 before Rahala and Maria put in an Indian movie [I think it was “Dude, where’s my desi?”] which meant that we would be in for the long haul. Indian movie usually lasts 3 hours. I left after about 3:30, but it took me about an hour to fall asleep.

And so that brings me to today! I am going to go downtown and hang out in Chinatown for a bit. That should be a lot of fun.
~Debbie

Posted by debbie13 at 11:48 AM

November 12, 2005

Home Sweet Home

Ah, to be home again. ‘Tis a wonderful thing.

After being away from home for several weeks, it’s nice to come home for the long weekend. I am especially lucky, because I can stay an extra day [Monday], and just relax and do homework. Well, right now it’s just been relaxing…I haven’t completed nearly the amount of homework that I was hoping for. Oh well, I have tomorrow and Monday to rectify that. It’s just a lot of tedious reading, mainly to stay caught up for class discussions.

I signed up for classes a week ago? I can’t remember when exactly. It was my first time registering for classes online, I am used to standing INline. Ha ha. That was a lame pun. It was an interesting experience to say the least, although nothing replaces the standing in line bonding time. You would always find some friend to stand in line with, and commiserate about how horrible it was to be waiting 2 hours to sign up for classes. Laughing, joking, swapping stories on which teacher was best for which subject, yelling across the room at some lucky friend who was way ahead of you, vowing to arrive 20 minutes earlier next semester. Nothing beats that. Now, it’s impersonal - at first I wasn’t even sure I got all the classes I wanted, but as I look over the SOAR site, apparently I did. Sweet.

Anyways, I am signed up for Japanese 102, Two courses of Creative writing - one fiction, one non-fiction, A seminar on African-American Literature, and an upper-level Shakespeare class. Five courses, it’s been a long time since I have had such a heavy course-load. My Shakespeare class is my drop class, so if things got rough, that would be the class I get rid of. I figure, if I get that 5th class for free [and we do], why not take advantage of that? The worse that can happen is I have to drop out because it’s too heavy of a course-load. The hardest classes are probably going to be my Japanese class and MAYbe the African-American Seminar.

I am not too worried about the writing classes and the Shakespeare. I could just get a rude awakening though - ha ha. Let’s hope not. Japanese I know is going to be rough, but I have come to terms with that.

I was talking to a friend of mine who goes to Boston University, she suggested that I consider teaching English in foreign countries for a living. She even went so far as to suggest China, which apparently would pay good money for a foreign language teacher. I am definitely considering it, you have to figure, getting to travel to exotic places - learn new cultures and languages…how exciting would that be? I talked to Chris about it, and he was all for it, since he would have to be in tow. I would have gone regardless, but shhh…don’t tell him I said that.

Personally, I would love to go to Japan, since I am learning the language and all. I am just disappointed I missed out on the Japanese short-term that is occurring this June. It would have been a wonderful opportunity to be immersed in the culture, and the best way to use what I have learned.

Ah! Samurai Champloo is on! It’s been a long time since I have had a chance to see it! It just stinks because it’s dubbed in English…and it’s a re-run. Dangit. Trivia: I named one of my Betta fish after the main character Jin on the show. :oD Ha ha. Anyways.

~Debbie

Posted by debbie13 at 11:32 PM

November 05, 2005

A day out on the town.

Ah! Finally! I am through with mid-terms. I can return to my normal schedule. Mid-terms always are disruptive, which is probably what I hate more than the actual taking of tests. I dunno, I am not a fan of tests. I know I did pretty good on two of them, we are still holding our breath on Japanese. ANYhoo.

It was a pretty uneventful week, which is a good thing. I was finally able to get to be a tourist in my adopted hometown of Boston, which was a first in nearly a month. I have been so wrapped up with school work and Crew, I have forgotten that I even live in the city. My life has been Brookline Ave, Longwood and Fenway. Chris came up for a visit this weekend, which was wonderful. It’s been three weeks since I have seen him. Geeze, you would think I am some hermit to hear me talk. Heh. Truly I am not.

Chris and I went down to Quincy Market to meet my old school, NCCC [Which had come up on their annual Boston trip], and to hang out with some friends for the day. Emily, her boyfriend Paul, Jason and his friend Ryan all traveled in our NCCC/Simmons posse. Paul wanted to go to the Garment District [not an actual district, but a cool clothing/costume store], and I figured they would have fun at Harvard Square since it was only two T stops away from said store. It took some time to find the right T line [I hadn’t been downtown in a while! I forgot where the closest red line was!].

Although, at one point, we were asked by a guy to give him a credit card that we weren’t using. Emily declined, and I just laughed at her. I am a bold person, but not that bold.

But we hopped on at Downtown Crossing. It was a pretty uneventful ride, though it’s always fun to watch Chris on the T. He’s not the biggest train fan. I showed him where we practice Crew on the Charles when we went over the Longfellow bridge. I know. I’m a dork.

Harvard Square was the same as always, we just went into a couple of shops, I bought some more pocky and some cookies from the Anime Shop “Tokyo Kid”. The only reason why I mention that, is the cookie box is written in Katakana [form of Japanese writing] and I can read it. I couldn’t tell you what it meant, but I can read it to you if you asked.

On our way back into town, we stopped in at the Garment District. OH MY GOSH. It was SO awesome [like, totally]. The downstairs portion had a buy clothing by the pound [@ $1.50/lb], where the clothing was strewn about the floor. I spent about a good 20 minutes picking through, feeling like a bum grabbing as much stuff as I could. But in the end, I walked away with only two items [ I’m cheap], which cost me [actually Chris…ha ha] only $2.10. I found this beautiful shear orange curtain for my room, and a neat army rucksack. Upstairs had more expensive items, more meant for costumes than for everyday wear….though that didn’t stop some people. I am going to return again sometime if I am in need of clothing - I have a place to go as a cheap college student.

The day was topped off by returning to Quincy Market for dinner. Jason remarked “Mother Nature turned the A/C on!!!”. We all laughed, though it was true. It had been a picture perfect day [atypical in November IN Boston], sunny and warm. So none of us were truly prepared to be walking around at night, i.e. wearing light layers. I can just hear my mom right now saying, “Well DUH, it’s freaking November. In Boston! What do you expect?” Thanks mom!

After dinner, everyone else wanted to go out to get something to drink afterwards, but Chris and I decided to call it a night. As is the custom in Boston, there was a LOT of walking done today. My feet are tired, and I think I have a couple of blisters festering. Note to self: Never wear clogs without socks on when you plan to do a lot of walking.

We said our good-byes, it was kinda sad to see everyone go. It was great that we all could share the day together. I think it was the best way to end the past two [stressful] weeks of mid-terms. It was also nice to be reminded why I came to Simmons in the first place, the Bostonian experience.