I'm back... and I'm done!!

So I haven't posted in a while... I've been very busy, what with sorority and work and dance and orchestra. And oh yeah, school. But today I finished my finals!! Finals ran from yesterday through May 9th, next tuesday, but all of mine were crammed into yesterday and today. All of mine were completely essay based so it was kind of draining (I have like 7 hours of solid writing behind me in the last two days.. hand writing too, so I have cramps in my tendons). I'll be staying in Boston until the 12th, and Ryan and I have our 2 year anniversary on the 11th. I'll be working though, so I won't be pulled into complete laziness.

Tonight I'm seeing David Sedaris perform with a couple of my friends, should be good. I plan on spending all of tomorrow obtaining boxes and figuring out what to do with all of my stuff. Then Saturday I'll be taking all the stuff I'm storing to the Uhaul place in a taxi van. I'm not exactly looking forward to it.

For now, I have laundry to attend to.

the eve of the concert

Okay, so it's been awhile. Since the semester really got going, I haven't had much free time. Although today I had class the first time since last thursday, so I guess I can't complain too much. Monday was a holiday, and then Tuesday was a Monday schedule of classes. I only have class on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so I've like a little winter break this past week. I've been working though, and dancing too. We have a dance performance tonight, but I'm not performing in it because I have an orchestra concert. Anyway, I'm still obligated to go to all the rehearsals, and Monday night we had a 4 hour practice to finish choreographing the slipjig and reel that they're dancing tonight. It's a really neat dance and I think we all work pretty well together. Although, I have to admit I wasted a good 15 or 20 minutes of practice time trying to figure out if we could have a part where half the dancers were on their knees holding hands and the other half came up from behind and lept over their arms. We had a hard time clearing this jump, and I ended up kicking the club's president's hand a couple times pretty hard, so we gave up. We're putting it in the "bank" for future shows, though. We also just found out that we've been given funding of about $1200 for costumes. We found some simple, long sleeved black dresses for about $50 each that we're going to buy, and we already have green capes to wear on the back. It's an exciting time for Step About Boston.

So my orchestra concert is tonight, although it feels like we just started the music. There are 3 pieces total (I think) but woodwinds only play in 2 of them. The pieces are fairly hard, and honestly, I think they're beyond what the group should be playing, at least with only this many practices. But we'll see how it goes. Now I have to go get dressed up and walk through the rain to get to the dress rehearsal. As a wind player, I'm opposed to dress rehearsals immediately prior to the concert. It totally wears out your mouth. Just thought I'd throw that in.

And something else I just remembered: next Wednesday I'll be participating in a video conference with Bill Clinton and a few universities in Africa about African policies during the Clinton years. Pretty exciting, huh?

I hate weather

Today it sleeted, then hailed, and now it's snowing. The wind chill is pretty bitter too. Last night I went to a meeting of the Cultural Consortium. The student groups on campus are divded into like 6 (I'm guessing) consortiums, and Step About Boston, my dance club, is in the cultural one (although I think we should be in the performance consortium because although we started as an Irish culture club, all we do is dance). Anyway, every club has to send a rep to the consortium meetings, and I'm that rep. We talked a whole lot about collaborative events being planned for this semester. The International Students Consortium (which isn't a technical consortium, just a club) is having a benefit concert to aid Pakistani relief efforts, and all the cultural clubs pretty much agreed to help them sell tickets and publicize the event. They've got some ambassador coming to speak at it, too, so I'm impressed. Anyway, I ramble. Tonight I have the first of my weekly Tri Delta meetings. I don't actually go to the full chapter meetings, which are on Sundays, just the new member ones. There's only like 11 of us, and the meeting's only half an hour long, so it shouldn't be a big deal.

Oh, so Step About Boston now has a website: Step About Boston There's not a whole lot on it, but in the gallery section you can download a video of us dancing last semester. The sound is about a second ahead of the video, but it still looks pretty cool. I'm the one in the second set of dancers all the way on the left (I'm cut out of the shot during much of it)

Snow, Tri Delts, and lots of reading

Well we had a big snowfall a couple of days ago, nothing compared to the thunder blizzard of December, but still. My snow boots came conveniently after I walked through the snow all day and my become completely soaked through with ice water. It's supposed to get up to 50 this week, so hopefully all the snow will melt.

So I pledged last night to Tri Delta, after 5 long days of sorority recruitment. It's one of the smaller sororities on campus, only about 60 members, but I like that. It's actually the biggest sorority on the national level, and we are the Alpha chapter (AKA the founding one). They plan a ton of events throughout the semester, but all of them are optional, which is nice, because I tend to have a busy schedule.

Speaking of schedules, my only Tuesday and Thursday class schedule leaves a huge amount of reading for Wednesdays. I guess that's alright though, I've got nothing else to do. Ryan and I ate $5.95 lunch buffet at Bombay Cafe today and it was really good. Kind of a small selection, but authentic, and great nan! For 6 bucks a piece, nothing much else can top that around here.

Well it's time to return to my reading, which I am slowly hacking my way through.

Spring is here.. sorta

So I've completed one week of the new semester. I only have classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but those days are pretty packed. My classes all seem very interesting, although one of teachers seems a little erratic and is difficult to follow.

It's was about 55 degrees and sunny today. I went outside with no jacket! It's supposed to snow on Sunday though, so I'm trying not to get too excited. I had my first night of sorority recruitment tonight, which lasted... 7 hours! Unbelievable. There was a lot of down time too, so it definitely could have run smoother. The sororities seemed mostly pretty cool, with a couple of exceptions. Most girls seemed pretty intelligent, but there were definitely some stereotypes there too. Anyway, we'll see what happens the rest of the weekend.

Okay nothing more to say.. I'll be sure to write if anything important happens tomorrow at recruitment.

nearing the end of finals...

Two finals down, one to go. I have Economic Geography tomorrow from 3-5pm. I've already studied way more than I need to, though, because I don't have much else to do. Most of my friends have gone home by now anyway. Ryan and I saw Narnia on Saturday night, but only because King Kong sold out. I've wanted to see Narnia for a while, but Ryan wasn't that enthusaistic. We both really liked it though; I don't remember enough about the books to be disappointed by the movie in that respect.

Yesterday at Gap a group of singers came in and sang "Santa Claus is Coming to Town," except it was changed to "Gap Sweatshops are Coming to Town." They had multiple verses of it, too. I heard my manager asking them to go outside with him, and eventually they did, but I think it might have been because they ran out of lyrics. The guy I was ringing up at the register asked if things like that happened all the time; I've never seen anything like it, but apparently another girl who has worked at Gap a long time said she's seen it a few times. I don't think people would go into Banana Republic and protest like that, but it's owned by the same company, and the stuff is all probably made in the same sweatshops.

It was supposed to snow today, and it still says there's a chance for it, but it's completely sunny outside. I'm glad.. If it snowed there would be snow frozen on the ground at least until I leave on Thursday, and I've to lug my suitcase through all of that. The other day it got up to 40 degrees, so the previous snow melted for the most part. I'm looking forward to going to Missouri, where the highs are the 40s for the first few days I'll be there.

Christmas is in 6 days!

Classes are over!

Yay! Yesterday was my last day of classes! Now we have a "study period" today and tomorrow, and finals begin on Thursday. My first final is on Friday, for dramatic lit, and my other one is next Tuesday, for economic geography. I already had one for Spanish split between last Friday and yesterday, and my writing class doesn't have a final, just a final paper, which was due yesterday. So two more tests and then I'm home free. Well I don't go home until the 22nd, which kind of sucks; everyone else will already be gone.

Me, some friends, and Ryan saw "Rent" on Saturday night. I thought it was pretty good; my friends that aren't familiar with the music thought there was too much singing, but I, being pretty familiar with the soundtrack, thought there was not enough. There were a ton of spoken lines in the movie that were sung in the original, so it threw me off a little. It stayed pretty true to the musical though; it only cut a few things out and adjusted the time frame a bit. I thought Rosario Dawson looked and acted the perfect Mimi, but her voice wasn't as strong as the girl who played her on Broadway. The majority of the actors were from the original, though, including Anthony Rapp, who plays Mark, and who was Darryl in "Adventures in Babysitting," a classic. Ryan and I also saw the Nutcracker at the Boston Ballet on Thursday. It was really good, and we had awesome seats. I just wish it had lasted longer.

It's really really cold here. There's supposed to be "ice pellets" on Friday, and more snow after that. There was a thunder blizzard last Friday; it was frightening. The wind makes my skin burn though, not good. Luckily my thermal tights keep my legs nice and warm.

I'm so ready for Christmas!

Christmas is REALLY almost here

It's finally snowing for real. It looks really cold out too, but luckily I have thermal pants to wear under my normal pants. Apparently the snow is late this year, but starting today it's supposed to snow almost every day for like a week. It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas... Speaking of which, Ryan has an advent calendar that his mom got him; under every little window there's a chocolate. Ryan used to hate chocolate, but now that he has this calendar, he loves it, and I'm not allowed to have any of it. I have almost all of my Christmas shopping done, and it's only the 4th! I still have a few things to finish up, though.

Friday night was the Myles Birthday Bash at Myles Hall, the dorm that I eat in. Everyone dressed up and there was a casino room with a lot of different Vegas style games. I tried to play poker, but none of my friends had ever played before, so it was too frustrating to play with them. One girl was dealt a straight, twice in a row, and she folded both times. Amateurs... I also got a henna tattoo, which I had never heard of, but apparently that's just me. I wanted to get my picture drawn, but the guy doing that left early, so the only thing left was getting a henna tattoo. Mine's a Chinese, maybe Japanese character on my wrist. I'll post pictures of the Bash as soon as my friend Michelle sends them to me.

I almost had my first orchestra rehearsal on Thursday, but when I got there, there was a sign saying it was cancelled. And I can't go to this week's practice because Ryan and I are seeing the Nutcracker on Thursday. We apparently have a concert in February, so it doesn't seem like there's that many rehearsals to go. The music looks easy though, so hopefully I'll be okay.

So I'm going to try writing more in this blog, it's kind of pointless if I just do it once every couple weeks. I've been so busy lately, I had a million assignments due this past week, but now the worst is behind me. I actually now have only one paper to write for the rest of the semester. Only about 2 weeks left... Crazy.

christmas?

The weather has finally turned sour here. It's been drizzling all day, and now it is officially raining cats and dogs, according to Ryan. It was 65 degrees and sunny yesterday, so I guess we deserve this. Tonight Ryan spontaneously decided to take me to dinner while we were at the Pru (it's an upscale mall with lots of shops and restaraunts), and we both had rare steaks and shrimp scampi. It was a nice break from dining hall dinners, which are definitely not bad, but not rare-steak-good.

This is a concert-intensive week for me. Tomorrow night Ryan has his Contemporary Wind Orchestra concert (for which he remembered tonight that he needs a black oxford for, that's why we were at the Pru), Saturday the Filipino club at BU is hosting a big Filipino performace, and Ryan's Filipino club at Berklee is performing, and Sunday is the BU dance showcase, in which Step About Boston, my Irish dance group, is dancing. Hopefully we're ready for that, we're a little short on rehearsals and the number of people in the dance has changed like 10 times.

So all of a sudden, everywhere is Christmas. Newbury Street, where I work, is completely decked out; the trees have white lights in them, and all the shops and boutiques have Christmasy window displays. I would like it, but since it's not soon enough to Christmas, not even all the decorations make it feel like Christmas to me. They just seem out of place right now. However, not everyone seems to realize it's not the Christmas season yet. People are coming into Gap in swarms already, and it's not even Thanksgiving. Thank god I'll be at home for the weekend after Thanksgiving, and not at work.

Fall is here

Fall is here at last. On Saturday, Ryan and I went out to lunch and then walked around a bit so I could take pictures of the autumnal city. I posted some of them on gathkinsons.net, but not all of them. They began to get a little repetative. Apparently this season is a lot less spectacular than most New England falls, because of all the weird weather. It snowed like crazy about a week and a half ago, and then was 70 degrees the next day.

I've finally gotten some grades back in my lit class. I got a B on my first paper, and an A on the midterm. The first paper isn't worth that much though, the midterm is worth a lot more and even the next paper that we'll write will be more points. Plus, I participate like crazy in there, and that's worth 10% of the final grade. I was a little disappointed on the paper grade, though, since I've been managing to get As on my papers for my writing class, which I consider much more challenging. Looking back, though, the paper wasn't really that good, but all of the prompts were pretty dry. Speaking of papers, I turned in another one for my writing class today. My life feels like it's measured in paper due dates.

I'm all set to register for spring classes. Freshmen register on November 20th, which is a big day. Registration, my dad's birthday, and I have an Irish dance performance. Anyway, I'm planning on taking an English seminar that takes the place of the second writing class we're all required to take, a Spanish conversation and composition class, a graphic design studio, and Art History. I've been considering also taking a dance class, but as I'm planning on playing in the orchestra next semester, I don't know if I want to take on too much.

This is a three day weekend for us, coming up. Lots of my friends are going places, mainly to New York, it seems. My friend Michelle is from NYC, and one weekend I'd like to take the bus down there with her and explore the city. I've only been there to change planes, and all airports look the same (except the memphis airport, that one sucks). Friday is Ryan's and my one and a half year anniversary, and he's taking me to see Rockapella. Ryan didn't even know they sang the Carmen San Diego song, and that's all anybody else does know about them.

I'm almost famous

If you read today's Get Fuzzy, you'll see I'm mentioned. Well my street is anyway. I'm pretty sure the Publick House he's reffering to is in Beacon Hill, though, which is a ways down from me.
Anyway, I'm off to see "The Weather Man" with Ryan. I've been wanting to see it for about a year, since when I saw the teaser preview to it. The bow and arrow line is great.

I don't know if I'm getting the hang of what to write in a blog.. any suggestions?

I give in

Well I'm giving in, I created a blog. I don't know if anyone will read it or not, but that doesn't matter so much. It seems like a good idea though, if only to use as a diary-type thing. Anyway, right now I'm waiting for my last class of the day, Spanish, and then off to work, The Gap

Halloween

Halloween 

A sample from Halloween. Lots more on www.gathkinsons.net