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Friday Fun! (Post Grad School)
Hello my lovely readers! I hope your weeks have been lovely with lots of time for reading crammed in. My week has been decidedly uneventful, which I am totally ok with after the insane eventfulness of the last 6 months or so. I’m settled into a post-grad school routine of work, friends, gym, cooking, professional job hunting, etc… It’s great to actually have the time to see my friends more often now than when I was in school. We’re managing to find fun ways to occupy our time in spite of the bitter cold, whether that’s Asian fusion food or hockey games. (Go BC kick UNH’s ASS). In fact, I’m so busy doing fun things that by the time I get home at night, I generally grab a quick snack or dinner then climb into bed to read and fall asleep doing so. I woke up with my glasses still on this morning. Luckily I was reading on my ipod so it turned itself off at some point in the night so no electricity was wasted. This does mean that I’m watching far fewer movies, except for when I have friends over to get drunk and watch trashy old horror movies together. 😉 Of course there are the normal post-grad school money worries and the stress of trying to fit everything in to your work week, not to mention actually making the time to wash your laundry so you have clean clothes to wear, but overall, life is good. *looks around* *knocks on wood*
Oh! I also got an xbox 360 and played a Kinect game for the first time and dudes. It is so fucking cool. The future of gaming if I do say so myself. Playing a game with your body and no controls? It’s like something out of a fucking scifi movie. The only annoying part is having to move my furniture every time I play.
There’s really not too much else to say right now. I’m striving for various goals, but I plan on only updating ya’ll on them once I’ve achieved them. I prefer not to jinx myself. 😉 In the meantime, I hope to keep encouraging everyone’s love of reading and story-telling. Happy weekends!
Friday Fun! (Open Studios, Boston Symphony Orchestra)
Hello my lovely readers! I finally got an entire weeks’ worth of review posts up! Yay for being back in the swing of things.
This has been a really busy week, but that is quickly becoming the norm for me. Last Saturday I went to some artists’ open studios with Nina, her dad, and our friend E. The studios were totally gorgeous. Some of them were also the artists’ homes, and they were essentially loft style apartments. I was insanely jealous. At one of the studios I picked up a little piece of $10 found art. I think it’s quite feminist as it features some empty birth control packs, etc…, and I plan on hanging it in my bedroom area. Once I figure out how. Nina’s dad took us all out for Thai food, and it was amazingly good! Our waiter was this fabulous gay Asian guy, and he is now officially one of my favorite waiters ever. That night I hung out with E. We had a few drinks and watched a double-feature of The Last House on the Left–the original and the remake. Be expecting a review comparing the two next week!
Also this week I went to the Boston Symphony Orchestra with Nina. It was my first time ever at a symphony, and I really enjoyed it. I discovered that classical music relaxes me. I might have to acquire a cd of some to fall asleep to. The conductor did two of the movements playing the piano and conducting simultaneously. It was pretty amazing. Plus, it’s always fun to have a night to get all dressed up for an actual reason.
Things are crazy busy right now with the final projects coming up in grad school, and my general refusal to slow down my socializing and taking in of the events in Boston. It’ll be a busy weekend for me! I hope you all are enjoying your falls. 🙂
Friday Fun! (Busy Week, Happy Halloween)
Oh boy what a busy week it’s been! It was great to get to see Team Unicorn last Saturday night, even though not all of us could be there. The pizza was yummy, and Kristi’s apple cake was absolutely scrumptious! We played Apples to Apples, and it was great to see how well (or not well) we all knew each other. On Sunday E and I took our friend Nina out for her birthday to an excellent Thai restaurant. All of the food was simply amazing. My appetizer was this goat cheese, walnut, and grape pate. It was to die for. Then for my main course I had lemongrass tofu with jasmine rice. And our drinks! They were so fabulous. My first one was a gin drink and came with this cucumber garnish. Then after that we all had blackberry sours. I think I may have found my new favorite girly drink, haha.
The beginning of my week was full of grad school. I finally went to a full session of class healthy enough to participate. That was good! Then I had a big paper to write, which was what most of my time was spent on. Last night, I went out for live music and karaoke with my friends. Nina and I sang Poker Face, and it was awesome. I have 1 paper, 2 projects, 2 handouts to design for my students, 1 cataloging assignment, and TAing online until the second week of December between me and graduation. I can’t wait! But I’ll definitely be busy in the meantime.
I hope you all have super happy Halloweens, no matter how you decide to celebrate. 🙂
Friday Fun! (Welcome, Thanks, and Ramblings)
Hello my lovely readers! I want to pay a special welcome and hello to my new subscribers acquired over the course of BBAW. I know personally the overwhelming number of new blogs I was exposed to myself, so I’m honored you found me interesting and unique enough to stick around. I want to let you know that this has been an off couple of weeks for me on the blog as things are a bit rough personally right now. Normally my posts are a bit better written (at least I think so), and a bit more frequent, so, sorry about that. Thanks for hanging in there! I also want to say thanks to my friends who’ve been there for me the last couple of weeks in various ways. If you guys happen to be reading this, I want you to know that you rock.
Fall weather has finally come to Boston, and I am so grateful. With fall you get cool weather but no nasty storms to deal with. It’s the best of both situations. I have yet to go apple picking, but I did have cider for the first time of the season last night. (Ok, ok, hard cider, but it still counts). Grad school continues to be evil and suck the life from me. I can’t wait until I can be just a librarian instead of a librarian and a grad student. Tomorrow I’ll be volunteering at a local food event with my friends Nina and E. Hopefully, it’ll be nice weather.
Next week should see an uptake in the number of reviews. I’m currently about half-way through The Dark Tower, and it’s such a chunkster, I plan on reading a short, quick read after it. I also plan on having some me time on Sunday, which besides exercising and cleaning my apartment will most likely include curling up on the couch with my kitty and watching a movie. I know. I am so exciting. In any case. Reviews. You will have them next week.
Happy weekends everybody!
Friday Fun! (Inception and General Busyness)
Just a quick check-in today my lovely readers. It’s a busy Friday!
I had a lovely week in spite of the rain at the beginning. I actually found the cooler weather to be a nice relief, both to me and to my electric bill! I went to see Inception this week, and while my friend and I would have had fun watching Joseph Gordon-Levitt in pretty much anything, the movie itself is truly great! I loved following the plot during it, then thinking out all the possibilities after. (I might possibly have lost some sleep doing just that). I also really enjoyed the soundtrack. I believe it’s by the same composer who did The Dark Knight. In any case, it’s just as powerful.
I finished my final project for my summer session online class, although I still have a bit of forum discussion left to do before it’s officially over at the end of this week. Naturally, my fall online class starts earlier than Simmons–this week to be exact, so I’m getting a bit of an overlap. I have a scheduling strategy though, so thus far I’m not too stressed about it. This semester is my final semester of my MLIS program, and I’m going to be so incredibly happy to be done. I’m not looking forward to my face-to-face class at all. It’s cataloging, which I’ve put off for last for a reason. (I really hate the technical services aspect of librarianship), but it needs to be done, so I’m planning on grinning and bearing it, haha.
Two of my friends are also moving this week, so I’ve been helping them when I can. Last night they crashed at my place as they had a one night apartment gap. This weekend I’ll be cooking a special dinner to help ease the stress for them and also helping clean their previous apartment in preparation for the security deposit check by the landlord. It’s busy, but it’s always nice hanging out with them, even if it is working on something or just them sleeping on my couch. (I have a couch that’s very disproportionately large for my apartment. It’s amazing).
How about you guys? Has the busyness of fall started to catch up with you or are you still in summer relaxation mode? What are your stress management strategies?
Friday Fun! (Classes, Surgery, Water)
Hello my lovely readers! What a busy week it’s been for me. This week was the last week of my semester. Finishing touches were placed on classes, and as of Tuesday night at around 8pm, I was finally on vacation! No more classes until July.
My brother, sister-in-law, and niece are in Boston for an indeterminate amount of time. My niece, who is about 4.5 months old, was born with a heart defect, so she is in Children’s Hospital getting it fixed. Monday night I went to the excellent parents’ hotel to see them before her surgery. Her surgery was Wednesday, and I took the day off to wait out the 6 hour surgery with my brother and sister-in-law. The surgery went better than the doctors were hoping for, so that was good news. They were just starting to wake her up slowly Thursday afternoon. I have yet to see her post-surgery, as only parents/guardians have been allowed in the recovery room so far. Her parents are holding up quite well, I think.
On top of all that, last Saturday a water line broke in Weston, which meant that all of Boston was under a drinking water ban, as the water could be contaminated. You had to boil the water for at least 2 minutes to make it safe for drinking or washing dishes. You also could wash dishes by adding some bleach to it. Well, I didn’t have bleach and wasn’t about to buy it for only a couple of days’ use. I had made a large dinner Friday night, and since I am not one of these “wash dishes instantly” women, I had planned on washing them Saturday. Ooops. Between everything else going on, I didn’t have a chance to wash them, along with all the other dishes dirtied during the incident, until Wednesday night. I got to spend many many hours doing dishes, let me tell you.
All in all a busy week, but not a bad one. Happy weekends, all!
Friday Fun! (Sarah Silverman)
Hello my lovely readers! Sorry there was no Friday Fun post last week. I had the day off and was staying as far away from the computer as possible. 🙂
Last weekend I got to meet Sarah Silverman! She was in town for her book tour for The Bedwetter. She read a portion of the book featuring her father’s hilarious voice mails to her. This was followed by a Q+A session that I’m pretty sure nobody in the audience was aware was going to happen. It took us a bit to come up with semi-good questions. Among the things I learned:
- She doesn’t drink. (Say what?!)
- Her feelings were hurt by the whole TED fiasco, and her presentation for it is still unavailable online.
- She originally mocked twitter, but now loves it as a “message in a bottle” feature for her life.
- The only topic she personally has boundaries for is making “fat women” the butt of jokes. She said that “America as a society has this idea that fat women don’t deserve to be loved or happy, and I just think that’s really wrong, so I don’t go there, but other comedians have the right to do what they want to do.” Classy lady.
- She wants to adopt a mentally challenged kid, but she doesn’t want to feel guilty for dying and leaving a mentally challenged adult with no one to care for him/her, so she decided she should adopt a mentally challenged child with a terminal illness. Lolz.
After the reading was the book signing. There were probably around 150 people in line. She was sweet, but a lot more demure in person than I was expecting. I suspect she’s got the classic case of a shy person who comes alive when performing. She was nice to everyone, and I’m pleased to say I came away still glad to be a fan.
Also last weekend I dropped off my bike to be repaired and now it is all shiny and awesome! I was shocked to ride it and discover the gears are supposed to be smooth, not difficult to cope with. I’m hoping to start biking my commute soon. I just need to practice the route on a non-work day to get the hang of it.
As for grad school, my final projects for the semester are done! Now I just have to attend one more class session for each of my classes, and then I am home free with two months of vacation. Oh happy day!
What have you guys been up to in the last two weeks? Anything exciting or awesome?
Happy weekends!
Friday Fun! (Finals, New Neighbor)
Hello my lovely readers! I’m smack dab in the middle of finals period, which for some bizarre reason consists of two group projects and two presentations (one solo, one group) this year. I gave my solo presentation this week. It was a database teach; I really enjoy those! Oh, heck, I just enjoy a bunch of people listening to me talk. It makes me all warm and glowy inside. Anyway, the two group projects mean that I can’t procrastinate this time around like I normally do. My team-mate for my face-to-face class is awesome, though, and she and I are motivating each other via GoogleDocs.
Over in my apartment, the painting guy came to check out the massive wall stains from the leak. He says it’s still too wet to fix, and it’ll be another 3 to 4 weeks before repainting, so my apartment still looks like Big Bird’s blood was smeared up and down the wall. In related news, my new neighbor moved in yesterday. She’s my age, has cats, and isn’t married. Even if we don’t wind up friends, that’s still a major step up from the we-got-married-and-immediately-turned-grouchy-and-started-acting-old folks who used to live under me. My tomato seedlings are actually starting to look plant-like now, the herbs are all fluffy and adorable, and the peppers finally sprouted! I would show you guys pics, but I don’t have a good digital cameras so taking and uploading pics is mind-bogglingly frustrating.
I get a three day weekend this weekend since Monday is Patriot’s Day. I know that’s not a holiday you get off in most of the US, but here in Boston it’s also the marathon day, so if you work nearish the marathon route, you get it off. Yay! Happy weekends everyone!
Friday Fun! (Grad School Returns)
Grad school is fully back in swing. While I still wish I could miraculously have the copious amount of time I had over winter break when I was just working full-time, instead of working full-time and attending grad school part-time, I don’t totally hate my classes this semester. Yet.
One of my classes is on being an academic librarian in science and technology. The professor is an adjunct, which means he works in the field and knows what he’s talking about. Miraculously, I have yet to loathe any of my fellow students in that class. In fact, I even like some of them. A couple of them were in my medical librarianship class last spring, and I enjoy hanging out with them while they smoke on our break. They don’t have this false sense of being superheroes a lot of students in the program do. They just want a good, stable career, like me.
My other class is an online one on academic libraries. I’ve found I learn more in online classes, not sure why. I pretty much can’t stand any of my fellow students in it, but that’s ok. It’s easy to just roll your eyes at the statements made when you’re not trapped in a classroom with them. I like the professor though, and the assignments seem like I’ll actually learn something from them.
I’ve reached the climax in the novella that I’m writing. I’m excited to get to edit it and send it off to a friend for critique. I seem to actually be following through on my, totally not officially made but thought about a lot, resolution to write my novellas/books more. I really feel like the time I’m spending working on improving my writing is well spent, which is a pretty darn good feel good pill. Maybe someday you guys will get to review my books! Lol.
Happy weekend!
Friday Fun! (Merry Chrismukkah!)
What a busy week it’s been! Full of good and bad stress. Thankfully mostly the good kind. Unfortunately stress of any kind can make me act kinda wonky, so…..sorry about that.
Over the weekend I visited my family in Vermont. My nephew is 2 and has reached the “why” stage of development. My brother and sister-in-law have grown a bit tired of it, but I gotta say I thoroughly enjoyed answering all of his “why’s” to the fullest extent. Of course, I only was around him for a portion of 2 days, lol. My aunt and uncle (who my dad lives with) were very hospitable, and I drank much wine. My dad gave me housewarming money which was fairly promptly used to buy a toaster and a rice cooker. They haven’t arrived yet, but they’re bright red and appear to be entirely awesome.
Monday was my presentation of my final team project for this semester of grad school, which means I am officially on winter break! Yayyyyyy!!! I already got my grades, and they were both just fine and dandy.
This week I hosted a Chrismukkah gathering for my group of lesbian friends (I call them “The Lesbians,” and yes they are just fine with that. In fact, they kinda love it). I had my first attempt at making latkes. I used the vegan sweet potato latke recipe from this month’s issue of Vegetarian Times magazine. I was doubtful that substituting pureed sweet potato for egg would work, but by golly it did. The latkes tasted great, although I need to work on figuring out the appropriate cooking time. There aren’t the helpful bubbles that you get with regular pancakes, so a few got a bit, erm, burnt. We lit the menorah (and I am proud to say that I can now sing the prayer), and we watched Claymation Christmas. If you have never seen Claymation Christmas I hereby order you to go find it on Youtube. It is quite trippy. The Lesbians surprised me by giving me a crock pot! This means you may be hearing about my vegetarian crock pot cooking adventures in the future.
You guys were totally going to get an adorable picture of my kitty snuggled up in wrapping paper, but I didn’t get a chance to download them to my computer. I swear these Friday posts will have pictures eventually.
I hope everyone’s holidays are going well. Try to enjoy and stay stress-free!
This work by Amanda Nevius is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
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