Miracles Do Happen!...

My shortest post in the history of blogging is about to be posted. This is it. Last night Richard On, the guitarist of my favorite band O.A.R, posted pictures of a dinner he made. He had cooked up Crab Fried Rice and it looked delicious. So I casually tweeted him back and asked if he had a recipe, because hey, it looked mouth watering. I didn't think he'd respond, I could only imagine how many tweets he gets a day from fans. BUT HE DID AND I WAS SUPER EXCITED! I feel like it's so rare for a celebrity to respond to a personal post like that, BUT HE DID! :DDD

I mean, not for nothing, but to talk with Richard on the internet and of all things get a recipe from him...that's pretty darn cool! Andrew freaked out the second he saw it since he found it before I did. Thanks Richard! I'll be cooking this up some time soon! Maybe I'll post a picture and thank him when the time comes.

Going And Going And Going...

I honestly don't know what I would do if I didn't have two days off during the week. If you look at it I really only have one day off, seeing as I work all day on Friday. Wednesday is my day off from everything...aside from homework that is. The weekends go by far too quickly and I always feel like there is another task at hand that I need to complete before a deadline. Needless to say, sophomore year is proving to be trying and very time consuming.


Even last year I didn't see myself as this busy with school and work, not to mention throwing in a bit of a social life there. Now I hardly have time to see anyone other than my roommate Cara and Andrew because we have two of the same classes and he's close by. Everyone else is either a bus ride away or a decent walking distance. Or if you're Morgan, you're back in your home state attending school. Schoolwork itself doesn't allow any type of travel, that includes a shuttle ride to Quarry Hill, but add work into that equation and there is no possibility. I even work less hours than I did last year! 15 hours instead of 22 cuts back pay too, so I have less income and I'm now feeding myself and grocery shopping every other week. I found out that Hannfords is pretty cheap, so at least I can shop for a significant amount of food for less money.

It may seem like I'm angry, but that isn't truly how I feel about this entire year. I'm mainly stressed out, drained, and strained most days. I love my classes, which is certainly different than last year. I hated a majority of my classes last year and it made doing well in school miserable and difficult. I even love doing my work for my classes to be honest, it is just time consuming. And now that I'm at Spinner Place, I need to be up hours before my class starts which means I need to be in bed by 9PM most nights. That cuts down a lot of time I had last year. My friends are spread out and just as busy and I never have enough energy to go from work, to classes, to homework, to going out with people. Ahhh!

Even with all of this craziness, I have A LOT to look forward to in the next few weeks! Every year Champlain offers an event for $10 called Dead North, which is a haunted corn maze and hay ride in Danville, Vermont. It's said to be extremely frightening and me, Andrew, and Lauren decided to take the risk this year! It's going to be on October 1. Many of my co-workers are also going, so this should be a terrifying time! Andrew said he was hesitant because if he gets scared by someone jumping out of the cornmaze, he may hit them out of impulse. They carry chainsaws and follow you and say scary things in your ears. Luckily they can't touch you or I'd poop my pants. 

Also that same weekend, Christian will be coming to Burlington to visit!!! He was in basic training for infantry in the army since April and he is finally on leave for 10 days!!! I've been writing him letters all summer and only three weeks ago I was able to hear his voice over the phone for over an hour. I can't even begin to express how happy I am to see him soon and how much I have missed him. He is looking great and is so excited to start doing what he's always wanted to do. He'll be in Burlington on September 30 and it couldn't come soon enough! I plan to get a group together so we can all go out to dinner and throw a litter party for him. I can't wait to have him home again.

THAT SAME WEEKEND, a few of us old McDonald Hall goers are getting together again as a reunion gathering for a Classy Night! We had Classy Night the first Saturday of every month in McDonald Hall and now that we're all over the place on and off campus, it has been difficult to see one another. We're going to make it happen when Christian is here to relive old times. Pfft, I say old as if it were so long ago. Danger and I planned it all out and hopefully it will happen! I miss everyone a lot and we all had such good memories in McDonald. Why not keep them coming? Let's make some new good memories, even if we aren't all the best of friends. I care about them all and they made my freshman year memorable. I want it to keep happening!

I'll have to push through this week. That includes volunteering at the Burlington Book Festival on Friday night. It is required for my Intro. to the Writing Profession class and not for nothing, but I have no interest. We have to volunteer and I did so to take pictures of the event. Even if I have no interest in being there, I can be doing something I like. I like to take pictures, so it will be fun. That day will be rough though. I work 8:15AM-4:30PM and then the book festival starts at 7PM and goes until 10PM. I'll be dead by the end of it. We will see how it all goes. 

The FINAL event of the next few weeks would be the Sophomore Symposium on October 2. For my LEAD requirement at Champlain I need to attend a guest speaker and participate in a meeting and debrief afterward. I don't know who the speaker is and again this is required. I was also invited to a Leader's Breakfast that same morning at 9AM, since I am considered a "leader" on campus by being a Student Ambassador. I was pleasantly surprised and kind of honored to be invited and I plan on attending. We get to meet the speaker and talk with him about our goals and dreams before we see him speak that afternoon. I'm excited to do so, because not everyone gets this opportunity. I plan on doing some research on him before I attend. Apparently he's a very driven guy!

All of these events will be fun, stressful, and they will most likely drive me crazy, but I'm looking forward to every part of it. My outlook on life and my daily tasks has had a complete makeover since last year. I look at things as "They need to be done, might as well make them enjoyable." I try to keep an open mind and look forward to how it will spice up my life or improve it. I love my life, with its ups and downs. If I'm not positive about my life, who will do it for me? No one :) Might as well grasp on to opportunities and try new things.

A Tough Year Ahead...

My blog was abandoned, alone, cold, left out in the rain, and has had dirt kicked in its face. I've lost touch with it again! It isn't that I grew tired of it, I just couldn't find time to sit down each day and reflect! It's been damaging in its own way, yet I did keep a handwritten journal for the majority of the summer. Part of me truly wants to post a lengthy entry about my entire summer, but most of it is a blur because it seems to have been so long ago.

BUT, I might as well recall my summer highlights. I was ecstatic to attend my very first Red Sox game this summer! That is number one, in order of occurrence. Living 20 minutes outside of Boston, you would have thought I'd visited Fenway at some point in the last 19 years, but no! Andrew surprised me with Red Sox tickets for June 17th! We spent the afternoon in Boston until the game and saw the Red Sox beat the Brewers! 

The next highlight was definitely going to Cape Cod with Andrew and his family. I had only been to Cape Cod once in my life, but this time I was at the end of the arm in Truro, 15 minutes outside of Provincetown. The car ride was long but consisted of sleep and snacking, after a 4 hour trek we found ourselves at the Seascape Motor Inn right at the edge of the Bay in the arm of Cape Cod. We spent a week on the beach, over at the pool, and in Provincetown. P-Town is so vibrant and I actually fell madly in love with it. I had to store it in the back of my mind that at some point in my life I want to settle in Provincetown and live there for the remainder of my days. It was a life changing trip!

The most spectacular and memorable events I attended this summer took place in Boston at the Bank of America Pavilion and at the Lake Champlain Maritime Festival in Burlington, Vermont. O.A.R is my favorite band, all thanks to Andrew, and both Andrew and I had the opportunity to see them live in concert two days in a row! On August 10 me, Andrew, his brother Colin, and Morgan got to see them in Boston with the opening band, SOJA. It was a GREAT show and such a fantastic experience seeing them live in concert. We were out of control while they performed. But the next day just Andrew and I drove up to VT to see them again. Not only did we watch their soundcheck up front and personal, we ended up with front row seats the whole show and met Michael Paris and Richard On of the band! Marc the lead singer also blew me a kiss, which made my heart sink, I can't deny! The absolute best and once in a lifetime concert experience that I wouldn't trade for the world.

The summer was awesome and hectic and awful all in one, but I wouldn't change it for the world. Now I'm back at school in VT and it is pretty tough. Andrew lives in Lakeview, which is a hall on campus specifically for sophomores. Lauren also lives there. I live in Spinner Place, which is an apartment complex in Winooski, a 15 minute shuttle ride. I live with my co-worker, Cara, who will be graduating this year and for the most part it is working out perfectly. It has taken some getting used to, but I cannot complain. The first few weeks were rough due to personal problems on both of our ends, but we are very compatible roommates. My classes are tough this year and very demanding. I've spent almost all of my free time doing homework or working in the Student Ambassador's office. 

Buying my own groceries is hard as well. My paycheck is almost always entirely spent after I put a certain amount in my savings account. Getting used to adult adjustments is a difficult change and I don't complain because it needs to happen. I'm also lucky that I get to experience living on my own in a sense with my utilities covered. Seriously, I wouldn't be able to do it on my own yet! Andrew and I have been struggling with not living in the same building, but we are making it work and enjoying the time we have together as life becomes more and more complicated.

It's growing up time and I'm not sure I'll ever be truly prepared for it. I'll hope for the best and see what this year has to offer me! 

For now this post has exhausted itself. I'll hopefully keep up with this now that I've acknowledged its existence once again! Toodles.