I Feel Home

It's Columbus Day weekend and I'm at home in MA. The last two weeks were absolutely hectic. I couldn't find a moment's peace to sit down and write about everything that was going on. It's all over with now, so I'm able to relax at home! Luckily my boss was generous enough to give me my Friday shift of from work, so Andrew and I decided to take a bus back to Boston on Thursday night after our classes were over. Thursdays are my horrible days. I have all five of my classes back to back until 6:15PM. 

We found this great service called Megabus. Usually the two of us would look into Greyhound, like everyone else does. Greyhound is $60 for a roundtrip ticket though! And it depends on where you go! I had checked what a bus to Boston would cost and it was up to $120 roundtrip! Megabus got us to Boston and will get us back for only $5. That's unheard of! It was worth a very long day. 

Now I'm at home and it's surreal. I thought coming home again would be easy. Last year it was strange because it was the first time I was experiencing leaving for college and coming home for breaks and such. This time last year I was headed to Wellesley for the weekend and it's been so inexplicably strange. Sitting in my room last night made me experience extreme deja vu. I'm not sure why, but it really bothered me. I was at a loss and didn't know what to do. The whole situation from a few weeks ago during Classy Night has messed me up (congratulations asshole!) It isn't bothering me day and night, but it's been only a year since I started college and so much has changed. Some of it is hard to deal with on a daily basis and some of it I've been able to shrug off and move on. Being at home during this weekend is deja vu and I don't really know what to do. I just wish I could be back with Andrew in Burlington.

I go back and forth so much that I usually confuse myself. Being back at school this year has been very hard. Adjusting to having a lot less free time, working almost 24/7, and never getting a day off or alone has been brutal. Coming home this weekend was what I needed, but I am having a tough time actually enjoying and embracing down time. I'm more stressed out being alone in the quiet of my house than I was constantly on the run doing things for school or work. Now all I want to do is go back because whenever I come home I realize I have no plan in motion in MA. I have a job, I go to school, and I'm moving forward in every aspect of my life in VT. In MA I'm right back in high school with no job, not even going to school, and nothing to push me forward. I don't like that feeling. It makes me anxious and extremely upset.

This may sound like an upsetting entry, but I'm truly happy to be home and to have a break from everything. Tomorrow I get to see my dad and Ethan! It's great to be able to see my family in such a short period of time. I'm looking forward to going back to school, but for now I should just enjoy my time at home. I need to take in all the quiet and the tranquility while it lasts!

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.

I'm Not Bored, I'm Just Not Entertained

I've pinpointed why I'm so restless at home, I touched on it a bit in my last post, but I've finally decided the reason. I'm not doing anything! While I was in Burlington I was surrounded by good friends, taking classes, able to get around even if it was by foot, and I was working more often than not. Now I'm stranded at my house because due to the lack of funds I have no license, no car, and no insurance even if there was a car available. This is nothing new either, I wasn't able to seek employment my entire high school career really because I wasn't able to get myself around anywhere.

And here I am, five years later and I'm still unable to work. Hopefully I can maybe find something downtown at some point in the next month or two because I could at least take the train to downtown Andover. Thank God for public transportation! Only a $2 fee at most too, since it's one stop down from Ballardvale. I'm crossing my fingers, still!

Today I had an interview though for a job that I knew I wasn't going to accept if it were offered to me. It was so incredibly disappointing and upsetting. I've been searching and searching for a job, becoming more and more restless sitting in my house day after day doing the same thing, and then an opportunity arrises and it's all a load of crap. A company called Vector Marketing was hiring for summer work, though I didn't know much about them. I filled out an application the second my best friend Deanna told me about it and set up an interview for today. The second I got off the phone I was ecstatic only to find out from my mom that it's a big scam and they title you as an "independent sales representative" selling knife sets door to door, basically. They suggest using "personal networking", but let's face it...that isn't happening, especially if the sets are $1,000 each! No one is buying that! No one has the money to buy that!


The interview was awful, I was honest with the manager and I said, "The whole marketing thing isn't really a good fit for me." I had told him I didn't know what the job consisted of and he gave me a practiced and sugar coated idea of what it was all about and I still didn't fully understand. I knew it wasn't for me and shook his hand and left. It went awful. I was so upset. After that I headed to J'Adore Boutique, owned by our family friend Michelle, in Wakefield. After that we headed towards an adorable cafe called Cafe Le Diva. Mini chandeliers hung from the ceiling, they sold Italian deserts and coffee, and had original paintings of Marilyn Monroe and sassy outfits hung on the walls. Morgan would be in heaven. 

Now here I am back at home still defeated. Luckily I've been passing a lot of my time by reading. Deanna had told me about a book called, "Water For Elephants" that she had read and then seen the movie rendition with her mother since it was recently released. She had been raving about it so I thought I'd pick up the book when I happened to come across it in Marshalls. I've more than halfway through it now and it's beautiful, definitely one of my all time favorites now. I won't be able to finish before the movie leaves theaters most likely, if it hasn't already, so I'm looking forward to seeing it when it's out on DVD. Besides, Robert Pattinson is the lead...how could it be a let down?

Over A Month Later...

Finals are over, I no longer live in Burlington, and life is almost too tranquil in Andover. It was a sad sight, watching my roommates leave me one by one and watching as the room became a lot bigger, but a lot more empty as well. 

I can't really describe how I was feeling as the room became less and less like the room I had lived in all year. Part of me was reliving move-in day and how exciting it was, the house even smelt like it did back in August which was extraordinarily strange. But now it was emptying out and the excitement wasn't as tangible. Yes, everyone was excited for summer break, but I'm more than certain there was an underlying layer of sadness as we left McDonald Hall and all the friends we had made that year and become so close with. Bittersweet is the only way to really describe it, utterly bittersweet. My side of the room looked completely normal, lived in, and like my own, but as you can see...Morgan and Lauren's side was bare and it was eerie. 

The last few nights were spent with Andrew mainly, as Morgan had left on Wednesday and Lauren left on Friday. Andrew and I, along with half of the rest of the dorm, were left to spend the final night in McDonald until Saturday when we had to peel out. It was crazy, McDonald Hall was. People were up until way past 2AM out on the stoop because the weather had warmed up and running up and down the hallways, it was nuts. An eventful last night, but no details are needed. I said all of my goodbyes when I needed to and tied up some loose ends before summer separated me from my life in Burlington for four months. The following morning I got up just as my parents arrived and Andrew and I loaded up our cars, had one last meal at the dining hall, and headed on home.

Now it's summer and I'm at home, starving for entertainment or productivity of some sorts. My job search has been extensive, but hasn't turned up any good results and I sit at home, ask my friends to pick me up because I'm not mobile, and read.

Hi summer. Go away.

That Was A Crazy Game of Poker

Yes! Finally! About friggen time! Today I got to hand in my research paper and rewrite of my first essay for Concepts and this lifted a huge weight off of my shoulders. I can finally focus on my work for finals instead of assignments from last month. Couldn't be more ecstatic to be rid of that dreaded research paper, holy shit.


Last week I had worked out picking up extra hours at work, so I ended up working today between my 11AM class and my 330PM class. Got to work with Cara, RT, Ted, Alex D., and Jake. I don't work that often with Cara or RT, which is kind of sad, but I got to see them today so that was fun.

The two of them had to focus on papers to write, so I spent my entire shift watching George Carlin on Netflix. I've never worked on Tuesday's before an I actually really liked working in between my two classes . Usually I'd spend my time between those classes back in my room alone because both of my roommates have classes or work or something of that sort. I don't mind the alone time, but working is a lot of fun and if I get paid to go in the office to have fun, I suppose I'll take it if my boss is offering! She was very understanding when I asked for more hours and she was more than willing to give them to me, which I greatly appreciate!

After work and an awful Rhetoric class, it's awful because it's the worst class on the face of the planet and no one should ever have to take it, I went downtown with Andrew to get free ice cream at Ben & Jerry's! Apparently they were giving out free cones all day and I wanted to get my hands on one. Today was very warm again in Burly, I'm liking this heat wave lately, and it was the perfect weather to walk downtown with just a light jacket and in Andrew's case just a long sleeve tee shirt. Surprisingly, the grass looks unbelievably green in this photo, I'm not sure why because it certainly seemed brown-ish in real life. I'm not complaining!

Well, we got downtown on Church St. and saw the line. Ice cream was a no go, but Andrew had to go downtown and buy Lauren a late birthday present so we spent the rest of the afternoon and night wandering up and down Church St. getting the right gift. We went to Homeport and picked something up and Yankee Candle (dead give away), but she'll love her gifts! Andrew did a pretty good job picking things out though he wanted a girls opinion on things, that's why I was brought along. As the sun began to set, we headed back up the hill to campus. The sunset tonight was INCREDIBLE, I've never seen anything so gorgeous.

Oh, but here is Andrew posing for the camera.

Great day, calm, but I was SO tired because I was up until 4AM this morning finishing that damn paper.