Temporary goodbyes

I've been pretending that I don't need to say goodbye to my friends. Even though everyone's asking me when I'm leaving, if I'm excited, nervous, etc, it hasn't actually hit me that when everyone comes back on January 14th for a whole new semester of classes, I won't be here.

It also doesn't feel like I'm leaving yet because I decided that I wanted to work in Academic Support all week, so I'd have an excuse to stay here even though I've finished all my finals. My roommate left this morning while the rest of us in the apartment will head out tomorrow. Since five of us are studying abroad and one is moving next door, we have to be completely out of the apartment! I'm not sure why I thought it was a good idea to bring 20+ dinner plates, a million different kinds of shoes, and random books and stuff that I haven't even touched all semester. I always forget that I'm a hoarder until it's time to pack up and leave somewhere.

Also... because I've been living under the Gordon rock, I didn't even realize that Christmas is in 6 days! SIX DAYS! No wonder I've been getting all these promotional emails about "last day for free shipping in time for Christmas!" If I had known that Christmas was so soon, I would've taken advantage of that.

A second example of my Gordon self not functioning in the real world - I tried to watch TV while babysitting last night only to realize that they had over 700 possible channels I could chose from. Naturally, I was overwhelmed and decided to shut it off immediately. The good news is that I'm sure I'll fall back into my TV obsession the moment I arrive home tomorrow, so no worries.

Over the past week...

Field hockey banquet

Emily trying to copy me at the banquet

What Kelly and I  try to look like at Winter Ball

What we actually look like at Winter Ball

For real... I'm back

My life has been consumed with classes, observation hours, working in the chapel office and writing center, and field hockey (well, until a week ago). Now that field hockey's over, I can fill the extra three hours in my day with watching TV, eating twice the amount of snacks that I used to, and other pointless things that somehow take up the entire afternoon. Seriously though... how am I more productive during field hockey? Last weekend, I went home and watched all TWENTY-TWO episodes of Once Upon a Time with my mom. Like... that's excessive. That's too much. But did I love every minute of it? Yes.

I know I said that I was going to start blogging every day, blah blah blah, going to post something interesting and exciting whenever I came up with an idea. But for real now it's going to happen. Because... in a few months... I'll be writing poetry and drawing landscapes and exotic things

WHEN I STUDY ABROAD IN ITALYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes, you heard right! From the end of February to the middle of June, this will be my home:

Orvieto, Italy

Don't worry though, you won't have to wait until the end of Italy though for me to start blogging again. I'll try make it a habit again before I leave... so that way, when I'm there, I can thoroughly update you on my adventures. :)

Remember this SUPERRRR cheesy post that I wrote two years ago? Yeah, I didn't remember it either... I considered deleting it but maybe you'll appreciate how much of a sap I am: http://meggylouise.blogspot.com/2010/12/romeo-save-me.html

So even though I'm making fun of that post... I'm only sort of kidding because I'll probably still go there because it's been of my list of things to-do for two years now, I guess!

Birthday girl

What's even better than turning 21?

Two awkward pictures from when you were 19!!!!!!!!!!!! Wooohooo! Happy birthday to my wonderful (but sadly far-away) friend, Julie. 

La Vida struggles

Freshmen dancing

You should check out Julie's blog... Especially because it's her birthday. Click here :)

Back to Blogger

So... an embarrassing amount of time has passed since my last post. Don't get used to this blog layout because I think I'm going to make a few changes soon! Since I finally have decided to get back on here and write a few things. How can I possibly summarize my entire April-September experiences? Hopefully you'll get the idea with a few pictures, a few mission trip journal entries, and some of my thoughts about the summer. If I was smart, I would've written more in the summer instead of right now where my life is consumed by field hockey practice, friends at school, friends at home, making meals for myself (for the first time in my life, pretty much), work in the chapel office, work in the writing center, more field hockey, field hockey, field hockey.... oh, and classes. But my new (although I've tried this before) goal is to write on here once a day, ideally. So some posts might be long, some might be super super short.

What's consuming my thoughts right now:
1. Creating a nonprofit organization for my Intro to Nonprofits class
2. Field hockey game tomorrow against MIT (Yikes!)
3. My study abroad application for Orvieto, Italy (Due in a few weeks!)
4. Saving and earning money (This is because I'm taking Personal Finance and it's motivating me to save my money. First, I need to make some money to save!).

Anyways, that's all for now because I'm going to try and fix this blog layout...

Tourist life: March 11-13th

Okay, so now I have to catch up on the last 3 days during my visit to Julie’s! We decided to step it up with the picture taking on Monday and Tuesday, but for Sunday we only have a picture of us after church in front of the St. Patrick’s Day parade. On Sunday, we woke up early to head off to Julie’s church which is in downtown Philly, I met a million of Julie’s church friends who all thought I was Lisa’s (Julie’s sister) friend because I was tagging along with Lisa while Julie was off doing important things at church. After church, the three of us headed off to Subway.

On Sunday night we did our usual dinner / TLC / hot tub / Dunkin’s / movie  / snack / bedtime routine, but we also had a bonfire at Julie & Devin’s house! So that was added into our scheduled activities.

We slept in late on Monday, made a picnic lunch and headed off into downtown so Julie could be a little tour guide and show me what the city is like:

Tuesday (today), is a very sad day because now I’m on a seven hour bus ride from Philly to Boston and my snack supply is running low. Thankfully, Julie packed her whole kitchen into my lunch box but it’s hour #4 right now and I’ve already eaten both of my sandwiches (one of which was supposed to be for dinner). I’m not sitting next to anyone because I strategically spread out all of my bags and sweatshirts the second I sat down. I then proceeded to pull out my laptop and textbooks for a “frazzled student” look. It apparently worked because now I get two seats to myself! Before Julie dropped me off at the bus stop this morning, we went to a park by her house to kill some time and enjoy the weather! :)

Exactly a year ago, I was at Anna’s house for spring break when we met up with Julie & Devin for a hike:

An Update: March 8-10th

Instead of catching up on two months of absence, I'm just going to pretend like it hasn't been exactly 2 months (since January 9th) that I've posted something here... #embarassed.

Here you go, Mom. Now you'll know what I've been up to! Crazy stuff, as you can see. 

After doing two and a half or maybe loads of laundry (I made it fit into two washers), washing over a week's worth of dishes, some intense cleaning of my spacious dorm room, and eating the contents of my mini fridge, I was ready to head off to Philly with Leah in the wee hours of the morning on Thursday. At 8am we rolled out of Gordon and were on our way to what Leah called an "adventure." The only bad part of our 6.5-7 hour trip was that the weather was SO gorgeous that it was annoying to be in a car for song long instead of lounging outside. A combination of Subway, Dunk's iced coffees, and a few songs on repeat got us to Philly in what felt like only a few hours when it was actually the longest I'd been in a car for a while. Then we met Julie who greeted me with some donuts (you'll find out that the best parts of this trip have to do with not only friends, but food... obviously). We drove around and listened to more good songs--well, we only "drove around" because Julie got us a little lost on the way to her house. We then went to her flower appointment to pick out bouquet arrangements and boutonnieres for her wedding on June 3rd. We decided to watch Like Crazy... also know as the worst movie in the world. It was like one of those terrible Netflix ones that looks somewhat intriguing and somewhat decent but actually turns out to be incredibly horrid. 

On Friday, Julie went to class before I was up (and she made me some delicious French toast!) while I successfully organized all of the pictures on my laptop and looked at pictures of funny cats, including my own. We went to Home Depot to pick out paint colors for the bathroom in Julie & Devin's house, went to the mall, I experienced Salad Works for the first time (delicious), Julie got a seriously dwarf-sized kid's meal at Chik-fil-A (even my pitiful dinners at Lane looked extravagant compared to her meager meal), we had dinner with her family, bought random stuff at the dollar stole, ate candy, went in her hot tub, and watched reruns of Say Yes to the Dress and Four Weddings. So obviously it was a great day. :) 

Today, my father would've been proud of my as I worked my tail off with Julie and her sister, Lisa, at Julie & Devin's house. We cleaned out the basement, hauled stuff around, painted trim and the whole bathroom! Also, I had a Wawa hoagie for lunch and I'm wondering why we don't have any Wawa's around here in NH!!!! Ugh. It was delicious! Here's a flattering picture of us working hard: 

Super cute, huh? Please note how Julie is the one covered in paint. 

Without wings

Disappointment stirs—a feeling that was supposed to forever

be repressed, deep into foolish memories of what has been

and what has already ceased to exist. The comfortable feeling

of being sure and positive in his actions and thoughts: gone.

Gone are the simple pleasures of secrets, knowing looks,

meaningful hugs. Already replaced with piercing eyes that

search. Search for a memory of the one who is lost,

one who used to laugh and play but no longer

resembles anything similar to the kind heart

that was always open. Accusations fly

with the blissful moments of forgotten days.

Left behind, never to be airborne, are the scattered

fragments of a has-been friendship

that was once considered to be

something everlasting.

What I've been reading over break:

If I had a million hours in the day, I would most likely watch every show on TLC, bask in the sun by the pool (assuming it's summer), listen to Coldplay & the Goo Goo Dolls on repeat, write letters, make every meal a picnic outside, hang out with my friends, and read read read read read. Unfortunately, when I wake up at 11 or 11:30 every day I only accomplish the first item on my list: watching every show on TLC. Occasionally I make it to the gym and hang out with friends but that's the extent of my recent days at home. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about my endless hours of leisure time at all (even though this is going to be quite the shock when I head back to school on the 18th). Anyways, the point of this is that reading is one of my top favorite things to do in the world and I miss reading at school! I definitely read enough textbooks and other required books for class, but I miss having hours in the day to read outside in a hammock, preferably. The hammock part can be flexible. For example, I'm perfectly content when I'm swaddled up in my blankets during the winter while reading a book. Sooooo... here's a little glimpse of what I've been reading over the past month:

The first book I read over vacation was The Hunger Games. I can't remember if I posted about my frantic I'm-going-to-read-this-in-five-hours-without-stopping encounter with this book, but it came and went between the hours of 9:30pm-2:30am on Christmas night. I then read the next two books within the following 2-3 days! They were so good. Can't wait for the movie!

I've read excerpts from Bird by Bird in my Great Conversation class and my Intro to Creative Writing class, and during both readings in class I've embarrassingly chuckled out loud and then once I realized that great, my laughter is louder than I thought, I've had to resort to the I'm not laughing but I'm just shaking uncontrollably because I can't even hold in my giggles. Long story short, I find this book hilarious and I had to buy it for Creative Writing: Nonfiction this semester. Naturally, I decided to read it and I've laughed through every chapter. It's pretty much Anne Lamott sharing her tips and tricks about writing and how it doesn't always come natural to even the most successful writers. 

My mom bullied me into reading this one (she bullied me into reading The Hunger Games, too). I'm only about 1/4 of the way through it, but I'm seriously addicted. It's about a minor character in the Bible, Dinah, and her life and the lives of other women during that time. As Dinah is the only daughter of Jacob, all of the mothers use Dinah as a means of carrying on all of their own stories. That's not the best description but hopefully you get the idea. It's really good so far.