d-o-n-e.

School's out for the summer! Why is it that whenever I finish anything major, instead of feeling a rush of relief and happiness, I feel horrible? I keep trying to tell myself I'm done and get myself psyched up, but it's not really sinking in. I feel like all of the stress and pressure from the semester all cumulated into today and attacked me. Someone please tell me this is going to be an amazing summer...I need some friend time like whoa.

One more class and I'll have my graduate degree. :)

just an idea...

If you think people in Boston are cold and unfriendly, try purchasing a dog. Tonight I discovered that driving around with a cute little dog sitting on the seat next to you will cause many people to smile and wave in your direction. Tomorrow I may try walking her around the city just to see how many friends I make.

Disclaimer: I'm not advocating buying dogs just to make friends. You should actually like dogs before purchasing them.

cupcake break.

Tonight my love for Party Favor cupcakes was reaffirmed. I almost didn't get one. I arrived at the store at 7 p.m. on the dot and tried the door...locked. Seemingly defeated, I began to walk home, but upon passing the second door (the store recently expanded), I decided to give it a try, and it opened! Haha, I was too quick for the employees to get to the second door and lock it. Seriously delicious. If you like cupcakes, and who doesn't, you MUST go here. I don't think I've ever had a friendly encounter with any of the employees--they all seem to hate their jobs--but the baked goods are worth the miserable people.

And Sas sent me the link to a soon-arriving cupcake place called Beantown Cupcakes and ummm they deliver. The cupcake menu is making me drool sooo I'm going to stop now. But check it out if you want to drool too- http://www.beantowncupcakes.com/emailnewsletters/emailmenu.htm

OK, writing this research paper is clearly making me delirious...time for bed to dream of cupcakes being delivered right to my doorstep.

ring my bell...

My T driver tonight thought it would be fun to ring the T bell non-stop practically the whole ride home. He said, to no one in particular, "When I was a kid, I always wanted to ring the bell and I couldn't. Now I'm 31 and I can ring the bell all I want!" and ring the bell he did. I'm happy for him that he can ring the bell whenever he wants to ring the bell, but it made for a pretty annoying ride home.

Also, maybe it's just me, but the Hynes Convention Center T announcement really bugs me. Ever since they took away the ICA, it just seems like something's missing. The recorded announcer says, "Hynes Convention Center...." and just leaves it hanging. Sometimes I get the urge to just yell out "ICA!" because it feels so awkward. They need to change the announcement to "Hynes Convention Center." with a period at the end, instead of an ellipses that leaves us waiting for more.

yo yo yo...gurt.

I don't have stomach problems, but I recently started drinking/eating (?) Danactive yogurt. Apparently, this yogurt helps to build your immunity through your digestive tract. But if you do a quick search on the Internet, people are claiming it cures all kinds of ailments from skin problems to migraines. Who knows. Personally, I think it's just a marketing ploy and Danactive is absolutely no different than any other yogurt. But if you know me, you know I'm a sucker for marketing ploys. And I'm also absolutely obsessed with vitamins and foods that claim they will make me healthier. I'm a marketer's dream because I will listen to anything and will most likely believe any BS you tell me.

Anyway, yogurt never hurt anyone, right? It was between Danactive and Activia, but Danactive won out because their commercials are slightly less annoying than Activia's (and that's not really saying much). I also like Silk Live! Soy Yogurt (yes the explanation point IS needed). I simultaneously love and hate the fact that I'm ingesting life bacteria when I eat yogurt, so that Live! in Silk's title really gets me going.

You know what? If you want to know the truth, I actually do not even like yogurt at all; but they tell me it's really good for me, so I eat it. A lot of it. And now I can't get the obnoxious Activia jingle out of my head.

stop teasing me.

Is anyone else confused my this weather? I'm cold right now. I thought maybe I was done with being cold. Yesterday was absolutely amazing and I really don't like being teased like this! I cannot wait the real summer, especially since I now know the best place in Boston and its surrounding areas to lie out and catch some rays. And I'm not telling.

Oh, how I love being jobless. I also love the fact that in exactly 5 days, I will only have one more class to take before I have my master's degree. I cannot wait for the beautiful summer days of hanging out and doing freelance work, and summer nights strolling around Boston with my friends (and eating nachos of course- HAHA). Anyone have any favorite Boston summer hot spots?

red sox kick butt.

And we sweeeept the Yankees!! Yes! And set new records in the process...how amazing were the four home runs in a row?? Anyway, I'm super excited and some of my bitterness is starting to melt away. Yes, I was/am extremely bitter that Trot Nixon is no longer a part of the Red Sox. Honestly, Trot WAS Boston to me and I never thought he would be gone, and I don't think I'll ever like a player as much as I like and respect him. I even secretly hoped for J.D. Drew to suck hardcore (but still have the Sox do well despite him, of course). I wanted Boston to regret their horrible decision to let Trot go. But Drew is not sucking, and was part of the home run quartet tonight, so I can't be too mad. If he hadn't taken Trot's position, I might even say I like him a little bit. I still stand firm that he shouldn't have taken #7, however.

Hopefully the Sox will continue this domination. At least for now they have overcome that horrible fall they had to the Yankees last year. But I do still miss Trot. He should be here. GO SOX!

remember pokemon? they're still alive!

Today I semi-attended Boston's Anime Convention. No seriously, this convention was going on in Boston. Who knew, right? My friends and I certainly had no idea what we were getting ourselves into when we decided to do a bit of shopping in Copley and the Prudential. As we crossed the bridge over to the Pru, we slowly began noticing people in strange costumes. And as we neared the center of the Pru, there were suddenly people dressed in costumes ALL around us. "Is it some sort of Halloween thing?" my friend asked. "Umm it's April," we replied. "Well then, it has to be some sort of video game convention," she determined. We finally asked the employee at a nearby watch kiosk and he informed us it was an anime convention that was lasting all weekend.

So, we did what any other normal human beings would do: we went and got lunch at Au Bon Pain and sat in front of the entrance to Hyne's Convention Center for over an hour, just watching all of the action. You would not believe the costumes that these people were wearing; I'm not even going to try to explain them because I could do them no justice. I don't know much about anime but I do know we saw some characters from Pokemon, a few Sailor Moons (remember her??), some Yu-Gi-Oh characters, and even a couple Marios (a la Mario Brothers) and Princess Toads. We also ran across a Jesus Christ, a Hello Kitty, the green Power Ranger (Tommy), and a Jack Sparrow; and we heard through the grapevine that there was a Waldo wandering around. Not quite sure how they fit in, but they were there.

The highlight of the event was when two people dressed in giant brown boxes realized they were both dressed as the same character. "Look!! Turn around!! There's two of you!!" one of the brown box's friends yelled to him. He turned around, both of the brown boxes began running toward each other, and they embraced (as well as they could dressed in boxes). The crowd in front of the convention center erupted in applause and cheers.

Apparently Anime Boston is the biggest anime convention in New England and last year they had 9,000+ attendees. My friends and I spent a lot of time discussing the kinds of people who are obsessed with anime, how you become interested in it, the amount of artistic skills it must take to make some of the costumes, etc. There were little kids there and grown adults, but the majority of attendees were probably in their teens and twenties. I, for one, never knew such conventions existed nor did I have a clue about the extent of them.

Check out the website http://www.animeboston.com/ to learn more. All kinds of events were going on, including 24 hour video gaming and an Anime dating game. One of the best parts of the website is the dating games FAQs. One atendee asks "My costume has moving parts/large weapons/gets in other people's way. Is this a problem?" which renders a long explanation about costume restrictions. And let me tell you, some of these costumes were NOT "street-legal" (hello, excuse to dress skankily and excuse for men to wear dresses!) and I have no idea how these people were allowed to walk around a mall with all sorts of fake guns, swords, and huge knife-like weapons. But they did.

We didn't even enter the conference center (it was $30), but we learned oh so much about a whole subculture of New England we didn't even know existed.

why...

I just have to take a moment to say how much I feel for everyone affected by the Virginia Tech tragedy. While I didn't know anyone who died, I feel like we are all affected by what happened in so many ways. Every time I see students talking about their experiences on the news, I feel so emotional and can't help crying. What happened could have happened anywhere, and I can't even imagine how scary it was and the pain everyone is going through right now.

We live in such a beautiful world, but there is also so much sadness in it. It's hard to understand and we probably never will. Sometimes it just really sucks to think about. We can all be the best people we can be, but we can't control anyone else. I know I'm lucky; I have a great life...loving, caring parents, amazing friends, and all of the opportunities I can dream of. And I appreciate everything and everyone and that I have so much, but things like this make me so scared I'm going to lose it.

My mom left me a message while I was in class last night and ended by saying, "Please get home safely. That's all I want for you...to be safe. I love you." I know she worries that I'm in class late and take the T home after 10 p.m. during the week. I always blow her off telling her I'm fine and she's being silly for worrying. But I can't even imagine how hard it is for her, as a parent, to have her baby walking around a big city at night away from her, knowing that anything could happen. I'm trying to be more sensitive to this. Now I know the true meaning of every parent's favorite words, "I trust you; it's other people I don't trust." I go to bed every night thinking about how grateful I am for everything in my life.

To everyone at Virginia Tech, you're not alone. We're all thinking about you every day.

cook me dinner. please.

I love food. I love eating. I love cooking. But I love it even better when someone cooks for me.

My dinner the other night:

A salad with basically every veggie ever and delicious, perfectly cooked salmon. Yumm...sooo good. Speaking of, did you know Rachel Ray doesn't like salmon? I can't even believe it; she does, however, include recipes for it in her cookbooks.

I have been the laziest cook ever lately and I need to snap back into it (can you snap back into something like you can snap out of it? I think so). Anyway, I also discovered that I can take pictures on my cell phone and send them to my comp. I know, wicked smahht, right? But I may be the last person on Earth not to own a digital camera...not sure why. Actually, I do have one; my mom gave me her old one (whaaaat? my mom had a piece of technology before me? yes), but I didn't feel like uploading the software to my new computer. So, I think every time I have a delicious dinner I'm going to take some camera phone shots of it. Such an exciting life I lead...

i'm a little bit country.

One thing I absolutely love is country music. I don't understand why there are so many people out there who are so quick to say "I like all kinds of music...except country." I don't understand why so many New Englanders have a disgust for country music. First of all, it's beyond me how someone can automatically reject an entire category of music, especially one that has soo many different sounds within it. Second of all, I really feel like everyone should be able to relate to something in country music.

I think I love country music so much because it's the only genre that has the power to make me cry. Wow, that sounds wicked cheesy, but it's true. Sure there are songs in other genres that can bring a tear to me eye, but country makes me so emotional. I don't understand how you can't feel something when listening to Garth Brook's "The Dance" or Rascal Flatts "What Hurts the Most." But it's a genre that also makes me so completely happy and care-free. I don't get how anyone couldn't start singing and dancing along to Toby Keith's "I Love this Bar" (or anything Toby Keith sings really) or Dierks Bentley's "What Was I Thinkin'."

I totally understand that people think country music is cheesy, because some of it really is...but it's also a hell of a lot of fun. And it also really says something; something that everyone can relate to.

I watched the CMT Awards tonight and they reinforced my love of country. American Idol winner Carrie Underwood took away a lot of the awards and she deserved them. If you haven't hear her song "Before He Cheats," listen! It's an amazing "I'm pissed off and need to let out my anger" song.

That is my country music rant. I grew up with Garth and Willie Nelson and though I do not look at all like a country girl (hello, 100% New Englander here), I am definitely a little bit country. Oh, and Kenny Chesney is just hot...and yes, I think his tractor's sexy. Gotta love it :)

"So maybe you could walk with me a while, and maybe I could rest beneath your smile. Everybody stumbles sometimes and needs a hand to hold, 'cause it's a long trip alone," -Dierks Bentley

aye aye acai!

I just have to say that I am in love with the new Vitamin Water flavor XXX. It is a blend of acai berry, blueberry, and pomengranate juices (waters?), and it is delicious. Never a huge Vitamin Water fan previously, I may have to purchase some stock in this. YUM. Still slightly disturbed by water with juice in it, but I'm not fooled by it, so I can overlook it.

Acai berry is my new obsession (Sorry I can't do the accent signs on my keyboard, but it's pronounced ah-sigh-ee) it is allegedly the healthiest fruit you can eat, packing more antioxidants than any other. I have been making smoothies galore with it and feel amazing. Of course, this is probably all in my head as I am the type of person who will believe anything you tell me. But please keep in mind, acai berry stains horribly. I've ruined several shirts and just last night I spilled an entire smoothie on the boy's oriental rug. Oops. On a side note, Resolve Dual Power rug cleaner is the best stain remover in the world.

i too would fight for nachos.

This entry is for all of my lovely girlfriends, otherwise known as the girls who have a life goal to try the nachos at every Boston restaurant that serves nachos.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/city_region/breaking_news/2007/04/nachos_provoke.html

Allegedly, 2 girls at Revere High School were arrested after fighting over nachos in the school cafeteria.

This tells me that we need to be more careful when going out for nachos...maybe we should create a list of rules from now on? Everyone must agree on the toppings on nachos before entering the restaurant. Always order the larger size. Only take one spoonful of salsa, one spoonful of guacamole, and one spoonful of sour cream. Don't eat all of the nachos that are smothered and cheese and leave the bare ones. Actually, I'm surprised more fights don't break out over nachos.

And for anyone wondering, yes, we girls did successfully eat the full-size order of nachos at the Coolidge Corner Clubhouse. It wasn't easy, and my roommate and I had to do some serious coaching along the way. But we did it. And we were damn proud too. If you haven't had CCC's nachos, you really have to try them. But just as a warning, if you eat the entire full-size order, you probably will not want nachos again for at least 6 months.

get your running (snow) shoes out.

So apparently there could possibly be a Nor'easter on Marathon Monday. That should be interesting. Does anyone remember last year? I recall the weather being absolutely beautiful. I believe it was so warm that they were saying it might be too hot for the runners. Now there might be running in a blizzard. Sweet, I bet they're all psyched. Well, that's Boston for you; I personally love the unpredictability, though it does make it difficult to plan outfits ahead of time. And road races.

Would the Boston Marathon ever be postponed?? I don't know, it never has been before. But what would they do it there was 3 feet of snow falling from the sky? When would they postpone it to? I wonder how many people would have to drop out due to travel arrangements. What a waste of training and anticipation that would be.

WBZ's website says this from the Boston Athletic Association:

"As the Boston Athletic Association continues to make preparations for Monday's Boston Marathon, we are monitoring the upcoming weather conditions forecast for this area. Based on the National Weather Service's most recent report and in cooperation with the Executive Office of Public Safety (Commonwealth of Massachusetts) and the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency, together with the eight cities and towns along the 26.2-mile marathon route, we are planning for likely heavy rain and windy conditions on race day. However, all race day plans remain the same. The Boston Athletic Association advises participants in Monday's race to plan accordingly for their run, bringing with them gear and apparel to suit the conditions."

So it may just be pouring cats and dogs with lots of wind...I live right on the marathon route and love watching it, but I'm not sure if I'll be able to drag myself out the door to watch a bunch of sopping wet people run by. It makes me sad too, because, to me, Marathon Monday marks the beginning of beautiful weather, bringing with it the anticipation of another summer in the city, and the state-wide pride that we, Massachusettsians (or is it "ites?"), are the only people in the country who get Patriot's Day off (except for maybe Maine and Wisconsin...but still). I know I'm praying for a bit of sunshine come Monday.

“I guess God made Boston on a wet Sunday.” -Raymond Chandler

here comes peter cottontail.

Happy Easter to everyone! I had a very nice day...a very nice weekend, in fact. The only negative: I didn't get a bit of work done and now I am thoroughly screwed. Basically, the next 3-4 weeks of my life are going to suck and I am oh so excited for them. Anyway, this weekend I went out a lot and had fun. Friday night was Hurricane O'Reilly's with all my girls...I had never been before, but it wasn't too bad of a place. Saturday night I went to Harper's Ferry to see My So-Called Friend play...only the best Boston band around. Check them out; good stuff. Though they did not win the WBCN Rock N' Roll Rumble, they still rocked the place and put on a fantastic show.

I also dog-sat this weekend, which means I spent time with the cutest dog in the world, hand fed her all white meat chicken breast, and slept in bed with her each night. And got paid for it. Today I went home to my parent's and had an amazinggg dinner and spent some good quality time with mom and dad. My family was anti-ham this year, so we went the non-traditional route of pork tenderloin. Def. didn't miss the ham.

Tomorrow dad is taking me to Circuit City so I can drop of the Durabook and retrieve my new and improved computer, assuming they haven't re-sold it yet. Then the week of hell begins. Cannot wait for summer. If I can get there.

"The best part about getting old is that you can hide your own Easter eggs." -My lovely father with his favorite joke that he says all the time, but gets to repeat several times on Easter day, which brings me to the next joke that another good thing about getting older is that you can repeat jokes over and over and still laugh at yourself.

only in grammar can you be more than perfect.

Anyone who knows me, knows I have an obsession with grammar. I'm not totally obnoxious about it, I just like it a lot (as I frantically re-read all of my posts to make sure I have no major errors). I don't really understand why our schools don't teach it much anymore, and why our society is so careless when it comes to the English language.

A woman was on Oprah last week claiming that Oprah made a serious grammatical error on one of her shows. Do you remember Oprah and Gayle's Big Adventure? It was a whole week of Oprah and Gayle road tripping across the country. Anyway, this lady wrote a letter and then came on the show claiming that the title of their road trip week was incorrect and it should have been "Oprah's and Gayle's Big Adventure" She actually said, "Everyone who has an ounce of grammar in them knows...It is so tacky." I was shocked when I heard this. I was 100% sure that Oprah's name did not need the possessive until this lady started blabbing on about it. Had everything I'd ever been taught gone right through my head? This can't be right! But this woman was so confident in herself and surely they wouldn't have had her on the show if she was wrong.

Turns out the woman was incorrect! What humiliation. She basically told Oprah and all of her writers, editors, and copyeditors that they were tacky and dumb. She got invited to be on the show just so they could prove her wrong. I almost felt bad for her. But not really, she should have done her research before appearing before I don't know how many millions of people on Oprah. Anyway, I felt better about myself, knowing that maybe I really did learn something from elementary school to graduate school.

If you're as grammar obsessed as I am, definitely check out the books by Bill Walsh (Lapsing into a Comma and The Elephants of Style). Love 'em.

My most hated error? When people spell grammar, grammer. Ugh.

"Grammar is a piano I play by ear. All I know about grammar is its power." -Joan Didion

i swear i know my way around.

One of the best feelings in the world is the feeling that you know what you're doing. I got lost while trying to attend a conference at MIT this weekend. I don't frequent that area much at all, and I am pretty much clueless in all of Cambridge. I had directions to the building I was trying to get to, but of course the street I needed to be on was missing a street sign. So I basically walked a mile out of my way before I realized something was not right and I needed to seek help. I asked various people if they knew where the Vassar Street was, but nobody seemed interested in helping me and basically just shrugged when I asked if they knew where the street was. Finally, a man told me how to get there ("You can't miss it!" Oh, but I did), and I preceded to turn around and head practically all the way back to the T stop. Side note: My shoes were NOT comfortable!

Later, as I was leaving the conference and walking back to the T stop, a man stopped me and said "Do you know where the Stata Center is??" It was the same building I had just come from! I got a little too excited and said "YES!! I do know!!" and told him I had had trouble finding it too, but it's really not hard, the street sign is missing, etc. etc. He just stared blankly at me until I finally told him how to get there.

I couldn't help my excitement at actually being able to help another lost citizen. I walked back to the T station feeling like a true Boston resident who even knows my way around Cambridge. Next weekend I might even venture into Somerville.

P.S. This is the building I was trying to get to...

I know, pretty easy to miss, right? I actually think I was so distracted walking by it, I had noo idea it was where I was supposed to be. Gotta love Frank Gehry :)

red sox season has begun!

SO psyched that Red Sox season has now begun. Too bad it got off to a disappointing loss. But I suppose, as fans, we are used to this and should look forward to a roller-coaster ride of a season, as usual.

SO not looking forward to T rides on game days at Fenway. I hear that the D line will be shut down for much of the summer as they will be updating the tracks for the "new" trains. That will make the C line oh so much more fun!

Oh well, GO SOX!

comcast is hate.

I hate Comcast with a passion. When you're paying over $100 a month for cable and Internet, don't you deserve to actually get Internet? Ours has been down since Thursday morning. I called Comcast and the first thing the friendly service man said was "Try unplugging the modem." Umm hi, I wasn't born yesterday and I wouldn't have sat on the phone on hold for 20 minutes if I hadn't already tried unplugging the modem multiple times. Thanks, though. So then he says "Well, there's nothing we can do over the phone, someone will come between 1 and 3 on Monday." I tried arguing, but as everyone probably knows, it's senseless to argue with Comcast.

So yesterday my roommate sees a Comcast truck in front of our apartment and begs the guy to come check out our Internet. He finally agrees, takes one glance at it, and says, "Oh, I only know how to do television cable." Do they even hire Comcast workers that will only learn to install and troubleshoot television cable? I don't think so. The guy was clearly just lazy and didn't know what our problem was.

My roommate called Comcast back to see if they can come sooner (obviously they cannot) and they confirm they will be there between 1 and 3 on Monday. So this morning, her phone rings and an automated message says it is confirming our appointment with Comcast between 5 and 7 Monday evening. What? As if it wasn't bad enough I had to wait in my apartment all afternoon tomorrow, not able to do any work because I don't have Internet. At 5:00 on the dot, I am out the door and off to class. My roommate doesn't get home from work until 6:00.

God help Comcast if they don't come to my apartment and fix my Internet tomorrow. Though, as I'm sure they are well aware, there's not much I can do considering they have a monopoly on the business. All I know, is that I'm getting pretty sick of camping out in my school's library.