Cooler Than Me

Sometimes, when I've reached that lull in my day when classes are over and I'm not rushing off to practice (being an out-of-season athlete is a strange form of withdrawal), I find myself once again gravitating towards my glowing MacBook...and it's not long before the favorite tabs are opened and I realize that the next two hours will be spent in utter internet oblivion.

I don't ever remember spending this much time on the internet in high school...sure, I'd log on to Facebook and spend some time chatting and clicking around.  But it's like since I got to college, my internet usage has exploded.  I watch all my shows on Hulu now, and I can't get through one page of essay writing without checking my email, or Facebook, or twitter, or blog..., well, you get the picture.  I even spend time on StumbleUpon, so I can look for more interesting things with which to waste my time.  Now that I started my blog, I can excuse my aimless internet wanderings in a way...I'm brainstorming, looking for inspiration, etc.  When I don't have a pressing matter eating away at itself in my brain, begging to be blogged about (this has happened to me maybe, mmmm...twice?  Real inspired), I take interest in what those around me have to say as well.

Sometimes this problem pays off.  Recently I discovered a sort of collective blog called Thought Catalog. Pegged as "illuminating and informative, nobrow and nonpartisan,"  it's basically a collection of hipsters living the dream in NYC, reveling in their own stereotypical hipsterdom and writing cynical pieces about "our generation."  Topics include Life, Love, Music, Entertainment...you know, the basics.  I'm not one for the shove-it-in-your-face hipster thing, but these writers are intelligent and informed, as well as culturally functional.  The articles are usually humorous, self-deprecating, and just serious enough.  Reading Thought Catalog makes me feel a little better about wasting time online, and it also gives me a glimpse of something I hope to do in the next phase of my life. The "future of journalism" is here, it's online and it's everywhere. Hopefully someday, someone will pay me for this.

You're already online, so check it out.  It's pretty cool and a better way to spend your time surfing the web than watching Rebecca Black parodies on YouTube.  

AK Takes SoCal

If there's one thing Alaskans love, it's seeing other Alaskans in places other than Alaska.  Perhaps it's because we're so few and far between to begin with, but we share a really deep bond about our roots, and love to celebrate it when we're far from home. This past weekend I had several out-of-AK reunions during my road trip to Southern California, both planned and coincidental.  Those connections were really what made the trip memorable and special for me, as it made me feel closer to home despite the fact that I haven't seen the frozen wasteland since January second.

The first encounter was purely coincidental and absolutely crazy.  I was in LA with my brother and his friends, and we decided to head to the Venice Boardwalk.  It's a crazy and wild hippie hangout, quickly detailed in my last post.  This was the only day of my California vacation warm enough to break out shorts--well, warm enough for us Alaskans.  Locals were in down coats and Uggs.  My crew split up a bit to shop and observe all the crazy people.  I was casually strolling past an on-the-job-at-10am-hooker, when I literally and physically ran into my friends Sophie and Krista.  What?! These were two of my bestest friends in middle school, and we stayed close despite attending different high schools.  They go to school in northern Cali and Oregon, respectively, and I had not given either one a thought during my Spring Break excursion.  Imagine our shock and giddiness when we saw each other in one of the most populous cities in the country; to which none of us even had a real connection.  Turns out both of their breaks coincided with mine (rare enough to begin with) and they had met each other in LA for the week, hoping to hit up Disney, visit friends at Occidental, and bum around on the beach (that last one wasn't too successful, thanks to the buckets of rain). As an added bonus, they got to see me, and we spent a few hours on the boardwalk as well as the Santa Monica Pier, before they realized they had a bus to catch to Occidental and had to sprint down the beach back to their hostel.  This quickie reunion was extremely unexpected and rewarding; I wouldn't have seen either of them until June otherwise.  It's a crazy memory that I'm unlikely to forget, purely because of its unlikelihood.  The semi-sunny day and fun activities didn't hurt either.

Later that same day, after a traffic-laden trek to San Diego, I had a more conventional Alaskan encounter: my friend Paulina goes to school at the University of San Diego, a beautiful Catholic university on a hill.  I had called her a few weeks before and planned to get together whenever I made it down to San Diego (remember, road trip = no set plans).  We drove up to her campus and she took us to a kind of good, kind of overpriced Mexican restaruant for dinner with some of her friends.  Unfortunately she had a lax game in the morning (something you don't hear often: an Alaskan Laxer.  She picked it up at college), so our visit was cut short-- but not before our other friend Connor made the trek down from UC San Diego and met us all in a parking lot in Old Town.  Four Alaskans in one place! Madness!  We obviously had to document it with a poorly-lit mupload.  Another common trait of us northerners: "I use my hand to show people which part of Alaska I'm from."  It's even a Facebook group.

See the resemblance?  Kinda?

So we took the classic pic of us flashing the AK sign--no, it's not a gang symbol.  Paulina left and Connor took her place, showing us around Mission Beach and some of the popular clubbing areas.  We ended up al hanging out in our cheap hotel room, probably making too much noise and reminiscing about Alaskan summers and shenanigans.  

Of course, the best AK reunion of the break was spending seven days and several hundred miles with my one and only twin brother.  We've got the most memories and connections to home than anyone, and I will miss him dearly.

What should you take from all this?  I know some of you can't flash supercool hand symbols of your home, or run around in shorts and flip flops the minute it hits 50 degrees.  But connections from home are important, and memorable, and valuable.  I may not remember casually walking the streets of Southern California in 20 years, but I'll probably remember seeing old friends and learning from them what's cool about where they live now.  When all your other friends say "Alaska sucks" and a handful of people can actually jump to your defense, that's pretty special.  Home may be thousands of miles away, but that doesn't mean you can't feel at home somewhere else.

Open Road

The roadtrip crew yesterday embarked upon a six-hour trek from Monterey to Los Angeles, California.  I’m sitting bitch seat in my brother’s tiny Subaru; obviously the girlfriend gets shotgun no matter what, so I’m squeezed between two guys passed out and snoring.  We got on the road pretty late, since we had to do so much cleaning of the beach house we stayed at for the last three days.  Adam and Alex skipped out to go get haircuts, the boys watched a movie, and I did my womanly duty by doing dishes, vacuuming, packing, and a fair share of dishes.  I don’t mind too terribly much because I like doing things my own way anyway, and no way could the boys make the beds the way I wanted. 

It’s got to be a pretty impressive feat to drive 3,000 miles in a teeny car and still manage to stay on speaking terms with the people you’re with.  Of course, I’m only here for about 1,000 miles, preferring to jump on an airplane in San Diego back to Hartford.  My other alternative was to continue on the 18-hour San Diego to Colorado Springs leg…no thanks.  There’s certainly some tension in our vehicle.  The freedom of the open road often translates into getting lost, driving in circles while our iPhones recalculate the directions, and me screaming at Adam to slow down.  We might set a record for the number of times being pulled over in one trip. 

Being on a road trip does guarantee some freedom, though: since the weather has been as crappy as it can get, we decided to stay an extra night in Monterey and skip camping at Pismo Beach.  That means we have longer to drive today, but it’s totally our own decision to stay or go as we please.  Today started out cold and pouring and almost impossible to drive in, but now it’s just drizzling and there’s a full rainbow out our window.  I find car trips quite relaxing, once we figure out our general direction.  It’s a time to sleep, chill, jam out, just stare out the window….of course, I’m fully exempt from driving, since Adam’s car is manual and I’ll “screw up the clutch.”

We got into L.A. pretty late, and it was still raining, so we pretty much just crashed at a friend’s house.  We got up early, used her shower, ate her food, and left for Venice Beach.  The boardwalk was full of hippies, street artists, touristy souvenir stores, and medical marijuana stores.  There were literally people every ten yards offering to sell you a 215 card- which gives you the right to legally smoke marijuana in California. 

“Do you suffer from eating disorders, anxiety, insomnia, cancer, AIDS, or any other disorder?  You can qualify for medical marijuana.” 

It was interesting to see police officers walk right by and not bat an eye at the smokers—is California on to something?

Overstimulated

I'm on Spring Break, experiencing my godmother and mother berate and torture each other and generally act more immature than anyone I know; meeting and terrorizing my brother's new girlfriend; being a "role model" for two preteen children; and generally being tipsy and overwhelmed and chaotic.  Visits here are never quiet and I don't have time to complete a full thought, let alone make it presentable enough to post here.

Shelby (godmother) and my mom were freshman neighbors in Jarvis at TrinColl in 1981, and 30 years later they are still just as quarrelsome as ever.  (They were roommates sophomore year and didn't speak for eight months...I hope that doesn't happen to me).  Shelby could be the subject of an entire epic novel, but in short she is scatterbrained, creative, loud, obnoxious, and excessive.  Instead of buying one kind of alcohol, Shelby bought brew from five different countries; rum; red and white wine; and twenty kinds of homemade fruit-infused vodka.  These visits get cray-cray and I could compile a sampling of some of the most shocking things that were said at dinner, but honestly I've been drained of the energy.  Quotes from my brother's friends include "I've never seen anything like this,"  "This is so much fun," or "Wow, I've never smoked a Cuban with my mom." (That was a first for me as well).

I'm off to roadtrip down the California coast with Adam, his friends and his girlfriend, where rain is in the forecast and wi-fi will probably be spotty.  Hopefully hours in my brother's tiny Subaru with his life-threatening driving will give me more to write about when I return.

In other news, I'm entirely fed up with the name of my blog.  It was meant to be temporary, because I was forced to name the blog before I could publish, and nothing creative came to mind.  It still hasn't, but I honestly can't take myself seriously if my blog is named after a Ke$ha song.  Being around a 13-year-old girl for the last 72 hours has taught me that that is not the direction I want to go in life.

So I'm on the lookout for new inspiration, something fun and clever to define my little project here.  If anyone has any ideas, I would obviously love to hear them.

I hope everyone is enjoying their breaks or is settling back in to school.  Do something new and exciting this week, or at least get drunk a lot.

Top o' tha Mornin'

Happy St. Patrick's Day all!! It is on this day in 461 that St. Patrick, famous for driving all the snakes out of Ireland, died....and we get to celebrate with Shamrock Shakes, Irish Car Bombs, and plenty of artificially colored beer.

I love St. Patrick's Day because it is an excuse to celebrate my heritage, wear my favorite color, and get plastered, all in one.  Legend has it that St. Patrick, patron saint of Ireland, converted thousands of Irish to Christianity and used the shamrock to represent the Holy Trinity of father, son, and the holy blah, blah,blah...If you really want to know more about the history of St. Patrick's Day, check out "This Day in History" from the history channel.  I, for one, am content to get my green on and speak in a very poor Irish accent in hopes that some Psi U pledge will find me annoying enough to just open the door.  

If you haven't already taken off for spring break and you’re heading out tonight, be sure to pick up some green food coloring to drop into your pint…that’s really all it takes.  If you’re really Irish, pop a couple of these Irish Car Bombs and you’ll be set.

3/4 pint Guinness® stout

1/2 shot Bailey's® Irish cream

1/2 shot Jameson® Irish whiskey

Add the Bailey's and Jameson to a shot glass, layering the Bailey's on the bottom. Pour the Guinness into a pint glass or beer mug 3/4 of the way full and let settle. Drop the shot glass into the Guinness and chug. If you don't drink it fast enough it will curdle and increasingly taste worse.

Yumm….

It's a beautiful spring day, as well-- temps are hitting 60 degrees and sunny.  Sorry about the six inches of snow you got today, Alaska.  I'm actually sitting in the grass right now while I type, which is pleasant minus the horrible glare on my computer screen-- I'll be interested to know what I've actually typed when I get inside.  I’m all done with classes and ready to start my spring break off right!  Good thing I have to leave for the airport at 3:45 am tomorrow.  To sleep, or not to sleep?  I’m leaning towards no. 

I’ll leave you with a little poem my grandmother, straight from Limerick County,  used to say on this day:

 Here’s to a long life and a merry one.


A quick death and an easy one


A pretty girl and an honest one


A cold beer – and another one!

Well, Grandma said so….who wants to join me on the quad for a Guinness?

Adderall and All-nighters...

I’ve finally reached the end of my hellish week and a half of papers and midterms, and boy does it feel good.  Now I’m looking forward to a stress-free spring break in California.  For those of you still plugging away, best of luck to you—and quit procrastinating! 

The last few weeks have been abundant with major and minor breakdowns; desperate emails requesting extensions; and a fair share of all-nighters.  I didn't have to pull one this week, but its surprisingly common.  Several girls in my hall held all-nighter study parties in the common room this week, or came into the bathroom at 8 am still not having gone to bed.  Why do we do this to ourselves??  Do the evil TrinColl professors really assign such great quantities of work that we are forced to spend 12 hours per night absorbing it all?  I understand the dilemma of having a ten-page research paper due tomorrow, and, of course, starting it the night before.  We’ve all been down that road.  Distractions are abundant, thanks to Facebook stalking, StumbleUpon, and YouTube.  Some of us just work better under pressure, so saving a paper for the day it’s due is the only way to get it done.  But all-nighters can’t be good for you.  Trin has got to be fostering one of the unhealthiest lifestyles possible—we barely sleep on weekends, share drinks and swap spit, and eat god-awful Mather food.  Those weeknight hours of slumber are valuable!  And I can’t imagine that staying up all night studying for a test is conducive to a good test performance.

Another subject that goes hand in hand with pulling all-nighters is Adderall.  Its abundance on this campus is astounding!  Getting a prescription in the first place is a piece of cake; tell a doctor you have “trouble focusing” and she’ll scrawl a prescription faster than you can pop a pill.  Everything is easier medicated, right?  Even if you don’t have a prescription, you must have a friend who does.  It’s almost too easy to bum a dose off them, or buy it if they insist.  (Some friends they are, huh?)  Most people who take Adderall before a test or study session swear by its effects.  It’s a stimulant, so it keeps you awake and keeps you focused.  It increases your heart rate and may cause shaking or sweating, depending on the dosage, but it also allows you to plow through textbooks like it’s your job.  I’ve never taken Adderall as a homework helper, but it’s awfully tempting.  Wouldn’t it be nice to feel alert and focused, ready to tackle anything?  I get distracted easily, but I think it’s more due to the Internet than ADHD. 

Adderall abuse is illegal, that’s for sure.  There are heavy consequences for both dealing and using non-prescription Adderall.  Check out webmd.com for more information.  It gives users an unfair advantage over students who choose to do their work the natural way.  Is it a form of cheating?  I can see the side that says yes, but it’s complicated because so many people use it legitimately.  Once you use Adderall for a really stressful night, won’t it be easier to use it every time you have a big test or paper?  The bottom line is that taking Adderall may be effective, and help you perform better in school, so it’s not typically thought of as a “drug” the way other narcotics are.  But it’s exactly that, and abusing it may lead to serious consequences. 

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could all just plan ahead, study a little bit each day, feel totally prepared, and get eight hours of sleep the night before a test?

Come on, like that’s ever gonna happen. 

Northern Lights and Midnight Sun

Here goes: an absolutely shameless plug for my beautiful hometown, Anchorage, Alaska.  I guess I've been missing the Last Frontier lately, and reminiscing about some of my favorite summer memories.  A lot of my friends got to go home for Spring Break, and I'm kinda jealous. (My parents didn't think the 12-hour flight was worth it).  People ask me a lot of questions about what its like to live in Alaska-- do you ride a polar bear to school, are you friends with Sarah Palin, is there snow all year.  (The answers are all no, by the way, although Sarah does frequently shop at the bakery I work at at home).  Bottom line is that Alaska-- and Anchorage especially-- is really normal, we're just a lot closer to the wilderness than most other places.  I can hike ten minutes from my house and be hidden in a mountain range-- and I live in a very populated neighborhood. In my opinion, Alaska's natural beauty is unmatched.  Mountains covered in ice and snow are just as common as beautiful summer sunsets over the ocean.  It's a rare day that I don't see a moose or two in my backyard or on the streets of downtown.  Here are two of my favorite Alaska pics that I found recently:

This was taken last summer around the Summer Solstice, longest day of the year, around midnight.  The sun sets for just a couple hours in the summer, which means we can keep going all night, every night.

Photo cred: Kameron Stahlman, one of those lucky bastards who got to go home for Spring Break.  This picture was taken just last week out the window of my friend's home in Anchorage.  These are the Northern Lights, a beautiful phenomenon.  It's actually kind of rare to see them in Anchorage, because they are usually only visible above the Arctic Circle, but they've been really active lately.  I can't believe I was at school and missed out on the last few days of activity!

So there's a glimpse of Alaska's beauty.  We're not all ice and snow and incompetent politicians, I promise.  

Earthquakes, Tsunamis, and Floods, Oh My!

Thoughts and prayers go out to those in Japan after a record-breaking earthquake yesterday afternoon on Japan's eastern shore.  The 8.9 magnitude quake was followed by a 13-foot tsunami, as well as more than 19 aftershocks.  Death toll stands in the hundreds and is expected to rise.  Read it here.

Seems to me that these killer quakes are happening more and more frequently-- Haiti, Chile, Indonesia, and New Zealand were all hit with big quakes in the last year.  Scientists are considering global warming/climate change as an explanation, but if you ask me, the Mayans are becoming much more credible.  I'm not suggesting it's the end of the world, but so many horrific events give me pause. It's that damn Ring of Fire, the border of plate tectonics where 90% of the world's earthquake and volcanic activity occur, including Alaska, Japan, Indonesia, and South America.

For all those vacationing in Hawaii (approximately half of Alaska's population- welcome to spring break), tsunami warnings and evacuations took place early this morning but no significant damage was reported.  One American fatality was reported in Crescent City, California due to tsunami action.  Run for high ground, people!

We've got to be grateful that a quake of this magnitude struck a developed country, and not one of the many third world countries of the Pacific Rim.  Japan is luckily very picky about its engineering codes, and many many buildings- especially in downtown Tokyo- managed to survive the quake.  To put it in perspective, the horrific quake that struck Haiti just over a year ago was a magnitude 7.0, and death toll there was in the hundreds of thousands.

Please remember to keep Japan in your thoughts right now-- and hey, texting REDCROSS to 90999 to donate $10 can't hurt either.

On a side note, it looks like my room was hit by a quake/tsunami disaster of its own-- my roommate and I managed to hit the trifecta of spilling, breaking, and even burning multiple things last night.  Anyone got a Swiffer?

How To Get the Most Out of Your Meal Plan

So we're all broke college students-- well, maybe not yet, but eventually our parents will cut us off and we will be jobless and homeless with a $200,000 education.  It's important to learn tricks now for healthy spending habits when we are older.  One of the best places to save money is in your food budget.  We're all a fan of the wrap/chips/drink combo at the Cave or the Bistro, but there are many ways to get more out of those precious 14 or 19 meals per week.  There may be a time in your life where you scrounge through couch cushions for enough change to buy Top Ramen, so pay attention:

*Note:  There is a fine line between stealing food and taking advantage of what is yours.  Don't resort to thievery.

At Mather:  This is the easiest place to be thrifty, as it is an all-you-can-eat extravaganza.  However, if you're not keen on shoving three plates of food in your mouth in one sitting, you can casually bring home a few snacks for a late night of studying.  We all know that grabbing an apple or banana for tomorrow's breakfast is a good idea, but why stop there?  Bring a Ziploc to fill with your favorite cereal (Lucky Charms never last long!) and grab a thermos full of milk- voila! There are often disposable coffee cups under the counters at Mather if you want to grab something to go.  Make a sandwich, then transport it safely in one of the empty bread bags at the deli counter.  Use these ideas to get some creative snacking going.

Not Okay: Having a friend sneak you in the back without swiping; taking plates, glasses, and silverware (with the exception of trays for sledding—and return them!); dumping the entire pot roast into your bag for later. 

The Cave/The Bistro:  It’s harder to take advantage of the meal deals here, but not impossible.  Obviously accept the largest drink size (no extra charge) and fill it with Gatorade to chug after you work out.  Ketchup, mustard, and mayo are free, if you want to resort to that.  Equally stingy but more useful: stock up on plastic silverware, paper cups, and napkins!  But please, remember to recycle.

Obviously:  Don’t take food from the coolers and casually skip the cashier.  Stealing.

Extra Meals: Ahh, Thursday evenings.  When being too hungover to make it to Sunday brunch finally pays off: an extra meal. Five and three-quarter glorious dollars to spend on crappy snacks and moldy meals.  Obviously, Thursday night is the beginning of your weekend festivities, so think about what you might need to supplement those activities.  Tropicana juices go like lightning at the Cave, ad they’re probably not part of your “healthy breakfast.”  Chips are great munchies for late-night study parties—or just late-night parties.  I like to stock up on yogurt and cereal for next week’s breakfasts—which results in more extra meals! 

Use them wisely, and treasure them well, because in real life there is no meal plan.

Here I Am

Well, guess I've joined the blogging train.  I'm an Alaska girl at heart, living in the beautiful city of Hartbeat, CT, and attending Trinity College da Trin.  I've always loved writing, but haven't really been too productive lately.  Basically I'm just looking for an outlet, sharing my thoughts, and loving life. This isn't a great intro but I guess you'll learn more as we go along.