Things I've Been Doing Besides Blogging

Well, hello again.  My long (eight days?) absence is come to an end, and I'm sure you're all rejoicing.  I've been home for about, well, eight days now, and I've been pretty busy doing things that are not internet related.  This may have something to do with the fact that my house no longer has wifi (shocking--yes, I'm at a desktop) or maybe something to do with the fact that it's been 65-75 degrees EVERY SINGLE DAY so far this summer, and I'm taking advantage of that.  Never know when the weather's gonna change and become last summer. (45 straight days of rain, anyone?)

Anyway, summer's the time to get outside and all that jazz, so I won't be spending as much time online.  Probably also because I can't use my laptop in bed anymore.  This is what I've been up to since being home the last week or so.

Working:  Well duh, gotta make that cash moneys.  I'm lucky that my job lets me call them up every time I'm in town and puts me on the schedule pretty much whenever.  For those of you who don't know, I work at the delicious Great Harvest Bakery, where free bread is always an option.  I get sick of it though, so you're welcome to come visit me and bring other delicious things.  I'll give you bread in return.  I love the girls I've been working with all through high school, but some of our newer employees are questionable.  I guess that's why they're always so willing to hire me back.  To supplement my bakery income I'm babysitting too.  Flashback to middle school much?  Oh well, it pays well, is tax free, and not that awful.  Especially when you can take the kids to Bouncin Bears and have an excuse to play too.

Swimming, Biking, Running, a little hiking:  I may have mentioned that my workout-obsessed mother signed me up for some races upon my return.  This includes a 12k run, a sprint triathlon, and a half marathon, all in the next three weeks.  So I've been trying to get my act together, as well as erase that freshman 15 once and for all.  At least the weather's been good so that riding my bike to work, going to track practices with my mom, and returning to my club swim team doesn't seem too terrible.  We'll see if any of it pays off on race day...race days, I should say.

Seeing old friends:  Isn't that the point of coming home for the summer?  That, and rent-free living, I guess.  My friends and I have frequented all the classic hangouts:  Kaladi Brothers, Perfect Cup, the Service frolf course, Rabbit Creek playgroud.  I still haven't hit up Moose's Tooth...who wants to join me?  Seeing old friends is bittersweet because you're having so much fun but missing all your new friends.  I, for one, keep seeing or doing things that I wish my Trin friends could experince too.  When are you guys gonna visit already?!  But old friends are also so easy to spend time with...the same activities and locations happen with hardly any effort.  It's so natural for us to just gather in the Taco Bell parking lot at 10pm....we're classy, I know. 

Tweeting:  #obsessed.  I made a Twitter a few months ago but waited so long to write my first Tweet that I was afraid nothing would be good enough to be my first one.  Well, I squashed that fear and finally posted, and now I can't stop.  I know I said I was staying away from the internet, but Twitter is on my phone so it doesn't count, right?  Follow me @aklovin14.  I've had a lot of ideas for clever tweets, but I don't want to overpost right away, so hopefully I won't forget them when I actually do choose to post.  I guess we've all #beenthere.  Some of my favorites that I follow: @azizansari, @thoughtcatalog, the popular @whitegrlproblem and the extremely clever spinoff @tringirlproblem.  tweet tweet.

Reading:  Of course, I've been staying intellectually stimulated by reading great works of literature.  This includes Chelsea Handler's My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands, John Stewart's Naked Pictures of Famous People, Glamour and Cosmo, and of course the entire series of Harry Potter.  It's a summer tradition to read every book, cover to cover, as quickly as possible.  Gotta prep for the final installment in July!

Finally, I've been Missing TrinColl!  Can't wait to see all of you.

I'm Coming Home

One thing I do is travel a lot.  Whether it’s to and from school or somewhere slightly more exotic, I’m pretty used to spending long hours in airports across the country.  I know the Seattle airport better than some places in my hometown, and I’m always likely to run into someone I know, simply because it’s an automatic step in getting to or from Anchorage.  Stepping into the “Pacific Marketplace”—Sea-Tac’s dining and shopping area—makes me automatically feel one step closer to home. Heading to the east coast so often, I get to experience many different airports:  O’Hare, Newark, Minneapolis-St Paul, Denver, etc.  There are a lot of different ways you can hop, skip, and jump across the country, especially when it takes at least three planes to get anywhere. 

I’m flying home today (!!!!) for the summer, and my 16 hours of flying have taken me through Bradley, O’Hare, Portland, and finally Anchorage.  With plenty of time to kill both in the air and in the terminal, here are some things I’ve cataloged about the nature of air travel.

Airport food:  There’s honestly nothing better.  Every layover gives you an excuse to explore the terminal, killing time, and searching for some unhealthy snack or meal to tide you over for the next four-hour flight.  I almost always go to Dunkin Donuts at Bradley, even if its not breakfast time.  Today I went, ordered my iced coffee and egg sandwich, and realized I would not see another DD for several months.  (East coast phenomenon.)  There’s every option, from Chinese takeout to fast food to “Chili’s Too,” of you want to do the sit down thing.  Since layovers are all about killing time, I don’t have to feel guilty about exploring each terminal’s options.

People watching: Easily the most entertaining thing to do at an airport.  This is gonna be a conglomerate of every person the world has to offer—international, business, families, and wackos.  Examining people’s outfit choices are interesting too—I’ll never understand people who wear stiletto heels and dresses in the airport, looking like they’re more prepared to head downtown than across the country.  There are also the crazy outfits spotted in any crowd, but somehow exemplified by the fact that these people are simply sitting on their ass for any number of hours.  Are the maxi skirts, pajamas, goth getups, etc, really necessary?  I guess some people feel a need to make a statement wherever they go.  There are also those classic airport staples of monks or other religious folk spreading their word throughout the land. 

Shopping:  Commercial America has really capitalized on people’s boredom.  It’s always a thrill when walking off the jet way feels equivalent to stepping foot in a luxury mall.  Seattle, Denver, and Minneapolis all have notable shopping areas.  When flying home for winter break, I got all my Christmas shopping done at the Gap in the Philadelphia airport.  It killed time and saved me from the hassle when I returned home.  Denver has a Crocs store, always fun to gawk at, and Seattle has the best functional art store I’ve ever seen: Fireworks.  It’s got quirky books, home décor, accessories, etc and I can always spend plenty of time there. 

Airplane neighbors:  You never know what you’re gonna get.  I always hope I snag an aisle seat next to a cute guy, or really anyone my age.  I dread the chatters—older women who want to know every detail of my young life, somehow reliving their younger decades by grilling me about mine.  It’s always a gamble when you sit down—do you make polite eye contact, sometimes seen as an invitation for a non-stop conversation on your 6-hour non-stop flight?  Or do you quickly avoid the situation by jamming in headphones and pretending to sleep?  It depends on my mood—I don’t mind a few minutes of hi, where are you from, where are you headed, but I never know when its going to stop.  There’s also the option of being surrounded by snorers, coughers, and screaming babies.  I’m actually surrounded by one of each at this very moment.

Traveling can be fun, or at least a bearable part of the journey home.  As my calves start to cramp up from sitting in one spot for too long and I realize I still have a three-hour layover ahead of me, I start to get antsy and just crave my own bed.  In just seven short hours, I will be reunited with Alaska!  And that’s a good enough prospect to keep me trekking through concourse A, terminal K, and gate 37.

Into the Woods!

Starting tomorrow (which I guess is today), I will be spending five days out on the Appalachian Trail.  We will be backpacking, sleeping under tents or under the stars, filtering water,  cooking over propane, and shitting outside.  And I am looking forward to (almost) all of it!  As summer approaches at home, I would typically celebrate the end of the school year with a camping trip as soon as the last snow melted, or an after-school hike to relieve finals stress.  Out here in CT I've had to make do with laying out on the Quad to get my outdoors fix.  (It has paid off-- I'm more tan now than I ever have been at the end of an Alaskan summer).  But I honestly have been craving the wilderness.  You know, mountains, streams, sunshine, and none of this man-made crap.  While the "mountains" in Connecticut don't quite compare to the monstrosities of my backyard, they are green and beautiful.  I'm content to trek several miles a day and lay out my sleeping bag on a flat piece of ground.  Unfortunately, its forecasted to rain all week, so I anticipate some miserableness.  All I know is that I'm looking forward to getting outside and jump starting what I hope to be an outdoor-adventure filled summer.

We'll only be doing a tiny portion of the Appalachian Trail, but we may come across a legendary "through hiker," who traverses the entire 2,180-mile trail from Maine to Georgia, often taking months to complete.  I don't know if I'll ever be that hardcore, but this is a really moving video of one through-hikers experience.  He took one picture of the trail in front of him each day of his hike, and condensed the entire journey into a five-minute movie. Sweet.

P.S. I know I haven't been consistently posting, but there will obviously be nothing new until next weekend, as my lovely MacbookPro doesn't have the same affinity for the outdoors as I do.

Packratting

So today the dorms close and the last few northies are straggling out, off to enjoy summer....I still have one week before I reach my beloved hometown because I decided to go backpacking on the CT Appalachian trail next week.  So I still have a few days to pack up my room but not really any idea how I'm going to fit my entire life into one duffel bag to take home.  I've been mooching free storage off my friends who live in the area-- a microwave in Boston, a box in New York, etc. I have no idea where all this stuff even came from-- leftover costumes and accessories from theme parties and Freshman Fun Night; a wall full of cards, postcards, and memorabilia; random objects from rare crafty moments.  Obviously everything means something from freshman year, and I'd love to keep them all in hopes of meticulously scrapbooking every event.  Realistically I should just throw the stuff away because I'll probably never get around to documenting it.  Some of the key items I found and what they mean to me:

Pile of bow numbers and medals:  I had a brief stint on the crew team this fall; I walked on to the team because I wanted to get in crazy-good shape.  They told me I was too short to row and I became a coxswain, forced into high-stakes races in which I never would have had the opportunity to participate otherwise.  While not for me, it did introduce me to an entirely new skill and group of friends that love me even though I no longer am part of the team.  In fact, I'll be living with three rowers next year, which might get overwhelming.

Decorated half-gallon water bottle:  Foam letters spell out "swim hard, play hard" on this gift from my swim team "secret psych."  This reminds me of NESCACs and a great season, and even more so reminds me of the nights celebrating the end of the season.  It's kind of obnoxious but definitely something I have to keep.  Also perfect container to hold beverages while quadding.

Knit Tiger face hat:  Got it in Chinatown San Francisco during a fabulous spring break road trip with my brother.  I thought I was getting a deal on it since it was Chinatown, only to see the same hats at the same price at Fisherman's Wharf, notoriously overpriced.  Though I've never worn the hat, it was a great trip full of friends, family, and rainy California adventures.

Vero Beach Sports Village postcard:  The winter break training trip from hell in Vero Beach, Florida is not likely to leave trinswim's memory any time soon.  From the nasty food, dank motel rooms, and non-proximity to either pool or beach, that trip was full of complaints.  But it brought me closer to the swim team as a whole, which really defined my year.

Doodled-on shoes:   From the Friday afternoon adventure crew (Renee, me, and Julia), this was an ongoing project of decorating cheap white tennis shoes with fabric markers.  I'm not too artsy but I still think these turned out well and were a fun way to fill our Friday afternoons.  Sometimes we went to thrift stores, party stores, or out to ice cream, but it was always nice to get off campus and see the real world once in awhile.  Helps when your best friend has a car.

The room is full of more crap than this, but writing this actually helped me narrow down what I'd like to keep and what isn't necessary.  Freshman year went by in a blur, but luckily I have plenty of crap to remember it by.

Stuff My Mom Says

This post is in honor of Mother’s Day.  It is also in honor of yesterday’s post on procrastination.  My mom and I have a pretty solid relationship… She's easily my best friend, and I try not to make that sound cheesy.  Bottom line, my mom and I text and talk a lot while I’m away at school.  Sometimes (a lot of the time) she’s on my ass about things like grades, a job, and my future.  But I also share a lot of the more fun stuff with her, and she tries to pass on some witty wisdom. And occasionally some really ridiculous random anecdote or observation. So, in the style of that guy who got super rich and famous by tweeting shit his dad says, here are a few examples of that amazing motherly advice.  Unfortunately, I delete the texts from my mom on a weekly basis so that I don’t make any unwise Saturday night text/call decisions—secret’s out—so some of her best material is unfortunately lost in the cyberdump. 

Mama and Me :)

On drinking:  “I know you’d rather stay in on a Saturday night.” 

Sunday morning of Spring Weekend: “Good morning! Are you behaving?  Have a bagel with tuna for lunch—good carbs and protein.  Put water in you beer cup and pretend. Don’t be afraid to take some alone time.”

After a 3-minute late-night pocket dial: “You called me at 12:30 last night, and it sure as hell didn’t sound like the library.”

On health: “Get outside and RUN!” Followed by a link to the Hartford Marathon website and all upcoming races in Hartford County. 

“You know that feeling when you put on a really great-fitting pair of pants? Do your happy pants dance!”

“Oh by the way I signed you up for a half marathon the weekend you get home from school so I hope you’ve been running.”

On school: “You know what they say about econ.” “What?” “You make that final your bitch.”

I called to tell her that I got my very first A+ of college.  “Congratulations honey!  In what?” “Fitness!”  “Why the hell are you calling me right now?”

“If you don’t get straight A’s I’m not paying your tuition next year.”  I’m not sure how funny this one is, because I think she might be serious.  UAA, here I come. 

On the rest of the family: “I showed dad that rebeka black video.  We can’t stop singing it.  He’s always going around singing ‘it’s Tuesday, Tuesday, gotta go to work on Tuesday’…help!”

On boys: Trying to explain the importance of “chemistry” in a relationship: “Do you love his body? You should only be with someone if you love their body.”

“Don’t be afraid to experiment.  College is not the time for emotional connections.”

Thanks for all the words of advice and help, mama.This list could certainly go on and on, and I'm certainly forgetting some of the best gems.  Maybe I'll do a part two, for her birthday or something.  Stay tuned. Love you mom! 

Procrastination at its Finest

I haven't blogged in awhile, I know.  I'd like to tell you that the reason for this is that I've been working hard studying for all my finals and using my reading days to their fullest potential.  But the fact is that I've been chilling in the library for 5-8 hours a day with absolutely nothing to show for it.  Then, the sun came out so I scratched the library as whole to sit out on the quad and do more of nothing.  But now it actually feels like crunch time... first final in t-36 hours.  The hours of time that stretched before me at the beginning of reading days have somehow dwindled.  And people are starting to feel the stress.

The library is a pretty interesting place during finals week.  Almost half the library is now open 24 hours and people are taking advantage.  This is the one time of the year when anything goes...people are taking power naps on the floor or in the comfy chairs (warning: if you sit there, you'll never get work done.)  Meal times no longer apply, so people have all kinds of breakfast, lunch, dinner, and midnight snacks spread out across their work station.  Getting pizza or Chinese food delivered to the lib is also common.  Evidence of caffeine highs, adderall binges, and energy drink crashes are all around.  I've seen someone eat a flashcard out of frustration.  They've clearly had too many chemicals in their body.

I'm really really good at getting distracted during the long, unstructured hours.  So much so that I felt the need to install Mac's SelfControl app, which blocks predetermined websites and programs.  My own self control is so lacking that I had to download an app for it, yes.  But I can click a button and be blocked from facebook, StumbleUpon, and other distracting websites for two hours, or however long I choose.  It makes logging on again a very welcome study break.  It's a great app and I'm glad I have it, but I do recognize that it's a little pathetic.

This blog post right here is an example of "productive procrastination." So is filling out online course evaluations, deleting old emails, making a color-coded to-do list, calling my parents, and catching up on all my Thursday night tv shows.  These are all things I've done over the past few days, while trying to convince myself that they are actually worth doing.  But it's really just another way to avoid the English paper on Julius Caesar that's due on Monday.  (I've written a paragraph a day over the last three days.  Pretty solid.)

Well, study break's over. Back to the grind.  Sleep, eat, lib, repeat.

Disney and Politics

Hahaha. Go Obama. I'm glad he can accept some criticism with a sense of humor.  Especially absurd criticisms about his birth. And who doesn't love a little Disney. He's kind of an awkward comedian though.