3, 2, 1: blast off

yeah, i realize i cheater cheated my way through the last 5 of this list of 30, but i guess that's what happens when you don't have a computer or any time to do anything in the final hours of life as you know it. meh, here's my final three...oh, and p.s. i'm already gone.


3- the waaaaaaard

it's been said that boston is the place where misfits belong. i don't recall who said that, but it was said and i agree, and there's no exception to this rule in the mormon community. i love, love, love the randomness that exists in our relatively small group, and though this kind of self-contained community presents challenges from time to time, i'd take it over, ahem, other...wards...in...other...cities...any day. munch 'n' mingle aside, i'm sincerely going to miss that bunch.

2- skullvia, chreepy, and deathica

my roommates wicked (literally) awesome halloween names above (i'm ghoulie- he he). these peeps have already been stuck into a few posts on the list, but i have to give one final shout out to them. grills, you're awesome. i like us.

1- and the most obvious thing ever...

to all my incredible friends: you are boston to me. i love you.


welp, i guess that's it for boston huh? its been real, fer real. peace out (before i start crying again).

4: beat la

5: so indy

the campfire festival at club passim is one of the first boston activities i ever experienced way back when. basically a bunch of indy rockers get together and sit in a half circle on stage and take turns churning out melodies, and sometimes playing together. i know it sounds like a haven for tokers, but even drug frees like me enjoy the scene. also, passim serves some of the best mac'n'cheese this side of the mississippi. go there.

6: battling pink robots

sometimes my roommates and i find ourselves painfully tired, yet unable to go to bed because we're too busy singing about yoshimi saving us from pink robots. that, or death.

i'm going to miss that.

7: pahk ya cah

boston townies: the people you hate to love. sometimes in
conversations with these type i get so caught up in mentally noting
their accents that i completely miss everything they say. storing up
good phrases for future use requires quite a bit of mental energy, as
does remembering the many rules of townie speech; such as dropping the
r from the middle of the word (ha_va_d), or adding one to the end
(ideaR). lucky for me i've had quite a bit of practice through my
work, so i leave here prepared with a life skill that is sure to win
friends and influence people.

8: non-profit rocking

i'm really going to miss my co workers. especially duane (far left). and i can say that because i know he's the only one of them who reads this.

9: sweet caroline

it's hard to actually put down in words the joy of attending a red sox game, so i'll just let this picture or our happy faces do the explaining.

10: eat up

why does food show up on this list so often? maybe because going out to eat is just what we do around here. plus, it's all so good! in honor of #10 on the list, and to avoid getting lazy and blogging one of these each day until i leave, i'll just list my top 10 favorite restaurants in boston (in order of preference):

10. mr. crepe
9. au bon pain
8. anna's taqueria
7. felipe's
6. cafe of india
5. mr. bartley's
4. spike's
3. viga
2. boca grande
1. the greek corner

enjoy!

11: no he never returned

before moving to boston, riding the T was such a novelty experience whenever i came to visit. thinking back on my feelings then, it's funny how quickly something i used to think was special became a source of never ending complaint as soon as it became a necessity in my life. there's probably a lesson to be learned from that, but i'm too tired to figure it out. the point is that i'll miss having a transportation system in my world that can actually get me from point a to point b without first having to use my car. no offense, TRAX.

12: more lies

*as it turns out, the blog count down has been misleading about the number of days i have left in boston. partly because i moved my departure date up, but also because frankly, i can't do simple math. good luck to me in business school. anyway, i'll have to post a few tonight to make up the difference. read: tonight's entries will be short and to the point.*

number 12 belongs to the boston public library, which is not only the oldest library in the country, but is also an amazingly beautiful structure complete with lion statues and wall murals. i spent many a good hour at the bpl preparing for the gmat, of which at least 1/3 of my time was spent just staring at the walls and ceiling- not out of boredom, but out of complete awe for it's beauty.

i once heard that because of the weight of the books, the bpl sinks into the ground a fraction of a fraction of an inch every year, but that could be a total lie. either way, feel free to spread it around or put it on your blog for everyone to read.

13: and there are these trash piles in the ocean the size of texas...

considering the fact that about 1 out of every 7 of my latest blog posts is about the beach, it should come as no surprise for this to be included on the list. last saturday and today were both spent playing on the shore of nahant beach for hours on end, and have turned out to be some of my most favorite days i've ever had on the east coast. if i were mayor, i'd declare every saturday to be a beach day. mayor? maybe governor. or president. whatever it takes.

14: cape crusader

today i made my final voyage to cape cod for work and as i was driving down in my new car* i realized that, as is often the case when something becomes commonplace in life, i have taken for granted the opportunity i've had to travel to such a beautiful place every week, and get paid to do so. among the many reasons i love the east coast, cape cod is very near the top of the list and i'll definitely be missing the beaches, the people, and the taco bell in hyannis.

*pictures and blog forthcoming!

15: it's no WSJ but...

as much as i complain about the poorly reported and often offensive articles in the metro, i really think i'll miss having the daily news delivered right to my hand as i walk through the subway turn-style each morning. i'm not ambitious enough to research the economy or world affairs on my own, so having the metro cut down and regurgitate associated press stories to me every day has helped me feel at least a little more in the know (even if only about sports and celebs- to which 78% of the paper is dedicated). it may be the world's crappiest newspaper, but every day it becomes my worlds crappiest newspaper, and that makes it special to me.

in truth, the only thing i'll really miss about the metro is the daily crossword. now, if someone can tell me a 4-letter word for "dry watercourse", that would be great.

16: apples and bees

choosing where to eat based on high ratio of entertainment to food.
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

17: tbm

if you've ever tried it, then you know why it made the list.

18: nothing compares to you

new england in the fall.

19: stays together

as a primary kid i had an arch enemy who lived down the street from me who once included the request "and please bless julie will die" at the end of his prayer in sunday school. i was terrified, of course, because if there was one thing we'd all been taught at that young age it was that God answers prayer. luckily for me, God can be selective about which prayers he answers and i've now lived long enough to turn this once traumatic situation into my favorite pre-prayer anecdote. because, well, every good prayer begins with a joke, right?

okay, maybe not, but that's how it usually happens in my apartment. it's usually sylvia and me who can't stop laughing while christy stares us down and jessie sits quietly probably wondering if all mormons are this irreverent. eventually it quiets down enough for someone to inform me that it is once again my turn to pray (somehow it always is) and we commence with a bit more reverence (until sylvia feels the need to supplement the prayer with additional information). by the time the "amen" rolls around, we've usually come out alright.

i make light of this nightly tradition but in all seriousness, praying together as an apartment family is one of my favorite things about my living situation, and probably the biggest contributor to our household success. that and the fact that we're all so freaking cool. it's been a good lesson for me and above all things, this is the time spent with my roommates that i will miss the most.

20: oops, i did it again

technically i missed blogging yesterday, but it's only because my
yesterday hasn't yet ended and has been non stop party since I woke
up. beach, bbq, friends, more fun than one person can handle-and the
extrordinary thing is that this isn't totally out of the ordinary. my
life rules.

it's a harsh reality to know that my life will never be the same as it
is now. i'm certainly hopeful for better things to come, but like that
one guy once said, or wrote, (or maybe i dreamed it), "you can never
go home again."

the lesson in this? just keep partying like it's 1999.

21: hearting n.y.

some might say that if you've never experienced the fung-wah bus (china town boston to china town new york) then you've never truly lived. i say you've not only lived, but you've also increased your chances of living. i will not be missing the fung-wah.

however, proximity to new york (and relative ease of getting there) is definitely something worth missing. new york is one of those places that so many people dream of going to in their lifetime, and i've had the great fortune (or mis-fortune depending on the events that transpire during the trip) of going there multiple times. lucky for me, my final (pre-move) voyage to the big apple was amazing, leaving me with a good feeling towards the city. also, we didn't have to ride the fung-wah, so perhaps there is a correlation.

22: melting pot

it's funny how sometimes i can walk down the street in my own city and feel like a tourist with all of the different dialects being spoken all around me. i admit that when i first moved here i was uncomfortable in this position. however, i now see the diversity in boston as an amazing opportunity to learn about others and to see the magnitude of amazingness that is God's greatest creation. i'll miss this* daily occurrence in my life.

*including this on the list of things i'll miss does not indicate a belief that diversity does not exist where i'm headed. on the contrary, i believe that school will probably afford me a lot of international interaction, but i doubt there is anyone who would (or logically could) argue that for the most part, utah is extremely homogeneous, and finding these opportunities might require a little effort on my part. at least more effort than walking to the local 7-11 for a slurpee**.

**don't forget that friday, 7/11 is free slurpee day!

23: live deliberately

walden.

a public service announcement

just a quick break from my regularly scheduled blogging to bring you an important announcement...

our beloved king google has benevolently taken the security of the land into his own hands and developed a new tool enabling his faithful subjects to monitor activity in their accounts. a quick glance to the bottom of your gmail screen will tell you when your account was last accessed, from where, and if it is currently open at another computer. to find out more, click here.

tis all for now. carry on!

24: like sailors

this is not a post about my roommates, per se, because they probably
deserve a post that takes more than 5 minutes to write. this is just
about one aspect of my living situation that i'll miss
dearly-swearing.

let me clarify up front; none of us go around cursing up a storm in
front of small children or anything, but sometimes the casual swearing
around this joint comes all too naturally. plus, we've all adopted the
parry's heirarchy of swears (ask her about it sometime-it's truly
fascinating), and generally keep it on the lowest tier, so none of us
should be going straight to hell. most often the swears are in context
of quotes, so that's ok too, right? in fact, parry called me a jack
ass thrice tonight under the guise of quoting a canadian sitcom. Maybe
she meant jack ass eh?

11:55 so i better hurry up and publish so as to keep on the straight
and narrow. sorry dad for all the swearing. i learned it from mom.

25: "charles mgh: mass eye and ear infirmary"

the bus, the train, the walk, the crowds, the smell, the pain in my shoulders and neck, the heat, and the fact that i have to do it again at 5--but then the one moment each way that makes it all worth while:

26: a room with a view

this is kind of lame to be putting on my list of top 30's, but i just really love my bedroom. it's also heavily on my mind right now since i just awoke from a 3.5 hour nap, which was so needed after this weekend's many late night adventures. don't tell my roommates, but i've had the best bedroom in the house for these past 2 years. sure, the proximity to the main road makes it impossible to sleep past 6:30 am on saturday mornings, and yeah, my heater is the last on the rotation and rarely comes on in the winter, but it's been my safe haven for a long time and i'm going to miss it at least as much as the ice cream here. so i suppose that lame or not, it has it's place on the list.

all this blogging has made me tired. back for another 3.5!

27: el templo

one time i overheard someone telling another person that the big white house on the hill in belmont was mitt romney's house. they were mistaken. mitt romney lives in the big pink house on the hill. the other one belongs to a higher authority.

who would have thought that moving out of utah would put me in closer proximity to a temple? living two blocks from the boston temple has been a blessing in ways i can't begin to express in one short blog. even more so has been the chance to serve as an ordinance worker there for the past year. the experience has helped me gain a deeper understanding and testimony of the importance of the work, in a way that i otherwise would not have been able to. i have long been convinced that one of the main purposes in my coming to boston was to be extended this calling, and i know that it will have lasting affects and will always be one of my favorite parts of my boston life.

28: duh

boston on the 4th. freaking awesome. enough said.

29: you scream

utah may have a corner on the ice cream consumption market, but the stuff that's worth consuming in mass quantities is definitely made right here in beantown. in order of my preference: herrell's, j.p. licks, brighams, toscanini's, and ben & jerry's. on any given day, and almost at any given hour, you can easily access the most delicious ice cream this side of the atlantic ocean. additionally, if the health nut inside ever prevents you from indulging in your baser senses, you can always find nearly guiltless delight at berryline.

oddly enough, as good as the ice cream is out here- no one seems to know how to make a decent milkshake. go figure.

30: dangerous curves ahead

i came up with the idea of my 30 day blogging while doing the following activity, so i think it's only fitting that it goes down in history first.

the other night seth and i took a drive. this is not uncommon for us, hence, one of my favorite boston activities. the evening was beautifully warm and clear and we zipped through the backwoods of concord, sudbury, and maynard with the top down, the wind whipping through the car, and the music blaring an almost eerily matching soundtrack to the activity. at one point i laid the seat all the way back so that i could stare up at the stars through the frame of the trees overhead. it's always a good time, but that particular experience was nearly transcendental. if you've never done this, you really should.

day 1- check. think i can keep this up?

30 days

here's an announcement: i'm moving. but that's old news, right? well,
what you might not know is that today marks the beginning of the
end-at least in my mind. i've got 30 days left to pack in all the east
coast action one person can handle. luckily, there's not much I
haven't done. come on, try me. if nothing else, i could use some
suggestions. be ye warned, i'm making you do it with me.

another announcement: i've been a bad blogger Q1 and Q2. i plan to
change that by posting a different boston memory or east coast
favorite moment every day until i leave. a hefty endeavor, no doubt,
but in doing so i hope to kill two birds: restore my readership's
faith in me, and pay tribute to this amazing place i will always call
home. so stay tuned.

p.s. no birds will actually be harmed in the making of these blogs.

your mom

i love sporting events. i especially love boston sporting events. and i most especially love the celtics and the red sox. since yesterday was pretty much an epic day for bosports (the celtics record setting comeback for the win against the lakers in game 4 of the finals, and a killer win for the red sox which included a grand slam by lowell), i should be jumping for joy today, right? well, unfortunately it's a bittersweet happiness as i grieve over the fact that i 1) had a ticket to the red sox game which i gave away, and 2) don't have t.v. and therefore sat around doing basically nothing last night while others sweat over and celebrated the celtics victory in real time.

you may be asking, "what would posses a person to voluntarily give up a chance to see the red sox?" or maybe, "how could anyone miss any finals games?" to which i would probably reply, "your mom!" and then realize that the answer is actually "my mom." yep, she's back in town for the second weekend in a row, and being the good daughter that i am, i opted to play tour guide rather than sports fan last night. big. mistake.

it should be mentioned that my mother never asked me to give up my plans for her benefit, and she'll probably feel bad when she reads this. sorry ma, you know i love ya more than my luggage.

the worst part now is having to hear the incessant replay's from both games, not only from everyone in my office, but multitudes of random people outside as well. based on the sheer number of discussions i heard about one game or the other while walking through the city at lunch, it's safe to conclude that i'm the only person in the state who didn't see either. ok, lesson learned- always choose sporting events over family. wait, what?

do you feel sorry for me yet? well, don't bother. i was fortunate enough to actually attend game 1 against the lakers, so i already know i have no room to complain. now you're mad. i get it. please at least refrain from throwing raw tomatoes.

and your lovely hostess, little debbie

as i was running out the door this morning, sans lunch, the new found spendthrift in me took over and guilted me back in the door to make a lunch. too rushed to go all the way to the kitchen, i looked to my oft secondary source of food in a hurry: the 72 hour kit. cup of noodles was on the top. cup of noodles was my destined lunch for the day. and lets be real- in an emergency situation, where am i going to find a microwave?

flash forward 5 hours to right now, and ask if i'm regretting that choice. answer: not at all. in fact, as i downed what could be considered the worlds least healthy lunch, i contemplated the number of "foods" out there that neither a)carry nutritional value or b)are comprised primarily of real food, but that are still a)undeniably delicious and b)totally worth consuming from time to time. things like twinkies and oreos, sugar cereals and hot dogs, and even the occasional box of kraft macaroni & cheese, to name a few. this is the stuff kids used to grow up on, am i right? well, at least the stuff poor kids grew up on...

anyway, the point is that we all have our own disgusting food delight, and i want to know about yours. i've more than overshared about what i can get into, so now it's your turn. come on www, i want to hear what hostess delights hide under your bed...

fresh fish

may 29th was my last post? boo on me. hello? hello readers? are you still out there? meh.

so this is my life right now: on a weekly basis i spend a day or two on the cape (which my dad referred to as "the cod". no dad, stick with "the ohio" and leave the nicknaming to the natives) engaged in marketing and recruitment activities for our offices down south. yesterday i arose at the lovely hour of 5 am to be to a power-tools show at a local hardware chain at 7 am, where i would be helping set up and man a recruitment table. i was a bit worried to find that the event was outdoor seeing as the forecast was calling for the low 90's yesterday, and by low 90's they must have meant highest 90's as indicated by the "99" that appeared on the thermometer, but heat wave aside, the event actually turned out to be pretty fun. first of all, the majority demographics of those attending a power-tool show are nothing to complain about. i'm just saying, if you're a girl and you've ever walked past a construction site, you know what i'm getting at here...oh don't look at me like that. also, the store had a barbecue for the attendees, so i pretty much spent the entire day getting a tan, eating hamburgers, and chatting it up with some men folk. i casually mentioned to someone that sometimes i like a hot dog straight from the package in the fridge and had another guy perk up and ask if i liked sports and if i was married. might have been the best moment of my week, and heat wave aside, i think there are probably worse ways to spend a work day.

on a more important note, summer has unofficially officially started now that i've had my first night swim at walden. last saturday's intense heat was enough to drive anyone to extreme measures of keeping cool, and ours was to brave the still chilly waters of thoreau's old stomping grounds. it. was. perfect. the only tiny, minuscule hiccup to my every walden experience is this nagging fear that we'll take a moose by surprise as we tromp through the pitch dark woods, and be mauled to death by it's antlers. pretty gruesome, i know. i can't help being a worse case scenarioist in my head- and i'm sorry in advance for instilling this same fear into any who frequent the place late at night. it's probably completely unfounded. are there even moose at walden?

the problem with blogging infrequently is that by the time you get back to doing it, there's too much to say for one blog post. partly because no one likes epistles, but also because you are blogging at work and have a meeting with your boss in 5 minutes. or maybe that's just me.

stardate: this morning- 8 am

raise your hand if you're sick of me posting pictures of the beach!

"hey colleen, i have an idea...let's post the worlds worst pictures of ourselves on the internet."

the other night we had the lovely privilege of getting made-over (is that a word?) by the uber talented dr. dre "mac is my middle name" newton. the girl is a makeup genius who has offered to share her magic with the less visionary. she's also a total blast to be with and seeing as colleen and i both know how to spot a good thing, we took her up on the offer.

so here's a prime opportunity for c and i to give up all pretense, and to put aside propriety for the benefit of, well, who knows what. behold, the infamous before pictures! of course, we tried to look as pathetic as possible. think it worked? don't answer that.

we know, we know, the above images will haunt your dreams forever. but never fear! a dash of color here, a little mascara there, and, um, a little comb through the hair and we're saved!

so there you go. thoughts? suggestions? think we should hire dre full time? think that make-up is a little too fancy accompanied by my old cardigan? any guesses on where we went to show off our new look? do we at least get a few points on for being gutsy enough to post those before pics? (shudder, shudder...)

a fire inside*

i'm starting this blog at 10:15 am and planning to post my most random of thoughts throughout the day until i get bored enough with myself and decide to just publish. the prospect of this type of post may be incredibly unappealing to some, but i feel like there hasn't been much original thought on here lately, and i kind of miss myself. anyway, as i've said before- it's my blog and i can do what i want.

yesterday i was in the worst of moods, for no particular reason. today i have that "world is my oyster" feeling i get sometimes when i realize how amazingly awesome my life is. sorry, world, for not treating you better yesterday.

there sure has been a lot of death and destruction throughout the world lately. myanmar, china, the better part of the middle east- honestly, what have i got to complain about? despite my bad moods and intermittent selfishness, humility and gratitude for my blessings are not completely lost on me.

the above thoughts were kind of heavy. on a lighter note, i think my new toothpaste has a mildly numbing effect. 3 hours later and i still can't taste anything.

does anyone think it's wrong to want to plan future housing based on proximity to a red box?

my roommate and i recently visited the edward gorey house museum on the cape, where i purchased one of my favorite posters of all time- a picture of the gashlycrumb tinies. this is a brilliant book about 26 children (each one representing a letter of the alphabet) who meet their demise through some seriously unfortunate circumstances. delightfully dark and creepy, just the way i like it. what? it helps kids learn the alphabet! don't judge me.

last night i had one of the best steaks of my life.

nat's sister, alaina, is an a-maz-ing photographer. this is not meant to be a plug (though it could be for all my utah friends out there!), i just can't get over how good she is. check her out: http://adigitaldarkroom.blogspot.com/

at 3:00 today i'm going to talk to my boss about my future here. it's going to be pretty intense and i'm fairly nervous. i'd say to wish me luck, but it will be over by the time you've read this. so thanks for nothing.

i've got family coming for 12 straight days in june. to say i'm excited would be the understatement of this fiscal year.

most people probably don't see the o.c.d. side of my personality as much as my roommates. funny enough, it's selective o.c.d.; filing away bills, cleaning up while cooking, hair in the sink, paintings hanging straight on the walls- these are a few things i'm completely nuts about. however, cleaning my room, the state of my desk at work, and letting laundry pile up for weeks have only the slightest affect on my psychie. what does this say about me??

my saturday schedule looks like this: powder-puff football game, followed by a finnish sauna experience, and topped off with salsa dancing. that almost sounds like a meal of some sort.

okay, well, i'm getting sick of this browser being up on my computer, so that's reason enough to publish. thanks for tuning in.

*10 points if you know what this is talking about

hey, how about i post something other than pictures?

no, i think i'll stick with pictures.

once upon a time my roommates and i decided to take a trip to newport, rhode island, to see some huge mansions. the first house we saw was too big, as was the second, but the third house was...well, too big as well, but we toured it anyway.

once upon a time some good doctors from vermont decided to grace us with their presence. we boarded a boat out to georges island. good times were had by all and there was much rejoicing on land and on sea.

once upon a time laura had a circus birthday party and invited a bunch of clowns. balloon animals and funky costumes were in abundance, and there was happiness and joy all around!

a shameless, shameless plug

if you've never been to this annual event, then you have no idea what you're missing. come find out tomorrow night at the capitol theatre in arlington. it's for a really great cause. there will also be a silent auction for awesome stuff like red sox tickets, patriots tickets, hand blown glass, and other stuff.

if nothing else, come because you miss the pre-crazy tom cruise.

who wears it better?

the hair: prince caspian or me? you decide.

Saturday, something:o'clock

Wish you were here!

i'm at work right now

and this is what it looks like.

thank you world

for the international readership. i couldn't have done it without you.

more at 10

thursday night in the midst of fine dining with seth, by that i mean costco of course, i received a text message from one of my roommates with a request for a texas cake that night. it's become somewhat of a tradition amongst my friends to forgo plates in the serving process and just eat straight from the pan- each person creating their own territory of sorts. some of us are a little too o.c.d. to appreciate the abstract art of others, but it's kind of a bonding experience. behold, our thursday night feast:

















on friday night i got my hair de-colored and cut. de-colored meaning getting the black removed. in truth, it's hard for the untrained eye to see the difference, but i can. rachel came in to get her hair done and brought me my favorite drink from starbucks. how i love her. later that night, kylee, nat, and i got a little bit fancified and went to a swanky soiree at the silver pearl. it was the mocktail party of the year hosted by the handsome young men pictured below.


















marie agreed to meet me at haymarket on saturday morning so that we could take flat stanley around to see the sights. we hit up the major important ones, and he even got a chance to slap some sense into a yankees fan. in the grand tradition of randomness that is mine and marie's fun, we found a ripped up note on the green line, which someone had dropped in a neat pile on the ground. we took it back to the criddles and put it back together, taped it, read it, then put it in an envelope and mailed it to the offender with a note from us reading: "please don't litter." i know that's creepy mccreeperson, but tell me- would you ever litter again with big brother watching so closely?
































the picture less portion of the weekend began on saturday night when we met up with laura and jason for dinner at joes and laughed hard enough to drown out the torrential rain outside. my favorite part was the impression that jason gave of a gay camel, as naturally as if he'd been practicing for that moment to arrive all his life. bravo.

sunday was more stake conference followed by the long awaited, much anticipated musical fireside "truth restored", which was organized by the wonderful and talented ms. shields. it was a fantastic event and the spirit was so strong that i could hardly stop crying the entire night- which was bad considering that i was dead center in the first row of the choir. big surprise though, when am i not crying?

all in all, a pretty great boston weekend.

gone to carolina in my mind

some things that have been on my mind lately...

• allergies.
• i love las vegas. am i the only one?
• i miss having a car
• spring should stick around at this point, instead of checking in mid-day and checking out by nightfall. dressing in layers is the pits.
• the pits? who says that?
• flat stanley arrived in my mailbox a few days ago. i have promised my nephew that his flat stanley will come back to him having had the adventure of a lifetime, so now i need to find some good places to take pictures, and some sweet souvenirs to send back to his 2nd grade class. anyone have any suggestions?
• john harvard's makes a really good mandarin chicken salad
• flying across the country is ridiculously expensive. like, really, really ridiculously expensive.
• having a real job is a catch-22; working to live, but having no time to live because your working. blah.
• last night nat and i saw the movie leatherheads which is only mildly entertaining and even less interesting. had it been true to history, i might have been interested- or as nat said, at least felt obligated to be interested. short story: red box this one if anything.
• i think i might finally have a firm grasp on boston geography.
• one thing i believe men will never understand is the absolute joy that comes from getting a group of girlfriends together to eat some good food and watch an 80's movie or two.
• i have a $60 gift certificate to costco. do you know how many churros that can buy!?
• i know, i need a new camera
• having a blackberry is detrimental to my sleep patterns. i find myself lying in bed reading blogs and writing emails until all hours of the night.
• i've found that when things are in abundance to me, i lose interest. i used to crave movies, but then i got a tv and dvd player in my room and i lost interest. i crave candy, but when my desk drawer is full of it, i don't want any. if only i had a plethora of men...
• all of the taco bell restaurants found along i-95 south make the most delicious crunchy tacos in the country. believe me, i've tried a lot of taco bells in my day.
• in fact, one time my bros, sister, and mom went camping in cali, at moro bay, and we ate taco bell every day for 10 days straight.
• i miss my family. and taco bell. and california.

okay, enough. thanks for tuning in.

Quiz: do you know me?

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Sleepless in SLC

Am I the only one who can't take those two-wheeled people movers
(scooters?) serious? I just had an airport police whip by me on one at
about 25 mph. No joke, I could feel the wind as he breezed by. He's
probably off to deal with a terrorist. My life is in danger and I
can't stop giggling.

I need sleep.

i think it was the high heels

a quick update and then i promise i'll be done talking about the gmat. that is, unless, they really did make a mistake and i didn't score as high as they said i did-and i have to take it all over again. in other words, i freaking rocked it.

a few tips for test takers: study, study, study. you won't miss your social life as much as you'll miss that $250 and the celtics/jazz game the second go round. sleep, sleep, sleep, then get up early on the day of the test so that you are fully awake and alert by the time you get there. wear a power outfit; basically whatever it is in which you feel most confident-like, high heels for example. eat a good breakfast, have roommates who leave you empowering notes all over the house (such as "you're so going to do above average on this test!"), and friends who will bring you "test survival kits" full of brain food, send you annoying hallmark ecards, and one who will talk you off the ledge every single day.

most importantly, pray, pray, pray. make sure that you do all that you can and then ask heavenly father to make up the difference because, well, he will.

an affair to end

being a huge opponent to secret relationships, i'm somewhat ashamed to make the following confession. if you haven't seen me around for a while it's probably because i've been involved with someone since about the beginning of december. this is a relationship of which some of you may be aware, but the intensity of which only my roommates understand. his name is kaplan. he's smart and interesting and has a lot of potential to get me where i want to go. he's been my constant companion for a long time now and though i've learned a lot from him over the past few weeks, i'm planning to end it all on saturday, hopefully for good this time. wish me luck.

blarney and friends

alright already. i'm back from ireland. does anyone care about that anymore, or has too much time passed that your anticipation of my recap from the emerald isle has all but diminished completely? well too bad, i'm blogging about it anyway.

first off, the trip was A-MAZING. it took me a little while to understand why everything was so expensive and so nice. up to now, almost all of my international travel has been to central america, or other developing countries, so it didn't occur to me right off the bat that i might not have to take my own toilet paper into the public restrooms. the wake up call was brutal, and came in the realization of the fact that my 6 euro breakfast yogurt (6 euros, really?) was actually costing me 9 bucks. breakfast: $9, lunch: $15, finally taking a trip to europe: priceless. wah wah.

rather than post a million pictures that would take 1.75 years to upload and then another .65 years to format- only to have them publish differently than i intended, i've put together an album with short captions to almost every picture. should you feel inclined to look at these 97 photos (this is pared down from about 365 that were taken on the trip), you can find them here. as i mentioned, i've included captions of what i would probably say to you about the picture if we were looking at them together.

and now, for a brief..ahem...rundown of the trip:

day 1: we landed in shannon at around 6 am, got our car, and tried our best to adjust to the no sleep drive through the dark on the other side of the car and the other side of the road. luckily, irelanders have fabulously marked roads, and various castles and other ruins to use as landmarks on your journey. we found ourselves in limerick right around sunrise. it was so beautiful. since we weren't able to check into our hotel right away, we decided to continue driving south toward the ocean. 2 hours later we found ourselves in killarney with very little will to go on. we ate breakfast, turned around and headed back. another 2 hours and we were pulling up to the manor house of our gorgeous hotel, the adare manor, and checking into our townhouse. a few hours nap and we were ready to hit the green. we took a carriage ride around the manor, toured the building, and received our first taste of irish hospitality. really, they were so good to us there- i never even had to pretend to be from canada! that night we went to a local pub, which turned out to be surprisingly empty. no one talked to us until we were leaving- one of the (very drunk) young men at the bar shouted after us, "wait! please don't leave!" like i said, real irish hospitality.

day 2: church. the branch in limerick was a quick drive away and unfortunately we relied to heavily on lds.org to be accurate. we ended up at church an hour early. no biggie, we met the sister missionary of the missionary couple at that branch and had a good chat. still jet lagged and now having spent nearly 5 hours at church, we decided to head back to our hotel for another day of rest and relaxation. the day was too tranquil to go on about it, but suffice it to say it was just as a vacation should be.

day 3: begin the marathon days of the trip. we headed out early (at least by vacation standards) to tour bunratty castle. see pictures for more detail. after that, we continued on to the cliffs of moher (a.k.a. the cliffs of insanity in the princess bride), and subsequently my favorite part of the whole trip. for some inexplicable reason we were blessed with plenty of sunshine and blue sky on this, the most crucial day of our adventure. i'm sure the cliffs still would have been beautiful under a sky of gray, but they were absolutely astonishing in the bright sunlight. i can't accurately describe my love for this place so i won't, but please go there if you're ever in ireland.

day 4: and day 2 of the marathon days, after another full irish breakfast, we headed back to the airport to hop a jet over to london for a day and a half. we arrived in the late afternoon and wandered around a bit before the general wear and tear of the trip forced us into the local mcd's for a coke zero (from the fountain- they have it everywhere!) and some fries. hey, guess what? our measly american dollars are worth even less in london. 4 pounds ($8) each later we were on our way to find our hostel, dump our bags, and see a bit more of london. the hostel, called the menninger, was located right across the street from the museum of natural history. first of all, i've never seen such a cool and huge building, and second, i didn't know there was enough natural history in london to fill such a structure. notably, they were holding fashion week there at the same time. how fashion is tied to natural history i'm not sure, but who am i to argue? anyway, nat and i headed back out into the crowds to find our way to the theater where we saw wicked. it was my first time and i loved it so much i very nearly cried. ok, i did cry.

day 5: the beginnings of the plague kick in. three out of four of us got sick the night before. how esther escaped the infiltration of germs in our private hostel room is beyond me, but somehow she got lucky. i'm not sure how i got the plague exactly; maybe it was when i fell into the moat at the castle...or maybe it was when that rat bit my face...or maybe it was just the flu, which is more likely i guess. nevertheless, we'd come that far and weren't going to let some stupid virus stop us from enjoying london. together we boarded a double decker bus and began our tour around the city. we. saw. everything. it was the perfect way to spend the afternoon and we were able to get on and off the bus at our leisure. big ben, westminster abby, buckingham palace; it was all very surreal and fantastic and i can't wait to go back sometime when i'm not hopped up on nyquil.

day 6 we were back in ireland for the grand finale. poor mary spent the day in bed, esther struck out on her own for some site seeing around town, and natalie and i did what anyone else would do- we went to the mall! ridiculous? you may think that until you see our awesome euro-style coats and scarves, and many other goods. and listen up family, don't knock it or you won't get your presents, capish?

day 7: back to the airport and 8 hours later we land in heavy snowfall in boston. everyone on the plane cheered upon landing, which i couldn't figure out. were they cheering for the pilot? were they cheering for the snow? were they cheering because i made it through the flight without throwing up? actually, i slept for nearly the entire flight, which is what good drugs and a sleepless night will do for ya.

so that's pretty much it. actually, no it's not. there were a million tiny details of the trip that made it so amazing. if you'd like to read/see more, you can do so here, here, here, here, and here- many thanks to nat for her fantastic blogging prowess, and thanks for making this trip happen. not to get too serious at the end of this lengthy post, but i have to say that i'm truly grateful for the blessing of a good job, good friends, and an all around great life.

with that, i'll end before i get any further inta ta wee hours of ta mornin.

this weekend the criddles and i ventured out into the wild, or rather, the contained wild, with a trip to the franklin park zoo. what was supposed to be another nor-easter day actually turned out to be quite nice, and the animals were all up and about and pretty active. i think it's safe to say that we, along with the other 12 patrons who dared to brave the winter weather, had a great time. behold the lion king crew below! and, and, and, my first time posting video, yay! they are short, and boring, but even more boring without sound, so don't bother watching them if you can't listen.

rafiki

simba























uh, zazu?























no wait, zazu...?

and the best quote of the day award goes to preston for the following:

"stealing's okay as long as you say 'yoink'."

wonderland

a midnight walk in the most beautiful snow we've had all year reminded
me why i love this season. few things come close to the beauty of
fresh fallen powder and the silent world it creates.

now, if only i could procure some skis and the time in which to use them!

can you please take a message?

back from the uk. stop. been bed ridden ever since. stop. will trip update soon. stop. thank you. stop. goodnight. stop.

nobody likes a bragger

goodbye. i'll be in ireland if you need me.

sorry about your wife's second cousin...

i have no original thought, so i'll just blog other people's stuff. my bff from a million years ago (read: she knew me at 13 and still likes me- woot!) sent me a greeting card stating, "WE HATE THE SAME PEOPLE". totally brill. anyway, here's a selection of other choice ones i found while perusing the thousands of cards they have to offer. i can't actually recommend the site because a large portion of the cards are, well, completely inappropriate, but i'm sure if you're tech savvy enough, you'll figure it out.












p.s. i hate my blog layout. i promise to change it soon.