A Year in Review!

I can't believe 2009 is already over.  Its been one of the longest years of my life, with its shares of ups and downs, and it is with mixed feelings that I bid it goodbye.  A lot has changed in the past year and I can only imagine that more will change in 2010.

The year started off with another trip to CA, where I got to see the same things and some new ones (big trees!).  I reaffirmed my desire to live in the middle of the Golden Gate Bridge, or right on top of the Marin Headlands where you can get out of your car and take pictures.

Disneyland happened again, this time with Bella and Lety, which only made it more fun!  I went on my first loop rollercoaster and loved every minute of it except for the loop...won't be doing that again.

February brought with it another Beanpot Championship for BU, which was spectacular because I somehow snagged tickets to the game and was able to witness the happiness.  I got to see the Cards in concert (RIP Spacewolf!) and enjoyed every minute of it, even though I didn't know the majority of the songs.  And we saw Neil close up, and I may have screamed his name really loudly...

Spring brought with it the usual rain and nice weather alternating daily (ok, sometimes hourly) and also brought the NCAA Championship trophy to BU, complete with parade a la all Boston sports teams.  I'm not sure if the hockey team actually merited that, but it was cool, nonetheless.  And a perfect culmination to my 4 years of BU hockey obsession.  Oh, how I currently miss hockey.

  AFter the joy that the hockey championship broght, it was time to settle down and finish out my senior year.  Because, if you've been living under a rock, I did graduate in 2009.  Probably one of the scariest things ever to happen to me.  But I was ready.  It was becoming very tedious!  I got to travel to some fun senior week events, like the Vineyard and a pseudo-beach party that was lacking something since it was about 55 degrees that night.  Oh well.  At least that entire week, including graduation, was rain free and included a suprise concert from John Williams and the Boston Pops.  DREAM COME TRUE.

  

Summer was filled with more whiney teenagers who complained about everything from their dorm rooms, roommates, to the weather (because clearly the PAs could control Boston craziness).  I got my last couple Sox games in and enjoyed time with the best staff ever.  Despite the almost wintery weather during the first part of the summer, the rest was wonderful!

August brought my move to DC, the furthest I've ever been from home for longer than 6 weeks.  It brought a lot of changes, but I can truly say I love it here.  I've found a bunch of new friends, whom I love, a great job, and if school isn't all that I expected it to be, well at least I'll get my master's and maybe have a job to show for it.  (I hope).  Its been a rough and tumble few months here to start, but I think I've found my niche.

2009, you had your ups and downs, but you were mostly a good year.  I can't believe that the first decade of the 2000s is over.  I feel like 1998 was just yesterday, not 12 years ago.

Let's hope that 2010 is a great year!

To Catch Up:

I can't believe the semester is already winding down.  It went by so fast, and I really feel like I didn't learn anything.  Which is really bad because this is my career.  But my classes just aren't informative.  We just discuss the readings, not anything really practical.  I'm excited for next semester.

Speaking of next semester, I got an internship!  I'll be working at the National Museum of American History in Medicine and Science.  I'm really excited :).  There's a couple other people interning at NMAH too and we plan to have lunch dates.  And another is at NMNH.  So I'm sure I will see people.  It will almost be like a read job!  For my other classes, I'm taking Collections Management 2 and Ceramics Analysis (meh?).

I'm really sick of my papers, but I'm SO excited to travel for the holidays.  I love christmas!  And STUFFING WEEEEE.

Halloweeeen

I really should update more.  But I'm just so busy!  This weekend was supposed to be my relax, do nothing, veg before the haul starts.  Unfortunately, I started panicking about my various papers and so I ditched on todays plans to do homework.  Which really didn't happen because I am so tired!  Ah well.

Well, Halloween was fun.  My house was the loser on the block as we forgot to buy candy because STeve stupidly said that there are no trick-or-treaters.  LIES.  Apparently my neighborhood is the one to travel to within the District.  Oops?  Party was good.  Joelle, Beth and Caitlin hosted it and I had fun.  Because some of you might be wondering about the people I've met here, I'll show some pictures.  (And you can tell from the disjointedness of this post just how exhausted I am!)

Jaron, Caitlin, Joelle, Chris, and Nicole

Hostesses!  Joelle, Beth, and Caitlin

Amelia, Me, and Jaron

Hello...December?

Well, I spoke too soon when I said that fall was gorgeous.  Not two days later, the weather took a turn for the worse, and its been a lovely, brisk 45 with rain.  Now, I know its been colder and snowing in New England (HAHAHHA), but it literally dropped 35 degrees here overnight.  Which means I felt like crap for a couple days, but I think I am adjusting now.  Just in time for it to warm up on Monday when the weekend is over.  YAY!  At least I had no plans except for laundry, which I'll just have to keep putting off.  Oops.

In other news, I had my second week of work today and everyone was back in the office from their meeting.  It's really great.  My boss is legit nuts, and the Dir. of Communication is CRAZY, but hilarious.  He's started rhyming my name with everyone.  Giant fail.  Oh well, everyone does it at some point.  I have more stuff to do and its really fun and I like it so much.  Yay work!  And I got paid today!  Even better!!

really, more things need to happen in my life worth writing about!

Well, some things have changed since I last updated. Good things! I HAVE A REAL JOB, for starters. I'm working in a contract position as a Membership Assistant. I'm still not really sure what I'll be in charge of yet...the majority of the office was out this past week at a Global meeting in Vancouver, so things were really slow. But this week, I've been told that things will pick up since everyone is back in the office. I'm really excited. It pays well, and I'll actually be able to make my rent and have some left over! HOORAY!
School is, well, school. Classes have started to pick up, but I don't really like any of them. I am excited for next semester because I will have a more hands-on class, an anthro class, and (hopefully) and internship. I'm really excited to intern! THings are picking up at school, however, and I have papers and other crap starting to be due. And I just do not feel like doing them. ever. Ah well, what can you do!
In other news, I LOVE FALL IN DC. Now, it is true that I miss New England colors. I haven't seen too much evidence of them here; even yesterday when Jenna and I ventured out of the city to go thrifting and to IKEA there wasn't too much change yet. We decided its because its been so remarkably warm the past week or so. But the trees on my street are starting to change and leaves are starting to fall. When you walk, they swirl around your legs (along with some sticks and a LOT of pollen...enter allergies). And the weather is just absolutely gorgeous. Its exactly what I wanted from a fall. There's been no rain other than a few days, and it wasn't gross and cold like in Boston. Its been sitting at a very comfortable 70 degrees for the majority of October (not counting last monday when it decided it needed to be 84...) with sun and a slight breeze. In other words, GORGEOUS. even in the mornings, its cold, but not unbearable. Its absolutely gorgeous and makes up for the sauna that is DC in the summer.
Now that things are falling into place, I'm really glad I came here. While sometimes I wonder about the MSTD program, I'm really glad I got the hell out of New England.

Classes have begun, work has begun, yet I am still going on interviews (9/15/09)

I swear, I will do ANYTHING to just get a real job, in an office, in which I have some responsibility, and can use half of my brain. But I guess my job right now is alright seeing that its money and that is good. But I have two more interviews this week and I should hear back from the job I interviewed for last week soon. I hope. I just need another job in an office. With real business hours.
Classes have started. We are into week 3. They are alright, I guess. My collections management class seems like it will be fun. I love collections and I am really interested in that. My exhibition class also seems cool. I like the professor a lot. And museum administration should be...fun? I liked this week's readings tho, so who knows! Thats the one avenue where I could possibly have a chance of getting a job immediately.... yay?
Wish me luck!

Settled (8/21/09)

Well, here is my first update for y'all. I'm all settled in (mostly) even tho I still need a few things. But they have to be creative because there's no more room in my room!!

Anyway, our journey to DC started a little later than normal and was totally uneventful until we hit NJ. Even crossing the Tappen Zee Bridge wasn't all that backed up.

There we hit every ounce of Shore traffic we could possibly hit. It took like 4 hours. Ie, it was miserable. Once we were through Jersey, however things went smoothly. We made it through Delaware (which takes all of twenty minutes) and into MD. And the Chesapeake. I LOVE THE CHESAPEAKE. There, you take a cool bridge over some body of water to get to the southern side (the beltway, maybe?).

Once we were over that, we headed to the DC metro area. Where we hit MORE traffic. We were on the seventh or eight hour by this point...shoot us all.

We finally hit DC where it took us a very short time to get to my place. Albeit much later than I was expecting. We moved a bunch of stuff up to my room, and decided to go to Ikea since Jenna was there and needed to go too.

The rest of the weekend was spent with unpacking all my crap and painting my room. Its nice and blue and my bed is adorable and I love my apartment. However, it is low on space, but I can't really do anything about that. As Steve says, thats the price you pay for paying less than $1400 to live in DC. In addition to unpacking, we got to show my dad around some sights since I have no idea when he will be able to get back down here. All in all, it was a good (if busy) weekend.

And now I've spent the week doing nothing but unpacking a little bit more or trying to organize my room. I met up with another museum studies person to explore a little bit and we went to the zoo! They have really awesome animals there, I loved it. I also met up with a girl who also graduated from BU Archy and we had lunch and walked to the Capitol Building and the Library of Congress. Really cool. I'm so excited to be living near all these national monuments!

DC is an awesome place, and I'm pumped to be here. Now if only I would get a job!

Apartment:

End of an Era (7/30/09)

Well, I am about 2 weeks out from leaving for the next however many years to DC. I was having mixed feelings about this, but I find that after visiting DC, I no longer am. I am wholeheartedly excited about moving. It will be a totally clean slate. No one there knows me, I have no history in DC. It will be all new people and I really can't wait to start. These last couple weeks are going to be really torturous.
Hopefully, I will be regularly updating this blog about my time in DC, just to keep y'all updated as I am not sure how much (if any) free time I will have to chat to everyone. But I figure you might be able to follow me via this!