Madz Has Extreme Decisionmaking Issues that are Very Conceivably Tied to Deep-set Commitment Issues (Though Probably Not… But Then Again….)

And hilarity does not ensue.

My friends are so sick of hearing about my inability to make decisions. I can tell. The consistent background of light sobbing as I stare pleadingly at them while curled up in a ball in their rooms, the incessant barraging of redundant facebook IM’s, even the doomed silence I occasionally lapse into, are all probably very irritating.

“Flip a coin,” my reasonable, level-headed companions say. But I will not flip a coin, because I cannot trust such momentous life decisions as a third date with a Very Nice Boy, dropping a class, and which semester to go abroad, to chance.

“Make a pro-cons list,” some might say. A pros-and-cons list has never gotten me anywhere ever. We on this Earth do not know the pros, and we do not know the cons. Our worlds and our identities are infused with the incandescently beautiful illusions that we create for ourselves, and that we delight when others share with us. We might sometimes be saved by the grace of an accurate sense of intuition, or safely calculate ourselves to fortune and security. But no one is 100% sure about anything.

“Go with your gut.” Or sometimes, “Follow your heart.” These are the people who were for some reason forced to read the Madeline book way too many times. They know the terrible thing that I am unable to admit to myself, that I’ve probably already made up my mind. Yes, at this moment, I probably know for damn sure where I am going to go abroad. I am just too cowardly to let go of the could-have-been’s of every other possibility.

Take, for example, Tufts. Tufts, the best thing that’s ever happened to me, lux of my life (except for the occasional power outage), school of and maker of my dreams. It was always obviously Tufts. I clearly recall standing in my kitchen during winter break, right after I’d sent in an Early Decision application to a different school, hadn’t really researched Tufts at all beyond brochures, hadn’t seen the campus or ever been to Boston, hadn’t started the application, was applying to twelve schools. It was then that it dawned on me that, while it would be great if I got into the other school, I didn’t think I was going to, and I was going to go to Tufts.

Yet in the final throes of the decisionmaking process, I was at a loss. I was getting a slightly cheaper deal from a small, quirky school in the middle of Iowa. I would know what I was getting into. I would go from my own Midwestern suburb to a different Midwestern suburb. I would be close to my family, and far from the steely cruelty that reportedly frosted over the hearts of all Bostonians. Under their perpetually overcast skies, the Bostonians would most likely run me over with their erratic driving, or at least send a firm pimp-slap my way if I accidentally made eye contact or smiled in public. And I had blended in so effortlessly amongst the pajamas and the flannel shirts at the Iowan college. When I visited Tufts for a day, I felt rather palpably Midwestern.

After reading countless online reviews, tearing apart websites, and consulting a small village worth of people, I somehow decided on Tufts. I thought there would be moments when I would be like, “What if I’d gone to the other school,” but no, no, there were not.

Similarly, I have spent hours on the couch on our porch, surrounded by travel guidebooks from the library, anxiously reading websites and student reviews on abroad programs online. I officially have an Excel spreadsheet. It is a problem.

I was several hours in today, trying to find the school of one program in the foldout map of Beijing from a Frommer’s guidebook, when my 18-year-old brother came back from Band Camp and I started my befuddled rant. China might be cool, but China is hard. Some people can’t do it. What if I had a bad semester? What if I didn’t like China? I don’t do well around smoke or bad air. What if I was miserable in the pollution? I could go somewhere like Chile. It would be sunny, I could stay with a host family, hike around, brush up on my Spanish. And yet I would never get another chance to really learn Chinese, and going to the other end of the world could be amazing.

Sibling pointed out that this was exactly how I had sounded before Tufts. Go to China, he said. It would be completely different. It would be awesome, and I would have fun, and there was a really fast train. When I tried to argue, sibling told me impatiently that I had already made up my mind, and fell asleep on the porch floor.

Well you know, I’m not so sure about that. I hope I don’t screw it up.

One of my Favorite Stories Ever

My interview for Carleton was a bit different from other interviews. Namely, the interviewer told me stories about other schools I was applying to.

Here is, essentially, what he said two years ago about Tufts:

"Oh, Tufts! A friend of mine went to Tufts. He was stood up at the altar. He was devastated. But, they had this great around-the-world honeymoon trip planned. So he said, well, I've already got the trip planned, I'm gonna go anyway. So he went on the trip, and now he's a travel writer!"

I then proceeded to get waitlisted at Carleton. Now, I go to Tufts!

People are not terribly reliable. Education can guide you towards a fulfilling career path!

Tales of a camp counselor

I am currently working at a German language camp as a counselor. I think I'm slowly starting to get the hang of this. However, I realized my German is not so good. My accent is fine, and my grammar is okay, but I am seriously lacking in practical vocabulary. I've forgotten all of the basic vocab from my lower level german courses, and the german lit course I took had lots of vocabulary having to do with sex and death (apparently the germans like writing about that), but not much having to do with, say, canoeing. But I am managing. Fortunately I know how to say "thing" and "thingymabobber" in german, so I can just point to things. Also, we get wifi in the counselor lounge. Sweet!

Despedida

In approximately 29 hours, I will be jetting off to Santiago, Chile for 6 months to study abroad, the idea being that I'll come back fluent in Spanish and generally more knowledgeable about South America and life in general. I have sadly come the conclusion that it is going to be too crazy to write for 2 blogs, especially without guaranteed internet access, so if you're interested in my adventures, check out my personal blog, http://nitiemponitintas.blogspot.com/ for rants and pictures.
Ciao and excellent luck to all of you as well!

I love airports

I do. Well, FBOs that is. What is an FBO? FBO stands for "Fixed Base Operator" - I'm not really sure what that's supposed to mean either. An FBO is basically the terminal for private planes, and airports usually have multiple competing FBOs. In addition to providing fuel and a place to park, they usually have nice lounges with free coffee, tea, and snacks. I'm currently at Jet Aviation at Hanscom Field. They have free wifi, which is great for killing time since my flight plan until 10:00, although I'll probably head out after posting this. Today's flight route - Boston to Cleveland (lakefront), get fuel, then Cleveland to Chicago (Bolingbrook).

Pics soon... maybe. I'm off now!

Boston!

I landed in Boston. It's an absolutely gorgeous day, the flight was smooth, and I didn't have any problems parking despite the airport's reputation for being unfriendly. Also fun fact - I'm staying at the house. I didn't really make that too well known did I... hmm. Oh well. There seems to be a nice couch here, and I brought a pillow and blanket.

Also, would anyone like to go to Nantucket for the day tomorrow or thursday? let me know! have plane, will travel.

So I did like 5 million things since I last updated this blog. I feel like I've been a bad teen, sneaking off to enjoy the pleasures of Boston without blogging about it. Except that like 76.5% of the readers were the people I saw in Boston, and I'm not a teen, so really I've just been a lazy 20 something. Apart from the zany adventures I had in Boston (lots of free bread! nighttime soccer!), I've managed to sneak some synthpop onto my brother's new iPod, listen to a rockabilly cover of Beyonce's Crazy in Love, got my portrait done, and fly a mini kite.

Speaking of being a bad teen, more specifically, bad teen music, I actually watched the music video for Flavor of the Week, which I listened to the tiniest bit as a teenager and was really disappointed. It did solidify the association I have with 1985, as sung by Bowling for Soup, mostly because the video for the former is a less good version of the latter. Anyway, they both went onto my Bad Teen/Good Teen playlist,

I also went to the Second Hand Bookshop! I bought 9 volumes, which, along with 2 more, I hope to finish before September. We'll see if it can be done, which means I better start reading... now.

Mikey!

So I'm in New York visiting Mikey! It was a fun flight, I actually had to navigate around some storms. I thought I was going to have to divert way south of them, but it ended up that they moved south and I could go straight through. I wish I had something cool to say, but instead I'll just post pictures as soon as Mikey finds me a card reader. In the mean time, you can see my flight tracks:
Chicago to Penn State (fuel stop)
Penn State to White Plains, NY (Mikey!!)

Flying along. There are lots of farms in Illinois/Indiana/Ohio. Like, lots.



My "storm scope" showing lightning strikes to the south of me



flying through clouds



my trusty flight computer



and tomorrow I'm off to Boston! whee!

I hate storms. and renting planes.

Ok, so I'm sitting on my couch at home rather than going out to the airport to fly right now. It was clear when I woke up this morning (6) until around 7. Then the storm started moving in. This is now the second time a trip has been screwed up by the rental place not opening until 8. But more so I blame this darn storm. Forecasts call for it to clear up around 10, but it's just moving eastward, ie, along my route of flight.

If I do ever get out on this trip (maybe this afternoon?), you can follow me here: http://flightaware.com/live/flight/N5279V

And so it begins

Tonight I am starting the preparations for my epic journey to Boston this week. I need to remember to charge my camera and my mp3 player, but more importantly, pull out the charts and notebook and start plotting my flight. Tomorrow morning at 8:30 I hope to take off in my plane en route to new york.

However, there is a front moving in from the south which may bring storms with it. Forecasts all seem to say different things about when it will hit, anywhere from 4 am to 10 am. If I get out ahead of it, it's clear sailing all the way to New York. If not, then this trip might not happen since it is supposed to move across my flight path during the week. Fingers crossed. I think this should be a picture of it:


Enough with the meteorological stuff. I'm really super excited and nervous for this trip. I've only done one of this length before, and that was last summer out to Philadelphia. It was a fun time and a good learning experience. I hope this will be too. I'll try to take pictures and videos along the way. Hopefully updating every day of the trip.

HOW TO TURN YOUR LIFE INTO AN AMATEUR PORNO

As I write this, I am sitting in Chase’s porch (hi Chase), enjoying the post-rainstorm breeze coming in and the almost peaceful Saturday morning, were it not for the occasional base-blasting car.

In a desperate job search that brought me all the way to Brookline, I picked up some books from the great little local bookstore that Chase and I had visited when vainly trying to see John Krasinski. Sadly two hundred other rabid fangirls had gotten there before us and taken all the tickets. This particular bookstore puts pretty great books on display for often ridiculously low prices. Last time we splurged on Yiddish for Babies, the picture book with a baby on one side and a Yiddish word in a baby-related context on the other. This time, I got The Best Recipes in the World, a seven-hundred-page cookbook, for $10. I also got In the Merde for Love by Stephen Clarke, for $5, about a snarky Englishman whose misadventures in the French countryside begin to fray his idyllic vision of his sexy French girlfriend. So far it’s the best book I’ve read in a long time.

I was rather correct when I envisioned a somewhat hectic beginning to the summer in Boston, but life’s been pretty awesome too. I crashed for five days chez Benji, who very generously not only picked me up from the airport and furnished me an air mattress on a futon, but also fed me, moved me into our new house, taught me how to grill, and introduced me to Arrested Development. I am very grateful to Benji and his housebros for their welcome and hospitality.

That first week, when I wasn’t interning, I was mostly running around looking for paid work. When I’d left Tufts, I had put in a three-hour “training shift” at a restaurant, talked about a probable job at another restaurant, and been called to start right away at a shop for Scandinavian pastries. It turned out the first job had been given away during the week I was in Minnesota, the other restaurant job hadn’t realized I wasn’t full time, and DPH gave me a “training shift” but has yet to schedule another one that will include all of the potential employees, which by the way things are going sound more numerous than actual space for new hires. So I’ve been traversing the Cambridge area by foot for hours on end. Things were getting pretty desperate. I even interviewed for working behind the fish counter at Whole Foods. Cute though the Whole Foods brand may be, in the end a fish counter is simply a counter where fish are sold. “We’re not saving the world,” the gangly, pirate-y-looking fish counter manager told me.

But luckily, just as I was about to sign twenty hours a week away to the fish, I stumbled upon the cute CPK-style pizza place on Mass Ave where I’ll be cashiering a few nights a week. I have never been so excited to operate a cash register.

Happily, the people in the house before us left a lot of stuff. Benji, Emily, and Rebecca helped me move in and steal furniture from other rooms. While we were inspecting the drawers in a desk, we came across some kid’s passport. He must have been abroad to China, judging by the Chinese visa stamped inside. In the drawer below, we discovered graduation tassels heaped upon a stack of Chinese textbooks and International Relations awards.

But the best part was when we opened one of two tiny top dresser drawers to find a DVD of “Girls Gone Wild: Horny School Girls 6.” While my friends thought that my analysis of this situation was creepy, I still think I’m right so here goes: I always thought of Girls Gone Wild as the kind of “porn” that fourteen-year-old boys obtain when they see the commercials on TV and want to watch college girls get in beach fights. “Gateway porn,” if you will. Why would you want a DVD about horny college women when you can go to a frat party? This does not make very much sense to me.

Nonetheless, my friends saw potential for love in this situation. He was an IR major, I was an IR major. He took Chinese, I took Chinese. He went to China, I’m maybe going to China. I don’t consider myself to be a particularly horny individual, but I am a schoolgirl, so it was conceivable that I could even be his type. I facebooked him about retrieving his passport and “some other stuff” (we even had several favorite books listed in common), and a few hours later it was determined that this mysterious gentleman would arrive at nine AM the following morning.

My friends made several suggestions as to how I should go about handing off a passport, textbooks, tassels, and a gateway soft porno to my future husband. One suggestion was to answer the door in full horny schoolgirl dress. Another was to spend most of the morning in the shower. A less cliché suggestion was to invite him in and force-feed him breakfast foods while laying on my academic, girly charm.

The real meeting, as these situations generally work out, was distinctly anti-climactic. The ring of the doorbell struck me as a tad awkward- it was one of those, “Did I just press the doorbell? I… I dunno… I should- ohshit…. K I think it worked that time. Or twice. I dunno” kinds of doorbell rings. I answered the door in normal clothing, and thought to myself that this kid looked about fifteen years old in person. I handed him the heaping grocery bag where I had discreetly tucked his porno in with the Chinese textbooks. “Thanks,” he said, looking sheepishly at the twenty pounds of shit I had just handed him. “Dunno how I missed all this.” By this time he was basically back in his friend’s car.

The bros who had lived here previously left us quite a lot of stuff, including furniture, a grill, kitchen supplies, and a bike. We have some pretty brotastic glasses, including a Sig Ep beer pitcher.

We also got some pretty cheap furniture from a friend, whose house was originally going to sell their furniture to the next leasers but said leasers were little bitches about it. To spite them, they were trying to get rid of every single item of furniture in the house. We got a great kitchen table that is the perfect height for standing up and chopping stuff on with benches that slide underneath.

Here are the pictures of Emily and me showing off the house's hidden treasures:










OK so now it is about a week or maybe two weeks after the above was written. FYI.

What's going on, eh?

I meant to be posting more on here, but I just never seem to get around to it. I've been keeping rather busy despite not having a job right now (starting that in about a month). So what have I been up to? well..
- Ballroom dancing - I found a studio near my house and dragged one of my friends along with me so we take lessons a few times a week.
- Job applications - I need something to do over my long winter break next year, and my parents are making me apply now (not that this is a bad idea).
- Filming - if anyone follows my youtube channel, I've put out a few videos already. I'm working on 2 major episodes of my series, The Adventures of Bathrobe Man. Check out youtube.com/scit106
- Flying - I do enjoy flying. I haven't done as much as I would like, but I am doing a fair amount. Next week, I will be flying myself out to Boston and imposing myself on various friends and strangers there.

And, since I love both flying and filming, here's a combination of the two!

Victory!

So today I've just been solving problems like crazy.
Here's a list:

• the debit card problem
• the this-room-is-cold problem
  
• the ant problem*
• the not-having-worked-on-the-Newton-because-I'm-lazy project problem
• the poop water problem (poop water now available in Maine, as well as the Greater Boston area)
  
• the headache problem
• the film problem
  
• the lemon meringue pie problem
• the MFA problem part I (part II has yet to be solved)
• the voting problem
• the no-one-has-posted-here-in-a-while problem
  

Hooray that was a lot!!!!

I've also instituted a one cat policy on my bed, because while I've learned to accept lots of feline lovin' when both cats decide to sleep with me, it's too much.



*OMG they were living in my window sill! Gross!

Mad fits

So yesterday I spent a lot of time making art in my studio* and it was super cool.

Click it and it gets bigger (i.e. better).

I'm also going to participate in the Sketchbook Project, which means I'll be getting a sketchbook, filling it up with loving pictures and then sending it to these people who are collecting them and then carting them around the country to various galleries and setting up an art library for a couple weeks before moving on to another city. "It's like a concert tour, but with sketchbooks." When they're all done it's going to become part of the permanent collection of the Brooklyn Art Library. It's all rather cool and you should participate if you want. More about it here.

I just applied to be part of the WAFA Collective, so look out for news on that. I'm not expecting to actually be accepted, but they seem like a really interesting bunch of people.

In other news, I just bought a pony-shaped cake pan for a dollar.

*My studio is a table with an antique fan and art supplies set on it.

Vagrant Adventures

So I've been chilling in the Boston area since school got out, working at Tufts, which has been a perfect way for me to remain in denial about the fact that I'm going to be in Chile next month as my study abroad program starts.(Minorly terrifying) I didn't have a sublet which has turned into an interesting experiment in relying on the kindness of others. And after 2 weeks, I've come to the conclusion that people, on the whole, are AWESOME. Only seeing the generous and loving side of people has been great & done wonders for my typically pessimistic world view.

A tally of the adventures of the last two weeks includes:

Endless bus rides to Lexington (stayed at a friend's house there most of my time)
2 separate instances of drinking beers on the prez lawn (could anything be more quintessentially summery?)
1 beach day on the lovely Plum Island Beach near Newburyport
1 ride in a 1916 Model T
1 totally creepy visit to the Museum of our National Heritage (creepy because it's run by the Masons and secret societies scare the hell out of me.)
1 adventure to Brookline in search of a decent bagel(which failed sadly & unsurprisingly), falafel & JFK's birthplace
5 hours of playing Risk
3 hours of watching Star Wars
1 glorious day wondering around Harvard and reading books at the Coop
2 sightings of planets from the roof of the BU observatory
1 badly harmonized although spontaneous acapella version of Amazing Grace in a chapel
1 fantastic Trip to the MFA with Madz
1 mime show
1 trip to the ICA where I chanced across a random man describing himself as Miles from the movie Sideways to his date. Somehow, this seems like a bad dating strategy.
3 Trips to Market Basket
8 books read
1 instance of awkward creeping at a grad school party

Fwheh I got tired reliving all that- pretty much the most epic 2 weeks I've had in a while. I'm back at home in Jersey now, which has me ecstatic over the prospects of finding a decent bagel. Which is pretty much the only thing my home state is good for. It's going to be an adjustment. I'm having caffeine withdrawal symptoms already from not being able to run to Diesel or True Grounds and the amount of pollen on my farm is pretty astounding. Time for some benadryl and a nap.

"This is the place where I work"

So,

I've been in DC for a week. As I sat in the office today, I realized we've only been out of school for two weeks but it feels like much longer. I guess that's because so much has changed in the last 14 days. The first week was a whirl-wind getting ready for DC, and the second week I came down here, met my house-mates for the first time, got settled-ish and started my internship

Random observations about DC....

there are more black people, than Tufts and than where I live in CT
there are more latino people, than Tufts and than where I live in CT
this is the only city where the prevailing style seen in subways during rush-our is business-chic
the traffic lights have timed walk signals. in other places you have to push a button to get one, but in DC they are timed to match each light switch. its awesome
DC is a very healthy city, I see people running and walking all the time

My house...

is a block away from American University, which is actually located in a (kind-of) upity area of DC that's about the same distance from the metro stop as tufts is from our stop in davis. The area is beautiful, the houses are older, colonialish, and EXPENSIVE looking. There are sidewalks everywhere and it's very pedestrian friendly

the apartment has
one single- nathan a gay guy from california sleeps there
a living room turned bed room- a guy (who is probably gay) named ryan lives there
a double- where a girl Carry and I live
there is a kitchen, which is basically the common room

My housemates
are super chill. we made a dinner schedule so someone cooks: sun-thurs, and we fend for ourselves fri and sat. it's pretty great because we actually make REAL dinners like: stir fry, home-made pizza, spagetti with home-made sauce, and faijtas. If I went to school with them I would have been friends-but not best friends with them, which is fine. the other day a few of them smoked pot in the kitchen, which i thought was a bit gross, but i just went to my room and chilled, all in all, its a minor complaint compared to everything else, b/c they don't smoke all the time at all

My internship
is really cool. i keep thinking about what i might want to do as my future career, can i handle being a politician? this thing is cool about being a politician...this other thing is not cool...etc.

constituents are funny when they get mad at the government

I feel competitive with the other intern. I want to out-shine her...but I'm trying to just focus on getting as much as I can out of it, not simply beating her...although, if there was a defined way to be "first" I would definitely try earn that title,

anyway,

Hmmmm...

when I got out of work today, I decided to skip rush hour trains and walk around the capital. I was so happy looking at the big beautiful buildings, the capital, the library of congress, the supreme court. I truly do think they are beautiful.

I just felt so proud thinking, " This is the place where I work" i think I can really get used to saying that.

and in response to Coorain's status when he visted DC last summer or break.....

OMG THERE IS SO MUCH GOVERNMENT!!!!!!!!!!

(orgasm!!!!! alot!!!!)

California Comix #1

International Relations and Economics

I'm sorry, I know they are boring topics that everyone is trying to get away from during summer break. However, no one has posted anything here since Friday, so now I'm going to start talking about school subjects. Muahahaha!

Kidding, of course. Well, sort of. I am going to talk about IR and Econ, but in a way that I at least found interesting. Today I went into the city of Chicago to a luncheon/ lecture put on by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. The featured speaker, and the reason I went, was Jim McNerney, the CEO of Boeing. As you can probably guess, I love Boeing.

On the other hand, I don't (or didn't) really care that much about trade with China, which was the main topic of the lecture. I now have a lot more interest in Chinese trade and diplomacy, and the scale of the Chinese market, both on the factor side and the goods side. Jim estimated the current size of the Chinese commercial aviation fleet at a bit over 1,500 aircraft, and claims that they could have ten times that number before reaching the level of saturation we experience with air service in the U.S. presently. That is a lot of airplanes. [Disclaimer: I did not take notes, so these figures are just from memory]. Point number 1: China is relevant. They may be starting to grow into competing markets with us, but there is still a lot to be gained from trade.

What I found most interesting was, during his lecture, Jim kept things understandable to someone like myself. He used terminology straight out of economics textbooks, like comparative advantage, free trade, and foreign direct investment. So - surprise! We actually are learning relevant things in class; the CEO of the US' top dollar-value exporter uses these concepts in managing the company. Point number 2: Our education actually has some real-world applicability. Take that, engineers! (that said, I think Jim McNerney was probably an engineer at some point in his life).

Also, I sat next to the VP of Exhibits at the Museum of Science and Industry. I got a card. I'm hoping for a free tour.

The Magical Land of Minnesota

One week and one day ago, I was self-exiled (sexiled?...) in the quiet reading room, coffee coursing through my veins, bemoaning the fact that I was still working on a nine-page Islam and Modernity paper while all my friends were off engaging in flapdoodle and tomfoolery. All except for Lorrayne, who was right there with me to the bitter end. She also had to bear the brunt of my typical extremely emotional state that sets in around times of academic duress. I don’t really know what it is about spending a week in the library that makes me contemplate- nay, ponder- the course of life, the pursuit of happiness, and all love and beauty on the Earth. It can get pretty sad. Last Thursday, a nice boy we barely knew had studied and gone to Dewick with us and said he would join us in Tisch but didn’t, and frankly by the way I was swilling my caffeine and whining to Lorrayne, you would have thought that I had been stood up at the altar. It was a problem on multiple levels.

However, I am proud to say that after nearly a week of sleeping, chillin with the fam, and seeing friends, I am actually a human again. Nothing like walking around a lake in the sun with people you love and swinging and shopping and making poor nutritional decisions to bring color back to the world. I love being around people whenever I can when I’m at school, I go to the library in lieu of being in my dorm room alone, but when I’m at home my capacity to amuse myself tends to expand to hermit-like proportions. I love spending a day or two napping at weird times, chopping veggies, playing some piano, reading random things, and watching LOTR or, in the case of tonight, Sherlock Holmes, with my ten-year-old bro.

Speaking of, Sherlock Holmes is a pretty sexy film. It’s about a physically attractive man who is completely out of it and sometimes on drugs who runs around London performing astounding mental and physical feats. His assistant, who is more stable but no less beautiful, picks up the pieces of Holmes’ drug-induced romps. That is essentially all I got from the movie.

I’m a bit anxious to return to the Tufts area on Sunday. My dear friend is letting me crash at his house until our house’s lease starts, but I’m still not entirely sure how I’m gonna find a bed and if I’m gonna have to drive a rental moving truck through harrowing Boston traffic to pick one up, whether I for sure have a paying job, whether breaking even for the summer is an attainable or even desirable thing to aim for, etc. Well, I could’ve just stayed in the Midwest, but I decided to explore the mysterious lands of cobblestone streets, marshmallow fluff, stunningly bitchy customer service, and effective public transportation instead.

Puppies!

Since Coorain got to talk about cats, it's only fair that I get to mention what showed up to my house this morning. And tried to eat me.

These two little fur balls belong to our housekeeper. The one on the right, Toby, she got maybe 2 weeks ago (before I got home) and so we told her to bring him this week so I could see him. Then, to everyone's surprise, there were two! The one on the left, Roby, apparently showed up Wednesday. They are hilarious and adorable, and carnivorous. They lure you in with their puppy eyes and then lunge at your face with mouths agape.

My heart still belongs to my own puppy though. He's actually 5 and looks like a giant compared to these guys.

Right now, I can't sleep, mostly because I can't handle the amount of love my cats are currently showering me with.

Actually, just one of my cats. The other one doesn't care, which is somewhat disheartening, because the one ignoring me is the cat I chose. (My brother and I each got to choose a cat. Now "his" cat loves me and my cat does not.)

The cat in question looks like this, only less festive and more alive. He also likes doughnuts, but only if they're from Tim Horton's.

Anyway, since I got home, he hasn't left my bed or my lap.We talked about it I yelled at him at 3am yesterday, but to no avail. I do like cats. A lot. It's just that after 3 months of no cats, a cat sleeping on you 24/7 is kind of like when we were forced to carry those fake babies for health class in high school. At first it was super exciting (OMG I HAD A BABY! LET'S NAME IT BOK CHOI!), but then it cried (BOK CHOI, WHY YOU SO UNHAPPY?) and it got old faster than Katy Perry's latest song (BOK CHOI IS STIR FRY).
Ok, I'm actually starting to get tired, and will try to enjoy some sweet, sweet feline loving.

Canada

I decided to visit Canada's Southern Province, also known as Maine.

Maine is located next to New Hampshire, which is located next to New York, which itself is located next to Canada.

People in Maine were really nice, like Canadians.

We visited a city in Maine called Portland. Portland is next to the ocean. Canada has cities.

We went to a Tim Horton's ®. HOLY SHIT. TIM HORTON'S ® IS AMAAAAAAZING. Tim Horton's ® is also from Canada. It's like Dunkin' Donuts ®, but with smaller donuts.

We saw a lighthouse.

Let the adventures begin!

So first off, I apparently don't know how to make a blog post. I'll get the hang of it.

Anyway, now to the story. I went flying for the first time in a few months today. Just a few takeoffs and landings around the home airport to brush off the dust, which was apparently pretty minimal. So now I'm getting excited for some epic trips (as soon as I decide when to do them and where to go).

Story behind the picture: I got out to the plane this afternoon and the wheel strut seemed to be covered in white duct tape. A very reassuring sight.

Now that we have an adventures blog and I have my wings again, let the adventures begin! I will be sure to keep everyone updated on my travels, hopefully with cool photos too.

WTF (mate)??

Once upon a time, in an ambiguously-sized liberal arts college in an academic locale, there were several students. But these were not just any students. These students were the total package. Book-smart and street-savvy, they were fricking brilliant. Mind-blowingly hot yet still sweet and approachable, they were so sexy that you would simultaneously want to [kinky fantasy deleted] and raise beautiful children with them in a nice, safe neighborhood with a good school district. And they all had a sense of adventure to make Bear Grylls either retire in shame or beg them to make attractive, adventuresome babies, maybe on a mountain or while skydiving or you know, in a nice, cozy house in the suburbs of Iowa. Provided there was a good school district. These brilliant, sexy badasses will be in many different places over the next year, finding adventure, love, and academic success everywhere from interesting cities to quasi-nudist student organizations in log cabins. This blog is so that they can share their sheer amazingness with each other and randos on the Internet.

And I'm sure I forgot lots of people so please invite whoever you want!