Saturday, June 26, 2010

Key West and other stuff

Hi all!! This post is way overdue. Towards the end of April I went to Key West with my mom and Ben. The main purpose of the trip was to scatter John's ashes. It was a place that he loved going to, and he and my mom had been there together twice. We stayed on the main street (Duval Street) in a bed and breakfast called Duval House. As far as food goes, we ate breakfast at the hotel everyday because it was included. There's a great crepe restaurant that we went to for lunch twice. The first time I had a Nutella crepe, and the second time I had a strawberry cream cheese crepe. One night for dinner we went to a restaurant called Blue Heaven, but I don't remember what I had. One night we ate on the boardwalk, but I don't remember the name of it or what I had (there's definitely an advantage to writing blog posts shortly after things happen as opposed to waiting). We tried to see the sunset because my mom said they were supposed to be really good, but we didn't see a good one. On the boardwalk they have all kinds of performers. There was one guy who was working with trained cats and having them jump through hoops and stuff. There was one man who was doing stuff with fire, and two men who were throwing hats and catching them on their heads.

One day we went to the Key West Aquarium, which is really nothing special. Another day we went to the Key West Butterfly Conservatory, which was really cool. One day we went to Hemingway's house, which was also pretty cool. Hemingway had a lot of cats, which still roam the house. Also, Ben had just read The Old Man and The Sea so it was interesting to see all the paintings and stuff from that around the house.

The first full day that we were there, we went to Taylor State Park, which has a beach, so that we could scatter John's ashes. A kind of funny but sad thing that happened was that we would throw the ashes, and because it was a windy day, they would come right back to us, as if John did not want to leave us. I know that that's where he would have wanted to be, though.

In other news, I spent a day at the mall with Jess a couple months ago, and spent my Delia's gift card and then some (I bought a pretty blue tank shirt, white capris, and a sweater, among other things). There's this really cute store in Millburn that we also went to. It's called Un De Find. I bought a grey long sweater. We went for sushi (which I really like now, despite having never really tried it before Ben's birthday last year when we went to a hibachi steakhouse in Millburn that also has sushi) in downtown Maplewood, and then met my mom and Ben to see the movie Oceans, which was really good.

Fast forwarding a bit to present day, Ben graduated from high school on tuesday. All I can think of to say is I can't believe it.

That's all for now. I start my job at the preschool camp on tuesday, but I will try to write again soon.

--Emily

Saturday, May 8, 2010

We interrupt your regular programming for a strange but awesome dream

Soo...last night I had a dream that they made sculptures of the cast of Glee at Madame Tussaud's (which they might actually do some day and which would be AWESOME). The sculptures were like up on a stage with built-in benches surrounding it (the stage was just in the middle of the room, not up against a wall) and the actual cast was sitting on the benches pretending to be statues, but they would talk to you if you went up to them.

I talked to Lea Michele and got really close to Cory Monteith (he wasn't sitting on one of the benches, he was standing in front of a column that was close to the stage and went from the floor to the ceiling). When I got to where Dianna Agron was sitting, she was in the middle of a conversation with another cast member, and I joined in, not thinking that it would be a problem, but Dianna looked at me and was like, "Why are you in this conversation?". I turned and walked away slowly to go see the other cast members. I tried to go back to talk to Lea Michele again, but as I was walking back to the other side of the stage, that half of the cast was leaving to go on their break. I said goodbye to Lea and she was just like "bye". I was sure she thought I was crazy. I'm definitely crazy obsessed with Glee, but probably not crazier than most people.

That's all for now. I promise I will write more soon (I still have to write about my trip to Key West and my day at the mall with Jess).

--Emily

Saturday, May 1, 2010

A Weekend at EC

Towards the beginning of last month (4/8 through 4/11) I went to visit Earlham, to see all my friends who were graduating before they graduated and I didn't see them for a while, but also to see friends who had been abroad in the fall, and basically anyone else that I could see that I knew. I didn't know this when I planned the trip, but that weekend also happened to be the weekend of the opening of the senior art show, so it worked out pretty well. I have several friends who are art majors who are graduating this year (in exactly a week...how scary is that?!?!?) so it was fun to see them and their art.

I arrived on thursday (4/8) and had to take a cab from the airport to EC (which wasn't really a big deal except for the cost which was like $90). I had to program the cab driver's GPS for him, which I thought was a little funny. No matter where I go I never seem to get a cab driver who knows where he's going. ::SHRUG:: I was staying with Ilana (my roommate from the spring of last year) so when I arrived at EC I went to her room. I wasn't expecting her to be there, but surprisingly she was. She was getting ready to go to a meeting for her Ford Knight project (if any of you read the Earlham blogs, it's the same one that Mandi's in...the one with Ana Cornide) so we stopped at the coffee shop and I got a wrap.

On friday I woke up and went to Tim Horton's for breakfast, where I had a muffin and OJ for breakfast, and then I purchased two cases with 40 Timbits each (for those of you who don't know what timbits are, they are Tim Horton's version of munchkins or donut holes)for later to surprise Bill and the choir with. When I got back Ilana still hadn't left for her class yet. It was in LBC (the Landrum Bolling Center) so I went with her to see if my advisor was there and I could talk to him. It turned out that he had a class, but I asked him if I could sit in on it and he said yes. It kind of made me feel like I was a student again. It made me wish that I was already back in school. Friday for lunch I ate my only meal in Saga for the whole weekend. I had pizza and pasta. I can't really say that I missed that.

Friday afternoon I went to choir, Timbits in hand. Luckily before I got to the Hancock room where choir is usually held, I got a text from my friend Lauren, saying that they were in Goddard Auditorium, which is on the other side of campus in a building called Carpenter. I hurried across campus, and by the time I got there the choir was warming up. I got to sit and listen to them (Bill made them say hi to me in high pitched voices as part of their warm-up, which surprised me a little). My friend Nick was there visiting for the weekend too. He was also in choir so he came to sit in on the rehearsal. At first he was sitting up in the balcony, but then he came down to sit with me. Friday for dinner we were trying to figure out what to do. I wanted to go out, but Ilana does not have a car on campus. Nick offered to go with us, and Erin came too. We went to IHOP and I got a nutella crepe, but was not able to eat the whole thing, so I saved it and ate it on saturday for breakfast.

On Saturday I went to my first rugby game ever (I never went to rugby games while I was a student, even though some of my friends were on the team) and I got to hang out with Phoebe, who was also there for the weekend, because her boyfriend is on the rugby team. It was really fun and interesting to watch, especially when our team won. For lunch there was "Heart Attack", also known as they were serving hamburgers and hot dogs on the heart with music and ice cream and stuff. I got to hang out and see all kinds of people (Including Hannah, Maia, Kyla and Carolyn, among others) some of whom I hadn't seen in a while and some of whom were graduating or visiting or working for Earlham. I ended up spending about 3 hours in the sun on the heart, just chatting with people, and my face got really sunburnt!! Saturday night Ilana and I ordered a pizza from Domino's and walked to pick it up. Then Erin and I went to see Othello which was being put on by the fine arts department. Several of my friends were in it, and it was really good. After Othello I went to the coffee shop to get a smoothie, and I hung out with my friend Josh for a while. There was a concert in the Comstock room that I checked out for a little while before leaving to settle in for the evening and go to sleep.

Sunday was the highlight of the weekend. I woke up and went to brunch with Michelle and Lara (Michelle was my roommate from the fall of last year, and Lara is one of her really good friends from home who she went to high school with and it just so happened that she decided to go to Earlham as well). We went to 5th Street Bagel and I got a pumpernickel bagel with strawberry cream cheese. We got back just in time for the opening of the art show. There were all kinds of pretty paintings, photos, tapestries, metalworks, and ceramic pieces in both Ronald Gallery (in Lilly Library) and Leeds Gallery (in Runyan Center). Erin and I left at 3 PM to go to the airport so I could fly back to NJ and have a day to recover before leaving for Key West (which will be the subject of my next entry in here).

It was great to be at EC and not have work or have to get up early to go to classes, but at the same time it was a little weird. I felt comfortable and completely at home, but everyone kept asking me what I was doing there.

I don't really have much else to say on this subject, except I want to congratulate all my friends who are graduating in exactly a week. I can't believe it's been exactly a year since I graduated!!!

That's all for now. More soon.

--Emily

Monday, April 26, 2010

Because I'm waaaay past due on blog posts...

Soo much has happened since my last post that it's not even funny. I'm going to list things that have happened, and then each one is probably going to be a separate post: I spent the weekend at EC and then part of the following week in Key West, I went to the mall (the other day) and spent 2 gift cards (well, one entire one and then some, and part of another one), and I went to a movie and almost played miniature golf with a guy friend from middle school / high school that I haven't talked to in FOREVER.

This post is going to be about the last thing on my list, because even though it happened before anything else on my list, it stands out the most in my mind for more reasons than one (one of them being that I just talked to him on AIM tonight). I'm going to call this boy monkey, because that is part of his AIM screen name. Monkey IMed me randomly one day and we started talking. He mentioned that he wanted to go see the movie The Crazies and I mentioned that I don’t really like horror movies, but that I might be interested anyway. There is a certain kind of horror movie that I like, which I guess really wouldn’t be considered horror. It’s really more of like Action-Adventure / Thriller. ::SHRUG:: I dunno. Anyway, we decided to go see the movie. He picked me up and we went to dinner at Friday’s first. By the time we got to the movie, we were too late to be able to see the one we had wanted to see, so we ended up seeing Repo Men. It was really good. I like Jude Law…a lot and he was really good in this movie. I would suggest that if you like Sci-Fi / Thriller type movies, and you haven’t seen Repo Men that you go see it, or if it’s not in theaters anymore (which I don’t think it is, wait until it comes out on DVD and rent it.

Anyway, back to Monkey. The week after we saw Repo Men, Monkey invited me out again, and I had an urge to play mini golf. There’s an amusement park on route 22 in Elizabeth (I think) called Bowcraft that used to have mini golf (this was before I went away to school…I didn’t know that when I left to go to EC as a freshman they took it away…I hadn’t been there in 4 years). We decided to go there. It wasn’t until we got there that we found out that they didn’t have mini golf anymore. We went to the pet store next door for a little while to look at the animals, and then we decided to get back in the car and see if we could find another mini golf place. Monkey’s GPS said that there was one in Kenilworth called Pitch and Putt, so we decided to go there. On the way there I decided that I wanted coffee, so we were looking for a Starbucks. We pretty much drove all around Kenilworth trying to find it, taking a scenic route through the town. I could have sworn we were lost and I was never getting home again (ok, maybe that’s a slight exaggeration, but the story doesn’t end there). As we were pulling back onto the main road, there was a stoplight and several cars ahead of us. Monkey started swerving, and I was literally afraid for my life. I kept thinking that if I wasn’t depending on him to get me home, and I knew where I was, I would have gotten out of the car right then and there. On top of that, once we stopped he realized that he knew where the Starbucks was all along, and he thought it was the funniest thing in the world…he literally could not stop laughing for a good five minutes (that’s probably an exaggeration too, but it really felt like he was laughing for a long time). I was thinking to myself “it’s not that funny”, and I really should have said something. He asked me if he was scaring me, and I was trying to be nice. I said that he was creeping me out a little.

We got to the Starbucks (which was inside an A & P (supermarket), ordered our coffee, and I politely asked him to take me home, saying that I didn’t feel like playing mini golf anymore (I actually still really wanted to play, just not with him). On the drive home we kind of got back to talking, as if the whole thing had never happened although in my mind I was still a little scared. Somehow we got started talking about movies. He mentioned that he had never seen the movie The Notebook and I said that I had it at home and he should come over to watch it sometime. Meanwhile, I’ve kind of been avoiding him ever since. He texts me and asks me if I want to hang out or do stuff with him and I always say that I’m busy. I’m not sure if he just wants to be friends or something more. I also don’t know how to tell him that I don’t want to hang out with him but not hurt his feelings. ::SHRUG::

One last thing before I go to sleep, as I’m kind of tired, and it’s 12:33 AM: When I talk about relationships on here I’m going to use the scale that my aunt created. I guess I’ll call it “ the whelmed scale”, because the rankings are underwhelmed, whelmed, and overwhelmed. I feel like the perfect relationship would be somewhere between whelmed and overwhelmed. Whelmed to me means that you think about the person a lot, but not all the time, you like to do things with them, they make you happy / excited, but not giddy or overly excited. Overwhelmed to me means that you think about the person all the time, so much so that it interferes with daily activities (which could be a good thing or a bad thing), you like to do things with them a lot, and they make you giddy and overly excited (which again, could be a good thing or a bad thing). I think I am underwhelmed in my relationship (if that’s even what it is) with Monkey.

That’s all for tonight, more soon hopefully.

--Emily

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Because it feels like I haven't updated this in forever...

It's been a little over a week since I last posted here. A lot has happened, but I'll try to be as brief as possible, because I've been told that it's easier for people to comment on shorter entries.

The weekend before last was Passover, and my mom and brother and I went to my aunt's house in Mt. Kisco (in upstate NY). They have a lot of property, and all kinds of animals (monkeys, lemurs, exotic birds, zebras, rabbits, kangaroos, albino wallabies, emus, rheas, ostriches, and donkeys among many others). Basically, it's my favorite place on earth (atleast out of the places that I've been to so far...LOL). We went on Saturday, and I got to drive on the highway a little (something I haven't done in a while and something that I like a lot better than driving on suburban streets). Saturday and Sunday were gorgeous, but on monday and tuesday it was rainy and conditions were less than ideal for going to see the animals.

This past Saturday my mom and Ben and I went to play miniature golf with Ben's friend Sara who goes to school with him and her mom. It was really fun. I hadn't played miniature golf in a really long time, and so I was really in the mood to play. I even got a hole in one on one of the last holes!! :D Afterwards, we met Sara's dad at Friday's for dinner. I tried to order a drink, but since I had left my ID at home and I don't look like I'm 21 (let alone 22) the bartender would not give it to me. It should be noted that they won't even let you sit at the bar if you are not 21, and I was sitting at the bar. There was a girl working at the bar who also looked young, but I don't think she would have been working there if she was under 21. I also think that if I had asked her for a drink she would have given it to me. ::SHRUG:: Oh well.

On Sunday I went into the city to meet Phoebe for lunch and hanging out. I took the subway from Penn Station to Union Square and didn't get lost!! :D We went to a Japanese restaurant near where Phoebe lives and had sushi for lunch. I had a California roll. Phoebe got some roll with salmon, and some other roll with some kind of spicy stuff and avocado on top. I tried one of each, but I don't remember what they were called. It was all really good. I never really ate sushi when I was younger, because the mere thought of it was kind of disgusting to me. However, once I finally tried it, I realized that it actually tasted really good. :D After sushi we went to get pedicures and then just continued to walk around. When we got tired of walking around we found a place to sit and people watch / talk in Union Square Park. At one point there was a father walking with his two daughters and one of them was named Phoebe. Phoebe told him that she commended him on the naming of his child. :D We then watched as little Phoebe struggled with her father because he wanted to put her in the stroller with her younger sister and she didn't want to go. When it got to be 5:30, I figured it was probably time for me to go, as there was a 6:11 train back to Maplewood that I wanted to take. Phoebe took me to the subway, and I got on heading in the direction of 34th Street. When I got off I started walking in what I thought was the direction of Penn Station, only to find out after walking a block that I was going in the wrong direction. I turned around, and was able to make it to Penn Station with half an hour still to spare. I sat down and waited for them to post what track my train was going to be on, and then when it was posted I boarded the train.

Tonight my mom and Ben and I went out to dinner with John's cousins, Jake and Lee. We went to the Olive Garden, and I tasted a really sweet wine. I don't remember what it was called, but it was good. I also ordered a strawberry daiquiri, and I did not even get carded. I asked if the waitress wanted to see my ID, and I was about to pull it out, but she said no. And now I lost my train of thought...Grr. I hate when that happens. I'll have to come back and edit this later.

**EDIT (4 / 8 / 10):** I think what I wanted to say before was that it's funny how to some people I look my age or older, and to some people I look younger ::SHRUG::

--Emily

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Explanations (and questions)...

I apologize in advance if this is boring or confusing. I'm still trying to get my thoughts together.

So...my mom always says that I don't have to explain the choices I make to her. She always says that the more I say, the worse it is (or the worse I make it?). I can't really give a specific example (and I know that's lame and vague, but I can't really help it) because there are too many times when this happens. I feel like I have to explain my choices to everyone else, but no one else seems to really mind except my mom. I understand that she's my mom and she should just love me no matter what choices I make and accept me and my choices no matter what (even if she doesn't think they are the right choices, although usually they are, and I'm not trying to brag or make it seem like I always make the right choices because I certainly do not. I am human, and I make mistakes just like everyone else. I'm sorry if it seems like I am being defensive. I'm probably apologizing too much. I'll stop now).

I'd like to think that because she's my mom it shouldn't matter to her how much I talk or explain or try to justify my choices (even though I know I shouldn't need to do that with her because she's my mom). I'd also like to think that more than anyone, she should be the one who just listens to me and doesn't try to shut me up or tell me that the more I say the worse it is. I feel like I've gotten so accustomed to explaining and justifying my choices to other people, that it's become a bad habit that I can't break now. I feel like it will be better when I go away to school again in the fall, and everything is pretty much back to normal, but part of me wishes that my mom would just listen to me. Here I go again not knowing what to say to her. When she does things like this it makes me feel like I can't talk to her about anything / I don't know what to say and what not to say / I don't know when it is appropriate to say certain things and when it's not appropriate. ::SHRUG:: I kind of want to fast forward through the next couple months and the summer, but I have several things to look forward to in the coming weeks (i.e. Passover and going to EC and Key West).

I think that's all for now. More soon.

--Emily

Friday, March 19, 2010

What's NYU pussy cat??

In case you couldn't tell, the subject of this entry is going to be NYU. Before I begin I just want to say that the people who read this should consider themselves very lucky, because I am posting more than one entry in the same day (and one right after the other, at that!!). The reason for this is because it's been about a week since I last posted an entry, and a lot has happened.

Ok. Back to the subject of NYU. I think I posted in here about how I got a call from the associate dean of the social work school at NYU and the fact that she wanted to meet with me. We met last tuesday, and she said the problem with my application was my essay. She said that it didn't have enough of what they were looking for, but she wasn't very specific, and I didn't feel like asking any questions because I was so shocked. I was not expecting her to say that at all. I had been talking with my aunts over the weekend because when I first got the phone call, I was really nervous, thinking about all the possible reasons that the associate dean of the NYU Silver School of Social Work might want to talk to me. One of my aunts said that it was probably because of my GPA (which was a 3.03, which is a little low for NYU standards, I think), and so that was what I was expecting the associate dean to say. I still don't really understand why she felt like she had to call me in and talk to me face to face if my essay was the problem. She said that she thought that it was a conversation that was better to have in person than over the phone. Frankly, I disagree. I would have preferred to have a conversation over the phone, or just get a letter from them saying something to the effect of: "We regret to inform you that you have not been accepted to our school" or something like that.

I was kind of upset by this and I tried not to show it (I was crying a little, and I told the lady that it was my allergies, but she said that she could tell that I was upset, and it was ok). It's not so much that I cared about the "name brand" of the school (and by name brand I guess I just mean the fact that NYU is an Ivy League school and it's supposed to be really good and to have that on my resume would be AWESOME), but (and I feel like I've said this before on here) their program focuses more on client and relationship centered social work, whereas the focus of Fordham's program is on social justice (you can still have a clinical focus, which is what I think I'm going to do...::SHRUG:: it won't be the same as going to NYU, but seriously...it's their loss. Honestly, who needs them?? Not me, that's for sure. I left the meeting and went to go find something to eat and sit in Washington Square Park and eat and call my mom and aunts and cry. I'm over it now, but I think at the time I was just shocked.

Fordham wanted me and accepted me from the beginning with basically the same essay that I sent to NYU with maybe some slight changes. I don't really understand what NYU's problem was, but I decided that I'm going to go to Fordham part time (it's only 6 credits a semester for the first year, so I'm gonna find a part-time job to do on the side, or maybe I'll do some volunteer work in the field of social work). I applied to live in their graduate housing, which is like 10 minutes from campus, but I haven't heard anything yet (I had to send in a $200 deposit and a copy of my acceptance letter to Fordham just to get a spot on a list for an apartment...we'll see what happens).

I think that's all for now. More later or tomorrow.

--Emily

Madame Tussaud's and Rain

Last friday was the birthday of one of my brother's friends from school. She was turning 17, and in order to celebrate, she wanted me, my mom, and Ben to go with her and her parents to Madame Tussaud's, the wax museum in NYC. We figured it would be a good idea, especially because it was supposed to rain, and the museum was inside. We quickly found out that we were quite wrong, however. Just because it was raining, did not mean that it was not crowded in NYC. It was also cold and windy, and while we were waiting in line for cabs to go to the museum (there were 6 of us so se had to take 2 cabs) my umbrella blew inside out twice (this was the umbrella that my aunt Becky had given me back in january when I went to visit her and my cousin Sarah in Cali--It's light blue and has the Paul Frank monkey, Julius, on it and it says "Paul Frank is your friend". Usually it makes me happy because I love Paul Frank, but on this day I was scared that it was going to break because of the rain and all of the wind so actually I was kind of sad. My mood quickly changed once we got to the museum, tho).

We had a lot of fun taking pictures of and with all kinds of celebrities (everyone from Pablo Picasso and Albert Einstein to Shakira and Julia Roberts--for pics check my facebook profile). We had a dinner reservation for 5:30, but we got done in the museum around 3:30. We tried to walk and find a place to just sit down and eat a snack before dinner and be out of the rain, but we were unsuccessful. We ended up just going to the restaurant and having an early dinner (I wasn't very hungry, so I just had some minestrone soup and a salad. Ben got a personal pizza and only ate one slice of it, so we brought it home and I ate a slice that night and the rest the next day--it was, basically just bread and sauce, but it was REALLY good. :D

The hardest and probably least fun part of the day was trying to get back to NJ. When we got to the train station they were announcing that NJ Transit trains were temporarily suspended. We tried to go over to the NJ Transit part of Penn Station to see what was going on, but the people were packed in like sardines, and there was no way we could have possibly gotten any answers. We went back to the main area (where the huge board with the times of trains, the security desk, and all of the waiting areas are) and waited for about an hour before we decided to see if we could get two taxis to take us back to NJ. We walked out of Penn Station, and within 10 seconds a man approached us and asked if we wanted a ride. We had to bargain with him a little bit about the price (I wanna say he wanted to charge us like $200 but we got him to come down to $150--I think that's still pretty expensive, but whatevs) but eventually we were satisfied and all six of us hopped into his car (I sat in back with Ben, his friend, and her mom, and my mom sat in front with Ben's friend's dad--we were all a little squished, but I don't really think that there was a better way for us to get back to NJ at the time).

The rain definitely made this trip an adventure (and a tiring one at that), but all in all I think everyone involved had a good time and enjoyed themselves.

More soon.
--Emily

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Comments...please?

So this is gonna be a quickie, but hopefully a goody. I know that a lot more people read this than actually "follow" it, and that makes me happy. However, people rarely comment on it, and I feel like a big part of having a blog is so that people can read your thoughts and give you feedback. So please, don't hesitate to comment (even if you just want to say "your blog stinks and I hate you"...although if you're going to say that please make it anonymous)!! If I didn't want comments, I wouldn't allow them. Now I could understand if my posts were too long and had too much in them and therefore were overwhelming and hard to comment on. If that is the case, please say so. I am very open and willing to make changes to my blog. Or, you could just pick one thing out of the whole entire blog and comment on that and forget about everything else. I could also understand if my posts just were not thought provoking and didn't warrant comments, but I feel like some (if not most) of them are, although I could be wrong.

All I'm asking is for at least one comment every once in a while (I've had this blog for about 2 and a half months now and I've tried to write in it pretty consistently, and I think I only have 1 comment so far). I'm not even asking for everyone who reads this to post comments (but don't get me wrong, that would be nice). If one or two people posted one or two comments every once in a while that would make me happy, and I will try to return the favor for those of you that have blogs that I read that allow comments.

That's all for now. More soon.

--Emily

Monday, March 8, 2010

The Weekend and Beyond...

Wow. It's been exactly a week since I last posted here. My weeks are generally pretty boring, as I don't do much of anything (aside from tutoring, going to work with my mom, and working at the acting studio), but I wanted to talk about my weekend. It all started on friday with a phone call from the associate dean of the NYU Silver School of Social Work (aka my top choice grad. school). Her name is Mary Ellen Noonan (on the phone she sounded like a man...but that's beside the point). She said that she wanted to meet with me to talk about my application, so I am going into the city to meet with her tomorrow. I was very nervous when I got the phone call as to what this all meant. I'm sure the people who read this know that I really just want to know (er, I've wanted to know for a while now) whether or not I have been accepted to NYU. I have been accepted to Fordham, so I really just want to be able to make a decision, so that I can know where exactly I'm going in the fall, and begin to make other plans. I feel like this is particularly hard for me at this point in my life because Ben knows where he's going in the fall (a program called Giant Steps on Long Island) and is all excited about it (the director called a couple weeks ago with the name of a potential roommate for him, and he and my mom are going to meet him and his mom for lunch on Passover--monday 3 / 28). Basically, it's one of the only things he can talk about, and it makes me jealous. I feel like for him, it's one of the major ways that he is coping with John's death. I on the other hand, feel like I am stuck in limbo. I only really have one job that excites me (the acting studio), and I have no clue what's going on with my academic life. ::SHRUG::

Now that I have gotten completely off the real topic that I wanted to talk about, let's get back on track. So I talked to both of my aunts and the counselor that my brother goes to about the whole NYU meeting thing, but I am still kind of nervous. I know that some nervousness is ok, though, so I guess I shouldn't worry. I really have been trying not to think about it. I have to get up really early tomorrow, though cuz I want to take a 9:00 train so that I have plenty of time to get from Penn Station to NYU and I won't be late. The 9:00 train gets me in at 9:44, so I feel like I will probably be getting there SUPER early, but I feel like in these situations early is probably better than late. I'll probably just go to the bookstore and buy / get lost in some psychology book (of which there are many that interest me, and I know this because I've been to the NYU bookstore before, but I will talk about that in a bit) and / or buy myself some clothing. I don't know what it is about me and school clothing, but I love it. I used to have so much EC clothing that it wasn't funny, but I have been slowly getting rid of it as I do not go to EC anymore, and I realize that some of it I will probably never wear, sadly. I'm not getting rid of all of it (at least not yet) but I am slowly changing from a "t-shirt and jeans" type of girl to a fancy clothes girl.

Anyway, back to NYU (I feel like I keep straying, and I can't decide if that's a good thing or a bad thing). So I went to NYU to talk to someone from admissions back in january. It was really impersonal, as the woman I spoke to did not even have my application in front of her, and it was her last day on the job. The first thing she asked me was if I had any questions. I did have a couple (about their integrated practice / field curriculum program, and whether or not they had an orientation). The lady answered my questions, but now I don't remember what the answers were. I talked with her for a little while, and then took a walk around the campus. I saw the Steinhardt School (yes...my uncle Michael Steinhardt is associated with the NYU Steinhardt School, in case you were wondering) and I found the bookstore. I ended up buying a grey sweater that says New York University over the right breast, and a book called Obedience to Authority by Stanley Milgram (the psychologist who did the shock study). There were several other books that I was debating about getting before I settled on that one, so I'm sure I will be able to find something to sink my teeth into if I go back there. They had shirts that said Steinhardt (I thought it might be funny to have one) and ones that said NYU School of Social Work (which I promised myself I wouldn't buy unless I actually got in), so I probably will not buy any clothes this time around.

And now that I have greatly digressed from the title of this entry, I will return to the topic of my weekend. On saturday my mom and Ben went into the city for Ben's camp reunion (even though he is not going back to camp this summer he wanted to go to the reunion to see his friends and to see what counselors--if any that he knew--were going to be there). I didn't want to go, so I got to spend a relaxing day at home. I played some Wii, did my laundry and watched some George Carlin, thanks to Netflix :D (one of my favorite comedians, who was introduced to me by John--if you've never seen any of his stuff I suggest that you go check him out on youtube, especially his sketch about cats and dogs cuz it's my favorite). All in all a very relaxing day if I do say so myself. On sunday my mom and Ben and one of Ben's friends and his mom and I all went to see Alice in Wonderland in 3D. It was a pretty good movie, but I could have done without the 3D (not that it was bad, but the glasses were uncomfortable and I kept seeing little blue and red specks out of the corners of my eyes). Also, most of the scenes were 3D, but not all of them. I feel like if a movie is going to be done in 3D, then all of the scenes should be done in 3D. I feel like this movie would have been perfectly fine without it.

I think that's all for now. I will try to write more soon.

--Emily