take your time

It's Friday! The countdown to classes begins. My bed looks a lot more cozy now, as I have three pillows instead of 1. Yesterday I put up my purple lights and they rule. I wish I brought my posters because the walls are gross. Whoever lived here before me was lame. There are tape stains all over hte wall from using improper tape and nails and stuff. :( I printed out some quotes and a picture I like to put up, but it's not doing the trick. How sad.

Hmm, so this week I decided I would like to never move things again. I have made so many trips between the closet and various dorms this week. Too much sweating. Lame. But getting things put back into place is excellent, and my friends rule, so I suffer. haha.

On Tuesday night I had a cupcake making party with Bree, Sam and Jonathan. I would post another picture from it to prove that I have friends, but I promised not to put ridiculous faces on the internet. How sad.

BUT, the cupcakes were delicious. Everyone else had already eaten dinner, so I made a hummus and sprouts sammich and carved it into the shape of an elephant. I was going to do a dinosaur, but I thought an elephant would be easier. It has a dried cranberry for an eye. Clearly this is a maniacal elephant.


Wednesday was the underground tour for band, so I got really sweaty and had a great time talking to freshpeople. You should ask me about Wednesday night the next time we speak--it's a great story. :)

Yesterday I woke up at noon (hey now, I went to bed at 3am after running all over Columbia). Awesome. Bree and I took the water taxi to the Brooklyn IKEA. We had to take the 1 to the bottom of Manhattan and then took the taxi over to the IKEA. I don't think water taxi is a very good name for this mode of transportation. I think water rollercoaster is a little more accurate. It ruled.

I got a lot of neat things from IKEA, like a rug and a really nice pillow and kitchen things. Bree and I bought a lot of the same things (because we have good taste/are cheap).
When we got back we did some errands and made shells pasta with peas. It was delicious. Then we took the last of the cupcakes over to Katharine and Hilary's suite to watch Project Runway. We were pretty pleased with the person they kicked off. It was fun.

Today I got my package from mum, so it is a good day. I have awesome plans for tonight, so you should ask me about those later. :)

Love love love!

i put one foot forward

Last Thursday got into NYC and took a cab over to Amy's apartment in Brooklyn. I was rather concerned in the cab because the driver was like "is this is Manhattan?" When I said it was in Brooklyn he looked concerned and went and spoke to the dispatcher for several minutes. Somehow we managed to arrive safely.

Amy's apartment is ridiculously nice. We hit up Crumbs and Red Bamboo in Greenwich Thursday night, which was delicious as always. We sat next to this major dbag in Red Bamboo who was complaining about studying for the GRE. He couldn't understand why the English section was so hard and had so many useless words. He was like 'you can learn math--it's a process. but English? Whaaaaat?' except with more ignorance. It was quite comical.

On Saturday we went over to Prospect Park to go to Spike Jone's Michael Jackson birthday celebration. We had to walk quite a way through Prospect Park to get to the location. As we walked through the constant drizzle and thick trees, the bass from the party got louder and louder. It was rather ominous. We saw a lot of great dancing at the party, but left after like 40 minutes because we were quite wet.

A bar that Elliott Smith, one of our favorite musicians, used to frequent was nearby, so we walked over there and took tourist pictures. There were tons of bars in that area, so we can totally see why he lived there. When I am 21 we are totally going back.

While we were at the bar we realized that an ice cream shop we wanted to try was pretty close. We called Rubot and made her look up the address and walked over toward it. We got a delicious brunch (my third of the week, haha) at this place called Atlantic something. After that we went to the Salvation Army and I got 8 Crate and Barrel plates for $7. I also picked up a muffin pan, a twister (the game) mug and a variety of silverware. Amy got a really cute ceramic plate set for super cheap also. It was pretty heavy to carry home, but totally worth it. The ice cream place we went to (Marbles) was pretty good, but way overpriced. The server was a total failure though. I ordered a large iced coffee au lait and I got an iced cappuccino instead. It was definitely the second strongest coffee I have ever had. I decided to save it for the next day, when we had to get up at the crack of dawn to take the subway over to Barnard.

Moving to school was an interesting experience. I would not recommend lugging three suitcases across 12 blocks, 2 subways and far too many stairs. But, we made relatively good time and my room is really cute. Ok, not really. I haven't found my posters yet. But it is on its way. I also have an excellent view.






On Sunday night I went to a Kid Nation marathon. The show is horrifying and hilarious. I figured it would be good because it would involve bratty kids crying, but little did I know what would unfold. I don't feel like explaining the series, but I highly recommend it. :) I left after 9 hours of the marathon due to excessive sleepyness. We resumed Monday night and saw the epic ending. haha.

While I miss Madison already, it has been absolutely lovely to see some of my college friends again. I have eight million things to do to get ready for classes on September 8th, but I am well on my way.

<3

hello!

hi grandpa and grandma!

everydaaaaayyyyy

Today (hold up, you have to say it in your head like "todaaaaaye" because that is how I have apparently gotten in the habit of pronouncing it. lol.) was a pretty good day in the lab. I was really tired, so the first hour or so of reading this research paper about two kinds of stem cells' locations in bone marrow was pretty unproductive. But Hui let me help her isolate plasmids from an E. coli sample. It was pretty cool but I messed up a little bit and felt really bad. I think she understood, but still. I'm trying to prove that I can handle my own project and I go around spilling E. coli twice while pouring. -___- It took like two hours because we had to do a bunch of steps of centrifuging and adding different solutions. One of the solutions we added to the sample lysed the cell membranes so there was this freaky white gunk in the liquid. When we centrifuged it it didn't pellet out on the bottom like usual. It was stuck all over one side. Gross. But normal, apparently. Hui is really nice.

After that I ate lunch and made some awkward small talk in the grad/undergrad student office-y room. Then Michele and I changed the media on the cell cultures. The other undergrads were watching me do it when Colin walked by and thought we were having some great party or something with so many people standing around. It was cute.

Then I read some more (Michele gave me like 6 20+ page articles to read for my project) and did some more awkward small talk. Hui was passaging cells later, which is when you move a colony to a new flask and freeze some, so I watched that. It was pretty cool. All of these activities involved lab coats, which is AWESOME. I need my own to just wear all of the time even though it makes me feel kind of like a tool. haha.

After work Rubecca and Amy met me at the Union and we got Babcock Hall ice cream. Delicious. Then we came home and I made pasta for dinner and managed to burn some of the linguine to the bottom of the pan. ugh. But the not burn part tasted awesome!

Yesterday was pretty good too. I got my own lab notebook. It is hard cover and green and says "laboratory notebook" or something in impressive gold letters across the front. There is a page of intense, ridiculous instructions that detail how to keep records if you plan to try to claim a patent on the stuff you record in it. Lots of stuff about making carbon copies of each page and signatures and such. Maybe I will scan it.

I feel so busy though. I only have like four hours of being awake when I get home from work. :( Being an adult is therefore kind of lame.

Sincerely,

Sara

it's like I'm an adult!

Today was my first day in the lab. 9-5:30 today. Dude, I am an adult. What! It was one part dull, one part exciting and many parts awesome. The lab uses mice to study a lot of cool biology things that I don't feel like explaining that relate to diabetes. Essentially, there is a mutation that causes the mice to not become obese on a high fat diet and the lab is looking into why some adipose tissue grows a lot (causing obesity) and some doesn't when the tissue is structurally identical.

I started the day by getting lost and ending up on the wrong side of the building. There is a dude on that side with almost the same name as the professor I am working for, so those people were pretty confused. But I made it over successfully with the help of a nice lady. The professor I'm working for is really sweet. He spoke to me for about 90 minutes about what the lab does and then gave me a book to read. I read most of the day and met some other people who work in the lab. They were all pretty nice and predictably asked me how NYC is. I did some more internet research, which mostly consisted of me looking up terminology on wikipedia.

At the end of the day I went up to the mice room. That was pretty much the highlight of the day. I got to wear a lab coat. Fancy stuff.

First we stopped off at the autoclave room, where everything looked to be 50 or 60 years old. The autoclave machine has been used so many times that you can't turn the knob to the mark for the function you want. You have to turn it past it. They mostly judge where to turn to based off of the sound the machine makes. ... yeah.

The mouse room is really dirty from mites and diseases, so the security level is F, which is really bad. We had to put on booties, disposable lab coats, gloves and sleeves. The undergrads I was observing had to feed and weigh the mice. They told me about the projects going on and I looked at a bunch of adorable mice. Sadly, one of the pregnant mothers in the vitamin A deficiency experiment had a miscarriage and we had to euthanize her. It was morbidly cool because we saw the fetus in her bedding. There was only one so the woman I was observing hypothesized that she had eaten the other ones.

I am looking forward to tomorrow because it will supposedly involve cell cultures.

Best,

Sara

update! haha

jk this isn't really an update. just a comical video Rachel took. look, it's my life!

<3

it's fate my life has brought me here to you

I don't really have any good excuses for you. I am trying to cut down on my excuse-giving. I think they're kind of dumb because I know I should have done the things that I am excusing myself for. I know that I had the time. I just wasted it. I'm trying to be upfront about how things actually are. Cutting down on lying and truth-stretching and other such things. I really haven't been up to par lately, and that's all I can really say about it.

This week was a nice week. I didn't have much due. Last week I had two midterms, a lab report and a bajillion word essay to do. This week I just had two lab reports and a problem set. The problem set was pretty exciting because I started out feeling like I had no idea what we going on and ended up doing it on my own to a (hopefully) satisfactory level. With no assistance. Awesome.

But anyway, back to this week. I wasn't really on top of anything. I kept forgetting appointments I set up and running to them at the last minute, but everything turned out alright. I'm gearing up for another unpleasantly busy week, but that's not really a big deal.

Yesterday I accomplished quite a few of my secret college goals list. The Columbia Artists Society had a draw-a-thon. For the first models, two actors from the Kings College Shakespeare Troupe dressed in their costumes from the upcoming producing of Julius Ceasar, my draws got progressively better. However, for the second set of models, I was at a weird angle and produced some terrible work. That wasn't a secret college goal, though. The part that went toward my attempt to get a classic college experience was that the second set of models were nude. Well, the dude wasn't, which I thought was kind of sexist. I suppose he was rather shy, but no excuses, man. He was just in his boxers. When I drew him, his butt was huge. The picture is rather comical. When I get it back from Bree I might scan it so you all can be amused. So yeah, real college experience, here I come!

After sketching ourselves silly, Bree and I went to a funk party in "pimpton." Ok, the res hall isn't actually called "pimpton," but that would be pretty sweet. It's called Plimpton. Um, I like the people, but it was a bad weekend for a party, what with Passover and Easter. We also hit up the Fedbash, an Alice in Wonderland themed dance party/concert/burlesque show put on by the (shitty) humor paper, the Fed. There was a pretty awful emo band there. (And if anyone is qualified to judge emo bands, it is definitely me. trust me.) They had some free chips, including pork rinds. Hilarity. They were also showing Alice in Wonderland on a big screen. At a few points, the animation lined up with the emo band, which made my life a lot better. Other things that would have made Fedbash better include: good music, alcohol, and magic. The high point of the night came when Miss Saturn, an exotic dancer, I guess, danced for us with glittery hula hoops. There isn't really a way that I can describe how awesome and fit that woman was. Suffice to say, her fierce facial expressions would have impressed Tyra.

Tonight I'm going to a film festival.

best,

Saraaaaaa

I know I said we'd get married but I'm already married.

[[This was written on March 30th and I never finished it.]]

I legitimately burned my mouth on my latte last week. Not like when you drink it a little too fast and it hurts for a few hours. Like, I have sores on the inside of my lower lip and on the roof of my mouth. Mad fucking real burns, man. Lame. I really need to break this caffeine addiction. That can be one of my summer goals, lol. At this point, giving up my liquid sleep would only lead to failing out of school.

I am sitting in the ugly room on the first floor of the library that does nothing to inspire me to work except bore me to death. I have got 400 more words than I came here with, so I'm 40% done with this awful, far-reaching essay I am constructing. I'm tearing down an author I actually really like for the sake of having something to turn in. I don't really believe in what I'm writing, but you can't win them all. I can't win anything this week. My heart is beating too fast from the caffeine and I am short of breath. I have been sitting here developing an ulcer, not running around like a headless chicken. Unreal.

I think my face is broken. At CCO (Columbia Community Outreach; more on that later) on Saturday a few people told me I looked like I was having no fun at all. False, actually. That's just my face's default: depressed. Too many years of high school can do that to a person, you know? I am not that depressed that I don't enjoy anything. Geeze. I obviously need to get plastic surgery to avoid this awkward encounter in the future. Or practice my facial expressions in the mirror like they do in top model.

tamasha
cco
new yorchesis
flute choir blows
pfail
housing blows
twilol

I have a headache.

I keep getting headaches that end in vomiting. Sad times, but times you probably didn't need to know about. haha. I am incapable of feeding myself a healthy diet. Rubecca and I eat a lot of sweets. That's how we stay sweet.

I got my hair cut today and I can't decide if it was a good idea. We're back to straight across bangs, but I feel kind of funny about them. It's cool because they'll just grow out in a few weeks anyway. My hair's getting really long overall though, which is cool because I can create more exciting braids the longer it gets. Awesome.

Krista and I visited the "geniuses" at the Apple store to fix her computer. It's case is doing that odd case peeling thing mine did last semester. We walked around the mall and hit up some sweet recession sales. However, I hardly bought anything. I need to work on that.

Also, I need to retract something from my previous entry. An astute reader noticed a falsehood in it. I did not have a "nice chat" with Mr. Wiemer. He pointed out that I should be removed from the premise for not having the proper identification. Duly noted.

In other news, the poll is back by popular demand. Okay, by a demand that wasn't really a demand. It was more of an observation. Polls are hard to come up with, okay? Geeze. :)

I think I'm going to make a list of all of the things I like about the Midwest and being home. It's nice--nicer than I was expecting actually. I am attributing part of its charm to the fact that I'm under less stress that I would be at school, but I can't discount the intrinsic awesomeness of the Midwest as a major factor. I like driving around and being in big spaces. I like seeing kids walk home from school. I like the sun and the fresh air and the squishy, brown grass. I like the old ladies who get their hair done when they've got nowhere to go. I even like SHS a little bit. As much as I hated high school, being out of it does make me a little nostalgic. I am obviously an old lady. But that's cool. I can finally have that blue hair!

Going through my music here is kind of amazing. I am listening to a lot of things that make me feel like I'm 14 again. You couldn't pay me to be 14 again. Looking back I have no idea how I am so normal now. Being home makes me feel like that a lot, though. Coming back into this environment makes me pick up these habits I've abandoned at college. It's kind of weird how my personality has already split so much from what it was this time last year.

My internet is so spotty here. I am excited to return to the ethernet of my dorm room, but not so excited to return to my books.

Sincerely,

Sara

I saw stars today.

Oh hello, blog I haven't updated in two weeks. I blame midterms and my uninteresting life.

I am on spring break now. Awesome. My flight home was uneventful. Grandma Statz and Rubecca picked me up at the airport and we went to Red Robin. Yum. However, I got pretty dehydrated from eating so much salt and not enough water. When I woke up from the awesome five hour nap I took when we got home, I threw up like three times and had an awful headache.

Saturday went much better. We went to State Street and I acquired new canvas hightop converse. Now I can alternate between my old lady shoes and my new sweet chucks. Saturday was Pi Day/Rubot's half birthday, so we celebrated with some Chocolate Shoppe. Possibly the greatest ice cream ever. I got French Silk, Rubotics got Horchata and Mum got...something frozen yogurt-y. That night we went to the Tyson's annual St. Patrick's Day party. They throw an excellent party. There was authentic corn(ed) beef and hash, Irish songs and lots of people with Irish-ized nametags on. It's gotten a little awkward for me now that I'm 19 and therefore much older than all of the kids, but much younger than the adults. Plus we don't know a lot of the people anymore, but it was really good to catch up with the people we do know. I had a nice time.

On Sunday we traveled to Dad's house. Teresa made vegan corned beef and I liked it a lot more than I remember liking corned beef back in the day. It was very sweet of her. Kailie and Lily, our step-nieces, were excited to see us. Lily hugged my legs and Kailie gave us a drawing and a high school musical trading card. She warned us not to fight over it. We played with the kids and with Brian, who looked ridiculous because he was freshly shaved. Kailie took my camera around and photographed everything in sight. She told us about this girl at kindergarten who is bullying her and stealing all of her friends. It made me sad. But she'll get through it. She's a rockstar. She made Rubecca and I do choreography to a song she was singing and she kept getting mad at me because I wasn't following along right. I am sure a video of that will appear on the internet and I will be mildly embarrassed at my poor skills, heh.

I ran a lot of errands and ate Taco Bell with Krista. After school I ran into Mr.s Wallner, Dregne and Wiemer while I was rounding up Rubasaurous. We had nice chats. Later I took Rubbbbbbbbby to Krista's house to pet her cats. Really, she only pet Spider, the nice one, because Rosie, the jerk (ruby says hi), gave Krista a nasty bite earlier.

I have more to say, so I might tell you more about the past in the future. Isn't that odd.

LOVE SARA

hold up / wait a minute / put a little love in it

We're supposed to get 6-12 inches of snow today. On the way to breakfast, my Californian friend Sruthi exclaimed that there were like five inches of snow on the ground. It was more like one and a half or two. It was really cute.

Sadly, my lab was not canceled. But my lab rotation for HSPP, my research seminar, only lasted 10 minutes because the CO2 dispenser was out. Lunch was really good today. They had macaroni and vegan chicken fingers. Amazing! I haven't enjoyed eating in a long time. I should have stuck to a cappuccino because the aftertaste from this cafe white mocha is sickly sweet.

I have far too much homework tonight (entirely my fault), but I am looking forward to our weekly calculus problem set par-tay on the amazing couch in Lewis Parlor. Awesome.

There, a mundane update. But there is snow. Photos later, perhaps.

xoxo,
sjw

lean on, sheena

I really needed this weekend. It has been one of those weekends that reinforces your faith in humanity. Well, I probably can't equate my life outlook with humanity, but it's the internet, so I will do what I please.

After a depressing conversation with two of my floormates on Thursday night, my unhappiness with Barnard had reached a new high. Friday wasn't much better, unless you consider crying in your professor's office hours for no apparent reason a hallmark of decent. Which you should do because it is horrifyingly embarrassing. Apparently I am more stressed out than I thought, because his comments on my paper were not what set me off.

Anyway, with that kind of start, I was not looking forward to this weekend. I was not looking forward to anything except perhaps being dead. But duty called and I found myself watching the women lose to Harvard. After the game I attended the first half of EXPOSED, the black heritage month fashion show/cultural event of the season. lol. It started 45 minutes late. Seriously, what the fuck?

The scenes were pretty good, and the dance/walking was excellent. However, the clothes were pretty ugly and they didn't even give all of the models clothes. Some people had to just wear their own. :( The designers were not Columbia students, but all of the models were. Two of my floormates were super hot models in the show. Top Model fierce to the max.

I left at intermission because it was already midnight. I played a very amusing game of Apples to Apples in which Anne Frank was equated with Hitler and it totally made sense. haha. Long story.

Saturday I slept until 10:45am. Amazing! I studied a bit and then went to the basketball game. It was actually really fun. The women lost to Dartmouth by one point. It was a real heartbreaker.

Saturday night we dressed up as sneaky ninjas to take an adventure. We had codenames. Jaclyn was Panther, Elizabeth was Black Rabbit and we never decided on a codename for me. Some of my suggestions were Rotting Flesh and Frostbite. Um, they didn't go over well. I was having a hard time thinking of something black and deadly, yet unexpected.

We met up with a few more friends who didn't have very good ninja costumes and ran around Columbia. We went into the tunnels and had quite an excellent adventure. I'm not sure how much I should write about it on here, haha. But I will say that seeing the seedy underbelly of Columbia and feeling like I was about to die several times was envigorating. I felt connected to the university community in a way that I never have before. I am pretty sure I would hate college if it weren't for my friends in the band. :)

After teaching I toured a few of the dorms today. I am super excited about housing. Most of the dorms are really nice. As long as I don't get stuck in Hewitt or Elliot, I will be a happy kid. If I get Hewitt or Elliot, I am considering a cardboard box on College Walk. That would be cool.

We are supposed to get 8-12 inches by 6pm tomorrow. I wish I had classes that would get cancelled, haha. But I think most of my profs live in Morningside Heights. Damn.

I am sorry that I don't update that much during the week. But I can't imagine you are really curious about how my E&M homework is going.

Luyang commented that I actually sounded happy today. It's a start.

Allow me to kiss your hand, your most favored*

Sara Jean Ines de la Cruz

*from Sor Juana, haha

help me get my boots on

I have a lot to say but I'm not sure I feel like typing it out. I had a calc ii midterm on Thursday. It's always fun to take tests you haven't studied for. But it went better than I expected. No grade yet...

Friday I had a bio midterm that I also hadn't studied for. 9am is just cruel. But that also went better than I expected. I also did a make up physics lab and work on Friday, so by the time we got to PINK ZONE!!!! I was pretty tired.

However, there is nothing like a gym full of people wearing ugly pink shirts to lift your spirits, right? It was cool because we stomped Brown. Pink Zone is a fundraiser for breast cancer research/Barnard night for women's basketball.

Here Jackie and I are showing off our awesome shirts.


There were also a ton of pink pompoms lying around. In true SEAS (school of engineering and applied science) fashion, Sam engineered a better pompom.

It was really more like a whip. It slowly dwindled throughout the night as adults came over and asked if they could have some pompoms for their kids. A sad, but necessary death.

After PINKZONE!!!! I was considering going to V&T's for some pizza/bad Morningside Heights food, but those initiating that mission totally ditched me. Instead I went over to 620 and had a lovely caking-making time with my bffl Elizabeth. We made a sweet cake.


It says "L'CHAIM =)" because we were making a cake to celebrate life! Also, because we are mistaken for Jewish ALL THE TIME. Or at least I am. D: Oh, Barnard.

We ate some chocolate frosting while we waited for the cake to bake. Even Nanette's voldemorting could not deter us from our sugary treat. We made a special trip to Morton William's University suckfest--I mean supermarket--to get decorating supplies. We almost put dried peaches on the cake, but we changed our mind. How sad.

Saturday brought my John Jay Valentine's Day date with Elizabeth. She brought me a chocolate rose--how cute! We are totally soul mates. We had cranberry orange waffles, which, while better than expected, were NOT up to s'mores waffles standards. Sad. I guess I will have to make the trek another day in hopes of eating ridiculously flavored waffles.

I had to be at Teacher's College at 2:30 to leave for Yale. Far too early, haha, but it was good. The bus ride was alright. Connecticut is kind of cute. But Yale blows. For serious. We stopped at Stew Leonard's, which is a "the world's largest dairy store."



Stew's is super serious:


It is also serious about fun:




This is how I feel about Yale:


Yale is a very odd place. Not only do they play basketball in what is essentially a church, their water fountains dispense holy water:


Ok, not really. It's just shitty New Haven, CT water, but doesn't it look like holy water should come out?

Also, some of their fans were dicks. Seriously. When one of the band members took off her rugby (because hello, gyms get hot) and was wearing a tank top, these drunk guys from the Yale baseball team chanted "be self-conscious" and "put your shirt on." Of course, the band defended her honor by having everyone take their shirts off. We make fun of the team, but we would never attack the other band or their fans without being provoked. That's uncalled for.

The men lost, but I think they still have a good shot in the league standings. However, CUMB definitely won. The Yale band sucks. A lot. I feel bad because their conductor was very enthusiastic. But they played great songs, like "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting" and "Carry on," but their played them in a manner more suitable for a funeral than a basketball game.

When we got back to TC I hit my head on climbing out from under the bus and started pathetically crying. How embarrassing. Jackie and I got Chinese and ate it in Sulz. A pretty good ending to my Saturday.

Sunday wasn't very exciting. I taught swim lessons and went to church. I think the priest is Italian. I had a hard time understanding his homily, but I will probably go back. The choir was excellent and the church is beautiful.

I haven't really done any homework, but I felt like I owed you all some news.

Love,

Sara

ps: I am taking all of you to Crumbs when you visit me because that is the correct answer to the poll.

why

why do you all like pineapples so much?

I'm changing the poll.

today is a bad day

But can I just point out that autotrophs can't drool. I think the word you're looking for here is heretrotrophs, Barenaked Ladies. But the show is ok.

anticlimactic

This is interesting: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7892272.stm

Flute Choir had a bake sale today. My bio lab went well.

S.

he tried to save the calendar business

Hello again. I am taking a quick break from my ridiculous pile of homework to update you on my super exciting life. haha, not really. I am mostly sick of rambling about restriction enzyme mapping in my lab report and not really looking forward to the other eighty things I have to do.

I thought I would tell you about my exciting Valentine's Day. I had a hot date...with the Columbia men's basketball team. (They aren't that cute.) We played Harvard. It was a pretty exciting game that we won by 1 point in the last seven seconds. nice. But still. Basketball. Fortunately, being at a basketball game somehow exempt me from seeing any happy couples making out. Because if you take your significant other to a Columbia basketball game as your Valentine's Day event, you should not have a significant other. This is a fact.

We had a classy dress day for the game.

I actually wore some heels from target, but this is after, I think? Anyway, wearing heels from TC to Levien, the gym, is a TERRIBLE idea when you have to carry a huge mellophone case. Seriously. Don't do it. This is another reason flute is superior.

My valentine had another date for the night (with her sister. how cute!), but she stopped by the game to give me my present.


Bench made fun of me, but he was just jealous because he had no valentine. This is obviously the greatest present ever. Elizabeth, looking sheepish: "I had to buy sponges..."

Columbia's valentine's day present to me was a water bottle. I love free things. Not quite as sweet as my Roar-ee bobble head, but close.


After the game, Jackie and I had a hot date at Ollie's. It was decent. I haven't died yet, so I am feeling ok about them. After we parted ways, I watched SNL with Bree and her piece, Owen. It was pretty funny. SNL these days is not as bad as everyone likes to say. Those people are just whiny and forget that it was "funnier back in the day" because the reruns of "back in the day" have the lame sketches edited out.

Have you ever wanted a reason to feel smarter than me? Because if you have, I have two excellent opportunities for you.

A. Even though SNL starts at 10:30 at home, I had it in my head that it starts at 11pm in EST. Um, that makes no sense. Bree texted me about watching it a little after 11 and I asked where they were because I thought it already started. About twenty minutes later I realized that when you add an hour to the Wisconsin start time you get 11:30, not 11.

B. I was reading up on how to get blood stains out (haha, don't ask. I can't tell you because the authorities can read it. Stoughton PD is totally my facebook friend. lol.) and they suggested meat tenderizer. My first thought was that they wanted me to hit the stain with one of these:


lol at my life.

Also, this is the pigeon that lives outside my window. Maybe tomorrow I will take a picture of the lady my roommate sometimes (accidentally) changes in front of because we never close the blinds. (The lady had an office across from our window. It's creepy. She has a lot of books.)



Best,

Sara

I'm sick of eating.

Oh hey. I'm alive. Barely. I'm recovering from the plague that's sweeping Morningside Heights. Love being sick. Not. But my roommate was so thoughtful. She encouraged me to sleep literally all day and night for two days and brought me toast and crackers when I couldn't walk straight.

A lot has happened in the last nine days, but I won't bore you with the details. Basketball has been going fairly well. We beat Dartmouth tonight and Penn last weekend. We did get stomped by Princeton last weekend though. We play Harvard tomorrow. These games have been pretty fun. Since tomorrow is Valentine's day, we are having a classy dress day for the game. I can't decide what I will wear. Maybe I will post pictures.

It was my birthday on Monday, so we went to this European bakery called Artopolis. It was super cute. I got crepes with gelato, strawberries and this crazy blue strawberry sauce on them. Yum. My friends had a good time too, I think. It was kind of hard because everyone has lots of work on Mondays.

But it was a good birthday. On Sunday night I was reading in the study lounge with Sruthi and Luyang. At midnight they surpised me with cupcakes and chocolate. Awesome. I hadn't even realized it was midnight, heh. Unfortunately, afterward I had to return to my reading. Downgrade. Martha also snagged a sweet garland from a Mardi Gras party she worked and hung it around our door. One of the cleaning ladies complimented us on it. It was so cute!



Mum mailed me a block of cheese for my birthday. haha, as if everyone here needs another reason to think I am strange. It is so good. They are just jealous.





My friend Nathalie also got me flowers. They are so cute. I put them in my Newman's Own lemonade bottle. His lemonade is so good. You don't even know. I have a little crush on him.



Speaking of crushes, Bree, Elizabeth and I were rating the Dartmouth basketball players today. They're not a very attractive bunch.

Ooh, Hillary Clinton is speaking at Barnard's commencement this year. I'm excited, except I will already be home. No way am I missing Syttende Mai for a speech. I booked my spring break ticket a few days ago. I am home from 3/13-3/22. Only another month! I am already pretty tired of school. It is so stressful. I'm not even doing as much as last semester.

This week went so quickly because I slept through most of it. Health services scared me on Tuesday. I went in for my cough and the nurse asked if I had asthma. Then she measured the oxygen level in my blood and went to speak to a collegue. When she returned, she said that this other nurse would be listening to my chest. When the new nurse said that I sounded fine, the first nurse insisted that she couldn't hear me breathe in! Turns out her stethoscope is broken. How comforting, health services. I feel so safe. I hope I never actually get sick here. This is just some viral thing, so we're good.

It also turns out that I inflamed the tendons in both of my ankles and that's why they're so swollen. I'm not supposed to use them for two weeks. haha, how am I supposed to live in NYC without walking? Impossible.

Ok, I am totally going to sleep now. I promise not to ditch you for ten years again.

Yours,

Sara

ps: I am sad that no one thought I would have an elephant. But I tricked you. There should have been an option for all of the above.

buffon

So, I'm supposed to be reading Notes on the State of Virginia by Thomas Jefferson right now, but it is terribly boring. I've read about 80 pages so far, and all he has done is describe the geography and wildlife of Virginia. Like, with exact latitude and longitude and such. For serious, man. I'm not exactly sure how that relates to my class that is centered around utopias and rebels, but whatev. I think the last couple chapters discuss the actual society of Virginia. But why the hell did he have us read the first couple chapters that are full of flora and fauna? How am I supposed to discuss that in class tomorrow? haha.

this feels better

Today, surprisingly, went well. Last night I wrote an entire paper, did an entire calc problem set, skimmed about 50 pages of Thomas Paine (new hero? possibly), and revised my research fraud presentation for HSPP. Shit, son. That's a lot of stuff to do when you get out of lab at 4pm. And after the dreadful weekend, I wasn't expecting much. But I went to bed at 2am, finished my paper over lunch and somehow bullshitted the rest of my stuff. Yes!

I am so happy this day is over. I had class from 9am to 6pm with an hour of lunch. Then I went to physics recitation at 6:30. I am excited because I get E&M a lot more than I ever got mechanics. It's odd because it's the other way around for most people. I still have to do a problem set for Friday, but I am optimistic.

At 8pm I went to flute choir. lol. And I played oboe. double lolz. Jackie and Commander have been trying to recruit me for ages, and I finally showed up. It was so refreshing! We're playing "Peter and the Wolf" right now, so of course I get to play the duck. It's pretty easy and in the lower register, so I'm getting a good tone even though I haven't practiced in ages. I hadn't realized how much I missed playing real music (sorry marching band, but you are not exactly up to par). I'm also pleased because now I will have music on Tuesdays and Thursdays (not to mention games Fridays and Saturdays), so I bet I will be more cheerful all the time. heh.

It snowed a lot today. Well, a lot by New York City standards. It stuck for a while. I saw more people using umbrellas to shield themselves. I also saw one of the janitors sweeping the snow in front of Barnard Hall. haha. It makes the steps pretty slippery. Good thing I had my trusty rainboots.

Ballet is another highlight of my days. It's really relaxing. I like being able to focus on minuscule technical things and not think about exactly how much work I have to do the rest of the day. Dancing at this level isn't very strenuous, so it's is a nice warm up for my atrocious day. Today we learned some new jumps and third position. I need to buy some more tights. Preferably ones that aren't from Duane Reed and therefore tarnished by a darker control top thing. :)

Today was so busy that I am pumped to lay in my bed. I need to do laundry. I need to plan some sort of birthday thing. Geeze.

Yours truly,

Sara

"from the fatal, blessing be obtained"*

Last weekend was odd. Some parts were awesome. We beat Yale and Brown in basketball. Those games were more fun than usual. Some new people have started coming to band, so it was nice to get some variety in friends. I also was in withdraw from my band friends over break and the game provided a perfect opportunity to catch up.

It was nearly 50 degrees on Sunday. I took a walk in Riverside Park. My shoes got really salt-y, but they've recovered. Then I got a really delicious steamer from Starbucks. I was in a bit of a funk following some sad news, so it helped cheer me up.

I'm reading a lot of cool stuff for my seminar (Global literature: new world utopians and rebels), like Thomas Paine and Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz. It's really inspiring, beautiful stuff. We're also doing some history of South and Latin Americas' pathes to independence. My prof is so much better than my English prof last semester. It's a really nice change. But he assigns 100-150 pages to read for each class (Tuesdays and Thursdays) and it's been difficult to balance with everything else. But I'm hardly working this year, so I have faith that I will balance it out.

I have a lot of work to do, but most of my textbooks have arrived. It's almost my birthday, so I'm trying to figure out what to do. I think I want to go out for cupcakes. It is a little hard to plan because it's on a Monday...

My lab partner in biology today spoke just like the star of The House Bunny, which was really distracting/amusing. It was hard to take her seriously. She also didn't really know what was going on, so... haha.

I swear I am planning letters in my head. I need to get on that. But this should suffice in the mean time, yes?

I really miss home right now. Like I said, kind of a funk. I think this week will be better, though.

Sincerely,

Sara

*from "First I dream" by Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz

lab 1: keep in touch

PURPOSE: To keep the people in touch with the life and times of Sara Jean.

MATERIALS: computer, internet, desire for knowledge

PROCEDURE:
1. bookmark blog
2. read blog
3. comment/email