Conneaut

This weekend, I went with my Ben and his family to Conneaut. It was a wonderfully relaxing place where all I did was talk, sleep, cuddle with my bunny and grade papers. First night we were sitting around the fire with Ben's brother and his friends, and they decided they wanted to take the boat and go to some hick bar. We got in the boat, but unbeknownst to us, someone didn't refill the tank so we were stranded for a few tense minutes out in the middle of a very cold lake. One of the guys was quite drunk and made some lewd comment about me being the only girl on board, thus I would have to keep them all warm, and hoped I was limber. Ben was grossly offended. I'm just slightly disturbed.
The next day I spent some time grading papers and a lot of time napping. We had hoagies for lunch, and Ben's mom remembered I like fudge so she bought me some chocolate. Yummy. Dinner was pork and rice, yummy too. I had to get all the grading done, which took me a long time, and around 11, I finally got to go and see what Ben was up to. He, his brother and his friend were all around the fire again, so we all sat and talked. Everyone drank beers, I tried a little Mike's Hard Lemonade and decided the alcohol flavor wasn't pleasing, so I gave it away. Ben went to sleep a bit mellowed.
The next day was leaving day. Ben and I went down, ate breakfast and went back to bed. Right when everyone was leaving, we finally got up. Lazy, I am. Hope they don't think too badly of me... Since it was Ben's older brother's birthday, we stopped by his house where we saw a gigantic spider and a stick bug, as well as some of the biggest dogs in the world. It's funny, because when I first met Ben, I was scared to death of dogs. I don't mind them so much now, though jumpy ones still kind of make me nervous. At his brother's house were the two dogs we brought - Bo the Boxer and Corby the collie mix puppy, and his brother's dogs - Justin the German shepherd, Simon the golden lab and Maiza, not sure what she is, and then there was Ben's brother's mother-in-law's dog, Murphey the Irish terrier. It was fun to watch them running around, particularly Corby since she's such a wimp. I sat with Simon for a while, he's very old and slow and likes it when I scratch his ears. I like to pet a dog who sits still so we were both happy.
After that it was back home I go, where work and dance awaited. One of the dances involved horse stance for half an hour and boy did that kill. It's funny how I refuse to use the discipline to stay that way when it comes to martial arts, but when it's dance, I don't even think about the pain. Must have something to do with my mentality. I just know that right now, my thighs are killing me. Pretty soon I'm going to be trying out for Lunar Gala dance. I hope I get in - one of my choreographers for Dancer's Symposium is also choreographing this year, so maybe I'll have a chance. Four dances plus dance class, I feel fit already.

DC

This past weekend, I was in Washington D.C. On the first day, we went to the NCCP (or was it NCPC?). They're the ones that figure out where monuments go. It was kind of boring and though they talked about the memorials a bit, they spent most of it talking about what they do. When they asked if anyone had any questions, well only the teachers do. I think urban planning is still out of most of our realms, and also, most of us haven't been in D.C. since junion high, so we don't know what to ask about. I mentioned later to our teacher that I thought it would have been better to go to that place last, and she told us that in past years, the speakers would always go into detail about the memorials, but this year they only mentioned them briefly. Afterwards, I went around the western end of the mall with Waz, Ken and BKish. The Roosevelt Memorial I think, is truly an impressive memorial and a pleasant place to be. We took a lot of photos around the giant scotty dog. We went there, the Jefferson Memorial, up to the WWII memorial then to the Vietnam Memorial and then to the Korean Memorial. By then, my poor bladder was dying of overload, so I sounded the alert and we headed back to the hotel (it was already 8pm by then anyway). For the evening, we went to Georgetown with Hannah and her friend who wanted to wander. While walking there, I recalled my friend Christina transfered to Georgetown - except I couldn't call her with my nifty new cell phone because I had no internet connection and therefore could not look up her number. Very sad...It's been years since I last saw her.
After a day of walking, we weren't so much interested in wandering as in eating. We ended up eating at Unos. We were seated at the table at the highest spot of the restaurant, which was pretty cool. We ordered around 9:30 and got our food around 10-ish. I threatened Ken while we were waiting that if the food wasn't there by 10, I'd have to gnaw on his arm. He said that Kish was probably tastier, to which I said Kish was hairier. Ken's reply was handing me the butter knife. Fortunately for both of them, the food arrived in a timely fashion. The table was completely silent for a good 20 minutes while we gobbled down everything on our plates.
The second day was the work day. I spent all day drawing the Korean Memorial and in the process got burned like a lobster. At 4, I went with a few classmates to meet everyone at the National Building Museum, which is supposedly just on the other side of the mall. It turned out to be on the other side along with seven extra blocks. After an hour of walking, I was very unhappy and my back is now brown. Not my front, not my legs, not my arms. Just my back. I hope it goes away soon. After our meeting it was off to Union Square to meet Stef's cousin. He hadn't seen her in about ten years and we were tempted to line up all the little asian girls (there were four of us) and have him pick her out of the lineup. Sadly, it didn't happen. We ate at Capitol City (a microbrewery - I don't think her cousin realized we were all underage) where Cathy had the most delicious desert ever. Then, we tried to get to Georgetown before all the stores closed. Sadly, we only made it in time to glance through FCUK and the United Colors of Benetton. Waz didn't get to go to Urban Outfitters for her flask...After that we just went back to the hotel where we all sat up talking for a while.
Day three was awesome. We all got up early and slept all the way to Mount Vernon. We got free tickets to go on the boat tour which was at 10:30 leaving about 30 minutes to kill. I wandered through the craft tents and there were perfect pewter Jeffersonian cups that I would love to buy, except they were $25 a cup. Maybe when I'm rich. As it is, I bought some really nice handmade soaps - bug hater's bar (lemongrass scent), Grapefruit Tea, Peppermint Citrus, Cinnamon Oatmeal and Spiced Lime. I can't wait to use them, but for now, they're freshening up my bedroom (Ben commented the other day that the whole apartment smelled funky, except my room - I thank the soaps). The boat tour was just like 8th grade, except this time around, everyone forced me to slather myself with sunscreen. I don't know if it did any good, I know I did get ever so slightly redder. By the time the tour was done, I had literally an hour and a half to find a place, make my documentation and meet up with everyone. I speed walked most of the plantation and ended up sitting in a shade at the slave memorial. At first it was just me and Hannah drawing quietly (interrupted at one point by an annoyingly loud and shrill little girl) and then a bunch of classmates who were done came by and decided to take a nap by me. Guess I just exude sleepiness... We all went to eat lunch at the Mt. Vernon restaurant afterwards. There was chicken, summer squash and mashed potatoes - very yummy. I ended up sitting next to the third year coordinator, Christine, who commented that we were the most punctual group she's ever taken on the trip (I like to think we're just hungrier than other groups). After lunch, we went to Dunbarton Oaks, which I decided would be a great place to get married. Not that I'm looking to get married anytime soon, mind you. Still, it's a beautifully designed garden. I ended up sitting under the bright sun again, on a ledge overlooking the fountain terrace (I just happened to like the only restricted area) drawing pretty flowers. Christine came up behind me at one point and said I picked a good spot. It feels like the trip was over way too soon. We hopped on the bus and headed back to campus, and I got to hang out with Ben for a little while.
O yes, and they picked my watercolors as one of the sets to show the NAAB people. Yay!

Sleep is for the Weak

Congratulate me. I pulled my first all nighter of third year. The last time I pulled a true all nighter like this was second semester of first year. That didn't happen until we were at least a month and a half into things. That's how wonderful my life is. Tuesday was Enviro - group project(group of four). Today, or rather, tomorrow for me, is Studio - group project(group of two). Tomorrow, day-after-tomorrow or Thursday is Site - group project(group of three). Due to slackers, I couldn't even finish Enviro until 4 am on Monday. Then, with our extended Enviro class today, we couldn't start studio till 10pm. And now it's 8am. I'm going to go shower. Life sucks. Martyrdom is all there is.

Dance!

I had a horrible tryout on Saturday. It was bad. The dance was more hip hoppy than I would have liked. On the upside, I got into three dances, one of which I never thought I would. On the downside, I didn't get into the one that I really, really wanted. That's got me sort of down. O well, maybe next year.
On this semester's menu, we have one quirky Abby dance, one awesome Jess hip hop dance and one studio jazzy Kelly dance which looked fun in a high school dance team way. Still a little hurt Steph didn't want me. I did see a lot of super ballerina-like girls this year, so I guess all the ones she picked were freshmen. I don't think she'd pick friends, she's very professional about that. Most other choreographers only pick friends though. I suppose it's refreshing that she picks those who can best handle it. Still, I kind of wish I got a chance at it. I think I've definitely improved since spring, a lot about not worrying so much about the look and worrying more about the stretch, since stretching is what gives you the energy to bring motions through to completion. I wonder when Dancer's Light is auditioning...

Which Do You Want First? The Good or Bad News?

I'll save the good news for last and tell you the bad news first. It isn't really that bad, more like an annoyance, a bad ending to an otherwise great day. I was all set and ready to drift off into the land of deep slumber when my cell phone rings. Fancy that, someone is calling me. So I answered and someone with a fake Indian accent starts telling me that I won $200 and that I should give him my social security number and no, it's not studio, it's just his parents like to laugh. Haha, thanks for waking me up Kiko. Nice of you to lend him your phone just for the occasion, Ben Saks. Always appreciate ruining a good nine hours of sleep for a laugh at my expense.
On the good side, the studio drawing of our section looks fabulous. Mine is so-so next to Josh's and Waz's. I should have used their methods for drawing trees. Darn. Also on a good note, my Ben went to a job interview today. He hasn't heard from them yet, although the lady said, "I see no reason why you wouldn't get hired." It sounds like an awesome job, and he gets out of work at 3:30-ish so I get to still have time to hang out with him. Yay!

Trees

This week, I spent more time outdoors than I have in my entire life. Well, that's what it feels like anyway. Studio this semester is very much landscape architecture, so we have to go out and learn about trees and why we're supposed to love them. On Tuesday I hiked up to Chatham (couple miles from campus, all uphill) and had to pick out an area to document. Then my classmates and I went out to Schenley Park to document our areas for studio. On Friday, we went to both places yet again, though the trip was a little more fruitful this time. On Saturday, I was at Ben's house and I was regaling him with my adventures in the wild. I suppose he decided that since I spent all week in the woods, I wouldn't mind taking a look around his woods. I don't mind so long as its bug free, but sadly it wasn't and I'm totally covered in mosquito bites. Oddly, not a one bothered Ben. How does he do it? He said, "I think you'll like it a lot better, honey, when everything's dead." How right he is.
Saturday with Ben was very nice. His parents were up at Conneaut closing up the cottage so it was just us and the dogs. His parents bought a collie/lab/retriever mix and she's only about six weeks old. Very small, very adorable, very tiny bladder. She peed all over the house. It's amazing how she has perfect bladder control when we're outsides, but the moment we let her in, she pees. It makes Ben very upset. I got paranoid towards evening, and everytime I didn't see her in the room, I'd go look for her just to see if she had ruined yet another portion of the carpet. On a nice note, I found that just sitting in the back patio with Ben and watching the dogs is very peaceful and satisfying. I think I enjoyed that even more than driving around and watching movies.

The Cleanliness of Man

Everything's starting to come together here in Pittsburgh. The homework is starting to pile on, I now have internet, all my furniture is put together, if not quite organized, and pretty soon, I will have tastefully neutral curtains hanging on the openings. I spent all evening working on my room, finishing around 9:30 and talking with Ben for an hour. Then I spent the rest of the evening cleaning the kitchen. I always thought of myself as relatively messy, but today, I met the true kings of messiness. The nice thing about my apartment is that when the people who lived here before us left, they also left behind a lot of furniture and utensils. While I like most of the furniture (my desk is both hideous and uncomfortable at the moment, but that's my only furniture related complaint), the kitchen things were...lacking. We brought our own pots and pans, so in reality, we didn't need anything at all. What we got was a cabinet filled with about ten pens, three pots and miscellaneous other things. After Christi pulled a crud-covered Foreman Grill out of the cabinet, she decided to go no further, and up until today, it remained the cabinet of disgusting, stomach curdling ickiness. And then I had free time and a strong urge to clean and polish.
Today I learned just how disgusting college boys can be. I can understand a fleck of food here and there, accidentally left on the pan. I can understand a heap of dirty pans in a sink. What I find absolutely incomprehensible is putting the pan away while it's still dirty. Four of the pans were covered in so many layers of food and grease that I couldn't even figure out if it was teflon coated or not (as in, can I use the brillo pad to scrape away all the gunk?). After serious debate and consultation from Christi, we decided that by the time I brilloed all the gunk away, there would be nothing left of the surface of the pan. In the trash they go. It makes me wonder what condition their scrambled eggs were in after using those pans...It makes me wonder how they didn't all die from food poisoning...
I also found a very old, 70s-esque waffle maker complete with the crummy leftovers from the last time our former tenants made breakfast with it. Year old waffle crumbs...yummmm... I couldn't figure out how to wash it without damaging the electronics (apparently, neither did they) so I opted to toss that too. I topped it all off with a liberal scrubbing of the kitchen floor and a splash of antibacterial. If that doesn't work, I don't know what will...