I'm not sure how much more I can write about. I've tried to streatch these out. But I guess my last one was a bit longer than I expected it to be.
Currently I am fighting time. I have a lot to do in a short period of time. And blogging isn't helping I know.
Not only do I have to a lot to do, but I wasn't able to get outside much today which I'm not too happy about it. But as soon at tonight is over, my work load will diminish. Then exam week. Or hell week. Either one. Then- HOME! For a week anyway then GERMANY! Yay! and Austria! and the Czech Republic! and Hungry! Needless to say I am so excited to be going to Europe. And yes, I will rub it in.

I just happened to be browsing the latest posts that people have made when I came across Lauren's. Unlike her, I still have yet to figure out what my body needs. I'm quite jealous that she is able to know exactly how much sleep she needs, & how she feels if she doesn't get it. I on the other hand am completly out of touch with my sleeping needs. It varies greatly. It depends on what I've done that day, what my previous night was like, I never quite know how much is enough. In high school I'm pretty sure that I had insomnia. Freshman year anyway. I would get ready for bed, & then just end up laying there all night. At around 4 or 5am I would start to get a little tired, sleep until 7:50am get out of bed, throw on some clothes, brush my teeth, wash my face & walk the 50 feet it took to get to my classes (going to boarding school has some perks). Then the beginning of this semester, I could not stop sleeping. Every chance I could I would nap because I was always so tired. & now I'm reverting back to my old ways that seem to pop up ever few year, I'm back to sleeping 4-5 hours a night. Maybe one day I can finally figure myself out! I hope so.

So I lied. That wasn't really a summer memory. I got carried away & decided that talking about the people I worked with was enough information for a post. But here is my summer memory from last year.
It was sometime in late July. The air was really starting to get humid & heat lighting was regular. I was working a double & it was time to tip out. As usual we do our side work, then head for a table in the back to do our roll ups. This is usually when plans are made for the rest of the night. Preston, Samantha, Steve & I crammed ourselves into a booth & got started. We were discussing how slow today was since it was nice out & on days like these people head to the beach, all of two miles away. After discussing the rude people we had to serve & the latest drama we began to figure out what we were up to for the rest of the night. I had been working there long enough to know to bring a set of clothes when working the dinner shift because one never knows what to expect after work.
So an hour later I found myself at Preston's house. Sam had to go home to change, Steve had to pick something up at his house, which was only a few blocks from Preston's & I didn't really feel like driving to my house all to just turn around. Preston lived in a walk-in basement near the down town area. It wasn't very big & I soon got bored of sitting in the small living room while he showered, we serve olive oil with cheese, garlic & cracked pepper & rolls, so by the end of your shift you reek of oil. To get to his house from the street you have to walk down the sloped driveway & his front door is on the backside of the building. So I took his bulldog & sat out on the driveway waiting for Steve & Sam to get there.
I could hear the ocean in the background, & Preston signing in the shower. Across his back yard his neighbors were having a cook out & the smell of fresh burgers & cool beer lingered in the air. I could also make out the faint noises of drunk people moving from one bar to the other a few streets away. His dog nudged me with his cold wet nose. Everything seemed perfect at that moment, the noises were perfectly in sync with summer & the sweet smell of the shower mixed with the bbq across the back yard. I wasn't sure how long I stayed there, sitting in the driveway, palms down, head hung back. It was so relaxing after being on my feet all day. That was one of the best moment I had from last summer.

The last of the summer memories.
Last summer was probably one of the best summers I've had in a long time. I worked as a waitress, which was a change for me because getting a summer job is nearly impossible & I always have to end up working for my dad. Working outside of the family business is great break. I met so many people. & I realized that almost everyone in the restaurant business has a troubled/interesting past. Most of the waiters there had been in rehab or were still struggling with demons. One day I came in to work just like any other day & a few minutes later Brandon (my fellow co-worker) walks in with this massive glasses, the ones that girls wear. His knuckles and cheeks are swollen and red. I'd never seen anyone's eyes that color. It was like someone took out his eyeball & painted it red, purple, navy & yellow & stuck it back in his head. His eyes were so swollen that there was no indent, his face was all the same depth. Needless to say, our manager Tom wasn't too happy that he was down a waiter for a few weeks while Brandon's face & hands healed.
He wasn't the only one who had problems. The take out kid Keaton had a parole officer. I had to sign a piece of paper for him saying he had gone to a.a. or else he was going to go back to jail. Then there was Steve. He had been homeless for a few years while his mother dealt with her battle with heroin. I don't think I have ever met a more dysfunctional group of people in my entire life. We even had a dramatic romance going on. Kitty & one of the cooks in the back, Pedro began this passionate romance. The only problem was that Pedro was about to get deported, his green card was about to expire. I remember sitting & talking to Kitty about her predicament. Pedro had wanted her to move to Mexico with him, but she felt that it wasn't a good choice for her 3 year old daughter. Pedro understood but was clearly still heartbroken. I can't forget the night someone came to the restaurant to come after Steve. I'm still not sure what the guy was after but he came around back to the dumpsters. Steve decided to protect himself with our mini-desert holders, which is basically just a chandelier looking thing which tiny martini glasses (filled with desert mind you) hang off of. With all of this drama & trouble pasts you'd think I worked at a fast food joint. Wrong. The restaurant I worked at was actually a nice place. Think of the Cheesecake Factory without all the decorations & the massive amounts of cheesecake.
That summer was great. We even had a local musician in our bunch. After work we'd go to the Pickled Onion (no idea why anyone would name a bar that) & watch Dan play. He even played in Boston a few times. Although all of these kids (no one was past the age of 25) had so much trouble in their lives, for the most part they were trying to clean themselves up. It was a hell of a lot more fun than working for my dad, that's for sure. Although I'm pretty sure he wouldn't be glad to hear about all the things that I witnessed.

Continuing with my last post, my favorite summer moment of '07 was a day I spent on the beach. I was at my friends house which is right on the ocean, it's amazing. After a while we got bored of just laying out & wanted to do something a bit more active. The beach her house is on isn't very big, and a bit set in, but there are a set of rocks that are placed as a sort of protection so the beach won't get pounded by waves. Well, when the tide is out the rocks are a lot more accessible. So as a way of getting off our asses we decided to go walk on them. That led to jumping off of them. Most people don't believe me when I say that it does get hot in Massachusetts during the summer. & although the ocean water doesn't get very warm, after laying out in 90 degree weather the cold water is a good shock. Eventually our legs got a little numb after jumping in so many times. Once we got back to the beach we realized that our legs were bleeding everywhere. Barnacles don't hurt as much when you can feel from the waist down.

Three times in one day?! Crazy I know. After I blogged about summer being here, I began to think back upon my favorite summer moments. I'll start with summer of '07. I had just come home from working at my dad's store. It was a shitty night, someone was probably walking in at 10:58pm (we close at 11pm) and couldn't figure out what kind of beer they wanted, and then decided they had the munchies & couldn't find a suitable snack, taking another 10 minutes to find just the right kind of chip. So as I pulled into the drive way and found my older brother Jim, his childhood friend Harry & our cousin Brad smoking their cigarettes & sipping beer, I was ecstatic. There was a heavy fog which brought in the ocean smell & a distant thunder storm; it was a warm humid night, but it felt amazing. After a few beers inside we set out to find the Frisbee & headed outside. The storm had passes just as we got outside, but the pavement was still steaming, the cool rain had beat upon the cul-de-sac which had the hot July sun baking it all day. As we walked down the drive way we were greated by the steam from the road. As we began to throw (?) the glow-in-the-dark Frisbee around heat lightning & thunder filled the skies. It was truly beautiful. I live on this massive hill (second highest in my town thank you very much) so the lightning seemed so close & the smell of the Atlantic is always strong when a storm comes in. So there we were, playing Frisbee with ice cold beers in hand in what seemed to be the clouds.

Well this is odd. On my dashboard it says that I have 22 post. Then when I'm looking at my blog, on the side it says that I only have 21 posts. Hm.

This past Saturday I found myself at Crowders Mountain. It was wonderful. Going for a hike is one of the best ways I think I can spend the day. Getting away from school feels amazing after being stuck here since Christmas break. The weather was grand, little to no clouds, a slight breeze & the sun wasn't too hot. We wanted to get near the lake so after some driving & navigating we found our way to the lake. After a five minute walk through the woods we came to the lake. However, it wasn't quite what we had expected. There it was, barren. Dried up. Fresh out of water. I couldn't tell how long the water had been missing. There were weeds & long blades of grass growing on the bottom. It was quite a disappointment since a main reason for going there was in fact, for the lake. At first I wasn't even convinced this dent in the land was the lake. It took me a few minutes longer on the trail to realize that it was in fact the lake we had desperately wanted to swim in. There was even a dock if we had wanted to lay out.

Finally, summer is here. Well at least in terms of my allergies. Pretty much all of the pollen is gone & my eyes have only been itchy once today! Most of the trees have their leaves & I'm just waiting for the cicadas to come out. Freshman year I thought they were just really loud grasshoppers- until I saw a dead one on the sidewalk. I thought I had been transported to a foreign country- I had never seen an insect that large & scary looking- only in tropical places.
But yes today was a great day for me. I was able to sit outside without having to clutch onto my glasses & eye drops. It can only go up from here! It's even warm back home, my mom told me that she saw the first buds on the trees a few days ago. Alas, summer has come to us again! This is the best part of the year in my estimation. This is when concerts begin to happen outside, cook out season is beginning, baseball games, the sounds of lawn mowers replace the snow blowers, snow boots put away and bathing suites are pulled out. This is when all our coffee makers begin bubbling for exam week, caffine is a must at ever meal & boxes make their way to our dorm room floors to be filled with souvenirs of the past school year. It's sad to see my room half naked, no photos or posters on the wall, half of my clothes gone, but then, I remember that I get to go home & not worry about school work for a few months & I'm suddenly not quite as sad, because now I get to read as many books as I chose, & I can read whatever I want with out having it cut into school work.
Yes, yes, summer is quite a marvelous time.

Where the hell did this year go? It feels like I was just shopping for my king size sheets (I had a double as a singe first semester so I pushed the beds together) & text books. Now, I'm almost a senior. Crap. That word scares the hell out of me. It means joining the real world soon. It means being a college grad & living at home until I save enough money for my own place, it means having to figure out what the hell to do with myself.
I feel as though I've grown a lot this year. I've learned something important, this week actually, that I'm better with creative non-fiction than literate papers. This took me by surprised. I had always liked to write lit papers... until this week. & maybe it's just this week that has made me despise them & put them off for as long as possible, maybe it's because when I'm finished with them it'll bring me one step closer to being a senior. The funny thing is that in so many ways I wish I was a senior, it means leaving behind the petty college life that has become boring & at times annoying (let's face it there are only a certain number of times you can go to a house party or bar before it get's old... about a week after your 21st & it's boring).
But the year isn't over yet & I'm planning on making the best out of it- it's my last year before I actually have to start stressing out, although I tend to get stressed out anyway.

Insomnia. It's not fun to deal with. However, you end up with interesting conversations at 2 and 3am and well into the morning. My roommate & I have been going to bed at around 4 or 5am, sleep for 3 or 4 hours if we can & do it all over again. Last night at around this time we began talking about all sorts of crazy gene related problems (she's pre-med). We ended up googling all sorts of things. For example did you know that there can be females who have XXX chromosomes? Or men who have XYY? So that lead to a lot of googling and wikipediaing (I guess those are actually verbs now, at least google is, that is, I googled...). Then I noticed my brother was on AIM, we talked a bit, then in his sleep deprived state, asked what it would be like to loose all your senses. Woah. My brain couldn't keep up. So asking for assistance I asked my roommate what her thoughts are on the deprivation of the five senses. We decided that it would be torture. You would be trapped in your own brain. Walking is out of the question if you can't feel, the outside world wouldn't exist. It's quite mind boggling, I don't think anyone would know what it's like. For example, when someone is in a coma, they don't really have brain function & when they wake up, they don't have recollection of what it was like, it just a long nap. Then the conversation diffed to, well what if you were born like that? What would thoughts be? We think in our native tongue, what if you didn't know a language? What would the doctors & parents do? All the person could do is sit there, trapped in their own brain. So there we were, three people pondering such questions at 3am.
Note: due to my lack of sleep in the past few weeks, and your perhaps not lack of sleep, all of this may sound crazy. And no we were not stoned while tackling this philosophical question.

Today I decided to brave the outside world. After I put in countless eye drops & took my allergy medication I set out on a run. A side from my nose being runny, it was a great time. It felt like summer, the lawn mowers were going, grills were on, children's voices trailing from down the streets.
I was surprised, here I was, running in Myers Park & I only saw a handful of people! Unless it's 6am or 10pm, there are always people out & about around here. I decided it was because it was Easter, not that there was some massive epidemic. I wasn't able to stay out as long as I had wished since my nose was running like a faucet but it was still a relief to get outside. I had been too scared to go outside and be too far from school in case my eyes started burning & doing what they do best during allergy season.

i have a very distinct memory of my field hockey practices. in high school we'd have practice from 3-5 every day. being a fall sport that always meant bright red arms and legs in mid-Novemeber. the cold air would always sting a little at first until you warm up enough to take off the extra shirt. even still, the air is so cold and crisp that we all match the turning leaves.
today i was playing, well, more like kicking the ball around in the late afternoon. and although i wasn't holding my field hockey stick, and there were only three of us as oppose to the 20 something, the air had that cold nip to it, the trees were blowing just that way, and my friends legs were too red to ignore.
playing on a team is something that i miss almost everyday. i was glad to just be outside kicking the soccer ball around and feeling that bit of competitiveness that comes out when i'm on the field.

tree climbing. something many of us did as children. i still remember that tree in my backyard that i'd spend hours in. i'm surprised my parents didn't cut it down or have me see a shrink. it was a great tree. right near the fence dividing our yard from our neighbors. not only did i get to spy on them but there's a army nike site right behind my house so i got to see army people come and go. most of the time it was just vacant.
today i got to see people who still love that childhood feeling of being up in a tree. all alone with your thoughts, among the birds, it's a nice place to be. the national tree climbing completion was today at the park. but their tree climbing isn't as relaxed as i remember mine being, they have to throw ropes up into the tree, the rope that would keep them alive. then as they climb up they have to hit these little cow bells (i need MORE COW BELL...yes yes). they are timed the whole time. twenty-five minutes to get the rope into the tree, hit as many cow bells as possible, get down, and get all their ropes out of the tree. it's pretty high pressure compared to our childhood past time.

While my computer decided to take a few mental health days & it was in the infirmary I decided to blog else where. I always felt as though someone was walking by & staring at me. 'Why would someone be on an on-line journal in the library?'. Someone actually walked slowly by a few times...I'm pretty sure they were trying to see if I was typing down some deep dark private thoughts. I gave up since I couldn't concentrate. But alas, my computer has gotten over his virus & is sitting comfortably back in it's place on my desk. All in is good.

I'm in the process of finding an internship. It all seems so bogus. No one really wants to hire, even if with no pay, if they don't have experience in the field. Yet, how does one break into the field when no one wants to be the first to hire them? It's all quite scary. I'm sick of these non-jobs. Personally I want to do more than wait a table, it's a good summer job but I want to get into the field that I'm interested in, even if after I graduate I probably won't get a job seeing as how the economy is going. My friend right now is about to graduate & she has no idea what she wants to do. Right now that is the major hurdle I have to get over: finding a summer internship.

I was recently talking with a girl who has just gotten back from the Guatemala trip. It made me want to pack up my things & join the Peace Corps. It made me sick of school. Not because I don't like it, but because I want to DO something. I love learning, I love my English classes, but sometimes I just want to go and do something besides just sit at a desk or table all day. I remember being in the Dominican and how amazing that time was. But as I listened to her tell me what she saw, I almost don't know if I can handle it. I want to though, I want to realize and experience again just how different the world can be. I wish I could go to school, learn all that I am learning, and yet help others and experience things that those who went on the Guatemala trip experienced.

the other night i had the most incredible experience. my brother, cousin & i were walking along the canal headed to the jacuzzi when we heard what sounded like a very large coming up for air. sure enough, there were six huge men in the water. sort of. there were six dolphins looking for food. we walked closer & watched in awe as they cut through the water, stopping on a dime & stalking their prey. we sat there watching them hunt & listening to them come up for air for a good half hour. there are lights every 50 or so feet that point into the canal. the water is a turquoise during the day & at night with the light on it it is this eerie almost seaweed like green. every now & then a fish would jet across the illuminated water with a dolphin right on its, er, fin. i've been falling asleep to the sound of dolphins coming up for air & splashing around. i'm not sure i'll be able to sleep when i get back to school.

It's so strange how sometimes words flow so effortlessly, and other times I stuggle just to get a sentence to make any sense. here's a section that I think works well from my last paper:
Being adopted allowed me realize many things. I’m glad that I was able to see two very different places. I had experienced life with a single parent in South America. I remember seeing snow for the first time in the Andes and finding Easter eggs nestled in the grass up in the mountains. I can remember the dry heat from the desert and the way cacti wizzed by on the bus ride from Antofagasta to Santiago. I can still taste the salty Pacific Ocean and how it looks different from the Atlantic. It’s so strange how traveling from Chile to Massachusetts is pretty much a straight line, the time barely changes, but the seasons and stars are opposite. I remember running around at a zoo and watching the leafy palm trees blow in the dry wind.

I can't seem to write. I can't even seem to think about anything to write about. I'm at such a road block that the normal things which help me to write again aren't working for me. I'm not sure what to do.

it's strange how little things make an evening better. i had gone out to celebrate my friend's 21st birthday. the whole place was over the top, guys dressed in black with earpieces worked there, girls paid to stand on a platform to dance (no it wasn't a strip club) and over-priced alcohol with little to no actual alcohol in it. needless to say i left early. as i was walking back to my dorm three of my friends were outside playing guitar and just hanging out. that was probably the best part of the night, just sitting there talking and listening to them play.

Rant

You know what grinds me gears? Award season. Why do actors feel the need to spend almost two months (or that’s what it feels like) on award ceremonies? Because being in movies, getting a lot of money and being in the spot light isn’t enough attention? Really? Is that it? Or do they actually want to be awarded for their art? Because I understand acting is an art, however, half of the actors in do not posses that. I believe that Broadway acting is much more of an art form. But getting back to rant, why do they feel the need to spend thousands of dollars on stupid award shows?! It drives me nuts. The only reason I’d sit through an hour of this mind numbing crap is to see what they wear, and that’s purely a fashion thing, I could give a shit about who wins best hair or best score. The only moderately thing appearing to me is the fashion.

The revising process I think in some ways is harder. You have what you want to say, or what you thought you wanted to say down on paper. Now you must hack through it all, pick and chose what needs to be taken out, put in, or in some cases, almost start from scratch. The last one applies to me in this case. I just don't know what I want to take, what things I need to add and if I even want to go into half of the things. Maybe I'll just narrow it way down and pick one story to tell which will better explain what I set out to explain in the first place.

I haven't been keeping up with blogging this week at all, I'm not sure why. I was doing it pretty frequently the last few weeks... anywho. We were talking about taking the time to look around more, open your eyes and see what's really there. Well, I did that. I ended up going for an hour and half run/walk. I noticed so many different things around the area. It's crazy. I was walking by this one house & they have this brick wall, but it's checkerboard so you can see through it. I was looking through the wall, when I came face to face with this massive dark brown spider. I screamed. Right there on the sidewalk, I'm sure a few other runners must have turned to look, but I was so scared I didn't notice. After I got my heart back to normal I realized that maybe it had been a left over from Halloween. And maybe, looking too close is a bit scary. Earlier that day I was eating lunch in the dinning hall. For some reason I decided to look up. Right there on a beam, was a massive splash of food. Some thirty feet up in the air, on the white wooden (I asume) beam someone must have thrown food. I wonder if anyone had seen it. It was a bit gross.

things i love

over my past 21 years i have realized that there are three things which fill me with happiness & excitement. getting off a plane in a new place, starting a new book & coming home after being gone for a while.
i love traveling & when I'm going somewhere new my favorite part of the trip is getting off the plane; especially if you get dropped off right on the tarmac. they say smell triggers memories & it's definitely true for me. certain smells to this day remind me of the Dominican republic, for instance the other day i picked up a candle at a store. it was a musty scent, it actually almost smelt spicy like b.o. but with a hint of the ocean, it was such a strange mix i was surprised it was actually a candle. it also reminded me of home, because when i get out of the car, if the wind's just right, I'll get a whiff of the Atlantic.
another thing that I've come to love is starting books. it's nice to escape into someone else's life for a while. when you first open a book you don't really know what to expect. it's all a surprise. anything can happen. maybe that's why I'm always reading two books at once.
and finally, the third thing that i love is coming home after I've been gone for a while. i love traveling and going to new places, & I've never had the feeling of wanting to leave a place. i actually thought of ways to wonder off & 'get lost' in Heathrow when i was younger. but when i finally do make it home, it's always so amazing to be there. there's something comforting about being able to drive in any direction & know where you are. mind you i love getting lost in foreign places, i find it fun & i always end up having an interesting story to tell. being home means being more independant. i know where everything is, i know how & where to get what i need. it's also being around people who know me best. i've never been homesick, but that doesn't mean that i don't love it all the same.

lies

i don't tend to lie to people. if i disagree or if i'm asked for an oppinion, i'll be honest with them. i'm not sure if that's always a good thing or not, sometimes it makes me look mean, when i'm actually just being honest with them.
however, when i was little i use to lie all the time. for fun, to avoid blame, to see if anyone would believe me. but i mostly lied to get out of trouble, which most of the time ended up biting me in the ass. if say, i spilled something or if i had known about a broken plate, i would deny it. it wasn't me, ask paul and jim, the list went on. i lied because i was so scared of getting in trouble & my parents being mad at me.
now a days i'll lie if someone asks for my number, "sorry i lost my phone", or "i'm getting a new phone & my number's changing" or i'll give them the wrong number. i usually just feel bad for saying no you can't have it, so i'll make up an excuse & hope they buy it. but when a friend asks for advice i'm always honest, they're my friend, they can handle the truth.

i'm not sure how i feel about this blogging, its going to take some time & getting use to. i find it hard to navigate, again, i'm sure i'll feel better about this in a few weeks.
for me, writing non-fiction always seemed easier. perhaps i lack that childhood imagination for the world of fiction. i always found it much easier to simply write what i know, or at least expand upon things i know, a tad of imagination. but i was never the kid to make up fantasy lands & people. i much preferred to simply explore what already exits, different places & people.

history

my history with blogging has been limited. i vaguely remember having a teenopendiary for a week when i was in middle school, but i guess that site closed down since i just checked it & it's not there. as far as keeping a journal, i've kept one since i was little. i don't write in it everyday but i like to put quotes in it and things i want to do, places i want to go; that sort of thing. so that's my history with blogging & journaling.