Why I love baseball!

Because of finishes like the Twins had last night! If you're a baseball fan you may already know this, but MY Minnesota Twins pulled off an INCREDIBLE sweep of the Chicago White Sox this week, winning 9-3, 3-2, and 7-6 last night in extra innings!!! For you non-baseball people-- THIS. IS. HUGE. The Twins are now 1/2 a game ahead in the AL Central of the White Sox with one series remaining for each team. If the Twins win all three of their games and Chicago loses at least 1, the Twins are in. If we win all of them and so does Chicago, there will be some one-game playoff situations that will take place. But instead of getting into all that, let's reflect on the AWESOMENESS of last night's game!

The Twins were down 6-1 in the 4th inning, and because we are so scrappy, we chipped away at that lead, getting a run here and 2 runs there. Our defense was stellar, and our bullpen (relief pitchers) really came through for us. That bring me to the bottom of the 8th, the Twins down 6-4. Well we managed to tie the game 6-6 in the 8th and hold on til the bottom of the 10th when we got a bloop single into short left field to WIN THE GAME!! They played so hard this week and really showed everyone that they deserve a spot in the postseason. So now we play a 3 game series at home vs. Kansas City and Chicago goes home to play a 3 game series against Cleveland, which means I am a HUGE Cleveland fan this weekend!!

My suitemates and roommate were so tolerant of me last night, so thanks girls!! The season premiere of Grey's Anatomy was on so we all watched that in the suite while I had my laptop out there so I could watch the Twins game on mlb.com. I paid $4.95 to watch the game-- there was no way I was going to miss that OR Grey's!

So all in all, a GREAT Thursday night! The season premiere of Grey's was awesome and the Twins game was even better!!!

So keep your fingers crossed this weekend for the Twins to win and the White Sox to LOSE LOSE LOSE!!! Hopefully come October, I'll still have a team to cheer for in the postseason!

And, as a side note, I'm sure only about 5% of you ACTUALLY care about anything I just wrote about, so thanks for putting up with me. I promise baseball will be over soon... but then I'll just get heated about football instead ; )

Ahoy me mateys & LET'S GO TWINS!

Interesting blog title, yes? Well this afternoon my room was delighted to learn that you can set your Facebook language to be "Pirate" themed... it's probably the funniest thing ever. Instead of "log out" it'll say "abandon ship" and instead of having friends or writing on someone's wall, you have "mateys" and you "scrawl" on a wall... HILARIOUS. Definitely check it out when you have time. If you're anything like me or my roommate, you'll use it as a phenomenal procrastination tool. Thanks to my friend Charles for that incredible discovery :)

So what else is going on in my life? Well turns out that September is the month of BIRTHDAYS! You all know my friend Janelle turned 21 a few weeks ago. Then the week after my friend Andy turned 22 so we threw him a Fiesta-themed party, then this week two other of my friends have birthdays, so there is a lot of celebrating going on here! This Friday we're all going into Boston in a party bus for Paul's 21st, so that should be SO much fun! I heard it's supposed to rain on Friday, so keep your fingers crossed for clear skies and no rain of any kind.

This is also a huge week in Major League Baseball. All you Red Sox fans should be happy that the team clinched last night-- that means they're guaranteed a spot in the playoffs for all you non-baseball obsessed people. My Minnesota Twins are still in it; they're playing a HUGE series against the Chicago White Sox this week that will more or less determine who wins the AL Central and heads to the playoffs. Put as simply as possible, Minnesota needs to win all their games against Chicago and hope that Chicago continues to get beat during the last series of the regular season, taking place this weekend. Definitely feasible, but not an easy feat for my Twins. But MN started off on the right foot last night, beating the ChiSox 9-3-- YAY TWINS! I think my friends will be happy once the season is over because it's slightly possible that I dislike any other topic of conversation other than the Twins' chances of making it into the postseason. My roommate is probably ready to smack the next person who says the terms "magic number" or "one and a half games back" or "sweep"... she's also probably extremely sick of my detailed explanations of EVERY possible scenario that could manifest itself in the next week. But what can I say-- I've played softball since I was 4 and grew up in a baseball family! I love it :)

To help demonstrate my love for any kind of baseball (except that of the White Sox or the Yankees-- don't get me started on my extreme dislike for either of THOSE teams) here are some pictures of my favorite sport ever:

This is a picture of me and one of my best friends from high school Kathryn, back in the summer of 2005- fresh high school graduates with our box seats at the Red Sox v. Twins game in Minnesota! We were right behind home plate thanks to her dad getting sweet tickets from his work.

Me and my freshman year roomie Alisha on our FREE TOUR OF FENWAY PARK-- yes that's right! That was us on the Green Monster!

My family! My dad, my mom, me and my grandpa at Comerica Park in Detroit, Michigan in the summer of 2006. Obviously since my dad grew up in Detroit we have a small family rivalry in the AL Central Division... you can also see that my mom and I are on the correct side of that rivalry!

Sophomore year at Fenway with Janelle!

What does this photo have to do with baseball you ask? Well this picture proves that I was awake at 5:27 am Paris time last year, watching the Red Sox win the World Series live on my computer! I was so sad that there was no one to celebrate with, and since it was almost 5:30 am, I couldn't exactly yell and scream with excitement since I was in a dorm full of sleeping students. But I was awake and I watched it. HERE'S PROOF!

My family and I this summer at US Cellular Field (home of the cursed White Sox) in Chicago for the Sox/Twins game! My dad got sweet seats through work, so we were like 5 rows behind home plate! And yes, I braved the south side of Chicago and PROUDLY wore my Twins gear!

A good display of the family rivalry: when the Twins played the Tigers at the Metrodome this past summer and my dad and I went, cheering for opposing sides. This is my "I don't care that you're from Detroit Dad, you like the wrong team!" face! And as I recall, the Twins won (of course)!

Though she won't ditch her beloved Red Sox, I have definitely convinced my born-and-raised Massachusetts roomie of the awesomeness of the Minnesota Twins! Every time she comes to Minna during baseball season, we HAVE to go to a Twins game!

So there you have a brief tour of my love for America's favorite pastime. All in all, I've been to stadiums all across the country: Camden Yards in Baltimore, Shea Stadium in NYC, Fenway (of course!), US Cellular & Wrigley in Chicago, Jacobs Field in Cleveland, Comerica AND Tiger Stadium in Detroit, Dodger Stadium in LA, Busch Stadium in St. Louis, Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City, the Ballpark in Arlington in Texas, the Mariners' stadium in Seattle, and I know I'm forgetting some! I've been to various spring training games too, which are always fun. When I was little I told my parents they were never allowed to move to a city that didn't have professional baseball-- good thing they moved me from Tulsa to Washington DC when I was 5 years old or who knows what would have happened to me! I just spent a good 5 minutes trying to come up with an appropriate analogy of what my life would be like without baseball and unfortunately I haven't come up with one that expresses the importance of it in my life!

                                                                                                                                                                          

Let's just leave it at this: The Twins rule, the White Sox and Yankees drool.

                                                                                                                                                                          

So mature, I know. But who ever said sports fans were mature?!

Here comes the stress :(

It happens every semester and I'm still not ready for it. There you are, breezing along with moderate amounts of reading, maybe a quiz here and there and an easy 2-3 paper or two. You're thinking "how come I always get so stressed during the school year? This is easy!" and then BAM. You remember why: TESTS. Doesn't it seem like all professors assign the first big assignment at the same time? I have my first Brain & Behavior exam on Monday and ohhhh myyyy goshhh I am nervous. My class is made up of half psych majors and half science majors (who seem to understand everything my professor says, while us psych kids stare blankly at him with glossy eyes when he says stuff like "oligodendocytes" without missing a beat) and I am not looking forward to the amount of time I will be spending in the library this week and weekend studying. The first test of a semester is always a bummer because it's then that I usually realize, yep, I'm in school-mode now. 

But anyway, on to happier things. Janelle's birthday weekend was PHENOMENAL! It was so much fun getting dressed up and the limo was awesome. The only bummer was that it was raining fairly hard on Friday night so we didn't get to take a picture of all of us outside the limo because we were all making a mad dash to get inside so we didn't ruin our hair (yes, we're girls and we worry about things like that, sorry guys you just don't understand!). But here are some pictures of us beforehand:

Getting 11 girls to smile for a picture at the same time is really, really difficult ; ) But I love this photo!

Here's a nice one of all of us before we left campus : )

Janelle (the birthday girl), myself and Megan in the limo!

My friends are so pretty : ) Here's Maeve, Kim and Mandi in Boston!

Roomie love! 

Me with the Birthday Girl!

This week I also booked a couple of trips- one home for Christmas and another to go to my friend Charles' graduation in December. Once finals are over I'll be going down to Maryland for 5 days for his college graduation and then I'll head home to Minna for almost 3 weeks for Christmas vacation. It's so weird to think about that now, since it's AFTER winter finals but I wanted to book it now while airfare is still somewhat cheaper. I hate all the extra costs involved with flying now. You used to be able to check 2 bags free of cost, and now you have to pay just to check one. There's also crazy fuel surcharges and other additional stuff that we have to pay for, so I'm just happy it's my final year of flying from home to school or else my family would be paying A LOT more for four years! But anyway, I'm very glad I'll get to see Charles graduate and it'll be a nice segway into my winter break. 

But as for now, I can't even think about winter break because that means too many tests, papers and SNOW! I want summer back!

Happy Birthday to you :)

One of the best things about college is celebrating birthdays with all of your friends. This week, one of my friends Janelle finally hit the big 2-1 milestone so we were all very excited! To celebrate, we decided to go to the local pub, Owen O'Leary's. Turns out a lot of our friends had the same idea, because so many people showed up to wish Janelle a happy birthday! Owen's is great because they have $1 pizzas and $1 chicken wings-- perfect for a college budget! We had a great night with our now "grown up" Janelle, but the best part of her birthday celebration is coming up tomorrow-- for her birthday present, her parents are renting us a limo for the night to take us girls into Boston for a girls night out! We're all getting dressed up and so it should be a really fun night. 

                                                                                                                                                                          

That's a huge perk of Stonehill-- its proximity to Boston. I've loved going into Beantown throughout my 3 years here, and I haven't been in yet this year. I've gone in for games, concerts, shopping, etc! In fact, come October I'm going in with some friends for a Coldplay concert, which should be awesome. Some of my favorite spots are Faneuil Hall, Fire and Ice, Mike's Pastry (if you've never been here, oh my gosh it's incredible, GO! It's in the North End on Hanover St.) Newbury Street (especially So Good Jewelry-- super cheap and super cute jewelry) and of course, FENWAY! Sophomore year I won 2 tickets to a Red Sox game by entering a contest in the caf, so Janelle and I headed into Boston for a night at the ballpark (thanks Stonehill!) I spent my birthday weekend in Boston last March and it's just fun to go in for the day and explore the city. The food in the North End is fantastic, and the T is so easy to use to get around that it's almost impossible not to go in! The Stonehill shuttle brings you right to the Quincy Adams T stop, and by getting on there, you're already on the red line headed straight into the city! Let's just say if the girl from Minnesota (land of no public transportation, even in the city really) can figure out the T, you can too.

                                                                                                                                                                          

Here's some pictures from previous Boston visits!

This is a picture of me and one of my freshman year roomies, Sharon playing around in the Frog Pong in the Boston Common... very first trip into Boston as a freshman, back in 2005!

Our favorite picture from freshman year! This was in Faneuil Hall, when we went in for Danielle's birthday. That's Megan, Alisha, Danielle, Sharon, Janelle and I.

Sophomore year: Alisha and I helping the duckies walk in the Common :)

Janelle and I with our free tickets to Fenway as sophomores!

Faneuil Hall at Christmastime!

This was over my birthday weekend last March-- my friend Charles is a big fan of Samuel Adams (for obvious reasons) so he wanted his picture taken by him!

                                                                                                                                                                          

So as you can see, Boston is a great city with lots to do. Can't wait to go in tomorrow night with my favorite girls to celebrate a fantastic birthday :) Happy Birthday Janelle! Love you!

Gonna get right back to where I started from...

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately. Mostly, I've been thinking about how this is my final year at Stonehill. Yeah, yeah, I know SO DEPRESSING- why am I thinking about this? But it's inevitable really, as I just can't wrap my head around that idea. Next year at this time, who knows where I'll be? Hopefully it'll be Paris (avec Jill!) but that's not for sure yet, and I am the kind of person who likes set future plans. I've been trying to just live in the moment and soak up every ounce that senior year has been offering me, and so far I've been doing a good job. But then my stupid wandering mind gets in the way, and I think about how in about 8 and a half months, my perfectly organized life will be over. 

I mean, think about it. We've been going to school since we were 5 (maybe even earlier if you count preschool) and that's all we know. Unless some of you have crazy adventures about a gap year before college, we've all been basically doing the same thing for the past 17 years- getting an education. By now we know the ropes on studying, time management and organization. As seniors, we've spent more time within the walls of MacPhaidin than we care to admit, made it through each subsequent year by passing our finals and we know the caf's menu far too well. But come May 17th, our lives become an open book. No more required school. 

So now what?

Most of my friends will be going to med school (smarty pants), law school (more smarty pants), grad school or getting jobs and we'll be spread out all around the world. No more rolling out of bed at noon for Sunday brunch in our pj's, no more Thursday night Grey's extravaganzas, no more giving tours in the rain and snow and worst of all, no more togetherness. I realize this is the kind of post you'd expect in April, not September, but I'm already sad about leaving. As my roommate would say, I need to "PULL IT TOGETHER SUSAN" and stop whining about leaving because it's not happening til May. So I will :) 

Here are some pictures from senior year with some of my favorite people in the world!

First night back at school with some of my favorites! This is Maeve, me, Janelle and Caitlin very happy to see each other, especially since Maeve and Janelle were studying in Florence last spring so we hadn't seen each other since January!

I pretty much love these girls more than life: Me, my roommate Mandi, Caitlin and Jenny :)

Here's Caitlin, Jill (who I'm moving to Paris with, hopefully!) and myself all happy to be together again (and see Caite, you finally made it into the blog!)

Good group shot (though this isn't even everyone!) of me, Janelle, Mandi, Maeve, Ellen, Kim and Sara. Been friends with some of these girls since freshman year and I can't believe how long ago that seems now!

This is what 4 years at Stonehill will get you-- great friends and great memories. Can't wait to make more this year! (And I'll try to keep the whiney posts to a minimum!)

PS- My friend Charles has informed me he would like a blog shout-out as well, and today's the perfect day for one: HAPPY 22nd BIRTHDAY YOU OLD MAN!