I need to lay down...

Things that have happened to me this week:

1. My intramural beach volleyball team, the Cascino Catz, captured the title of Intramural Champions by winning our tournament in freezing fashion! My suitemates and I are now the proud owners of intramural champions t-shirts, which anyone will tell you is basically the coolest prize ever.

2. I went to the Coldplay concert on Wednesday night at the Garden in Boston and it was INCREDIBLE!!! Without of a doubt one of the top 2 concerts I have ever been to.

3. We had our first step performance at Midnight Madness last night-- way to go RUCKUUUUUUUUSSSSS!!

4. I have slept through 2 out of my 3 Brain & Behavior classes this week (Professor McCoy, if you're reading this, I apologize... please take up your anger with my faulty alarm clock)

5. The roomie and I put the final touches on our Halloween costumes-- we're being runway models :)

6. I took my last midterm of the semester

7. I realized I have a 15 page and a 10 page paper due next week

8. I realized a year ago today I was in Paris with two of my closest high school friends who were visiting me. And then I cried a little.

9. I realize that a year ago this upcoming weekend I was in London & Oxford with my Stonehill roomie... and then I cried some more.

10. I came to realize how truly vital naps are in my life...

... and on that note, I am off to take a nap to prep for the Halloween mixer tonight! I hope you all have a great time at the mixer in your costumes! Sorry there are no pictures in this post. I am so tired right now-- but if you want pictures from Midnight Madness and you're a student, there are a bunch on Facebook... I promise I'll put up pics from the concert, Midnight Madness and Halloween next week.

Thanks For Coming Out!

I am so sad right now.

One week ago today I was hanging out with so many of my favorite people, including Charles! Sorry it took me so long to post this week. I've been working on my Psychology Capstone presentation that's due tomorrow during my free moments this week. Basically, it's the equivalent of my thesis for my psychology major, and it includes an 75 minute presentation and a 15 page paper about a topic within psychology of my choosing. As you may have guessed, I chose child development so I could talk about my littles! More specifically, I decided to research whether having older siblings impacts the younger children's speed at which they reach certain learning milestones, and then based it on the family of 5 that I nanny for. Definitely a project right up my alley!

The project's been a good distraction this week, since last weekend was SO FUN! All us Stonehill girls had a great time with Charles. It was so fun showing him our school and having him meet our friends. My friend Laura turned 21 on Friday so we all went out to dinner and then out to celebrate and it was great having Charles here for that because he got to meet all my friends at once! So, HAPPY BIRTHDAY LAURA!

Naturally we took lots of photos since it was a double-ly special weekend!

Doesn't he look SO happy to see all of us?!

This is a good one of Charles, Mandi and I as we headed to dinner for Laura's 21st!

The Birthday Girl Laura and Jill :) They make such cute roomies :)

Haha, this was me imitating the non-smile face Charles (and most other guys) typically make in photos

Charles with Flicker, Janelle, JD and Mandi... now he looks happy to be at Stonehill!!

This weekend will be fun and hopefully relaxing. While I've been working on my capstone, Mandi's been studying nonstop for her 5 exams this week.... ewwwww!! She finally has her last one (bio-- eekkk!) tomorrow morning so once that and my presentation are out of the way I forsee looooonnnngggg naps for us tomorrow afternoon...

GO BLUE!

I hope you all had a lovely Columbus Day Weekend! Welcome back to school... and welcome to MIDTERMS. Ugh. I know I complained about them in my last post, but they hit me in full force post-break. I came back from a FANTASTIC weekend in Michigan (more about that in a minute) to a Brain & Behavior exam yesterday and a Modern France midterm today. I have literally spent more hours in the library this week than I have in my room, not including sleeping... ewwww. But the tests are both done now and I can relax a little bit. I need this relaxation since I also finally got the disgusting cold that everyone seems to be having on campus. Coughing, runny nose, sore throat, the works. Sooooo much fun, loved studying through that. My roomie and I are lysol-ing our room every chance we get since she's sick too, so at least we can complain to each other. 

SO... my weekend! It was so so so good to see Jessie for more than a day this time and I loved spending the weekend with her. Her roommates are hilarious and we had such a good time, even though Michigan lost the football game in the last few seconds... don't wanna talk about... but here are some pictures!

Jessie and I going out for the night :)

Michigan Stadium... no wonder they call it The Big House!

GO BLUE!

I liked this kid's shirt

Wishing I could do this every Saturday...

Sad Michigan lost, but still had a great time in the 80 degree weather!

The mass exodus of people leaving the game... I think we could fit like 500 Stonehill populations in there....

Night #2 :)

                                                                                                                                                                          

We definitely had a great weekend, even though we both had a lot of homework and studying to do. For our next reunion, we're thinking Paris June, 2009... see ya there Jess!

                                                                                                                                                                          

As for THIS weekend... I AM SO EXCITED-- my friend Charles is coming to visit! He and I studied abroad together last fall in Paris and all of us Stonehill girls pretty much adopted him as a pseudo-Stonehiller. I haven't seen him since March so I am sooooooo excited that he's coming for the weekend! His plane takes off in a couple of hours, so my friends and I are gonna hit the Senior/Faculty Cocktail for a bit, and then Jill and I are headed to Logan Airport to pick him up! Eeekkk!!! 

                                                                                                                                                                          

If you see me around campus this weekend, note the smile on my face. Us Stonehill girls are very excited to see our long-lost Charles!

Whirlwind

That's what I feel like lately. Midterms are here in full force and I feel like whenever I think I can just lay down for an hour, I realize I have some sort of reading, studying or paper-ing to do. This time of year is always so stressful, no matter what classes I'm taking. This week alone, I had 4 papers due and a large class discussion to prepare for, and next week even though it's a 3-day week I have 2 midterm exams, and even more papers and exams due the week after... I thought midterms were supposed to be just ONE week of work!

Although my weeks have been crazy, my weekends have been lots of fun. Here are the pictures I promised from Paul's birthday party:

It's sort of hard to make out, but this was our party trolley that we took into Boston!

Very excited roomies!!

Me and some of my girls on the party trolley: Coral, myself, Jenny, Caitlin & Kate... and yes we all realize we're wearing black and no it was not planned...

Me and the birthday boy!

As you can see, it was a lot of fun. There were probably over 20 of us who went and it was such a blast. We told him we have to celebrate his birthday more than just once a year! My friends and I are also starting to plan our senior spring break trip so cross your fingers that we can pull everything together soon and book a week of sunshine! I won't reveal more until it's all booked but I can't stop thinking about how good sandy beaches and warm sunshine will feel come March! Especially because my birthday is over Spring Break :)

This past weekend was also fun because my friend Jen from Paris came to visit! Obviously, she doesn't live in Paris but that's where we met! She's the one I saw in Arizona when I visited my cousin. Jen goes to UMass and is interning about an hour away from Stonehill on Fridays this year, so she came here after work and spent the night with us here at the Hill! It was so great to see her and hopefully we'll have more twin time soon :)

Jen and I reunited in Massachusetts this time!

As for this weekend, I'm sure many of you are headed home to enjoy our long weekend. I'm actually not going home but I am sooooooo psyched for this weekend because I am going to Ann Arbor, Michigan to visit one of my best friends who goes to the University of Michigan! Jessie and I went to grade school together when I lived in Maryland and we've stayed close ever since. We try to see each other once a year, but before this summer we hadn't seen each other since our senior years of high school! I went to Michigan with my family this summer to visit my grandparents and since Jess was spending the summer on campus, I got to see her and we got to planning... so this Friday night I'm flying to Ann Arbor to spend a fun weekend with her at the U! On Saturday we're going to the Michigan football game, which is something I've ALWAYS wanted to do. My dad is originally from Michigan so I've grown up a Wolverines fan since I could talk-- in fact, I knew the words to "Hail to the Victors" (their fight song) before I knew the words to most Disney songs... so this Saturday afternoon you can picture me in my maize and blue cheering for Michigan to beat Toledo!

I hope you all aren't too stressed out right now, but if you are try to remember to make some time for yourself! Go to the gym and run off your stress, or take a 30 min tv break or something, but don't let it consume you too much! Enjoy your Columbus Day break! This may be the first trip home for some of you freshmen, so congratulations-- you've made it this far! It only gets better from here :)

And see, I didn't mention baseball ONCE in this post... until now... GO RED SOX!

Why I hate baseball!

UGGGHHHH... because sometimes ridiculous concepts that have nothing to do with the game of baseball can interfere with a crucial game and have a big effect on the outcome. Last night was a one-game playoff for the Minnesota Twins and the Chicago White Sox, winner takes all. All being the AL Central Division Championship and a trip to the postseason. Because the two teams finished with identical records at the end of the regular season, a one-game playoff is Major League Baseball's way of being fair and letting them go head to head to determine the winner.

WELL. They were not 100% fair, because the way they determined which ballpark the game would be played in was due to a COIN TOSS, which Minnesota lost. So the game was in Chicago, fine. Well, fine for normal teams. These two rivals have had a ridiculous season when they played each other. If the games were in Minnesota, Minnesota won almost every single one. If they were in Chicago, Chicago won almost every single one. I've never seen such close statistics like that before. Obviously, you'd rather play in your own park with your own fans, but I've honestly never seen it affect a team's record so much. You can guess that I was less than thrilled when the White Sox won the coin toss, thus bringing the game to US Cellular Field in Chicago.

I was even MORE upset with the outcome of the game. The White Sox won 1-0... ONE STUPID RUN cost the Twins a playoff spot. (Well technically that one run didn't, they could have won one more game this season and then a playoff wouldn't have been necessary, but you know what I mean). It was a scoreless game into the 6th I believe, when Jim Thome of the White Sox hammered a home run into center field. A couple of innings prior to that, the Twins had a great chance to score but our runner got thrown out at home plate.

I won't give you all the gory details, but needless to say I am very disappointed. It's hard seeing your team go out like that, you invest so much emotion and heart into the season and to have it end in such a way, in your arch rival's ballpark and having that rival go to the playoffs instead of you sucks.

The part that really gets me is how different the game would have been if it had been played in Minnesota. With our stadium, our fans, and our home record (and Chicago's less than awesome record in our park) it would absolutely have been a different game. But I guess that's baseball. I just don't think a COIN TOSS is a good way to decide who gets home field, it should be based on a team statistic, like most runs scored all season vs most runs allowed or something...

So now this means my focus turns to cheering the Red Sox on during their postseason games, and cheering for Tampa Bay to beat up on Chicago and knock them out in the first round (which I think they'll do). It's just disappointing because the Twins and the White Sox were so evenly matched and we deserved to be there just as much.

I'll post more this week about last weekend and my upcoming life adventures but for now I'm still too wrapped up in baseball-depression mode. The only highlight of last night was that Minnesota's catcher Joe Mauer (and my favorite player) won the AL Batting Title, which means he finished the season with the highest batting average in the American League. Essentially this means he was the best hitter in the American League this season. Way to go Joe! That's a HUGE accomplishment for a catcher, considering how beat up they get playing defense in that position. I was a catcher my whole life, and trust me, it's tough! Having runners slam into you left and right, blocking balls in the dirt, hurling your body across the plate to prevent runners from scoring... definitely takes a toll on you, and I couldn't imagine doing it for almost all 162 games of the regular season like Mauer does.

Ok, I'm done. I promise. If you don't like baseball, don't give up on my blog yet! It's October now so baseball's almost over!

As they say, there's only ONE postseason, there's only ONE October... and to that I say GO RED SOX!