The Tree

Simply Having a Wonderful...

Going down to the city was fun as always. I took the Megabus down for the first time which worked out well. It was much nicer to read a book and relax then driving down. The only issue I had was with the older man sitting in front of me who asked me to stop talking on my phone since he had a migraine.

Back in Albany I can finally relax a little after the busy semester. Last week I still felt like I should be doing something (a paper), but this week I have been vegging out a lot.

After our young adult literature professor gave a lecture about staying on top of the pop culture that teenagers are into, I compromised my own desires and watched the movie Twilight. Seriously, if any of you were considering the same, stop yourself. I was expecting this movie to be bad, but it was worse than expected. Sadly I will probably compromise my own reading desires and try to read the book. We'll see how that goes.

Tonight I am going to go see Wicked here in town which is very exciting. I have only seen a couple Broadway productions so this is a treat. I read the book and found it annoying after the halfway point. I believe the play differs from the book so I am keeping an open mind.

Saturday I fly to the Midwest for my Milwaukee introduction. I can't wait to see where Brian has been living and meet his roommates. Hopefully in between the holiday festivities we have time to see some of Milwaukee before he moves on to his next assigned city.

This is pretty lame/depressing...

In New York

Library funding has already been cut three times in the last 20 months going from $102 million in 2007 to $99 million in 2008, to $91 million in April 2009 and now $87 million with this latest round of deficit reductions. This $4.2 million cut brings Library Aid down to 1998 levels.

http://www.nyla.org/index.php?page_id=1865

You got it, you got it

Thanksgiving was pretty great, at least at first. Brian came to visit and we had a nice Thanksgiving dinner with his family. While he was here we went to a Phish concert in town and the next day drove down to the city to see Guster. Guster was amazing (possibly the best concert ever), but when we pulled off the highway back in Albany my car decided to freak out. A thousand dollars and several public transportation trips later, my car works again. I keep saying I want this car to last through grad school , but I don't know if it will make it.

The semester ended for me with my last paper turned in on Sunday. Being done with my first semester of grad school feels like a big accomplishment. I worked pretty hard to complete everything and hopefully I'll get some stellar grades to prove it. Classes don't start up again until January 20th which is a large span of time to be bored. I only work fifteen hours a week at my job, so my daily agenda is wide open. I foresee many hours wasted away watching TV and movies, but mostly reading books. I haven't had a winter break from college since the break of Dec 2006 - Jan 2007, so I'm pretty stoked.

Although I will have lots of free time, I actually have a bunch of things coming up. This weekend I'm headed for NYC for Thuan and Rach's birthdays. The next weekend I'm Milwaukee bound to stay with Brian until we head to Michigan for Christmas and possible Chicago for NYE.

The New York Public Library

All in Moderation

Not updating my blog is due to immense amounts of homework. Visits home and visits from Brian are great but they make my homework completion more difficult. That being said, it all gets done eventually and right now its all getting done at once. I have about five big papers or projects due the week after Thanksgiving but Brian is coming to visit for Thanksgiving. This means like ususal I have to work ahead like mad and finish everything early. But so far with grad school, everything I freak out about turns out fine and I'm knocking out good grades like it's my business.

Any way since I last wrote: GR trip awesome - it had a good balance of family, friends, relaxation, and fun activities. Special congrats to Matt and Jess! ArtPrize was amazing and maybe the best idea Grand Rapids ever had; I hope it continues in the future.

Brian visit Halloween weekend - also awesome obv. I hate not seeing him all the time. This summer with my unemplyment/15 hours a week of work and his unemployment/15 hour a week of work - we hung out a lot. The last couple weeks he has been doing 12 hour night shifts which means I get to talk to him at most for 15 minutes those days. I can't wait for those day to be over this week.

I am so excited to be finishing this semester. Seriously. I hope that the rest of my classes are more interesting and I can wrestle this degree into the ground and make it happen in two years. Christmas break is going to be awesome and I will read lots of books like a good librarian wannabe.

Dentist

Dentist over. 25 years + candy addiction + brushing + irregular flossing = still 0 cavities.

My hygentist (who looked younger than me)asked if my hometown put floride in the drinking water. I told her that my hometown was actually the first town ever to put floride in the drinking water. She paused and asked if I was perhaps from Grand Rapids Michigan. She had to learn about us in school.