Don Draper, Quadcopters, and Bonfires

Wow, it's Wednesday again already? This past week flew by!

I'm writing to you live from my temporary apartment at BSU! Because we work a lot of late nights during Orientation, they're putting me and my coworker Kelly up in a student apartment for the duration of the program so we don't have to worry about driving back and forth on little sleep. The rooms are pretty tiny (though to be fair, my room at Dean is HUGE so I'm a bit spoiled), but we're the only ones in our apartment that houses 6 people which is awesome!

Anywho, this past weekend was spent with Brett and my parents up in NH - a much needed escape. The weather was pretty gross the first few days, so we spent the majority of it vegging on the couch and watching Mad Men, as we often do when we're at my parent's house. (We watched the entirety of season 6 and are now all the way caught up to the current season. Now we have time to catch up to the mid-season break and be ready for when the show returns!) We also went out shopping with my mom on Saturday, and since I had some birthday money to spend I decided to splurge. I'll have a whole haul post and video ready for you guys in a few days! :)

When we weren't being so lazy, Brett and I spent some quality time outdoors. I got my dad a quadcopter for his birthday, so we decided to take it out practice our piloting skillz.

We were pretty crap at the beginning (I may or may not have roofed it...) but with some practice we got pretty good at it. Afterwards, I showed Brett the Phantom and how awesome it is and now it's on our mile-long wish list. One day, when we're rich, we'll get one. ;)

Sunday it started to brighten and warm up, so we took the pups out for a walk to the pond so we could throw sticks for Kiwi (her favorite pastime).

Because it rained the majority of the weekend, I was a little nervous that we wouldn't be able to have a MDW bonfire. Luckily, my parents are in the process of completely gutting out our kitchen so we had a surplus of dry wood to burn, and I got my obligatory first s'more of the season! :) (And my obligatory second s'more of the season. :X)

Before headed back to MA, Brett and I made the pilgrimage to La Festa - the world's greatest pizza place. ;) I had my usual cheese slices and cinnamon knots while Brett got a little experimental and tried out 2 new slices in addition to his usual pesto slice. He's much more adventurous than I am when it comes to pizza! 

I also brought him up to another place that my friends and I frequented in high school - Cafe on the Corner. I had told him about Cookie Monster Smoothies, but he had never tried one before and we always stuff ourselves too much at La Festa before we get the chance to grab one, and though that was still the case this time around, I insisted that we at least get one to share. Brett, who was stuffed to the brim with pizza and knots, reluctantly agreed, and we made the trek up the hill to "Cafe".

The smoothie was better than I remembered it, and even though Brett was super full he couldn't resist sharing pretty much half of it with me! Imagine a Oreo chocolate cream pie, but in drinkable form. That's a Cookie Monster Smoothie. They're amazing.

After rolling back down the hill with our food babies, we headed back to MA and chatted all the way home. The weekend was definitely something that I needed - delicious food, quality time with Brett & the fam, and some good ol' NH fresh air. It's nice to know that I have a place to escape to every so often! Please never move, Mom & Dad! ;) 

I hope you all had a fabulous start to your summer like I did!

A Few of My Favorite Links {#4}

Hey everyone! Hope you're all having a fabulous week so far. I noticed that throughout my busy semester, I didn't share too many internet gems with you all. I thought that a mid-week list of internet awesomeness would be a great way to brighten up a Wednesday afternoon!

Charlie Day's Merrimack College Commencement Address

I actually was looking into the Merrimack College program a bit for graduate school, and if I had decided to go there I would have graduated this spring and witnessed this address in person! I love It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Charlie is definitely one of my favorite comedic actors of the past few years. The address he give emphasizes taking chances on yourself, that it's okay to fail, and that life after college can be scary, but it can also be awesome - exactly the kind of advice college graduates need when facing the "real world". Charlie definitely killed it!
If "Game of Thrones" Characters were Drawn by Disney 

These. Are. Amazing. I mean anything that gets drawn into a Disney-esque representation is pretty awesome, but Brazillian artist Fernando Mendonça stole my GoT lovin' heart with this series. If you're a Game of Thrones lover like myself, check out the series here!

City of Boston Built in Legos

In honor of the Legoland Discovery Center opening in Somerville, Lego built a replica of the city of Boston complete with the TD Garden, Fenway Park, the Zakim Bridge, and even the Charles River! Click hereto see the whole gallery. It really is just like our lovely city! :) 

GirlEatWorld

Me wanting to be this girl is the understatement of the century. For whatever reason, I've been starving all day so even just posting about this Instagrammer is making me ravenous, but I am so thrilled I came across this account. GirlEatWorld travels around the world and takes photos of what she's eating - simple as that. But being able to feature both the food and the city she is visiting in one photograph is what makes this account so facinating - and it's always done in the same style as above! I strongly encourage you to go check out her page and give her a follow - especially if you love eating as much as me!

What links are you loving this week? Leave them in the comments! :)

50%

Yesterday afternoon I logged onto my student account to check my final grades for the semester and happened upon...

A in Group Counseling
A in Multicultural Counseling
A- in Ethics

This means two things:

1. I maintained my 3.9 GPA but much more importantly...
2. I'M HALFWAY DONE GRAD SCHOOL Y'ALL!

I honestly had no idea how I was doing in my classes throughout the whole semester, which is never a reassuring thing for me, but knowing that I'm *officially* through half of my graduate school requirements makes me so over the moon happy. Only one year to go and I will have my Master's degree. Hell. Yes.

I had originally planned on getting right back into school with the first summer session, but due to an advising mix up, I no longer can take one of the classes I had originally planned to in the fall, so I decided to give myself a little break and move the class that was supposed to take starting May 15th to my fall schedule. (That may have sounded a little confusing in text, but essentially a bad thing turned into a good thing and now I'm out of school until July 28th. YAY!) I'm kind of digging this whole 2-months-off idea (from school, at least) and am already getting back into some of my personal life pleasures, like reading for fun (currently wrapped up with The Book Theif - it's wonderful) and working out regularly - both of which got seriously neglected the past few months.

I'm also hoping to blog and vlog more regularly this summer. (Vlogging will need to wait a little while, though. My camera is currently M.I.A. somewhere in my apartment... pretty sure I left it somewhere absentmindedly and it'll turn up somewhere.) I have a slew of blog and video ideas and I can't wait to share them with you!

Tomorrow I'm starting a new position at BSU (Student Orientation Programming Coordinator) that will last through most of the summer while I'm not *technically* a Grad Assistant (even though I'm *technically* a Grad Assistant through May 30th...). I'm excited to get back into Orientation land after a 4 year absence (I was an Orientation Leader back in the summer of 2010) and experience it from a different perspective. Orientation is what made me first fall in love with working with students and I am so happy I get to get back to it!

I hope you all are having a wonderful May so far. I'm looking forward to catching up with all of you via your blogs, and also looking forward to blogging much, much more! :)

(P.S. One of my students is trying her hand at blogging during her summer internship! Go give her a visit here!) 

Twenty-Four

Midnight birthday cake surprise!

And just like that another year of my life has come and gone. 

I turned 24 this weekend and celebrated with friends, games, drinks, and (as pictured above) delicious Oreo ice cream cake! I was also treated to breakfast at our favorite local diner, a barbecue dinner at Brett's family's house, and a movie date later in the evening. The day ended with the new episode of Game of Thrones (duh) and cuddles. Such a wonderful way to kick off this new chapter of my life!

I'm excited to see what 24 has in store for me. I'm sure there will be plenty of challenges, but also plenty of good times to make them a bit easier - and I'll be documenting it all along the way! :)

Personal Life Black Hole

Hey everyone! It's been a while since I've actually told you what's been going on in my personal life, but that's because my personal life and school/work life have essentially been the same thing over the past month or so. Basically, my personal life has become a black hole where all of the fun has turned into work. (#yikes) Not that I don't love my jobs (because I absolutely do!), it's just that personal time has just been non-existent the past month or so and it's be stressful. Yes, April/May is probably the most hectic time in college land, and being both a student and a staff member, it's been especially so for me this year (and probably will be again next year). I figured it was about time I gave y'all a life update, though, so I'm going to sift through my calendar and tell ya what I've been up to.

Nick, Louie, Mom, Dad, and I at the Dean Dash 5K - literally in my backyard!

1. Running more regularly. Post-marathon, I let grad school and work kind of take over my life and the stress and exhaustion they caused and the time they consumed it became excuses to not exercise. Somehow in the month of April I found the time to clock in 22.17 miles - which would be low for me at any other time in my life, but it incredible for me right now. This puts me at just under 40 miles to reach my 100-miles-for-the-year-by-the-end-of-May goal! Once the semester ends I will absolutely have more time to train as I am going to be signing up for the New Hampshire Marathon soon, as well as (hopefully) another half for the summer. Can't wait to get back at it!

The amazing crew that made Springfest possible!

2. Springfest! This was one loooooong week of events at BSU, sponsored by the lovely club that I advise! They put on a carnival, movie night (The Lego Movie is amazing, btw), a comedy show, and several novelties - all of which were a huge success! Even though I didn't get home until about 11:30pm every night during that week, seeing this event come to life and go off without a hitch made me so proud of my students. All of that lost sleep was worth it - they're truly amazing!

3. Taking up occasional yoga. Runner's World has a few different yoga videos specifically for runners and I've been trying a few of them out lately. It's really helped with all my sore muscles (go figure) and has really made some of the stress melt away - even if just for a moment. It's good to have a coach type person to put me through a stretching regimen, because I'm not disciplined enough to stretch myself!

My amazing CA's tearing up as they give me a gift at the ResLife banquet :') <3

4. Banquet & Awards Season. With the end of the year comes banquets and award ceremonies for every office that you may be involved in. In the past week, I've attended a banquet for the club I advise, an award ceremony for student leaders at BSU, the Dean ResLife banquet, and another banquet for highly involved member of the club I advise as well as alumni who were involved in the club! It's always great to recognize the amazing students that we work with every day, but it's also extremely bittersweet to say goodbye to everyone - especially if they're graduating or leaving for whatever other reason - so things can get pretty emotional (if you can't tell from the photo above)!

Presenting to Student Leaders at Lasell!

5. Presentations on presentations on presentations. Over the past few weeks, I've been speaking publicly for various reasons. I presented two awards at one of the many ceremonies I've attended over the past couple days, I went back to Lasell to give a presentation to some awesome student leaders, and I gave an in-class presentation for one of my courses. Public speaking, for whatever reason, makes me really nervous. I don't know what it is, because the idea of it isn't really all that terrifying to me, but once I get up there I can just feel my face getting red and my hands shaking. I don't know if it's the adrenaline or what, but it's really annoying and I wish I would just get over it! That's why taking opportunities like this makes it a bit easier like this every time. Maybe one day I'll be able to present without the nerves attached to it (I used to be able to!) but for now I just gotta push through each and every presentation and it will get easier over time.

6. Finishing up course work (of course [ha]). The past few weeks all of my assignments have been due. It's been pretty absurd. But I'm now at the point where I am one paragraph to edit and two classes away from being DONE with the semester. I can't. Freaking. Wait.

We close at Dean on Saturday which frees me up to celebrate by 24th birthday! (What?!) 

This weekend is SOOOOO needed and I can't wait for the next few days to be over with so I can enjoy the weekend with a bunch of awesome people! :)

What have you been up to?