15 days?!

i can't believe that it's already been that long since i last posted. good thing i already hit my quota for the year some time ago.

christmas was excellent. lots of family. lots of cookies. and TONS of card games (old maid, hearts, euchre, trash, etc). i'll have to dig up some pictures eventually. i tend to stop blogging when i come home because let's face it.. a good chunk of my daily readers are right here with me! ;) as for now, i've got some homework and admissions stuff to get working on. school seems pretty far away, it's a wonder i even remembered what homework i have.

sarah's getting her wisdom chompers out tomorrow morning so it looks like we'll be watching movies and making smoothies (ha! that kind of rhymes) for the next few days. no big plans for new years.

heading back to school on sunday night (late flight around 9 but tons cheaper than the earlier one) still have some friends to catch up with. things to do, people to see, sims lives to mess up (the sims is a computer game in case you didn't catch that).

check out [this] to read a cool hockey story

and [this] to see pictures of our 23 inches of snow!!

enhanced

dear snow,

as beautiful as you are tumbling downward and blanketing the ground with white powdery goodness, you pose quite a problem for anyone traveling. so while i'm currently enjoying the whole an inch an hour thing, think you could let up on wednesday and thursday? that would be much appreciated. also, i am liking the fact that weather underground is referring to you as "lake enhanced snow" as if you needed any help around here.

and while you're at it, tell your good friend mr. wind that i enjoyed his absence today. he should consider taking a break more often.

sincerely,

me

in other news.. one project, one critique, 2 tests and one paper away from winter break :)

adventures

Life has been rather eventful lately (both good and bad). So much so that this blog post has been postponed a few days.

Last Thursday Rochester, like much of the rest of the country, got slammed with snow and wintery weather. It wasn't so much deep snow drifts but the ice that was created on top of the snow. Walking to class on Thursday proved to be quite the challenge... involving not one but two times when I totally wiped out. Luckily the first time no one was around to experience my awkward tumble as it was 7:30 in the morning. The second however was in a more populated space in the middle of the day. I felt a little better when I found out that I was not the only person this happened to. Both times were not particularly bad falls although my leg is still sore days later, but they did make me feel a little nervous for my tour Thursday afternoon! Which ended up going just fine and I didn't fall once walking backwards.. go figure! It was kind of fun to give a tour in the snow, it adds a level of excitement and I got to take some back routes to avoid the outdoors. Hopefully my tour group wasn't too cold!

Life event number two... Thursday after classes I was hanging around working on homework or something of the sort when all of a sudden the fire alarm goes off. Now ordinarily, not a problem. However, as mentioned above, it was snowing bucketloads and also about 25 degrees out so I was slightly less than excited to be standing outside. I had the sense to first put on sweatpants, a winter coat and grab a blanket before heading outdoors. Public Safety came after some time to figure out the problem (no actual fire or anything as far as I know). After about 45 minutes of cold we were allowed back in except the catch was the fire alarm had not yet been disabled so we stuffed a bunch of hats and sweatshirts on to mask the noise. Ironically when it finally turned off an hour and a half later I didn't even realize it because I had become so accustom to the obnoxious noise.

Moving on, Friday morning my roommate and I decided it would be a good idea to go out to lunch and do some Christmas shopping because we had some extra time on our hands. Ashley wanted to stop by Tim Horton's for a quick cup of coffee. That quickly turned into an hour and a half cup of coffee when we realized that she had left the keys in the ignition and the car was locked. Not to worry, my handy internet searching phone found us a locksmith and we were soon on our way.

Last night was the only RIT hockey game in the WHOLE month of December. I've been rather hockey deprived lately and I've had to resort to watching tons of NHL games. Anyway, after a long winning streak, the Tigers lost to Niagara. Our shots on goal were nearly double but their goalie was on all night and their shots looked a little stronger. Definitely a good game, just wished the Tigers could have pulled out another win! Now we'll have to wait until January for another game.

And the final event was our christmas party today! Last night after the hockey game we got back and immediately set to work decorating our entire apartment with those old school paper chains and snowflakes! It looked very festive along with all of our holiday lights and live christmas tree. This morning we woke up and got to work baking lots and lots of cookies! Chocolate chip, cranberry white chocolate, peanut butter with hershey kisses, and puppy chow. A bunch of people came over for dinner and a movie. We had spaghetti (minus the syrup) all inspired by Buddy the Elf, which was of course the movie choice of tonight.










All in all, a pretty decent weekend. The nice thing about these three weeks is that while there is still work to do, there is a good amount of time for hanging out before we all leave for the holidays. The good thing about blogging is that no matter how unfortunate the situation, the first thing I think about is what a good post it would make :)

Let's Say Thanks

winter snow advisory

Houston, we have snow.

and we're not talking about any puny-melt-in-one-hour kind of snow. REAL powdery white stuff that just so happens to be falling in a HORIZONTAL fashion.

of course, it had to pick the one day of the week when i have an 8 am class on the complete opposite side of campus AND i'm giving a tour for a special group today.

looks like today would be a good day to bust out the 'ol winter coat.

it also looks like we're supposed to get around an inch an hour until tonight which means that if i stand in one place for too long i could potentially be buried. note to self, move quickly.

it might help if i could see WHERE the roads are as the plows are seemingly useless.

oh the weather outside is frightful

[Post from my RIT Blog this morning]

For some reason the weather this year has just not been the same. Last year the snow started coming down around early November and let up around March or April (I could totally be making that up that ending date I honestly don't remember). This year it's December 9th and we're just now getting snow. We've had a few fake flakes here in then but nothing substantial. Even now its only a few inches. It is however incredibly windy right now.

Why am I bringing this up? Because normally I would be in class not still sitting at home in my pj's and watching it from the comfort of my own bed (all while listening to Christmas music)! I was supposed to have a class at 10 am this morning which was all fine and dandy but I woke up to roll over and check my phone and got an email saying it was cancelled. Now, this is not exactly the time I need a break, but extra sleep is welcomed whenever I can get it because I've been lacking in that category lately. 13 days ago I was home and in just under 9 more days I will be back home for winter break. This is probably RITs most awkward quarter. Fall quarter works out quite well, we're here for the entire time, parent's weekend is in the middle for a little relief and then we're back at it until Thanksgiving. After Thanksgiving we come back and have the first 3 weeks of winter quarter followed by a full 18 days of break time then 8 more weeks of classes and finals. Thanksgiving break is fantastic because there is no homework attached so it's a full week of freedom. Winter quarter, while you'll have work the amount depends on what classes you're taking. So far, mine doesn't look like it will be that bad. This is also an awesome time to catch up (if you've managed to get behind already during the 3 weeks) or get ahead for the remaining weeks. It works out great for some of my classes that have 3 tests (1 before and 2 after break) and for my design classes which involve projects or photoshoots. The weirdest thing going on right now is the length of some of these days. I feel like last week was the longest week of my life! Not necessarily a bad thing, it's just totally throwing off my sense of time. Looking back, I sure packed a lot into that first week which might have been part of the problem (or solution?).

Anyway, time to actually consider doing something today! I have some design projects that I'm working on already. I've also heard that the snow is rather hard so that sounds good for some snowman building!! Next post I promise to talk about my classes, as I'm taking some rather unique ones this quarter.

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edit/additions:: it's no longer snowing :( or windy for that matter. my 1 pm class is still on. and university of wisconsin cancelled all classes because it snowed 17 inches. SO JEALOUS. i want the snow, ill still go to class.

lack of sleep + naptimes + fun = week one

lots of stuff going on lately. this has felt like the LONGEST week ever. seriously. a week ago i was in the car on the way back to Rochester. the days instead of feeling 24 hours long have been about 48 each. good for packing lots of stuff in, i guess.

classes started back on monday morning. i switched out of the 8-10 am class on MW and moved it to TR and then added another 4 credit class on MW from 10-12 so i'm back up to 18 credits. shouldn't be too bad. Monday was super long. i have class from 10-12, went ice skating from 12-1, class from 1-2, 2-5, 6-8 and then small group from 8-10:30. tuesday i start at 8 am, so there isn't much hanging around time on monday nights. tuesday i have class and then work the rest of the day until 4. good homeworking and laundry days. wednesdays are the same as mondays minus the small group so that freed up a little more time.

then came thursday. woke up around 6am for an 8 am class. its a super far walk on the complete opposite side of campus so i have to leave around 7:30. apparently the professor cancelled class at 7:34 when i was on my way and i didnt find out until my friend texted me. oh well. ended up going into work at 7:55 a good 35 minutes before it actually opens. worked until 2 and then came back, watched glee and took a nap! yay naptimes

thursday night ash and i went over to our friends house. they live about 15 minutes away in chili, it was definitely nice to get off campus. i like changing things up a bit every once in a while. we all went to Wegmans to get pizza makings and then made dinner. during dinner we decided that we wanted to watch a movie so we went back out to Walmart and bought Elf! after the movie we just hung around and ended up watching planet earth. until 3 am. drove back home and ashley and i ended up staying awake until a little after 4.

did i mention that friday morning was open house and i had to wake up at 6? apparently i banked a lot of hours over thanksgiving break because this was no problem. after working from 7;30 until 11:30 we all went ice skating and explored the new campus building! its SO cool. the four of us went out to lunch at dibellas off campus before ash and i went grocery shopping. came back and took a NAP because let's just say the energy level after only 2 hours of sleep declines rapidly. after naptime we headed back over to hang out. we came fully prepared this time with rice krispie makings. after eating those a few other people came over and we played the worlds longest game of apples to apples... seriously 749 cards & 3.5 hours later... we finally finished. and then moved on to Jenga.

woke up this morning around 9:30 and did some nonsense before going out on a photoshoot around campus. needed 70 images... got 304. seems successful. did some art history homework and asl. watched the proposal.

tomorrow i'm taking pictures all day for a project (from 10 am until 4:30 pm) and then at 5 we have an admissions meeting. after that i'm going over to my friends for a little for homework shenanigans.

busy busy busy. 12 days until winter break. that seems ridiculous.

happiest season of all

what a nice surprise this morning before my 8 am class. i woke up this morning and was NOT expecting to see snow! it felt rather christmasy with it being december 1st and all while i trudged through the slush to class with my soy hot chocolate in hand :)