Learning to Run

Let's start this story out by reminding everyone how much I hated running.

I would never in a million years have considered myself a runner in any stretch of the imagination. Maybe if I was being chased. Or that forced mile for volleyball in 90 degree weather. Sounds fun right?

Except then I got to thinking. Running is a sport I could do on my own, determine the time spent, and involved nothing other than a decent pair of shoes (and well, an inhaler).

I got this crazy idea in my head that for my 21st birthday, my present to myself would be running a 5k. Yeah... I pick cool presents, be jealous.

So I started working at it, slowly as to not discourage my "can't run a mile" self. Eventually after a few weeks of running at 7 am even with my struggles to want to stay in my toasty warm bed, I worked up to 2 miles and finally to 3.

Despite my 6th-8th grade P.E. teacher and the River Hill volleyball coach's efforts to remind me that I sucked at running, I managed to prove them wrong.

But more importantly, I proved myself right. And I can actually say that I enjoy running. For real (mom).

As in. I ran 3.1 miles.

And I lived to tell about it. Let's just say, this won't be the last.

The sub-40 degree temperatures yesterday morning along with wind & rain put a slight damper on the run as well as a hint of blue on my legs.

Jon came out for some moral support and much appreciated body-heat stealing as I waited for the race to start. It. was. freezing. Plus I can pretend that I have my own personal photographer :) -- pictures to come later maybe.

Summer in Rochester

Summertime in Rochester is arguably one of the greatest things ever. We spend so much time here during the awfully cold months that it makes you look twice when Wegmans is seen selling things like sunflowers, they just look out of place.

Adventuring is a mandatory task that sometimes leads to bouncy ball searching (we refrained from releasing them all).



And nerf gun (sword?) fighting in the aisles.

But best of all there is the Rochester Public Market. Which is open year round but Oct-March offers little outside of the usual onion/potato/apple/insert your root veggie name here. In spring & summer (which feel quite similar up north) there are flowers! And fruits! And lots of tasty things.

Of course, there is the obligatory coffee stop. How else do you expect me to wander around for 3 hours?

Free samples help too. Especially when the apple seller handed us an entire apple to try... Along with the bread samples, vegan mango pudding, farro with tomato pesto and honey. So pretty much you can consume lunch for free if you wander for long enough.

Not to mention bringing home bucket loads of food all for under $25, who needs Wegmans anymore ;) (See the rhubarb mom?)

Three hours at the market spent wandering does leave one rather exhausted which calls for a little outside relaxation and book reading. And potentially more apple samples.

week ten = brain dead

week ten has two days left, i think i can make it.

i've never felt quite so brain dead. i could have used about a million cups of coffee over the past three days.

ONE class left for the quarter year! just need to redo two project for flash -- the one is pretty much done just needs adjustments, the other needs some more serious help. one test tomorrow, one test next wednesday and one test on thursday. and then i'm DONE DONE DONE. for real.

this year has just really been exhausting. i was trying to think about the best way to sum it up today and that's the best word. exhausting. frustrating. don't get me wrong, there have been plenty of good moments. ironically most include the admissions office is some way or another. or hockey. but there have also been more than a handful of times where i have wanted to rip my/someone else's hair out. so that's that.

i'm sick and tired of dealing with certain people. explanations just don't give the situation justice. i drew a picture after the meeting today to explain to someone what my brain felt like and it was a pile of scribbles that would have included a bunch of bad words. just. can't even deal with them anymore. i don't care what they do. i don't want to hear from them ever again. never ever. i made that quite clear. it came out something like "oh well, i won't have to go through your useless organization ever again because i'm going to find my own dang housing thank you very much and I cannot wait for two years to pass so i do not have to deal with your nonsense ever again" when i have to turn in my keys at the end of the year, i'm going to toss my key at the door so i don't have to walk in the office.

it's funny because we just had a lecture in newsediting about how we should be careful what we write so you don't "burn bridges" oops. but apparently my opinions don't entirely count anyway, so i think we'll be okay.

now let's end with some flowers because everyone loves pretty things.

twinkly lights & snow plows

i think i got a combined total of about 2 hours of sleep last night. between it taking me a million hours to fall asleep, waking up every 30 minutes for no apparent reason and the snow plow outside our window which thought that 3 am was an appropriate time to slam around and make loud noises for an extended period of time.

last night my plane was delayed by 35 minutes or so which ended up working out just fine. the plane ride was seriously cool. nighttime + blizzarding snow + city lights = seriously cool. not to mention my ipod was dead so i listened to the soundtrack from star trek for the entire hour on the inflight radio. the coolest part was flying over rochester and seeing all of the streets with the plows going up and down. ash picked me up at the airport and i spent the rest of the night unpacking and catching up.

despite all of that nonsense last night, i was up and ready for class with a good hour to spare. already finished deaf lit, next is survey of western art, typography and photo then small group & homework. busy first day back. ashley and i decided on the walk over to class that our time would be much better spent if we turned around, got back in pjs and watched movies and played in the snow all day. luckily we have some common sense so we kept walking to class.

the world keeps spinning on

Gone, like yeterday is gone,
Like history is gone,
The world keeps spinning on,
Your going going gone,
Like summer winter break is gone,
Like saturday is gone

[Switchfoot -- Gone]

Last day of winter break. Am I ready to wake up at 8 am tomorrow and have a million hours of class? Nope, not quite at all. But it always manages to pull together last minute. Flight at 9 something pm tonight, getting in around 10:30. Then grocery shopping and unpacking and homework pulling together and catching up. Regular week; classes and work, hockey game at the end.

It's currently 25 degrees in MD and 10 in Rochester with snow as far as the eye can see. Oops, just kidding apparently it's going to be sunny and 15 degrees on Friday.

This blog everyday of the new year thing might end today because tomorrow classes are from 10 am until 8 pm with small group from 8-10pm. We'll see, no promises though.

sneak peek at my photo project numero three.

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 :)

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.

leaving on a jet plane

i decided at 11:30 last night that redoing two of my projects from the quarter would be a good idea. a few emails back and forth with my professor and a couple hours later, i finished! well sort of anyway. studied my butt off for art history yesterday.

couldn't really sleep much last night. finally gave up and got up a little before 7. got ready, backed up my harddrive (for the first time in about 3 months, i know i'm stupid) and then headed to the printers for what should have been a very short session. ended up taking over 45 minutes to print out 2 pieces of paper. apparently everytime i walk in there i cause "fatal errors". plus my print came out rasterized when its clearly a vector design. ah well, got a free print out of it. second time that's happened this week. got a smoothie to use up my extra debit and then walked over to building 7 to do some more studying before the exam. the actual test didnt take as long as i thought. didnt start until 10:20 or so and i was done by 10:45 i think. 60 questions. now i get to wait around in the lab until 12 when i can go over to java wallys and turn in my graphic novel final.

then i'm FLYING HOME!!! going to the airport at 1. flight leaves at 2:52 and i'm home by 4. i can't wait. in serious need of a break or i'm gonna crack.

leonids

these days are getting longer and longer. luckily tomorrow is wednesday.

today looked a little like this...

3am: alarm goes off for the meteor shower

3:02am: alarm gets rejected.

7:00am: wake up

8:30am-1:00pm work

1:00-6pm lab working non stop on projects

6:00-6:30 printing

6:30-7:30 laundry

i have yet to stop moving today. tad exhausted. 8 am final tomorrow morning and then the rest of the day will be spent in the lab studying and finishing up projects. luckily i now have clean clothes to bring home.

after tomorrow morning with my crit i will be officially done with typography and political science. 3 classes left.

listened to the caps game on the radio tonight while i was working on stuff. they beat the devils 4-2 :) there was apparently lots of blood involved so i'm semi glad i was just listening and not watching.

watching the river hill volleyball game by text messages... 25-16, 25-27, 19-25 and they won the fourth. one more to go. maybe ill never watch sports again, just find out through text messages and the radio. keeps things more exciting :P

40 hours according to alison.

it's like my ipod's stuck on replay

monday is over. well, not technically. but close enough.

ashley and i decided this was the longest day ever.

i woke up around 7:30 (it was supposed to be 7 but i pushed snooze for that long). still made it to work by 8:30 which was earlier than planned. worked until 1:45. walked back with ash and then we decided to go to pickle nicks for lunch (this cute local sub place). we've been letting our food supply slowly deplete in preparation for break. did have to go buy more milk today, apparently we consume mass loads of dairy products around here. brought the subs back and watched some tv. worked on art history studying for a few hours and then we watched hockey! devils lost but it's alright brodeur was flopping around like a fish. been hanging around tonight. working tomorrow from 8 until 12:30 and then i'm working in the lab for the rest of tomorrow to finish imagery, art history essay and typography projects. wednesday morning i have a final critique at 8:30 and then i'm studying art history for the rest of eternity. thursday morning my art history final is from 10-12:15, running to Javas to turn in my graphic novel final and then hopefully making it to the airport in time for my 3pm flight home!

perhaps i should consider doing laundry and packing... maybe.

finally figured out my schedule for next quarter. unless something happens between now and then to switch it yet again. looks do-able. it'll be a lighter quarter than this one but i'll find enough to do.

caps & rangers tomorrow night, in case you're interested :) as well as river hill volleyball but i don't think they televise that in rochester. river hill better win though so i can go watch the game on saturday! i'm missing two hockey games this weekend, aren't you impressed that i'm not staying around for them?

adventures

Adventure Number 1

Classes were over on Thursday for me. I spent the majority of Friday in the lab working on various projects and what not. Around 3 Ashley asked if I would want to go adventuring. So we quick grabbed a few supplies and headed off.

The only deciding that we do is which way to turn out of RIT. Since most of our adventures so far have taken us North or West we decided to head East.

The thing about adventuring is that it involves no destination and NO maps what so ever. Not even pre trip map looking.

We ended up driving through Pittsford to Victor and almost Canadiagua Lake.

Drove through Honeoye Falls.Oops this next picture is out of order. Its actually right outside of the mall near Pittsford.

After all of our driving we ended up back in a circle in downtown Pittsford. We got out and walked around exploring the main street but didn't really find dinner. It was funny because we thought we saw a food place so we walked inside.. turns out it was a library :)

Got back in the car and drove to downtown Rochester in search of food. Everything was either sketchy or closed so we ended up at the Highland Park Diner. So good!
It was this super cute diner with surprisingly good food <--- Mom and Dad next time you come, we're going here... Ash and I played some uno while waiting for our food.

Adventure Number 2

Ashley and I decided a while back that we wanted to go to Erie PA to see RIT play mercyhurst. Turns out we convinced a lot of other people to come with us :)

Left around 3 pm on Saturday and made the mandatory stop at Mighty Taco for some food along the way.

There were 5 of us in Ashley's car and then another car was following us. The backseat was a tad smooshy with three of us but we played with dolls and were quite entertained the entire way. Especially with frequent "hot hot hot" calls and then the guys would quick roll down the windows so we wouldnt over heat. Im not sure why i look so uninterested in this picture. I didn't know Cory was taking it.

The game was pretty good, there were more RIT fans than mercyhurst fans. They started off playing not so well but came back and won 3 2

The campus was nice but the rink... not so much. we both decided that if we went there we probably would not have been so into hockey.

to be continued....

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details later :)

week ten

dear week 10,

i win.

sincerely, me.

=======================

week 10 is officially over. no more classes.

passed the heck out last night. ashley and i went to watch greys anatomy around 9. i'd be surprised if i saw 5 minutes of it. woke up on the couch at midnight. walked over to bed, fell immediately asleep and didn't wake up this morning until 9:30. how's that for a good night of sleep? woke up this morning and i've been in the lab since 10:30ish working on stuff.

i just FINISHED everything for my political science class. i also emailed my typography professor my poster design and got the thumbs up so that is DONE. need to print it out, but that takes like 5 minutes and i can do that tomorrow.

still have a calligraphy project, redo for an imagery project, 4 chapters of art history and an essay to write. i should have a good chunk of this done this weekend. tomorrow is a review session so that will take care of some of that. i love lab time it works wonders.

anyway, im headed back home now so ashley and i can go on adventures! its a nice day out so we've decided to go exploring. we'll see where that takes us.

SNOW

IT'S SNOWING!!!!!!!!!

I ran around outside in a t-shirt. It was fantastic.

Now back to our regular scheduled programming...

Hockey Sticks, Hat Tricks and Good Weekends

Copied over from my RIT blog, I figured it was easier to just describe it once.

After a disappointing six game losing streak the hockey team came and won both UConn games this weekend. While the Friday night game was exciting, last night’s win 7-0 was amazing! RIT scored 4 goals within the first period. As if that wasn’t enough, Dan Ringwald scored a natural hat trick (which means he scored three of those four goals in the first period with no one else scoring in between). They continued playing well throughout the entire night; the defenseman ironically scored most of the goals this weekend and the goalies were playing especially well. In fact, the RIT starting goalie had an assist for a goal, which was better stats than the entire UConn team. As much as I wanted RIT to win, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for the UConn goalie because he had to put up with a ton of shenanigans from RIT’s corner crew (corner crew: the group of crazy passionate hockey fans that wear bright orange and stand in the northwest corner of the arena next to the pep band). The Saturday game was especially fun because a lot of people were dressed up for Halloween. Some of the pep band members dressed up as pac man and ran around the top tier of the arena. Another particularly amusing costume was a grim reaper who was wearing a cloak, goalie mask and carrying around a hockey stick.

Speaking of which, that reminds me about Friday. Sportszone is a student run organization that covers most of the athletic events on campus. During the hockey season, they will broadcast the game live as well as re-plays on Saturday and Sunday (in case you didn’t get enough hockey the first time around). Friday night before the game Sportzone put on a tailgate party over at Lovin’ Cup at Park Point. Unfortunately for them they didn’t get a large turn out, mostly due to the fact that there were two other competing tailgates. But it worked out rather excellently for us. We got FREE signed hockey sticks from the team! Both my roommate and I got one so now our apartment is officially covered in hockey stuff. I even got to play some hockey, there was a goalie there and they let us play outside on the patio. I think I got 8 goals, probably because the goalie would stand at one side of the net and “forget” to cover the other side J Definitely a fun night.

More on Halloween weekend shenanigans later.

Side note: Time changes and I apparently don't get along well. Stayed up until 6 am woke up at 8. I'm not exactly sure but I think they recommend getting more sleep than that!