lots o' updatin' *

*originally from LJ

1. Spent a lovely week in Loveland, CO with Alex and his family. Watched him play hours of video games, went for a short drive through the Rockies, saw LOTR Two Towers (again) on a ginormous screen in Denver, also saw STTNG Nemesis (HORRIBLE... let's just forget they ever made this one), and just relaxed. His family actualy has dinner together... as opposed to my family. In my house, if you see someone eating in the kitchen, you wait for them to finish to eat (or you just kick them out). Eating together would be blasphemy!

I also flew JetBlue, very nice. The individual TV screens are a great idea, except that on my way there, there was too much turbulence or cloud cover or whatever to get a signal, and on the way back to NY, the only programming on was infomercial-based since it was about 3am.

2. After getting back and spending an uneventful day at home, I headed out to sing with the Chai Notes. 3 straight days of learning music which finished with 2 performances in nursing homes. It's a great thing to do and you really feel good after, but it's a very emotionally draining experience. Some of the songs we sang were songs these people's mothers and grandmothers had sung to them when they were children, so they started to sing along with us... I had to stop singing several times to compose myself.

For anyone interested, every February there is a big concert of Jewish a capella groups held at Columbia's Jewish Theological Seminary on the upper west side. The Chai Notes always go, and our set is generally 3 songs. This year the concert is on Feb. 9. Let me know if you want more details. You can always visit www.chainotes.com and check out our performance calendar.

3. Got home yesterday and remembered why I always leave for school at least a week before classes start. It has nothing to do with wanting to prepare for the semester, it's simply the fact that I can't stand being home. Eventhough I've been home for a total of about 5 days this entire break, I'm ready to head back to Ithaca. The last night of the Chai Notes retreat I didnt get much sleep b/c we were hanging out and after I went to bed, some people kept hanging out so I couldn't fall asleep. So by about 7:30 pm I was totally pooped. So i went downstairs and announced that I was going to bed and asked my mother to wake me up at a certain time the next morning. About 10 minutes after I laid down, I hear my mother yelling at my dad something like "go drink your tea before it's cold" (mind you she's probably about 10 feet away from him). Then my brother starts talking nonsense on the phone, in his booming voice, right at the foot of the stairs to my room. I very vocally tell him to shut up. Another 2 minutes pass and I hear him running down the stairs yelling. He decided to play my parents some of his music. Not only is this music obnoxious at a normal volume, turn it up on full and you've got yourself one angry Anna. I lay there for about 5 minutes of this (about 1.5 songs) hoping they'd all vanish or realize that they are being very rude and insensitive. Since that would never happen, I went down stairs and basically told them all off. I told them that they are not normal people and they cannot speak at a normal volume and scream at each other when they're sitting on the same couch, and the playing music loudly when someone is sleeping is ridiculous. So my dad laughs and says to get ear plugs, and I remind him that I wouldn't need ear plugs if my room had a door. And that their behaviour is exactly why I never come home. And of course they think this whole thing is just soooo hillarious. I hated them so much last night. Originally, I was planning on staying till next Sunday... but I think I'll be out of here by Wednesday, Tuesday if I can pull it off.

4. On to a more pleasant topic... I've started hearing back from grad schools! It took me by total surprise because I really wasn't expecting to hear anything for at least another month. So far, I've been invited to visit and interview at NYU med school, Cornell med school (both have grad programs), and Princeton. Everytime I got an email from the schools I literally jumped up and clapped my hands like a little kid. YAY!

5. I've decided that my second part-time job this semester should not be intellectually challenging. I already have a "serious" job at my lab, so I want something light. Maybe I'll be a secretary somewhere... but what I'd really love, is to work at a video store (I hear employees get free rentals!) hehe :)

i'm writing this at 5:30 am. Why?? Because I just got home, silly! Yesterday was Steve's 21st Birthday, (HAPPY BIRTHDAY BLUBOI) so he had a little gathering at a little Bistro in the city, which later turned into a club. He performed some of his work, which was great, and a friend of his also sang her original song which was also very good. Overall, a great night. It would've been even greater if I didn't smell like a carton of cigarettes, and didn't live on Staten Island (since it took me 2.25 hours to get home), but it could've been worse.

Comments:

1/10/03 5:23 PM Nrrrdygirl
Christ. To have enough energy after clubbing and whatnot at 5:30 AM...why in hell weren't you crashed face-down onto your bed at that hour?!?!?! =P

but thanks for the update on your life. i appreciated reading it in detail. that sounded sarcastic but no, i really did since you rarely update... heh.

1/22/03 9:22 PM srlife
Currently the temperature on shit island is -15. YES minus fucking 15. I'm slowly turning into a freeze-dryed meal for our boys and girls up there in space. The Hudson is slowly freezing over which in my personal opinion is the first sign of the apocalypse. And as the powers-that-be of the weather channel have just spoken, the temperature is slowly going down.
Yes everything is happening slowly. "Why?" you ask. Well cause this way people can get more pissed off at each other than they usually are.

Hey if my fingers atrophy, can I apply for worker's disability compensation?