i've discovered that the best cure for a sore throat is raspberry sorbet

at least it's better than gargling salt water. gross.

today was the first day of classes for me. yale has this "shopping period" thing were you don't register for classes until 2 weeks after everything starts so you can sort of experience the classes before committing. kind of weird but kind of good. i went to two classes today. the first was a molecular biology of prokaryotes very similar to the proks class i took at cmu. so i'm not taking that one. the second was a cell bio course. now, i've taken cell bio and advanced cell before so i really feel like i should have to take the class. but i haven't taken cell since junior year spring semester, and, biology being the way that it is, there have been a good number of techological advances and new discoveries since that time. today i felt that i recognized over 60% of the material, but there was some that was new. like a little update. i wish they had a classes that was just "updates in cell bio: the important things that happened in the last few years!" but they don't. so now i'm not sure if i should take this class or not. at my advising meeting they told me not to take it if it seemed redundant. but is 60% redundant too much redundancy? i have until the 14th to decide, but it seems like a big decision. i don't know. i think after the next class on monday (yes i have classes on labor day, stupid yale) i'll see if i still know 60% or greater of the material and if so i'll talk to the professor and see what she thinks. i should probably go back through my old cell bio notes to see what was actually covered in detail in past classes. ugh.

tonight we all watched robin williams live on broadway which is amazingly hilarious. if you haven't seen it, go right now to the video store and buy it because you will love it to death and laugh your ass off. oh my goodness.

tomorrow is the "organizational meeting" for another class that i'm debating whether or not to take -- i'll probably take this one if i don't take the cell class. and then there is the core genetics class that everyone gets to take. i don't think i can get out of that one even after taking advanced genetics. whatever, it should be interesting. really if i could i would take all seminar classes where i would just have to read a bunch of scientific papers on various topics and then discuss them in a small group. that would be nice.

also tomorrow i might be going to mory's, which is a "drinking-- i mean eating and drinking" club. i have a coupon for a free dessert! woohoo. i still can't drink though.

the monster in my throat is still thriving, despite all the salt water, cough drops, tylenol, and raspberry sorbet i keep throwing at it. poop monster. i went to the doctor today and found out that it's not strep. i don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. if it was strep they could just give me amoxicillian to get rid of the damn thing. but no, i just have to suffer. grrrrrrrr. the doctor said it should be gone by the beginning of next week. it better be. i want to be healthy again.

let's see what else.... friday i'm meeting with two professors to talk about rotating in their labs. one i'm really interested in and the other i'm not sure. i still have a list of more people to email, so no real worries. picking a lab is going to be hard because no matter how many times i read over the descriptions of lab work, there's not much that sticks out at me. poop. there was one lab that i really was interested but that prof is not accepting any new grad students this year and that sucks. oh well, i'll probably be happy wherever i end up, it's just a matter of getting there. i know you all care so much, so i'll keep everyone updated.

i signed up to audition for the adaptation of henry iv by tom stoppard. i probably won't get in the show since there are only two female parts and about a million and one undergrads signed up to audition. we'll see what happens i suppose.

in other news, there are no boys in biology. they are all ugly poopfaces. not even one semi-cute boy. boys are stupid.

at any rate, i'm still pretty much bored out of my mind. and i'm doing a really bad job of meeting new people. i kind of suck. i'm not trying to imply that carolyn, erica, and chris are bad people or bad friends, but i need more people. i need more different groups of people to hang out with. specifically, i need a group of people who don't care about biology. hopefully i will find then eventually. maybe a bunch of cool people and cute boys for me to look at will drop out of the sky onto my front porch. that would be nice.

it's time to go to bed soon, because i have to be awake at 9am.

goodnight fluffies.

last night i went on a pub crawl and didn't drink anything but water

stupid mono.

it was still a lot of fun even without the drinking. i hung out at first with a bunch of bio people. we are going to have a lot of good times i think. they all like to drink and dance and have fun. so that is good. after the first bar, the people in charge split us up into different groups to go to different smaller bars. at the time of splitting up, i was talking to this cute austrailian boy named gharad. he is married, which is stupid. but i ended up following him and the rest of his group of econ friends to the playwright, where i have been before and then to bar. yes, that's a bar called BAR. anyway, there was one econ guy, jake, who was really drunk and kept talking to me about how it was great that i was staying sober and everything. it was kind of annoying and kind of funny. at BAR, they were charging $6 at the door, but there was an open bar. they let me in for free because i wasn't drinking. that was nice of them. BAR is a combination of a restaurant, a bar, and a club. dancing would have been fun, but at that point i had no more energy left. so i sat and drank water for a while. gharad came to talk to me about how mono sucks for a few minutes, but then went to make the best out of the open bar. understandable. a creepy drunk guy sat next to me for a while, and i ignored him. then i joined another group that was heading toward GPSCY, the grad bar, where i knew carolyn and erica were. i hung out with them and the other bio people for a while before going home. this guy mike, who was really drunk and tends to be really rude, kept coming up to me and putting his arm around me, which was gross. he's creepy. but we made friends with this other guy brad, who was also at the duke interview weekend where erica and i talked to him, and today we are going to get pizza with him at either pepe's or sally's. fun fun fun.

when i got home i called gerrit and got the party update about pittsburgh. the wizzo 403 party seemed fun on the phone. although the whole flashing everybody else is a little weird to me. i guess it made more sense to all the drunk people on the other end of the phone. tyson promised me a care package because i have mono. tyson, if you read this blog, i'll be expecting a package in the mail soon!! :p

today, the left side of my throat hurts and it has white spots on it. other than that i feel fine. mono is stupid. i want it to be done. i think when i'm healthy again, i'm going to make myself a tshirt that says "kiss me! i don't have mono!" and where it out bar hopping. i think that would be fun. speaking of tshirts, i want this one, that says "my friends are stars." someone buy it for me. thanks!

also, i got sunburnt on my back from eating lunch at this restaurant on the sound with carolyn's parents, carolyn and erica. it is very silly.

fluffies are good. now i will read for a bit.

today i bought a grill

a little cute charcoal one. connor would be proud of me. tomorrow i will buy a steak and cook it on my new little grill. hooray!

tonight is the bar crawl where i will go and not drink and instead laugh at all the drunk people. connor would not be proud of me for this, but i don't have much choice.

and for now i will go lie down and read. too bad i can't take naps.

tomorrow i want to go to the beach. but first i have to find a beach to go to. i'll see what i can do. i met some people who went to the beach last weekend. so maybe i'll ask them.

fluffies don't like the beach because of the too much sand.

the people who are living on the first floor moved in today. they are a family (one child) from hawaii. the husband is a prof at the architecture school at yale and also owns/runs(?) an art shop. they seem very nice.

the end.

fluffies!

tonight i made the mistake of listening to "the last five years"

one of my favorite shows ever. but the last song really got to me tonight and i just cried like my heart was being ripped into a million little shreds. i don't know.

other than that and the fact that i have mono and can't do anything half of the time, things are good. i've been meeting a lot of new people, some bio and some not. i probably won't see much of the non-bio people after orientation ends, but who knows. my circle of carolyn, chris, and erica remains a tight little fearsome foursome. yesterday we went to the pilot pen tennis match and i learned a lot about tennis. i've never ever played before or even watched a real match. today was matriculation day. highlights include an amazing performance on the cello during the ceremony, and a visit to the president's house (where he doesn't live, but just entertains). we took a sort of nap in the gryffindor common room in the hall of graduate studies before a boring panel discussion. and tonight we saw an excellent performance of romeo and juliet in the park. only a few complaints about the show, but they are not worth mentioning here. on tuesday, we went on a savanger hunt around yale and new haven which was a lot of fun. again, i met a bunch of new people there too. tomorrow there isn't much planned. i get to sleep a lot and that is good. saturday is a pub crawl, which i will attend. i'll probably spend my time making fun of all the drunk people since i can't actually drink anything myself for the next month.

on that note, i think i'll probably save in the range of $100-$200 by not drinking for the next 6 weeks or so. i won't be spening money on drinks in bars, and i won't be buying any beer or liquor. so hooray for that. i also won't be gaining any beer/liqour pudge on my tummy either. so not drinking can be a good thing.

in other news, there are a lot of good concerts coming up in my area. i can't go to them all because i'll have no money. hey, maybe i can spend some of the money i'll save on alcohol on concerts instead.... anyway, here's the list:

Sept 15 - Arcade Fire - NYC, central park $30
Sept 30 - The Killers - jones beach on long island - $35
Oct 6 - The Decemberists - Toad's Place, new haven - $16 (definitely going to this one since it is close and cheap)
Oct 16&17 - Franz Ferdinand - NYC, central park - $40

i think there's a bloc party concert too sometime but i don't remember. i will probably be going to at least one of the nyc concerts with miklos since he will be there. probably either the killers or franz ferdinand. we shall see.

amazingly, i'm not exhausted right now, even with the mono and the getting up at 8:15 this morning. i'm just emotionally drained after r+j and the last 5 years. why i thought it was a good idea to listen to that right now when still feeling a bit out of place and lonely i have no idea.

anyway, someday i will post pictures of carolyn and chris so you all know what these people look like at the least. (although i can just tell you that chris looks a bit like tom cruise). and pictures of any other people i meet too. i guess it's time for reading and bed now. i hope orientation and moving are going well for all those involved/doing that sort of thing.

fluffies say goodnight.

i have mono now

how exciting and fun. at least i now know why i've been feeling so crappy physically recently. i also wonder if i've had this since fourth of july when i thought i had strep throat. i will probably be the only person in history to gain wait while having mono because i'll be too sick to exercise but not too sick to eat. hmmmm...

but someone should buy this for me because it would be funny. you probably already have my new address. more updates later.

in the meantime, orientation continues charming. i'll try not to bust open my spleen.

fluffies are lucky because they can't get mono. so i can still kiss them!

tonight's dinner was really good

we ate at chris's house. i made bread and fondue which everybody liked, carolyn brought the wine, chris made pasta primavera with salmon, and erica made chocolate peacan pie. everything was delicious. we played a game called loser, which i amazingly didn't lose. we had fun. everyone but me went home with a significant other, or went home to call a significant other.

and here i am sitting by myself posting to my blog. what a sad existance.

everyone i know i new haven is either getting laid right now or talking on the phone about it. everyone i know in pittsburgh right now is at a party having a fun time. how lame am i?

i don;t think i've ever been in quite this position before. here i am, everyone i know is either out still having fun, or at home tucking in a significant other. and i'm sitting here alone with fluffies and a computer. i hate this. i miss the snuggles and the happy and the love. and i miss the feeling of having a place where i belong. because sure i belong when everyone is in a big group and all together, but as soon as we split up i'm all alone. and i'm the only one all alone. i'm wearing my new cute little black dress and no one at all gives a shit. makes me feel like worthless shit. like stray dog shit that no one picks up because it's not there dog and they don;t have to.

i hate everything but fluffies.

more photos of my apartment!

the kitchen:






the kitchen pantry nook:


the hallway to the living room:


the living room:






the bar in the living room that we created because we're awesome:




finally the bathroom:




today we built and stocked the bar, which is awesome as you can tell. we also watched moulin rouge and drank strawberry margaritas. well really i drank most of the strawberry margaritas, which is why i can't type as well right now. but that's ok. i love moulin rouge. i love the artistic theatricalness of the whole movie. even though parts of it are stupid and way overdone, i still love it. i guess i just love the idea that love conquers all. and that of course is the theme of that movie. it's also why i love ben folds "the luckiest." because that definition of love is how i define love. maybe someday i'll actually find that. but for now i guess i get to stick with movies, love songs, and fluffies.

too many transitions all at once

i'm not doing a very good job of handling all of this mess. what with moving to a new city where i don't know anyone and i don't know where anything is and breaking up with gerrit, i'm a complete mess. i can't sleep. i haven't been hungry since yesterday morning. in fact when i've eaten today, it's been two bites of whatever and then my tummy starts to feel funny. i think i might be getting sick. my throat is bothering me. i'm so thirsty but drinking anything makes my tummy sad. i look like i'm wearing ugly pink/purple eye shadow because i've been crying. i'm just not in the mood to learn a whole new city right now. i think i'm either going crazy or dying or both. ugh.

thanks to everyone who's talked to me when i've been upset these past few days (weeks, whatever). i'm sorry that i'm not in a better mood. hopefully, this will get better soon.

i hate boys

they are made of big stinky piles of poop. and stupidness.

kaitlin, i need to call you. i haven't yet because moving sucks and i suck. so tomorrow i will call.

ps. i also hate spam. but mostly i hate boys. specifically those who are mean to me. they suck a lot.

my new apartment

here are some pictures of my bedroom:

welcome to new haven!

i moved into my new apartment today. man is it hot!! and today was one of the most rediculous days ever. however, since i haven't posted in about a week, i owe all you faithfull readers (all two of you) a bigger update. let's start with today's fiascos and then go back to the beginning of the week....

friday, august 12:
today was the big day. with the minivan all packed up with the rest of my stuff i trekked off to connecticut with my parents and my grandma. we arrived and unpacked the car with out problems and then started unpacking the boxes. this also wasn't too terrible although i have way too much stuff. it's absolutely rediculous. first, a small disaster when we almost lost my new bike (which was originally my mom's bike and therefore is older than me). i had left it outside of the back of the house; my dad though i had put it in the basement. i thought i had told him that where it was and that he had put it in the basement. it was all very silly. the real disaster ocurred because my mom is stupid. my bedroom door can be locked but only from the inside because i don't have a key to the lock. she was playing with the lock and with my keys, trying to figure out if one of them went to that door. of course none do. but she left the door locked. a great gust of wind came through my window and blew the door shut... locking me and everyone else out of my own bedroom!! my mom is dumb. we had to get a locksmith to come out and break the door knob. very silly. then we went to home depot to get a new door knob, this one with a key to go along with it. of course it doesn't fit in my door. poop. but at least i can get into my room again. there's just a hole in the door. not that it matters. i'm not even going to be sleeping in my room tonight because i don't have a bed yet-- couch it is! plus, half the lights up to the third floor apartment don't work, there are several light switches in my apartment that go to nothing, and my light switch is aparently a big fire hazard for reasons that i don't understand. and it's about 90 million degress in this apartment. i was sweating rediculous amounts all day long. ewwwww. on the plus side of life, i managed to find good rice at the shaws grocery store: some jasmine rice (gerrit would be proud) and some basmiti rice (that spelling is probably bad, but it's the indian kind of rice and it is yummy). so tomorrow i get to play with my new rice cooker. yay! and all the fluffies are here!!

and now back in time.....

last weekend, august 5, 6, and 7:
family reunion weekend! not that exciting actually. we arrived on friday night late, but dinner was on the table ready for everyone. i was so upset about various things-- that have mostly been resolved by now-- that i just stayed in the car for hours and cried a lot. saturday was a much better day. lots of food, a little bit of beer, lots of random family members chatting about other family members. highlights of the day include smores and a bon fire and the awesome fireworks.









my uncle bought them in tennessee. it was lots of fun and i got to play with lots of pretty sparklers. not just the boring kind that sparkle white, but color changing sparklers! they went from pink to gold to green before burning out.





here is my brother tom playing with sparklers:








sunday morning we went to my cousin lauren's brand new coffee shop called sips (149 pattonwood drive, rochester, ny 14617. if you're ever in or around rochester, you should check it out). it was a really nice place with tasty flavored coffees and good sandwiches. i got two kinds of coffee: cinnamon swirl and blueberry. and i got a pretty coffee mug too. in general it was fun!

monday, august 8:
i did nothing. i tried to clean out my closet and failed with a candle fell out of a box and landed right on top of my new mug and broke the handle :(. it was very sad. but my daddy fixed it.

tuesday, august 9:
some errands happened and i spent a bunch of money on things for my new apartment. then that evening i went to see charlie and the chocolate factory with jess and gabby, two of my friends from high school that i hadn't seen in about two years. i had issues getting into gabby's house and ended up sitting in the driveway for about 15 minutes while they were sitting in the house. neither of us knew the other was there. it was all very silly. we went out to ruby tuesdays before the movie to have drinks and dessert. jess just turned 21 last week and is rather enthusiastic about the whole thing. good times.

wednesday, august 10:
doctor and dentist appointments in the morning. at the doctor, the nurse had to stick me in both arms to draw blood because she sucked. at the dentist i found out that i don't have any cavities but i have a few demineralizations. i'm not sure what the difference is between that and a cavity, but it really seems like demineralizations are just smaller, non-painful versions of cavities. but who knows. i also got to hang out with miklos, phil, and hae na and a bunch of hae na's friends in nyc, and that was the good part of the day. we bussed from miklos's house to the city and then waited "10 to 15 minutes" (ie. an hour) for hae na to tell us where to meet her and then waited for her to get there. we ate dinner at a mexican place called caliente where i got a huge pina colada that had 151 in it. then we went to this bar called off the wagon. it was lady's night and all drinks/shots/beers were $2 for girls! it was awesome! and they served the drinks in pink cups so they could tell. hee hee. i had several vanilla vodka and cokes, a whiskey sour, and a sex on the beach. the dj there played a lot of good music including the killers! it was very fun. the only sad part was when gerrit called when he and kaitlin and connor were getting wings and i couldn't talk to anybody because they were all covered in wing sauce aparently. we went back to nj on the last bus at 1am and i slept at miklos's house.

thursday, august 11:
packing day! although most of my stuff was already packed. but still it was a good amount of work. i also had gotten the pattern that katie used to make the pit singer dresses and made myself a nice dress. i like it. my family went out to "fancy" dinner to the spinning wheel diner, which is not fancy at all. they do have a lot of different foods though. i got stuffed shrimp, which was not very good. my mom liked it though so i gave her the leftovers to eat for lunch tomorrow. she's crazy. on the drive home i saw a bunch of hot air balloons in the sky, and that made me happy. i've always wanted to go on a hot air balloon ride, but i've never gotten the chance. someday somebody should propose to me in a hot air balloon; that would be awesome. anyway, we filled up the car with all of my stuff. that night in front of the tv, i fixed and patched all the things that needed fixing and patching. that included the brown skinny fluffy who got some more fluff (actually quilting batting but same thing) put in him and surgery on his holes. he is a happy fluffy, and significantly fatter.

and then today happened and now i'm in new haven and it's hot as all hell! and i have no door knob.

i just tried to call gerrit and his phone is off and it makes me terribly sad. it's been really hard being without him these last two weeks. hopefully it will get easier, but right now it doesn't seem like it. talking to him on aim is like talking to anyone who is doing three things at once on aim. and so that always sucks. my cell phone doesn't get good reception at all in nj, so talking to him on the phone sucked, too, because we'd get disconnected every few minutes. and he's always so busy doing things in pittsburgh that he doesn't have time to talk when we are on the phone. it all sucks. i miss him so much, i feel like i'm being replaced by other people, i feel like he doesn't miss me at all (even though i know that's not true, it's just so hard to understand how he feels about everything when i never get to talk to him and on aim or on the phone he is often hard to read or we don't talk about it). i miss sharing a bed with him. sleeping with just fluffies is going to be weird in my new full sized bed. generally, i hate this whole thing. if i could i would go back to pittsburgh right now and forget about everything else i'm doing. but if i do that i also feel like i wouldn't be welcome back in pgh. i mean, i still have lots of friends there who love me and would want to hang out with me. but they would give me weird looks if i were to show up there and tell them i was staying. poop. :( so now that my phone actually gets reception, gerrit's phone is off. grrrrrrrrrrr. and when i was organizing things in my room, i found the birthday card he gave me and it made me very sad, too. i miss you so much gewit. i want you back. or at least for now, just answer your phone or something! poop.

enough of that. if anyone reads this in the same room as that silly poopface, gerrit, poke him hard for me please.

i guess i will put up the stars that go on my ceiling now, and go to bed soon. i have to get up semi-early tomorrow to call the bed place about them delivering my new bed. not that it makes a difference because i've been getting up at 9am every day for the past two weeks. and tonight i'm sleeping in the living room, which faces east and has lots of big windows. there's no way i'm sleeping late tomorrow.

and tomorrow will involve more organizing and exploring new haven a bit and hanging out with chris (who i met on the interview weekend) probably. so that will be good. and fluffies are good and they are here. so life isn't terrible. but boys are stupid and i need to start collecting rocks.

here are some pictures to cheer you up!
this is at the thing in shadyside where they let you drink on the street. giant miller lite bottle is getting a big hug!











wtf!?!?! tyson actually came to drink with me my last night in pittsburgh (so did ram and beth and ashley and mike yin and sara rockwell but that was expected).












gerrit's drink spilled and it was funny.











and here's the fatsome foursome!

bananas are gross

and i hate them. especially when they are black and mushy and have been frozen but defrosted and you have to make banana bread out of them. gross.

moving to new haven, part 1:
yesterday we moved my furniture and half of my stuff up to my new apartment. it was not exciting. instead it was hot and i was very very sweaty and gross. the apartment is nice, my room is nice. it will be very pretty when everything is unpacked and not a mess all over the place. i still don't know how i feel about this whole thing. poop.

and today i'm off to family reunion land, which means another 6 hours in the car to rochester ny. and the reason i had to make banana bread out of disgusting bananas. it won't be terribly exciting there either. highlights may include a bonfire and s'mores. but that's about it. woohoo.

at any rate, my ass is going to hurt from sitting so much (and from running up hills, but mostly from sitting in the car). poop.

i miss pittsburgh and everyone in it. i want to go mini golfing with kaitling and connor and gerrit. i want to go to the south side for cheap wings and beer and make myself fat because of all the grease and drinking. that would be happy. i miss that silly gorilla who looks like a fluffy but is really not a bear at all. i miss hemmingways and $1 beers and their really strong long island iced teas. i miss wing zone and jotcl. i even miss gerrit's closet room and even the busted house a little. i miss watching american chopper and the daily show. but mostly i miss gerrit and connor and kaitlin and all the other people i hung out with all summer. i hate new jersey.

at least the fluffies are here.

i have to move to new haven in a few days

this is how i feel about it. in other news, new jersey is boring, but we knew that already. maybe a real update later today. but for now, back to the exploding dog pictures because i love them.

fluffies