mr. clean magic eraser

thanks to my wishful perception and poor judgment of space, my silver nissan suffered some pretty bad scrapes---as evidenced by the streaks of white across the passenger's side of the car. (most of you will hear the backstory at some point... if you're unenlightened and still curious, just ask me!) anyway, in desperate attempt to cover it up and leave my parents in total oblivion, i got a small bottle of touch-up paint from the store. as you can probably guess, it was a BAD idea. the color didn't match well at all. instead of giving up and calling the dealership, i went back and exchanged it for another shade. my handiwork looked a little better this time, but still, it was nothing amazing. i turned to the internet in search of some advice, and much to my dismay, it appeared that a trip to the body shop would take quite a chunk of change.

just as i was about to lose hope, i came across a brilliant google search result---mr. clean magic erasers worked miracles in taking out paint left from other cars. and that's when it hit me. maybe the white blemishes came from the paint on the garage, and maybe my car was more or less uninjured in the first place! so i left for the store this morning in high spirits, excited about the possibility that the answer may lie with mr. clean. i found a box of the "extra power" and rushed home to put it to the test. despite the warnings about not using magic eraser on a vehicle body, IT WORKED LIKE A CHARM. after a lot of scrubbing (in below freezing temperatures!) the mismatched silver paint came off, and with it, the white paint as well. it turns out my nissan was okay all along!

needless to say, i'm a happy (and much less stressed) little camper :)

the game of life

who knew a fairly simple board game could be so... entertaining (and thought-provoking)? i played for the first time today ~ i went to college, studied to be a vet, went to grad school, lost my job and became an athlete, got married and had a son at some point, and then retired ~ all within an hour. though primarily a game of chance, each player is forced to make a decision at multiple points on the board. when i reach those "orange spaces" in reality, which paths will i choose to pursue? i'll have to figure things out soon, but i still have some time. in the words of how i met your mother, i'll let "future jean" worry about it ;)

by the way, my 11-year old cousin won the game... with her 9-year old sister close behind.

vision

i know for a fact that i can make a difference within the walls of woodsville high school. it might be the hardest thing i will have ever done, but i am determined to finally effect some change. i'm ready for the challenge---is whs ready? probably not. i don't know how i'm ever going to make my way into a system that is so afraid of moving forward fearlessly toward something better for its unmotivated and apathetic students.... but i'll find a way.

mark my words.

home && still not done :/

i've been home for six hours and have yet to finish the final paper for english romanticism... i'm not exactly sure when it's due, but i REALLY should get it done tonight. professor losano has already been incredibly understanding and wonderful and amazing ~ i LOVED her class. i still can't believe that senior year is half over...

well, it's paper-writing time.

william wordsworth <3

possible paths after graduation

admissions counselor for middlebury college

english teacher @ meysen academy in sendai, japan

teach for america corps member (aka teacher)

masters in education - school development strand at hgse

happy happy happy :)

middlebury = happiness in every way

homecoming :)

greeting alumni into the parking lot.

tailgating before the football game.

dancing to loud music.

gymnastics on wet grass.

being a CHEERLEADER.

it was all such a blast :)

why wasn't high school cheer this much fun?

on a rainy sunday morning...

• met up with alice for breakfast
• got in touch with a friend in hangzhou, china
• registered middcheer with collegiatelink.net
• posted listings on craigslist for beyond hunger
• edited & fixed errors on website (also) for beyond hunger

beyond hunger = nonprofit org in california

(i volunteer virtually by maintaining the website/technical work)

.....and it's not even 9:30am yet ^_^

wednesday, not tuesday

i can't believe how quickly time is moving.

when alice said it was wednesday, i thought she was messing with me.

half an hour later, she made another reference to it being wednesday,

and again, i thought she was testing my gullibility XD

i canceled cheer practice for tonight.

four girls have screenings/meetings and won't be able to make it.

i have a meeting with CCAL to discuss the details for coming out week.

.....in 15 minutes.

after the meeting, i plan on heading over to bi hall to do physics.

but only until the wonnacott family style dinner at 5:30pm.

then it's back to bi hall.

until what would've been cheer practice at 8:30pm.

june and i plan to get some posters hung up to recruit more members.

write more later.

hopefully more coherently :)

it's a start

(if i can find some time)

i'll blog retroactively about the past couple weeks...

but here's how today went:

8:00am - 3:00pm ~ admissions office

3:00pm - 4:15pm ~ kurosawa film class

4:30pm - 7:00pm ~ physics problem set w/june

7:15pm - 10pm ~ kurosawa film screening

it's now 10:30pm.

forget hw.

it's time for bed.

sweet day

golden grahams/lucky charms with soy milk

definition of sophomore year breakfast

chicken quesadilla, hard shell taco, jalapeño poppers

virtually non-existent in japan

3 consecutive hours without a class or meeting

i don't know what to do with myself...

voiceless

tomorrow marks the second week, third day of classes, and already i feel as if i'm a robotic machine just going through the motions. ever since i've arrived on campus, i've been moving/doing/working nonstop. two weekends have come and gone, and yet i haven't had a day to myself to unwind and relax.

day one: after a sleepless night of packing, i take alice in my car && my family heads out to middlebury at 7am. arrive on campus 2.5 hours later. unload alice's things on the lawn outside her dorm. start shift at the college bookstore. unload my things from the car at the end of work. move things into my suite. drive suitemate to her shared storage unit. sleep on our living room couch as i had not yet been approved access to my room.

day two: shift at the bookstore. several phone calls are made to try to get me into my single. get locked out of my suite. fall asleep in a hall lounge waiting for suitemate's phone call. finally get approval to move in. go down to public safety to get room key. make bed and sleep without moving anything else in.

day three-six: shift at the bookstore. gradually move into my room from the suite's common space. meetings. more meetings. planning and organizing. more planning and organizing.

first week of classes: slow on the academic side. meetings upon meetings for middcheer and moqa. total of over twenty hours spent on just work for my team and organization.

first weekend: friend from wesleyan visits. fun time, but spend the whole weekend hosting. full day in burlington on saturday. more meetings and training on sunday.

second week, day one: class. coffee break. class. middcheer-related errands. physics lab. parents come to visit and drop a few things off. more middcheer-related planning. quick dinner. hold middcheer information meeting on my own because my coach had a minor emergency and couldn't make it to campus. de-stress with some tea in mia's suite upstairs.

today: wake up @ 5am. force self back to sleep for 30 more minutes. do laundry. quick breakfast. two-hour shift in the admissions office. meeting with my coach directly after. run several minutes late to a follow-up appointment in health center. finish some reading in alice's room before running off to meet emma for lunch. reschedule middcheer-related meeting for thursday so i could have a 40-minute nap before 3pm class.

.....got out of class. a friend's remark rubbed me the wrong way && i just had to get away from everyone. so here i am in my room finally attempting to put some thoughts into writing from the last several weeks of intensity. still not there yet.

an unfamiliar fear

i decided long ago to stay away from any sort of dating senior year.

but things never go as planned. not in my life, anyway XD

a close friendship formed in japan has developed into something more.

how much more? i'm not sure.

i never imagined such great platonic chemistry could exist between us.

but whether that would translate into something else is anyone's guess.

we've established that mutual attraction is definitely there.

the problem? middlebury / weslayan = distance.

will i keep letting distance be the authority on my romantic life?

i don't know. frankly, i'm getting really tired of it.

i still feel as if my relationship with jbb came to an untimely end.

and that's another bad reason to start dating yet again.

or maybe that's just a lame excuse.

because the truth is, i'm terrified of getting hurt this time.

i've always bounced back in the past,

never yielding to the uncertainty of heartbreak....

uwb

before going out with someone, he/she must not be uwb.

if anything, maybe b. but definitely not uw.

alice. mei li.

i LOVE them both so so much XD

[edit]

ben adds, not CUC either.

i'm definitely the first C though.

alice and mei li are too.

C1 runs in the family.

LMFAO.

bound freedom

i'm 21. senior in college. responsible.

independent. for the most part.

i grew up way too fast because of the situation with my parents.

to those who know me well ~

yeah, it's that "not-being-fluent-in-english" thing.

no matter where i am, be it middlebury or japan,

i'll always be responsible for the workings of my home in rural nh.

i know we'll be back in nyc someday.

and i'll be looking forward to that.

i miss the city sooo much.

the best summer ever

hands down.

(so far, anyway)

- 21st birthday weekend at middlebury

- books! books! books!

- got my driver's license

- new silver 2009 nissan versa (still under 300 miles!)

- had my cousins visit nh for two weeks

- hiked black mt, snake mt, and mt. moosilauke

- had enough time to study chemistry for fun

- got to know sherry && theresa better

- spent a day at the boston museum of science with alice

- detroit tigers ♥ vs boston red sox at fenway

- mini akp reunion in nyc ~ 焼き肉！

- all-night bar hopping with friends in the city

- enjoyed a coney island sunset && the manhattan skyline (HAHA)

- relatives' delicious chinese food

- nyc shopping ~ 4 pairs of shoes, 3 dresses, 3 tops, 3 bottoms, 1 hoodie

- designed a small website from start to finish

- became a tech/web volunteer for a non-profit org in cali

- created a mini flash movie using photoshop

- the list goes on....

i've definitely been living life to the fullest these last several months XD

insomnia

i find it difficult to sleep these days. too many things on my mind. too many things i want to do. i go to bed wishing it were morning already. i went to bed tonight right after my weekly tuesday dose of tori & dean: home sweet hollywood (my guilty pleasure XD). i never got to sleep. between family coming in and out of my room and the heat, i couldn't take it anymore. i relocated to the living room couch to try and finally catch some z's. unfortunately, this blog post demonstrates defeat >_<

despite major events in the past two weeks, my ten-year diary remains unwritten in. for the average person, so what? big deal. but for me, it likely indicates a sense of losing control over my life. it's not as bad as it may sound... yet, i'm aware of the need to refocus and catch up on blogging and missed journal entries.

fair warning: there may be a flood of blog posts in the near future XD

heartbeat in a 65-qt container

on a lazy, rainy day with nothing in particular to do, one might relax and take it easy. curl up on the couch and read a good book, enjoy a warm bath, watch a favorite movie.... sounds brilliant. but revisiting old memories? the ones that make your heart smile one second, and then cause you painful heartache the next? not so brilliant.

the other day, i picked up more containers to organize some things that i had accumulated over the years. i came across my fifth grade "autograph" book, an NYC metro card from seventh grade, and letters from friends wishing me the best in new hampshire after the move. my memories from elementary, middle, and high school still lay scattered on my living room floor. i had moved on to something else.

finally unable to avoid it any longer, i attempted to go through the boxes that held over four years of history from my relationship with jimmy. it was time to consolidate everything into the 65-quart container i had bought specifically for this. late morning, i dabbled into the past just enough to realize that my heart had fooled me once again. not once nor twice, but thrice i had myself convinced that the wounds had healed, that i had completely moved on "once and for all".

i don't have time for anything serious right now. and i probably won't for years to come. my ambitions will likely take me all over the country for quite a while. and that's okay. but it has been two years since i've seen him last.... walking away from the middlebury college bookstore toward his maroon ford f-150 parked by the proctor tennis courts.... we've stayed in touch over the internet, but it's not the same. seeing him again may be the key to finally getting some closure. there were plans for me to visit him in north carolina this spring, but he deployed to afghanistan before i got home from japan. next summer, maybe?

God bless our troops.

without license

lots of ideas. lots of options. and even more opportunities.

i like plans, a sense of where i'm heading to next. i stall when without a destination, some sort of finish line. wandering aimlessly works for only so long. my motivation levels deplete, and i find myself stuck. i call for reinforcements, and i hit things running again soon thereafter.

before i can get to C, i must get to A and make it through B. but when i get to C, will i still want E? is D worth taking to get there? i don't know yet. and i don't need to know. what i do know is that unlike the tangible road, i can take off from several different starting points simultaneously and still get to where i need and want to be.

well, i've taken off. and with several destinations in mind. whether or not i get there is irrelevant. in the end, it's all about the turns and the curves, the bumps and the dips, crossing the rivers and making it over the mountains.

i'll get somewhere. and i'll be happy.
i'm not worried :)

clipping the wings of time

it dawned on me today that it won't be long until i'm back at midd again. even before i left japan, i had high hopes to do something "good" this summer. it'd be a huge disappointment come august when i'm packing for senior year to find that "nothing" had come from my three months of free time. so after a day of researching teach for america and post-bac pre-med programs, i spent my evening exploring volunteer opportunities in the grafton county area. i wasn't about to let time fly---i felt compelled to finally take action.

after a couple hours of searching, it didn't surprise me to see that there were a limited number of postings online. however, i did contact several organizations and will be continuing to keep an eye out for opportunities as well as brainstorming for community service ideas.

feeding the caffeine addiction

until i leave for midd in september, i hope to continue our sunday morning coffee tradition at dunkin' donuts. right around 8am, noelle swings by the house to pick up alice and me. then we stop by dee dee's apartment to wake her up, if necessary. dee dee was working this morning, so it was just the three of us today. no matter what, time always flies when we're having conversation over a cup (or cups, in my case) of coffee. whenever i glance up at the wall clock, an hour or more will have passed.

today, cameron and curran crashed our little party around 1:30pm to share the news of cameron's promotion. no one had eaten lunch yet, so the boys picked up a friend of theirs and we drove across the river to celebrate at p&h in wells river, vt. six people, three distinct orders. noelle and i ordered the same wrap without mayo, alice and billy wanted the (middlebury) grille's equivalent of the "love me tender" wrap, and the twins each had the trucker's special. [and somehow, the orders still got messed up XD]

the guys had basketball plans, so we went our separate ways after lunch. noelle pulled into our driveway, but we wound up engaging in good conversation again. so there we sat in the parked car, talking away until my mom calls my cell phone asking if we were expecting someone. i didn't understand her question at first. then she explained that there was a car sitting in the driveway and that she couldn't decide whether or not to go outside to see who it was LOL

several minutes later, alice's bladder ended our eight-hour long sunday morning coffee date.

nyc pyrotechnics

it was my first woodsville independence day in quite a number of years. it's hard to tell what my expectations are for one of my favorite holidays anymore. i rolled out of bed without even giving the morning parade a second thought. around mid-afternoon, i headed over to the restaurant to cover dee dee's shift. i had planned to wear red, white, and blue.... i hit two out of three. white and blue. close enough. business was slow, as expected. i couldn't tell if the scattered thunderstorms were a good thing or bad. nonetheless, people tipped well today and made me a happy waitress.

sherry (10) and theresa (9), my cousin's daughters, wanted to see the fireworks and visit the fair again. so we walked back to my house after my shift to grab my mom (and a hoodie). it took just a short stroll before the girls, their mom, my mom, and i made it to the community field where the festivities were taking place. the girls went on a couple rides before we picked out a spot to watch the fireworks over some cotton candy. my mind wandered despite the booming and flashy display in the night sky. the show was less than spectacular and failed to capture my attention as i wondered what the day would've been like if i were back in new york city.

celebrating over a bbq with family. hanging out with friends and shopping the ever-present sales, ending up at south street seaport by nightfall for the famous macy's fourth of july fireworks.... i did realize that i should live in the moment, and that i shouldn't dwell on the ways that woodsville will never compare to new york, but it's difficult when i've spent the greater half of my life in the city.

nostalgia kicked in as i'm writing this, and i started a video google search for nyc fireworks. just then, nestor skype messages me and proceeds to send me a file that was supposed to cheer me up. i had expected a little memory of our time in japan, but what an AWESOME surprise! it was a video of macy's fireworks that he had recorded just tonight! i couldn't believe it. enjoy :)

macy's 4th of july fireworks 2009, courtesy of nestor :)

legal in two weeks

fourteen more days until my 21st birthday, but who's counting? not me. after legally drinking in japan for year, it's just not a big deal. what's more, my closest friends are scattered all over the country. so far my only plans include a fruity cocktail to be made by henry, one of my dad's business partners, and maybe going out to a local bar with noelle and dee dee, whom i've become closer to at the family restaurant.

ideally, i'd fly down to DC and have an early birthday celebration with emma and annabelle, then fly back into burlington and have a mini gathering at midd. if i were to put this together, i'd have to figure things out soon. and quickly.