Photo Post

Wow, so it has been a very VERY long time since I last blogged. Instead of typing up a super boring explanation of my last semester, I decided I would post a photo update to show you what my Fall 2009 semester was like!

End of Summer with some Ambassadors: Allison, Haley, Chris and Me
More Ambassadors! Haley, Chris, Matt and Me

Our Not Your Average Thanksgiving Dinner Party: Meg, Kristen, Haley, Me and Delia


All the Ambassadors from Fall 2009!!

Reunion with some London friends :)


After the Rooney concert!! With Robert Schwartzman

Karaoke night at Limelight
Winter Ball in the State Room Chris and I


The Ambassadors at Winter Ball


Ugly Sweater Holiday Party

Wonderful Ambassadors in their ugly sweaters :)


HAAAAPPPY NEWW YEAR!


Party Bus!



And now the spring semester begins! Thinking positive thoughts and hoping for great things in 2010.


-R

Buckets of Rain

Rain rain, FINALLY went awayyy! And now we have some actual summer weather here in Boston MA. After 5+ weeks of pretty much nonstop rain, summer weather is (hopefully) here to stay! Given that it's August...

This summer has absolutely flown by, I can't believe it's already August 6th. I move into my new apartment in less than a month! Haley and I still have so much organizing to do, and we still have more furniture we need to buy. It's a whole new world to us... a world which involves lots and lots of bills. :( But other than that I am veryyyy excited to leave the comfort of the dorm life, and become an off campus student in the bean :)

Honestly, I haven't done much this summer, other than live in Beverly, commute into Boston for work fulltime. However, I have gone to 2 amazing concerts this summer, one of which was last night at Fenway! The first show I saw was at McCoy Stadium and it was the Bob Dylan "Never ending tour" including Willie Nelson and John Mellencamp. Honesttttly, not a huge fan of Willie or John, but Bob Dylan happens to be one of my all time favorite artists. Even though he's old(68) and his voice, which was never anything great even in his prime, is pretty bad, I still love seeing him perform. It really is a marvel that a guy like Dylan would still be touring the world at his age, writing and producing new music every few years, and continuing to please audiences across the globe. Regardless of his croaky and rusty vocals, I will still continue to go to Dylan concerts until they are no more. :) Here's one of the many videos I took of Bob that night at McCoy; one of my personal favorite songs "It Ain't Me Babe". In the picture below, Bob is front and center on guitar, wearing a very late 70s looking white hat. :)



Last night at Fenway I saw Paul McCartney! SUCH an amazing show, I honestly don't know how to describe the feeling of seeing Paul live, and the excitement in the atmosphere that was shared throughout all of Fenway Park. Indescribable. Paul played for 2 and a half hours nonstop, including a set of 30 songs and 2 encores with 3 songs each! Throughout the show he would dedicate or mention a few of his loved ones; John Lennon, Linda(his 1st wife) and George Harrison. Those dedications were always followed by an extremely emotional song: For John he played Here Today, for Linda he played My Love and for George he played Something. Anyways, once I upload the videos and pictures I took I'll add them to this blog :)

EDIT:
A few pictures from the Paul McCartney concert :)





I'm pretty excited about the upcoming school year, however it is going to be crazy busy! I'm taking 4 classes and one lab. My classes are Advertising, Journalism, Intro to American Democracy, Physical Science and the Physical Science lab. I have a few classes with my roommates from London, as well as one with Haley! Along with a full class schedule, I somehow managed to get Fridays off :) but it looks like I'll be (hopefully) working 9-5 at the State House on fridays!! I applied for an internship there, and am waiting to hear back. So if I get that internship I'll be working 12-16 hours a week there, as well as 10 hours here in the admissions office. So, needless to say, I will be extremely busy this Fall! But, it's better than being completely bored, right!?

Feels good to blog again, it's been awhile! I won't wait this long next time, but it's 4:30 and almost time to leave work, so until next time...


xxR

There and back again

To say the least, a lot has happened since my last post. To summarize, I traveled to Rome, Paris, Barcelona, Edinburgh, and Dublin. But more than traveling those new places, I explored the beautiful, busy and wonderful city of London, and made it my home for 4 months. I made some amazing friends, with whom I know I will keep in touch with and hopefully see again soon. I miss London every day... and fully intend to go back to visit as soon as possible! It's hard for me to put into words what the past semester has meant to me, and how much I feel I've learned and grown from the experience. Traveling outside of the states definitely opened my mind to different people, cultures, and new ways of thinking about how I want my life to be. It might just be because I miss London and Europe so much, but I can't really picture myself living in the states for the rest of my life. I would love to live in London again, but if not London, then maybe Scotland. I love the way people feel and think about life in the UK. Things are more relaxed, and everyone seems happier; things are not as rushed over there as they are in America. There is not as much as cut throat constant competition. Anyways, enough gushing about the UK. Below I've posted some pictures from my semester...

My London Roommates:
Brittany, me and Alaina


Rome, Italy:
the Trevi Fountain


British Friends


Paris, France:
Montmarre


Barcelona, Spain:
Park Guell


New Friends in London


Edinburgh, Scotland


Dublin, Ireland


Dinner on the last night in London

View from London!!

Hello all!

So I am currently in London, studying at Regent's College for the semester! I've been here almost 3 weeks(as of Thursday) and I still can't believe I'm here. London is such an AMAZING city. So much to offer, and the night life is ridiculously entertaining; always meeting new and interesting people! So far we(my friends Melissa, Brittany, Geralyn, Alaina and Kirsten) have pretty much been trying to meet people we're going to school with, and it's been great getting to know new people from all over the US as well as some locals! Here's a picture of us in front of Parliament and Big Ben :)

Classes here are starting to pick up very quickly. I'm taking a Contemporary Theatre class, and we've already had to go to a play on our own and write a 6 page analysis! It was rough seeing as I've never written a theatre analysis, but I think I did fine. The play we chose to see is called "The 39 Steps". It's a spoof off of the Hitchcock thriller movie made in the 1930s, and there are 4 actors who play over 50 different roles throughout the performance! It was hilarious and way better than I expected. Since I've been here I have also seen the musical Wicked, which was absolutely amazing, and last night I went to see a show with my theatre class called Shunkin. Shunkin was very interesting because it was entirely in Japanese, with English subtitles. I loved it, and I thought I would hate it and be frustrated with having to read subtitles for 2 hours, but it was one of the best plays I have ever seen. Right now, I'm trying to write a paper on postmodernism for my Art in London class. Any help would be much appreciated :) I have no idea how to even begin this paper! So blogging is a nice distraction.. :)

Last Saturday we went to Bath for a daytrip planned by our school! I posted a picture of me and some girls touching the Roman Bath water. It was really fun, about 90 students went, and we got to tour the ancient Roman Baths and just basically explore the amazing city of Bath. It seemed kind of gloomy, because every single building was the same, sandstone color, but then I realized it was part of it's uniqueness. The shopping in Bath is amazing as well, tons and tons of stores! It was very tempting.. but then I remembered I need to have enough money for the rest of the semester! Which reminds me... I'm going to Rome on Friday!!!!! AHH. I can't believe it!! I'm really excited! I will post pictures of Rome in my next blog!

Also, London got about 5 inches of snow yesterday, and the entire city pretty much shut down! It was hilarious, all the Londoners were sooo excited for snow... people went sledding on lunch trays at Primrose Hill! Haha, so funny to think that 5 inches is a lot of snow, but it was the most snow London has seen since 1991. Nuts. 5 inches is NOTHING back home! And I was really upset to see snow, I guess us New Englanders brought it with us ;) Speaking of New Englanders, I've been trying to catch up with people from home(like CG ;) ) but my power cord to my laptop blew when I plugged it in 2 weeks ago, so I'm hardly on my computer at all! It's really hard to keep in touch without the internet, but soon my new power cord will come in which I'm very excited for..

OK so I suppose I really should go write my art paper, but I will blog again soon!

xxRachel

Stress.

I'm very stressed right now.

Last night I spent from 530 to 11pm in the library writing my final paper for World Lit. Not exactly my definition of fun. But I think I wrote a pretty good paper.. at least I hope so because I really want an A in this class. Then when we passed in our papers today, my professor went over what will be on the final exam next week. Seems like it's going to be a tough exam with lots and lots of writing. Not looking forward to that.

Thennnn after I spent all of Monday night working real hard on my PR project, making it look all nice and presentable, I get to class and realize that it isn't due until THURSDAY. Ugh. Well at least I finished it... Oh and then, I thought that we didn't have a final in that class. Turns out, we do. And it's tomorrow. And what else is tomorrow? My Ethics final exam. To say the least, I'm uber stressed. It's going to be another very late night full of studying. And I'm slightly behind in office hours so I'm going to have to work during finals week, which isn't a big deal, but it's just another thing to think about...

Ok, trying to think of some positives to come from this insanely stressful week... After tomorrow I will be completely done with both my Ethics and PR class. So I guess that's good, and I'll definitely be happy tomorrow night to be done with it all. But as of now I'm really freaking out.



Oh another good thing is that one of my best friends from home is coming into the city tomorrow night! She goes to school at McGill in Montreal, but she decided to skip her last few days of classes to come home. :) So excited to see her! She'll definitely be able to pull me out of my end-of-the-semester slump. To the right is a picture of me and Sarah from last summer :)


Not only has this semester flown by, but it's actually my last semester ever to live in the dorms. Although I feel ready to move off campus, I'm sad to be leaving the comfort of 10 Somerset... as well as living with 10 of my friends. Also, this weekend will be my last weekend in Boston until next fall! Eeeek. That is a strange thought. But next semester I won't have time to feel sad about it as I'm sure I'll be having way too much fun in London :)

I'm really looking forward to winter break. Hopefully I will be able to work full time at the job I held over the summer, which would help me make some more spending money for London. This winter break I am really looking forward to seeing my family and friends as much as possible before I leave. This Thanksgiving break I had a chance to see everyone a lot, which was really nice. A bunch of us went to the traditional Beverly vs Salem football game, hung out at friends houses, and pretty much just relaxed for the weekend. It was the calm before the storm of finals week. Below is a picture of some of us at the football game on Thanksgiving day.
There's a good chance this is my last post until next year, so have a wonderful holiday season everyone! :)

So clooseee!

End of the semester is approaching... very very quickly. Last week was our last full week of classes, and now we only have 6 days of classes(not to mention only 1 weekend left in the city) left until finals start on Dec 8th. Eeeek. I know I've said this a million times already, but this semester has flown by. I didn't think I would be sad once the end was nearing, but I am as I keep reflecting on the events of this year. This will be my last few weeks in the dorms, my last few weeks living with 10 of my closest friends, and last few weeks in Boston before London for 4 months. As excited as I am for London, the reality has finally began to set in; I won't be able to see my family and friends for 4 months. 4 months is a long long time, and I've never been away from home for that long.

ANYWAYS, on a happier note, I had a pretty good weekend. On Friday I had to go home for an MRI on my knee... which was not fun at all. But after the MRI was over, my mom cooked my favorite dinner(mashed potatoes, steak and veggies :) ) and then I went to my brother's powderpuff game. Now for all of you who don't know what powderpuff is, let me explain. Basically, the girls play flag football, and the boys dress up as cheerleaders and cheer throughout the game for the girls, and at half time they perform their practiced routine. In short, it turns out to be a hilarious night. Being from Beverly, our rival is Salem, so each year the girls play flag football against the Salem girls. It's always a rough game, and when I played we lost to Salem, but on Friday the Bev girls won!! Yay! To the right is a picture from the day of my powderpuff game.

So this weekend I had to write my first press release for my PR class. We were given a list of about 4 scenarios and we had to chose 1 to write a release for. I hope I did the assignment right, because I've never done one before, but it was really a fun thing to research and write. Also, the second part of my PR project is due next week. I have not started it. Uh oh. At least I have Thanksgiving break to catch up on some work. Basically it's only PR that I have a big project in, and I have an exam in my Ethics class sometime after Thanksgiving break. Due to the project, I don't have a final in PR! Which is awesome. So I guess its give and take with that class; lots of work now, but none during finals week. :)



Have a delicious Thanksgiving everyone!!
*R

Every Grain Of Sand

Hello everyone,

Again, I'm terrible at thinking of post title names soooo I've decided to name them by the current song I'm obsessed with at the time of the post. Every Grain of Sand is a song that I recently started listening to by Bob Dylan(surprise surprise). I love Dylan, by far my favorite artist. Everything he does is just so unique... I could go on and on about him..

So last week was very busy here at admissions. The tours during the week were big, and on top of that the open house was on Saturday! Everything seemed to go very smoothly though, and it definitely was not as chaotic as I thought it would be. It was a rainy and dreary day though so I'm sure that factor kept alot of people at home instead of out at Suffolk. For all of you who came I hope you enjoyed your day at Suffolk!!

For all you hockey fans, I went to the Bruins vs. Montreal game on Thursday, hosted by PC. It was such an AMAZING game. Bruins won.. 6-1. Totally dominated the entire game. I don't think I've ever seen the Bruins beat Montreal by 5 goals. And of course my favorite player, Milan Lucic, got into a fight which was awesome! I love hockey fights they're so entertaining.

This weekend was pretty low key... for the most part. Friday night we went to our friend's apartment in the North End. I love the North End, it's such a fun community, and there are tons of college students living there as well. On Saturday, after I worked at the open house, my friend from home came up! I was so excited to see her. We went shopping at H&M and out for sushi at Zen. I really don't think I can go a week without getting sushi -- it's pretty bad but my roommate got me completely addicted!


Tonight I'm volunteering at the International Thanksgiving Dinner(ITD). The ITD is basically a chance for international students to learn about Thanksgiving in America, and eat the food that we eat on the holiday. There is going to be a speaker to tell the story of Thanksgiving, and the meal is catered. I'm really excited for this dinner because Thanksgiving food is my favorite.



I decided to start a countdown to London... and as of today, I leave in 57 days!!! Eeeek. I can't wait. :)