Today's weather forecast from Yahoo! Weather: Windy with a mix of clouds and sun. High around 55F. Winds W at 25-35 mph. Winds could occassionally gust over 40 mph.

I like how whenever it's windy Yahoo! Weather has a picture of floating leaves. But that also means the air is dry as heck, and my skin is starting to resemble that of an alligator's. I feel like I have to take a bath in lotion everyday to keep it from cracking off.

I think it's going to be a cold winter. I've been told that I had it easy last year =/. Oh no. I'm going to console myself by buying another heavy, winter coat =]. Last week when I was unpacking all my winter sweaters, scarves, and hats and putting them in my closet, I realized that I have too many scarves for my own good. I mean what am I gonna do with 9 scarves? I have more scarves than someone who has actually lived on the East Coast their whole lives.

I love Daylight Savings. I definitely went to bed before 12am last night, got a full nine hours of sleep, and woke up with enough time to do work before church =]. We should have daylight savings every week.

Oh goodness there's so much going on all of a sudden. Where to start? Well, I'm definitely either joining the Philadelphia Rotaract Club (I'll be going to a meeting next Tues) or starting one up at my school. After contacting the Philly Rotaract Club president, he directed me to the District Rotaract Chair. She's totally enthusiastic about helping me out, and had actually a few weeks before talked to my school's community service office about staring a Rotaract Club. And then tonight I get an email from my school's temporary athletic director offering his support because he's in the District Rotaract chair's committee, and he's president-elect of the local Ardmore Rotary Club. He offered to go through the student files and help me identify previous Interactors, Rotary award winners, Youth Exchange students, etc. Ah, craziness!

I've been thinking about Rotaract ever since I got to Haverford over a year ago, but I never did anything about it because of my school's umbrella community service organization, and just the vastness of the project. I didn't think I could tackle it myself and didn't really want to because I was still getting situated here. But after attending the first board meeting of Laura's Columbia Rotaract, I got all inspired with that good ol' Rotary passion. Yeah, all you DC-ers know what I'm talking about. It's that old, familiar flame. And it rocks =]. So that's where I am now with Rotaract. Don't get too excited; things are really slow now. I don't even know what I'm doing in terms of involvement. I'm just looking into both ideas right now and getting as much info as I can. But oh man it feels good to be back in the game of Rotary. Heh.

And more craziness...I'm applying for a summer job now. Yeah seriously. The application deadline is November 1st. It requires me to stay on the East Coast for 6 weeks, but the job looks amazing, and it pays pretty well too. Aaaaand my friend (who worked with this program a year ago) recommends me, then that totally ups my chances. If I get it, which I seriously hope I do, I might or might not be spending my entire summer here in the East. The job is only for 6 weeks so ideally I'd like to get a brief internship/job to hold me down for the other 6 weeks. Whether that would be here or back home, I dunno yet. I haven't had time to think too much on the subject. Dang, I can't believe I'm applying for a summer job in October.

Ok one last bit of craziness. My boss at CPGC (Center for Peace and Global Citizenship) might be taking me on board for this project he's doing about developing an early-warning and early-response system in Sri Lanka. He's submitting a book proposal for a book he and a couple others have written about the topic, and he says that while he's traveling around he needs someone back at "home base" helping him with the project. Helping him in what way, I don't know but we'll see how things develop.

Why everything chooses to happen at once, I have no idea. And why I choose to spend 20 minutes blogging about this at 2:30am, I also have no idea. I think I make stupid decisions sometimes. Oh well, live and learn. But of course I won't learn and the next time I blog will be at like 3am or something.

My 20-pg paper is going well. I think. I know what I'm doing now, which is always a good sign. I feel like I have a handle on it. Plus, I got an extension, so I'm not under as much pressure. Although I'm trying to make myself finish it before Thanksgiving.

Anyways. It's late. I have to study for a Chinese midterm.

I'm tired of wasting my time. I'm going on a facebook fast until Thanksgiving. Jo's going to keep me in check. Hm, I might as well fast text twist too. I'm getting too addicted to that game.

I got back to Haverford this afternoon; I'll be finishing up my fall break in my apartment doing massive amounts of research and outlining. Fall break was loads of fun. I'm really really really poor now. Which kinda sucks. I spent so much money this past week...traveling, eating, shopping. It's ridiculous how much money I spent. I could've used that money to fly home...if I found an extremely cheap ticket. Extremely cheap. But anyways, no regrets; this past week was awesome. Here's a photo recap of my adventures...




I started off break by visiting Laura at Columbia for the weekend. This woman works too hard, so we spent Saturday out in NYC eating and shopping. 'Twas a lot of fun. And yes, we're wearing scarves, which we just bought that day because it was that cold.




We passed a long line of people that Laura thought was a line to get into a bread cafe. So she asked one woman what the line was for, and the woman said, "Auditions for America's hottest mom." hahahaha.




After doing some street shopping (cheap cheap cheap!) we headed to Magnolias for some cupcakes. For those that don't know, Magnolias is a bakery in Greenwich Village that was made popular by movies and tv shows, especially Sex in the City. There's a lot of hype surrounding this little place, and it's definitely overrated, but having never heard any of the hype until Laura told me about it, I found the cupcakes very tasty and wasn't disappointed at all.


So after spending the day around the city, we met up with Brian, who came from Brown just to spend one night hanging out with us. Yay for mini (very mini) DC+2 get-togethers =]. In Brian's words, "Who am I to break up a tradition we started last year?" Indeed.




Nice dinner at a Thai restaurant. THAI ICED TEA IS SO GOOD. Haha, Brian look so unhappy in this picture




After dinner we went to see a Broadway show. I guess we're making a Broadway show a tradition for hanging out in NYC. We saw "The Wedding Singer," which is what the movie w/ Drew Barrymore and Adam Sandler is based off of. The musical is the same as the movie...same plotline and characters...except the musical is, well obiviously a musical. It was a really fun, upbeat show. I enjoyed it a lot. I wouldn't pay full price to see it, but for the price we paid ($26) it was well worth it. Yeah, we got lucky again. That morning Laura and I tried getting student rush tickets for Jersey Boys, but there were way too many people in front of us by the time we got there, so we decided to try getting student rush tickets for Wedding Singer instead. And lucky us, we were the last ones in line to get tickets because after us they ran out =].




Me, Laura, and Constantine Maroulis, who played Sammy in the show. He was also the sixth runner up for American Idol, so naturally I had to take a picture with him (even though I don't watch the show). He also signed my towel. Yes, my towel. During the show the performers tossed out two towels they were using as props to the audience. I caught one =].




FROYO! (aka frozen yogurt). We went on a crazy froyo hunt after the show...wouldn't call it a night till we got some.


After staying three nights with Laura, I headed over to Greenwich, CT to stay with Jessie for the week. Oh but before that, I did this cool career exploration thing at Time, Inc. in Manhattan. My school set up a panel of speakers to give us information about marketing, sales, advertising, and such. It was good because I got to see a different side of journalism; I've only ever talked to writers, reporters, anchormen/women, but this time I found out about jobs in the publication part of the field.




The first thing Jessie and I did when I got to her house was clean her room, which I swear she hasn't cleaned out since she was 2 yrs. old. I found the most random stuff ever. This is just a picture of me with various things in her room. Rainboots from target, a hat from iceland, tacky necklaces, a trophy, a bouncy balloon, geek glasses, and a toy that looks like an egg beater. Cool.




We both had a lot of work to do for school, so of course we procrastinated the best we could by taking cool pictures on my camera. Every once in a while instead of taking pictures we'd play text twist. SO ADDICTING.




Nick was staying in Greenwich with his grandma after he finished the Humtones tour, so we met up with him for a day. We shopped, ate lunch at Costco (lunch at Costco is the best...hella cheap and hella good), and then played games at Jessie's house. I forgot how much fun Connect Four is. Kids should stop playing video games and play games like connect four and chinese checkers.




More evidence of us not doing our homework. Jessie found all these cool functions on my camera that I never knew about before. Like this split screen thing. Neat huh?




I absolutely love love love autumn on the East Coast. Everything is so absolutely gorgeous. I love it when the trees change colors, and the ground is scattered with so many colorful leaves. And the weather totally rocks. It's time to break out my scarves and sweaters, but it's nice because I can wear them comfortably now as opposed to shivering my butt off in the dead of winter with the same scarves and sweaters.


Whew. That was intense blogging. I think I'm good for the rest of the week. Oh, I almost cut off my toes today while I was cooking. I didn't know the cutting board I was using was kinda bent, so when I put my knife on top of it, it slid off and missed my toes by like 2 inches. The handlebar hit them instead and the blade hit the ground. And this wasn't a whimpy butter knife, it was a huge butcher knife. Whoops.

Alright, I'm done. I've got a long weekend ahead of me. The complete outline for my 20 pg. paper is due this Tuesday. Needless to say I'm completley screwed and will probably be forced to ask my professor for an extension. Cheers.

I'm cold and wet because I've been standing and walking in the rain. But it's ok because I just saw President Bill Clinton speak at a rally for Lois Murphy, who's running for Congress in Pennsylvania's 6th district. Let me say that Bill Clinton is one awesome dude. Wonderful orator. Great speech. Definitely well worth skipping class and standing around outside for three hours.

I don't want to write this esssssaaaaaayyyyyyy. noooooooooooooooooooooooooo. Don't make meeeeeeeee!!!!!!! I don't care about how the relationship between the natural world and the human world breaks down. I don't even know what that means. *sigh*. I should just suck it up and get out one page before 2am, so I can sleep.

Tim came to visit me this weekend. It was great fun. We watched PrisonBreak till my eyes fell out. That translates to about 8 or 9 episodes. And I'm still not done. It's always nice to see familiar faces from home on the East Coast. I get to see Laura and Brian next weekend in NY =].

So here's a much belated picture update of Jubilee's EM retreat at Kenbrook. Which I did not watch PrisonBreak at, but it was still great fun.




Worship team...minus Dan because he was too far away to fit into the picture




Cafeteria where we ate our meals. Food was actually pretty good.




Jubilee kids playing in the dining area




We played the most random games ever. In this game, half an oreo was placed on the forehead of each of these finalists, and they had to get the oreo into their mouth without touching it at all.




Coffeehouse! Definitely one of my favorite parts of the retreat. We all gathered downstairs, and there were blankets, pillows, and candles laid out for us. Everyone had their own pillow, and we signed other peoples', writing messages of encouragement. And at the front of the room anyone could come up and share something with the group through song, instrument, poem, etc. A truly wonderful time of fellowship.




People chilling around




Steve and Justin performing a song




Dan (sitting) and David (with guitar). I like this picture a lot...really just how it captures David's thoughtfulness. Candids are awesome.




Dan (left) and Joe (right) performing a song




Austin (in blue) and Chrysen (in brown). Aw, I like these kids =]. This picture along with the one of Dave and Dan are my two favorite pictures from the retreat.



So that was the retreat in a nutshell. I actually have an enormous amount of work to do tonight since I didn't do any at all yesterday or today, but I figured if I didn't update now I would never do it. Good to know I have my priorities straight. I was supposed to do tons of catching up on my research yesterday, but that never happened for the obvious reason that Tim visited. But this weekend was really good for me...I forgot what it was like to just forget about work for a day and enjoy the company of friends =].

Many things to do this week before fall break. It's gonna be a long, hard week. Just gotta keep on truckin. Have a good one guys.

I've been pretty tired this whole week. Not exactly stressed out, just tired. I really do miss sleeping. It's funny that I'm not frazzled though. When I'm up at 2am I actually feel a strange sense of peacefulness and calm because that's the only time I have all day where I'm totally alone in a quiet place. My schedule is just so packed with class, work, and meetings that I only get a chance to breathe at 2am. It's nice. Except for the fact that I have to wake up six hours later.

So tonight when I don't have a lot of work and should be catching up on my Chinese characters and my 20pg. research paper, I visit my freshmen instead...talk to the girls and play Indian poker with the guys, betting push-ups. I really know how to be productive. But I won the last hand, and I had 4 of my freshmen guys doing 45 push-ups in front of me. Well worth it, I'd say.

I'm going to bed before 1am.

I was looking at my Rainbows the other day, and I realized that I wear them every day (when it doesn't rain). And that got me thinking: wtheck did I wear before I got them? Because I only just got them towards the end of summer. But since I've had them, they're basically the only flip flops I wear. It's odd. I remember friends telling me before that once you get a pair of Rainbows, they're all you ever wear, and you won't need another pair of flip flops again. Obviously, I didn't believe them because I owned a good amount of flip flops, and I didn't see myself just abandoning all of them for a pair of Rainbows. Well now I know. I honestly don't remember what I wore before. Rainbows are so comfortable, and I know many people think they're overrated; I myself thought so too...before I started wearing them every day. I have to say though, I don't care if they're overrated, which they probably are. They keep my feet are very happy. And that keeps me happy. Cheers.

(I'm obviously at work right now because otherwise I wouldn't take time out of my schedule to write this completely pointless entry)

I'm starting research for my 20 pg. paper. It's rather boring right now. I just realized that I have a deadline of October 24th, by which to finish reading all my books/journal articles and write up an outline for my entire paper. It's a lot sooner than I thought. So I'm sitting in the Scili slowly working through a book called "A Road Is Made: Communism in Shanghai 1920-1927." I know you all are very intrigued, so if you want to find out more you'll just have to ask me. My eyes are getting rather tired, and I need a break, so here's a survey...

Name 10 of life's simple pleasures that you like the most.

1. People that smile with their eyes
2. Looking silently out the window in a car
3. Seeing summer change into autumn on the East Coast
4. Watching my friends play guitar
5. A good hair day
6. My 15 minute walk up-campus every morning; good time to be alone and pray
7. Stuffed animals
8. A light backpack
9. People looking me in the eye when they talk to me
10. Running

As an added comment to #10, I would like to say that I ran five miles today. Why? Just so that I could say I did it. Yeah, I'm kinda lame. Awhile back when I was talking to Tim on aim he said he felt really productive that morning since him and his friends had just run five miles to brunch. And ever since then, I really wanted to find out if I could run five miles. Which I guess I can. Cool. And now I have two blisters on my foot.

Retreat was amazing. I had such a great time. It was a weekend full of thought-provoking sermons, good conversations in the early morning hours, good discussions in small groups, crazy, fun, and silly games, awesome worship music, bonding with old friends, making new friends, and really just becoming more closely connected with my church. Not just with the college kids, but with the entire church community. I love my church so much more now. Not that I didn't like it before, but I think I always felt like a bit of an outsider because I didn't know a lot of people. This weekend definitely changed that among other things. I'll post later with pictures about my weekend. Back to research for now.