Ball and other things

I know this has taken me forever to post but for a while I thought that my card reader for my camera was lost and I just remembered where it is the other day. I just loaded the few pictures that I took in Virginia and the one you see above was taken in the hotel room. There are not really any others to show. We got a formal picture done at the place but for you to see that, you will have to come to my house. Overall I had a good weekend in Virginia. The ball was all right. The steak was apparently delicious or that is what Travis said. The rice and string beans were decent and the rolls as well. That is all I really have to comment about for that weekend so I will end that there.

On to other news. The semester is almost over. The last day of classes if on December 9th! My goodness, how time flies. I have so much to do between now and then because all 4 of my papers are due that week. I am hoping to get an essay done Thanksgiving weekend and maybe start on another. There is just no time for anything. The good news if that I have a rough idea of what I want to write about for each of my essays. We shall see how things go. I have a three day school week this week because of Thanksgiving so that will be nice. I am going home Wednesday night because I have a class from 4 to 6:45. The professor said that he will probably let us out at 6. I doubt many people will even go because everyone wants to get home and some people live far away and have to leave early. I will let you know if I am the only one in class that day. It will be an interesting class, I am sure. Not sure what else to write about so I am done.

Boredom in the Language Lab

What is this?  A new post from me?  I know it is hard to believe for those of you who still check this lovely blog of mine.  I am at my job right now (the language lab) and I do not really feel like studying for my Spanish exam that is this afternoon at 4.  I know I will get some studying done before I have to take it so I am content with just typing a post right now.  There is nothing to report on my life right now.  School is busy, work is interesting, and the apartment is noisy.  This weekend I am going down to Virginia to attend the Marine Corp Ball to celebrate its birthday.  I hear the cake might be a white one so that is not cool.  No cake for me then.  Also, no meal for me because the vegetarian option is mushroom ravioli and seeing as I do not like ravioli or mushrooms, I will be eating only bread and water.  Travis, on the other hand, gets both the beef and the chicken so we are not wasting food.  Lucky for him.  I leave on Thursday at night and I stay until Sunday afternoon.  It should be a good weekend and I will be sure to post pictures so you can look forward to another post by yours truly.  I know at least one person out there will be excited for my continuation of this blog.  I am not sure I will keep up with it but we shall see.  

I have the day off tomorrow for election day and I am super excited.  Tuesdays are always my longest days because I have class from 11 to 4:45 and then work from 6 to 9.  Now I don't have to deal with that tomorrow.  Maybe I will take the time to write another blog.  A funny story happened to me recently that I am considering posting but it might not be appropriate to put online.  I will consult with my people and get back to you all.  All two of you who are actually reading this and who already know the story.  I think I will read some more of Mansfield Park.  Have a good day everyone and wish me luck on my Spanish exam!

Not procrastination, germination

What am I doing right now you ask? Well I am not writing my two assignments that are due tomorrow, that's for sure. Now I know that most of you reading this, all two of you, are probably thinking right now that I am procrastinating but I am going to inform you that I am not. The act of procrastination involves the postponing or delaying of an action. While at first glance I know it must seem like that is exactly what I am doing, but I'm not. Instead of procrastinating like everyone else, I have embarked on a new concept called "germinating." You now must be saying to yourself, "but Martha, germination is already a word." Yes, I know this but to my knowledge, it has never been used in this way before. The idea that I want it to evoke is that when someone is germinating, they are thinking about what to write and waiting for the correct moment when their creative juices are flowing so as to produce the best possible result. This may seem ridiculous to go through all of this trouble of writing a blog but I do this because I no longer want to be called a procrastinator which generally has a negative connotation. As a replacement for this word, from now on, I will be called a germinator. To me this sends the message that I am actively doing something even though it appears that I am not. Now that this word is defined and clarified, go forth and use it in your every day lives! I warn you, however, to only use it when you are actually germinating because I do NOT want this word to become a synonym of procrastinating.

Eddie Izzard

I know that I have not written in months now so many people probably do not read this except maybe Meg but I just had to write something because last night I saw Eddie Izzard live at the VMA in Providence. In case you are unfortunate enough not to know who Eddie Izzard is, he is a wicked funny comedian. If you have yet to see any of his shows that are on DVD, I suggest that you go to the nearest movie store and pick up a copy. Anyway, the show was a late Easter present from Travis' mom, Anita. The show started at 8 but we went to dinner beforehand at the Cheesecake Factory. I had some pasta and so did Anita. Once we were done, it was time for the show! While we were standing in line to pick up our tickets, I saw Sue, one of Meg's friends. We chatted for a few seconds and then she left to go to her seat. We eventually got our tickets and then sat down. We had tickets in the balcony. I always like the balcony the best. It just seems better. The show commenced a few minutes after 8 and it was so crazy to be in the same room as Eddie Izzard. As usual, he started the show with jokes about the city and/or state that he is in. There were a few references to the mafia, the size of the state, and of course the fact that Rhode Island isn't even an island. He suggested that we should build a moat around the whole state and then fill it with water so our name would make sense. Later on in the show he made fun of us for being the last state to sign the constitution and then asked us if any of the 3 Rhode Islanders at the time actually did anything in the revolutionary war. He was then surprised to hear that we actually started the war with the burning of HMS Gaspée. Hooray for Little Rhody! He also made fun of that nickname. So the show was a total of 2 hours and included jokes involving picnic tables, monkeys, tigers, giraffes, oxen (I guess he was really into animals that night), dinosaurs, and many more. Needless to say, the two hours flew by. I probably could have sat listening to him for another 5 hours.

After the show, Anita drove me back home in Pawtucket because I decided to spend the night since I did not have class today. Now it feels like Saturday for me but it is really only Wednesday. This morning, my mom took me out for breakfast and I had some nice french toast. After that, we went and both bought a pair of shoes and then my mom got a griffin ipod player thing for the car. I don't really know how to describe that so if you are really curious, you can just look it up. :-) When we got home, my mom persuaded me to go for a bike ride. I didn't want to go because I did not have any exercise clothes but I ended up wearing a pair of my mom's pants even though they looked really silly on me. Anyway, I am back at URI now and I really don't want to go to class tomorrow. Only 2 more weeks left though so I hope it won't be too bad.

Birthday weekend!

I am finally back home and everything has returned back to normal. This weekend I celebrated my birthday with my family because Meg came up from NJ. Last night we went out to dinner to the Garden Grille which is a vegetarian restaurant and it was awesome even though Meg didn't really like what she ordered. After dinner we went over to my Poppa's house because my aunt was in town. We stayed there for a little bit and then went back home for the best part of the evening: presents! From my parents I got rain boots, a University of Granada sweatshirt, and en external hard drive. Then from Meg I got the best present of all: a lettuce storer! Included in the storer were two boxes of Hot Tamales, a bag of Hershey kisses, and a bag of M&Ms. There was also what I thought to be instructions for the storer so I threw them aside only to get yelled at to look at these "instructions." Upon careful inspection, I found them to be the weirdest directions that I have ever seen because it included a seating chart. A seating chart for a lettuce storer? Well, no, the seating chart is actually for the Met in NYC because the other "instructions" was an envelope with 2 tickets to see Carmen!! I have always wanted to see this opera so I was extremely excited. So on March 1st, Meg is taking me out to dinner in NYC and then we are going to see an opera. I hope it will be as fantastic as I am imagining it. Other exciting news from this weekend is that I got to talk to Travis for an hour and 15 minutes on Friday. This was just such a good weekend. Oh, I had carrot cake too, woot!

Last few days...

It is here at last, my last few days in Spain. It has been a great four months out of the country but it will be nice to go back home and back to stuff I know. It will also be great to be able to say whatever I want because in Spanish I am limited by the vocabulary that I know. I have been spending the last week in hotels with my family which has been fun but I already miss Granada and Maribel. If you want to check out the pictures that have been taken this past week, you can go to Meg's web page, go to travels, pictures, and then Spain. They are not all there but there are many to look at. There is not too much else to say so I am off!

Last day of class

Well it has finally come and gone; the last day of classes in Granada. I still have exams to do which is next week but I have no more classes to go to. It is so strange that it is finally ending because it seems like just yesterday I was complaining about the grammar classes that I had to take in September. Meg flies into Madrid tomorrow or at least I am hoping so. Apparently there is a winter storm brewing back in the states and her flight might get delayed. That would really stink so I hope that doesn't happen. I am scheduled to be in Madrid a little after 12 noon and I expect Meg to have already landed. I guess we shall just have to wait and see. If her flight is delayed, I will just have to bum around Madrid while I wait. In addition to a probability of her flight being delayed, my parent's flight might be delayed too or maybe even canceled because there is another storm scheduled for Sunday. Jeez, of all days for storms to come to New England, it just had to be the two days that family is flying out to see me. I guess they will all eventually get here but it is not a fun situation for any one involved. Well onto other news, I have uploaded pictures from Morocco and made sure to include many of me. For the first half of the trip, Karen took pictures, and then for the second part, I did because we were afraid of our batteries dying on us mid-trip. They ended up surviving the whole way but it was just a precaution.

Tonight is the farewell tapas thing for AIFS. We are going to see a flamenco show some which should be awesome. We are all meeting at 8:15 and then going to where ever the place is. They said that we should get back around 12:30 so this means that I will not be getting much sleep. I can always sleep on the bus ride up to Madrid though so it won't be too awful. I need to remember to bring my camera for tonight to take some pictures but even though I will have it, I probably won't take many. Adios then!