Off the Orange Line in Jamaica Plain

So as I have previously mentioned on this blog, ever since coming to Boston and starting my education here at Emerson, beside going to class and hanging out with my friends, I haven’t really been up to much.

Now this is a huge stretch from the multitasking, busy-bee me from back home when I was in high school. Anyway, how this all ties together is that I’ve finally found myself something to do and be a part of!

Two summers ago when I was doing a very short two-week stint at Boston University taking some summer course samples I was invited to go on a bike tour of the city with one of the RAs and accepted. What followed was one of the greatest bike rides I’ve ever been on.

The tour  was called MyRide and it was lead by teenagers who were a part of Bikes Not Bomb Earn-a-Bike program.

Anyway, all I remember thinking as I was trying to stuff my hair into a helmet (size large, by the way) was just how much I wanted to get involved in this project – to leave my mark somehow.

Flash-forward two years and here I am, an official Bikes Not Bombs volunteer. I just started two weeks ago and am in the beginning stages of just learning how to work the database, which is my role at the office hub. To sum it up, my primary responsibility is to enter transactions from the bike shop down the street into their new database and make sure all of the customers and donaters info is up to date and correct.

Sure, I’ll admit it sounds mundane and probably would be in a regular office. But the minute I get off the Orange line at Stony Brook it’s another planet. Far away from Emerson and it’s holier-than-thou student body where everybody is leaps and bonds more talented, smart and interesting than me (at least according to them).

Reading this months later from now I’ll probably gag at the amount of cheese emanating from this post but WHATEVER, this is the happiest I’ve been in a long time.

Beyonce is ON POINT

So I’ve got a little under an hour before I have to go to my intro to journalism class and use StumbleUpon for an hour and forty-five minutes as my professor talks about the Internet and the future of my planned-profession (which isn’t very bright, in case you’re wondering).

But there is just something that has to be said, that must be mentioned… And this is the fact that Beyonce has taken over the world.

I don’t know what has happened to me over the past few weeks, but I am showing all the symptoms of Beyonce fanaticism. Problem is, I can’t even control it – in random conversation when someone claims Lady GaGa is the best pop entertainer on the scene I get this instant word vomit where I throw out comments like, “YEAH? WELL BEYONCE HAS BEEN PERFORMING BEAUTIFULLY LIVE FOR YEARS NOW… DESTINY’S CHILD FOREVA.”

Then I have to run. Here at Emerson deeming someone besides Gagaloo as the Princess of Pop is considered one of the biggest offenses and libelous statements one could make. But whatever, I speak the truth, only God can judge me, yadda yadda yadda.

True Love, According to Zeus

The original human nature was not like the present, but different. The primeval man was round, his back and sides forming a circle; and he had four hands and four feet, one head with two faces, looking opposite. He could walk upright as men now do, backwards or forwards as he pleased, and he could also roll over and over at a great pace, turning on his four hands and four feet, eight in all, like tumblers going over and over with their legs in the air; this was when he wanted to run fast… [The sexes were not two as they are now, but originally three in number; there was man (made of 2 male parts), woman (made of 2 female parts), and the union of the two (one male and one female part). But the primeval humans] made an attack upon the gods [and Zeus said]: “Methinks I have a plan which will humble their pride and improve their manners; men shall continue to exist, but I will cut them in two. [Apollo] gave a turn to the face and pulled the skin from the sides all over that which in our language is called the belly, which he fastened in a knot (the same which is called the navel).

After the division the two parts of man, each desiring his other half, came together, and throwing their arms about one another, entwined in mutual embraces, longing to grow into one. Each of us when separated is always looking for his other half..And when one meets with his other half, the actual half of himself, the pair are lost in an amazement of love and friendship and intimacy, and would not be out of the other’s sight, as I may say, even for a moment: these are the people who pass their whole lives together. And the reason is that human nature was originally one and we were a whole, and the desire and pursuit of the whole is called love.

My Long List of Hmm’s…

A “Hmm” is defined as a person of the opposite sex who catches your eye and makes you consider hmm, he has possibility.

Going to Emerson I had heard that most of the boys here were… gay. But I didn’t know it would be this bad. My first week during orientation I was actually getting kind of worried over the fact that every guy I was meeting like Bette Midler and Broadway way more than me.

As the weeks went by, it got better – class started and I got to see more and more of the Emerson population and all the “potentially” straight guys that go to this school too.

Nothing against the gays, really, it’s just kind of awkward when you meet a guy and you have to at first assume he’s gay until he proves otherwise.

Whatever, I’m just going to have to out-source or claw myself a man. It’s seriously a dog-eat-dog world out there in this lovegame against other Emerson girls, because for every 10 of us, there’s only 1 straight dude. I can’t win with those odds!

Now let’s see, there’s the black dude from the elevator I made smiles with, the skater I had poignant eye contact with and the stand-up comedian in my journalism class that just sulks all day… They are all very decidedly cute and hmm-worthy, but I’m just not good at making the first move or even getting them to talk to me.

And I know I’m not ugly, homeless men on the street regularly call me beautiful when trying to get me to give them money, so I know I’m not hideous and I would consider myself quite the catch – so what am I missing here?

I’m getting desperate and I’m lowering my standards. For example, I have crushes on dudes that when I am in heels I am actually taller than – and I am finding that perfectly acceptable just because of the fact that hey, he’s straight and it could happen if I was drunk enough on cheap beer.
The buck stops here. Things must change. I WILL get myself a man.

Color My World

We all have our hobbies that we do whenever we’re stressed or just want to step away from our current circumstances to just plain escape – I’m no different. But what I choose to do with my free time might just be a bit different from the way you unwind.

Now to say I enjoy coloring would be an understatement; I love it. There’s something about starting off with a drawing with blanks just waiting to be colored and ending with a perfectly shaded piece of art that I can now ticky-tack onto my dorm wall that just makes me happy.

Seeing as how I have a minimal amount of homework and a shitload of free time I now have this little corner of my  dorm room where I post up all my completed works and show off to all who comes into my room for whatever reason.

Most are not as impressed as I would like them to be.

During my most recent trip to the Museum of Fine Art I hounded through their gift shop and bought a Frida coloring book in the kid’s section. What the Museum was doing selling Frida Kahlo’s controversial paintings to children I have no idea, but it was just my luck to have found it.

I guess coloring reminds me of those times when I was younger when my Mom and I would spent hours together drawing and having coloring contests (which I’d always win, naturally).

Point is, anyone who’s seen me in the zone when coloring a butterfly or dove knows when I’ve got a crayon in hand I’m a different person – calm, chill and destressed. And these days, living with six girls has me more stressed than a stretched out rubberband. I need to keep in the lines.

UPDATE: As of October 11th 2009, I am now the proud owner of a 64-pack of Crayola Crayons… This is heaven.

Columbus Day Weekend

Normally three-day weekends make me sick with pleasure and possibility over just how much fun and sleep can be had within those particular 72 hours of vacation, but this year things are a bit different.

See, I’m alone. Well, not completely – but for the most part, all of my friends have jumped ship and fled home for the weekend.

Coming from Texas where plane rides home cost around the range of 400 dollars one-way, going home for a random weekend is out of the question… So, here I am.

Living on the 14th floor of my building, straight shots down the elevator are rare and are usually more of an annoyance/bother than anything else, but this weekend I’d gladly take a random elevator ride with a stranger than be so alone all the time.

Today I slept in until 5 P.M. only because there was absolutely nothing else to do. I got dressed. Ate by myself at Boloco. Attempted to go to the library only to find it closed.

And now here I am again, back in front of my computer, creeping on the randomest of individuals on Facebook and bathing in my own patheticness until I buy some more episodes of 30Rock or MadMen, only then to pass out from exhaustion at around 4 A.M.

I’m not unsocial. Really. Already only a few paragraphs into this post I’m wondering whether or not to just highlight all I’ve just typed and press delete; worrying about what any readers will judge or surmise about me based on these emo blog post.

But no, I will post this son of a bitch. Why? Because at least I’ll have one blog post come out of this weekend, and that my friends, is how I measure my productivity.

Here’s to hoping this never happens again,

Cassy

Now That Was Awkward…

Although you may not know it, there’s a small Asian-run hair salon down Boylston hidden in a shopping center next to CVS… This is where our story begins.

It all started when my friend, Viviana, and I’s toe nails had grown to an epic claw-sized proportion. My blue nail polish slowly evolved into a disgusting, scraped-up hot mess that needed to be taken care of, ASAP.
Viviana’s suitemate suggested some random nail salon that’s “cheap I promise,” so we finally made our way over one day after class only to see that the “nail salon” was in fact a run-down hair place that just screamed TETANUS.

For some reason, we didn’t leave. In retrospect, the five-year old Us Weekly magazines should’ve been a huge warning sign.

I don’t want to bore you with all the details about their strange foot massages that involved more pounding than rubbing or how they put so much massage oil on my legs that it felt like I had just come out of an orgy that involved lots and lots of lube, but let me just say that there was Palmolive dish soap involved to scrub our feet.

Finally it seemed as if these crazy women, who kept alternating positions when they couldn’t perform a specific duty, were almost done molesting our toes. My toes had been painted an Emerson purple while my friend’s were a prostitute red that’s already chipping, FYI.

Viviana and I were under the impression that, shit, if they didn’t even have a real pedicure chair for us to sit in or actual soap, our pedicures would be relatively cheap, but they turned out to be $30 – a pop.

We left completely broke and lubed up from our “massages” but we somehow managed to slide our way to Piano Row, grateful to have all ten of our toes still attached to our feet.

Never, Ever Google Images Wisdom Teeth

What can I say about the actual surgery? Nothing bad really, my problems all started later actually. The drugs and oxygen during the procedure were all really great. Sure he couldn’t find my vein at first, but I was already too out of it from the anesthesia so I just wiggled a bit in complaint to which Dr. Perez said, it shouldn’t really hurt… a-huh.

And you know, surprisingly, being awake and remembering everything from the operation wasn’t that bad. Sure the weird noises and feeling the pulling and tugging was no fun – but I mean I pretty much kept my mind focused on the craptastic music playing in his office (Daughtry, if you must know).

Soon enough I was being wheeled out through the back with my little blue goodie bag filled with prescriptions for my five different pain pills and the two extra souvenir teeth that were behind my wisdom teeth. They were actually ridiculously small, leaving me to wonder if they were worth just how much we paid for them to be removed.

I’m not gonna lie, there were tears. Not exactly from pain but, shit, there were a lot of emotions going on. Anyway, the first two days after recovery are pretty much tied for being the longest of my life. No food, an intense amount of drugs, blood & gauze, and let’s not forget neverending nausea.

A few hours after the surgery I began to feel this horrible stomachache coming on and I just got so scared that if I were going to throw up I’d hurt my jaw seeing as how I could barely even open it to begin with. But it came anyway – five times.

It sucked, it sucked and it sucked. Finally I was just able to pass out and the doctor finally decided to return our pages and halt all medication and prescribe something for the nausea. I pretty much cursed the Earth in those 48 hours and death upon the dentist who never called us back.

All I can say now is, Freeze Pops and Jello have become my best friends.

Wisdom Teeth

     I forgot all about my surgery tomorrow. Needless to say I’m not very excited. Who came up with getting rid of wisdom teeth anyway? The hot dentist who’s going to be taking out my four wisdom teeth plus the two random stragglers that have no reason for existing in the back of my mouth?

    If it was indeed Dr. Perez I have to say, he’s fallen some definite places on my list of hot MD’s.

     Anyway, my surgery is tomorrow at 7:45 in the AM and I will NOT be put under – regrettably. I was really looking forward to not having any sort of coherance of just what was going on during the surgery, and being awake but still on enough drugs to put down a pony is seriously putting a damper on how I imagined this surgery would really be going down.

     Point is, I will be awake and able to take instruction which supposedly cuts down the risk of anything going wrong during the operation. I mentioned earlier that there are two random and ridiciously small teeth in the behind my wisdom teeth up on top that will also be removed.

     We have no idea why they are there, but they’re going out with the rest of ‘em. Only thing is these surgeries charge by the tooth so there’s was this major price hike on the surgery. Needless to say, if I didn’t have these teeth pulled out I could have had a killer Spring Break in Cancun with enough money to spare to tip the bellhops quite generously.

     But enough bitching about what could have been. The point is that no matter how much I complain, these six little suckers are coming out. Only thing left to do now is worry about the pain that I know I’ll wake up with.

     All I’m saying is, they better give me some drugs, and lots of ‘em.

     P.S., in case you were wondering… Those aren’t my teeth.

Dead Like Me

So I guess we can successfully say that I am over Buffy the Vampire Slayer and moving on to bigger and a bit more complex television shows. What I really don’t understand is why it just so happens that whenever I genuinely start to like a show, it’s usually already canceled or was canceled prematurely (Freaks and Geeks).

Me and TV don’t really get along. There’s just something about how there’s only one time you can catch a show once it’s in syndicaton and on the air. Well, what the fuck am I supposed to do if I missed my True Blood on Sunday nights at 8? Wait around like a noob for reruns because my Mom is too cheap to get HBO On Demand? I think not.

So talking about getting off the subject, Dead Like Me is fresh and clever, something that is completely devoid in TV right now and lucky for me, all the episodes are on Hulu and Netflix Instant Watch.

Why do I get the feeling that my summer is just a mash-up of dozens of hours of TV watched directly from my laptop?