great human beings

You know what makes any frown turn upside down? Great friends coming to visit from other parts of the country, all in the same weekend! And fabulous, fun things to do together.

Welcome Sarah Monson, Elliott, and Ben!!

Because our dear friend Elliott was coming to New York City for a little visit, Sarah M (of Dating Girl fame) made her way up to the Big Apple for a visit. What more could a girl ask for than spending to quality time with these two fabulous, fun loving kids on adventures. We joined in an epic battle and a giant game of human twister and a boat full of people cheering and applauding every few minutes when we participated in the Improv Everywhere MP3 Experiment. It really was an amazing adventure, and I'll pot a link and pictures and more details about all this hullabaloo once those go up onto the website. Rest assured, it was amazing fun. We then made our way over to Ground Zero which Sarah had never seen and stared at the construction. At this point, we were all pretty wet, tired and famished, so we made our way back to my 'hood and got a ridiculous amount of food over at Zaytoons down the street from me. I don't think I've ever been that full of good food and conversation. You know, it is great to make new friends and I wouldn't trade them in for anything, but there is nothing quite like just kicking it with some good old friends. We rolled ourselves home, and settled on the futon to watch the Relief Society Conference online, which was really great and I'm proud to say that Sarah and I did not fall asleep at all. Elliott did a little bit, but that's okay because he is a boy. I sure do enjoy what these female church leaders have to say. After that, we had to kick it into high gear watching ridiculous videos on YouTube before heading out to party the night away at BAM with my friend Jamie from school. Brooklyn Academy of Music = fun times!! We saw beautiful, eclectic music and SUFJAN STEVENS (I didn't realize how cute he was!) even made an appearance! In addition to the music, we danced a bit (though our full bellies weren't quite in agreement with that) and watched a rather sinister Danish movie called the Kingdom all about a haunted hospital. We rolled home around 3 am (yes, we know how to party) and crashed, with morning coming all too quickly to this tired bunch. It was so nice to go to church with these kids and then spend some good girl talk time with Sarah before she had to go catch a bus. Sometimes, you just need a good girlfriend who has known you for a while through various relationships to help you with some confusing patches.

To top off the amazingness of friends, my friend genocide Ben also came to town from D.C. for a visit to do some fire dancing and I had the opportunity to go talk with him for a little while. We solved all the world's problems in the two hours we were together, because that is just the kind of friends that we are.

So thank you old friends, come again any time! You are great human beings.

bailout

I just gave my friend Chris an earful about the possible bailout of Wall Street and my desire to see some heads roll. Poor guy, I was just supposed to go over there to bring him some soft foods because he got his wisdom teeth out, so the last thing he probably wanted was my very amatuer, very opinionated viewpoint about the whole thing. I thought about posting it all here, since this is my own personal soap box, but really, i don't have the time or the energy to get into all the details and fact check, so instead, i'm just going to send you to my favorite blog/podcast about this whole thing: Planet Money on NPR. They say it way better than i do and they probably understand it better than i. Seriously, if you are wondering what this whole thing is about and indignent and confused, they will help you be less confused but slightly more indignent that these bankers are trying to get a $700 billion handout (same people who are against welfare because it's a handout to people who aren't working... that 3% of the national budget that goes towards that is huge compared to this...) and they are the same people who put us in this mess in the first place. Anyway, I'm not going to rant and rave about it.

In other news, I'm taking a triathlon class! Yes! I am going to have an AMAZING body. As long as i can keep up with these workouts. The only thing is, that after i go to class, I always want a huge omlete or something equivelent with loads and loads of calories. Maybe I should just go to Burger King for their Baconator (that's for the benefit of those hwo know about the calorie labeling project I was working on).

Peace out.

Jack Bauer saves child soldiers! How can i resist?

oh no

This is a catchy little love song. Well, my type of love song.

I told myself I'd go to bed at 11 pm

and it is now 10:55. School has started. I've slacked on blogging because the summer has been so much fun and who has time to write when you are up until all hours of the night hanging out with a cute boy. not me, that is sure. But, now summer is over, school has begun, and i'll be back at blogging because I need to procrastinate homework and sleep somehow and I've banned myself from reading any more opinion pieces about Sarah Palin (that was last week. I'm totally grounded from politics until something actually happens).

we went to hangout with my friend Meghan on Martha's Vineyard Labor day weekend, and it was amazing and such a good time. And meghan is growing a human! Congrats!

Here are a few pictures, more to come once I can get them from Kristian.







As for school, I'm glad to be back, and I think i'm ready to put my brain back to good use. I'm taking Managing Humanitarian Crises, Transforming the Urban Economy, Estimating Impacts, and capstone. Only four classes, you may say. Four classes with hundreds of pages of reading. Gotta love grad school. Seriously, though, I do love it and i think my classes will be super interesting. Wish me luck on this whole studying thing. So far, I've realized that my couch, late at night, is NOT the most effective place to study. Especially with the internet readily accessible.

Sarah Palin, feminism, motherhood.

The New York Times had an article about Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin and the issues her nomination has raised about motherhood and work.

When I first heard of her canidecy, it made me kind of angry, that McCain would pick someone quite inexperienced in an apparent attempt to pander to the female vote, and for no other reason. But then again, that's what politicians do. This whole debate that she has opened is really fascinating-- conservative values, pro-family working mom with a 4 month old baby, abstinence-only advocate with a pregnant teenager... she is a series of contradictions, but maybe she isn't really. I need to sort out what I think about her. And all of the other political candidates too.

P.S. Kind of thought that Obama's convention speech was amazing. but then again, most convention speeches in the past also made grand promises for change.