cough cough cough

I am sick! And am trying very hard to make sure that Alicia and Rich don't catch what i've got. Totally not cool for me to make them ill after they were nice enough to take me in, feed me, and entertain me. It would be bad form you know? So i'm popping pills, swigging water, and perusing Alicia's fantastic bookshelves. She has heaps of young adult stuff that i never read so im having fun devouring stuff i missed out on when i was younger.

I just finished Perks of Being a Wallflower.

And now the tylenol night cold stuff is kicking in...

Tra la la

My camera already ran out of batteries so no pictures today. I fail at turning off my camera before the batteries drain. Today was also pretty long. I slept in fairly late due to my supervisor not being in the office till the afternoon. This gave me plenty of time to try and find anything in my suitcase unwrinkled as well as give me an opportunity to wander into town alone.

I really need to buy an iron.

I left the house before noon and walked a few minutes before i realized i had turned the wrong way and was heading in the opposite direction of the main street. I performed an about face and wandered back to where i was ssupposed to be. Once reaching the street i peered around suspiciously for the Bus 73 sign. Alas, it was nowhere to be found. After i walked up and down the street looking at every single blasted sign and realizing none of them was a bus stop, i called Alicia. She told me to look across the street. Lo and behold the bus WAS RIGHT THERE and pulled away as i rushed towards it.

Grrr.

I took the next bus and promptly forgot which stop Alicia and i had gotten off the previous day. So i pretty much walked an extra mile and half, hauling butt, so i wouldnt be late. I wasn't. I met the two othr guys working on the project and was shown to the transcription lab where i'd be working.

Its pretty neat. I watched videos in spanish of different families and had to record what was being said, word for word, and type what i observed. I also go to double check other videos that had already been transcribed. It was most amusing to fill in the blanks they left because they did not understand what was going on.

I did that for a few hours but i bounced out early when Alicia came to check up on me. My legs hurt so freaking bad! Had my right knee threaten to collapse on me twice. This is what i get for leading an increasingly sedentary life. I'm sure i'll be fine in a few days but in the short time ive been here ive walked at least 20 miles (which is a lot for someone used to DRIVING everywhere) and my pants already fit looser. I've also acquired a sore throat, slight cough, and sniffles. Its annoying. But i get a cold/cough everytime i go someplace new . Stupid rebellious body.

We went to the supermarket and i bought SO MUCH junk food. hahaha. I apologized to Alicia, who is dieting and is a tea loving granola eating hippie, for bringing trash into her home. I then promptly offered her some Black Pepper Jack chips which she ate with our dinner.

Mmmm meat. She made us some glorious burgers with habanero cheese and jalapenos on top. I'm so relieved she's not a vegetarian. I admit that was a brief concern i had when we sat down to our first meal together. Happily enough she ordered meat. Yay.

And now. I am going to eat a Twinkie.

mmmm creme filled sponge cake....

It was a long hot day...

and i am very tired. lol. No update from me tonight. I'm ghastly full of indian food (which was great!) and im off to bed early.
Tomorrow will be my first sojourn into the heart of Boston unaccompanied.

And dude. I have such a terrible farmers tan now! I did not leave Saint Cloud for the big city just to acquire a FARMER'S TAN!!!

Here's a pic from a pretty monument i rested near today after getting lost and walking in the wrong direction for 2 miles.

Yay!

I've got keys to the apartment and i'm sporting a geeky cool keychain.

I made it!

The trip to Boston was strangely uneventful. I watched Children of Men on my laptop and the girl sitting next to me kept jumping every time someone would get killed. The view from the plane as we landed was absolutely beautiful! Seriously, it looked so fake! On the left you could see the airport and other buildings but on my right it was just wee sailboats on the water and colonial homes dotting the shoreline in between swathes of trees.

I would have taken a picture but my stuff was too crammed together.

Speaking of stuff, my suitcase weighed 70 pounds and i had to pay an extra 25 bucks to bring it with me. Darn. The fun part came when Alicia and i tried to manuvere that monstrosity on and off a few buses, on and off the subway, and then across Harvard Yard into Alicia's office.

We dropped off the excess baggage and then set off into a walking tour of the city. I have no idea where we actually went but we ended up wandering across a bridge and seeing MIT as well as BU. I saw a boy wearing a World of Warcraft t shirt on the MIT campus. It made me happy. It felt like coming home.

I still can't believe that i won't be heading back to Florida in a week.

I walked into one of the independant bookstores out somewhere in the city. They had a whole wall dedicated to books written by Harvard professors and i was pleasantly surprised to find i had already read quite a few of them. The independant children's bookstore is nifty looking.

Sadly, i have no pictures for today's update but i promise i'll put more up when i get into tourist mode. For now Alicia and I are resting from the day's exertions in what seems to me to be geek paradise. The members of this household play WoW. They watch Firefly. They play boardgames including Risk and Stratego. There is an Xbox and a Playstation. I've set up shop in their library which is gloriously full of books i love and some ive not read but am most willing to get into.

I ate Vietnamese for lunch today and am snacking on organic sour cherries fresh from the farmer's market.

I saw a church with a sign that said "Be Swift to Love, Make haste to be kind."

In short, i am quite in love with this city.

Mangoes

The tree in the backyard is full of ridiculously large mangoes. The grapefruit tree and the lemon tree are doing fairly well this year. I am going to miss the harvest. Sadness. On the other hand an apartment i've been looking at in the Cambridge area is said to be sporting a few fine pear trees. I don't like pears. But i've NEVER seen a pear tree before. How /exciting/.

That mango is bigger than my HEAD!

Packing

I can't sit still long enough to pack anything. There's a week left until I go and still not one stitch of anything has found its way into a box or bag. Nerves? Maybe. Or it could be that i'm just putting everything off till the last minute just so I can revel in the adrenaline rush that comes with rushing to finish a task. I'm a slacker like that. A junkie slacker living off of sweet sweet endorphins. Mmmm. I did pull a few of my files out to rummage through but I think i've made more of a mess than anything else. I have one suitcase that somehow has to fit my clothing, shoes, books, dvds, and video games I can't be parted from for more than a few weeks.

Going Away

Dad leaves for Quantico on Saturday. I leave for Boston on Tuesday. So we had a final family get together. This involved lots of food and dinosaur wrassling.