Free stuff and lots of work

Whoopsies, someone was a little overtired the last couple days and fell asleep before remembering to update. Fortunately only a couple exciting things happened, so you all didn't miss much in my life ;-)

On Wednesday, I mostly did a lot of work. I also went to this small group meeting to discuss Provide, and what's good about the club and what could use some improvement. I really like their system on this campus- there are only two groups, Provide and RAG (Raise and Give); Provide does volunteer work, and RAG is fundraising. For both clubs, if you want to get involved, you're able to get almost any placement you want. There are a lot of opportunities and minimal conflicting interests. I often wish BC was more like that- having just one place to go to if you want to volunteer, and none of this arduous application process and competitive selection. If someone wants to volunteer, then let them volunteer. When I mentioned how I thought it was great that Provide has a lot of options and opportunities, and that it was so easy to get involved, and explained why, the other students were horrified by what one often has to do at BC to be involved.

That aside, I got another mug and a comfy hoodie, so that was fun.

Later that night, when I was getting papered out (I still haven't even started the writing portion, I'm still gathering facts and quotes), I gathered Caitlin and Vanessa and we went on a chocolate-finding adventure, which resulted in delicious Budgens chocolate cake, as well as some cookies and muffins for a later date, and milk to drink with everything. Operation: Get Emily Chocolate was a huge success, and there was much happiness in the land.

I really need to go grocery shopping, but I want to wait until I'm back from my trip. As of this morning, the study abroad advisor still hadn't received a definitive answer about whether I could take my midterm at a different time, so I'm glad that I just decided to suck it up and come back Wednesday night instead of Saturday. It also relieved a lot of paper stress, since I will have almost all day Thursday, and all day Friday, Saturday and Sunday that I can write said papers. I'll be spending Sunday early afternoon into sometime on Tuesday in Venice, and then will go up to Luzern with everyone and spend the night and the next day, and head to the airport early Wednesday evening. I'm really sad that I won't get to go skiing in the Alps (how fabulous would that have been??), but at the same time I'll be saving a lot of money... and won't have to buy snow pants and ski gloves and goggles, which would've been hard for me seeing as how I already own all of those, they're just in Maine and I'm a little bit far away.

Yes, I know that I am totally rationalizing my disappointment. But it's helping.

Yesterday was pretty fun- Actuarial and tutorial for that, then a couple hours to do a bit more work, and then the 1950 version of King Solomon's Mines. I find it intriguing that the romantic plotline in the book involves a white British man and a "Native," but the movie cuts that out entirely and instead introduces a white British woman. I'm thinking about writing on that for my second paper for this class, and maybe watching a couple other versions of the film.

Vanessa and I then decided to go to Westfield Shopping Centre, since I've been looking for a new pair of sneakers and she needed to find rainboots and a present. We are now very mad at Haider for telling us of the existance of this magical place... it was HUGE (over 250 stores I've heard), and had these interactive directories that gave you directions to various stores. There was a string quartet chilling and playing in one of the atriums. And the stores were fantastic. Highlight of the evening, though, had to be Crepe Affaire. A Thai chicken crepe for dinner and a nutella crepe for dessert? Sooooooooooooo good. We didn't talk at all while we were eating, since we were pretty much in heaven.

We got home pretty late, and I realized I had to fill out my Orientation Leader application since that's due the day I'm getting back from my trip; Hopefully Howard and Chambers will fill out the forms for me, I shot off some emails last night and hope to forward them the forms before I leave for Venice Sunday morning.

I also had a lot of trouble falling asleep last night, so kept getting out of bed and watching weird Youtube videos. Probably not the best way to get drowsy, but it was at least entertaining.

I was going to go to the gym today, but I realized that it's an off day since I successfully went two days in a row! And now my muscles hate me a bit. But that's okay, they'll man up soon enough.