This semester's reading period was not much fun. I've never spent so much time in Lamont library before, and I've never studied so long and so hard. The first two weeks of January were devoted to catching up and reviewing organic chemistry. After that was over, I was the happiest kid for about twenty minutes, before I had to review twelve novels in six hours for my English exam the very next day. As much of a relief literature was after all the science, I was so mentally tired that I'm not quite sure how I pulled that off. But it went by fine, and then it was all biology until the end of finals period, since it was on the last day. Except that I went to New York for Andrew's formal the weekend before the exam. Seeing him was a nice blip on my steady library existence, but it wasn't exempt from the category of extreme. Whenever someone asks me how it went, I tell them that superficially, everything went wrong. The one weekend where I was relying on transportation, we were hit by a huge snow storm. Over two feet of snow along the East Coast, which of course includes everything from Boston to New York. I wasn't thinking about that too much, because when I left it was only lightly snowing. It was my first time on a train here, and instead of studying I spent most of my time absorbing the experience. It's amazing how four hours pass when you're just looking out the window. And how much snow accumulates within those hours. So, I got into the city at Penn Station, and I needed to get to Grand Central. I figured I could walk it--ten blocks down and five or so blocks over--and well, I could, but it was not pleasant. I liked walking through Times Square in the snow, but the snow quickly became hostile and the cold made the distance much longer than it initially seemed. So I arrived at Grand Central a soaked snowball, but inwardly triumphant. If only that had been my last confrontation with the snow. Andrew and I took the train to West Point, but the snow kept the shuttles from the train station to campus from running, so we had to wait for his roommate to pick us up. Then his roommate's windshield wipers broke. Then we learned that the actual dance was cancelled because of the storm (the banquet still happened). The next day we decided to push my 12 o'clock train back to Boston to 4. I had to catch the 1:00 train from West Point to NYC, but the trains were only running every two hours, so it didn't come until 2. So I didn't get to the city until 3:55; I didn't think I was going to make the 4 o'clock train so I wanted to change my ticket to 6 o'clock, but because of all the plane delays and such, all trains were booked until 3 AM. So Andrew booked that and I semi-freaked out, but when I got to the station, the 4 o'clock train was still there. Except now I had a ticket for the 3 AM train. And the ticket booth line was an hour long. So I stood there and begged cranky, delayed New Yorkers to cut. It took me five people, but someone let me through and then I asked to get back on the 4 o'clock train, only to find that in the five minutes that I'd relinquished my seat, someone else had taken it. Then I was told I could get on the train with a business class ticket. So I had to pay an extra $30 for a ride that I'd already had just a few minutes before. Then this 4 o'clock train that I thought I'd miss was delayed for about an hour and didn't actually get to the station until 5. It was an express train that was supposed to get to Boston at 7, but we didn't get there until 9:30, and because the subway was also delayed due to snow, I didn't get back to campus until 10:30. And where did I go? Straight to the library. The next day Melkis and I were at the library from 8 AM to 1 AM. I don't think the lost time made much difference; it was just hectic at the time that I was going through it. Physically traveling is stressful because you don't feel like you're accomplishing anything during the waiting time; only the end destination seems to matter and you feel so helpless and insignificant in the process of getting there. Just a victim of the elements. But like Melkis said, on the intrinsic level...it was lovely (extremely so). When we were waiting for the train to NYC, I was looking at the murky Hudson River and the unbelievably vast amounts of slush, and remembered how much I love imperfections. The weekend didn't go as either one of us had envisioned, but I like surprises.
After biology ended, the feeling of lightness was incredible. Absolutely no obligations. I slept--took my first long nap in a long, long while. I listened to music, old comforts and newly bought. I put on decent clothes for once and we went out to eat for once. To Mr. Bartley's...so warm, so good. Then we made white Russians with Melkis's Costa Rican coffee liquor and finally painted our watercolor. We modeled it after Monet's Japanese Bridge, but obviously shaped it according to our own abilities and intepretations as we went along. It was so therapeutic, making the white space disappear. I think its underlying appeal rests in how different it is from the processes of concentrated studying and mindless traveling--these things are hard because it's hard to tangibly see the end result. With the canvas, it feels so nice to actually see yourself create and transform something in such a short amount of time. And of course it was beautiful because my girls are beautiful, and what else would they make. We put it up right away, and then we flipped through the art magazines Melkis got from work and covered the rest of our walls with clippings.
Then we packed for our trip to NorCal, which was one of the best vacations I've ever had, and all I did was go home. I would relay the concrete events in detail, but this entry is long enough, and it really wasn't about the actual things that we did. It was the atmosphere, the feeling of absolute freedom from school, the driving, the food, and most of all, it was these three girls who have been my friends since the beginning of college, who have defined so much of my experience at Harvard, who are so dynamic and funny and smart and fun and silly and talented. I loved showing them the hills, the mountains, the ocean. Highlights include: defending ourselves against angry security officers at Logan Airport, trying on dresses we couldn't afford at BCBG at Santana Row, browsing the scandalous cards at the stationary store, mixing bath salts at Pier 39, indulging ourselves at Ghirardelli Square, watching Million Dollar Baby, baking cookies for the first time, driving through the Santa Cruz mountains, taking in the weirdness of Santa Cruz, riding the oldest rollercoaster on the West Coast, convincing Amy that Northern California does indeed have a beachfront, riding the trolley like tourists, climbing the steep hills to Lombard St., seeing the Golden Gate Bridge on a beautiful day, finishing the entire 3rd season of Sex and the City. And eating. We went from skipping meals to study to eating everything--dim sum in Chinatown, ice cream in SF and Santa Cruz, Krispy Kreme, Jamba Juice, In-N-Out, snacks snacks snacks. We packed so many hilarious moments, pretty sights and sing-out-loud songs in four and a half days, I can't possibly recount them all. Here are some pictures instead.
Some of the bath salts in SF. The colors were amazing, the smells even better. A very happy Amy on the carousel. Yes, we went on the carousel. We're trying to delay the growing-up process as much as possible.
The girls at Ghirardelli Square, which is so pretty and romantic at night. Amy wanted to hold hands, but the rest of us resisted the temptation. Us baking. Amy and I made chocolate chip--we put all the ingredients together without reading the directions. Apparently, order does matter. Only for appearance though; they were delicious, just a little funny looking. Amy and I decided that they were symbolic of their makers--seemingly abnormal but really okay on the inside. Melkis and Steph, on the other hand, made oatmeal cookies that actually looked like the ones in the cookbook.
In front of the Giant Dipper in Santa Cruz, an 80 year old wooden rollercoaster. A little rickety and lots of fun. The girls gleefully riding the cable car. And finally, at the top of Lombard St., with a view of the city in the background.
Our last sight of the city. Started off painting the most beautiful imaginary bridge, ended by seeing the most beautiful real one. It was good to experience the extremes; now I just have to adjust to settling back into the middle for awhile.
