emlocke

Category: It’s Called Friendship

  • love ya, mead it

    i just got back from a quick mhc visit. last night, holly, molly and i had room choosing in mead. until now, i’ve managed to bypass the housing lottery drama by playing the transfer game, so this was my first upclose glimpse at what goes on between drawing a number and signing your name on the poster-sized floor plan. gasp! it’s complicated, to say the least. we had to extend our top room choice list twice while we watched moving groups and proxies step over us after their numbers were called. it took almost two hours to work up to number two hundred, and then we only had sixty seconds to see what was left over and make our decision!

    holly and i are living in 401 mead next year, and i’m pretty psyched. mead was our first choice, it’s beautiful and spacious and classic, socially active, close to parking in gorse, and to three or four consistent dining options, a rarity in the days of centralization and m&c’s rations. and, hello, holly mead? it was destiny. our room isn’t the penthouse we had hoped for, but it features vaulted ceilings, two nice windows and two decent closets, and it’s twenty-nine square feet larger than our room in prospect last year. we have a view of the green and we’re planning some wild (well, wild by mount holyoke’s standards) fourth floor parties.

    after the whole process, we all decided to ease our racing hearts with some ice cream at friendly’s, and my experience was much better this time! i had been craving peanut butter for days, so i had a reese’s peanut butter cup cyclone and we talked about plans for the summer and for next year. there’s so much to think about and plan for the next twelve months.

    i dropped in on a film board meeting this afternoon. holly and i decided that we need a creative outlet, and since all the film board members are graduating, we have the perfect opportunity to take over reign and make the film board program awesome. first up, we have to schedule movies for the fall. holly and molly spent two hours writing a slogan: “want reel action? come to hooker! $1.00.” my project is a website redesign so the film site will actually have some style. already our monarchy is starting to come together and i can’t wait to increase the board’s popularity next year. wow, involvement is kind of a high!

    quote of the day: “happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are all in harmony.” – mahatma gandhi

  • chilean dreams & melting ice cream

    emlocke * star has had a long hiatus due to international adventures, a brief sojourn at disney world, followed by some homecoming laziness. but tonight, we are back and better than ever. and by ‘we’ i mean just ‘me’. and by better, i mean best!

    well, my trip was fantastic. photos are here until i can access network space at one of my colleges. stay tuned for descriptions and interesting facts and stories and haikus from my journal. every night since i’ve been home i’ve dreamt that i’m still in chile, which totally throws me when i wake up between flannel sheets with maggie on my feet, but is fun. i really do miss it all, so i’m hanging on to the de ja vu dreaming.

    consciously, i’m back in ridgefield, and this week, so was lauren! she and jill have both been home for spring break, which comes to an end today. last night we decided to get together in honor of our respective turns to respective realities. in an effort to, shall we say, mix it up, we decided to forgo caffeine and foam in favor of ice cream and hot fudge. friendly’s anyone?

    oh, we should have known. our night was ill-fated from the moment we stepped through the door and the hostess seated us at the counter. as friendly as they are, friendly’s doesn’t provide their counter-diners with crayons to color with or children’s menus to color on! i don’t know about you, but i need the creative distraction or i can’t wait patiently between ordering and eating. all craft-related items aside, that was just the beginning.

    our waitress wanted to bring us something to drink. jill wanted a water, no lemon. lauren ditto-ed that. i opted for water with a slice of lemon. “great, so that’s two waters – with lemon, right?” well, no. but she had already scurried away, so we all looked at each other and shrugged. we should have gotten the hint that flavor substitutions were not to be attempted, but when she returned to take our orders, we went for it.

    my ice cream was supposed to involve pie crust (the main attraction, in my eyes), strawberry ice cream and miscellaneous berries. the pie crust and the berries were all good, but the ice cream was more vanilla than strawberry, so i gently reminded our waitress that i had asked for a flavor substitution. she took my dish, scraped off some of the vanilla, scooped on some melty strawberry, and returned it to me – berryless. i wasn’t the only victim here. jill was served cyclone soft-serve soup. the brownie in lauren’s brownie sundae was MIA and when she inquired about its whereabouts, a lightbulb went on above the waitress’s head and she said, “oh right, fudge!” oh my.

    but i had my pictures from chile to show off, lauren and jill had lots of stories to remind me what college is like, and eventually the manager told me to “go crazy” on the menu b/c whatever replacement ice cream we ordered was all on him. it was a good time, as usual.

    quote of the day: “into the car, baby, bleed the gas, fast is fast never turning back” – guster

  • star to the bucks

    i spent the evening at starbucks (now open twenty-four hours!) with jill and em and lek while the snow came down. my mom predicts a snow day for ridgefield schools tomorrow, so it looks as though the whole family might be home with me. maybe their presence will inspire me to finally call outward bound and register for the chile trip. i also need to renew my driver’s license, get my passport and join the new ridgefield rec center so i can start training.

    late notice, i’m officially re-accepted at mount holyoke, so i’ll be going back as a junior in the fall of 2004. hopefully living with holly and working at the saw center again, and perhaps working weekends at camp? now i’m listed as white, emily l (06/lv-year) in the online directory, which i think is cool in a mysteriously mysterious sort of way. and apparently my p.o. box number remains the same. in other academic news, i got my grades from hamilton, and i made the dean’s list! a in jazz, a- in lit & environment, a- in comp sci and b- in social psych. it’s not fair that those grades won’t count toward my stellar gpa at mount holyoke, but now i have 62 graduation credits, i’m almost a junior already and i will still graduate in may 2006.

    came up with lots of new craft ideas. tomorrow i’m going to work on my new canvas tote bag, and i’m also plotting some curtains for my room, marble magnets, beaded charms for just about everything i own, tiny paper mache lanterns, a mosaic, personalized ribbon belts, and some striped pajama pants/scrubs. and, if i ever have a desktop computer again, i want to spray paint the cpu case hot pink. wild!

    jessy and i are going to go visit alana and danny at uvm at some point this semester. i talked to alana today about applying to new camps. i hope we end up going somewhere together. i’m all about meeting new people, of course that’s important. but it’s also really important to me that i get to hold onto my history, and camp people are such a significant part of that history.

    quote of the day: “and you can’t deny this room will keep you warm.” – dar williams

  • first night 2004

    new year’s eve was nothing that i expected. original plans were not meant to be. at first i just felt abandoned and heartbroken, but i’m so glad things turned out the way they did. i ended up going over to big ash’s and saw kristin, melissa and jenny k, and we chilled in the basement and watched tv for awhile. just before midnight i stopped at the dreyer’s house and ended up staying until four in the morning. i worked on a lovely buzz, thanks to my lovely lauren and her smirnoff twist. thanks, lek. i decided to wear those gorgeous shoes again b/c the heel is perfect for my shiny beaded pants, and let’s be honest, they’re hot. so all the stumbling probably made me look and feel a little tipsier than i really was!

    i’m so lucky to have these sweet, smart, generous, faithful friends who will always tell me i look beautiful and think i’m funny and just want me to be there, when i don’t even know or expect it. lauren the diplomat managed to wrangle all the girls and all the boys into the same house for the night, which was awesome b/c i adore em and jill and jess and lindsay, and jon, of course, but it’s so much fun to hang out with the boys, too, and it wouldn’t have been the same without everyone together. we played dream phone and watched new year’s rockin’ eve. scott and i raided the mint chocolate chip ice cream from the freezer. i stumbled around in my shoes and spike mauled me and lauren a couple of times. it was an awesome night. here’s to the new 2004.

    new year’s resolution: to leave shorter messages on answering machines.

    quote of the day: “and the many stars that guide us, we have some of them inside us” – dar williams

  • gamma sigma chapter #679

    when we were in middle school and certain members of our troop didn’t think they could balance being celebrated members of the sixth grade and girl scouts at the same time, someone invented “great superstitions,” which was a cryptic reference to our troop meetings. now, first of all, there are plenty of words in the english language, or better yet, foreign languages, since secrecy was the goal, that begin with the letters ‘g’ and ‘s’ – and someone put ‘great’ and ‘superstitions’ together? what does that even have to do with girl scouts? or girls? or scouts? or meetings? so maybe that says something about the people who christened this phrase, b/c my second major complaint is, if you’re going to deny our existence until thursday afternoons and then be a snot (yeah, that’s the word i chose) during meetings anyway, why don’t you save yourself all the coverup production and quit? unless you’re really into espionage. whatever.

    even up into high school (before they spooked and stopped talking about it completely) these particular members would ask, “are you going to great superstitions?” and i would say, “what? am i going to girl scouts? yeah! see you there!” cue blushing, snotty (there it is again) glare and ashamed scurrying.

    well, we all went to the rumpf’s house for a little girl scouts reunite yesterday at eight, and it was weird to have a girl scout meeting, even if was only representative, that started so long after dark. me, jill, meryl, melissa, ashley, kristin and mrs. rumpf all hung out and told funny stories. i love those girls. and after eight years of masquerading as a mysterious nonsensical club (some of us dabbled in great superstitions membership at one point or another) we finally came up with a cool password that was actually cool. why not be a sorority? and so, gamma sigma was born. now i just wish we all lived in the house together. and that mtv and ikea decorated that house.

    then meryl and i went over to jenn’s house to play trivial pursuit with jenn and kate and corinne and a couple girls from gw. twentieth anniversary edition, baby.

    quote of the day: “make new friends, but keep the old. one is silver and the other gold” – make new friends

    love always, em locke

  • from partners in crime to…

    i was so proud of lauren today – not only did she create her own blog, but she didn’t even flinch when i told her that she would have to edit the html in order to get the colors she wanted and personalize the side column. she totally outdid me with her header (i tried to imitate, but i screwed mine up so badly that i didn’t know if i’d be able to fix it!) and gave it a great title (after much consideration, trust me) and put a john mayer quote of the day in her column, which can never be a bad thing! then, she went all out and created a photo album, and then she found some web space where she could publish it. it was so fun to have a partner in closet computer nerdness today.

    i started putting together this huge collage today, which was more fun than you might imagine b/c a) i was avoiding my psych reading and b) i rediscovered my love for lisa loeb. she’s just so cute and fun, and she has a silver glitter guitar. hello!

    next project is definitely going to be this quilt/duvet cover. i need to find a good [great] discount fabric warehouse or something, b/c the fabric i want to use costs upwards of $15 a yard. no good. so if anybody knows where i can get a deal on about 12 yards of dupioni silk, let me know. and, can i borrow your sewing machine? and some thread?

    new plan: get up 15 minutes early every day so i have to time to stop at commons and eat peanut butter toast. why didn’t this occur to me before? i love peanut butter toast. mount holyoke never had crunchy peanut butter, but commons has it out almost every morning. yum.

    quote of the day: “would you be the wind to blow me home? would you be a dream on the wings of a poem?” – dispatch

    love always, em locke

  • drink lots of fluids

    this cold is getting me down.

    i got a letter from allegra today! i heart mail in a big way, and it totally cheered me up to get a card from my lovely allegra. i miss her and rachel like mad, we could have had so much fun! i won’t ever forget the short time that i had with them, i treasure it. even though i didn’t love mhc, i love both of them to pieces.

    i also talked to alana today, and watched her stick out her tongue & smooth out a sleepy eyebrow and witnessed the clutter that is her closet via webcam! i’ve gotta have one.

    i was talking to holly the other day and she told me about this mhc first year who planned to major in neuroscience but is thinking about switching to sociology b/c the neuro department has too many requirements (which, hello, it does). so this girl was leaning toward soc, but still felt unsure b/c of all the reading involved. holly had some great experiential solace to offer! she said, “uh, let me tell you about my roommate. (that would be yours truly!) we took soc 123 last semester and she went to class about 50% of the time (that’s not true, i went waaaaaay more! but i did play electronic uno during a good number of those classes.) and neither of us did any reading, and we both did well, so you don’t need to worry at all.” it was funny just b/c it was so true! good thing we didn’t buy the books for that class, just renewed them at the library every few weeks. i considered not even purchasing the course packet, but i needed a nice large coaster anyway. i did read, and really enjoyed where the girls are and my paper comparing bewitched and gilmore girls was quite entertaining, if i do say so myself. and i do.

    don’t know what the hurricane aftermath has planned for us this weekend, but for now, the weather continues to be gorgeous.

    quote of the day: “every blade of grass has its angel that bends over it and whispers, ‘grow, grow.’” – the talmud

    love always, em locke