emlocke

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  • Beach Beauties

    The boys are all gone and the girls are all hungover, but I am wide awake (I drank more coffee than alcohol) and sitting at the hotel computer station, sending my Dad a Happy Birthday e-card. An exceedingly cute boy has entered this restricted access room and is sitting next to me at the other computer, smelling very good.

    ETA: Fall Break at The Breakers and the Beach

    Caroline & Emily
    Posted by Hello

    Quote of the day: “Cowboy, take me away, fly this girl as high as you can into the wild blue, set me free, oh, I pray, closer to heaven above and closer to you” – Dixie Chicks

  • The Early Bird Gets Locked Out

    Last night, I fell asleep on the green couch in the dining room. When I woke up cold at four, it seemed more manageable to walk down to the car to find my coat than to climb four flights of stairs to my bed, so I stumbled out to the car, got my coat out of the trunk, and decided to go for a drive. So I drove through Chicopee and back, stopped at the twenty-four hour Dunkin Donuts for a Vanilla Chai on the way back, parked and returned to Mead, only to realize that my OneCard was in between the couch cushions.

    I had to wait for an early morning swimmer to walk by and let me in. I fell back to sleep on the couch around 6:30, only to be woken up by Holly and some Cracklin’ Oat Bran at 8. I had zipper prints in my forehead and barely enough energy to brush my teeth, let alone change clothes.

    I have writer’s block, FreeIpods.com hasn’t confirmed either of my referees, my African Violet is on a blooming strike, all the puffy paint is peeling off my M&C’s mug, I forgot to go to M&C’s, I have three papers due on Thursday and I’ve been wearing the same outfit for thirty-six hours.

    But today I got a text message from Lily, my absentee ballot came in the mail, I talked to my brother, took a nap in the setting sun, I ordered the parts for my in-dash stereo, my geology professor brought her husky puppy to class and I got to hold a really old rusty meteorite. So, at some point, it’s all going to balance out.

    Quote of the day: “Me, I’m drinking too much coffee” – Melissa Etheridge

  • Fall Lake George

    I don’t think my butt has ever hurt so much after a camping trip. I’ve had bruised knees, sprained ankles, broken nails, sooty hands, a singed eyebrow and lots of bug bites. Okay, the broken tailbone was painful. I probably should have guessed that those Rensselaer boys would take the term ‘speed boat’ too literally.

    Overall, the camping with boys endeavor would have been far more prolific in the flirting and phone numbers (that’s phonetic right there, it’s still alliteration) departments if we hadn’t arrived on Turtle Island after dark on Friday and departed long before anyone else woke up on Sunday morning. I had to try really hard to pretend that it was completely normal and not at all fleeting or temporary to be hiking and cliff jumping and playing Cranium with boys. It was like wearing blinders to the fact that none of said boys were entirely positive about my name and that after barely a forty-eight hour period, my life would once again be testosterone-free.

    Mount Holyoke inadvertently chose the spontaneous tent-spawning campsite – every time we turned around a new and unfamiliar tent had sprung up beside ours. Perhaps cookies sprout random boys in tents who snore?

    Saturday night was the much-anticipated contra dance. There was more people watching and apple cider than there were shuffle steps on my part, but if I had been lost in the churning crowd, I would never have become visually aquainted with characters like Bon Jovi aka The Gypsy, Blue Shirt aka Bionic Hearing, Polo (formerly known as Blue Shirt), Canary Pants, Spitty, Poison Ivy, Glowstick Guy, Cowboy and Unicycle Cowboy.

    And, for those who wonder, I’ll try anything once.

    quote of the day: “Shake me and my confidence, about a great many things, But I’ve been there, I can see it cower, Like a nervous magician waiting in the wings” – Blues Traveller

    And also…
    Emily: Okay, we have to look like we’re involved in a deep conversation.
    Holly: Hurry, think of a topic!
    Emily: Flip-flops!
    Holly: Bon Jovi!

  • In Your Facebook

    it only took a semester and a half for someone at thefacebook.com to realize that all those seven sister colleges are ivy league siblings, but the day has finally come – mount holyoke is ranked socially prestigious and listed on the facebook. of course, rachel clues me in about twenty-five minutes before holly and i leave to go camping for the weekend. my profile creation will have to wait until i return from flashlights to kilobytes.

    quote of the day: “i know i’m not seeing things as they are, i’m seeing things as i am.” – laurel lee

  • An iPod That’s Free

    i too was a free ipod skeptic, but always the bargain shopper and product analyst, i spent all day reading online magazine articles and browsing other blogger’s experiences and testimonials and when i saw the new york times offer, i couldn’t turn down the chance to increase my word power and my awareness of international current events for $2.90 a week. who doesn’t think it’s hot to read the paper in bed? but how much hotter would it be to read the paper while jamming on my pink ipod mini?

    the deal is, i registered for the intellectually stimulating new york times subscription. now, i need five ever-loving friends with a credit card and a good heart to sign up for their own offer. there’s the times, of course. (apparently, my referees can’t use the nyt subscription b/c i already did, which is lame since the vast majority of my friends consider reading the newspaper anyway!) there’s blockbuster online, which gives you six weeks (a free two-week trial plus a one-month subscription before you cancel) of non-stop movie rentals shipped right to your door three at a time (plus two in-store rentals a month) for $19.99. there’s infone, which gives you five directory assistance calls to use if you need movie tickets, a nation-wide directory, and a lot of other stuff. you can use your free calls or not and you don’t have to cancel when you’re done, but you won’t get charged unless you call more than five times. there’s also realRhapsody, which is a lot like the iTunes service (including the random capitalization mid-brandname). for $1, you get a month-long subscription and five free cd burns, and you can cancel online.

    if you’re interested in different offers, visit rateipodoffers.com to read user ratings. some can be cancelled online, some you have to cancel over the phone, but who doesn’t love a little telemarketer brawling every now and then? it will build your persuasive skills and teach you to stand up for yourself. different offers show up at different times of the day, so if would consider registering for a particular one, let me know and i’ll keep an eye out and send you the link when it’s available.

    at first, i just wanted the free ipod. at this point, i’m so into it that half the fun will be winning the ipod. i’m on a mission! i can’t wait to tell the story. and to listen to all my favorite music while i’m in london next semester, since there’s no practical way to export all my cd’s. so visit my personal referral link and help a girl out! i’ll do something nice for you, too.

    quote of the day: “so let go, let go, jump in, oh well, what are you waiting for? it’s all right, ’cause there’s beauty in the breakdown” – frou frou

  • Writing About Nothing Distracts Me From Everything

    i’ve been bemoaning the fact that i had nothing to write about all summer and now i have lots of events and thoughts and humor to record, and no time to blog all about it. tonight, i rediscovered my very favorite time of day. the best part is, there’s plenty of it. it’s procrastination time! do i feel like reading the canterbury tales in middle english? am i in the mood to prepare for next week’s children’s lit course? do i even have to energy to locate my children’s lit books? no, no, and no. but suddenly i have all the patience and ambition required to sit here and write about it all!

    i dropped ethics and traded latin american studies for a geology course called planet earth. i needed to get out of ethics b/c the lectures were dragging me into a mind-vacuum, but i’m hoping i can go back and take latam next year. planet earth is fulfilling my last math/science requirement. i missed the first meeting, but i sat in the second class and the prof walks in, puts a giant lord & taylor shopping bag on the lab table, and says, “i need to run and get something, make sure you all get a pair of 3-D glasses,” and walks out again. sign my add/drop form, the course shopping spree is over!

    i’m also signing up for the first responder certification course, which meets every wednesday night for four hours, but satisfies my last three gym credits and means i could run on the emt team next year. so between that, the saw center, and res life, i have three potential jobs for senior year. now, if i could only find a steady source of income for the next three and one half months. i’ve got my eye on the coffee bar and the blanchard info desk.

    turns out, my dad works closer to mount holyoke than home, so i drove down to glastonbury to have lunch with him and exchange some stuff that i didn’t need at school or forgot at home. my dad has my 8th grade school photo in his office, and i think it’s still my favorite one out of all my years of public school picture days.

    quote of the day: “i don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.” – bill cosby

  • Can I Borrow Your Notes?

    I had my first spirituals and the blues class tonight, which means I just got back from sitting on the floor in a really hot third floor room in Kendade for two and a half hours. The professor is great though, he reminds me of a preacher. He phrases his statements so well and his thoughts are very interesting. If only I could write them down. Wait, rewind…

    So, I’m sitting on the floor in Kendade, thinking about how hot I am and how great it would be if my feet weren’t asleep from sitting cross-legged and I’m sort of skimming through the syllabus and sort of using it as a fan when the course expectations catch my eye. After the usual regular attendance and full participation points, he throws this out there: “In order to develop a sensitivity and an appreciation for the power and richness of the oral tradition under study, students cannot take any written notes during class or bring and recording equipment to class. Instead, students are urged to remember the information presented in the class lectures and discussions.”

    At this point, I wonder if the sauna has gone to my head and I look up to watch as other people get to this section as they scan the syllabus. One of the girls leaning against the wall next to me elbows her friend in the ribs and points to the syllabus. Her friend’s eyes grow wide and she throws her pen on the floor while the first girl mouths, “That’s awesome!” and kicks her notebook out of the way. Other people are looking a bit perplexed, and at the table in front of me, some five college guy raises his hand and says, “um, on the syllabus, um, it says that we, uh…”

    The prof interrupts him and he’s like, “you’ve all just read through the course expectations, haven’t you? Let me say a little more.” Please, please, say a little more! For the love of compulsive Mount Holyoke note-taking, say a little more!

    His explanation is this: we are not permitted to take notes because the slaves (this is the point in the story where holly said, “Wait. Do I really want to hear the rest?…Yes, yes I do”) either didn’t know how to read or write or they weren’t allowed to, and therefore, neither are we. How are more people not freaking out about this?

    Quote of the day: “A million prayers to god above, a million tears make an ocean of one for love, one for truth” – Bon Jovi

  • Back to School and Still Kickin’

    the annual computer crash is over, but not before i re-installed my operating system three times. i’m back online and i can finally start reloading software and data and my vast mp3 library, just in time to start writing papers and procrastinating. how i have missed aim (thanks to those who called to make sure i was still alive), thesaurus.com (i need a new word for confused), weatherbug (is it raining again?) and google (for the immediate satisfaction of all my frequent, urgent curiosities).

    the first day of classes is also over, but not without running across campus in the rain in a desperate quest for food. hot food, cold food, nuts or berries, dehydrated ice cream, i would have taken anything by the time we hit up the third dorm and still found no sustenance. who decided that dining options like continental breakfast and grab & go in the atrium shouldn’t open until monday? i know, it’s the first day of the first week, but thursday and friday are days, too! call me crazy, but i like to eat every day. sometimes two, maybe even three times.

    i almost made it through the first day of classes before rumors about my name and my life circulated all the way back to my ears. the first years from across the hall were asking me questions, and i had to admit that i didn’t know all the answers b/c i haven’t been on campus for a year. they asked where i’d been, probably assuming i’d done study abroad as a sophomore for some reason, but when i rattled off the abridged, one-sentence version of my transferring escapades, i didn’t even finish before one said, “oh! i heard about you! you went to hamilton, right?” not even a week? no, not even a day, and already i’m in the gossip column all over again. i guess i just have to laugh. i wonder what wild variations of my tale will be spun second time around.

    a snotty know-it-all hit the edge and cried in molly’s greek class. i’d say it’s a little early for losing your mind over academics, but i can’t talk b/c holly and i hit the edge and cried from laughter when our children’s lit professor spoke a gender-confusing freudian slip while reading in class. she actually seemed impressed – i think she thought we were moved to tears, not just insane.

    the day culminated with playing poker on molly’s tailgate while we waited for AAA to come change her tire. tomorrow is friday, but here in the mount holyoke time space continuum, it’s wednesday, so i have to get up in the morning and go to class. sometimes i wonder about this school.

    quote of the day: “and when we can see things clearer than we think we see them now, maybe kiss each other sweetly without trying to bite down” – matt nathanson

  • What’s Coconut Lemon Grass?

    holly brought coconut lemon grass hand soap with exfoliating beads for us. it’s a strange combination, but i think it works. our floor is slanted in one corner and living on the fourth floor is already beat, but we’re hanging our round lanterns from the sprinkler pipes on purple ribbons and our closets have lots of hooks. i feel like i’m visiting holly, just stopping by, but i don’t know where i think i’m going or coming from, so at some point in the de ja vu i realize i’m here to stay. i keep seeing people who i think i know, and i’ve only heard one “didn’t she transfer?” so far.

    we literally had to sleep on our furniture arrangements. at least we went to bed last night having finally moved the stripped mattresses from the middle of the room! this afternoon we went back to the drawing board, or in this case, the to-scale graph paper model, and found a configuration that allows optimum tv visability and optimum bedside laptop usage and optimum craft space. insider source photo slideshow tour to follow.

    when molly moved in early this evening, she ran out the door to give us a hug. we are ’emily, emily, holly and molly’ all over again. i’m the first emily, i call it. then emily and i booked it back to her room to watch gilmore girls and molly came over with food, and then i ran to find holly b/c lindsay and her boyfriend were visiting for about five seconds. we went to visit olga who is anti-sharing the closet with her roommate, but very pro handing out software to anyone interested. it’s odd to have people stopping by and people to visit. now i just wish allegra and rachel were actually on campus this semester!

    prospect has a new salad bar – ‘the farm stand’. go ahead, dare me to actually call it that. holly said, “it’s nice to actually have someone to go to dinner with.”

    quote of the day: “i wanna dance with you, i see a sky full of the stars that change our minds, and lead us back to a world we would not face” – live

  • Asymmetrical Art

    it’s weird to spend eighteen years living with your family, move out for a year of college, stay out for a summer at camp, put in another four months at a different college and then move home for eight months. it’s weird, but it’s special. i didn’t want to come home feeling like i was turning back the time or giving up, and i never had a chance to feel that way. there are moments when it drives me a little nuts that i don’t have four symmetrical college years, but that passes and i don’t mind how confused i’ve felt because i’ve experienced so much hanging while i’ve been hanging in the balance.

    it would be easy to regret transfering to hamilton last fall. it would be easy to say that i was following a whim, i was bored, or i was just being stubborn about adjusting to mount holyoke. i think it had to happen when it did. my theory: if i had never transferred, i would never have left, but if i had never transferred, i would never have come back. if you know me like i know me, we both know that i would have always been itching to get out and move on. it was weird to be so excited about hamilton, and then find myself feeling the same restless energy under my skin, like it never went away.

    i don’t regret anything. i lightly rue the temporary disorder in my life, i hope i don’t feel that sort of stress and dissonance again for awhile, and that when i do, i’ll be able to handle it as well, i roll my eyes and shrug, but now i know where my feet stand and that i can walk in any direction, and i know i will find whatever i’m looking for eventually, even if it takes a few more journeys. the first of which will be back to mount holyoke. today is moving day!

    quote of the day: “’cause life is such a changing art, life is such a changing art” – dar williams