Dear Friends

I hoped for change. I hoped for a normal existence. And peace.

But no. God said, "Chris, your life is a shitshow, and a shitshow it shall be." And it is. It really, really is.

The more time I spend in this country, the more I realize that the shitshow-tisity of my life has remained a constant...actually, no. Just no. It really is more. It's so special. My life, so special. Always and forever.

I blame it on my sexuality. It's just easier that way.

CHARACTERS. HANZI.

-cy

I'm Not Homeless!

Yay! I finally found and signed for an apartment this weekend. I've moved most of my stuff in. I bought a bed. Now, I just need a paycheck...or twenty. Work has been going amazing this week, now that I sorta know what's going on. I've been averaging 10 hours a day this week (skipping lunch twice), meeting with patients, guiding them through medical/neuropsychological tests, and looking at their data. Thursday and Friday were rarities in which we had two all-day/overnight patients, so I got in before 8 and didn't leave until 8 PM. I don't mind at all...except that it took over an hour to get home. I dunno if anyone heard, but there was a terrible accident on the D.C. Metro line last week (it made national news...for like two days until Jacko died and stole the limelight). As a result, all trains are running on manuel and there are less trains running, so platforms and train cars are PACKED and further apart. I've been unable to squeeze in a few times and had to wait another 15 minutes for the next (and this is during rush hour when they normally come every 4-6). Craigslist is becoming my new best friend for used furniture and best yet: Ned is coming in just over a week.

No more sleeping alone!

Rosa worked at your farm on Farm Town

I've been home in Austin for about a week now. Temperatures have been holding steady at 100+, and my car's up in Rochester, so I've been pretty much trapped in my house all week with nothing to do but eat, sleep, read for fun, lie around wasting time on teh internets, and sleep some more.

Somewhere in this house, there's a fancy-schmancy diploma signifying my graduation from one of the best colleges in the world.

I spend much of my day on Farm Town, trying to convince total strangers that they should hire me to harvest their virtual crops.


I know I'm going to miss my parents and friends and home in Austin once I move, but dear Lord I'm ready to get to Rochester and start work already.

And if you take up Farm Town, come be my neighbor! I give great gifts!

Silence of the Chris

Language pledge started this morning. I don't speak the language.

Shit.

I am gainfully employed!

Holy crap you guys, I got a job!!! (wait, you wonder, didn't she ALREADY get a job? And why has she been getting up at 5 a.m. for the last two weeks if not for her job?)

No, see, I'd already gotten into Teach for America, but today I found out about my actual placement, i.e. where I'll be leaving and teaching for the next two years. It was especially up in the air because I'm teaching music, so I really had no idea what subject or age I would get! For the last couple of weeks I've been waiting to find out, really wanting elementary school music and thinking "Dear god, please don't make me teach middle school choir." Aaaand today I found out:

For the next two years, I will be teaching music at Elzy Elementary in Greenwood, Mississippi: the Cotton Capital of the World! It has a population of about 18,000, which makes it a big city as far as I'm concerned. It even has a "Historic Downtown!"

Anyway, so I'm very excited that I finally have a placement (now you can all stop asking me every two days, ahem Steve and Chris) and that it sounds so great! Now, all of you are going to come visit me, right?

Rant

While driving through Shreveport today, I saw a crawfish stand next to a gas station. Then I saw the sign: Don't eat the dead ones'. Why the hell would they put an apostrophe right there? Things like this are what make me interested in education reform.

Hao

In China.
Blew power outlets.
Ate yummy food.
Really ass tired.
Sends love.

-cy

fake reality

Checking in from BHouse... it's pretty strange to be one of the only '09ers still around. I miss you guys so much! The babies are great, but... they're all coming back.

I hope you're all tuning in to the BHouse blog, which chronicles the regular adventures of the crew here, and my project 365 (plug!) for photos from my life.

I've begun to realize that this is fake real life here-- especially since only so much has changed. I am still hanging out with band people all the time, and instead of hatin' on my senior essay, I hate on my crappy summer job. Sure, we're living in a crazy messed up house that surely has some demonic spirits in residence (and no, I don't mean my housemates). But aside from more bills, more cooking, and a hell of a lot more cleaning, it's kind of the same. Same "commute," same scenery, same bars, many of the same people. I think August is going to be the big transition time for me. I've found a couple of possible houses, and will be checking a few of them out this weekend on an impromptu stop in Baltimore to chat with my advisers about the saga of my department. (ack!! stress.) I'm trying to decide if I should buy a car, or if I can make do with a zipcar membership and patience (instead of gas+loan+insurance etc that I may or may not be able to afford). And I have to figure out how to get my vast amount of stuff down to the Charm City...

But in exciting personal news, AJ and I are taking an extended weekend on the Yucatan over July 4. I'm so excited. :-) Love you all, and miss you like crazy!

One Day Down, Five Hundred-Ish To Go

So, today was my first day of work (am I the first/one of the first ones to actually start post-undergrad life?) and it was exhausting. The NIH has a huge campus and since I'm working in the largest building (the clinical research hospital), there was a helluva lot of walking to and from places. I'm really excited about the work I'll be doing (I'm initially signed up to work on two studies: an fMRI study on the effects of oxytocin on children with autism and a comprehensive diagnostic study investigating autism subtypes - the largest of its kind anywhere). It's the government so I get to work in incredible facilities with state-of-the-art equipment and resources not available to private institutions. However, it's the government and I have forms and trainings up the wa-zoo to do. And I'm still technically apartment hunting for when Ned and I will be reunited in July. It was a nine hour training day today. Oh well, time to get dinner and go to bed since I have to be there at 6:30 tomorrow morning to sign up for a fingerprinting/criminal record check to be had some late evening.

I love and miss you all!

P.S. Of the 12 research assistants, 2 of us are male.

Apartment!

So after an epic day and a half of apartment hunting in New Orleans with my mom, I've found the absolute perfect apartment! It's a duplex in the Garden District (read: NICE), and it's huge and amazing and gorgeous! I've got a front and back porch, a back yard, hardwood floors, 14 foot ceilings, crown molding, living room, dining room, kitchen, and bedroom, plus all major appliances including washer and dryer! I'm ridiculously excited about it because I got it for a steal and is way better than all the other places I was looking at. Before I found it I was considering renting an apartment in a complex that felt remarkably like a nursing home for $150 more. And today I got my graduation present from my parents - furniture to go in my new place!

Gah, I guess it's really beginning to set it that I'll be entering the real world really soon. But I'm excited for it, if still quite a bit scared. I hope all y'all are doing well, and you have an open invitation to visit me in my sweet pad once I move in!

So I might start a blog?

After talking to a bunch of my friends (including some of you!) I've maybe decided that I will just possibly start a blog. Ahh! Scary. If that does happen, it will be about food, because I love food, but not like Rosa's; I don't have a discriminating enough palate to be a reviewer. What I'm hoping to do, and what it sounds like may be useful for at least some of us just-graduated types, is to blog about easy and delicious recipes that don't take too much time. There would, of course, be many pictures.

Helpful? Hopefully. Yummy? Definitely. The one thing I need is some sort of catchy name. One person suggested füd (the blog). Any thoughts? I am oh-so-new to this great blogosphere of ours...

Bonjour and hola!

Hi! This past month has been ridiculous - I've driven to Myrtle and Rochester and flown to Boston and Europe. Henry and I just got back from 11 days in France and Spain. We hit Paris, Avignon, Montpellier, Barcelona, Aranjuez, and Madrid. It was wonderful, and I'm full of stories that I wish I could tell y'all.

Like how every tortilla we had in Spain reminded me of when we had tortillas together in New Haven's Barcelona. And how the only other times in my life in which I've eaten so much bread were Deadweeks when we lived off Atticus's leavings. Or how we saw Duffito's Spanish twin in a toy store window. I took a picture of him for Andrew, and I have a picture of a yarn store for Rita and a penguin with a mug of beer for Steve. And lots of candy pictures, of course.

I had expected to fly back to Austin at the end of the week, but Henry and I ended up signing on for Duffy's movie thing, as he is currently jobless, and the $400 couldn't hurt after I emptied my savings account for Europe. So I'm in Boston until Sunday, and then I'll be in New York next week as a fake YUBer, which will be weird and logistically difficult. But I'm excited to see people. I don't suppose any of y'all are going? Or will be in New York then? I wish Duffy had sent out an actual roster. It may end up being me, Henry, Duffy, and lots of random people because all the actual YUBers around have jobs.

I'll be back in Austin at the end of the month, and I officially move to Rochester on the 1st of July and start work on the 6th.

I started to type that I'd be back home, but that didn't feel quite right. Do I still get to call Austin home? Yale isn't home anymore (by the way, I don't know how all you dorm-dwellers did it. Less than 24 hours from diploma to getting kicked out?), but Rochester isn't home yet...

I miss you all! It made me happy to see the threads about email addresses and Skype names - need to add myself to that list - and reminded me to check this out to see what y'all have been up to. Lots of love and happy travels!

road tripppppppppp

So it's Monday afternoon, I'm still in pajamas, and I'm watching The Notebook. Oh yeah. It's summer break.

Carly is coming tomorrow (!!) and we're leaving for our epic road trip on Friday. If you live somewhere between LA -> New Orleans -> Chicago -> Seattle -> LA you should let us know! I'm really excited to just be out and away for a month. Leaving school was rough, and while I love it here, I want out for a while.

Then, after road trip, it's to the woods with me. I have the next 5 years to be in LA, anyways :)

Miss you all!

The Rest of Your Life...what's that? Life Insurance You Say?

So, like Rachel, I'm also chilling at home for the summer. But, I'm in it for the long haul forbidding overwhelming circumstances and influx of income. I love the food, the fam, and I've tried to steer away from the "awkward" situations. But, as some of you may now, after a week or so, you start to get a little anxious; your daily life starts resembling the habits of someone suffering from cabin fever; and you start to detox from Yale...for good.

This is the first time any of us has had to quit cold turkey though, and I think I've handled it well. I've eaten way too much in the time away (stocked frig every week!!!111one!!11), and I've now started compensating by exercising every other day...or when I get too bored. Is that bad? I'm exercising from boredom, never thought I'd see the day.

And when I'm not eating or exercising, I'm looking for an apartment in Madison, furnished bedroom preferably, not gonna have a car the first year, so close to campus or busline is a must. I'm 22, gonna be a 1st year grad student at UW. I'm positive, easy going, neat, and fairly social. Anyone? Anyone? No takers...well I'll keep waiting.

And when I'm not trying to plan the next 5 years of my life, I'm thinking of things to do I've never had time to do. Practice Spanish (I listened to tons of Juanes and Shakira today). Practice Italian (Yea, I dropped the ball here all I listened to was Pensa by Fabrizio Moro). Develop a new system for estimating ages and masses of stars (Yea right...I'm just really irked by HR diagrams, but I don't have the will at least, not now to do something about it). Oh and I have a saxophone, almost forgot about that whole music thing. And wait, I was supposed to be trying to make money too. So, I've been scanning craigslist, my local newspaper, but no leads on anything interesting or easy and lucrative....until today.

My aunt's father-in-law (still with me? I know we tight in da souf) sells insurance, and he brings up casually today after asking the trite questions he knows the answers to already. So, you going to Wisconsin next fall? Yep. Gonna be here all summer? Yep. You gonna work at all? Only if I can find something easy and lucrative or interesting. So he tells me I could get my insurance license in 2 weeks, and be earning at least $100 in sales from newborn insurance from concerned mothers. Granted, sounds sorta sketch at first. But I listened to him and asked him some questions. I'd have to take a class for 4-5 days and shell out around $300 dollars to take the class and a test, but once certified, I could sell as often as I'd like, and depending on the type, I could earn more.

My grandfather-in-law (yea we'll call him that cause I can't keep saying aunt's father-in....arggh I'm doing it) essentially made insurance selling his #1 thing, and he's done quite well for himself. So, it'd be a nice side income. Plus, it's a much more satisfying way to make money than by screwing people over. Insurance is something everyone needs, and you're never angry that you have it when you need it. So, maybe I've found that interesting summer thing...

Surely I'm not the only '09 living at home for a few weeks, eh?

It has it's benefits: free food (!!!), free laundry, a house that's much nicer than a dorm or anywhere else I'm likely to be living for a long time, and did I mention delicious food?

It also has it's downsides: parents, feeling like I'm in high school all over again, and this gem that occurred yesterday: running into people from high school in ice cream shops.  Not friends from high school, because those people I'm actually happy to see. Rather, people-who-I- recognize-from-high-school-but-really-never-spoke-to.  And when you run into them there's the obligatory 5 minute "oh, did you just graduate?" "how was college?" "where are you off to now?" and then awkward silence as you both realize that was more of a conversation than you guys ever had during high school.  Oh boy. Gotta love awkward moments.