Nearing the end

December 21st. I can never believe it when the year is almost over. I still don't even think I realized it until today. In a week and a day I will be on my way up to Fredonia to spend New Years, two days later with Chelsea. 2012 is one week and four days away. That means it is almost time for my yearly review in pictures! I think that I started a blogger at the end of last year and my yearly review was the first or second post. Actually, that feels like ages ago. I can't even believe that was one year ago. The people that were in my life in 2010 are probably 80% different than those of 2011. With the exception of I want to say, three people, minus family, my friends are completely different.

So here I sit on a bus to Massachusetts last minute because I have awesome friends who are willing to pay for me to visit them when we haven't seen each other in a while. I always think my time off from school is going to be boring, but so far Winter Break has been pretty awesome starting with contra dancing in Brooklyn, The Rocket Summer, amazing chicken wings, exploring an Letchworth Village, making cookies, and now contra dancing in Massachusetts. This weekend is Christmas which I get to spend with both my mom and the wonderful Collins Family. Early next week me and my mom are having a Channukah party and two days later it's off to Fredonia, back home with Chelsea and then back  up here to New England with her, and then there is only 2 weeks left of break! I have a good life.

Happy is all that you make me

Last night I saw The Rocket Summer for the sixteenth time. He played all of Calendar Days and Hello Good Friend, his first two albums. As usual it was amazing. The fans were singing and dancing, I made new friends, there was confetti and I finally got to dance onstage during a song. The show itself was great, but afterwards we had some huge issues with the venue. Now we were downstairs, in the Studio which is a small room basically. But at 11pm on a Saturday Webster Hall turns into a dirty, disgusting nightclub and I guess they wanted to open up the Studio room too. Well it started with fans waiting in line to buy merch and the security yelling at us to get out when we were clearly waiting to buy merch. They even had the nerve to say "you should have bought it before" and to yell at Tara who was going as quickly as she could. We get outside and wait about an hour for Bryce in the smoking area on the street, because if you wait on "their" sidewalk they scream at you. Once Bryce comes out there was a big crowd of people including him in the smoking area. After about a half hour, a big security guard out of nowhere starts yelling at us to get out saying "I asked you three times to move. We have a permit for this area and you need to let paying customers stand here" ....but wait, didn't we all just pay for tickets to see The Rocket Summer here (who probably gets like 10% of those ticket sales). Yes, we did. But they didn't care. Bryce politely said he'd try and move and that he was only asked once to move (I don't think they even asked once). He did absolutely nothing wrong and the security guard picked him up and shoved him towards the sidewalk. Standing right next to him, I couldn't even believe my eyes. I was ready to fight for him too, but I knew that wouldn't do anything. We eventually moved down the block, but I am still furious about this as is he and the rest of the people there. He definitely said he is never playing at Webster Hall again nor will any of his fans ever go back there. I sent them a complaint email and facebook wall post. I hope they don't treat other bands that way. But it was still a great night and I am so happy that I got to see him and this special show. He said he is doing a college tour in March, so I'm just hoping more than anything there will be a reachable one for me around my birthday!

I seriously love this guy until the very end, which I hope doesn't come anytime in the near future. I've been seeing him for almost 5 years live and listening to him for 6 and a half. Looking forward to seeing him even if I don't know when the next show will be is always such a great thing and I don't even want to imagine my life without that.


Because I can hear the memory in my ears
Back to the years and all those tears
But hear me when I'm glad cause we're here

<3

The adventures of Guy Noir

Tonight I am sitting in my room with my Christmas lights on, listening to last night's show of Prarie Home Companion and regretting not getting tickets for me and my mom. Every year I say that I will make her Chanukah present tickets to see it in December since they do a few shows at Town Hall each year, but they go on sale in September and sell out pretty quick so come November it's too late. One year, I swear I will do it. But seriously, this show is so great. I forget to listen to it a lot, but it's such a perfect thing to listen to cozied up to a cup of hot chocolate in your bed on a Saturday night. Too bad I'll be out the next three Saturday nights.... but yeah, radio variety shows are amazing. I wish people still listened to the radio instead of watched tv.

GOOD THINGS IN THE NEAR FUTURE

•I am officially the Events Coordinator Intern for the Co-op for the Spring 2012 semester (!!!!!!)
•The other interns elected are awesome too and I can't wait to work with them
•Math presentation/class is done
•Proposal for Fundraising is (pretty much) done
•Playlist for my last radio show of the semester tomorrow is set and will be awesome
•Making another $38 tomorrow for sitting in place for 2 hours
•Christmas presents are (almost) all bought
•Friday I might have a job interview in the city
•Pancake madness tomorrow night at d-hall
•I get my very own key to the co-op tomorrow night (!!!)

and most importantly....


THE ROCKET SUMMER IN 10 DAYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

^^no parentheses needed there for those exclamation points.

Yes whatever else may be, may my friends remember me

I know I have said this so many times, but looking back on my life freshman year of college I have changed so much and become so much happier. I never really felt like I was getting the real college experience in Fredonia, but here... oh my god. I remember walking around pointless one Friday night in Fredonia trying to find something to do on campus but there was literally nothing and we all ended up just going back to our dorms. At Purchase, that never happens. There is ALWAYS something going on here or at least people outside hanging out at every hour of the day and into the late night. And as I type, I hear people yelling outside at 2am on a Sunday night. This weekend was the second to last weekend of the semester and I had a great one. Friday night I had a few people over and we drank Sex on the Beach and danced the choreography to American Idiot. We then proceeded to go to a Latinos Unidos party where the walls were sweating and there was melted, watery pina coladas. We left that and ended up at The New at what was a black light party but had fizzled down to more of a drunk social gathering outside. Made some new friends there as usual.

Saturday I had an ugly sweater party planned. I've always wanted to have a party but never had been able to since I live in a small, cramped apartment with my mom. Not a crazy wall sweating party, but a nice get together with a decent amount of people that it isn't just a bunch of people having beer and snacks on a Saturday night. I invited a good amount of people, because I figure if you have 20 people telling you that they will attend, it is really more like 10. Ashley and April came up/down for it first and we set up. Then another friend came with his friend. Then some toolface came. As much as I want to hate him, even my friends did enjoy his company and joked he was "the life of the party". Another one of my friends came with two of his friends, one of my roommate's friends brought three and at one point I think we had 15 people. Several people texted me the next day saying that they had fun and thanks for inviting them. There were even a few people who couldn't make it but did text me apologizing for not making it but hoped it was fun. The fact that people enjoyed my party really made me happy and motivated to do it again next semester. And somehow in between all this, I still managed to finish my five page grant proposal for class that is due Tuesday. Now I will end this post with some lovely pictures from this crazy weekend....