Antique keys at Vermont's largest indoor flea market. 

Riverrrrrr :)

Sculptures or dementors??

The field!  Best place for snowball fights and midnight walks.

The woods -- best place in the world to run and escape the urbanity insanity. 

Typing Words and Rocking Out

I am in the finals crunch.  2 papers, 2 presentations, and 2 tests stand between me and psychological freedom.  I'm currently revising citations (ick.) and analyzing budgets (gross.).  And I've decided that this process is made exponentially better be rocking out to some hard-core, classic jams.  Here's a quick playlist so you can better envision me head-banging in my room as I furiously type on my keyboard.

Dream On -- Aerosmith

Welcome to the Jungle -- Guns and Roses

It's My Life -- Bon Jovi

Crazy Train -- Ozzie Osbourne 

Since You've Been Gone -- Kelly Clarkson (not classic rock, but you'd be amazed how many words I wrote during the whole 3 minutes and 15 seconds of this song)

PS  This is just a quick study break.  I'm back to the real academics now :)

I scream, You scream, we all drive 40 miles for Ice Cream!

I don't mean for that last post to sound super dramatic, because we have gotten out to do some fun things.  For example, the other weekend, we decided to drive all the way to the Ben and Jerry's factory for some ice cream.  Now you might say, "Rachel, there's a Ben and Jerry's store less than 5 minutes from your house, why in the world would you drive 45 minutes to eat ice cream and then promptly return home? Do you have brain damage?"  And I would say "Totally worth it."  Short story is we were bored, Andi, Andrew and Laura had never been out to the factory and it was the perfect day for a drive.  Now, we didn't actually leave Burlington until after 4, so we missed the last tour, but it was still worth it.  PS I ate some weird combination of peanut butter ice cream, marshmallow fluff, chocolate and caramel.  Delish.  

Quintessential Vermont-ness. Red barns in a sunny field. 

This justifies the 40 mile drive. 

Laura, our fearless leader. Note the amazing trees through the windshield.  It was early November and we still had color like that!  Reason #2 the trip was entirely called for. 

Sunset through the window of our baby Subaru. Everybody was lost in thought just starting out the window and then we all agreed -- we love this state. 

Ants in My Pants

I've finally settled into a routine here in VT.  Class, running, homework, work-study, rinse, repeat.  The problem is that I don't like it.  I'm eternally antsy, pacing around my apartment with no idea if I want to run or sleep or bust a move.

Part of the problem is that meeting new people here has been more of a challenge than I anticipated.  Or I'm having more difficulty adjusting than I was expecting.  One of the two.  There are only 9 kids in my program and we only have class with each other.  We get along pretty well; not quite a family, but there's hasn't been any major catty-ness yet.  The problem is they all live on the other side of the hill and me being carless means that I'm dependent on the bus schedule and therefore less able to just go when plans come up last minute and no one can give me a ride. This leads to them thinking that I think I'm too good to hang out with them because I never join in the social events.  That's not true, but when I get the cold shoulder and snide comments, it definitely doesn't make me want to put more effort in.

That's the other thing.  I feel like I'm putting way more effort into friendships than other people.  I'm near always willing to listen about someone's day or problems with my full attention, but I don't feel like I have my person out here yet that I can go talk to when I feel insecure or just need a hug.  That sucks.  Especially coming from CSBSJU where I had a dozen people to pick from on those occasions. And I also feel like when we do try plan fun things, there's minimal follow through.  For example, tonight we had planned to go to the UVM men's hockey game.  Fun right?  Thing is you have to physically go to the ticket office and show them your ID to get your free student ticket.  Kind of a hassle, but we're all on campus every day anyways.  So I kept up my end, got my ticket Tuesday morning and thought all was good except no one else did and by the time they did get their lazy butts to the office Wednesday afternoon, all the student tickets were gone.  Now I'm left with a lone ticket looking at a boring Saturday night in the building when we could have been out trying new things and having fun.  That just really frustrates me because then I miss out because of other people's inability to remember commitments.  I know I could go alone, but that would be just as depressing...

Maybe I was raised to place more importance on these types of things than other people, but if you don't have any follow through or loyalty than what do you have? And if you don't make people a priority in your life, what is?  I know I can be and definitely used to be a very separative person, but I've come to learn that it's the people, not the places, that make life special.  Maybe they just need more time to learn that, but my patience is wearing thin.

East Coast-to-English Dictionary

So one of the biggest problems out here is the language barrier.  No, this isn't a flash back to abroad, east coast people just have super weird slang.  If any of you were contemplating a trip out to the land of maple syrup, here's a survival guide so you can understand people.  Or at least the people I hang out with.

mad (adj.): denotes a large quantity. As in "There were mad girls at the party last night"
dome (n.): head.  As in the lump 3 feet above your ass. --Remind me to watch A League of Their Own soon.
wicked (adj.): synonymous with "sweet" or "awesome"
fresh (??): still have no idea....
chill (adj.): relaxed, calm
tag sale (n.): what normal people call a garage sale
bomb (adj.): another form of "awesome"
rage (v.): party -- lots different here, but that's the subject for another post

**UPDATE: this week I have learned that "schmutz", ya know what normal people say when you have some crud on your face, here means a woman of loose morals....that was an awkward one to learn.

1000 Words

Reaping the Benefits of St. Ben's

So next week is midterms.  That means this week everyone has been freaking out about tests -- as if we haven't already been in school and taking tests for 17 years.  My 3 happen to be packed into 2 days which is a pain in my butt, but I would rather have them over quick than drag out this process.

So for Law, we're going to be given a set of circumstances and then have to decide which of the federal laws we have been talking about for the last 6 weeks are applicable, apply them and argue and outcome.  Pretty standard for a law class and pretty much what we've been doing in class all semester.

For Architectural History, we've got two sets of comparisons, an essay, and some slide ID.  Again pretty standard for any Art or Architectural History class.  The part that get tricky is that we've been inundated with info for this class including 2 new styles within the last 2 class periods.  And Bob wants us to go beyond what he calls "comparing in isolation" which would be like saying, "this building is made of brick while this other one is made of wood."  He wants us to push a little farther to the point of "because this building is made of brick, it's representative of the influence of English building styles in America while the fact that this building is made of wood is indicative of the fact that Americans were developing their own building traditions based on available materials."  Now don't I just sound like a genius :)

But people have been complaining up a storm!  Geeze Louise!  They were all just memorization robots in undergrad!  From what I've gathered, they went to the "here are a bunch of dates and events, memorize because there's a test next Tuesday" university where as my history undergrad experience (and CSB|SJU experience in general) was more focused on the reasons for events based on  the socio-historical context of the time. Much more critical thinking, much less regurgitation.

Before coming to grad school, I was worried about the level of academic rigor, but kept hearing that CSB|SJU had prepared me better for this experience than I knew.  I was a Doubting Thomas, but they were right.

That's why I have no qualms about taking a study break to vent/write this post because I spent the last 4 years learning how to study for these kinds of tests.  Yeah, I'm stressed.  These midterms count for a large portion of my grade because we don't have regular assignments, but I see no reason to go catatonic and lock myself in my room only to emerge Monday morning looking like a feral dog.

So now it's back to the 120 flashcards of random buildings and trying to keep the NHPA, NEPA, and Section 4(f) straight in my head, but come Monday and Tuesday, I'll be a cool cucumber.  Thank the Lord for CSB|SJU.

Grow it. Row it.

So this weekend in Vermont was quite possibly the most beautiful of them all since I arrived.  High 70s and sunny the whole weekend.  Unfortunately, I had to be at a retreat for my work study job all day Saturday while some of my friends went hiking, but I guess that's part of being a grown up.  Can't play all the time.  But Sunday was fun time!

Every year for the past 4 years, Burlington has held a pumpkin regatta.  The premise here is that people grow GIANT pumpkins, carve them out into boats, sit in them and then paddle around on Lake Champlain as they race other crazy pumpkin dwellers. We finally found the races after a frustrating and excruciatingly long quest to find a parking space, but it was worth it.  The first race we saw, one of the competitors was struggling so she decided to hitch a ride on the strongest paddler and just let him drag her to the finish line.  It was working pretty well for a while, but then close to the finish line, her pumpkin started to take on water and then it was sinking.  So she jumped ship onto the other guy's pumpkin.  Good idea in theory, but it's amazing that a pumpkin can support one person and impossible that it'll support two, so they both went down.  Good thing it was 80+ degrees so it probably felt good to get in the water anyway.

It was just hilarious to watch these people racing pumpkins and see how seriously they took it!  And the crowd was intense too!  We wandered around a little in between races, got some pizza and marveled at all of the dogs that were everywhere.  I need to get a dog.

We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around Church Street -- a 3-4 block long pedestrian shopping area.  And then went back to the apartment to watch some football and make the most delicious, random-contents-of-the-fridge dinner ever.

Van Adventures with Bob

This past weekend, I went on a field trip with my Architectural History class around Vermont and into new Hampshire.  It still blows my mind that New England is so small and that you can hop from state to state in a day instead of spending the entire day in the car just to get to a different part of Minnesota.  We all met at Wheeler House, the home of the Historic Preservation department, at 7:30 sharp.  Since I'm dependent on the buses here, that means I had to be outside, ready to hop on at 6:56 am.  Not so awesome considering I went to a concert the night before and didn't go to be until almost 1am.

So we get to Wheeler House and Bob, our prof pulls up in this white, unmarked van and we all pile in.  I sat in the back and promptly fell asleep snuggled against my rain gear.  Our first stop was the Rockingham Meetinghouse in Rockingham, VT.  It's a 18th century puritan church that's a good example of Georgian architecture.  There was a big cemetery behind it, so we took some time to explore while we waited for the landlord to come and open up the building.  There were tons of graves there from the 1700s and barely any listed birthdates, just death dates and the precise age of the person when they died, down to the day.  There was also this neat little tunnel in front of the meeting house that led back to a little cave.  Apparently it was where they would store the bodies of people who died in the winter when the ground was too hard to bury them.  I would not have wanted to be the person that had to deal with all of that come spring! But we stood around the entrance for a while creeping ourselves out and taking pictures hoping to capture some spectral activity.

No Gouls or Goblins here :(

Inside the meeting house, there are a bunch of box pews that wealthy families would buy.  The closer you were to the front, the more money you had.  Some of the original name plates were still on the doors!  One pew in the back had a little sketch of a horse.  Just proof that kids have been getting bored in church for centuries :) Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to go upstairs because they're doing some restoration work on the plaster so we monkeyed around outside for a while longer before packing back in the van.

The best thing about this van is Bob.  And the best thing about Bob is his snacks.  He brings the most awesome snacks.  Babybell cheese, 3 different kinds of crackers, grapes, cherry tomatoes, baby carrots.  V8 juice, apple juice, sparkling water.  Rolls, a loaf of bread and cookies.  It was paradise.  And all of it was conveniently located in the back of the van within an arm's reach.  Bob's theory is that if we're well fed and happy about snacks, we might actually pay attention.  I like it.

Our next stop was Bellows Falls, VT.  It's right on the Connecticut River which is the border between VT and New Hampshire.  We wandered around looking at the train station, some bridges, gas stations, warehouses, and storefronts before heading back.  It was so humid there!  We were all sweating bullets and antsy for lunch even though we'd been snacking all day.  While we were looking t this old, appearing to be abandoned paper mill, some lady driving super fast pulls up and yells at us because, according to her, someone lives there.  But then she says that if we had been there an hour earlier, she would have let us inside.  Curiouser and curiouser.

Bellows Falls Firehouse

NH Border!

Yeah right.  No one lives here.

We drove a while longer in to New Hampshire to our last stop of the day.  We had to drive through this little town that was having a town-wide garage sale that day.  They had the most hilarious sign -- see the pic below :)  We finally got to Harrisville around 1pm and went to their general store for lunch.  The most delicious sandwich ever.  Fresh turkey with tomatoes and lettuce and onions and this spicy mayo.  Nummy :)  And Bob bought us more cookies for desert :)

After lunch, the director of Historic Harrisville met with us and gave us the tour of town.  They have a very interesting philosophy about preservation.  They want to keep the town free of tourists which puts them in a tough spot financially, so they've decided to lease out their historic buildings to companies and organizations therefore generating revenue from rent for preservation efforts and employing people in the town.. I'm a fan. It keeps foot traffic low so the buildings aren't under a great amount of stress and the town stays more accurate to its past.  A lot of the historic homes are still privately owned too!  There are a couple of different mills in the town that have since been converted into commercial space.  And the homes were all built by 7 brothers from the original family of settlers.  And everything is in brick!  So it a) lasts forever and b) has a really quaint, New England feel.  And it's right on a lake so I may just move there.

After our tour, Bob was rearing to do some walking.  As if the last 9 hours had been for naught.  So we walked up this little hill to a field where you can see the biggest mountain in New Hampshire -- that's not saying much btw.  So we walked back down and had some more snacks and then piled into the van for the drive home.  Unfortunately, I couldn't sleep very much and was getting a little crabby and sick of the car.  Apparently, I had on what Lucy calls my "murder face".  But we got back to UVM safe and sound and Robyn and I caught the bus home and who do I meet on there???  My second cousin!  Small world right!  Good thing I wore my CSB sweatshirt so she could recognize me :)

CANNON BALL!!

Life in Vermont over the past couple of weeks had been going along swimmingly.  Classes are going well, I got a job at the Women's Center, and we've made friends with some apartments down the hall.  A couple of weekends ago, they invited us roommates to go cliff jumping with them, so Laura and I decided to put off homework for the afternoon and go for it.

We went to some lake in South Burlington and less than 5 minutes after we pulled into the parking lot, an ambulance and a firetruck pulled in behind us.  We were a little confused about what was going on, but we marched on through the woods for about 20 minutes to get to this spot where there are some good cliffs for jumping.  There are 3 main cliffs, one at 20 feet, one at 40, and one at 76. The water there is plenty deep, but  no matter how deep the water is, it's still going to feel like you're hitting concrete when you land after falling 75 feet.  One of my new buddies had jumped it a couple weeks before and was still hurting.

When we got to the cliffs, we saw that one girl had jumped the big behemoth and wasn't doing so hot.  She'd swum over to the side and gotten herself up on some rocks, but wasn't moving, although other kids said she was still talking.   It took the EMTs quite a while to get down to her, especially with all their gear,  and then they weren't able to get her back up the cliff once she was on a backboard, so they had to call in the Coast Gaurd and she was boated away.  The whole process took 45+ minutes, so hopefully she didn't have any neurological injuries.  

After watching all of this go down, we were all a little shaken up, so we went down to the baby cliff, jumped once and were done :)  The water was really clear, but really cold!  And while we were swimming around, 2 more dumbos jumped the 76 foot cliff.  They first was a really petite girl who we think tore her MCL because she could barely swim and had to be carried back.  The other, an athletic guy, jumped and surfaced on his back and didn't move for a couple seconds before he came to.  he was convinced he was ok, but his buddy was going to make him go to the hospital to get checked out.  And they all took the bus to the cliffs too, so they  didn't even have cars to drive to the emergency room.  Hopefully everything ended up ok for them.

After we got back, the roommates and I decided to have a Vermont-themed party with lots of flannel, maple syrup, and Vermont-brewed wine :) Things were going swimmingly until we realized that we were locked out of our apartment!  So we ended up crashing down the hall and then driving an hour and a half to my roommate Clare's house (where she was for the weekend) to grab her keys.  Spending $20 in gas was definitely better than paying a locksmith $100!  And we got a mini road trip out of the deal too :)

1 Year Ago Today:

I left my home in MN, my friends, and my family to spend a semester in a foreign country with foreign people.
I woke up to the sounds of sirens, traffic, and rushed Italian.
I met the people who would become some of my closest friends.
I fell in love with Rome.
I tried my first gelato.
I was scared out of my mind.
I was looking forward to one more year at CSBSJU.
Graduate school was something future-Rachel would have to deal with.
Was the the first of many I would prove to myself how tough I am.
Seems like 10 seconds and a lifetime ago all at once.

1 year ago today I hopped on a jet plane and flew half way around the world.  I miss it every day.  But having such a clear demarcation of time - 1 year- puts into perspective how much my life has shifted in the past 365 days.

I spent one quarter of them abroad.
I learned to love life sans cellphone, sans reliable internet, and sans security.
I returned and fully appreciated the people who make the places special.
I wrote 72 pages in a display of self-motivation that I will be proud of for quite some time.
I graduated.
I put off having to process that by living at CSB for another 4 months.
I applied to, was accepted at, and made the decision to go to graduate school half-way across the country.
I moved to Vermont.
I both grew up and refused to do so.

So, in a scenario taken directly from a cheesy Lifetime movie (picture me sitting at my desk, pondering the infinite possibility of life), I'm left to wonder where I'll be in another year, or 5, or 10.  Maybe I'll still be writing horrible blog posts about how I miss living in Vermont, or how I got to go back to Italy, or how great my job is, or how much of a terror my new puppy turned out to be.  Who knows.  Not me, that's for sure.  And as the last 365 days of my life have been, it's both scary and exciting all at the same time. 

Irene the bringer of boredom

So school for tomorrow is officially cancelled due to Hurricane Irene.  From my window, I've just seen some pretty high winds and rain, so in my estimation, this cancellation business is a bit overkill, but apparently there's been some serious flooding in town and some downed trees.  As a Minnesotan, I believe that only 37 inches of snow warrants cancelling anything, so right now Vermonters look like pansies, but I'll wait on setting that opinion in stone.

Tomorrow is my last day of freedom and even though I should be cherishing it and taking full advantage of being able to sleep in and wear the same clothes form going on 36 hours, I'm kind of dreading it.  So far during this hurricane experience I've watched 5 movies, baked 24 cupcakes, taken 2 naps, read 176 pages of Persuasion, eaten 207 Cheetos, and wandered aimlessly around my apartment for hours.  I've exhausted my options to the extent that I am reading ahead in the school books I have so that I can feel somewhat productive during this time.  I think that's what's really getting to me.  I know that I have a heaping pile of work ahead of me, but I can't start it so I'm left to sit and be bored when I know I'll wish in the not to distant future that I had an extra day to work on papers, study for tests or just be.

If anyone has any ideas for inside fun activities, please, I beg of you, let me know. 

The First 48

So I've been a semi-official Vermonter for about 36 hours now.  My apartment is quite nice - definitely a lot newer than good old Wirth and Zierden (emphasis on the Old ;), but the bedrooms are little.  And by little I mean tiny. I don't particularly mind - I quite like small spaces, but apparently it was too much (or too little??) for one of my roommates to handle as she took one step in the apartment and promptly decided to move out.  She sounds a little prissy, so I don't think we would have gotten along anyways.  Now the three of us, Robyn, Laura and I, are awaiting the arrival of the newbie.  She's supposedly coming today or tomorrow.

Below are some pictures of the new place!

The desk where I'll be doing all my work and thinking big thoughts.  That is after HIMYM is done :)

My new bed :) You can't tell here, but it's kind of lofted so there's a cool little fort underneath!

My new buddy :) I got him at UVM's version of Involvement today.  Name suggestions??

The living room with Laura's cool tapestry.  

I think I would have gone nuts looking at entirely beige walls for a year. 

The kitchen.

One lonely chair for four people.  

I like it here and I really like having my own room!  Especially when things get a little tough, which they inevitably will, it will be nice to be able to shut the door and have some peace to wallow.  I mentioned the roomies - Laura and Robyn.  Laura's a transfer student originally from Connecticut and she's studying Wildlife Biology and is in to naturey stuff and meeting new people.  We went up to campus today and figured out the bussing and found our classrooms.  Robyn is from upstate New York and is actually in my program!  I'm hoping that means we'll help each other out and be study buddies, but I'm fearful that we'll overdose on each other and be super competitive.  We'll see. 

Yesterday i finished unpacking and putting away all of my stuff.  I'm glad that I flew out because it limited the amount of stuff I could bring.  Apparently my two roommates had not seen the apartment before moving here and we shocked at the bedroom sizes and had way too much stuff to fit.  Good thing they both live within driving distance and their parents could bring some of it back home.  Then I walked all the way to the dollar store because I forgot 3M strips only to find that they didn't have any.  Then I went and sat down by the river and journaled for a bit :)  I was super tired by super time, but tried my best to stay awake till a reasonable hour.  So I did what I did nearly everyday last semester...I watched Harry Potter.  Kara and Ellen- you miss me yet??? ;) 

Classes are supposed to start on Monday, but because of Hurricane Irene, they're currently in limbo while the school watches the path of the storm.  Send good vibes my way as the rain hits tomorrow.  I planning on baking some cupcakes and watching more HP.

T-minus 7 days and counting....

Hi there!  I'm going to try my hand at this again. For one, it's a pragmatic approach to keeping all y'all up to date on my life and for two, it's kind of fun and rather cathartic.  While the stories from this journey may not be as exciting or exotic as those from study abroad, I hope they'll still be worth sharing.  That said, posts may be less regular and feature more pictures, which, let's face it, is more interesting anyway. 

I've enabled comments, so feel free to post your thoughts and make this more interactive. 

As for a first mini-post, I'm down to days here before the big flight on a little plane.  I've accumulated several people's fair shares of stuff over the past 22 years and a bunch of it just needs to go.  Like daily homework from 9th grade -- why did I think that was necessary to archive?? But I think that through this physical purge, I'll be better mentally prepared to step forth and "forge ahead" as my Gma says.  

Next time I'll be able to give you a glimpse into the new, grown-up apartment and adventures with the fam around the Green Mountain State before settling into real life.

Later Gators -- RJP