Christmas

My life as fiction:

There was a party on a boat for the hospital. A cruise called Spirit of Boston, meaning that twenty minutes in comes the realization that exchanging pleasantries isn't that pleasant, and that to escape into drinking is not an option with a morning shift looming, and that one has to smile and try to enjoy oneself.

By which I mean to say, maybe not-me learned some things about some people that she didn't need to know, and maybe some of that they learned later, but that's okay. There were no cheating wives. There was no man who slept with three women from his workplace. There was no higher-up who did worse than either. After the ship and the dancing there may have been pool (which I was brilliant at!) at a bar everyone was invited to by a heart-broken nurse, but there I wasn't complimented on my lipstick as he lamented all the girls scattering when he came around.

Similarly, Christmas Eve was not spent in West Bridgewater. I didn't walk barefoot through the misty neighborhood. Nobody said a single racist thing. Not a single person made a fool of themselves! Nobody got angry, everyone was happy with their gifts, and I definitely, undeniably got a full nights' rest, most likely in my own bed and not on a fold-out couch at Emily's. Incredible, right?

And Christmas day dinner was not four Jews and a Catholic-raised Atheist talking about mind-control for the good of the masses. That's ludicrous! Dinner couldn't have been served on the porch; after all, it's the end of December. There was no tilapia and certainly no pumpkin cupcakes with cream cheese frosting or warm hugs. 


cheers to the most Christmas I've ever had in my life.

Friday the 13th

At some point in early October, Max came across some candles in a wooded area. Tall white ones, tags still attached. So he took a couple, and then a couple more, and then some more. Imagine then his horror when he realized it was a memorial. The rest of the candles got thrown out eventually, but he still felt like his karma was out of balance following the desecration of the site.

So he asked me if I would accompany him to a graveyard to return the candles to the memory of the dead, to light about ten by tombstones and hope to amend the wrong. I have my own graveyard karma to reverse, so I agreed.

Yesterday was a windy night. We had to climb over the fence and the candles did not stay lite for long - like lives, flickering out. Like lives, some shone brighter than others. Like with the dead, it is the living, us, that memorialized the fleeting light - in photos, in writing, in remembrance.

Max feels that his karma has been re-calibrated. Thank you, Forest Hills Cemetery and to those who lay there.

not a ghost

Months passed I had a dream - A boy I liked from high school but had lost touch with was dancing with me. It was in a building that used to be a psychiatric hospital years ago, by a lake with tall stone walls and hallways that echoed. Ghosts would pop up and then disappear just as suddenly. I've since wondered: if ghosts are usually freed to the spiritual world by resolving the issue that was tying them to the earth past their due, what do you do with a ghost of a paranoid schizophrenic? Are they more likely to get stuck here forever, unable to be brought clarity?

A week ago a friend I had in college killed himself. From my last communications with him, it was clear he had become increasingly disorganized and paranoid, overburdened with false guilt, annoyed by the lack of freedom. When Kelsey called I knew from her voice what she was going to talk to me about, I just didn't expect it to happen so soon.

He had been so sensitive, he was so bright - I can’t imagine what it is like to see yourself losing that, especially for a person to whom intellectual acuity is paramount - emotional sensitivity key - and he certainly felt that the medications blunted him in so many ways. 

At one point he had been one of the people I hung out with a fair amount, he came to a couple of my movie nights and I took photos for This Bardian Life, and we went out dancing, and he came to my 21st birthday party and numerous lunches and dinners together, he called wine vino and had a particular way he nodded his head, large bony hands, hair that had to be constantly swept to the side, low voice and eyes that paid attention when you talked; conversations not to be had in passing. 

I wish I had more I could find of him, it's a strange drawback of having communications in person, in vivo; you can't look over them later. I read something for TBL, he was thinking maybe I should expand it, I was concerned -- 
You mean you think the re-work would weaken it? I think that's reasonable. If you're interested in a remaster, go for it, although, with my bit of experience with creative work I was thinking your past self might have more to say. But it's up to you, of course. Send me the new version if you're comfortable; i'm also open to talking more about your process if you'd like.
 

We lost touch, he had started to lose something, and I was busy and attributed it to other things until we had stopped trying to speak to each other once I had graduated over a year ago now and only recently did I hear from him again, but not him, some other person. I miss the he who I knew, who he was, but both are entirely gone now. I know I can’t feel like I could have done something, but I wasn’t there, one of my last messages to him an apology for us not having maintained contact, and somehow I want to apologize for him being dead, to apologize to him for the sorrowful mix of genetics and environment that led him to not be here anymore, age 22 forever, for the world for having played such a cruel trick on him, that I couldn't do anything to stop it.

I don’t believe in restless ghosts: I have my memories of you on this side. 

kaleidoscope

I keep having words but not putting them together here, like a moving kaleidoscope and I can't quite snatch up the shapes and colors before they disappear from before me.

green glass - I went to the Somerville porch fest with Adian and Margo. We shifted from venue to venue, and with the change in location came a change in population. Old married couples with grandchildren in one place, people in their late 30's at another, those in their 20's and early 30's at a third. It's kind-of perfect though, the idea of a porch fest. People come out and share their own music with the people living around them, using the cross of urban and suburban space: tightly packed houses stacked next to each other -- creating a town-wide bbq-party. Green bottles filled with beer in hand, music dances in the air.

teal strand - I dyed my hair. People keep asking way and I say "I just felt like it" except to Paras to whom I said "whenever I change my hair it's because of a boy" and didn't repeat myself when he didn't hear.


a feather, refracted - we went camping: the boy who used to live in the room I live in now, Therese, Paras, and Amy. I had never gone camping without the supervision of those a generation above me! I had never gone camping without Russians! We snuck around trying to scare each other throughout the day, like real adults. We had about 7 different types of 'dogs' to accommodated so many different dietary restrictions. We pitched a couple tents and didn't get wet when it rained. We toasted marshmallows for breakfast and swam in a lake with ducklings.

a mirror slate - at work, I now only have 32h schedueled per week, and only work day shift, which means I no longer feel like I'm chronically jetlagged. Unless I pick up a shift, I always work on 3South, on of the acute units, like I had asked. All of this makes me much happier, I didn't even realize how much weight had been placed on my chest until it lifted. Two days ago I had a few tears escape my eyes while at the nurses station, in front of people. One of the patients had screamed and called me a bitch, and I also found out that I was almost certainly mandated. Usually I am ashamed when people see me cry, but this time I apologized and it felt okay. "Relax" Cole told me, and gave me a one-armed hug. I didn't get mandated. She apologized to me the next day "you know you are one of my favorite staff! I was waiting for you to come in after yesterday so I could apologize!" I said, yes, thank you, but wouldn't it be great if you didn't have to apologize? Think about what you think will help you to control your temper, before it boils over. "You are right!" she said. We will see.


how many times have I turned the kaleidescope?

lilacs

One patient who has been there for a while: now not too paranoid to leave her room, hasn't showered in a month, thinks she is the fbi, keeps showing me and others her badge, making a motion by her hip as if lifting up a cover of a wallet. I tell her I don't see it, and I confirm that she has told me that she is the FBI. She doesn't like this – she now thinks I'm the Illuminati. When I denied it she said that I'm a bad liar. When I was dissuading her from going to check on someone who was getting restrained, and denied that I was killing him, she called me a selfish bitch. In the past, she has told me I look like her sister. A change of pace.

This morning, I woke at 9am, ate a banana, sat on the couch drifting off. Talked to Adrian. Went onto the balcony and continued writing a letter. Talked to a neighbor who was also trying to drink coffee outside, until he was herded back indoors by bees.

Another patient is here for a second time, having left in a state of catatonia – waxy movements, silence, not eating or drinking for days until his face looked shriveled. Now he is actively psychotic, taking his clothes off in the middle of the hallway, trying to kiss everyone and spitting at them when they do something he doesn't like. A different pace.

Having finished my lettering for the day, I smelled the lilac I had ripped off a neighbors bush in the middle of the night, and started off to a plant shop 40 minutes away. It is a hot day, but I returned, joyously, with lupin, angelface, sun parasol, clear crystal and some droopy plant, the name of which got lost in transport.

I had to restrain a man yesterday who was trying to hurt his foot. In the past he has claimed auditory hallucinations, but this time he said he was feeling not great. He demanded meds and ignored any healthy coping skills. After a very long time here, it has dawned on all of us that he is borderline – this is not something that is ever written in a chart. He did not like it when I told him that slamming his foot into a door repeatedly is not the appropriate way to express frustration, that medication is not the only part of the puzzle to feeling better, that he has to wait a little bit for the medication to kick in because it's not going to start working one minute after he has swallowed it. A shift of pace.

Max M is biking over to meet with me for something some iced drink.

This day in May has turned stiflingly hot, good for noon-day naps and lethargic conversation.

free chocolate

That same day I met up with Karen in the evening. It was my Monday off (I'd worked the weekend of the play) so I wanted to make the most of it, and for once everyone else had a Monday off too. Full weekends become a very exciting event when you only get every other one - a marked switch from the three-day weekends typical of my college experience.

Tuesday, Wednesday were normal work days: up before the sunrise, done by 3:30. Thursday I got mandated to do a double shift for the first time. I still had work Friday morning and had woken up at 4am for no reason. I was so loopy (and also it was my fourth unit in three days, which meant yet another set of names and rapport to establish) but it went well, though I'm sure the other MHW, who had never worked with me before, thought I was crazy. I told him that during my break my eyes welled up with tears after watching a Cheerios commercial.

I met with Cat and Alana after work that day, and watched The Wolf of Wallstreet once I got back to the apartment (2013, USA, Scorsese, not worth your time). Beer and a movie; classic American way to end the day. Totaling being up for 22 hours for no reason at all.

Saturday morning I got up and Therese (roommate) and I joined her friends at Harvard Sq. where a chocolate festival was going on. Lots of free samples, also lots of people lined up, patiently. We were not patient. We ate the samples we got before a couple hundred people swarmed the square, at which point we left to get afternoon margaritas. This is what classy ladies do - drink margaritas in the middle of the day. And the cherry on top was my parents coming to drop my bike off, and then falling asleep, finally, after they left. (There ain't no rest for the wicked.)

after my parents left and I fell napped, I woke up in time for wine & sparklers

YP in GB

patient: how old are you?
patient: you're too young to be working here.

Monday morning I disassembled a bed, drove it to Central Sq, and assembled it in a small room on the fourth floor of a building where I now live. Young Professional in Greater Boston. I don't make enough to be a yuppie. After meeting up with Sorrel, I spent the night at my parent's place.
It snowed (again; it snowed when I interviewed for the room too)

patient (with history of assault, paranoid schizophrenia; thought I was lying about my name): I'm going to smash your head against a wall!
[a few minutes later, affect back to normal, apologized. and again, three days later when we met in the cafeteria] I'm sorry about the other day.

Tuesday I could not fall asleep terrified of taking the bus the next day. I noticed that the ceiling in the room is pretty high. I remember how the street sounds at night.

patient: how tall are you? model height?
[and] you are the nicest nurse here. What do you think I should do? Should I try to get out of here as fast as I can, or should I stay here for, like, ever?
[and, five days later] are you a model?

Friday night I read at 1am, woke up at 5:40 for work, and then, fully intending on a quite night in, found myself at Middlesex (club) with Paras (roommate) and his lady friend and not-lady friends.
I hadn't been out dancing in so long, never mind at a club, certainly a first in Cambridge. Danced with someone briefly who had a boner, saw someone basically jerking off at me, and got berated for not dancing with anyone [with him] by yet another gentleman. Ended by dancing with some tall, blond, boring looking guy, not for too long. And to top it off, two guys from my high-school were there as well - a past I do not care for. But I did dance, and I thank humanity for dancing.

patient: you are a good doctor-person. From my first day here I thought that.

Saturday I met up with Yulka at Harry's Bar & Grill. We've both moved out now, both have jobs, both assume things we shouldn't sometimes - but we drink different drinks.

patient: she has a soft angel smile and a hard glint in her eye. 


Sam's boat is in North Carolina but he came here from Germany. We got to convenience-store-land which is not in a convenient location to get to by subway. It was freezing. I was glad to see him.

patient after patient after patient: what ethnicity are you? Portuguese? Brazilian? Spanish?
best response to my reply (by one who claimed to be in love with me): I knew it was something unusual.

accepted

I wrote this few weeks ago and waited in hopes of getting a very specific photo but alas – here it is anyway.

A few days ago the accepted students swarmed campus, as they do every April. Last year it was on the 20^th, this time a week earlier.

"Do you have a tattoo?" one asked another

"No" said a girl who looked and sounded like she cared and wanted to come off as if she didn't care "but I want to get one"

"I do" said a third, softer looking one "here"

"oh, that's cute, I wanna get..." and then they were out of my range of hearing. I walked on to change for tennis practice.

I remember coming and being so excited. I got a balloon that said "studio art" on it and the campus was (and still is) beautiful - though now I know that they trim the trees and plant fresh flowers and finally finish up renovations started months ago in time for the horde to look.

I gave a girl and her mother directions (or tried, I'm not sure which parking lot they were looking for and the one they described physically could not exist) and remembered asking for direction and someone telling me "past the chapel" and thinking but all three of those buildings look like chapels. The first one is a chapel, the second is Bard Hall, the oldest building on campus, and the third is a fancy grave I think, still not sure.

The food they gave us was the least impressive of the schools I looked at, and so my Papa's theory started: that Bard wants to push you out the physical realm by giving us shitty food, so that we focus on our intellectual and spiritual development, outside the body (he jests; we drink and smoke to compensate). I thought the girls dressed so pretty and daring. I wanted to read. Dance. Love. I wanted everything though technically I was still considering Umass Amherst and Clark.

Even as I remember these things, it's hard to know how it really was. What is it like to look at this campus with fresh eyes? How do we look to them? At this point I am: the trees, the winter-bleached grass, the cigarette butts, the bandannas tied around mason jars filled with tea or coffee. My face has changed so have my thoughts my dress my heart. I am: the buildings I lived in and the hours I spent, the broken glass by the waterfall, the faces which I have looked at but never spoken to. On Thursdays and Tuesdays, I get off the shuttle and go to the library to make myself tea and get my notebook for class. As I exit on my way to Olin LC, I pass a boy on the stairs with a wide angular pale face and dark hair and a beige backpack. As I walk on the path, I pass another boy who's tanner and with lighter hair, who looks at me intently. I come too early – before the previous class is out – and drink my tea on a couch outside the classroom. I saw one reading the newspaper the other day. I saw the other at the library. We do not know each other but we are a metronome keeping the beat for the orchestral campus.* All this I will carry with me when I leave. I hope my best years are still ahead of me, but I am grateful that I was accepted, I am grateful that I came.

*the saddest part is that I haven't seen either of these boys since I wrote this. devastated.

sum some

The last month was a whirlwind - trying to finish up senior project while attempting to pretend that I don't have that weight on my shoulders. I attended an ASO concert (Strauss - Emperor Waltz, Accelerations, The Blue Danube; Conus - Violin Concerto; Brahms - Symphony No. 2). That night I came home to Jono and Noah playing goat simulator for two hours.

All the tennis matches happened in April (I think we lost almost all of them). 4/20 at Blithewood. We celebrated birthdays - Kelsey turned 21 on the 21st. We were 21 together for a day and then I turned 22 on the 22nd. Golden birthdays. Went to the diner for Adrienne's birthday on the 28th. Eggs and potatoes and rye toast, everyone else got chocolate milkshakes.

We performed Verdi's Requiem with the ASO two nights in a row, very close to the senior project deadline. A 92 year old man had a heart attack because of the music the first night. That Saturday we sang at William Weaver's memorial service - he was the first to translate all of Umberto Eco's works and some other modern Italian literature, and seemed to have had some colorful characters in his life. 

This Wednesday I finished formatting my project and went with Adrienne & co to get it bound - three copies, one for each member of my board. We got food at the Golden Wok and then checked in around four, an hour before the deadline. Many birthing jokes ensued: 9 months for delivery. Bard t-shirts, alumni sign-up, bbq and snacks and then we went behind stone row for free beer. Ended up sipping margarita's at Santa Fe and then the Bard Orchestra concert and then saw Hannah and Jack and Will and his friend Steven. Thoroughly sleep deprived and incomprehensible, though I still fell asleep at one, unable to break the habit from the past month, waking up at 8:30 as usual and kept going. I joked that we drink not just to numb the bruises from senior project, but fill the void left behind by it.
As I was falling asleep the next day for a nap, I was swarmed by thoughts like bees buzzing bumbling bustling and realized the tunnel vision that comes with working on one thing so single mindedly, that you forget (can't afford to) think about all the other thoughts in your head, though they are still there.

And then this weekend was spring fling. Thursday night was a small gathering at the Root Cellar (incoherent singing and the cliqueness of the people who tend to go there: Sorrel Hannah and I left pretty soon after arriving). I joined Kalena the second night and danced with Kelsey (music: Deerhoof, Branchez, Giraffage, Speedy Oritz, Celestial Shore).

The third we had a pre-party with Amanda & co. and that's where most of the dancing that night happened - at the tent, it was too crowded and jumbled, the currents making it impossible to stay still and sway, one moved through the river, bumping up against rocks, coursing round in circles (music: Lil B, Slava, Silent Addy, Chi Ching Ching). We hung out in the beer garden and campus center instead, smiling broadly and talking to people we don't talk to and holding hands and hugging: Bardians are nice when drunk. I went to the waterfall where Will and Hannah and others set up a fire and that was lovely until I felt sleepy and took the 2:40 shuttle home.

and that's the last month, summarized.

look cool

Smog: I was dancing and then went outside before the next song started. Amanda and Kelsey came outside to make sure I was okay and then left again when I verified that I was fine standing under the overhang. “Do you want a cigarette to look cool while you do it?” Kelsey asked. The rain looked like snow lite by sharp light. Two guys came out too:

“I drank way too much last night. I don't angry or anything like that, but I drank too much”
“why did you drink?”
“because it feels good!”

“but not for any reason like, to avoid an emotion or anything like that?”
“no, just for relief, to let off some steam”

We danced the rest of the night, laughing and closing our eyes to the shifting rhythms.

The next night I should have stayed in. Vessels have a frequencies that make them resonate, and the music the freshman boys played that night resonated in my stomach. The Milkshack (aka EMS house) had dj sets but it was just a bit too cold outside. Some people were gone and danced like puppets jerked by children; everyone else huddled in a swarming mass around the campfire, in varied states of sobriety. Faces where invisible as soon as one shifted away from the fire light; perhaps the total anonymity was good for some but my mouth was dry and there was nowhere to dance for those like me who did not look like marionettes and I had to talk to people I haven't spoken to in a while to avoid standing aimlessly on the frigid fringe of the crowd.

A couple nights ago I had a dream Eloosha and I went swimming in a pond which still had ice floating in it, his father and others were there too. The purpose was to increase Eloosha's literary acuity, though the people standing on the bank wouldn't understand. When I woke up my feet were freezing.

Yesterday Hannah B. and I went to get Chineese fast-food. It was delicious.

Halloween 4/4

Hannah and I have been going to the Red Hook farmers
market and having Saturday brunch.

We went to a party in Tivoli because we  
heard that live music was going to be playing. I dressed up as a fox with the sign “what do I say?”. We jumped up and down to the music and I kept going up the stairs, to the porch, down the stairs to the back steps and back around to keep things spinning and spinning. Up and two drags, down and shitty warm beer, the back entrance and a hello, and around back to the dance. A couple times someone came up to me and said “you say mew!” (no) and the band switched. The girl who had been a unicorn was now Frida Colo and eventually the police came to break it up and the swarms of us trickled away. I slept over at Amanda’s place and we went to Murry’s the next morning; the drummer from one of the bands did too.
The next weekend I only went to the ISO show for 20 minutes and did work the rest of the time. Ha.

Spring Flung

The next weekend was spring fling. During the day we had choral rehearsal. I said to Ben “tomorrow everyone is going to be so hung-over” and then realized I was being naïve, and that people were already drinking during rehearsal.    

That night I drank too much on an empty stomach while coming down with a cold and after having had dizzy spells from low blood pressure all week. Turned out to be a bad idea and I woke up at 5am to the question “do you know where you are” to which I responded “yes” but they told me I was at the hospital anyway. Amanda came with me in the ambulance but I don’t remember. In the morning I had to meet with the Dean of Student Affairs. Bianca came and Shinno too - with pretzels. It was interesting to see how information traveled. Kelsey and Megan didn’t know until I told them.  A whole bunch of people I never talk to asked me how I was doing. Also my friends’ responses reinforced what I already knew about them – some good, some bad. I felt bad for making people worry, either way.

“You sound good, but you look hung-over. Y’all better get over that real quick” said James before the concert that night.

Schaffe in mir - Brahms

Anthony O'Daly - Barber

The Coolin - Barber

Sucepit Israel - Bach

Sicut locutus Est - Bach

Die Mit Tranen - Schutz 

God is our Refuge - Mozart 

Os Iusti - Bruckner 

Psalm - Ives

After that I went out again to the block party and danced with various friend groups. Even though they tried to keep strangers out, there were still quite a few high-schoolers and very grabby 30-somethings there, but otherwise it was fun. Later went with Megan and a couple others down to the waterfall. It was incredibly chill; a bonfire, people talking, the bubbling of the water. I fell asleep at 3am, content.

home again

yesterday's lunch

few things that happened at Bard that I hadn't mentioned: I went to the clay studio with Sumedah, attended Page's birthday party, went to the block party (second night of Spring Fling), had a lovely birthday brunch with Clea and Britt, and the night before it rained so we sat around, dressed up watching Daria. Adrienne organized a birthday dinner, Hannah Jo Will and Suyog came over, and it was really nice. I watched Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels with Page and Eames one of my last nights, when most people had left. 
Baccalaureate was sweaty, the chapel isn't meant for that many people, but otherwise the weird mixture reading from the Torah, Koran and Bible, along with Jazz singing, modern dance and speeches, made for it to be a lot less boring than it was traditionally. The recycled polyester robes were compensated by the fact that the majority of the people there where seniors excited to graduate.




But otherwise I am home.
Home as in went with my mom when she dropped Shimon off at wrestling, and helped my dad carry bed frames up and down the stairs from room to room. Listened to Yosef complain about how tired he is and how pointless middle school is, and spinning Shimon upside-down.

Fury

Really Rachel? Was it necessary to eat the food I made for myself to eat for breakfast tomorrow so I wouldn't have to think about it and could concentrate on writing my essay and singing for baccalaureate and packing?

You laughing at me being angry does not really make it any better.
Nor does knocking on my door and telling me that maybe I should get a refrigerator, because guess what, for most of the year I got to use my roommates' and for the last three days of school I really don't think I need to buy one, or have say, rented one while there was already one in the room. and Don't tell me you think I'm mad at Bard and not you, because actually, I'm perfectly fine with Bard right now, I'm just really really exhausted, I haven't slept properly in a while, I woke up at 6am today and just wanted to not have to think about one more thing and not eat eggs again cause I've eaten literally 6 eggs in the past two days.

I've dealt with you all year. You snapped at me once, saying that you have only been nice to me because our adviser told you to, which then you said wasn't true with and the excuse for saying that in the first place was that you were high. You mooch all the time, you are always desperate for attention, trying to talk to people when they are clearly working or busy otherwise. You do not pick up on social cues or have any tact.


It was brown rice spinach and tomato with olive oil and salt and black pepper. I was looking forward to just eating that for brunch and just fuck.

Tent Spring Fling

when Lila Amanda and I left, when half the people by the campus center where just standing, and half where under the tent still dancing, we went to smog but it was empty, and then to my room to unwind, and then I went to sleep.  It was about 2:30 but we were exhausted.

I died from the combination of sexiness and awkward boys peering across the crowd, some from the sidelines, some from the middle. Some hid by bumping up and down, cigarette raised in the air.

(side note: there the guys who where actually hot, and then there where the ones that came from behind to grind. unfortunately those were two different categories. it was still fun, the music not all dubstep for once, but stuff people could yell along to out of tune)

(side side note: I was also sober since I wanted to be able to get up easily today for emergency driving. sour breath is not something you can ignore while sober, but I danced from 11-1:30 or so, packed up against my friends, pulled and pushed by the ebb and fall of the dance, sometimes nearly falling. sweat and the sprays of water people sent from their bottles, never understood why.)

(work today and party proper tonight)

(also: just...the random group of guys making out, one of them was the more attractive of the (3? 4?) of them and they where all trying to get to him, which I thought was funny, especially since I recognized all of them. and just overall the ridiculous amount of people making out by the end, unsurprisingly. I felt good physically from dancing, but something in me felt that everything was rather futile by the time I left.)

this was fun

Last Thursday I took out my braids, and Britt dressed me up as if it were the 90's, crimped hair and plaid, and we watched Clueless. Then at some point later in the week  I made banana bread,

which turned out really well (I doubled the recipe and made it in a cake pan.)  

Friday Anna organized an ecoreps event where we made a really good salad. There was also a screening for a movie, but since the salad was my lunch and dinner it needed to be supplemented with something else, so I went to get more food. Here's the recipe:

Lentil Salad:

(on the recipe it said it should take 30-40min to prepare, and this is a recipe for 6 servings

Ingredients:
1 cup lentil
2 cups of water

1 cup of dry bulgur weat
2cup of boiling water

The dressing:
1/4 cup Olive oil
1/4 cup lemon juice
2 medium garlic cloves, crushed
1 tsp of salt
1/2 tsp of oregano
2 tbs freshly minced mint
2 to 3 tbs freshly minced dill
fresh black pepper to taste

(Ingredients to chop
1/4 cup freshly minced parsley(packed)
1/3 cup red onion
1 small bell pepper diced
1/2 stalk celery finely minced
(half a cup crumbling feta)
1 medium sized tomato, diced
1/2 cup chopped toasted walnuts

1/2 cup chopped toasted walnuts
(+squeezable wedges of lemon for garnish)

cook the lentils and the bulgar, let them cool.

Chop everything else. Add all the chopped ingredients (apart from the tomatoes) to the bulgur. Add the lentils. Mix all the ingredients for the dressing together and add to the mix. Add the tomatoes.



Then Saturday we tried to track down a party (Shivalika, Clea, Britt, Tamding, Armaan and a few others). We went to smog at like, 10:30 because Shivi had a friend who was djing there, danced it up in the empty space. When we tried to go to manor around 1am the party had already broken down, and we headed back to smog (just me, Britt and Cindy, who we kidnapped from her dorm on the way) it was totally empty, just the djs-very eery. So we didn't find anything, but it was still fun.

Tuesday I had breakfast at Manor for the first time, and my shoe broke on the way to neuro so I went to nuero and research methods barefoot. Amanda and Meg kept calling me a hippie, I had a long flowy skirt and everything.
Two nights ago I went for a night photo escapade with my tripod. I've always had this frustration with night photography that the camera can't capture what you see. It goes like this: Camera! You know there's a face there! stop being so blurry!
But with a tripod it can compound all the information it is getting, and see more than a human. It's awesome.

Stargon at night

also last night when I was walking back to my dorm, I saw a couple guys go into the woods. I was really confused as to where they were trying to get to that way until I heard peeing.