A Night on the Town

As any good college student living in New Haven knows, utilizing the Yale Shuttle as your transportation device is often an adventure. You may feel inconvenienced and annoyed by these sudden changes in your plans, but this is part of what makes you a college student; adaptability to sudden changes. So last night, Carlo and I go downtown. It was after 6 so the shuttle was not running on a regular schedule. We walk about 10 minutes down Prospect heading for Downtown New Haven. Lo and behold, a Blue Line Yale Shuttle comes rolling down the street. To save us from walking, and the frigid air, we get onto this shuttle and ride the rest of the way.

Everything goes along according to plan: Citibank, Rite Aid, Noodle House, and Starbucks. We pick up the Yale Shuttle right where we left it. It was even the same exact bus number, but a different driver; a new driver in training. The ride took an hour longer since it was the Blue nighttime route in the wrong direction, but we were just happy to be on a warm bus rather than standing at a cold bus stop with all of our purchases. We made so many loops around the same block that we felt like we were stuck in the twilight zone; seeing the same houses over and over again. Finally, we made it to the top of the hill on the corner of Highland and Prospect. Unfortunately, the driver turned right instead of continuing back to Albertus on prospect. Carlo and I looked and each other and knew we would be heading back downtown if we did not get off that shuttle ride. We pull the stop rope and we proceed off the shuttle and start slowly walking back to Albertus from Whitney and Highland. I called Courtney and told her about how we were walking back and she told me she would come pick us up. We were lucky she did because it was freezing out.

I concluded my night with a hot shower, indulging in delicious s'mores and leftover Chinese food from snowy nights past.

Sunday S'mores

Today, I made a s'more in my dorm room. How did I do this, you may ask. Well, it is quite simple really. You just take a piece of a Hershey bar, place it on the plate. Put a marshmallow right on top of the chocolate. Place the plate in the microwave and turn it on for 10-20 seconds. Watch as your marshmallow puffs up into a giant. Take it out of the microwave and bite into a gooey, delicious treat! It did wonders for my energy level today. It was the perfect snack break that cleaning my room required. I mean, do you honestly need the graham cracker? My friends say yes, but I never was a fan of the graham cracker portion of the s'mores delicacy. I wish I had more chocolate bars because I am a chocolate addict. Once I get a taste of it into my system, I cannot stop eating chocolate. It's happiness in a rectangle!

How about a little history lesson about my favorite candy on the planet? 
We have Milton S. Hershey to thank for this heavenly bar. "The captivating story of Hershey's spans nearly a century and a half of industrial and social change. It was in the year 1894 that candy manufacturer Milton Hershey made the decision to try adding chocolate coating to his caramels. Calling this new enterprise the Hershey Chocolate Company, he located it near the area he had been born, amid the rolling farmland of Derry Township, PA. By the summer of 1905, with the milk from nearby dairy farms and the spirit of hard-working local people, his new factory started turning out delicious milk chocolate." (http://www.hersheys.com/our-story) 

Thanks to this amazing man and his passion for chocolates and people, we are forever united by one thing; the Hershey bar!

Book Review: The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult

I just finished Jodi Picoult's novel, The Storyteller. It was heartbreaking and an extremely difficult read because it was about the Holocaust. I never liked learning about that in history class. It always makes me sick to my stomach to think about how humans treated another group of humans. Her novels have a way of forcing you to rethink yourself, your outlook on the world and what you contribute to it. I definitely recommend this novel! Her next book comes out in October 2014 and I will definitely be attending that book signing as I have in the past!

Every time I read one of Jodi Picoult's novels, I feel like I walk away knowing so much more about a subject than I ever did. I mean this in a good way. The only problem with this situation was that it is about my most hated part of history because it just raises such anger inside me. I was reading this book at dinner and I got to Minka's section and towards the end of it, I wanted to puke because of what I was reading and eating. The two did not mix. The story of Minka is so strong and so enraging. Jodi really makes you feel like you are facing these horrible men yourself. 

I am not sure how a big a fan I am of Sage as a character for a couple of reasons. 1) She complains about the scars on her face and how she cannot be out in public, and yet, she has a job at a town favorite bakery. 2) She was practically breaking up a marriage and that is something I morally cannot get behind. Even though, yes, Adam was cheating right along with her; he was not the main character of the story. 

The ending was a typical major twist, except I did not see this one coming at all. I was totally shocked.

I love Leo's character. I am a criminal justice minor and so in some of the legal parts of the book, I was nodding and I responded to some of Sage's questions before poor Leo could. Sorry man. ;) 

Over all, I loved this book. Although, I do think Minka's section was a little long, I do not feel it would have been wise to shorten it. She was the key to the whole story and so all of her section was necessary.

Junior Year Reboot

I have been working on this blog of mine for a while now and I feel that the time has come, in our relationship, to share the "key ingredient" to it. School has never been my forte. I study, do the required readings, take notes, post to the elearning pages and I get A’s and B’s; job well done, nice pat on the back for me.  Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

The semester started only last week and I have not had class since Wednesday. I mean, I have class Tuesday’s and Thursday’s, but so far I have not yet. Although I did enjoy and extended long weekend, I do feel like the school year has not really started, homework does not exist and that deadlines are still a thing of the past. My dorm room is simply my apartment complex in a building for college age kids, like myself. Actually, I am excited because tomorrow, the same class that cancelled last Thursday is cancelled again, but this time he has an assignment for us! Here is the rising action of our story. Tomorrow, I will put to the test, my new organization/task management/deadlines system that I have created for myself. Last semester, my ability to follow due dates and schedules was a complete calamity. I intend to correct that error this time around. So far, so good. My boss, Justin, gave us this 5 month calendar that is really handy! I know everything I have to know about or be a part of from now through the last day I can live on campus. I put those dates into my planner, and those dates are all in my phone calendar. I have learned that you can never have too many calendars.

Tomorrow at noon, the test of my scheduling and priority sorting begins. Floor function paperwork is due to Justin by noon and I intend to have it there by then. One function is already mapped out; just one more to go. I am really excited for the one I am hosting next Wednesday night. I am going to have my residents make a dream board which will display pictures of their goals for life, the end of this semester, end of college, whenever they want to display their goals for. I have 5 goals that I will make my dream board for. I won’t share them now, but be on the lookout for them sometime next week.