Wow, People Still Write in This!

So I just returned last night from my whirlwind Euro adventure. Possibly the only positive part of returning was finding out that people still write in this... and eating Chinese food. Well done, folks.

So it is 6:30 am, and I can't remember the last time I was up this early without a reason. The crazy things jet lag will make you do! The trip, needless to say, was amazing. Kristen and I visited 8 countries in 7 weeks, stopping at all the famous monuments, drinking all the of famous drinks, and eating all of the famous food. Mussels in Brussels, gyros in Greece. It was tiring and fast-paced but exhilarating and relaxing. Conflicting ideologies, I know, but somehow possible.

Kristen and I managed not to fight really at all. I guess its a result of us both being ridiculously awesome. At this point we have been apart for almost 9 hours, which is about 9 times longer than we have been separated in the last 2 months. Withdrawal much?

Returning home is a strange thing. I thought leaving school would finally make me recognize the end of an era. However, it is returning from Europe that has done it more than anything. Sort of like this trip was an extension of college, and now its officially, irreversibly over.

I guess all I can do now is fuck around for a month, fill out all the necessary paperwork, and then get on with my real-life job. I don't want to see unexcited, though. I am thoroughly convinced that my real-life job and real-life life will be awesome. Mostly because, as aforementioned, I am awesome. Also, in need of a new descriptive word.

Until next time!
-Jenna

Thoughts on my summer

"What are you doing this summer?" is a question everyone gets during June, July and August, and it's of special interest when you've just graduated and the question turns into "Oh, congrats, so what are you doing now?"

Well, actually, funny you ask. I work for minimum wage for my apartment complex and watch a lot of TV shows and play Scrabble on Facebook.

Somehow, my days become busy. And by "busy," I mean I'm not hunting for things to keep me occupied. For example, this weekend I had something to do at ALMOST every moment, between my job, my friends, the pool, going out, waking up the next morning and not remembering the previous night but going to my job anyway, etc. Yesterday I worked in the middle of the night and then slept till 3 pm. Upon waking up, I had tomato risotto let over from Friday night and put on the Food Network. This is my life, currently.

But this post-grad hanging out lifestyle in the college town of every college student's dreams (I joke) is ending on Saturday when I move out. For good.

Am I ready? This is a question I can't answer. It's been a summer of drinking, goodbyes, lasts, playing in DC and prepping myself for moving on.

It should be a really good week, because so many people I know are in the same zone: the live-it-up-one-last-time zone. (I thought this was supposed to happen during finals week and post-graduation weekend, but conveniently, it has happened again.) Saturday night everyone got smashed, there were a ton of people just in for the weekend, and unfortunately I was too drunk to come out of Saturday night with even more than 6 photos (appalling). I just want to make the best of everything and maximize my time with everyone I love so much and will miss beyond belief.

Becca

My Life on Speed

Speed. Not the scalar property, but the drug. My life is on speed. Well, possibly crack cocaine.

As someone mentioned earlier, life after graduation is busy. Coaching two swim teams and working in a lab has been overwhelming. Each work day is about 12-14 hours long and what little social life I had has been further reduced to almost nothing. Fortunately, my summer team is 3-0 and lab work is going well. The other coaches on my summer team are doing an excellent job coaching, and Jenny and Melissa have been organizing social events for the little ones.

I still haven't finished the thank you cards for my graduation. I have time to write a quick entry, but I didn't bring the cards with me to write them. Perhaps I should do the cards instead of seeing people tonight.

Yesterday was the 4th of July. After a day of lab work and working on my car, I went to watch fireworks on the roof of Commons 3 with Eric and the visiting Jansen. Its crazy how easy it is to get on the roof of that building. You need to be good at climbing or at least 6' to unlock the guard for the ladder, but once its unlocked anyone can come up the ladder. The fireworks view from the roof was amazing. We could see at least a dozen fireworks displays in the Washington, DC area.

I was extremely paranoid about getting caught. Everytime I heard the air conditioning units on the roof start, I thought it was the cops. My heart was racing, but that was probably just the speed racing through my veins.

Kyle

Oh, Google Chrome

So I am actually not as bad about posting as one might think. In fact, I almost finished a life-of-Leslie update last week when, in my haste, I accidentally x-ed out of the blog tab on Google Chrome. Needless to say I was frustrated to have carefully thought about and then articulated my goings ons, so I boycotted the blog for yet another week. Mature.

Anyhooo my life has consisted of working at the clinic, seeing my little brother graduate high school, getting mild food poisoning after a friend's comedy show, more graduation parties, and procrastinating the packing for my inevitable move July 2nd. Work is the usual... a patient telling me that I don't know how to do a proper lunge (um. excuse me, WHO is working in a PT clinic and WHO injured their knee? yea that's right, so shut the fuck up scrub. just because you're too uncoordinated to pull off a simple lunge doesn't mean i don't know the correct form), another man complaining about his "lack of care" (perhaps if you didn't come more than 30 min late for your appointment slot the therapist would have had time to do your manual work), and of course trying to hammer out the details of my fulltime employment upon returning from Europe. By the way, I LOVE what I do. Just sometimes I deal with assholes. Big ones. With injury induced angst.

Although there are a lot of major adult-morphing changes in my life, I was glad to see at Jenna's graduation party that things really haven't changed that much. It's good to know that at this point in our lives we can drain a plastic bag full of vodka on a train platform, pre-game while on the subway (why did we have to hide the bottles if it was actually ok Jenna?), sneak into a private party by dropping the all powerful name of "Mikey Horn", and finally- but my all time favorite- we can still pee behind gas stations... or any other random place for that matter. We're growing up, but our youth isn't dead my friends. Stay young at heart, and you will forever be creative in your drinking exploits and urination locations. Until next time, Les.

Mozletov

So far, life post-graduation has been really busy. Every day it seems like there are a million things to do! While my parents are at work I've been taking care of my brother; driving him to doctors appointments and physical therapy, etc. Then I have my own things to take care of. On top of which, there seem to be infinitely more family extravaganzas and get-together's than I've ever been to before in my life. My dad being one of ten children and my mom's mom being one of twelve, I guess it's a little understandable. But with such a large family and so many events- which are always trips of at least three or more days- it has been hard lately to find time to relax or see people around the area. How can they expect me to go out and get a job if I'm surrounding with these family parties as soon as I graduate!? haha. I just got back from a batmitzvah in New Jersey last night; I've never met Emily, but she's a great hebrew reader and her parents know how to throw an awesome party! She's like my cousin once removed or second cousin... my brain hurts from trying to figure all the family links out the past several days.
Anyway... hopefully life will chill out a little bit now. That's all I want from the summer really.

-Mia

WTF, College?

So I left College Park yesterday. Packed up my room, mopped the unruly floor (at Kevin's insistence), and drove my appropriately sized car out of that hell hole. As glad as I should be to get out of a city that administers $75 parking tickets and rains cockroaches, I could not miss it more. Where else can you go out to a bar and run into 75% of your friends? Where else can you get $2 drinks on a Saturday night? Where else are the bar patrons all sloppy drunk and underage? Certainly not Manhattan.

As I think about it more and more, I realize that college is sort of a fucked up institution. You are expected to leave your life behind, and start a whole new one elsewhere. Only to realize that, after 4 years, you are expected to leave THAT life behind and start ANOTHER new one. All of your friendships that you spend years building disperse.

I probably should have realized coming to Maryland that most of my friends would end up in the DC area. Doesn't make it any easier, though. Now we are all going to have to learn to talk on the phone (which is so 1990s), and put in effort to stay in contact with each other. Certainly won't be the same, though I hope we all don't drop the ball on visiting each other (hint, hint).

Don't mean to be a downer, but for real, leaving college sucks.

--Jenna

Great Expectations

It was only two weeks ago that Onyinyechi Eke told her fellow graduating Terps that in order to be successful, we had to "do hard things." Unfortunately, I want nothing more than to sit around and do easy things. How will I be judged for what I do and do not do in this summer before I move on to bigger and better things?

Don't know. Sort of don't care.

I took a mini vacation last week to spend some time with friends that I won't see very often after the summer. The weather was great and the outdoor pool on campus was open. Jenna says that the most beautiful people are at the outdoor pool. What she means to say is that almost everyone there is young and has a nice (or at least decent) body they don't mind showing off. Either way, we hung around the pool last week synthesizing vitamin D and photodamaging our DNA.

On Monday, a few of us went to Lake Anna in Virginia to chill on the water. My dad has a grill rigged to our pontoon so we did a little bit of jetskiing and grilled on the water. Later in the afternoon, we ran the prop into something hard and Grillboat had to take the rest of the day off. Sorry, Grillboat. Get well soon <3.

Alas, the real world smacked me in the face this week when I had to go back to work. I love working in the lab though. Also, my Biochemistry paper is up on Pubmed in its full glory, so I'm on a science high. I also have been going out drinking at night this week. This is good because I'm (a) not drinking during the day and (b) not drinking until I'm drunk which means I'm not an alcoholic.

"I haven't taken shots since college!"

--Becca, University of Maryland Class of 2010

--Kyle