Happy Halloween!

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Happy Halloween!

Here's wishing you all a happy and safe holiday. 

Dress up, eat candy, watch scary movies!

Me? I'm looking forward to starting classes again, seeing everyone's costumes and attending the YSO's midnight Halloween show. 

What are you doing to celebrate Halloween?

Sandy, Oh Sandy!

So yes, if we live in the same continent and you haven't heard about Hurricane Sandy....umm.

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Yale cancelled classes for today and tomorrow. I mean--everything's completely shut down. The University hasn't called off all classes in all schools since the late 70s. I feel honored to be part of this history. Especially if it means I get an extra couple days tacked on to October break. :)

And yes, even if it means I'm spending most of those days catching up on the work I was supposed to do during said break.

It's weird being in the midst of such a weather crisis for the northeast and think it exciting and fun. Millions are losing power because of Sandy, lots of people are stranded in the city and there's lots of destruction (a bus shelter blew out on the street my bedroom window looks over--there's glass everywhere). I understand: Sandy is a very scary, dangerous and annoying lady.

{sandy visiting new york - seen from the New York Times building}

But, when you're in college, and you have a whole university charged to protect you, and there is little chance your power will go out, and they bring you giant bags of food so you don't have to venture outside to the dining halls and they tell you to just chill out in the dorm rooms all day...

I mean, I guess I could stay in my pajamas all day, take mid-day showers, catch up on Modern Family and bargain with the boys across the hall for their rationed pudding cups. I mean--if this is what Sandy is forcing me to resort to...

Happy Hurricane everyone! I hope you are all safe and warm and with power.

Marisol

Five Things

...that I've been reading recently. 

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1. Two Treatises of Government by John Locke. I don't even want to talk about it. I read so slowly, it takes me half an hour to get through five pages. 

2. This amazing piece by John Stephens. I don't care where you lean politically. It is never okay to use the r-word. A beautiful letter in reaction to Ann Coulter's use of the r-word.

3. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky. I'm only about 20 pages in, but I'm really liking the style. It's very stream-of-consciousness. I'm looking forward to seeing the movie. 

4. "after this post i will never talk politics again." Lauren Brimley from Busy Bee Lauren discusses why you should rock the vote. 

5. The album booklet for Taylor Swift's Red. The lyrics for each song has a hidden message! Just put together all the capital letters...

Happy weekend! What have you been reading recently?

baby giraffe has arrived!

Autumn the giraffe, hailing from the Greenville Zoo in South Carolina, has finally had her first baby!

The zoo had set up a live webcam via EarthCam so that viewers all over could watch her throughout her pregnancy. I stumbled upon the link just a couple days ago and have been checking in ever since!

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This reminds me of my days glued to the computer screen during senior spring, waiting for the arrival of the NYU red-tailed hawk babies (looks like they're back!).

this was exciting news to wake up to! happy tuesday everyone! just three more classes, and I'm off to new york for a few days with my family!

Versatile Blogger Award!

Happy Monday everyone! I had a super-relaxing weekend--catching up with friends, some intense Walgreens shopping and some horror film watching.

I was also incredibly excited to find out Stephen Sluder over at Slu's World has awarded me the Versatile Blogger Award! Thanks Slu!

To accept my award, I must:

• Thank the person who awarded me (big shout-out to Slu!) and link back to his blog. 
• List seven random facts about myself. 
• Pass the award on to other, favorite, versatile bloggers and inform them! 

So, without further ado...seven facts about myself:

1. I have a weird sleeping schedule. I usually get super-tired and sleepy around 10 or 11 at night. I usually take a nap until around 1 or 2 a.m. and then I get up and do work until around 5:30 or 6 a.m. Then I'll go back to sleep for a few more hours. Take right now for example--this evening I slept until 2, got up to work out, played some intense plants vs. zombies and now I'm writing this blog post at 5:30 a.m.! (I promise I stay well-rested!)
2. I don't like blueberries. However, I like blueberry-flavored things. I will have a slice of blueberry pie just fine, but I will not put a solitary blueberry in my mouth. 
3. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë is my favorite book. It's the love story of two incredibly hate-able characters. Can you ask for more?
4. The only scar I have on my body is from pumpkin carving in the tenth grade. Sometimes I wish I had a better, generally more bad-ass story to tell. 
5. I take eyelash and 11:11 wishes very seriously. I swear that's how I got into college. 
6. Beauty and the Beast is my favorite Disney movie. Probably because of all the books. And Belle's dress. And Gaston's incredibly douchey character. 
7. Not a day goes by that I don't check people.com for any celebrity news. 

And I'd like to pass on the love and award Alina from Alina Loves and Haley from Hey Colleges Read This! Congratulations!

Hope your week is rockin'. I'll see you later. 

MD

links, randoms, and the general check-in

Oh, my goodness. Midterms are officially over for me, and I do consider myself one of the luckier ones because all my tests and essays are done with and I have a few days on campus to just chill out and enjoy these beautiful October mornings. (Forgive my sentence structure).

As fascinating as it was to research enclosure in 16th century England...

Just two more days of classes and I am on a train home for Yale's first-ever, in all of history, Fall Break.  The college was definitely needing some sort of break between August and November. I remember from last year that we were all super tired and just all-around burned-out. This will be a really nice time to see my family, catch up on reading, maybe make some pumpkin bread?, visit Target (my sanctuary) and maybe just maybe start the new season of Vampire Diaries.

I know. Super. Big. Plans.

But I really can't tell you how excited I am to see this guy:

Why can't we have dogs in dorms again? Anyway Harry wouldn't be able to handle the five floor walkup. I sometimes can't handle the five floor walkup. Stupid rooming draws. 

And now for some more random things that have been on my mind...

So, as I mentioned before, I'm in a big Disney mood since I bought my brother's birthday gifts. I now have my eye on this Sephora Cinderella eyeshadow palette. The names of the shadows--Glass Slipper, Pumpkin Coach, Drizella--are so cute.

Even though I am still in college and have quite a while to go, I really can't get enough of Jenny Blake's site, Life After College. There are so many great tools, resources and articles on how to achieve your goals, stay organized and be on top of your game (whatever game that may be). Definitely check out her post about awesome resources for new small business owners--I don't even know what I want to do with my life but this has definitely got me excited! :)

Last Friday I was honored to be invited to guest post on a friend Davis's blog, Find My Motivation. Davis posts every single day and he always has some new trick up his sleeve (literally! he's amazing at card tricks!) on how you can get motivated, set goals and succeed. You can find my post here.

We are just a few days away from the end of October and the official beginning of NaNoWriMo season! Now, I've never completed a National Novel Writing Month Challenge on my own before. In high school we had this awesome project where we each night one of us wrote the next chapter of an ongoing book. It made for one seriously funny but very confusing book but it was super fun. Now, I'm not even going to try right now to write a 50,000-word novel in a month. I do however want to honor this season of writing. A couple weeks ago I picked up 642 Things to Write About. So maybe I'll do a prompt a day? One of my goals is to start writing regularly, so while this doesn't seem much, accomplishing this would actually feel pretty cool for me. Maybe at the end of the month I'll post some highlights of my writing-prompt adventure. :)

I really really want to start incorporating these fill-in-the-blank notices into my everyday life.

I recently joined LearnVest. Taking control of my finances has been something I've wanted to get serious about for quite some time. Because I'm a college student and still dependent on my parents, my finances are pretty straight forward--but that doesn't mean I can't make a budget for myself, or read up on money management.

happy weekend everyone! what are you all up to?

Election 2012

Hey guys!

So I did something exciting today. Like, really really exciting. For in the midst of writing essays and learning about the rods and cones of the visual system, I managed to carve out ten minutes of my day to fill out my absentee ballot application and send it along in the mail.

A lot of students at my school registered to vote here in New Haven. I decided I'd rather vote with an absentee ballot. Though I regret my first time voting won't be in person at an actual voting machine, I did want to mark this occasion as a registered voter in my home state New York. :)

I can't tell you how excited I am to vote in my first presidential election. Voting is something that too many of us--especially us younger generation--take for granted.

Are you ready to vote? Are you registered? If yes, awesome! If no, why not? The way I see it, I really can't argue against the idea that one vote doesn't make a difference. However, when you think of it in context, in which millions and millions of Americans have this "my vote won't matter" mindset, then it's quite hard to believe their votes collectively "won't matter."

Do any of you have fun election-night plans? I'm so happy to be experiencing this election on a college campus--it makes for a unique atmosphere.

Life Update: It's October!

...and I'm very much aware that's it's October in your lives, too, but I just wanted to mention how excited I am that it's the start of October. Fall and winter are by far my favorite seasons and October gives this time of year a wonderful kick-off.

Some fall-y things I can't wait to do...

1. carve a pumpkin 

2. make my first pot of hot chocolate. 

maybe this time I'll use real chocolate and not the powder....

3. start layering like a pro. scarves, tights, boots, cardigans, jackets. 

I already bought a new scarf to add to my extensive collection at home. I can't seem to stop myself. 

4. lighting our first fire. 

5. walking through fallen leaves. 

6. halloween decorating! 

I should totally find some ways to vamp (haha...) up my dorm somehow. for now I content myself with ogling all the fun halloween-y things at Rite Aid. 

7. watch a scary movie. any recommendations?

{source}

in other news...

currently thinking: about all these papers I have to write for the end of the week!
currently listening: to Taylor Swift's Red and Begin Again. still forming my opinion...but I can't wait for the album to come out.
currently wearing: tights! first time I'm wearing a skirt and tights this season. It's definitely getting colder here in CT, and darker during the night.
currently wondering: how I'm going to stay awake tonight.
currently wishing: it is two weeks from now. that way midterms and papers would be over with and October break would be starting up in a couple days.
currently smiling: about seeing my family this weekend!
currently eating: lots and lots of reese's peanut butter cups. it's embarrassing.
currently waiting: for my brother's birthday gifts to arrive. I ordered a bunch of disney classics, seeing as we never really replaced the ones we had on video. he's going to love them. meanwhile, I came across this today--concept art from some disney classics. they really are beautiful and make me look at the stories in a totally different way. my favorite ones are those from Cinderella, Peter Pan and Alice in Wonderland.

so I'm doing that productivity thing where I work 25 minutes and chill for 5 (the pomodoro technique via focus booster), so I'm writing this blog post during these five minute intervals over the course of 2937850 hours. In all though I think the technique is working...I think.

anyway, back to school work. my five minutes are up.

happy Monday everyone!