the girls -- aka TL and Kim from France -- have arrived! Kooby and I went out to Logan tonight to pick them up! It was soooo exciting! The girls are staying at my place the first week and with Kristen for the second week... so we took the long T ride home to my place and hauled the luggage up the seven flights of public stairs before hauling them up the next two to my floor! It was an extremely interesting 'intro' i suppose to Boston for them.

They have arrived just in time, also, for a true NE (New England, not Nebraska) style Nor'easter -- which is expected to be full-on ranging on Monday -- MARATHON MONDAY! I'm actually living near the marathon route this year -- so I'm going to go out and see part of it at least and cheer people on -- I doubt I'll be out to cheer on the leaders and I'm nearly definitely not going to go to Copley Square! I can't handle that much crowd! In fact, I'm hoping to go to Salem at some point on Monday to see the Yin Yu Tang house as it's supposedly going to be my basis for my comparison paper in Design Principles -- if I ever make it up there!

In other news, well there isn't much -- i'm so excited for my upcoming trip to France, especially now the girls are here and i'm really excited for my federal tax refund (I'm 99% sure I did them right) to pay for my trip to France!! yay educational tax credits! Revolution season is up and running though I had to turn down going to tonight's game b/c I wouldn't have made it to Logan in time to meet the girls! And finally, for tonight anyways, the boy is still on the island in a strong way -- (please don't worry, I'm not falling for this boy) but he's definitely in my life and it's kind of interesting. you may feel free to live vicariously through me ;)

oh so my day was a weird day -- woke at the boy's, spend the morning there, was going to go to Salem today but umm, cough cough, missed my train -- had had a call from Joe (classmate) earlier in the day inquiring what i was doing -- so I stayed at the boy's a bit longer and then left to go home and work and instead phoned Joe while out doing errands and met him for food and then ice cream (coffee in his caffiene-addicted case) before running home long enough to change bags and heading to Logan. The reason I spent time with Joe is b/c I know he has about three friends in Boston still and his long-time (like four years) girlfriend and he are splitting up and she's moving back to PA though not until the end of the month -- so he's spending a ton of time away from the apartment and he was bored today... it's really an insane situation and scares the crap out of me that a relationship can go so bad ... I'm so sad for him.... and yet professionally his life is going in such a good direction.

ok so that's enough randomness about other people and vague randomness about my day :) Friday was awesome b/c I got this kick-ass Pink Panther fold-n-mail letter from Iowa!! (wish me luck all with the next two weeks as I go beyond calm while attempting to balance friends, work, classes and homework!)

hmmm long time no blog.... yeah

so last week was the first week back after break and to paraphrase my thoughts and a fellow BACer -- i almost wish we hadn't had a break, i needed it but it really broke my momentum

just a quick update, as i have -- as ever -- homework (suprisingly (HA -- not!) studio)

the boy is back on the island. yes, pheebee officially chastised me and threatened to throw me off her island. however, this is for fun and so pheebee can live vicariously ;)

studio is driving me insane -- correction, the instructors infuriate me on a regular basis anymore and i'm in serious need of some solution that allows me to come to terms with the fact that they are in charge of my grade for this course -- but i'm doing my best to keep some perspective on the whole situation (though that does mean I did get a wild hair of an idea involving transferring to 'another' school... maybe more later...)

i also added autoCAD 2d to my courses -- paid some more tuition and (insanely?) upped my number of courses hours from 11 to 12 a week, and my homework by another three. i now take autoCAD (4-7pm) and design principles (7.15-10.15) on Mondays, studio (7.15-10.15) on Wednesdays and perspective drawing (7.15-10.15) on Thursdays; have got somewhere around 15-20 hours studio homework, 3-4 hours perspective homework, 3 hours principles homework, and nearly 3 hours of autoCAD (i do the additional exercises when i can squeeze them in) in a week -- there that's my busier-than-thou speech for the semester oh and somewhere in there i fit in 40 hours for a workweek... ... ...

angela and i are chatting out the details of our pending voyage en Europe in may -- i can't wait to be back!

nothing really exciting -- just the usual humdrum of a busy life of work, school, occasionally some sleep and now a boy

but this i know ... life is good

To finish, happy national poetry month

courtesy of Shea:

The Heart as Origami
-- Jane Hirschfield

Each one has its shape.

For love, two sleeping ducks.

For selfless courage, the war-horse.

For fear of death, the daylily's one-day flower.

More and more creased each year, worn paper thin,

and still it longs for them all.

Not one of the lives of this world the heart does not choose.