Teenage Dream

I love "Teenage Dream" by Katy Perry. I'm sure it will get old and annoying in a few weeks, but right now it's all that I'm listening to. I don't even really like Katy Perry that much, I mean she's creative and has pretty good songs, but she's nothing special to me. Also I really don't like "California Girls," it's really annoying so I'm holding that against her. Plus everyone knows that Pennsylvania girls are better.





I've heard back from the British Consulate, apparently they've received everything I sent them and they're going to contact me in a few days. Hopefully that goes well.

 In the mean time, I've been trying to figure out my classes. I'm signed up for Nations and Nationalism (psc) and Building the American Nation (history). The two English classes that I signed up for aren't available to me at the moment because I didn't apply to QM as an English major. I'm trying to switch that all around. I'm also trying to figure out if it'll all work out for me to major in English, minor in Political Science and Spanish and get a concentration in Writing & Rhetoric.

Today I had the day off so I went shopping with my mom and bought a black DKNY trench coat today from Macy's. It's so cute, it has the double breasted buttons, a collar, and it's three-quarter length. No hood though :( I also go a black Etinne Aigner purse today to take, but I talked to AR and she said I could borrow her Coach one that she took to Paris.

I'm leaving 3 weeks from today!


MB

Relief

Great news. Friday morning my CAS number came in an email. Now that I think of it, I haven't thanked them for sending it to me. I should do that. I wrote a little note to the NY Visa Team and sent it to them the same day. They should get it by Tuesday at the latest and I'll be home free for my Visa. Thank God!!! It's such a relief.

Now I'm just running around buying last minute items that I want to take. Today I bought a pair of Sperry's, Topsider Bluefish, from Journey's Kidz. http://www.journeys.com/kidz/product.aspx?id=69966&c=1261&m=SM They're so cute and really comfortable. I have a fake pair that I wore a lot last year, they're brown and pink. I'm worried about what to wear with them though. If I don't wear socks, I know my feet will sweat really badly, because they do with my other boatshoes. But wearing them with socks looks so lame. We'll see how things go in London.

I'm also trying to find a rain coat, but it's not working so well. My dream one is beige, three quarter length, has big buttons, a collar, a belt, and a hood. I haven't been able to find one like that yet. The closest I've found is from H&M, it's so cute http://www.hm.com/us/#/startns/. Also everything is so expensive! The H&M one is $34.95, but today in Macy's I tried on one that was $99.

Yesterday my dad bought me a plane ticket to go to and from school so I can visit everyone after Labor Day. My friends moved in to their awesome new apartments yesterday and they were calling and texting me all night. I miss them a lot! I can't wait to go visit, and I'm really excited to live in the apartments in the spring.

I came across part of The Wasteland the other day and I started reading it again. I wrote a whole paper about the word "violet" in the poem, but I can't even remember which passage I used. Right now I really like this part from A Game of Chess: 

Footsteps shuffled on the stair.
Under the firelight, under the brush, her hair
Spread out in fiery points
Glowed into words, then would be savagely still.
  'My nerves are bad to-night.  Yes, bad.  Stay with me.
'Speak to me.  Why do you never speak.  Speak.
  'What are you thinking of? What thinking? What?
'I never know what you are thinking.  Think.'
  I think we are in rats' alley 115
Where the dead men lost their bones.
  'What it that noise?'

 The wind under the door. 118
'What is that noise now?  What is the wind doing?'
 Nothing again nothing. 
   'Do
'You know nothing?  Do you see nothing?  Do you remember
'Nothing?'
 I remember.
Those are pearls that were his eyes.
'Are you alive, or not? Is there nothing in your head?'

MB 

Update

Nothing new has really happened, so I guess there's no update. I keep emailing the adviser at Queen Mary, I'm sure he's really annoyed with me. He forwarded my emails to Admissions and told me that I have plenty of time. Comforting. Not.

EK is leaving for Switzerland in a week and all of my friends are moving into their apartments at school this weekend. I'll still be here for another month, struggling to figure out my Visa, cleaning buggy bathrooms, and yelling at snobby little kids. A month from now I'll be in London, I'll have arrived at Heathrow almost 12 hours ago. I wonder what the jet lag will be like. I wonder how I'll like my room. I wonder how I'll get my three large suitcases in and out of the airports by myself.

My parents are really mad at me about this Visa thing so I've been trying to occupy myself with other things. I've been following my school on Victoria's Secret religiously (http://www.vspink.com/pink_collegiate/school_spirit.jsp) so that they'll endorse my school and make some apparel. I've also been watching Greek and Bachelor Pad and skyping with tons of people. Anyway hopefully this gets figured out tomorrow!

MB

Please God

If there's a God out there, He will make sure that the British Consulate doesn't deny my Visa and that Queen Mary sends me my CAS tomorrow.

I don't think I've ever prayed so much in my life.

MB

This is so complicated!

Alright, this Visa process is really absolutely ridiculous.

The NY Visa Team emailed me and told me they were going to refuse my Visa if I didn't send them my CAS, original birth certificate, and financial documents within the week. I emailed Queen Mary and told them I needed the CAS now, and the guy in charge, Harry, is on vacation. So I emailed the next person, Ceri (who I thought was a woman, but apparently Ceri is a man's name oops), and he said he sent the stuff to the admissions office and I should have it by this week.

Anyway, the Visa office doesn't have a phone number I can call, unless I want to pay $3/minute for a phone call. So I emailed them and explained to them the situation. I've been looking through my emails and LC, my study abroad officer, had sent me some things about getting everything together in order, but because I applied to late I was confused about everything because I didn't really get to talk to LC that much in person.

Oh my gosh this is complicated.

I just redid my resume and submitted it to EUSA in London format (I guess US resumes aren't in the right format?) so my application for my internship is complete. I'm going to get a background check for that in a few hours.

I really don't know what I'm going to do if the NY Visa Team refuses my Visa before I get them all of my information. This is absolutely awful and a huge mess. My mom also wants me to email my adviser at school and ask her if my Visa gets denied and I can't go, how do I register for classes this fall and everything. Can you imagine? What if I'm moving into school this weekend? That won't happen though.

Speaking of messes, my room is a mess. Since I'm only going to take two or three suitcases, we've been cleaning out my basement that has all of my stuff from college and putting the stuff into my bedroom. Clothes and boxes are everywhere.

Today is my mom's birthday and it's totally stressing her out that I have to do all of this stuff, I wish I would have understood what I had to do and I would've had this done already.

Oh and I called off work today to get all of this stuff done, so hopefully I actually get it done.

The people from Glimpse emailed me and said there were so many applications that they need another week to review them. That's not a good sign for me, I don't think I really have a chance because they're probably looking to have correspondents from the East or Africa, rather than London.

Here's one of my pictures I submitted for Glimpse, I took it in the South Side:

Hopefully this is all resolved soon. I emailed the NY Visa Team twice, I hope they reply today.

MB

Lovelier Than You

I'm a happy girl today. After a long day of work (tearing up and cleaning gross moldy bathroom floors) I came home to a bouquet of flowers on my dining room table. PC sent me flowers, with a tag that said "Welcome home :)" Definitely made my day, and my week.

Aren't surprises the best? Especially flowers. It's so sweet to know that someone is thinking of you. He picked them out specifically for me . Here's what they look like:

Apparently pink roses have a special meaning too, which is why he picked them out for me. According to ProFlowers, pink roses primarily represent elegance, light hearted love, and refinement, as well as communicating thanks and admiration. They're so pretty and I'm so happy he sent them to me.

PC also introduced me to "Lovelier Than You" by B.o.B. and now I'm obsessed with this song. I always like B.o.B. a lot though.




Get more pearls, get more flowers... same thing, they both make me smile.

MB

Are you ready for some football?

All I have to say is, it's August 14th. At 7:30 pm tonight, I will be a very happy girl. It's insane how much I love football and how excited I am for the season to start, even if it is only preseason.

I love the Steelers. I love football. I'm so excited.

Trying to relax

Welcome to Washington, DC. Technically, I'm in Springfield, Va right now, but it's close enough. I'm staying with my aunt for a few days. After my trip to LBI with KA, AI and CE, I went to Avalon, Nj with my friend PC. I stayed at his house for two days and then went to school for newspaper. (I was such a model this weekend, I'm going to be in three or four photos in the orientation magazine.) I took a train from 30th St to Union Station on Tuesday and got mexican food for dinner with my aunt last night. Today we got pedicures and manicures (I'm so ticklish, I'm surprised I survived it) and went swimming.
I love it here and I love the DC area. Georgetown was one of my top choices when I was looking at schools because I love this area so much. Maybe I'll go to school down here after graduation, for either law or grad school.

My parents and sister were visiting colleges in the area so they stopped here today. They took tours at William & Mary and University of Richmond. CR says she liked U of Richmond a lot. We ate crabs tonight and just relaxed.

My parents are leaving tomorrow and my sister and I are staying until Friday. I think I want to go to a museum tomorrow...it's too hot to be outside. I think it got up to 105 degrees today. I'm thinking Smithsonian Institution | National Museum of Natural History, but I'll have to talk to CR she's a little picky.

Tomorrow night we're going to the Nationals game, they're playing the Marlins. My aunt got box seats from her friend, I think it'll be pretty fun.

In other news, relating to London, I'm screwed. I'm an idiot. I submitted my Visa to the New York office without getting a CAS number from Queen Mary, so the Visa office can't accept my Visa until they get a CAS number. The problem with that is that in order to get a CAS number, Queen Mary needs a copy of my passport. I sent my passport to the office in New York with my Visa application. Like I said I'm an idiot.
Luckily, my dad is on top of things and made a copy of my passport already so I'm going to have to do all of that on Friday when I get home. Hopefully Queen Mary will be quick and the Visa office will wait for my CAS number and not refuse my Visa.

Also, I've been talking to my aunt and parents and bad news: I'm only taking 2-3 suitcases to London full of clothes and shoes and that's it. What am I going to do without my million pairs of shoes? This is gonna be rough and I don't even like clothes that much.

Anyway so hopefully I get things figured out with my Visa because that's way more important that clothes and shoes. I'm almost done with my EUSA application for my internship. My first choice was journalism, second law and third was broadcasting. If my Visa gets denied though I won't be doing any of the three. Good thing I procrastinate all the time. So stressful.

Take care,
MB

Atlantic Odyssey

On Saturday I started my Atlantic Odyssey - my journey along the east coast. I flew to Boston on Saturday afternoon, where I met EA, EK, and KA at the airport. We drove to the Cape, EA has a house there, and stayed there until Sunday night. The Cape was so pretty! It's pretty different from other beaches I've been too, it just was so clean. EK took about 400 pictures over the weekend with her fancy camera. On Monday we went into Boston for the day. We walked along Newbury St and went shopping. I didn't remember Boston at all from the last time I was there. It was so colonial looking, pretty cool.

Monday night EK, KA and I left and drove to EK's house to drop her off and get KA's car. Then we went to KA's house in Staten Island. Staten Island is the weirdest place I've ever been, it seemed like another country or something. That night we drove down the street to a bagel place (there were 500 bagel places there, no wonder KA loves bagels) and there were all these guys just hanging out in a parking lot listening to music and motorcycles everywhere. We went into the shop and the accents basically smacked me in the face, it was insane. I'm glad we got bagels though :)
KA's family is hilarious and her mom has the greatest accent ever. I'm getting so good at imitating it.

Tuesday we went into the city yayyy. We took a bus from Staten Island and through Brooklyn. We got off near Rockefeller Center and basically just wandered around until we found the four story Forever 21 in Times Square. Of course, we were both in love. Anyway, after that we got some pizza and went to Kleinfelds to watch KA's aunt try on wedding dresses because she's getting married in April. The store was gorgeous and I fell in love with at $23,500 wedding dress. I also got to meet all of KA's female relatives. That took a while, and then we met my friend MM in the city after she was done with work. We all went to dinner with KA's family (mom, dad, brother, and sister) and it was sooo good. After, MM went home to Connecticut and KA and I stopped by her sister's apartment on 1st ave.
I can't wait to live in my own apartment. I'm sure I'll be really annoyed with all of the responsibilities that come along with living without your parents, but I'm still looking forward to it. Also, I would really love to live in DC or NYC. I've been in love with DC since I was younger and went to visit my aunt every Easter, and I've been in love with NYC since I went there for the newspaper conference in February. I really want to go to law/grad school in one of those two cities.

Today KA, her mom and I drove to Long Beach Island. We stopped on the way to go shopping and got here around 5pm. Our friend CE is here to visit too! We all took a walk on the beach, ate dinner and went out for ice cream. We went to an ice cream place called Show Place where they make different people sing or dance, or something like that. I was the one from our table that got picked and my great singing voice had to entertain the crowd. The crowd loves me though, obviously.

My friends and I have been talking about some good movies that are coming out soon: Charlie St. Cloud, Eat Pray Love, Going the Distance, and Easy A. I just saw Salt last week and it was soooo good. Also, I'm in love with Zac Efron, he's too cute, so I definitely want to see Charlie St. Cloud. Easy A looks hilarious, I love the Scarlet Letter reference, that's a great book.

Beach tomorrow! Hope for sunny weather!
MB