It's Andy...remember me?

Hi, my name is Andy Bockus, if you don't remember me. I graduated with you in May. 

Since then, I've visited Emily's camp in Maine (it was an excellent time, thank you), chased 3 and 4-year-olds around for 3 weeks at the Skidmore ECC, house-sat for the Freys and polished off Steve's fabled "man-fridge", moved in and out of an apartment in a victorian house on Union Ave across the street from the aunt's old house, visited the Seattle Space Needle, climbed a frozen mountain in the Cascades, ate real Chinese food...(inhale if you're reading this outloud)... spent a night nursing Meredith off a fever in beautiful Victoria, British Columbia, got stuck in a shitty part of Atlanta overnight, purchased a Mac, saw Indiana Jones, and ultimately spent more money than I can imagine making in the next five years.

I'm currently in Carlisle, PA, about 20 miles outside of Harrisburg begining my summer job at the Center for Talented Youth (nerd camp). I'm naturally TA-ing for chemistry. The program is six weeks long. I've been here for two days and I'm already not toooooo fond of the place. Alcohol, sarcasm, and...fun, basically, are strictly prohibited. Mer and I are having a difficult time being apart (I don't need to go into this. I'm sure most of you have suffered the same ills). 

Since I probably won't use this blog for another 10 years or so, based on my past record of keeping in touch, I'll spell out the rest of my summer for you. I return to Saratoga Springs on August 10 and will stay there until the 14th. If you'd like to visit and celebrate Meredith's b-day with us, perhaps I can help with sleeping arrangements. On that weekend, Lizzie listen up, my family and I are visiting the Vineyard. Then two weeks of packing and off to China with two people who are intent on making my life a living hell.

Take care,

-Andy 

Leah - Update

So I thought I would update seeing as though I hardly ever do and it seems to be the trend nowadays. Today I'm "working" at SU...getting paid to update the blog (and shred some paper and make some booklets). So far in the minimal assignments I was given, I have killed the booklet making machine and ran out of magenta printer ink and now I have nothing to do. Good thing this doesnt happen at my other job! haha

So speaking of the vet job..things are becoming much less awkward with my coworkers (we are going to eat some pizza tonight) and I'm learning a lot. I even successfully wrangled a mini-lion the other day. We mostly get in dogs and cats but we did get in a pig about a week ago so that was interesting. My days go by quickly and I'm hardly ever bored, so I have nothing to complain about. Next week I get Thursday and Friday off so Tony and I are off to his cottage in Canada on Wednesday after work. I'm very much looking forward to that.

I am also in the process of debating with myself about moving out of my house. Ariel still doesnt have a job (but does have a few prospects!) and she feels that she wont be able to or want to move out until later in the fall (which is totally understandable just a bummer for me). And if my plans of going to grad school go through (I keep telling myself that I AM going so that I don't flake out and never go), I wont be able to start renting a house after August (because of year-long leases and my having to go to grad school potentially next August). Therefore, I either need to find my own apartment or stay home for a year or so longer. I am looking at 2 studios (one today in the SU area and one next week right across the street from my work), but I am also wondering if it is even worth it. Think of all the money I could save! (but then I also think of my boring routine of going home to my bedroom every night feeling like I'm a 10th grader...also, in an apartment, I could have a cat at least...even a dog maybe!) Thoughts anyone?

So I'm glad we have this blog...I miss you all tremendously! Those of you we haven't heard from lately, update us!

Love, Leah

Emily- sorry I forgot to put my name in the heading!

life update...

hi everyone- quick update on my life!

First of all- I'm so excited Cait has a job, and we're going to get to see each other like all the time! I have a feeling I will need someone to get a strong drink with on Friday nights....

I went to NYC last week and made my job official. I got to see my classroom and was given several tote bags full of very heavy books that I have to read this summer so I can plan my year. I sort of feel that I don't know what I'm doing, even though I spent four years preparing for this!

I also found out I have 31 students in my class. ummmm yeahhhh... My favorite name on the class list is Justice Jones.

I am going to be living with Kasey Loeffel in Brooklyn, she is in NY for the summer and is looking at places for us and I'm going down for the 4th of July weekend to look at places with her and hopefully stay at Cait's!

I'm also working at Maine Audubon after all- they convinced me to stay! I don't have as much free time as I would like to work on finding a place to live and preparing to move in August but I do love working there!

Wedding Update: My friend Halley's bachelorette party ended up being at Denny's with two other annoying friends of hers I didn't know. While at this "party" I finally found out where she met her fiance. Myspace. yeahhhh... The whole wedding has turned into a big pain in my ass and I now understand why my parents got married in their living room and were done with the whole thing. I am definitely not a wedding person!

Glad to hear you are all doing well! Keep the updates coming!

Caitlin - The Real World - Starting Monday

So I start work on Monday, and I just got a little surprise about one particular aspect of the job.

I got an email from T. Lewis saying that he wrote a reference letter for me. To which he adds, "how funny, that's my publisher. We should be seeing quite a bit of each other."

So I am, by extension, his publicist.

Graduated, miles away, working, and yet...still doing bitch work for professors.

Lizzie-Argentina #3

So, I was pretty psyched that I didn’t die while doing parapentes, although my friends and family there were trying to convince me to just stay forever and one of them volunteered to call my boss and my family here saying I died doing parapentes and would never be returning. I contemplated it.

During the other days I walked around a lot and went shopping of course. I bought some lovely leather boots, a leather bag and a purple shiny leather wallet. See pictures below. Mainly they are pictures for Claire because I feel she would appreciate them the most, hehe.

So as I told Gretchen, there was a day without water so I went to my friend Paula’s house to take a shower and I bought bottle water so we could drink mate. My last night in Mendoza I went to my friend Celeste’s house in San Martin, which is like 45 minutes outside the city. Anabel went with me so we took a bus in our “going out” clothes. We went to a bar and then went dancing at a not-so-nice, kinda sketchy dance club. It was still really fun because we didn’t have to pay to get in, AND they gave us free jello shots at the door. Although they weren’t really shots because it was in bowls and they gave us spoons, so that was exciting. They played a spice girls song that made me happy.

So, at the beginning of the night I made a goal of making out with someone by the end of the night. I spent a great deal of the night flirting with a guy name Raul, who was short but cute. But, he was a little dense and didn’t get it. So I was dancing with some other guys and another one came up to me. I introduced myself and he said he had already met me and that he was a friend of Raul, haha ooops I didn’t remember. Then I danced with him, he told me “me caso con vos, me caso con vos” (I’m gonna marry you) haha and I told him I’m not getting married for 10 years and he starts telling me that I’m the perfect kind of girl to marry, blah blah blah. So whatever I made out with him and Raul was right next to us. But then this guy kept asking me what his name was, like he was quizzing me or something and I didn’t remember/didn’t care, so I kept changing the subject or kissing him to shut him up, ahahah.

Then I went to Buenos Aires for a few days and hung out with my two friends, who actually both happen to be named Valeria. I went to the birthday party of a friend of a friend’s and met some really really fun people. We went to a really sketch dance club, they patted down the guys when we entered, but we still had a great time. I was teaching them all the classic dance moves, such as the sprinkler, the shopping cart, the lawn mower etc. I met a guy who looks like Jake Gyllenhaal. There was this bald chubby guy named Gabriel who was with us with the birthday party and we had a GREAT time making fools of ourselves and dancing ourselves silly. At one point some guy we didn’t know came up to me and started spinning me around and dancing it was so fun. And, there were many “Lizzie sandwiches” aka two boys surrounding me and dancing. Pictures will go up soon.

And now I am home. I didn’t get as upset this time when I left Argentina. I think it’s because I know I will go back someday. I told all my friends they have to plan out their weddings together and agree to each get married once a year that way I can go back every year (of course this is assuming I will have the money). Otherwise they have to all get married in one weekend.

I miss you all a lot. I think I finally sent in my last medical test results and whatnot to the Peace Corps today. So, I guess it might be a few weeks now for them to look over everything. I’m thinking the program in Africa that leaves in September must be full by now so I’d probably leave later and maybe go somewhere else. Of course I will let you all know the moment I get any news.

Gretchen - The Modern World

So I just thought that I would update since I haven't in a while. I'm not actually sure if I have even updated since I moved in to my new place. If you haven't seen the pictures of my apartment they are on facebook!

Basically, my apartment has been amazing, except for some crazy things that have happened in the last week or two. Within the span of these 14 days, Ben and I have lost electricity twice, cable and internet twice or three times, and water once. The water was gone for a day. The cable and internet was gone for a day and a half. The electricity was gone for a half of a day. AND they were all gone at separate times! It was so crazy, but it had nothing at all to do with our apartment itself, just really random things (thunderstorms, water main breaks, construction, etc.) However, the electricity outage is the most exciting because I was almost a part of it. I was walking to work last week and I walked underneath an electric pole right outside our apartment and it blew up! There were sparks and a HUGE explosion noise. A man was underneath it, but he was okay. I have no idea why this happened, but it was quite crazy. As of now, all of our utilities have been figured out (*knock on wood*); we have cable, internet, electricity, air-conditioning, and water all at once! :)

My job is also going well. My job puts the new recruits in the call center as the first stop on their rotation through the practice. Let me tell you, I get some crazy questions called in. For example, one woman called in because her neighbor's puppy has kennel cough, and she wanted to know if she could carry the kennel cough germs to her best friend's sister's newborn baby. (I asked Leah if she knew anything about this later in the day, but we just told the woman to either call a vet or a pediatrician! We are OB/GYN!) Another woman was so paranoid that she had HIV, which is understandable if you have been exposed. However, the only thing she did was borrow her friend's earrings, and the friend didn't have HIV nor was the friend ever exposed to it as far as she knew! (However, I think this woman has anxiety which causes her to fret over such things)

Next week I start rotation in the lab where I will be doing mostly paperwork at first. Then, I think I will be testing urine for UTIs eventually. How exciting! ahha.

Anyways, I miss you all! Come to DC whenever! We have one futon and negligible floor space for sleeping-bags. (and there is always the bath tub!)