Last week, my friend Katie and I went to Newport, RI for the day to celebrate the end of the school year. I've never been to Rhode Island before but Katie's from a town really close to Newport so we went to her house for dinner. I loved walking around the town all day. We had beautiful weather (possibly the only day in weeks that it didn't rain even a little) and there were not many other tourists because it was a week day. Seeing all the mansions made me feel like I was walking around in an Edith Wharton book. Since she's basically my favorite author it was a dream come true. It's amazing that all of these huge houses were only summer homes for the rich.









On the weekend I went to Arnold Arboretum. As far as large areas filled with just trees go, it was a really fun place. The Arboretum was established when a whaling merchant named James Arnold died in 1872 and left a ton of money to Harvard to build a habitat that would house "as far as practicable, all the trees [and] shrubs . . . either indigenous or exotic, which can be raised in the open air." And although I'm not sure that Mr. Arnold's dream has been realized just yet, the arboretum is massive and uses a computerized tracking system to keep record of the name and origin of every plant on the 265 acres (there's something like 15,000 trees, shrubs, and vines!). Professors do research there all the time and we went on a (surprisingly) fun tour with one. After that we ate a really yummy dinner in Chinatown.



I'm glad that I'm finally doing some of the boston things that I haven't done over the past year. I've felt pretty ashamed of being here so long and only doing things when people came to visit. I plan to do a lot more (including the Duck Tour with or without you (e:Mike)) over the summer!!

Graduation is on Thursday and it is supposed to be 56 degrees with a 70% chance of rain. How unlucky!

I can't watch the Sabres tonight because I don't have OLN but I think that the National Spelling Bee Championship, which is happening at the same time, is probably just as exciting. I can't believe what these kids can do. I've only gotten three words right and there have been at least 20... not that I'm really surprised. I remember when we used to have spelling bees at Hoover. First we would compete in our class and then all the classes would come together in the Community Room and parents would be invited to watch the "championship." It wasn't really hard to get to the championship so my first year in Hoover (3rd grade when we moved to Kenmore) I got to the last round. Having to stand in front of all of the parents and all of the kids in my grade freaked me out so bad that I totally stopped breathing. From that point all the way through the spelling bees at Kenmore Middle, I would intentionally spell the first word wrong so that I could sit and not be nervous for the rest of the time. I give these kids so much credit for dealing with all the pressure of being on tv and put on the spot. I have literally been tearing up every time someone misses a word. They are so cute when they know they don't know the words. After asking all of the allowed questions (definition, origin, etc) one child even asked, "and how do you spell that?" He had a good sense of humor for someone who was out. Also, one tense moment was when the judges actually had a word spelled wrong and they rang their little bell to signify a girl was out. In reality, she spelled the word right and they had it wrong so she had to be "reinstated." How crazy! There are only 5 left right now. I will be watching until the end.

I'm feeling so awful today. First my roommate is coming back tomorrow after being gone for three glorious weeks. I knew it couldn't last forever but I have this feeling of dread. It's been so peaceful without her here. Now she's going to be around all the time because she dropped one of her summer classes (two classes was one too many apparently) so she'll be out of the apartment for a total of 4 hours a week. Thank God I have a job!

I also found out that I didn't do well on my applied linear regression final. It was a group project but my partner took the class for satisfactory credit so I ended up doing almost all of it. Still, I thought we were going to do okay. In the end we got a B/B+ (they only give grade ranges at my school) which is basically like a D/D-. Just to give some perspective, my partner would not have gotten credit for the class if we received half a grade lower. Anyway, the comments on the paper were the worst part. We had to include the program code for the data analysis but I didn't include all of the sub-programs (if that's even what they're called ) because they said they didn't want "the diary" of our analysis. Apparently they meant they didn't want that in the paper portion. So even though our model was okay, the grader assumed we didn't do all these extra steps. In the end his/her comments were so brutal because they were laced with sarcasm. I would never have written such means things to someone even if I thought they spent two minutes on their work. I mean it was a 25 page data analysis!

I've had this horrible sick feeling in my stomach all day because I feel like I've failed. This was a really important class and I've worked so hard this term to learn this stuff. I'm not smart enough to get it I guess. I'm just ashamed of my work and myself and I hate that feeling so much.

Sometimes I worry that I am wasting my time going to school for so long. Like maybe I am being super self-indulgent because I like school and instead I should just be getting a job and contributing something to the world. I used to convince myself that I wouldn't get a good job if I didn't stay in school but that seems less and less realistic. My boyfriend has an exceptional job and he has a bachelor's degree and is still finishing his master's (in a field unrelated to his job nonetheless!). He gets paid a lot and works with really nice people, and most importantly, he is not mooching off of his parents anymore. I wish I could say the same thing :( I work and go to school but it definitely doensn't cover the bills. I hope that my degree ends up being worth all of the money and time put into it. I better do something really good when I am finally done with school in four years!

When I was younger, maybe about 8 yrs old, I saw a sitcom with a woman who was agoraphobic on it. She hadn't left her apartment for 20 years, there were huge piles of newspapers, and she didn't know anything about the world outside (she knew about current events, but not trends or anything like that). Even though this wasn't such a realistic portrayal of an agoraphobic, I remember thinking, even at that young age, 'wow, I could totally end up like that.'

My reason for bringing this up is that this weekend I barely left my apartment. I know it's bad to stay in all the time- I don't even enjoy it- but sometimes if there is no one around to do things with and I don't NEED to go out, I just stay in as much as possible. It's a really bad, depressing habit and after weekends like this, I make myself nervous. I start to actually get afraid of going outside, maybe not afraid but more like a sense of dread about it. It's kind of like when you know you could go to a party but you just think it's going to be awful even though every time you go to one you have a really good time. Has anyone ever had that feeling? If you just jump that first hurdle and go, then everything ends up going well. The thing is, when I'm alone I don't really have anyone motivating me to jump that hudle so I just end up staying in. And of course, like any truly unhealthy habit, it builds on itself. Once I'm in for one day then it's even harder to go out the next day- all the while, I feel more depressed at the thought of how long I've been inside. What an unpleasant cycle!

Anyway, it's a good thing that I almost always have something I need to do each day or someone to call when I'm bored.I don't have a problem doing things by myself when they have to be done, but doing things alone will never be my preference. I wish I was a more independent person. I guess as long as I force myself to do the things I need to do, I don't really have to worry too much about becoming a shut-in... I hope. I think what this all boils down to is that I need to come home where I have a few friends left OR they should all come here. Yes, that was an open invite.

P.S. It's been raining for a million days in a row... really, who would want to go out in this weather!