it's officially summer

Well readers, good news: it's officially SUMMER!!!

it's about time--this year flew by but this particular week dragged on miserably slowly.

I'm thrilled that it's summer! Now I can read whatever I want whenever I want! Yes!

Right now though my brain is totally fried. I just cleaned my whole apartment--the bathroom is spick and span, the kitchen is shining, and the carpets are freshly vacuumed (a real rarity around here) so everything is feeling nice and clean. What a great feeling to the end of a stressful and educational school year =)

Since everything's been so crazy this week, I don't really have photos.

Well that's not true. You see, Geoff and I are good at procrastinating together.

Luckily now I don't have to procrastinate because it's summer!!! Wahoooo!!!

The Buckeye Grove

I'm proud to be a Buckeye.

There are a lot of reasons why, but the point is, I'm proud to be a Buckeye.

Here at THE Ohio State University, we have something called "The Buckeye Grove," and it's a unique college football tradition. Every tree planted in the grove was planted to honor football players from our amazing university who have gone on to be football All-Americans.

There's something new this year on the Ohio State website (osu.edu) called "image of the day". This is really cool, because it's a place where students, staff, and alumni can upload images of their favorite spots on campus, or any cool Ohio State events...basically if it's somehow OSU-related, it can be posted.

Throughout this year, I've submitted several images, and they've been posted for the whole Buckeye community to enjoy.

Last night, I ventured to Buckeye Grove. I say ventured because it's by Ohio Stadium, which is kind of a trek. I can't believe I used to live on West Campus.

Anyway, so I was at Buckeye Grove, because I had been over at the Olentangy trying to capture some of the beautiful sunset that was happening.

One of my favorite sunset pictures from my time at the Olentangy

I never expected to get anything like this picture, but I guess I was just in the right place (Buckeye Grove) at the right time (sunset).

Buckeye Grove for the win:

Procrastination!

It's just after midnight Saturday night before finals week, and so naturally I'm not studying like I should be. Instead, I'm sitting at my kitchen table with two of my best friends, just jamming to some awesome tunes (what's up Elton John? Elephant Love Medley anyone? Maybe a little of Glee's Vogue?) and procrastinating. Tomorrow the roomsicle, Sam, is leaving for camp, which is sad. But to celebrate a pretty awesome year (and quarter and month and week and day) we made havdallah tonight. Havdallah helps us separate shabbat from the rest of the week, and tonight we kind of used it for that, and to symbolically separate the school year from summer (even though I've still got finals and such to take care of, classes are officially over, so it still counts). It was lovely! Havdallah is one of my absolutely favorite parts about being Jewish. I think it really helps to refresh me for what's coming up, and to help make what's already happened a special memory.

As I'm writing this the playlist just keeps getting better and better. Wow, the singalong is just out of control.

I've been spending a considerable amount of time at Thompson and the Ohio Union getting

work done and meeting up with people for a few more minutes of fun before we part for the summer. Sometimes, though, it's important to get off campus for a hot second. Today we visited Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams, one of my favorite favorite favorite places.

Also, despite the random storming and horrific humidity, the sky has been pretty ridiculously beautiful lately.

The other day, I got to hear an incredible story about one of my favorite people, Kasa. She's got an incredible personal history, and I feel so blessed to know her--sadly, she's

leaving after the summer to go home to Israel, but I know I'll see her soon anyway =) Here's her grandfather's bible, written in the Ethiopic language Ge'ez (SO COOL). This book is so old; it literally feels like holding a piece of ancient history. I love it. What a cool experience!

If anyone is looking for a particularly epic way to procrastinate, we watched King of Kong last night. Holy guacamole, that movie is so incredibly epic. You should watch it. Right now. No, seriously, go watch it.

In fact, to encourage you to watch that movie, that's how I'm ending this post.

Good luck on finals everyone!

May the Countdown to Summer Begin!

There's this band I used to listen to all the time called Brand New. I love their lyrics. They have this great song called "i will play my game beneath the spin light" full of great little quips, and one popped into my head this evening.

"i need the smell of summer; i need its noises in my ears"

It seems particularly appropriate. Right now, standing between me at a few months of sunshine and endless reading [for fun! the best kind] are the following notches on my to-do list:

1. turn in finalized art education paper
2. linguistics quiz and class
3. history presentation
4. linguistics final
5. hebrew final
6. history final

While it's still a lot to do, it's only six items. Lately I've been feeling like the list is 32857329821 items long, so it's nice to see that it's been condensed to six major things to do. Sure, there are other things to get done, like going away gatherings, tours to give, the apartment to clean, clothes to pack....whatever, that stuff will be fun. I can't believe it's already June first! I feel like it was just a few short weeks ago that I was getting ready to move into the apt and prepare for the high holy days...and here we are again! Almost summer!

Now, some of you might not know this (the blog is new, I haven't really actually shared much about myself just yet) but I am a HUGE Harry Potter fan. My friend sent me the link to this video earlier; it's of the stars of the movie getting a sneak peak of the theme park! I absolutely cannot wait to visit the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Bah!!!

Quickly before I go finish up some work before bed, here are some snapshots into the last couple of days.

The Meshuganotes gathered for an end-of-the-year bbq at Jaclyn's gorgeous home

I got to see Conan O'Brien (realized I never put up pictures from that, fail)

I did some exploring of North Campus

OKAY! That's it for now! Hasta la vista.

The end of the quarter is always so crazy.

Hello!

A lot of beautiful things have happened since Wednesday when I last posted.

There was a cool double rainbow over high street, which ruled.

Hillel hosted the end of year bbq, with live music, free food, and lots of awesome people!

My sister turned 12 and had a murder mystery birthday party, which was hilarious and awesome.

Okay other than those exciting things what's been going on...

Well, right now my eye is twitching because I haven't been sleeping enough. Fail. It's super annoying (both the not sleeping and the eye twitching). Yikes okay so since it's the end of the quarter everything is piling up (tests, quizzes, homeworks, group projects, the list is never-ending) but luckily summer is quickly approaching. This means spending time with friends and family at home and other places. It also means live music, something I've seriously been missing lately. It also means lots of great opportunities to practice photog!

Something good about it being the end of the quarter is that people are realizing how many swipes they have left, which basically means I've been eating FO FREE. That's awesome.

Thanks to everyone who has been willing to share with me =) A couple of days ago we went to Woody's at the U and then we went to "espress-OH" (insert eye roll here) where you can get seriously outrageous portions of gelato for swipes. Awesome!

I hope everyone has a wonderful Memorial day weekend! Personally, I am really looking forward to the Meshuganotes bbq tomorrow =)

I promise I didn't forget about my blog.

Shalom Chaverim! (for you who aren't Hebrews, or Shebrews for that matter, that means Hello Friends!)

I'm definitely trying to keep up with this blogging business, but as the school year comes to a close, it's becoming difficult to prioritize things that aren't research papers endless reading assignments brainless homework more reading and did i mention reading.

But I figure that since it's been since...what...last Thursday? It's time to update. In order to do that, I have to find my planner, because that's basically the only way I remember what things I did/have to do.

Alright so Friday was Meshuganote Shabbat, our last big concert of the quarter and also Axe's last actual concert (more on that later). So, for Shug Shabbat, we usually bust out a few new songs, get people excited about hearing us, all that jazz. This week our two awesome new jams were "Fix You" by Coldplay and, that's right ladies and gentlemen, "Party in the USA" by Miley Cyrus. Wow.

I'll just give you a second to let that sink in.

Yes. We really did perform "Party in the USA". In front of a live audience.

Jealous?

Okay so after the concert were the customary festivities (success! go shugs for keeping it class, you guys rule) and then brought Saturday....a WONDERFUL day to sleep in! And then travel to Cincinnati! While Shug Shabbat might be our last big concert at Hillel for the quarter, we actually had a really busy weekend. That basically means we got to go stay at my house and enjoy some home-cooked deliciousness and family fun time.

Here are Abie and Steph enjoying hamming it up for the D90.

Obviously Izzy and Lulu were thrilled to see me.

After a couple of performances and more food than should ever be consumed in so few hours...and a Jersey Shore marathon...the ladies headed back to Cbus. But the fun didn't stop there people! We headed not to campus but to Stephanie's beautiful home where we had, you guessed it, a delicious home-cooked meal! Now, after 8 long weeks of less than home-cooked meals (even when I cook for myself it just isn't the same) this was something we could really get used to. Possibly more exciting than the excess of food, though, was the beautiful weather. I had a blast exploring around Stephanie's yard; here's some evidence:

Amazing! That photo is completely un-edited, folks. Straight from the sensor. Gorgeous!

After leaving Steph's house and returning to the real world where a 6 page research paper (not too bad but still has to get done) and 20857208214 pages of reading awaited brought us to Monday, one of my marathon class days. After all of those classes came something really exciting: a night with Coco!

Yes, Conan was here at THE Ohio State University, and he was really delighted by our reflexive response to the prompt "O-H!" and he made us scream "I-O!" as many times as he could. Reggie Watts opened for him (I found him hilarious although the guys next to me were less than impressed) and then Coco continued what was one of the funniest nights ever. See my twitter for some highlights. This is a great example of why I love going to tOSU. I got to go FOR FREE to see Conan at the Schott with a bunch of people who appreciate humor and free things and OSU. Win! Also I think we saw like 12 different University Ambassadors while we were there/in our section (wi10 hiring class represented!) which was super exciting. It was like a mini-reunion! Again, see twitter for more deets.

Now we're finally caught up to today, or what was "today" until like 27 minutes ago. Tuesday. Apart from the usual (class, meeting, etc.) was something incredible: rainbows on a hot, sunny day! Yes, I said "rainbows" not "rainbow" because there were TWO! Wow!!!

You can see them in this picture from the Oval this afternoon! One is close to the top, the other is about halfway across.

This evening Geoff and I journeyed upstairs in the parking garage for a peak at a beautiful sunset, which made me feel like maybe the ridiculous amount of money I pay to park there might actually be worth something.

Geoff was so delighted he was jumping for joy.

Later on, Becca and Jacob and Melis came over to join us for GLEE! I loved it. Glee going Gaga....what a recipe for success!

Okay now all of my text is stuck being centered which is annoying but I'm too tired to fix it right now soooooo that's too bad.

I hope everyone enjoys the rest of the week! Hopefully the D90 and I can capture some more stunning moments for you all this week in the sunshine =)

recently!

Hey everyone! It's been a busy, busy week. Go figure.

Right now I'm watching Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. What an epic film.

Lately I feel like I've been doing a lot but nothing really all that consequential. It was a paper week, which basically means my week was building up to me writing a paper, and once I turned in said paper, my brain was essentially fried and I haven't done anything substantial since then. That's just my operating system.

So, last week Vicki came to visit! I got to grab a quick lunch with her and Samantha, which was really exciting. It's always so nice to catch up!

That day was a really beautiful day (the last one until today, basically) but then it turned less beautiful. Sad. But here's a shot from when it was still pretty:

I don't actually even remember what day that was. Let's skip to things I remember.

Wednesday the Meshuganotes had our last official rehearsal of the year! Weird! I can't believe how fast college is going. SLOW DOWN!

Tonight, a bunch of us went to the new (beautiful, amazing, wonderful) Ohio Union to see Buckeye Showcase! There was some fanciness outside while we were waiting.

It was really fun to get to see all sorts of talented students that go to Ohio State! A-Band was there as a guest encore sort of situation to play different Buckeye songs for us, which was super exciting. Go Bucks!

In other important news....MESHUGANOTE SHABBAT IS TOMORROW! I seriously can't wait I am so unbelievably excited. More on that later! =)