Weekend Recap (or How I Spent My Summer Vacation Lunch Break):
As indicated by my blog, I started getting really antsy Friday afternoon and by 3 pm I was basically worthless around here. But I got a couple things finished up and then left for the airport. No particular problems there and the flight was pretty empty, so I had a row to myself. We even landed almost 20 minutes early in Atlanta. But then there was no gate available so we had to wait on the runway forever and ended up getting in just about at our scheduled time afterall. Emily met me at the airport and bundled up because she was sick (and had been since wendesday evening). Kind of a bummer to be sick when we only have such a short time together. But we made the best of it as Emily got better over the next couple days and went to bed early and slept in late. Frankly, it's sort of a miracle I'm not sick yet (*knocks on wood*).
Saturday we woke up late to a beautiful, sunny, warm day. We went to Kroger and then took a walk aroudn campus. The new CRC (or SAC for us old alumni) is completely finished and my god it's nice. I feel like GT finally used my money for something worthwhile. And speaking of finished things, the Student Center Commons in the former bookstore location is done now too. That's a pretty cool area. It now connects directly to the post office to the Student Center and the SC Commons are all like one big building now. There's a few new restaurants in there and some nice lookign study areas and stuff. Upstairs there's some meeting rooms and all in all it looks pretty impressive. Sadly, they've moved all the mailboxes around in the PO so I can no longer open the mailbox with my old number on it, and I can't remember exactly where my original box was to try to open that one. No stealing other students' mail I guess. How sad. But it was a nice day to be outside and I really enjoyed walkign aroudn campus. It felt kind of weird though. I haven't been back since Labor Day, and that was only a few weeks after I moved out of Atlanta. Atlanta and GT no longer feel like home to me. Which I guess is a good thing, but for a place where I spent 5 years of my life, it struck me as odd that it felt so foreign. Emily and I watched some basketball on Saturday including the awesome Maryland win over Duke and I knew Emily was feeling better when she cooked some mighty tasty dinner, but still feeling a little ill when she didn't eat much. For those who don't know yet, Emily's appetite often exceeds my own.
After another 12 hours of comfortably cramped sleep in Emily's way too high dorm bed, Emily seemed much much better (I know because she started eating chocolate again - when she won't even touch chocolate, that's a sure sign she's sick). Emily made a wonderful brunch and we watched UNC eke out a win over UConn. Then we played Monopoly and talked to our respective parents until our game started. We lost to NC State because we played awful. Looking at our remaining games, Emily and I only see 1 or 2 likely wins left. We've got Clemson at home and then either at FSU or at Miami. I don't see any chance for a win with Duke at home or at Wake. We just haven't been playing up to that level. I know BJ and Jeromis are back, but they aren't giving enough productivity yet. Maybe by NCAA tournament time (if we even get in..) everything will be clicking and we can at least get back to the Sweet 16. But I'm not going to hold my breath on that. The way we're playing, I'd almost rather play in the NIT and (hopefully) do really well there than get crushed in the first round of the NCAA by a mid-major team like Manhattan. We'll see what happens I guess. Anyway, back to real life, after the game Emily and I watched Lilo and Stitch, which was sort of cute, but I felt it was either too short or never developed much of a plot. Maybe I'm just not used to watching Disney movies.
Monday Emily had to go to class, so I just sort of putzed around for a while and watched the Cosby show. Then I fixed my blog (finally). And then Emily was back so we started working on a crossword puzzle and listened to the cd I made her. I got to listen to some high school-esque drama. I swear I've overheard the exact same conversation on several MYF retreats before, especially the beach retreats. Anyway, I was amused. Then we got ready for dinner at La Tavola Trattoria. It was a cozy little restaurant in Virginia Highlands with apparently a largely gay clientele, but the food was delicious, and they seem to have had a bumper crop of pistachios because my snapper was pistachio-encrusted and their featured dessert was a heart-shaped chocolate-shelled pistachio cake with pistachio cream over it. I dunno what that's all about, but our marscapone cheesecake with lemon curd was awesome and the lemon really made it seem lighter than it was, so I had way more than my required 3 bites (usually I'm too full after dinner to help Emily eat much of "our" desserts).
After going to bed way too late, we woke up way too early so I could get to the airport. It was busy, so I ended up walking instead of using the train, forgetting that Dulles no longer has the people movers to the A and B gates, they now have a moving walkway as they prepare their own train system. I slept a little on the plane thanks to my new heart pillow, but that and all the walking still didn't really wake me up. By 4 pm yesterday I was basically useless a tthe office, but I found things to do to keep myself busy until almost 7. So I was able to put in about 7 hours yesterday afterall, so I won't have much to make up over the next couple days. I've decided that rather than kill myself to make up hours for Monday, I'm just going to use my vacation time. I had a good time, and I'm not going to punish myself now for it. If I happen to work more than 32 hours between yesterday and sunday, well, then I can use less vacation time, but I took a vacation, I enjoyed it, and that's what paid vacation is for. Last night I slept miserably (I know, I know, I say that everytime, but it's always true). Sharing a bed with Emily is so comfortable (even though Emily occasionally hogs the bed so I get nearly pushed off the edge and I occasionally hog the covers) and that sudden void just takes a little getting used to.
Being together always feel like it's never long enough. As I told Emily last night, even forever wouldn't be long enough. But instead of getting depressed about only being able to see each other once a month for a couple days, I'm trying really hard to see the big picture. Yes, it's only a couple days here and there right now, but being able to do that is really helping us keep a strong relationship this far apart. And that means that we'll have the whole summer together here in Fairfax. Internship prospects are staring to open up for her, so I'm getting pretty excited about that. And spending the summer together will be a good trial run for whether we can actually live together and not just visit each other. I don't forsee any problems, but then I suspect most people never do. But assuming all goes well, then there's just fall semester standing between us and forever. And that sort of puts only being able to spend one week(end) a month together into perspective. =)
As indicated by my blog, I started getting really antsy Friday afternoon and by 3 pm I was basically worthless around here. But I got a couple things finished up and then left for the airport. No particular problems there and the flight was pretty empty, so I had a row to myself. We even landed almost 20 minutes early in Atlanta. But then there was no gate available so we had to wait on the runway forever and ended up getting in just about at our scheduled time afterall. Emily met me at the airport and bundled up because she was sick (and had been since wendesday evening). Kind of a bummer to be sick when we only have such a short time together. But we made the best of it as Emily got better over the next couple days and went to bed early and slept in late. Frankly, it's sort of a miracle I'm not sick yet (*knocks on wood*).
Saturday we woke up late to a beautiful, sunny, warm day. We went to Kroger and then took a walk aroudn campus. The new CRC (or SAC for us old alumni) is completely finished and my god it's nice. I feel like GT finally used my money for something worthwhile. And speaking of finished things, the Student Center Commons in the former bookstore location is done now too. That's a pretty cool area. It now connects directly to the post office to the Student Center and the SC Commons are all like one big building now. There's a few new restaurants in there and some nice lookign study areas and stuff. Upstairs there's some meeting rooms and all in all it looks pretty impressive. Sadly, they've moved all the mailboxes around in the PO so I can no longer open the mailbox with my old number on it, and I can't remember exactly where my original box was to try to open that one. No stealing other students' mail I guess. How sad. But it was a nice day to be outside and I really enjoyed walkign aroudn campus. It felt kind of weird though. I haven't been back since Labor Day, and that was only a few weeks after I moved out of Atlanta. Atlanta and GT no longer feel like home to me. Which I guess is a good thing, but for a place where I spent 5 years of my life, it struck me as odd that it felt so foreign. Emily and I watched some basketball on Saturday including the awesome Maryland win over Duke and I knew Emily was feeling better when she cooked some mighty tasty dinner, but still feeling a little ill when she didn't eat much. For those who don't know yet, Emily's appetite often exceeds my own.
After another 12 hours of comfortably cramped sleep in Emily's way too high dorm bed, Emily seemed much much better (I know because she started eating chocolate again - when she won't even touch chocolate, that's a sure sign she's sick). Emily made a wonderful brunch and we watched UNC eke out a win over UConn. Then we played Monopoly and talked to our respective parents until our game started. We lost to NC State because we played awful. Looking at our remaining games, Emily and I only see 1 or 2 likely wins left. We've got Clemson at home and then either at FSU or at Miami. I don't see any chance for a win with Duke at home or at Wake. We just haven't been playing up to that level. I know BJ and Jeromis are back, but they aren't giving enough productivity yet. Maybe by NCAA tournament time (if we even get in..) everything will be clicking and we can at least get back to the Sweet 16. But I'm not going to hold my breath on that. The way we're playing, I'd almost rather play in the NIT and (hopefully) do really well there than get crushed in the first round of the NCAA by a mid-major team like Manhattan. We'll see what happens I guess. Anyway, back to real life, after the game Emily and I watched Lilo and Stitch, which was sort of cute, but I felt it was either too short or never developed much of a plot. Maybe I'm just not used to watching Disney movies.
Monday Emily had to go to class, so I just sort of putzed around for a while and watched the Cosby show. Then I fixed my blog (finally). And then Emily was back so we started working on a crossword puzzle and listened to the cd I made her. I got to listen to some high school-esque drama. I swear I've overheard the exact same conversation on several MYF retreats before, especially the beach retreats. Anyway, I was amused. Then we got ready for dinner at La Tavola Trattoria. It was a cozy little restaurant in Virginia Highlands with apparently a largely gay clientele, but the food was delicious, and they seem to have had a bumper crop of pistachios because my snapper was pistachio-encrusted and their featured dessert was a heart-shaped chocolate-shelled pistachio cake with pistachio cream over it. I dunno what that's all about, but our marscapone cheesecake with lemon curd was awesome and the lemon really made it seem lighter than it was, so I had way more than my required 3 bites (usually I'm too full after dinner to help Emily eat much of "our" desserts).
After going to bed way too late, we woke up way too early so I could get to the airport. It was busy, so I ended up walking instead of using the train, forgetting that Dulles no longer has the people movers to the A and B gates, they now have a moving walkway as they prepare their own train system. I slept a little on the plane thanks to my new heart pillow, but that and all the walking still didn't really wake me up. By 4 pm yesterday I was basically useless a tthe office, but I found things to do to keep myself busy until almost 7. So I was able to put in about 7 hours yesterday afterall, so I won't have much to make up over the next couple days. I've decided that rather than kill myself to make up hours for Monday, I'm just going to use my vacation time. I had a good time, and I'm not going to punish myself now for it. If I happen to work more than 32 hours between yesterday and sunday, well, then I can use less vacation time, but I took a vacation, I enjoyed it, and that's what paid vacation is for. Last night I slept miserably (I know, I know, I say that everytime, but it's always true). Sharing a bed with Emily is so comfortable (even though Emily occasionally hogs the bed so I get nearly pushed off the edge and I occasionally hog the covers) and that sudden void just takes a little getting used to.
Being together always feel like it's never long enough. As I told Emily last night, even forever wouldn't be long enough. But instead of getting depressed about only being able to see each other once a month for a couple days, I'm trying really hard to see the big picture. Yes, it's only a couple days here and there right now, but being able to do that is really helping us keep a strong relationship this far apart. And that means that we'll have the whole summer together here in Fairfax. Internship prospects are staring to open up for her, so I'm getting pretty excited about that. And spending the summer together will be a good trial run for whether we can actually live together and not just visit each other. I don't forsee any problems, but then I suspect most people never do. But assuming all goes well, then there's just fall semester standing between us and forever. And that sort of puts only being able to spend one week(end) a month together into perspective. =)
