Birthweekend

Let's talk about the escapades of my birthweekend. THROUGH PICTURES.


It all started Thursday at the Bates Authors Guild First Annual Anthology Release Party (BAG FAARP?), where we were given folders filled with poetry and prose the members of BAG wrote this year. We then all decorated our folders.

Sadly, I was a little too aggressive with a yellow squeeze bottle of paint and the top popped off and splattered paint all over me, my folder, a mug of tea, the table, the air, and finally, the ceiling of the coffee house we were in. It was a joyous occasion, though.

On Friday, Mike, Ashleen, Olivia and I took a trip to Popham beach, stopping off at a farmers market along the way.

 

I was going to upload more photos but... it stopped working. Also, I tend to post too many pictures.
But go onto my facebook page/album if you want to see more photos (you probably don't).

When we got home, we all had dinner and then went over to Mike's room to hang out and watch a movie. We watched the movie "Amreeka" while eating popcorn and drinking tea. Then we all realized we were in beach clothing and it was cold outside and we were tired, so Ashleen, Olivia and I decided to sleepover in Mike's room. But first we played a lot of interesting drawing games: like each of us drawing different pictures from the same squiggle and comparing them, or staring directly in eachothers eyes while we try to doodle each other's faces without looking down or lifting our pens. Some interesting drawings came out of that. Ashleen and I fell asleep holding hands on the futon.

On Saturday, Ashleen and I went to a "Stand Against Racism" rally/conversation/talk/panel/walk thing where we had a discussion about racism and then walked a mile with posters saying things like:

It felt reminiscent of the HRC at Cdm in the sense that I was acutely aware that we weren't fixing any structural or societal problems but would probably still pat ourselves on the back for not being racist.
Woo.

After that, I hung out with some friends on the lawn and took turns playing Grace's ukulele:

and then Ashleen finished showering and we got ice cream at Dairy Joy. I got java crunch.

Cool kids.

Which brings us finally to Sunday, my birthday.
A lot, lot, lot happened on this day.

My birthday began at midnight, of course. I had just left Taylor's room to go to bed and thought to myself "whelp, guess I'll start off my 20s alone in my room. Seems fitting" but as I got to the 3rd floor I popped into Charlie's room where Matt Summers and some kids were hanging out. "I'll no longer be a teenager in one minute" I told Matt as I looked at my phone, and then the time changed to 12, and it was my birthday. Matt yells at everyone to sing me happy birthday and around 8 people surround me and sing me that obligatory tune. It was glorious. They all were about to head out to some dance at Chase Hall, and Matt attacked me and persuaded me to join them on their midnight adventures. I then spend the next hour and a half dancing with friends, texting my pals and then going to sleep.




The next morning I woke up, watched some Game of Thrones, and then skyped with my parents  for a half hour as I  open the package they sent me. My mom and dad kept on taking snapshots of my with my gifts, asking me to smile with them. The pictures got progressively goofier. 

Some things never change.

I got Sees Chocolates, among other treats like organic lollipops and those seaweed snacks Rachael and I love so dearly, as well as a a framed photograph of myself when I was three years old, which is an odd thing to have in my room ("hey look, it's a framed photo of myself) but I love it so much so I don't even care if people think I'm weird for having it.

After that, I had a quick breakfast with friends, rushed off to a BP debate round, and then had lunch with some debaters. On my walk back to Hayes I stumbled upon some cool kids lounging on the quad and decided to play frisbee with Owen and Jameson. 


I then headed over to the Chase porch with Ashleen because she planned on working there. We then read on the porch, sat in the hammock, planned out some pranks, and took naps. After THAT,  I walked over to the green hill in front of Pierce House and found some lovely friends sitting there, including Nick Steverson, Barbara, Pernilla and Grace Glasson.

We hung out for a bit, making jokes and then more people joined us and they lead me off to Pure Thai kitchen where they treated me to a Thai meal. We climbed Mt. David with our food and had dinner at the top of it while the sun set. I was sung happy birthday over these really wonderful banana pastry things, and we all just had a lovely time and took pictures and just were generally fantastic .

After that, we went to Pierce and hung out together for a while. I was given more gifts, including a mix cd, sparklers, and a gift card for gourmet coffee, and then I made a little painting/sketch on canvas for Jack Stewart's room-warming party (he moved into Hayes over short term). Debaters gathered in Jack's room and we each decorated his wall with our gift, hung out, watched videos and blah blah blah'd. 


Then I came back to my room, cleaned up some mess, wrote a facebook post, and started the beginning of my 10 year log in the Record book Colin gifted me last fall ("borrowed forever" from the White House) and chatted online with some close friends who could not be with me for my birthday.

On Monday, we had a "going-away" party for Barbara because her short term class includes taking a two week trip to Turkey. We tried out some sparklers, chilled on the porch area,  and had a dance party on the lawn.











Oh, and my "Photographing the Landscape" class has been going pretty dang well. The teacher talked to the class about some of the pin-hole photographs we had taken. She showed us a picture one of the students had taken that was a good example of correct light exposure and composition, and thus she went ahead and developed the negative photo. Pssst, pssst, it was my photo. She used my photo as the example. 

But yeah, that's basically it. I'm doing a lot of BP debate rounds, started up Zumba again, and am taking other experimental classes such as Chant Poetry, Portrait photography, and "Fun with Photoshop". I also have a job and am also volunteering for a professor to help start up this poetry website he's creating. And I'm rewriting my Otis Internship request so I can get funding for living in San Francisco this summer. And I'm practice my ukulele for Ronjstock and recording some songs I play sort of well as a birthday gift to a friend. It's not as self-centered as you think, he's told me quite a few times he really loves when I play for him, so I thought it'd be an okay gift. STOP JUDGING ME. FINE, I WON'T DO IT. 


Okay. Love you guys.
Your  20 year old friend,
Nicole