a photo a day

last weekend i went to florida with some of my duke friends!  it was awesome.  we ate and drank and sat on the beach and played games and caught up, and the weekend ended far too quickly.  i took exactly one picture - shortly after chauffeur Q picked me up at the airport and drove me back to our condo - and this is it:

i wish i lived close to these friends every day of the year!

10 year duke reunion!

duke was as gorgeous as ever.  we felt old, but not too old.  we laughed a LOT.  we drank an appropriate amount.  we ate burritos at 2:30am.  we got a noise complaint at the hotel.  we reminisced.  we made new memories.  i am so so lucky to have these friends, to have attended this school.

and i came home to this, which isn't half bad either.

a duke legend, chemistry teacher dr. bonk, died this week.  he was my chemistry teacher my freshman year at duke in 2001 (the last year he taught the course)...and he was my dad's chemistry teacher at duke in 1974.  yes, we really did refer to it as "bonkistry," and i heard people tell both the "pie in the face" and the "which tire?" story.

the picture in the article is exactly as i remember him, and he impressed me every day (especially now that i am a teacher!) because he taught entirely from memory - no notes.  i guess when you've been doing it for 40 years that is possible, but no less amazing.

it makes me sad when people die without a spouse or children, but i also know how special duke must have been to him and that makes me happy.  and he was, certainly, very special to duke.

rugby wedding

my good friend and rugby teammate from duke, rachie, got married this weekend!  rugby girls with the bride and groom:

this wedding was the best advertisement for a small wedding that i've ever seen.  there were about 75 guests, and rachel and joe put something in the wedding program about every person at the wedding.  every person!  it made me feel that every person was special to the bride and groom - each person was there on purpose to witness this event and celebrate with the couple.  i loved it.

additionally, there was funfetti wedding cake and smores.  this also pleased me.

i got back to new york late last night and consequently took a nap this afternoon after my 8:30 class this morning.  i did also make it to the library and i'm going to yoga in a couple minutes, so i'm not a total waste of space today.  or that's what i'm telling myself.

happy monday, all!

(bonus points for anyone not in DUWRFC who knows what DUWRFC after my name in the program stands for!)

go to hell, carolina, part 2

a little more than two years ago i paid off my first student loan from attending duke.  today i paid off my second (and final) one!  my duke education is paid for!  woo hoo!

i'll again reiterate how TOTALLY WORTH IT i believe it is to take out student loans if you can't afford to attend your dream college without them.  i'm not advocating anything excessive, but a couple thousand dollars a year was very manageable for me to pay back, and i'd wouldn't do it differently if i had to do it again.

the timing of this is good, as in august i'll take out a loan to help finance my year at columbia.  in fact, the timing is on purpose.  i could have continued to pay this loan off over another year or two but chose to just pay off the remainder from some of my savings so i'd have a clean slate before starting grad school in the fall.  this felt important to me - the ending of one chapter of debt before beginning a new one.

the interest rate on the loan i just paid off?  2.1%.  the interest rate on the loan i'll take out this summer?  6.8%.  times have changed.

(anyone know if graduate loan rates will be lowered - like undergraduate ones will - if congress passes this student loan bill?)

wedding weekend!

melanie - one of my rugby friends and housemate senior year at duke - got married this weekend!  the highlights:

the snow didn't stop anyone from getting into the city - hooray!  and, in fact, the snow was minimal, which was good for me and my driving of the rental car.

rugby girls (and a husband of a rugby girl) clean up nice.  ugh - it was so wonderful to see these girls and i am sad that we don't live in the same city.  but reunions like this are wonderful!

when the bride appeared with her father at the end of a long aisle, the whole place broke into raucous applause - i've never seen that at a wedding before, and it was wonderful - this wedding had such great ENERGY.  and the bride?  oh, that's right - she got hit by a car last week and broke her ankle, so she rocked this wedding in a broken leg boot thing.  and walked down a AISLE aisle in a boot.  and danced in a boot.  she's bad ass.

there was a mariachi band at the wedding.  amazing - such upbeat music - it was the perfect backdrop to cocktail hour and dinner.

obviously we needed a photo with them.  duh.  rachel is at least 6 inches taller than me, yet somehow i was in the back row and she was in the front.  me berating her to squat down is what caused this pose.  i am entirely responsible.  sorry, rachie!

the best man did a reading during the wedding.  or rather, he sang this song:



(this is adam sandler from the wedding singer, if you are not 30 years old and this movie was not a crucial part of your high school years.)  it was SUCH a fun and unique wedding reading, and the best man gave it the energy it so deserved.

and now i'm back to the real world...sigh...but it's only for a week!  then spring break - woo hoo!

like every child of the '80s, i loved the cosby show.  LOVED.  it came on at 8pm, if i recall, which was a good thing since for a while my bedtime was 8:30, meaning i had to miss the second half of murder, she wrote on days that it was on, a tragedy i remember well.

fast forward: during college, at a duke basketball game, the student section spotted bill cosby in the best seats in the house, sitting next to the president of the university.  maybe we were playing temple?  at halftime he came down to the court, someone handed him a microphone, and the first thing he said was "hey hey hey!" in his fat albert voice.  we may or may not have gone crazy.  it was amazing.

this is a pretty cool collection of bill cosby moments throughout the years.  i did some reminiscing.  you can, too.

back in atlanta after a weekend in charleston

this weekend there was lots of catching up with the 17 (!) other duke rugby girls who were at colin's wedding (including the the lovely bride who was GORGEOUS), as this photo points out:

the ceremony was held on the patio of the south carolina aquarium as the sun was going down, with a party inside near the fishes afterwards.  so the light in this picture isn't ideal...but it is a true reflection of the light at that moment.  sweetest ceremony ever.  references to the princess bride and duke basketball and pre-existing conditions (the bride and groom are both graduating from medical school next month).

in contrast to the bride's beauty, there was this:

and this:

and this - CLEARLY the best outfit of them all:

(yes, that is a one piece sparkly silver pantsuit.  be jealous.)

here's all of us together:

you see, when we were in college we would play a prom dress rugby game every year.  well: we started this my senior year, but colin (the bride) is two years younger than me and they continued it after we left.  think ugly prom dresses from thrift stores that are ripped and torn as you attempt to play rugby in them.  awesomeness.

so as a nod to that memory, 15 of us rugby girls (2 were bridesmaids and had to, you know, wear bridesmaid dresses) wore ugly prom dresses to the wedding and reception.  i have never been stared at so much in my life.  it was really fun, though, and colin thought it was awesome...and it was a fun and silly way to let colin know that we love her.

weekend: success.

"what is...?"

a final jeopardy from last week:

of course you know where this is going: i knew the answer (first AND last name) and was really proud of myself, whereas the silly jeopardy contestants did not.  i am amazing!  my ability to answer this question comes from reading two of these books in an english class in college.  an epic english class that willis and i still quote: "protestants reign supreme!"  "a stay against death!"  it was a pretty awesome class and it was the beginning of my friendship with willis, so DOUBLE AWESOME.

so...anyone know the answer?  willis: i expect you to ring in.

i'm back in the land of the internet, and this post is what you get

on sunday night i got two emails, in quick succession:

email 1:
http://www.theoneill.org/about/preston.htm

was just on the tonys. he was also, if you'll recall, in our musicals class.

we're all winners tonight!

c

email 2:
Woo -

I'm watching the Tony awards right now, as I do every year, and I just saw a guy we went to Duke with accept an award! Did you know Preston Whiteway? I knew him, but I can't remember how - I assume through you, since you knew everyone? I remember him being really into theater in school, and apparently he's been the managing then executive director of a regional theater in Connecticut since we graduated. Makes me feel totally unaccomplished.

- Rachel C.


i have a million things to note about this.  a million!  but i will just tell you a couple things.
thing 1: ohmygod a kid i was friends with at duke - he was in my freshman dorm, and we also took a couple classes together, and we definitely watched some basketball games together, and i worked with him when i volunteered as an usher (free way to see shows) when broadway tours would come to duke -  ACCEPTED A TONY AWARD ON SUNDAY NIGHT.  he runs a regional theater that won the best regional theater award, and as the executive director, he accepted it.  HOLY SHIT.
thing 2: yes, i took a class on musical theater in college, and it was one of the best classes i took in all of college.  you didn't have to have talent...you just had to like musicals.  WHICH I OBVIOUSLY DO.
thing 3: it makes ME feel unaccomplished, too.  preston just accepted a tony.  i slept in late and make a birthday cake for my dad.  not the same thing.
thing 4: rachel always signs emails "rachel c.," and i feel i should point this out to the public.  apparently she was in kindergarden with another girl named rachel, and when she first had to write her name on papers, she always had to write rachel c.  and it stuck.  rachel c. is adorable.
thing 5: love my friends for emailing me this!  really, just love my friends.

yesterday i got this email from colin, after telling her i really wanted to see preston's speech but was having trouble finding it online:

i win at life.

http://www.tonyawards.com/en_US/interactive/video/index.html?category=creativeartswinners

scroll down, you'll see it. good speech!

c


best. friends. ever.  seriously - moments after a mutual friend is on tv, these two girls sent me emails.  BECAUSE THEY ARE AWESOME.

and GO PRESTON!


(i'm realizing that there are a lot of capitalized words in this post.  THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I GET EXCITED.)

no one got tackled this weekend (you're welcome, jill)

my friend jill got married in maryland this weekend, and she was GORGEOUS - the perfect image of a bride.  the wedding was outdoors on an inlet of the chesapeake bay, right on the water, and the ceremony was under a huge old tree, with chinese lanterns swinging behind the minister.

it was a short ceremony (my favorite kind), not about pomp and circumstance but about the people who were getting hitched.  i was so happy to be able to share jill's day with her, and really honored to have been invited.  there was much laughing and reminiscing and photo taking; six of us who played rugby with jill at duke were able to come - plus her sister, who was a duke rugby player after i graduated.

after the ceremony we had appetizers and drinks and waited for the wedding party to finish taking pictures.  jill and mike joined half an hour or so later, and they hugged and greeted people, and made their way closer to where we were standing/consuming massive amount of cheese and crackers/finishing our first beers.  when it was our turn to hug her, another friend took this picture:

i love this picture (it's one of my favorites of the whole weekend) because it's so clear how happy we all are to be together.  we hadn't seen jill before the wedding, and this was our first chance to hug her and celebrate with her.

after we stopped screaming and hugging, we took a photo of the eight rugby girls:

all these photos are from colin's camera - yay to colin for being the appointed photographer!  they are up on facebook, and the comments on the last picture are all along the same theme: "whoa - you girls clean up nice!"  because this is what we also look like (spring 2003):

i love my rugby girls - i loved played on the field along side them, singing rugby songs with them, eating dillo tacos with them...and it was so much fun to see them again and add more memories.  i'm missing our mini reunion weekend already.