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 photo a day

this is not so much a photo of the real world that i am inhabiting, but a screenshot of my phone.  no complaining: i made up this "photo a day" game, so i can alter it any time i want.

look at this awesome app that i got for free!  it's just a map of new york's subway system, but can i tell you how helpful it has been?  especially because...

...you can zoom in on any part you want!  here's how i was able to find out that if i'm taking the 3 train uptown (it's express) my last chance to transfer to the 1 and thus make my stop at 116th street is: 96th street.  YOU ARE SO HELPFUL, MAP.

this was all very helpful yesterday when i was exploring the city.

today i had orientation until just a couple minutes ago...lots of people talking about relatively mundane things, but the kind of relatively mundane things that are necessary on the first day of school.

tonight is my first class: law and educational policy.  okay, story time:
when i came to TC (teachers college - get the lingo, people) in april for admitted students' weekend, another admitted student to my program WENT TO MY HIGH SCHOOL, though she graduated 3 years before me.  small world, especially since there are only 30 people in this program this year!  she's very nice, and we talked about growing up in rural north carolina, etc.
fast forward to today.  i see her again, and she says "i have to tell you this.  i was reading on our law teacher's bio that he taught high school english in rural north carolina, and i had to email him to ask WHERE in rural north carolina.  he emailed me back to say north wilkesboro!  i knew you would be amused by that."
north wilkesboro!!
OMG i am so amused.  i can't wait to find out where he taught, and what he thought of my little hometown.  SMALL WORLD MOMENTS EVERYWHERE, PEOPLE.

i have my new (temporary) north carolina driver's license!  going into the DMV brought back weird memories from 2001...of failing driving portion of the driver's license test the first time, crying on the way home, and then going back the next day and passing.  nerves, i tell you!  nerves!  but, ugh - bad memories.

today was different - i only had to pass a written test (which i did - flying colors).  and yo, i'm a registered north carolina democrat now.  woo!

next step: wait 7-10 days to get my physical license in the mail, then take it to the car registration bureau people and change my car's registration to north carolina.  then, friends, i'm official.  (i think.  anything i'm forgetting??)

this afternoon i've been going through all the boxes i moved to north carolina from atlanta and deciding what to move with me to my 109 square feet in new york, and what will stay in north carolina until i move again (prettypleaseletmefindajob) next summer.  the pile to take to new york is very small so far, but i'm not too nervous about that.  if i've learned anything from going to england for the past four summers it's that i can survive on very few physical belongings.  each summer i've taken only a carry on suitcase and a backpack, and i've been able to survive very comfortably for as long as 7 weeks.  the most important belongings - the ones that make all the rest unimportant?  a cell phone and a kindle and a laptop.  we don't need much in order to be happy, and in this consumer-focused society it's so easy to forget that.*

and that, people, is your moment of zen.


*which is not to say that i don't like things.  I LIKE THINGS.  this post is all over the place, but I DON'T CARE.  this weekend my aunt monica brought my grandma's jewelry to the farm and all the granddaughters went through it and picked out a couple things to keep.  i got some good stuff.  i'll show you later.  GET EXCITED.  you better believe i'm taking all my jewelry to new york.  and tons of clothes.  there is a place for these things...

want to know the REAL secret to saving money on your car insurance?  move from atlanta to rural north carolina.  i just went in to transfer my policy and it is literally half the cost of what it was when i lived in atlanta.  HALF! THE! COST!

life is so good.

tomorrow: north carolina driver's license and registering to vote in this state.  the electoral college means my vote for obama in 2008 didn't mean much in georgia...but it might this year in NC!

i'm home in north carolina!  i've been here for a week now, but it was a very busy week, full of getting the house ready for 18 of our relatives to visit, which happened this weekend.  that's the reason i haven't posted in an embarrassingly long time...i've been very busy.  apologies!

to fill you in on some of our excitement: last week mom was weeding on a hillside near the house...and out slithered a copperhead!

eek!

dad came up from the shop with a tool that is apparently called a bush axe (shown on the right).  he killed it with one hack.

i stood on a picnic table for safety.

then it dripped blood everywhere.  i did not like that part.

the end.

(file this under "things that do not happen when you live in atlanta.")

merry christmas, all!  we* woke up at 9 for presents and cinnamon rolls (a christmas breakfast tradition), then lots of lying around, reading, tv, eating, napping.  we just went on a walk with the dogs, so now i won't feel guilty about lying on the couch for the rest of the day...

hope everyone is happy and healthy and warm!


*well, everyone else was already awake when i was summoned downstairs...

pause

please pause for a break in our regularly scheduled programming while i go home to north carolina for two days to visit mom and dad, see some stars, pet some dogs, breathe some clean mountain air, not get stifled by the heat, check on the progress of my mom's garden, bake a carrot cake from scratch, and celebrate my dad's birthday.  i will be living in the land of no internet, so i'll be back on this here blog-thingy on tuesday!  for those of you with real jobs, i hope the beginning of the week flies by for you...i'm sorry i won't be here to distract you.

i heart nc

welcome to asheville, barack and michelle!!  you are staying at the grove park inn?  so fancy.  i've never stayed there, but i have been there, and it's gorgeous.  in fact, all of asheville is gorgeous.  but you know that, because you're hiking off of the blue ridge parkway.  hope you have a relaxing weekend in our beautiful, beautiful north carolina.  (the fact that it's a swing state doesn't hurt, either.)

side note: i love asheville.  i don't want to live in atlanta forever, and asheville is the kind of place where i do want to live when i'm a grown up.  yay north carolina.

wilkes county

when i saw my parents last weekend, claire #2 and i were telling them that we're going to see the zac brown band in atlanta in may and we are SO EXCITED.  my mom then told us two facts, one of which is true and one of which is not.

fact #1: the zac brown band is coming to merlefest this year!  (a quick google search confirmed this.  i was impressed that my mom (a) had heard of the band, and (b) remembered that they were coming to merlefest.  merlefest, for those who don't know, is this big mostly-bluegrass music festival that happens in my hometown every may.)

fact #2: my mom then says, "zach galifianakis, the drummer in the band, is from wilkes county!  i know his mom!"  my dad was EXTREMELY skeptical.  (so was i.  in fact, i did no research and just wrote this off as false information.  it was interesting, though, that she came up with this [unusual] name seemingly out of nowhere.  perhaps she was on to something.)  fast forward two weeks.  last night i was on facebook.  for those who don't know, facebook suggests friends for you if you know people in common or went to the same school.  there on my facebook homepage was this: "become friends with zach galifianakis.  you both went to wilkes central high school."  HOLY SHIT.  now, he is not in the zac brown band, but my mom was right about something.

wilkes county will now be famous for: lowes foods and lowes hardware starting there, having a nascar racetrack once-upon-a-time, tom dooley, merlefest, famous siamese twins who lived here, and the birthplace of the longest serving senator in us history.  and zach galifianakis.