one day more

it's finally here, my last night in princeton. quick recap of today and yesterday.

yesterday-

-found out that lauren and i will be living the double-life in our suite next year.

-dinner at blue point grille. experienced fried shrimp for the first time.

-promptly became sick from said shrimp and had gretchen take me to the er at three am. hello, food poisoning.

today-

-saw sunrise.

-slept in late.

-big presentation on policyoptions. went decently well.

-they changed the signs on milk money. coincidental.

-saw sunset.

-buffet at the indian palace. yay for rice and water; loving that liquid diet. bid farewell to michael

-last walk to the victory fountain

tomorrow will end both the new director's meeting and a fabulous summer with people who i've come to really respect. sitting in bed and typing this, i'm thinking about just how much has changed. (change...how many times have i used this word in these posts?) physical changes, emotional changes, relationship changes, habitual changes, location changes, any change imaginable has happened. when we say our goodbyes tomorrow it'll mark possibly the greatest experience of my life thus far in terms of growth. i've learned to put faith not in others, but myself, and that is the biggest change. it seems that everywhere you go in life you find a new part of yourself just waiting to be found. i wonder what i'll find next.

last week in p-ton.

so i told myself that i was going to blog on this every day of my last week here in princeton, but clearly that didn't happen. let's do a quick re-cap of the weekend.

friday- hot as hell. discovered the band summer camp; KILLER. came home to find no internet. odd. realize that the power had gone out. subsequently threw out all of the food in my fridge and high-tailed it to imani's for a sleepover and some awesome e! tv.

saturday- walked back home; felt kind of spectacular. listened to summer camp while i exercised. took a trip to cvs to buy sustanance- froot loops and arnold palmer. ran & did pilates. saw harry potter pt. 2 and cried until i had released every ounce of stress in my body. i love snape. snuck into the foundation to recover imani's shoes. came home and skyped.

sunday- woke up late; glorious. kind of gray outside. walked to d'angelo's and got fixings for a real meal, how grown up of me. saw OFRY as he drove past, yay friends. talked to the g-ma. watched "he died with a falafel in his hand." pretty decent. got my ass kicked by pilates.

today kicked off the new director's meeting. i feel so honored to be among such highly esteemed individuals who have put faith into their passion; youth driven service. i feel like it's the perfect ending to my summer as a bonner foundation intern. we began with our peers at sli, built up our skills over the course of the last two months, and finish off with what could be our future. each day i realize just how much i've loved living here in princeton. despite being terribly homesick some weeks, the moments laughing until i cried over someone slipping the "r" word, yelling at mario for being the annoying little brother, having girl talk with kelly and imani, and seeing parts of other people's bodies that i should probably never see have made me grow. i keep coming back to that same word, don't i? i thought seeing gretchen, dr. j, and patrick today would make me feel like i had come home, but i realized that i already was.

om nashi me

new bag. holla.

the more time that i spend in princeton, the more that i realize how i've changed. a few days ago i used the term "evolve" to describe the slow changes that have occurred in the last month and a half and i feel that it's the most fitting. on friday, i put aside twenty years of fear (or around 17, since i'm guessing i didn't know enough to fear needles in the womb) and got my ears pierced. two of three girls from waynesburg, who were staying at the foundation as a pit stop during their cross-country journey to end the "r" word, joined Liz, Imani, Tyia, and myself for the occasion. sitting on a hospital gurney (going for that medicinal look i guess?) in a lime green room, some dark haired chick with sick tattoos prepped me to face two of my biggest fears: needles and earrings in general. although i made it through without bursting into tears, my usual post-stress fainting happened and i was able to add another fainting location to my list. trenton-check. laughing over pizza and stories after, i felt the relief of someone who has pushed themselves to be what they were called to be all along. the rest of the weekend flew by pretty quickly, resulting with a new vintage coach bag for twelve bucks and a decent night's sleep on sunday.

work has been going well this week as we head into the homestretch. tonight Imani and i went to the princeton student film & video festival and i saw a bunch of clips that continued to reiterate what i've known all along: every day that we live, we grow.

no this is not a test

this originally began as a blog to just blindly put down my day to day life, but i feel like it's becoming something more. tonight imani and i went to go hear some guy (+ girl) sing at small world coffee. i had read something on their door about three weeks ago and decided that it would be a good way to spend a quiet night. i loved being there and hearing his m.ward-esque guitar and megan's (h?) super sweet voice, which was perfect for the french songs they sang. i liked being surrounded by people who also had nowhere to go, but had wandered into the small cafe, just looking to listen. towards the end of the set i turned around to look at one of the paintings for purchase on the wall behind me. i'm not sure why but the image on the left made me remember something. i can't quite put my finger on it, but i felt the urge to go create something of my own. let's see where it'll bring me.

and so i ran, i ran so far away

BURST. today began as a sleepy day but progressed into something more lively. I went for my longest run yet and realized that I have a lot to be grateful for. i'm grateful that I have people like Imani to run to, I'm grateful that I have great friends, I'm grateful that I'm doing fulfilling work (although I often feel unproductive.) It's starting to hit me that I only have two and a half more weeks here, and as excited as I am to head to Maine and start a new year, I am going to miss my intern family. Let's hope we take the time to remember our Princeton roots in the future.

PS. In case you were wondering, yes, the musical titles are a trend.

oh my god i'm back again dum da duh da

It's been a long time since I've written but i'm finally back in princeton! my week off at home/long island/seaside was wonderful but I'm happy to be back in the swing of things here. Work this week hasn't been so stellar. The airport is down so Liz and myself need to walk over to the library everyday to access the internet and work. It makes the day drag on and more often than not I feel myself getting distracted. In terms of day to day things, yesterday I had my first Wegman's experience with Imani and Michael. I didn't get home until 7:30, but it made me realize how much time is still left in the day even if I do come home two and a half hours later than usual. A bagel and one episode of Weeds later, I was feeling jittery and went for a lovely walk around Princeton. Today we had a training with Annie in the afternoon and made our own WDYDWYD signs (Why do you do what you do.) We then had a mini-photo-shoot of each person with his or her sign and I was off home to do laundry, run, and do some yoga. The rest of the week looks exciting, being that we were just issued a new project in partners (yay Da!) to create trainings for the rest of the Bonner network. Thursday Imani and I are going to go see some guy play guitar at Small World Coffee and I think I might check out the Princeton Art Museum; we'll see how it goes. Namaste, friends.

partying and partying yeah

birthday parties are the "it" thing at the bonner foundation; we seem to have one every week. the one constant, regardless of the birthday boy or girl, is the quick ten minute intern scramble to gather as many mismatched decorations as possible. today we celebrated bobby's 50th birthday. gathered around dove bars, flashy 4th of July stars, and chili pepper table toppers, bobby told us how he met his wife. sitting there listening, i began to think about how many of these stories i've heard, and how happy it makes both the story teller and the listener to hear them. this somewhat sparked a new project idea (new blog?) when i got home i tried to decide between yoga and running. my legs were sore from yesterday's trek to imani's but i eventually decided to go running again. i hate running. always have and always will, but there's something satisfying about it. this is me circa four minutes ago back in street clothes and ready to walk to the fountain for some reading and writing. sending love from north tulane.