Dear Office Depot, what??

As I sit right now in my office I'm watching my boss unpack the twelve huge Office Depot boxes that arrived mysteriously about an hour ago. That's right, twelve. And they were strangely light - as if they were packed with air. Now that she's here unpacking them, we know why: each box contains one of the boxes we ordered and a ridiculous amount of AIRplus bubble wrap. Someone in the Office Depot warehouse must have been incredibly bored (or just really screwed up), because all of those boxes could have been shipped in one single box (without bubble wrap... who needs to protect cardboard boxes??), but no. It's just entirely ridiculous, but also hilarious. On the bright side, we have free boxes... and bubble wrap. But sad - how wasteful! They wasted boxes, shipping fees, and labels. But at the office, we're all amused. Think of all the things we could do with that bubble wrap! Make bubble angels, rake bubble leaves and jump into the bubble pile, make a bubble ball pit... sounds like an office carnival to me. If only I had brought my camera into work today...

Lessons from the inside

Lesson of the day: just because someone is sitting inside of an information booth does not mean that she knows everything. Nor does it mean that she finds it funny, charming or entertaining when you ask random and absurd questions, even though she'll awkwardly laugh along because, hey, she's getting paid to sit there.

This weekend was BU's commencement weekend (congrats to the recent graduates, by the way!), which meant that, for me, it was a weekend of sitting at those special little red information booths up and down Comm Ave answering questions. All weekend. It was nice to be outside (even if I did get a little burnt!), and the people watching was good, but I'm so glad it's over. So much outside, so much smiling, lots of exhaustion, and ridiculous questions. The highlight was yesterday, when some father came to ask us what the winning Powerball numbers would be that night. We awkwardly laughed it off, and as he walked away, his son said "Dad, you're such a tool." Actually made my day.

Commencement was ridiculous, though. When you see/meet people's families you finally understand why they are the way they are... which is either great, entertaining, or both. There were SO many people here, it was crazy. Today, especially, because it was the all-university commencement (featuring Hillel's own Danny Bellin as the student speaker!).

Before that, though, we went to Weislow's graduation at the religion department. It was super small (about 16 graduates), and so all the graduates introduced everyone they brought, which was cute. Some pictures...

Josh, Weislow and Barney en route to commencement.

Champagne toast.

At Weislow's graduation.

And now they're all officially alumni and off to grad school next year. Crazy.

All that's known

Yesterday was probably my ideal day. What started out sad-ish (saying goodbye to friends moving out for the summer) turned into delightful (shopping adventures) and ended wonderfully (Spring Awakening and ensuing adventures).

Mor, Marla and I took our chances on student rush for Spring Awakening (playing until the end of May at Boston's Colonial Theater) and it was well worth it. $25 got us front row seats, close enough to make eye contact with the cast during parts of the show (which we did, by the way). The show itself was phenomenal, I really recommend you see it... the music's great, the cast has huge energy, and it's fun to watch. Plus, they're all really young - mostly all around my age, which kind of makes you want to be best friends with all of them.

Because I have some stalker skills left over from my concert days, we met up with some of the cast after the show at the stage door...

Kyle Riabko, male lead

Us with half the cast/orchestra

Pretty girls.

... and then we ended up on the T home with them. Kind of uncomfortable (seem stalker/creeper-like? yea..) but kind of delightful.

A favorite holiday

Success! Not only did I finish my midterms yesterday (hopefully successfully), but it was also the Purim party at Hillel. Yes, I know Purim's really next week (and I'll be celebrating it with Alana and some friends at Maryland), but we decided that the end of midterms, the beginning of spring break, and being a few days away from Purim was good enough reason to party down at Hillel.

Purim's probably one of my favorite holidays, just 'cause it's so much fun! I've got fond memories of being younger and hearing the megillah read while watching my rabbis celebrate appropriately - drunken. And there are costumes and food and wonderfulness, what's not to love?!

We kicked off the celebration on Wednesday night with the Purim Schpiel (which I irresponsibly went to - but it's not my fault, we were in it!), basically a huge play mocking everything in the community - from Kip to Kol Echad (all the a cappella groups, really), and almost every individual inside the building on a daily basis. Last night was the Purim party - lots of people dressed up in costume having a good time. I personally rocked the pirate costume

Happy.

Crazy dancing befitting the holiday.

Just some elements.

And soon I'll be headed out on spring break, off to explore Baltimore... wish me luck!

Bad, bad news.

Tragedy of the day: I've realized that I have three midterms next week. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. In my mind, next week is now hell week. I have two options: I can either crawl into a hole to study and accomplish things or pretend that midterms aren't happening and have fun the last week before spring break. Which will I do? I'll give you a hint, I've never been very responsible...

Tell me something good

I saw an RV driving down Beacon Street today on my way home. I’m pretty sure it was the first RV I’ve seen in Boston and it reminded me of the RV of my childhood. Not that I ever actually had one, even though I kind of really wanted one - there was just something that seemed so cool about them. Not a popular kind of cool, more like cool in the sense that you could travel around with everything you own. Which is what I try to do every time I fly, and I always fail epically. But my friend’s neighbors had an RV that was always parked in their front yard. In the early days of our friendship, this was a marker of where to turn to go to our house. That was in the fifth grade. Ten years later, it’s still in the same spot. I don’t need it to find her house anymore, but it’s kind of comforting that it’s still there. And I’m pretty sure it hasn’t moved, like I don’t think I’ve ever not seen it there.

I did find, upon coming home in December, that there was a new addition to my neighborhood – a school bus. Literally just sitting in my neighbor’s yard. I don’t know what they could be possibly using it for (or even if they’re using it for anything, maybe they just wanted a bus?), but it’s pretty awesome in a weird, quirky kind of way. I feel like that’s something you lose living in the city because you don’t have a yard to put funky things in. I think I’d settle for an apartment, though, and I could put whatever quirky tchotchkes on display in the living room. Not that I don’t love my current room in my adorable brownstone, but living in what’s still effectively a dorm is kind of drab and tragic. No matter how much you put on the walls (and we have a lot), it’s still a dorm room, despite the pretty fireplace/mantle. On the bright side, housing starts in March – so I’m crossing my fingers for something good!

The best of both worlds

Cookie cake is incredibly underrated. And I think it’s entirely unfortunate because it’s basically the best of both worlds. The other night, on a whim, we baked a cookie cake to go along with our Thai food and Cold Stone cupcakes, and it was probably the best thing we ate. Granted, after a couple of hours of doing nothing but eating and watching chick flicks on television (thank you, ABC Family), appreciating the cookie cake was probably the furthest thing from our minds (much more immediate was the idea that we should probably never eat again). Still, though, they’re pretty fantastic. And it’s not the cookie cake’s fault that we have no self control. It just happens to be an enabler – a delicious one, at that. And for every once in a while, that’s just fine. I’d definitely choose it over the ice cream cupcakes we got from Cold Stone (which were not as exciting as I’d hoped), and probably over many other desserts. Except for bread pudding, but that’s an entirely different situation.

The wonderful cookie cake we made the other night.