Merry [Early] Christmas!!

Hello everyone! So this is the official BeeSweezy Christmas Edition!! YAYY! It actually snowed a considerable amount last night so it was a white [early] Christmas here at home, which made it super awesome. We did our family's Christmas early because we'll be traveling until two days after real Christmas to our extended families. 

Anyway, such an early Christmas requires early preparation; wrapping! I decided to go with a color scheme this year: blue/silver for the boyfriend and red/gold/green for the family. 

The blue collection!

I got really into wrapping the presents and made fancy little flourishes to each one. They may have ended up looking slightly garish, but hey, I tried.

Boyfriend's present with weird silver leaf thing

 My cat, Sarge, decided to help with the wrapping, or rather, he chased the ribbons around until I had to banish him from the room.

The un-helper of the event

 After all the presents were under the tree it was super awesome and actually started to feel like Christmas, so here's a little photo to help spread the joy of the season :)

Super-freakin' Christmassy!

No matter what you celebrate, I hope you have a great winter break [YEAHH!]!! I know I'm looking forward to sleeping in and playing video games and drinking hot cocoa and watching terrible reality television! Woo! <3

Ho Ho Home for the Holidays!

So I haven't posted in a while, even though I've been home since Saturday afternoon. Sorry about that :( This actually won't be a real post either because my pictures are on my camera at home and I'm elsewhere until Thursday night or possibly Monday, but HANG TIGHT because it's going to be a superChristmasholidayaganza!!!!!
That's right.

So far I've decorated three trees, drank two cups of hot cocoa (not enough by far), and wrapped about 7 presents. And a partridge in a pear tree. Plus I did my laundry today, so bonus points for me! Speaking of bonus I just figured out (finally) how to get the basic Microsoft games onto my boyfriend's computer (helloooo minesweeper!) which weren't installed for some stupid reason (damn you Windows 7), which basically means that I searched "why don't I have basic Microsoft games on my Windows 7" and read the first answer that came up. I lovee Google. [Sidenote: I'm not using his computer to ignore him, he's wrapping my present and obviously I can't be there so I'm bored and am super addicted to finding those mines!]
Aaanyway, on the agenda still: wrapping about 10 more presents, baking/decorating/devouring Christmas cookies, seeing Tron (unrelated), drinking more hot cocoa, some egg nog, taking a last-minute trip to the mall, opening presents, and making a real blog post.

Hopefully those things will go smoothly, and you can expect some real stuff /potentially/ on Thursday night after fambly Christmas is done. Happy Holidays!! <3

Goin' International!!!!

It has come to my attention that this blog has, for some reason, become nearly as popular in Germany this week as it has been in the U.S.! Sweet! Vielen Dank! Other international readers that deserve to be mentioned are from Canada, Greece, and Croatia! So that's awesome :)
Thanks everyone for reading, and I'm sorry that this isn't really a real post by any means, but right now I'm focusing on studying for my Architecture final that I have tomorrow morning. Once I go home for the holidays you'll get more real stuff to read/look at :3
Toodles!
P.S.!!! The blog now has over 500 views!!! YAYYYY!! :D

A Guide to Studying for Finals

Today marks the first day of the study period. I guess technically it started on Saturday, but who seriously studies on the weekend? No one. Unless you're like my suitemate and had a final this morning. Yuck!
Anyway, This terrible day means that I actually have to stop procrastinating and start studying for my Thursday and Saturday finals (but guess what I'm doing right now by posting this... yeah). I have three finals coming up and far too much time to study for them, which means that I'm probably going to be not very productive. Oh well. I'm going to try, though, don't get me wrong. I even made out a list of my study tools to walk you through my study process.
Step 1. Assemble supplies:

• Enriched Calculus textbook
• History of Architecture textbook
• Fifth semester French workbook
• Fifth semester French reading

• Notebooks containing the notes you've taken for the past 3.5 months in class
• Planner
• Folders containing worksheets/essays/graded work/tests/etc.

• Monstrously gigantic laptop
• Assorted pens, pencils, highlighters
• Large eraser
• Post-It notes
• iPod (not pictured)
• Index cards (not pictured)

Step 2: Study...?

Note: This will be a tedious process. DO NOT get frustrated and smash aforementioned computer. Work MUST be done at desk, where ethernet cord cannot reach, otherwise you WILL get distracted by playing typing games or solitaire or Facebook. 

Step 3: ?

Step 4: Profit.

Well, not really, but hopefully good grades :) <3

Restaurant Review: Cambridge 1

Today my roommate and I went out to lunch at Fenway's Cambridge, 1. pizza place. Holycrapohmygosh it was the best pizza of all time. I knew this previous to today's endeavor, however (heh, rhyme), because I went with my boyfriend and his family before a Regina Spektor concert at the House of Blues last September.

Nice atmosphere!! Minimalist decorating

Anyway, their pizza is absolutely fantastic. Choosing between the items on their menu was seriously one of the most difficult lunch decisions I've made in a while. I ended up getting the baby arugula, fontina, and parmigiano pizza, which was, as you can see, basically a salad on top of pizza crust, but it was SO GOOD. In the background is my roommate's pizza, which was artichoke, roasted tomatoes, goat cheese, and spinach. YumYum! 

My half-pizza (salad)

Seriously. If you're ever in the Fenway area, this place gets 5 stars by me (out of 5). The service was super fast, too! Amazing. :) <3

Hot Like Apple Pie!

Okay, so today was freakishly warm. Last night I was mentally prepping myself for the a cappella performance I had in Faneuil Hall today. I had an entire outfit decided, which consisted of a long sleeve shirt, sweatshirt, coat, scarf, hat, gloves, leggings, jeans, thick thick socks, and kicks. I would be the toastiest person there!
Then, when I woke up it turned out to be 45 degrees all day and the only extra warmth I needed was a jacket. You'd better believe that I still brought a scarf, hat, and mittens with me in my purse just in case.
Anyway, the performance got cancelled, and I ended up hanging out in Quincy Market for a good amount of time.
The decorations in Government center were so nice and cheery that I thought I'd share some pictures with you!!! Enjoy this small gallery :)

Faneuil Hall (sorry the picture is slightly slanted :\)

The Christmas Tree (Seriously, this thing was mammoth.)

Even the crazy lightposts were decked out in style.

I'm not really sure why this picture exists... it's not really focused on anything. Sorry about that...

I tried to go out tonight to see the lights in full-swing, but instead I sat in the dining hall for an hour and a half with my suitemates and then watched another hour and a half of SNL skits on Hulu, soooooooooo... tomorrow maybe???

Sorry that this post is kind of short, I just wanted to share the magic of Boston Christmas with you guys :))

<3 

The Return of the Sweez'

Hello everybody!!! Sorry that this is about... oh, I don't know... 2 months late. I've been crazy busy with homework and a cappella and unnecessary reading assignments and figuring out what in the world to do with my life. You know, the usual. So flash forward to now, and it's Holiday Dinner night at Shelton Dining Hall!! Hoooray!!! It was decorated soo festively and made me want to go home even sooner. Now that my week is essentially done, I have study period from Saturday through Thursday, when my first two finals are. Then I have another measly final on Saturday and I'm ready to Amtrak it on out of here!
Since the pictures that I post today weren't taken specifically for the blog, the quality is suuuuper low and lame, so I'm sorry for that :\ First off, the Holiday Dinner!

How cute, right??

SO that was delicious and wonderful. There was even a cheese bar!!!! That's right, folks. There was also some sort of chicken and sirloin and tons of gingerbread :) It's holiday time and I'm sooo excited!!!

To digress from the magic of winter, here are some pictures that I took while I was at the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) two months ago to tide you over until I find something cool to post for tomorrow...

The grand entry staircase

There was a fashion exhibit going on at the time, which meant that random mannequins were all over the museum sporting some form of 20th century frock. The dresses were pretty cool, but my friend and I were not able to look around the entire museum, because we got there at 4 (thank you, MBTA), and the MFA closes at 5.

Another huge exhibit was a bunch of ancient Asian artwork and sculptures. There were tons of Buddhas in one alcove that was very poorly lit and pretty creepy, but I took a picture of one, just for you. 

Pretty cool, eh?

Apart from the Buddhas, there were tons of scrolls and ancient poetry and paintings. The exhibit was actually huge and it took us a good portion of 45 minutes to walk through it all (and then figure out how to escape). As we caroused the more modern sections, we saw a really cool wall (aka giant artwork) that was right across from the gift shop. 

Whaaat!? Chairs on the wallllllsss!!!!

Okay -- make that "chairs and purses covered in tiny pieces of mirror"

That's cool, MFA. I can roll with that. 

Then, as we were perusing the gift shop in search of, I don't know, sweet gifts(?), the lights started shutting off and we were quickly ushered to the nearest exit and thrown out in the pouring rain. Not cool, MFA. Not cool. 

Anywho, that's all the pictures I really have, which is super lame and I'm so sorry that I missed fall completely. I'm such a bad blogger, guys. I promise that I will make an effort to bring you only the best of what goes on here in the life of B-Sweez', so keep your eyes and ears peeled! (But don't forget to wear hats and scarves and mittens because it is getting SOOO cold in Beantown :((( booo!) 

P.S. I'm probably going to end up re-doing the whole blog thing this coming week because it's study period and I'll be procrastinating at one point or another. Plus, let's face it, Bay State Road looks exactly the same all the way down it, sooo I'll be trying to incorporate some things that don't necessarily stick to the theme. Or maybe I'll change the theme. Don't read this, I'm rambling. Well, yeah. I'm going to go watch Keyboard Cat a few thousand more times because it is quite obviously the best meme in the entire world. 

Kay love bye!! :3

Birthday Bashful

Oh man. Sorry for not posting anything in so many days!! I've been ultra busy with school work and figuring out what major I should pursue and which T lines I should take, etc. ANYWAY! Today is the extra-special birthday edition of BTEB, so my pictures are birthday themed, mostly. :)

I woke up this morning to find my room completely decorated with streamers and a present next to my bed thanks to my wonderful roomie. The present consisted of mostly "Happy Birthday" garb such as a crown, pin, beads, etc. The room was another matter altogether...

The decorations everywhere were wonderful, though maybe a little bit hindering to my daily routine. For example, this banner that was strung from one corner of my dresser to the other which made opening the drawers rather difficult, and the "Happy 1st Birthday!!" streamers covering the entire mirror on the back of the door made it hard to make sure I didn't look like a hobo before I left :P (Apparently my roommate didn't know that the streamers said "1" until she hung them up, but that's okay. It was a nice surprise, if not a few years off :)

Since I forgot to take pictures at my birthday dinner at Chipotle, I took some pictures of the sweet decorations the roomie and I have in our dorm room.

I LOVE my star lamp, which, paired with my roommate's 'tree-light' gives our room a wonderful glow that is much more favorable than the stark white fluorescent light from the ceiling. It makes our room quite zen, which I love.

These Victorian frame wall stickers have been, in fact, not very sticky and have been taped up multiple times. Our room has switched from humid to freezing so many times from the broken window, it's no wonder we can't hang up those darn Command hooks!! Sorry again for this post being both so long after the last and so late at night.

Same Route, New Things :)

So I've decided that, starting tomorrow, I'm taking a different route home from class. I've taken pictures of almost everything on Bay State at this point, and unless anything remarkable comes along, that's it for that neighborhood. Until the leaves start changing! :)

Fence halfway to CAS

This fence, outside what I think is a residence for BU, marks the halfway point between my dorm and my classes. It's also probably the most easily recognizable fence on Bay State, so it's nice to have as a landmark :) There are all sorts of vine-like details to the fence at the posts that jut out more than the rest, and it looks pretty cool.

Wonderfully colorful bike

Sorry to put another bike up on here for the second day in a row, but I just thought it was so cute! Most bikes in Boston are this style, rather than the mountain bikes that people would have at home.

Unique brownstone

I love this brownstone. It looks so different than the other brownstones, and I don't know why, but it just looks really cool to me. I think it's especially because of the sweet roof bit that sticks out. All of the other brownstones have a basically flat façade. 

On a brownstone house

This brownstone is so cool. Obviously it's not brown, but that's okay. It's the house of some doctor, and not really a BU residence. There's a zen-like outdoor area with this sweet plaque thingy on the outside of the house, and I wish I knew what it stood for...

Well, that's it for today! Halfway through the week :)

¡Gracias, el Tiempo!

Thunderstorms last night, and rain apparently until right before I got out of class! Lucky day. Today is after-sickness housekeeping day, so I'll be throwing everything in the washing machine :)
Oh! I got you that picture of the façade that I promised:

202 Bay State Rd. 

Creepy, eh? Especially so because the rain made dark lines like tear-tracks down the faces. We-eird! 

Today the weather has been funky. When I went to sleep it was raining, when I woke up it was sunny, and then when I got out of class it looked like it had just rained, and the sky was fairly dark. Oh, Boston. At least it isn't as hot anymore as the past few weeks. It was around 50 degrees the other day, though, and everyone was complaining. Just can't have happy city folk, I suppose. 

The side of a building on Bay State and Granby

I knew BU was a green university, but this just about takes the cake for the greenest building on campus. So many of the buildings are covered with ivy on at least one side, and the effect is really cool when the wind is blowing. The wall appears to shift or wiggle; it's awesome. 

BU's very own Castle!

Known simply as "the Castle", this very strange building is attached to the old Hillel center, and across Granby St. from the new one. It's on the northwest corner of Granby and Bay State. I think people (perhaps students) actually live inside, because there is an entrance on the Granby side of the building with a red plaque like all the BU buildings have. There is also a "Back Patio Grill" or something like that behind the Castle, which always seems to advertise as open, that I definitely need to check out at some point. This is also very very spooky to walk past in the middle of the night on the way back from the George Sherman Student Union (GSU). 

Outside another residence

The trees are taking over!! I have walked by this brownstone every day and didn't notice this strange friendship until two days ago. It looks pretty darn cool and reminds me of the Loading screen for an old Clue game for PC that I got out of a cereal box. I wish I lived there! :(

Poor, poor bicycle :(

This guy has just been beaten to a pulp. I'm sure this bike has been there for a very long time, since the wheels are rusted; what's left of them, anyway. Every day I walk by, and it seems that whoever put it there didn't think it was worth it to bring back the damaged bike. Shame, shame. Enjoy the end-of-summer weather :)

Freshhh

Brand new week! One hour of class and off into the wonderful world of office assistant jobbing. Not a bad first day, made literally 500 copies of an 8-page test which took like a bazillion reams of paper. Anywho! There's supposed to be rain today, but it hasn't happened yet, so I have some pictures of gloomy ol' Boston from about 10 minutes ago...

Right next to Shelton. Rain is coming!

Belated picture of the Citgo sign

So I haven't put up a picture of the Citgo sign until now. This beaut is about a block away from my dorm and GIGANTIC. Seriously. Unfortunately, so far this year it hasn't been lit up at night, but I'm assuming that the renovations being done on it are to make it more energy efficient, so that's good. This is my #1 landmark as a University student. I can see it from a good distance away, and it's especially helpful if I'm in an area where the only thing around are brownstones and I don't know how far away my dorm is. Soon, apparently, it'll be 'bright as ever', which is really magnificent, for those who haven't seen it. I'll definitely post some pictures when that happens :)

"Explosion" statue outside CAS Chemistry building

Right outside where I work is this fantastic statue. I'm not sure whether I love or absolutely hate it. Either way, it's there and it's the only way that I know which building to go in :)

Behind it is the Morse Auditorium, which is pretty fancy and holds large lectures as well as the "Boston University Experience", whatever that is. 

Outside of the Chemistry building - Art project

There's an art project outside the CAS Chemistry building that features prominent Chemists, Biologists, and Physicists from all through history. These portraits are composed of iron flakings attached to fabric which is then rubbed with salt (?) and somehow the impression ends up on the concrete and is supposed to last for a while. Pretty cool idea :)

Sassafrass McGee

Pigeons are not afraid of humans. At all. Sassafrass McGee over here walked RIGHT next to me on Deerfield St, without even flapping his wings or running away. I was actually a little bit scared of him, so I walked quickly away immediately after taking this picture. There were about seven pigeons right in the middle of the road that didn't seem to care that traffic was coming, so I suppose that's a good Darwinian reinforcement method. Or something. 

Aanywayy... That's what I saw today, minus a really really really cool brownstone façade that I'll post the next day that I end up walking past it (aka tomorrow probs) Bon semaine!

The Lamest Saturday in the History of College

Woke up in the morning feelin' like P. Diddy... if P. Diddy had a head cold and had just slept for 11 hours. Since I am trying to fully recuperate before my three a cappella auditions tomorrow, I will not be going out and about today. This means pictures from the dorm room! (and left-overs from yesterday)

The view from my window

I'm lucky enough to be on the north side of the building, so my view is of the Charles River, some MIT buildings, and Storrow Drive. Unfortunately, for those of you who don't know, Storrow Drive is essentially a highway, that I have generously excluded from this picture. However, the fact that the Charles is right there makes up for the loud traffic at night. 

This afternoon when I woke up I went down to the dining hall and made a waffle, which ended up having the Boston University Terrier logo in the middle of it! Snazzy! I ate that plate-o-carbs and grabbed two apples for later.

Aforementioned apples hanging out on my bedspread

I figure I might as well load up on some Vitamin-whatever while I'm sick as a dog. I suppose I'll share with you some pictures from yesterday that didn't make it into the blog post since I won't be taking any newbies today.

The brownstone whose pillar I showed yesterday

Seriously, there will be so many more pictures of brownstones, simply because they're so cool and most of them have some unique feature about them that I see something new every time I walk down Bay State. 

Brownstones and the Pru piercing the sky in the distance

The Prudential Center is GIGANTIC. Seriously. You can see it from virtually everywhere on campus. It's several blocks from BU, but it has definitely helped me figure out what direction I need to go in to get home on more than one occasion. The Citgo sign, though it is currently not turned on for renovations (bummer!), is also an excellent landmark because it sits on top of the Barnes & Noble at Boston University, which is about one block south of my dorm. I took this picture because the sky looked so menacing and the Pru was just sticking into the middle of the dark clouds, infallible as ever.

Trying out my UV lens

The weather in Boston changes over the course of a day more times than I can count. Wednesday morning my roommate and I were woken up at about 6 am by extremely loud thunder that shook our nearly century-old building. Rain was pounding the roof of the dining hall below and the sky was extremely dark, so we dressed for classes as if we were going to face the Great Flood. Turns out, by 9:30 am, the ground was completely dry and not a single cloud was in the sky, so I looked like a huge idiot with my giant rain boots and umbrella. Chalk one up for Boston!

Today the weather is beautiful but all I want to do is take a nap, so I think that's what I'm going to do. More exciting things than this tomorrow! Promise :)

Opportunities Abound!

Mornin'! 

After just about zero sleep, my cold isn't much better, and so the onslaught of tea continues. Today I had only one class, which gives me more time to explore (and/or sleep) for the rest of the day :)

The front of a brownstone on Bay State Rd. 

I pass so many brownstones on my way to and from the center of BU, where my classes are, that I figured I'd share an awesome architectural feature of one of the brownies on my side of the street. Each of the brownstones has an awesome entryway, and no two next to each other are the same. 

The Admissions building

The Admissions building, just about a half a mile from my dorm, is almost completely covered in ivy and generally has prospective students and their families milling around outside of it. Today the walkway was empty, so I decided to take the opportunity :)

The Sheraton! (aka Shelton Hall) 91 Bay State Road

Shelton, my home for this year, was built in 1923 as a Sheraton Hotel. The dining room is now obviously the dining hall, and the rooms are in a suite style that probably haven't changed much since they were hotel suites. The ninth floor, however, has panoramic windows that allow you to see a TON of Boston and Cambridge (pictures to eventually follow) including (but not limited to) MIT, the Citgo sign, Fenway, the Prudential Building (aka the Pru), and excellent views of Bay State brownstones! Hooray!

One other thing. When Shelton was the Sheraton, Eugene O'Neill, a rather famous playwright, I'm told, lived on the fourth floor until he died of some illness. Eugene haunts the fourth floor, which is, you guessed it!, my floor. I can certainly see where stories of hauntings come from, though. The lights are considerably dimmer on my floor than any other, and the elevator (which I can hear through the paper-thin wall of my room) stops at my floor frequently when no one is in it and no one has pushed the button... 

So! With that lovely tale aside, I welcome you to Boston, through the eyes of me, BeeSweezy!

Hey there, broski!

So I decided to start a project. One that would show my friends, family, and anyone who was interested what it looks like to be living in the city. I like to find things that are unusual or beautiful that may not be seen by the average passer-by or vacationer. It takes a while to get used to the hustle and bustle of city and University life, but I think that you'll like what I found when I finally took the time to look around. :)