the windy city

this weekend, my friend emma and i drove down to chicago to visit our friend sarah who is doing an internship there for the semester! WOW did we have fun!

we met sarah at her friend eric's house, and she greeted us with hugs and ingredients for vegan black bean burgers. they were so spicy! but so delicious. check out chef chloe's website for the recipe. i also got to try a beer called matilda from the chicago brewery goose island. it was pretty good. sarahthen took us to her favorite vegan bakery, the bleeding heart bakery. we got delicious baked goods! i had a vanilla/orange/blueberry cupcake. yum!

the three of us girls then headed to sarah's dad's house. i'm glad i got to meet him, sarah. he is a funny man! we got ready for the night, then headed to the empty bottle for a concert. we met up with a friend of sarah's, saw a few bands, danced a little, squeezed seven people into a photobooth, and played pool. then our friend parth called us, and we met him at a bar called mad river. this bar played a huge variety of songs (and played their respective music videos), and we danced SO MUCH! gosh it was so much fun.

the next morning emma, sarah, and i woke up and headed to wicker park to eat at earwax cafe, another vegan-friendly place in chicago. i had the best breakfast of the year: a breakfast burrito with eggs, cheese, black beans, veggies, avocado, and salsa. delicious! i recommend you eat there next time you are in chicago! i woke up this morning, and my first thought was that i wanted to eat breakfast there again.

unfortunately, my camera broke on the hulk roller coaster at universal, so i am camera-less for the semester and could not take any pics this weekend. donations and suggestions for a new camera are welcome!

it is amazing how refreshing a good weekend with good friends can be. i am back and ready to take on this semester and student teaching!

edit: turns out i do have a picture from the weekend! i found this on my phone. ladies and gentlemen, the fabulous sarah russo:

a toast to the new year

new year's eve 2011
the best nye to date!!
i spent the night with my best friends sarah and emma in grand rapids,
and we met up with a few different friends throughout the night.
we went to el rancho, queen's pub, and a bottom40 dance party.
we ended the night with a sleepover!

i can't wait for this year.

my new year's resolutions?
be happy &
manage my money

what are your new year's resolutions?

on theme parks and being home for the holidays

theme parks are a wonderful place. my cousin heather's au pair, laura, said about las vegas, "i love that place because it is like all the world in one city." i believe you can say the same about theme parks. as i stood in lines and walked around the magic kingdom and universal's island of adventures, i loved listening to people speak in many different languages and accents everywhere i went. although these parks cost three times as much as cedar point (plus the cost to travel there), they are a hundred times better to visit! these parks are entire cities of fun. these parks don't only create fun with their rides--they give you an entire experience with their sidewalks lined with comic book cities, cartoon characters, castles, and color! universal and disney world make standing in long lines FUN.

i went to florida over break to spend some time with my cousin heather, her kids, and my aunt bonnie. we hung out at heather's beautiful home and visited theme parks. i loved getting to spend time with my cousins! heather is great to talk with, and her kids are extremely cute and funny. i wish i had videos of them from the entire week. ella woke me up every morning shouting, "amanda! amanda! wake up!" then she would hug me, hand me my glasses, laugh, and tell me, "you look funny with your glasses and pajamas. and your hair is crazy!"

a second highlight of my week was visiting the wizarding world of harry potter. laura and i walked through hogwarts, rode rollercoasters, saw the actor who played draco malfoy, went to honeydukes and zonkos, and we drank butterbeer in hogsmeade. it was a dream come true.

i then spent the rest of my time at home enjoying some quality time with my family.

here are some pics from the trip!

my mom and i went to holiday nights at greenfield village, too!

here she is with a snowman we found.

a manifesto

Poetry for me has taken many forms over the course of the past few months.

Poetry for me has been a source of stress, enjoyment, self-help, and release.

At first, I was focused on form. I had no idea where lines should break or how to choose the right words to fit a certain number of required syllables to make my poems interesting. As an education major that has to strictly follow formatting rules when writing lesson plans, having to fit my poems into a certain format stressed me out greatly at first.

I then realized that if I first wrote out what I wanted to say, I could then insert that into a particular form. This is when I began to have a lot more fun! My own voice began to come through in my poetry once I realized that I could write about the people and places that I knew. I didn’t have to make up something that I didn’t actually know or care about. I inserted dialogue and made my characters talk! I brought scenes from my memory to life by describing them in detail! This was all very exciting to me.

As the semester went on, I wrote many poems about my childhood. While these poems contained many beautiful images, they had no turn and no meaning. Once again, I was frustrated because I could not create a turn in my poems. What I realized was that these poems did not matter to me. All they were to me were good memories of times I spent with my family growing up. I wrote these poems as a way to remember good memories while trying to cover up bad memories of the past year.

This was my moment of insight: I couldn’t create meaning for my readers in my poems because they didn’t hold any meaning for me. I wasn’t writing about what truly mattered to me at this point in my life.

So…I began to write about everything I have been forcing myself to not write about. My past year has consisted of hard family relationships, broken friendships, and break-ups. Who wants to dwell on these types of events? I didn’t at first, but once I let myself go to that place of hurt within myself, poetry came more naturally to me. The more I wrote, the better I felt about everything that happened. Writing poems about the hurt of shattered relationships has helped me release that pain that I have been holding on to for over twelve months.

My advice to every aspiring writer: don’t be afraid to write about what you are scared to write about. Let it out! You will feel much better once you do, and you will have significantly better writing to show for it.

late july and harry potter

and no i'm not talking about the release of the next hp movie

(which is due to come out next july)

although i did see harry potter twice this weekend(!), both times with wonderful friends, the highlight of my weekend (and probably of the semester so far) was my good friend jacob bullard's cd release concert on friday night. jacob recorded a 4-song ep this summer (entitled 'late july'), and chris took photos and designed the album art and cd.

the show was opened by ordinary neighbors and the soil and the sun. then came jacob. he was incredible! jacob, i am very proud of you!! i am happy to call you my friend! (and not just because you are a celebrity who signs autographs now)

here he is (with band):

you don't look like anyone i know

this is me with my good friend amanda, our professor heather sellers, and her friend amelia.

on saturday night, amanda, maria, and i went to an art gallery in holland to attend the book launch of heather's memoir, you don't look like anyone i know. ((this is a link to her website)) she was also recently featured on good morning america! her memoir is about her life as it relates to her rare neurological disease that causes her to not be able to remember the human face. this is very interesting, and she is SUPERB! check her out!

fall so far

the fall 2010 award for the worst blogger goes to me.

i have neglected to document the fun events of my life via blogger in the midst of the mounds of lesson plan writing, poetry writing, and book-reading i have had to do lately.

but now i have some time!

here is a quick update on how my senior year has looked so far:

this year, i have a few friends living on the beach on lake michigan. they call it: dee's place (after their landlord). we broke it in at the beginning of the year by going for a swim! (corinne was there too!)

one day, the waves on lake michigan were the biggest i've ever seen them!

this is the view from the boys' deck.

one night, we had a bonfire at dee's place. quinn and i gathered lamps from around the house and lit up the deck. it looked like a treehouse.

my good friend johnrob turned 22! so we celebrated.

lindsey made him this awesome chocolate candy cake!

and then my good friend and housemate corinne turned 22!

so we went to cityvu to celebrate over dinner.

and then my good friends, lindsey and johnrob, got engaged!!

chris and i went apple picking at crane's orchards (after a delicious lunch at crane's in the city).

we had a fun afternoon walking around tasting apples and picking a few of our favorites.

we were told the honeycrisp section was cleared out for the season, but of course we had to investigate because honeycrisps are the best! there were hundreds on the ground, so we searched and searched and found a good one and ate it! without a doubt, it was the best apple of the day.

i went home for a weekend and spent time with my family.

here is my mom and dad at the plymouth orchards and cider mill!

emma and i went to a rugby game!

who knew hope college had a rugby team? not me.

i imagined i was back in england the entire time.

while i was there, a mom standing next to me explained everything about the game.

so..got questions about rugby? i can answer them for you! (maybe)

for my curriculum and methods education class, we had to write direct lesson plans.

lauren and i got to be partners! this is a picture of us with our lesson just after we finished it.

we were excited to be done! (and still alive)

kendall, lauren, and i went out to happy hour at cityvu to celebrate finishing our first lesson plans of the semester!

i like chris, and i like that he lives on the beach.

we have been soaking in each others' company and all of this beautiful fall weather we have been having here in west michigan!

i climbed a tree for the first time in years with one keri maxon!

kendall, lauren, and i had a dinner party!

quinn joined us, and allison stopped by to say hi!

it was a wonderful evening.

here is the feast that we cooked up: shrimp alfredo, strawberry/spinach salad, pumpkin/apple bread with vanilla caramel ice cream for dessert, and white wine and red "witches' brew" wine. oh my was it delicious! the best meal i've had in a while.

in between all of this, i have attended bbqs and bonfires, artprize in grand rapids, coffee shops, and i have been spending a lot of time with good friends.

that's my semester so far. more updates to come soon!