Merry Xmas and here comes New Years!

Hey everyone!

Hope you all had a great xmas, I sure did. I got: A vest (grandma), 50$ (mom), 25$ itunes card, 100$ jcpenneys card, a tomtom, axe stuff, a new racket (which i returned and got some other tennis stuff since I already have 2 rackets), and some little stuff. The rest was all from my dad, who always hooks me up on christmas. My older sister and her boyfriend got me something too, but I wont get it until the end of January... pretty sure it is Mass Effect 2 though which is rad because that game will be epic. My dad and I went and saw Sherlock Holmes on xmas too, which was pretty good I thought, I haven't read the books but I know it was a lot different from them. Santa brought my dad a bunch of movies which is always good for me since I am a pretty big movie buff.

I had a quick 2.5 day trip up to Norcal last sunday through wednesday. Monday night we had a huge party of like 25 at Chevys, which was fun because one of my best buddies Brett was in california from florida with his girlfriend and I havent seen him in forever. I got to see some other friends I hadn't seen in a while either which was good. Afterwards, we went to Club Car and Pistol Petes (2 auburn bars). My other friend Matt and I shot some pool and then my friend Stacy met us there and we played for a bit. The next day I got to visit my friend Kyle and see my cousins Kari and Kelsi, who were in town from Minnesota and Oregon. They were both home from college. That night, I went out with Stacy and had a blast at the Auburn Alehouse and Petes again. Then, early wednesday morning, I left and drove straight to San Diego and watched Cal play Utah in the Poinsettia Bowl at Qualcolm; shoutout to Ernie for hooking me up with tickets. Mike went with me and afterwards we got some pizza and I drove home. I was pretty tired given I had only slept 4 hours the previous night.. just a whirlwind few days.

Im really excited for New Years; Stacy is coming down to spend a few days and we are going to have a great time. We will be going out to Palm Springs to kick it with my Uncle and his gf and some of their friends. It will definitely be a good time. Hope everyone else is enjoying the holidays and speak soon.

Its beginning to look alot like christmas..

Hello all,

Hope everyone is enjoying a wonderful holiday season. Where to start? Well I got A's in both of my classes, which is awesome. My independant study will be done by january 1 (my self-imposed date for finishing my essays). So basically, I am 3 essays, 1 class, and 1 thesis away from my master's degree. Exciting stuff huh? What else.. oh yeah I now officially have 7 of my 10 applications submitted. The next one is for Leeds Uni on January 1st as well. Today I submitted my arms control paper to be published and accepted at a conference at the end of February at Syracuse Uni, so I hope it gets accepted.

I had a great trip to the east coast: 2 days in NYC, 1.5 days in Boston (got to see the patriots live WOOO), and 2 days in Manchester, CT (my former old town). The picture above is of Grand Central Station on Manhatten, then the patriots game (our seats were 7 rows back from the endzone!), then me and kaat at the game, the old north church in boston, and finally my old house in manchester. Got to spend some time with Kaat, a friend I met in Spain, who is studying in NYC and we had fun going to the patriots and walking around Boston in the rain. Then in Manchester, I spent most of my time with Jon Phelps, who is an old football buddy. I also got to see my friend Mike Goldstein for a few hours and my last relative in Connecticut, a cousin named Val. All in all, great trip! I had some transportation issues in the form of delayed flights, missed buses, and missed trains haha. It all worked out good though, except for my patriot ticket fiasco but I don't even want to get into it.

It was a short trip, but a good length althought I forgot how amazing boston is. If I ever move back to the east coast, I will definitely be moving there. What a great city... it just felt like home. Id like to take a trip back and spend 3-4 days in Boston and another 3-4 in Connecticut. Got some good reading done on the trip too: Superfreakonomics, The boy who harnessed the wind, and Open (andre agassis biography). All 3 books were really well done and I enjoyed and recommend them all. Tomorrow night, I am heading back up to Norcal for a few days to see some people. Then wednesday I am suppose to go to the Cal vs. Utah bowl game, but my friend hasn't let me know if he was able to get tickets yet or not.

Things are going pretty good, I really need to stay focused on school and I completely failed at that today haha oh well. Playing tennis tonight which is a plus! Oh yeah, saw Avatar last night.. really cool movie with the best CGI effects I have ever seen. Pretty soon they won't even need actors. Anyways, take care and speak soon.

End of the Quarter is so close!

I submitted my app to UC San Diego last night, so I'm officially done with 4 out of the 10 apps. The next 3 (Harvard, Yale, UCLA) are due on 12/15/09. I need to finish these by thursday night, because that is when I am flying back east for 5 days and I don't want to worry about it while I am out there. I also submitted my paper for Geography 600 tonight, so I am officially done with Geography. I should easily get an A in the class I only needed a 70 out of 100 on the final paper to do so. I finished my paper for Poli Sci 622 completely too, so I will just do one final readthrough and edit tomorrow or thursday and submit it on thursday. That class I have an A in, so if I get an A on the paper I should get an A in the class. My goal is to finish one of my three essays for my econ independant study. Even though my professor said he would extend it into the next quarter, its probably a good idea to get one of them done. Then, I can finish the other 2 over break and focus on my thesis.
Today was pretty productive, I edited 2 papers for a friend for his classes. Also, I saw slumdog millionaire.. GREAT movie I highly recommend it. Really powerful and just the flow and style of the movie were great. Also, my buddy Garrett and I beat the new Halo ODST campaign woohoo it only took us like 2 nights lol its pretty short, but fun. I bought my patriots tickets today, booked the hostel in Boston, and got things cleared up with Kaat. Really excited to go back east for a few days. Speaking of that, I got a surprise call from my buddy Jon who I will be hanging out with. I played football with him in Connecticut and have not seen him in like 10 years!!

I finished fast food nation yesterday, pretty good book. The author's writing style is a little repetitive, but the message and information were really sound. On the flight over to NYC, im planning on reading SuperFreakonomics, the sequel to Freakonomics. The first one was really good, so Im excited to read this.

My dad brought home the Xmas tree today and I decorated it.. always good times and memories. Ill have to take some pictures and post them. Anyways, happy holidays to everyone and god bless....

PS: Oh yeah! It is Jimmy V classic Week on ESPN for College basketball. This is my favorite charity and supports cancer research. PLEASE go donate something, anything!! It is the best charity ever!!!!!

Crunch Time

Hope everyone had a great thanksgiving! I sure did; spent a week in northern california with friends and family. Played some tennis, met with some old friends, made a few new ones.. always a good time. Oh yeah, I bought a few books before I left: Fast Food Nation, The Gathering Storm, Open, and SuperFreakonomics. I'm about halfway through Fast Food Nation so far and it is really good; its about how the fast food industry develped, does business, and spread across the country. My Aunt Nasty gave me a book too called "The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind", which looks really good too.

So I am done with 3 of my 10 applications. I submitted to Cambridge, Stanford, and Berkeley. The next group are due in about a week. School-wise Im done for the semester except for my 25 page paper which I havent started yet.. Yikes! Other exciting news is I got Netflix today and LOVE IT. All Ive done today is watched movies: Nick + Norah's Infinite playlist, 10 things I hate about you, Mall Cop, Phenomenon, and now im watching the Never Ending Story. Its 9$ a month, I get 1 disc for free at anytime, plus through my xbox there is 100's of movies you can stream instantly.

When I was up north I played some tennis with my buddy who works for Berkeley's football program.. it was so cool I got to tour the football facilities and even met some coaches. I have definitely been missing football lately.

Tomorrow I need to mail some writing samples, and work on my paper. Oh yeah my East Coast trip is coming up in like 10 days super excited for that too! Hope everyone is well!