New Year, New Adventure

it seems like it was not too long ago that i was enjoying spanish siestas and london at christmas time... but a year has already flown by... the Core has been more challenging than i would like to admit, but its done, over, and its all downhill from here.

dec 27th i will be flying to London to spend a few days with James before heading to Paris on the 31st where i will ring in the new year as an official start to my 8month stint in france. jan 4th i will be traveling to clermont ferrand which will be my home for the next 3 months. after that i will intern for 4 months. where has yet to be decided... any offers?

CHICAGO ..... land area

So while most people spend their Saturdays sleeping in or working in their gardens my mother and I spent the entire day working in Grandma’s yard. Did I mention we first drove 700 miles to get there? An hour and 15 minutes to Tremont in the Smokey Mountains, pick up mom, then drive another 10 hours to outside Chicago to see Grandma.

Saturday started with breakfast at the Super 8 Motel, which, back in the day cost, you
guessed it, 8 dollars… lets just say we’re not in Kansas anymore. After Raisin Bran and doughnuts we made our way to the Hardware store to see what the mulch situation looked like. About 8:30 we picked up Grandma, who had been eating breakfast since we called her at 7:50 and was not yet ready to go. Threw her in the back of the car and headed to the Ottawa Greenhouse. But, alas, Grandma spotted a yard sale on the way and insisted that we stop. She scored 2 wine glasses and a mattress pad all for $2. I wasn’t aware that Grandma drank wine or that she was unsatisfied with her current level of mattress comfort. Oh well. We continued on to the greenhouse, that was an
experience. For the second time in Ottawa they didn’t have a credit card machine and they had to hand write the receipt as well as run the card through one of those antique metal things that makes a carbon copy of the face of the card. Wow.

After the greenhouse we headed to grandmas house to drop off the flowers. Then we loaded back in the car to go to the hardware store. We got a bag of peat moss and 6 bags of mulch. Back to grandmas to unload. Each of the bags of mulch probably weighed 40-50lbs. Grandma procured the necessary tools for the yard work, which many of them mom recognized from her childhood. Good thing my tetanus shots are up to date. One of the rusty rakes became detached from its rotting handle and the same fate unfortunately befell a trowel and hoe. Our troops severely crippled we decided to proceed with the operations as planned.

We started working on tidying up the front yard when grandma’s new neighbors came home. They came over and grandma introduced us to them and they had the opportunity to meet “my daughter the medical doctor and her daughter”. We’re so famous. We talked to them about the 6’ wide stretch of land between the two houses. When mom discovered we had similar visions our task-load doubled and she decided we were going to fix the two trenches that grandma had dug between the two houses to deal with rainwater.


Back to the hardware store, this time for 6 bags of dirt. Mom is now on a first name basis with the lady who worked the register, who also lacked a credit card machine and had one of those old carbon copy things.

Back to Grandmas, dig dig dig, rake rake rake. We dug up the entire side of her house and poured down about 6 bags of dirt to try and level it out. We ran out of supplies and mom headed back to the hardware store. They greet her by name.

Back at the house. It’s about lunch time. I asked Grandma “Grandma, does the oven work?” “NO! Why?” “ I was going to heat up the pizza from last night” “Oh, I’ll be right up.” So, Grandma lied to me about the status of the oven. She shuffled up from the basement and proceeded to unload the oven. It seems to have become a makeshift bookcase housing cookbooks, newspapers and oven mitts. Did I mention we found a gas leak while working in the yard? And that the hot water heater was leaking gas as well? So with an exterior and interior gas leak, Grandma still finds it handy to store flammables in the oven. I guess we should have taken her matches away too.

We had our leftover pizza, grandma had swiss cheese and bread. The same swiss and bread she had promised us for dinner Friday night but we talked into going out for pizza instead. So we eat, we drink, we get back to work. Grandma takes an “over 65 break” to read the paper. Break from what!? I’d say supervising, but she was MIA pretty much all morning. Oh well, mom and I are up for humanitarian awards or something.

Out of dirt, back to the hardware store. Some blonde is blocking the entrance and the staff shoo her out of the way. How dare she block their best customer? Mom loads up on dirt and other yard goods. The lady carbon copies her card and declares “you’re makin’ me rich today.” On dirt that’s $1 a bag, hardly.
We’re working hard in the yard. Grandma announces that she is taking another break. It must be a break from reading the paper or something. Who knows.




We finally finish the yard functionality and beautification process just before 5 and pile in the car so we can go to Cattails, the store mom likes that has pretty yard stuff. We arrive at 5:02. Of course they closed at 5, this story doesn’t have a happy ending.

Take grandma home. Go to the Super 8 to shower, pop a few pills, and drink to make the evening more tolerable. Just kidding about the pills and booze part. And to the Super 8’s credit it was the only place we encountered in Ottawa that had a real credit card machine. And it had free wireless.

Pick up grandma. Head to the new Mexican place in town that she wants to try out. The chips n salsa were horrible, the chips weren’t good and the salsa was waaay too spicy. The food was subpar and a pitiful portion size that would make other Mexican restaurants laugh. Oh yeah, our ‘server’ was a blonde and probably doesn’t know the first thing about Mexican food or Culture, and promised that nothing was spicy.

To top off our day of labor we were in for a little evening excitement. Grandma won tickets to some concert in Streator, this little town about 20 minutes away. We pile back into the car and head to Streator. Apparently this ‘concert’ is at the local high school to benefit the local firefighters. The opening act was terrible. I put my headphones out to try and drown out the noise. Then they had some girl sing that came in the top 3 at some local singing thing. Again, pretty awful.

thats grandma taking a picture of the band...

Then the headliners, Emerson Drive, some Nashville recording artists came on stage. I’m not a huge fan of country. Everyone who knows me is well aware of this. In their defense they were very entertaining. Lots of energy and crowd interaction. And the singer had a great voice. After the first song grandma tells me “We can go when your mother is ready,” because she was soo enthralled with the bad bands that the one was entertaining slipped under the radar. We stayed for a few more songs then headed out around 11, which is 12 our time, and took grandma home. On the way out Grandma announced “I can take my earplugs out now”. It’s just too much for one person to deal with.

THE END!!!

Dear Elizabeth,

Congratulations! The Moore School of Business has recommended that you be fully admitted to the IMBA program to the University of South Carolina’s Graduate School.



... now i can stop stressing out about grad school...

Catch up

Many of you have tuned in to read about my adventures in Spain and England. Unfortunately these travels have come to an end. I have met several of you who have confessed to reading my blog on a regular basis. I figure that I might as well indulge you and let you know what I've been up to at the moment. I'm currently working at Fleming's Prime Steakhouse in Turkey Creek. It's pretty swank. I can't even afford to eat there! My mornings are spent at the Family Doctors of Oak Ridge three days a week spending quality time with my parents since I dont get to see them at night because I work! I have applied to, and interviewed, for the Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. I am hoping to attend their IMBA program there and study International Business with a focus in French. I havent heard anything from them just yet... but I remain hopeful :) Hope that keeps everyone up to date with what is happening here in exciting Tennessee... it's not Spain, but its the best i can do at the moment.

London, again

It seems like my sojourn in Europe is coming close to an end. I am going home on Monday, unless the airport strikes go into effect or it snows… but all things considered I should be home just after dinner on Monday night. These past few weeks have been both ends of the spectrum; from crazy and hectic to doing nothing all day. The pre Christmas hustle and bustle of Oxford Street was a mix of magic and madness. Lights lined the streets and the shops were all decorated to appease the hungry hoards. We braved the city once or twice before Christmas but instead found ourselves enjoying the quiet haven of the little house in Barking.

Putting up the Christmas tree was a comedy as well. It somehow seemed to be custom to raise the tree, in its white plastic netting, before cutting the netting free as well as trimming the bit off the top. Oh well. By the time the tree was up and the ornaments in place it was Christmas Eve. We had a quiet evening with a nice meal. Come Christmas day we went to church then went round to family friends for a while. After visiting we came back home and had a lovely dinner. A few things were different than an American Christmas, but other than that it was pretty much the same. They have these nifty things called Christmas crackers that we definitely have to start getting back in the US of A. its like pulling a wishbone, but it’s a little cardboard tube and you pull it and the person with the bigger end gets the prize that’s inside. There is also a paper crown that you have to wear while telling the terrible joke that is written on a slip of paper inside the cracker. They are probably about the quality of Laffy Taffy jokes and quite terrible at that. We got around to opening presents at about 9pm, which is about 12 hours longer than I usually wait to open presents. When in Rome…

James got a Spain jersey from his brother Nick. James’ favorite soccer player from his favorite team (Arsenal) is Cesc Fabregas, a Spanish player, so naturally Nick had his name put on the back of the jersey. I got a lovely leather jewelry box from James’ parents and I gave them a plaque with their name on it from Granada.

The day after Christmas, which is a holiday in England known as Boxing Day. We basically sat around all day and then went to Uncle Peters for an Indian curry. There’s nothing more English than a curry…We braved the streets on Dec 27 and it was less than an intelligent idea. Talk about crowds. I insisted to James that he had never taken me to Harrods, so after a few quick exchanges on Oxford Street we headed to Knightsbridge and headed to the department store where they claim they can get your anything. Even an elephant. If you can pay for it, they can get it for you. We walked in, past of the line of people waiting to get in to the Gucci shop to get their bags half price and made our way to the Room of Luxury I. It was the biggest department store I had ever been to in my entire life. There was a room devoted to maps. Ancient maps. Average ticket price of a framed ancient map was about 9,000 pounds. Also saw some nice vintage original movie posters that were going for about 3-4grand, framed. But, unfortunately the obnoxious bargain hunters, their babies in strollers and their prehistoric grandmothers were just too much for me to handle. We made a quick exit into the pouring rain and decided to get a coffee and wait out the rush hour rush.

For New Years we decided that we would go up to London and watch the fireworks. We then got a phone call from one of our mutual friends from SC who is from a town just north of London and he said he was going to be in London and asked if we wanted to meet up. We decided it was a good idea and agreed to meet up with him on New Years Eve. We went up to London at about 5 or 6pm to get Italian at a nice little place we discovered when I was here in September. After that we headed to meet Ed at his friends place on Baker Street. I learned that Baker Street is one of the oldest streets in London, the home of the legendary Sherlock Homes, as well as the street where the London fire started. Lots of history packed into one little tube stop eh?

We spent a while at Ed’s then at my urging we finally left to get on the tube to get to where they were going to be shooting off the fireworks. It was fairly crowded on the train but we all managed to get on. 10 minutes and 100 degrees later we arrived at the station. Us and the rest of the people on vacation in London. We were forced out of the cars, funneled to the exit and when we reached an area we were surrounded by hundreds of other people trying to get above ground, just like us. the problem was that there were only 3 escalators, one on the left that wasn’t working that people we walking up, one in the middle that no one was allowed to walk up, and a third on the right that was working and about 2-3 people were coming down.

It was absolute chaos. People were pushing and screaming and there was the casual idiot here and there that decided to bring their infant in its baby stroller or their 93 year old mother who needs a crutch to walk. Finally they decided to fix the malfunction and allow all 3 escalators to go up. Ours wasn’t working, but we hiked up the endless flight of stairs, which is essentially what an out-of-order escalator becomes: stairs.

We made it to the top, exited the station and tried to make our way to Trafalgar Square then to Embankment to see the fireworks, we had just made it to the square when people started cheering and we could hear explosions. We tried to get closer but found that all the roads had been cut off and it was not possible to get to the fireworks. Oh well. We tried to walk around and get to the embankment, but the crowds were horrible and there was already a line around the corner to get into the station. We walked to Covent Garden and had a drink on a rooftop bar. After our drink we realized we had to get home because the trains were only running until 430 and it was going to take a long time to even get to a station. We walked for at least an hour and a half before finding a station that was possibly to enter. We squeezed on a train and made our way home. It was a bit of an anticlimactical night, if that’s even a word, but it was alright. I think James was the only Londoner that was in town as well. We rarely heard English being spoken, and if we did, it wasn’t spoken with a London accent. What a lovely vacation; crowds, overpriced transportation and rain.

Its now Jan 2 and we just got around to opening the last of the Christmas presents tonight. I got some Bailey’s and a matching glass, a box of chocolates, some Christmas socks from Kevin as well as a lovely pair of earrings from James’ Uncle Peter. James scored a cheeky little check and another book or two. Heaven. He also scored a soccer ball pump and some extra needles from his lovely girlfriend. Classy. Tonight means unwinding with a mug of hot chocolate and a movie. I cant believe I’m going home Monday…