Sitting, waiting, wishing, hopin’ at the terminal here in Boston Logan. My airtran flight to Akron/Canton is delayed. I tend to fly Airtran from Boston because it’s usually so cheap; I think this flight cost me 40 each way. In order to compensate for the inconvenience they are throwing in a free one-way ticket to anywhere they fly. I’m thinking Bahama- come on pretty mama. The return flights are pretty cheap; it would be a nice break for the winter. ☺
My dad is insisting that I argue for a free hotel tonight because it’s going to be very difficult for them to drive out to Akron at 12:30AM, but I don’t think it’ll work: I’ve already tried.
It’s funny how I’ll be turning 22 and because of my location, my friends and family will recognize it two different times. For example, my friends in the US, on Wednesday, will be thinking about how in Australia it is my birthday because it is Thursday… and on Thursday, in the US, my friends will then be living my birthday over there.
It’s not so much about it being my birthday, as much as it is about the time: how time works. There is a line, in the middle of the ocean, that just makes time change direction, it makes time work systematically. Although hours are controlled and the days are measured: time is inconsistent, it’s unmemorable. I don’t remember my 17th birthday, and I don’t remember my 15th birthday… but I remember my 21st and my 16th. As you get older you start to remember things worth remembering, but the systematic method of time is just is in the background, counting the days as we get older… but to us, yes, there are these lists of numerical days, but the days don’t count as much as the accumulation of the moments between one date to the other.
I will forever remember my 22nd birthday as being in Australia. Someone will ask me, what’d you do for your birthday last year, or the year before, or ten years ago? And I’ll causally respond, oh that year I was in Australia. When I’m turning 40 I will remember what year I was in Australia because of this birthday, because as you get older (I hear) the years start to blend together… and the dates blend together… and it’s just those extraordinary moments that help mark the years as they fly by.
Although this video did not take me very long to make (about a half day of work), there has been a serious conflict between my editing software (Final Cut Pro) and my digital camera. I haven’t used my digital camera as a video camera before, but because it records HD I thought I’d give it the old college try.
Technical difficulties aside, this is the video gives the basic rundown of what my campus looks like. Weather aside, Bond is quiet different from Northeastern. With 2,500 undergraduate students, it is significantly smaller than NU, for at Northeastern there are about 2,500-3,000 students in my 2011 class alone. NU’s dining halls are very different, with the serve your own, buffet style to the Bond’s pay as you go, restaurant style. The cities are both very different too…
I never realized how much I took living in a city for granted. Being able to walk out of your apartment and find most places open until around midnight is a real blessing. Now, I’ve started to realize what one of the cab drivers meant when he said Bond is in the sticks; for even though it’s only 20 minutes from the beach, it is a lot like living in the country. If I had a car, this country feeling may not be as accentuated. The closest stores aren’t really that far away, but it’s nowhere near like being in Boston, where, you can find anything you need at anytime. The stores here though, close much earlier than in the US. It’s just a change from what I have been used to. I guess I never realized how much of a city girl I have turned into over these years in college.
Next to living in the “sticks,” I’ve also taken a serious technology downgrade. This can be viewed as a good thing, I suppose. Before I got here, I was the girl attached to my iPhone. Always on it, always checking my e-mail, constantly connected to the virtual world. Well, now, I have a Nokia phone that hasn’t been considered modern for about 6 years, it’s really sad. As silly as it sounds, I miss my iPhone, all of the beautiful things it could do for me: from the 24 hour GPS device to the unlimited texting, being iPhoneless can be somewhat disappointing. Even for the fluffy things. For example… Today I was at dinner with a few of my friends and I asked my friend from Norway, if Norwegians eat perogies. She, nor did my other friends, know what perogies were. If we were in Boston, I’d pull out my iPhone with a smile and graciously google a picture of a perogi to show them what exactly I was talking about. Well, today, even though I went to reach for my phone, I re-remembered that I wasn’t in Kansas anymore.
