Black Friday and College Sports

Hello All!

I hope you all had a fabulous Thanksgiving and ate lots of turkey! I've been back in Boston for a few days now, but I got to spend some time at home earlier in the week. I went home Tuesday night and played poker with all my friends like we used to in high school. It was great catching up with all the guys and telling stories. Wednesday I played golf with two of my teammates from high school which was great. Later that night I went to Mohegan Sun with my friend Lindsay which was amazing. Thursday morning I drove back to Boston to have Thanksgiving at my cousin's house with my family. I definitely ate my weight in turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, vegetables, apple pie, and ice cream. Better start going to the gym again!

Now the craziness starts. At 11 PM I decided to go to the Wrentham Outlets that opened at midnight for some shopping. I went with my friend TJ and it turned into a 5 hour trip. We left Boston at 11:45 and didn't get to the outlets until 2:30. It's usually a 45 minute drive, but the highway was a parking lot and trying to find a parking spot at the outlets took forever. There were so many people there that it was almost impossible to walk. Even though it was crazy, I still got some good deals, I bought new snowboarding pants and a jacket from Oakley that normally would have cost a few hundred dollars but I only paid $130. I didn't get home until about 4:30 and passed out right when I walked in the door. Then Friday I worked 1-8 at Banana Republic. For never working on Black Friday or working retail before, I really had no idea what to expect. I've always worked in the restaurant industry which isn't the same on Black Friday as a retail store. Banana was definitely packed when I came in at 1. It was non-stop, running to the back for more clothes, running to and from the changing rooms with different sizes, talking to multiple customers at once, and trying to keep my part of the store neat. I was exhausted after working, but unfortunately I had to work again Saturday at 8 am. Luckily it wasn't as busy that early in the morning, so I took it easy and when I got home, pretty much watched movies and sports all day.

Friday my UConn Huskies lost to Duke in the NIT Tip Off finals in New York. I was pretty upset with the game because I felt the officiating was definitely one-sided in favor of Duke. I know that's not an excuse by any means, but its tough when calls are blatently going in Duke's favor.

Currently I'm watching the Notre Dame-Stanford game. Unfortunately it looks like this will be Charlie Weis' last game as Notre Dame's head coach. When I first heard Charlie Weis was going to become the coach of Notre Dame 4 years ago, I was stoked! It was just what Notre Dame needed and Weis was successful at first getting them to a few bowl games. However the past few years have been rough and it looks like Notre Dame will be under a new coach next year.

Next Saturday will be the Florida-Alabama game in the SEC title matchup. I really am hoping for the upset but I feel Tim Tebow is just too strong of a player to let that happen. Either way, its going to be a great game that I can't wait for.

That's it for now, I'll blog ya later!

-CG

New England - Golf and Snowboarding

Alright so I'm blogging from my apartment, 1) because I'm in the middle of packing all my laundry into trash bags so my Mom can do it for me when I get home, 2) because I'm super excited that my plans have changed slightly, and 3) because I'm going to try and start blogging more often, (I'm secretly an A list celebrity).

So like I said, my plans changed. I'm going home to play golf with two of my high school teammates at Foxwoods Resort and Casino, at their Lake of Isles course.

Then I'm probably going to spend some time at the Casino "catching up" with my friends. We've been playing golf together since we were like 8 so it'll be a good time. Then I believe I will be driving the 20 minutes inbetween Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun to go see some of my other friends that are spending the night at Mohegan. I have to say I'm partial to Mohegan, its definitely a much friendlier, bigger, and more fun casino than Foxwoods.

Then Thursday morning I will be coming back to Boston to have Thanksgiving at my cousin's house in Watertown (those plans didn't change). But Friday I have plans to go to Sunday River in Maine to go snowboarding. I'm pumped because I've had the itch to go to the mountain and I've never been this early in the season. Although leaving at 6 am to get there at 9 is going to be really unfortunate.


This morning was amazing in the fact that I got to sleep in! It was glorious, and I enjoyed every minute of it. I had breakfast with my friend Geralyn, last time I'd see her until after break which was nice. Then I went into the office to say goodbye to some last ambassadors and went home. I also got notice that I have to serve jury duty in January. I've decided that I'm going to postpone it because I don't want to miss class for jury duty, especially if I'm not getting paid. And although serving in a jury during an exciting case might be cool, the chances of me being assigned an exciting case are slim to none. So I rather wait for a time when I don't have class or work to serve my civic duties :).

Alright back to packing and cleaning my apartment before I hit the road for Connecticut.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! I hope you all have a great holiday and eat lots of turkey!!

-CG-izzle

First Break of the Year!

I am officially on Thanksgiving break and it feels amazing! Although I am still here in Boston (and will be throughout break), I am done with classes. I do have my SU 101 section tonight at 4:00 but all I have to do is collect their final paper and eat pizza with my students. Doesn't sound too hard right? So this break will be the first real (not 3 day weekend) break from school. I'm definitely excited but also a little torn. I'm not going home to Connecticut for break because my cousins who live in Watertown (just outside the city) want to host Thanksgiving as their last Thanksgiving here on the East coast before moving back to California. I'm kind of happy to be staying in the city for Thanksgiving because I never have, but at the same time I'm going to miss going home a lot. I'll definitely be missing the hometown football game and tailgating with all my friends, meeting up with all my golf team friends at the local breakfast place, and seeing all my neighbors. I'm pretty sure I'm going to go home for a day or so, so I can atleast see everyone. I'm working black Friday at Banana Republic and I'm sort of afraid because I've never worked in retail before and black Friday is probably one of the worst if not the worst day to work.

This weekend we had an Ambassador get together at Kristin's apartment for a "Not Your Average Thanksgiving Dinner". There was so much food that I felt like I was Adam Richmond from Man vs. Food trying to accomplish the impossible. There was baked ziti, eggplant parm, garlic bread, sushi boat, mashed potatoes, salad, pizza dip, funfetti cake, cheesecake, pumpkin cheesecake, and assorted bakery goods. It was the most food in a college apartment at one time that I've ever seen. Here are some pictures from the night, there were thousands (yes thousands), but these are the elite:

(Me, John, Matt - chic as usual)

The Whole Family (minus TJ, Beckee, Julie, and Allison)

(The Fellas - minus TJ who was in San Diego)

The Ladies (minus Beckee who was in Chicago, Julie who with her sister, and Allison who was celebrating her roommate's birthday)

As you can see, we clean up pretty well! Speaking of cleaning up, Winter Ball is in a few weeks and I can't wait! It's at the State Street building in downtown crossing and its supposed to have one of the best views in the city. As well as Winter Ball, the ambassadors are having an ugly sweater party which will be fun as well! I need to find an ugly sweater though so when I go home at some point, I'll probably borrow one from my dad.

I know I haven't blogged in a while so I'm missing a lot of details about the past month or so, but I'm going to blog a lot while over break and Christmas break so don't worry, more blogs are coming!

Stay classy Boston!

-CG