Can’t believe I’m graduating in that short amount of time.  I remember Freshman year like it was yesterday.  Time really does fly.  I feel bittersweet about graduation — I could definitely stay an extra year here at Temple but it’s time to move on because I’m getting my degree!  Plus, I just mailed in my enrollment deposit for Middlebury yesterday so I must move on! haha.  Random side note — apparently this year at Commencement Patti LaBelle will be getting an honorary degree so that will be cool to see her there!

So last week was Temple’s annual Spring Fling.  My last spring fling ever!!!  So sad.  It was great…but not amazing.  The weather was kind of crappy — it was cloudy/rainy/cold and all the tickets were sold out to the N.E.R.D/ GirlTalk concert so I was a little disappointed.  However, there WAS a pie-throwing stand in which my supervisor volunteered to be in, so I got to pie her!!  And of course I have pictures

Winding up...

...got her!

Jayme, Adrienne, Ashley & Me on Spring Fling

In other news, the infamous Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, KS was supposed to come protest Temple’s productions of RENT and the Laramie Project.  However, they did not show…much to the disappointment of Temple students who had a huge peaceful counter-protest of about 1,100 students!  I can’t stand that group of ignorant, bigoted, undeserving people.  I’m glad they didn’t show because they would have been completely outnumbered.  Nevertheless though, I had a great time with a bunch of my friends and it was SO nice to see how many people came out to support LGBTQ rights and eqaulity

Jayme, my girlfriend Ashley, Me, Tekara, and Talisa @ the counter-protest

Me holding up my flag Notice all the people and cops in the background!!!

Legalize Gay! Jos, Me, Dan, Jayme, Liz, & Chris @ the counter-protest

That’ s all for now!!  Everything is wrapping here at Temple….so bittersweet!  More to come soon

I GOT ACCEPTED TO MIDDLEBURY COLLEGE!!! WOOOOOOOOOOO!  I actually found out about a month ago but things have been so crazy in my last semester here at Temple.  So I’ll be leaving for 6 weeks at the end of June to head up to Vermont on Middlebury’s campus.  It’s an intensive 6-week program in which I sign a pledge to only speak French for the entire duration of the program.  Then I head off to PARIS (again!) in September for a year in order to complete my M.A. in French.  I am VERY EXCITED!!  I worked my butt off in my 4 years here at Temple so this is definitely a well-deserved payoff.  More to come later…

In other news, I am graduating Temple in less than 2 months!  EEEEEK.  So scary and bittersweet.  I also just returned home from Jacksonville, FL with the band.  We were there for 3 days with the Temple Men’s Basketball team for the NCAA tournament.  We played Cornell in the 1st round and lost, embarrassingly.  It wasn’t very entertaining.. in fact, the most entertaining part of the trip was that we had 2 free days to explore Jacksonville, which was fun but I wouldn’t go back.  It was kind of a ghost town to be honest.  I’m glad I went somewhere that I had never been, but I don’t plan on returning.  Either way it was a paid trip by Temple so I can’t complain too much!  But all in all, it was definitely a fun trip for my last trip with Temple (so sad to say!).  Also, our women’s team just beat James Madison the other day and play UCONN this Tuesday night at 7:30pm.  Hopefully they beat #1 UCONN!  Let’s go Lady Owls!!!  Here are some pics from the Jacksonville trip:

Off to Jacksonville on our charter flight!

View of Jacksonville from the Skyway -- aka the worst public trans system ever.

The Jacksonville Landing. There are a lot of restaurants/bars in here and live music! We had dinner here both nights - pretty decent.

Main Street Bridge @ night -- one of the many bridges in Jacksonville over the St. John's River

Statue of Andy J for whom the city of Jacksonville was named after!

We went to the Cummer Gardens & Museum on one of our free days

My art creation that I drew at the Cummer Museum & Gardens..go owls!

Me, Rick, and Rachel at the Cummer gardens

Hooter and Cornell's Bear mascot

President Ann Weaver Hart aka the Weave! She also came to Jacksonville to come out and support the Owls in the NCAA tourney.

Picture from ESPN.com of Temple's band! I'm in the 2nd row, just left of center. Too bad the team lost

Not too much else is going on.  I’m just trying to get by in my last semester.  It’s definitely proving to be much harder than I had anticipated!  3 research papers in my last semester, eek!  Guess I should have seen that coming being a Liberal Arts major and all, huh?  Anyway, one of my good friends Mike celebrated his 24th birthday last night so I went out for that with my girlfriend.  We went to McGillin’s for some good beer and karaoke!  For some reason when we all get together, we always say “Slappin’ da bass, man!” I have no idea why, but it started when we all hung out in DC for the EagleBank Bowl.  It was a good time, though!

Ash and I with the birthday boy!

Happy 24th Birthday, Mike!

Also, my girlfriend Ashley and I just got a kitten!  We named her Lily and she is adorable!  Our friend Gida rescued her from University City and we think she was neglected because she is really tiny.  Anyway, Ash took her to the vet and she is somewhere between 6 months-12 months old and only 4 lbs!  We got her a rabies shot and a collar and nametag so she’s all set!  She’s sooo cute and cuddly.  We are definitely spoiling her and making her feel at home.  It’s nice having a little pet in our house!  Here she is:

Lily!

Lily's new favorite spot. She will sit on our bedroom ledge in the sunlight and look out at all the passersby.

That’s all for now…hopefully I’ll update more frequently!  Peace!

Temple Football lost the EagleBank bowl game against UCLA, but they did have a respectable showing score-wise.  It was a very exciting game down in DC in historical RFK stadium (former Redskins stadium) and it was absolutely FREEZING!  But overall, the trip to DC was really nice because the whole band got to spend about 3 days there with lots of free time.  Some friends and I checked out all the historical monuments and sites and also went to the Holocaust Museum, which was very moving and interesting.  Ashley and her brother Jim also came down for the Bowl game so we got to hang out in DC that night.  The next day, the 3 of us all checked out the Museum of Crime and Punishment, which was probably the best $17 I’ve ever spent!  It was SO cool.  They had everything from medieval torture instruments, to info on all types of bank robbers like Bonnie & Clyde, all the “Public Enemies” from the 1930s, the mafia, and even present-day criminals from America’s 100 Most Wanted People.  It was seriously awesome!!

RFK Stadium

Andrew, Greg, Sara, and I in back of the White House

Me in back of the White House

Andrew, Me, Sara, and Greg in front of the Abe Lincoln Memorial

Front of the White House at night

Washington Monument

Washington Monument and the Capitol in the distance

Look who's in the lineup! Recognize anyone...?

Reading up on some famous prisons in the US like Alcatraz, Rikers, and Eastern State

Opening a door in the morgue...creeepy!

After 3 well spent days in DC, we drove back up to Philly for New Year’s Eve and Day.  This year I had a pretty low-key New Year’s but it was definitely the best New Year’s Eve and Day that I’ve ever had!  It was a lot of fun for sure.  We also got to see a little bit of the annual Mummer’s Day Parade since it literally passed by 4 blocks from my house!  Pretty cool.

On January 2nd, Temple Men’s Basketball played the #1 ranked team in the nation, Kansas.  It was a good game, but Temple just couldn’t catch a break and ended up losing by 30+ points.  But I did, however, make it onto national tv on ESPN!  Only for about 2.5 seconds though, haha.  But here is the picture:

Me and some surrounding trumpet players on ESPN!

Ashley & I  had her 2 little cousins up for the day/night.  They came out to the Temple game to support the Owls in their game against Kansas.  Afterward, we took them out to Spaghetti Warehouse.  We ate in the trolley car so the kids loved that and we played some race car games and the claw machine afterward.  It was fun!  The next morning we made breakfast and showed the kids Love Park and the new Comcast building and took lots of pictures.  Then we drove down to Delaware to drop them off and hang out at their house since their mom was having an Eagles party.  It was a lot of fun until the Eagles got shut out by the Cowboys 24-0.  I don’t want to talk about this anymore.  I’m feeling a little too much defeat from the past couple days.

Me with Ash's little cousins Jonathan and Lauren

Now it’s back to life, back to reality.  Back to work!!  I’m looking forward to the Men’s basketball game against St. Joe’s this upcoming Wednesday night.  More to come soon!!