still alive...

Nothing too exciting to report from blustery Boston besides that I am already over this snowy, freezing, windy weather. A record breaking storm seems to blow in just about ever other day here. There is no place left for the snow to go - the mile high piles are going to be here til June. I look forward to the day when I don't have to pile on half my closet just to survive walking outside. On a positive note, it is pretty and I do enjoy sloshing around in my boots!

I am still working for my aunt, helping her pack and get ready for the big move to Zurich. Any free time I have I spend sitting at Panera (since I still don't have internet in my apartment) attempting to snatch up a job. To be completely truthful, I should be working a little harder on job applications. I seem to spend 25% of my time actually applying for jobs and the other 75% planning my next adventure. I pieced together an itinerary for a 10 day trip to Iceland this spring to see the aurora borealis and the hot springs - anyone want to join me? On the positive side, I have made contact with/joined the Boston Network for International Development, Boston Microfinance Club, and a few other non-profit networking type groups. Hopefully I will start attending events through those groups and at least meet people and learn something.

I also started doing Bikram yoga (hot yoga - series of poses) at a local studio and I love it! After attempting and failing to run outside a few times due to the extreme cold, I decided I needed some other way to stay in shape. I had always wanted to try Bikram and there is a great studio a few T stops from me. I've gone 3 days in a row now. It's fairly intense and you sweat buckets but I feel great afterwards. So hopefully I will keep going. I will need to whip out my exercise star chart again to keep me motivated.

In other news (this is a very me story) I drove to Maine in a blizzard earlier this week. What was supposed to be a scenic 2.5 hour drive to Lewiston, Maine for a mini Stellenbosch reunion with my friends Abbi, Rachel, and Rachel, ended up being a 5+ hour journey through zero visibility snows and icy roads. It was so cold that my windshield wipers froze over every 15 minutes or so forcing me to continually pull over to clear them off so that I could see out the window once again. At one point I had stopped in a random neighborhood off a random exit in New Hampshire to clear them off for the XX time, when I unknowingly dropped my phone in a snow drift. 15 minutes later as I pulled over to clear off the windshield wipers again, I realized I no longer had a cell phone. I did panic at this point and realized how very few numbers I know by heart - my own and home. Neither of which would have been any help at that moment. Anyway, it took me awhile but I was able to find that random New Hampshire neighborhood (I credit my favorite childhood game of Memory!) and after digging around in the snow, I found the phone. And it even worked! So I made it to Maine and had a great time catching up and reminiscing. I was risky (some called it stupid) enough to do the whole trip over again and drove back to Mass that evening. No accident. Still alive.

And I swear, pictures of the apartment are coming sooooon.