it's precisely 2:54 am right now. i feel overwhelmed because i have so many things from today that i wish to blog-alyze, but i need to get to bed pretty soon or else i'll be in big (headachy) trouble tomorrow. lots of stuff going on at this time. but maybe if i use a little systematic methodology i will be able to organize myself accordingly. hope is extant.

i would call this entire day a definite chapter in 'crazy adventures of chrissy' or something to that cheezy made-for-tv effect... after getting up at 8 on a friday morn, i was pleasantly greeted with the presence of an anomalous omelet station at breakfast (i opted for a cheese + mushrooms + canadian bacon combo, yum), and then i worked on math with tously-haired mike from mather. as we sunk into the white cushions of the couch, our convo rapidly volleyed between partial derivatives and who's-who in winthrop house. heehee. the impromptu pset review was definitely a morning-brightener, and kept my spirits high throughout my next two lectures. laughter definitely is great, albeit temporary, medicine.

i needed to do some errands in chinatown, so i zoomed over there via the T and within the small span of time managed to pensively sip a pearl green tea, visit several travel agencies, and buy some delish pastries at the ho-yuen bakery. come by if you ever want some hot buns!

okay, now here ensue the navigational hijinks.

i arranged to meet someone at sigma chi, an mit frat i'm looking at staying in over the summer, at a predetermined time in the late afternoon to take a house tour and to get a general sense of living conditions. i figured i would just go there directly from chinatown. in his directions for me to get to sigma chi, chris said, 'take the #1 bus, and it's on the first street after the bridge into boston.' i knew the #1 route... mass ave all the way, baby. so i naively (very naively, actually) assumed that the T red line and the #1 bus were on synonymous routes. harvard, central, and kendall stops were in generally the same locations for both transits, so it'd be reasonable that the next stop would be in similar spots, right? wrong. when i got off the platform at charles/mgh, i soon realized that i had crossed the wrong bridge across the charles river. i was nowhere near mass ave. argh. so a helpful lady on the street advised me to take the T back to park street and take the green line down to hines. i ran back up the stairs to the platform and took the next inbound train.

when i got to park street, i wanted to make sure i was on the right track (no pun intended, really). i asked an mbta official what stop to get off at for mass + beacon. he replied, 'arlington.' okay. so i hopped on a train and got off at arlington. getting to beacon was a hop, skip, and jump to the other end of the park. 5 minutes. i was still on a roll. i looked at the address #'s. beacon: 101, 102, 103. uh oh. i needed 532. well, no big deal, just five blocks to walk, right?

turns out that each block only spans 50 addresses (100-150, 150-200, etc), and each block is humongous. i must have trekked 8 massive blocks when i finally got to the mass ave intersection. i was already 40 minutes late to the established meeting time. this was ridiculous. my feet hurt, i was perspiring under my lofty wool sweater, and i was altogether flustered upon arrival. not a great start nor an ideal first impression. yeah, i may be a harvard student, but i'm absolutely terrible at navigation.

so anyway, that was my lost-in-boston saga. it sounds like nothing when written like this, but the ordeal was excruciating, just walking each block and seeing how slowly the building numbers seemed to creep. frustrated that no matter how fast i walked, time would still race ahead of my feet, ahead of my line of sight. but finally i reached my destination, and reoriented myself at that point. :)

goodness gracious. i really need to go to bed, but i havent even mentioned my post-dinner plans! and oh-how-exciting they were. ah well, i'll just say it included a cake slice balanced on a door handle, a repeatedly upset (as in spilled) box of chinese chocolate-filled crunchy wafer swirl swizzles, and cows. (how's that for alliteration? booyea!) i'll let you muse on that for a little bit. until then, goodnight.