Amherst over the summer

Hey guys,

This is way overdue. My apologies :(

Buuuut, to make it up to you I will tell you about all of the wonderfully awesome things that happened to me while I was at amherst over the summer.

I was teaching middle school kids during July. It was great. Once you accept the fact that 12-14 year olds are assholes, it gets much better. They have surprising moments of maturity and intellectual depth that I don’t quite remember having at 13. I was impressed. One of my favorite kids, Azham, is a rising 7^th grader and, quite frankly, just a delight. Let me paint you this picture: he’s tiny, looks like he’s 9 or 10, and is extremely polite. He wears his pants very high on his waist, and says things like, “Miss Megan, I sure made a good friend today. His name is Robert,” and “Miss Megan, there are all kinds of shape shifters, but my favorite are werewolves,” on a regular basis. Needless to say, he brought much joy to my workdays. I also really liked this one kid Julianna, who came up to me in Val when we took them to campus as a field trip and said, “Miss Megan. Guess what I did? I put hot sauce on my ice cream.” I see much potential in this generation. So. Much. Potential. George was one of the bests. In class we were talking about social justice, and the teacher asked the kids to give examples of things that are unfair in the world. George is very opinionated and pro-communism. Among his long list of injustices in the world (along with things like hunger, poverty, racism, etc.) was the following: “Oh, and capitalism—it’s a disease!”

On a more random note, I played Uno and flip cup for the first time. I also did SULA (lots of fun). I’ve been to Puffer’s Pond at least twice now. I tried the Tibetan restaurant in Northampton and had Tibetan tea (which is literally melted butter- it wasn't very pleasant, unfortunately). And I’ve learned how to cook eggplants. As you can tell, it’s a summer of firsts.

So the summer school ended at the beginning of August. Now I'm working at the Natural History Museum. It's fun. on the first day, this lady brought her infant and started breast feeding it in the museum, and I thought to myself "is that allowed in museums?" Interesting times. Sometimes 6 year olds school me on my dinosaur knowledge, and then I feel inadequate. But other than that, it's great.

Also, last week I went to New York for a few days. Lots of fun. I went to a comedy club, where I duped the waiter into giving me alcohol (albeit, I actually wanted a virgin drink but never specified, so I guess I wasn't really duping anyone, was I?). I ate a lot of food. It was fun. Also, when the bus dropped me off in NY the first cab I hopped into had an incompetent cab driver who told me, "Yeah, I don't really know where you're trying to go. You're gonna have to get another cab." Great introduction to the city!

Snag <3

Home and Sushi

I came home from Amherst and Wildwood this week and I’m chilling with my family for a while before I go abroad. My brother is doing guitar camp and my sister is doing field hockey camp so were hosting some of the Dutch coaches this week. Yoep and Yori love Jersey Shore and told us how to make real doughnuts or ‘oli balls’. They wanted to put raisins in them. Not so cool. I’m doing getmyshittogether camp, which is going pretty well now that I have my visa. Although, I lost a sudoku race to my mother the other day which is really embarrassing. I think I may be loosing my competitive edge. I feel bad for my brother though because we found out that he is allergic to a lot of things including peanuts and potatoes; the staples of the Sanches family diet. This does mean though that we’re cooking a lot of interesting things and also that we got sweet potato sushi on Monday. I could eat only that for the rest of my life.

Last night I went down to New Jersey for a Britney Spears and Nicki Minaj concert with my friend from home and I got to see Amina, Emily and Becca for a bit. It was amazing and Nicki sang Bad Chick. The guy next to me became one of my favorite people because he knew all the words to every song and was really into it despite people in our section giving him looks. I used a lot of the ugly side of my driving skills on the way there. Trick: make eye contact to guilt trip other drivers. The way back was much nicer especially because Julia and I sang Selena Gomez for a good chunk of it. I woke up this morning to a well-presented chew toy steak in my bed. Maybe if Mikey had opposable thumbs he would make me breakfast more often but really it’s the thought that counts. It just goes to show that the ancient Puerto-Rican saying is true. A week that begins with sweet potato sushi does indeed end in happiness.

Hi From D.C.

Hi there Ladies of Sparkle Motion!

This blog is sick! It's so nice to hear from you all. T-bag and I are in D.C. tearing it up playing a little advanced Summer League. We also attended Wildwood this past weekend which was ballin'. Beach ultimate is so much fun. SO MUCH BIDDING! Plus, we got to see the ever-lovely and bad-ass alums of Sparkle Motion which is always a treat and play with some super awesome AOD lads from years past (and Will and Ezra).

This summer has been great. I'm interning for the National Women's Law Center which has been rad, fighting the fight, and broing out hard-core in D.C. This week is actually my last here which is kinda sad, but I am excited to go home. Then I am off to the vineyard with the fam.

I hope you all are coercing people to throw with you so we can ball out upon our return.

Love,
Mel G.

Hey Heat Wave!

hi ladies,

I have no left the lovely New York City to be reunited with my family in upstate New York- you would think it would be cooler here, but no, it's supposed to hit 100 degrees today, and 110 later this week. hooray! luckily we have a river close by for chilly swimming.

New York was great- I took care of a 2 yr old named Josh who loved juice, cars, and the Katy Perry's Sesame Street music video. We had fun, sometimes he bit me, and pinched me, but no big deal. Mostly we played at the park and I tried to teach him how to swim and say his letters.

When I wasn't working, I went on several adventures- D.C. for the 4th of July, some SpaMo family dinners (avocado pie is DELICIOUS- ask Claudia for the recipe), and lots of solo exploring of the city. If you are in New York and want a cheap and super delicious breakfast, I highly recommend going to El Malecon on 96th and Amsterdam- get the cafe con leche and an egg&bacon sandwich. It's the bomb, really.

Then this past weekend I went to Amherst for Em and Amina's bday- so fun! Saw people, ate red velvet ice cream cake, partied, said good bye to people, which was sad, but the visit was great.

Can you tell that one of my favorite summer activities is eating?

I miss yall a lot.

love, t

Amherst, still

Summer is going by so quickly! I only have two weeks left here working for Sarat. Work is going well, but it's a little morbid. We are developing morose senses of humor. We have started moving around because the library is too boring to sit in for 8 hours a day. We went to Rao's a few times (try to granola bars if you haven't!) and we discovered the Esselon Cafe, which I had heard about, but never been too. It is delicious! In other food news, Amherst got a frozen yogurt store called GoBerry, it is super and Nicole and I have been there at least three times already.

The 4th of July here was cute. The night before, we went to a house that Fred is house sitting. Amina let me drive her car, and Rebecca got a lot more confident in my driving skills (yay!). On the 4th, Amherst has a parade, which bizarrely was all trucks and no people, except for two Scottish bagpipe bands. But the fireworks at UMass were really pretty, and there are still a lot of people in Amherst so most of us went together.

I have yet to go to SULA, because it seems kind of intimidating. But, Tom is here and he did convince me to go to a pick-up game with him at UMass. There weren't really many girls, but there were a lot of really good arhs boys. Stephan was there being competitive. Nicole and I tossed and then decided getting frozen yogurt was a better use of our time, so we left.

We are going to see Harry Potter at midnight on Thursday. Nicole and I got costume stuff today. Her's is more creative than mine, but I like mine too. She is a snitch. I didn't know what to be, but she said I should be Ron because we both have red hair and are afraid of spiders, so I got a really baller outfit.

Next weekend is Amina and Emily's birthdays, and Emily is going to come to Amherst to visit us! I am so excited - I love birthdays, and double birthdays are even better, especially when they are both people I love so much! They are having a party, which is going to be super fun. Perhaps there will be cake. I still have to think of some good gifts, but I have a week.

Love,

Aubrey

P.S. Monty facebook chatted me yesterday. So funny. He says I should go to SULA, so perhaps I will try it out next week.

Ni Hao

Hi Sparkles~

I'm now on my second month in Hangzhou, China with the Amherst China Initiative (www.amherstchina.com if you're interested) and it's going swimmingly. There are 6 Amherst students here now, and I think 11 more are en-route and about to start the July session. Hangzhou is about a 3 hour bus ride from Shanghai, in Zhejiang province. It's rather hot and humid here-85 degrees F feels refreshing after days of intense heat.

This past month, I taught English at a private English school. My class had five kids who were about 10-12 years old. They were on the dinosaur/past tense unit, which they despised because they had to pronounce and spell difficult names like "Tyrannosaurus Rex". Playing games with them after the painful repetitions was the best part.

Since I was on a week-long break from work, I found an ultimate league here (of course) and played a bare-foot pick-up game with them, which was fun. It's mostly ex-pats and foreign students, but some Chinese joined as well, so stall counts were bi-lingual depending on the player-"yi, er, san...".

I know just enough Chinese to let people know I'm an American student, to direct a taxi driver, and to order eggplant, pork noodles, and fried pumpkin. I've discovered that eggplant is delicious, and my chopstick skills are horrible. Hopefully when I come back, I'll be able to pick up those pesky grains of rice like a master.

Hope your summers continue to be awesome!

Amherst and New Fairfield

So this week Jo Bob, Fred and Sam taught us this game called Bang which is like Mafia but wild-west themed and a card game. We went to Taste of Amherst Thursday night and had delicious $2 ice cream. Something about the ratio of tie-dye, dreadlocks and ultimate players makes me think that I could live here forever. Then we went to bowling and found out on the way that Sam knows all the words to a few Ke$ha songs, a skill I didn’t know he had. Bowling was a lot of fun and Rebecca and Nadia called in songs on the radio. One of course was dedicated to ‘Bad Chick’ Taylor.

My parents coerced me into going home this weekend, which at first I was bummed about because I had to miss the ABC party in honor of Biddy, but I do like being home. My mom and I went to see Bridesmaids. My dog tried to eat all the bees in our garden. (You would think that natural selection would take care of quirks like that.) We went to Fiesta Mexicana, one of my favorites because they play Mariachi at your table and when you order sorbet it comes inside the fruit it’s made of. We also went to a craft festival in New Milford. I think that this is a very Connecticut thing to do because there are so many here. And there are always cheesy paintings of boats and beaches that you feel should go on your grandmother’s walls. My brother wouldn’t pose for any pictures so I had to take them when he wasn’t paying attention. And then for father’s day we put a bunch of our home videos on DVD, so I spent a good part of Sunday watching our toddler selves get into punch-ups. This is way more entertaining than it sounds.

Love from,

Nicole

P.S. if you’re having trouble with the invitation. Tell me and I can send it again or send it to a different e-mail.