Nomvember

(^See what I did there??)

Now, I know I haven't been blogging nearly as much lately. It's just so much effort when my everyday activities don't seem overly exciting. I'm not traipsing around beautiful South Africa or exploring Seoul these days. Instead, I'm back in the grind at Babson, focusing on classes and the job search.

But, in the spirit of Thanksgiving I figured I'd put up a blog post. First, for those of you who don't follow all of my social media platforms, you may have missed the many pictures I've posted over the past few days. As such here is the visual story of my Thanksgiving:

Ready to make my pecan pies! I made 1 special (with rum) and one normal
(without rum).  I'd just like to say the only pie that was completely gone Friday
morning was my special pie.

My buddy, Riley. He got a haircut just in time for Thanksgiving. Isn't he adorable?!

The table is set! Dinner for 16 all at 1 table. Go ahead, be impressed. But that's
 not even where I would eat dinner. I went down to visit the other side of my
family where there were about 20 other people. I'd just like to add, I finally got to
 sit at the adult table. 21 years old and these are the big things in my life.

Dessert is set! My pecan pies in the back, 2 pumpkin pies, 2  lemon sponge pies,
 and 2 apple pies on their way shortly after. Since I ate dinner with Dad's family
I was back with Mom's family for all of this dessert...Nom noms!

After dessert, Brady decided it was time for a tea party. As the only child in the
 family he pretty much runs the show.

And no, he did not find it necessary to wear his shirt (he's only 4)

Naturally I couldn't let him go a day without learning a lesson. Brady gives big
to the pig! #Babson. Fortunately there was only 1 broken item for the evening,
and he was really cute when he apologized so I couldn't get upset with him.

You'll notice there's a lack of pictures of actual eating. We were all busy eating. Sticky fingers can't touch cameras so just go with it. In a nutshell, the food was delicious, as always. Turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, squash, candied sweet potatoes (the BEST!), carrots, rolls, stuffing. SO MUCH FOOD. The good news is, because we have the same menu every year we know we can skip something and get it next year. NOM NOM NOM!!

But let's trace back a bit, because it's been a while since I posted. October was filled with midterms and job interviews. Nothing overly exciting there. Until...

HURRICANE SANDY aka FRANKENSTORM!!!!

Now, we didn't get hit nearly as bad as New Jersey or New York, but we still got a day off from school due to the hurricane. We have quite a few trees down, and a lot of people lost power for a while. This was tricky as it was right before Halloween and whole neighborhoods were still down (and naturally kids have to follow the rule of not visiting houses without lights on).

Notice the towel blocking the rain from coming in. We had
to replace that quite a few times.

Quite a few trees down. This one is behind Putney.

All the rain seemed to drain right into that one little nook.

A few days later the rain was subsiding, but the wind was still blowing the trees.

And finally we were left with just a few clouds!

(^ It's a video of the storm looking out from my suite)

With that I suppose I should say how thankful I am that everyone I know came out of the storm safe and sound. Other things I'm thankful for?

Being home. As much as I miss being abroad, it is good to be home with family and friends, and of course my Riley. I've really been making an effort to spend as much time as possible catching up with people who I went so long without seeing. Naturally there are people I don't see as often as I'd like, but it's been great.

But it's not all catching up. As per usual, I'm meeting new people. As I was gone for a year there are many people who I didn't get a chance to meet before but heard about from my friends' stories, if at all. Shout outs go to a few of them:

Hilary: Don't know how I'd missed out on this little nugget. She is also from Maine and when we were pulling together a suite Amy suggested we bring her in. So glad we did! It's helpful to have someone else around who understands what it's like to be from Maine ;) #ImAMainer

Wendy: For about one moment during the semester I had nothing to do so I decided to participate in Wednesday Night Trivia. We somehow ended up on the same team and absolutely dominated. We've been friends ever since, and I've dominated at trivia ever since (although not always on her team...)

Taran: the newest of the Players, Taran's a freshman at Babson. He's from Idaho, as you can clearly tell from talking to him (not just because of his very prominent accent, either). He's also quite hilarious. Always fun to hangout with Taran.

There are others, too, but I think this provides a sufficient recap of what I've been up to recently. I know if I give you all too much to read you'll simply give up. So with that,

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Now time to go listen to Christmas music almost nonstop for the next month, yay!

Korea: Aquarium

Here's yet another one of my Seoul Mate adventure stories:

My final meeting with Sol was at the aquarium, which happens to be located within the Coex Mall (I'm pretty sure I mentioned that in an earlier post. It's a giant underground mall). Sammi was going to come, but had too much work to do. I took plenty of pictures, so instead of boring you with descriptions of the aquarium, I'm just going to show you what it was like! (I've even included a video, not of me eating octopus this time!)

Pretty blue fish :)

Giant turtles at feeding time

"Hand's off. It's fragile"

A fish tank. Inside a fire extinguisher. Inside a bigger fire
extinguisher. Well played, Inception, well played.

Coolest stop light ever!

(see description below)

Inside a vending machine

Poor little fishies aren't even dead yet and they're already
in the toilet :(

Ah, so this is where they go when they get flushed!

TV Aquarium: Just don't bother trying to change the channel

He's captivated and there isn't even any sound

I guess fish is for dinner?

Now with a fresh from the laundry fishy scent! Ummm no
thank you. I'll stick to flowers and summer breezes.

Nope. Not fishies. Still cool though!

Fish tank in a phone booth...with a manikin dressed like a
scuba diving dinosaur.

Me and Sol :)

Ah, the beauty of young love. Or the adorableness of little
siblings. Either way it's cute.

Plus, the light posts are really fish bowls!

Again, not fishies.

Underwater screen saver for an underwater fish tank. Inception wins again.

Spidermanz and fishies inside the mail box. So cool!

So many not fishies!

Can you tell which ones are real?

Monkeys! So much cooler than fish! ㅋㅋㅋ ^.^

Otters doing their thing.

And of course this Babson Beaver had to get a picture of the beaver!

Crocodile...swim away little fishies swim away!

Froggies in the children's section (although, isn't the whole aquarium a
children's section?)

Super Scuba Sally (my superhero name, clearly)

Round and round the mulberry bush the monkey chased
the weasel. Where it stops nobody knows til...

POP! goes the weasel.

Sharks!

and sting rays!

Doing a little dance for us

It seems they're done now.

Seals. Most of the pictures came out blurry so I had to delete a bunch. But
here are a few good ones.

Touch tank

Eh, back to the sharks now.

The big guy.

He's swimming right at us. 

So majestic!

Sol and me with the shark :)

Jelly fish!

(so many jelly fish) 

An octopus. I didn't eat him.

Penguins <3

So that's the end of the aquarium adventure. I'll try to post one or two more times before I fly out to Hong Kong on Thursday! If not, I'll be home soon and will catch up on blogging from there (since I have so many fewer notable adventures back home).

Peace out.