Friday, December 26, 2008

Christmas Light Lane Chaos!!!

The following are more pictures of Christmas Light Lane:

My sister's friend Brent, my sister Renee, and Aunt Julee posing in front of my parents' Nativity scene.
The Nativity scene my parents put up every year.

The Nativity again.
A random house on my street.
The cop cars that are located to the right of my house.

This is not the actual line to get on my street because the traffic flow was directed the other way. These cars are trying to get home.
The barricade blocking the street off.
Line of cars again.
This is the fun we deal with every year. It gets annoying, but people come year after year to see our lights.



Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Cops and Christmas Lights

As mentioned in my previous post, I live on Christmas light lane, which gets so crazy that it is monitored by the police. Tonight, my aunt Julee, sister Renee, and her friend Brent decided to take pictures of the chaos. Originally, this picture was suppose to be me in front of the barricade, but this cop jumped right in and took pictures with all of us. Earlier, we had feed them cookies.
Me and the cop....
My aunt Julee and the cop...
Renee and the cop...

My cousin lucked out and got a picture with two of them.
We had a blast with them. They do not have the most exciting job as they direct traffice and make sure pedestrians do not do anything stupid. Thanks for all you do!!! As I am tired and trying to go to bed, I will post more pictures of how crazy our street is tomorrow.



Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Christmas Light Lane, part 1

My parents live on Christmas Light Lane in Alta Loma. Each December the entire street decorates their houses and then thousands of people come by each year and either walk or drive down the street. It has gotten so crazy that the police patrol it at night. Getting to and from our house is not easy. Here are some highlights:
This house has a California Christmas theme. My sister and I love the pineapple.
This is the "Disney" house. That is Tinkerbell flying across the sky with the Disney castle in the background. The other characters they put up are Captain Hook, Peter Pan, Aladdin and Jasmine, and Belle and the Beast.
This is a picture of the street I took from Renee's car as we were driving down it. The street is littered with people, who you really cannot see and it takes like over 25 minutes to go less then one mile.
This house is brightly decorated. I liked it.

My favorite house is the "Nightmare Before Christmas" House. I will post more pictures of it later, plus pictures of my parents house.


Thursday, December 18, 2008

Tis the Holiday Season!!!

Two days ago, I arrived back in California after four months of living in Boston. After experiencing cold weather, chilly windstorms, days of rain, and shortened days, I looked forward to basking in the sun. However, the weather from the northeast followed me back to California. My first full day back here it rained and was dark and cold. It snowed in our mountains and even in Las Vegas. It is crazy. They had to close down the El Cahon Pass because of the snow. My sister and her friend were worried that the I-15 from Nevada's stateline to basically our house may be closed, but it is reopened. She pitstopped in Vegas for some much needed In-N-Out. We have an In-N-Out date scheduled for some time later this week. It is our thing.

I am excited for the holiday season. Tomorrow, Renee, my mom, Laurel, Eli, and I are going to decorate our Christmas tree and the house. Holiday baking will officially begin this weekend and I only have a little Christmas shopping left. I am looking forward to next week when Julee and Aubree will be here. We always have a blast.

Monday, December 15, 2008

Boston Common Lights

Since I did not make it to the Boston Common tree lighting ceremony (stupid school projects), I thought it would be fun to go see the tree and the Common decorated. So this past Friday, John and I decide to venture out to Boston Common from Cambridge though it was freezing cold (John is a good sport). I am all excited, until we get off the train and we realized that the Common was not lit that well. I mean, my street, which is Christmas Light Lane in Alta Loma, CA has more lights. Also, this is where we saw the aforementioned Nativity scene. We were amazed that it contained Joseph and Mary, but no baby Jesus. We were confused. John suggested that maybe they had just put it up and still needed to add Jesus. I joked that maybe the city could not afford baby Jesus because they are having a budget crisis and that could explain the lack of lights. Here are some highlights:

I am standing in front of the Boston Common tree. It was not that big. The tree at Quincy Market, which is a few blocks over is huge. I saw it with my parents, but did not get a picture of it because it was poring rain. I tried to see more but school kept me busy.
This is the gazebo decorated. I did not take an up close shot because it was cold and John and I just wanted to get on a train and return to Cambridge. It was cold. Have I said that enough? Today, it is actually in the 40s and it feels so warm. Anything above freezing these days is warm.

Here is the Boston Common tree again, sans me standing in front. Some of the trees were decorated with lights.
Here I am trying to figure out where baby Jesus went. We came to the conclusion that we were probably suppose to imagine baby Jesus for ourselves. Also, I had a friend suggest that maybe he will not be put in their until Christmas Eve to symbolize his Christmas birth. John and I just found it funny. I am glad my dad chose to include baby Jesus in his Nativity because I could never convince Nathan and Laurel to portray a living Nativity with Eli. Just Kidding!!! 24 hours to California!!! Yeah!

Sunday, December 14, 2008

What is missing from the Nativity?


Can you guess what is misssing from this Nativity? John and I went to see Boston Common all lit up on Friday night and found this amazing. Take some guesses and I will post more photos later.


Wednesday, December 10, 2008

One Class to Go

The semester is almost over. Today, I presented my poster on Mobile Visual Search in my second to last class. On Friday, I have my last class and then the semester is finished. Though I was suppose to present my archives paper on privacy, my presentation was cancelled. My professor wants to show us this movie and does not have time to have the remaining groups go. Plus, my class has discussed privacy issues at lenght in previous discussons. In archives, there is an on going debate over what information should be kept private and what information should be accessed by researchers. Unless, you are really fascinated by the subject, I will not bore anyone in this post with the specifics. Yeah! All I have to turn in is a two page report on my internship at the Lesley University Archive.

I love my internship. I helped process and arrange part of the Margaret A. McKenna collection. She served as Lesley's President for 22 years, before resigning two years ago. She serves now as President of the Wal-Mart Foundation. She is one tough lady. She worked originally as a civil rights attorney during the Jimmy Carter administration. After his administration ended, she ran the Bunting Institute at Radcliffe. Radcliffe is part of Harvard. In 1985, she left this post to become Lesley's President. At the time of her hiring, she was nine months pregnant with her second child. She changed Lesley for the better. Under her, they expanded their graduate programs and began a Ph.D. program. Lesley was started in 1909 as a school to train kindergarten teachers. While its emphasis is still education, it offers degrees in Expressive Arts, which is a type of therapy. She expanded their endowment from $1 million to 77 million and doubled their student population. It was interesting to process her records. I feel part of Lesley though I do not go there. So, if you see me in a Lesley sweatshirt, you will know why.

I leave for California in less than a week. I am excited to be back in the warmth as Monday here was described as an "arctic chill." Also, we get like 9 hours of sunlight each day. The sun rises at 7 and sets about 4. The other day I fell asleep at 3:300 and woke up an hour later engulfed in darkness. The darkness and cold tire out your body. On Monday, my whole house was asleep by 9:30. I think I feel asleep at about 8, while John and I were hanging out. He is a Saint because most night I go to bed by 10. I have become a morning person. Who knew. I am off to finally have some Christmas fun. Boston Common is all lit up. Pictures maybe forthcoming.

Sunday, December 7, 2008

Pictures and other updates

The following are a few pictures I took before our Thanksgiving dinner. Mom is just goofing around in her picture. We ate at the Omni Parker House. It was very good.
Mom and Me

Dad and Me. I do not think Dad Like having his picture taken.

Mom and Dad. They are looking forward to eating. We had fun.

John surprised me with these flowers last week. They are all pink and purple and lovely.
Only three classes and one week of school remain. I can say i officially survived the semester. It was rough there for awhile, but I came through.




Friday, December 5, 2008

Just When I Thought...

School is almost over and I thought I was through my paper writing hell. Lets just say I have been writing research papers since the beginning of November. If you do not believe me, just ask John. He has been a saint through this process and he was probably not excited to hear that I had my research proposal returned to me for one last round of edits. Thankfully, my professor is making a great effort to make sure we understand how to write a research proposal. John has spent the last two Saturdays and a Monday helping me nail this thing. He is the best and has helped me much. I could not ask for a better boyfriend. (FYI-Last night he surprised me with beautiful flowers. They are gorgeous. I love them). I guess it is one last Saturday because I am not letting this thing just sit around. However, it should only take like one hour to fix. I felt like all the stress that was gone finally came flooding back. I had that one weak moment where I was like no more. Really, no more. I have spent over 20 hours writing this thing.

Enough complaining. My car is almost fixed. I am hoping to get it back before I take off to California in a week and a half. I survived my first semester of graduate school. It has been hard, but I love studying library science. I was sad when my internship ended yesterday at the Lesley University archive. It was such a learning experience as processing records is not as easy as one may think. To finish out the semester, I have to create a poster for a paper I wrote and present my archives' research paper. Plus, finish my internship report. I can see the light.