hullo

hi sisters

last week was pretty busy... and it started (sort of) off with sara bareilles!!!

i bought kira tickets to a sara bareilles concert (last tuesday - 4/30) as an early birthday present, and man oh man was it awesome. it was a solo show - no openers, and just her on stage. she had all these instruments out and would just play one instrument per song... so for one song, she was on piano; another, she played acoustic guitar; another, she played electric guitar; she even played the harmonium!

she has an amazing voice and stage presence and she curses like a sailor and basically i just want to be her friend. have you guys seen her in concert? if not, i highly suggest it...

speaking of concerts, how was the shaky knees festival, maya??? glad you were able to get excited about it on sunday - not much is worse than wet feet, but i think the anticipation of wet feet could possibly be worse. i hope the lumineers were amazing! all i think about now when i hear the song "ho hey" is the girls on nashville...

other stuff happened last week that i can't really remember - game of thrones quizzo, which was interesting but also kind of weird - good to go to, though, because i hadn't seen some of the people in my book club in months (we haven't had a meeting since 2012... yikes). had to work late a couple of nights last week, but thankfully i don't have to do that this week (except for tonight haha). oh, speaking of work, i contacted someone in our writing center at drexel to see if they are looking for more faculty/staff readers to work with students on their writing... i decided to do that because i just started grading reflection papers in my civic engagement class (the class i'm teaching for freshmen which really isn't going all that well, mostly because none of the students want to be there, and i don't know how to combat that) - and realized that a) students don't know how to write and b) i would like to help them with that and c) i used to really love working at the writing center in college, so i might as well get involved with that here, right?

anyway... i feel like i haven't been good about keeping in touch with anybody recently or being responsible for myself in any way, shape, or form, so i'm trying to be better about that. you know, actually picking up the phone and calling people - or responding to people's emails - or writing in the (b)log (even if none of this is about any dinners i've had recently). also, making plans! like... maya, what do you want to do for your birthday? have you thought more about when a trip to CA might happen? i'll be honest, i'm not sure if i can afford it, but i'll try my best. and chaya - what's on tap for the trip out to CA this month?? kevin was telling me about some museum (site??) in LA that has to do with mammoths...??? i just googled it - it's the la brea tar pits and the george c. page museum - think that might be cool to check out?

and here's a picture of boo, looking out the window... (which i didn't close today, and it's supposed to rain for half the day... great.)