The Big Apple

Since I haven't posted in so long....here you go. Here's a recap of last week:

Monday Morning 4/7/08:

I woke up at 4 a.m. to catch my 6 a.m. flight to La Guardia Airport in New York City. I got to New York and had to wait for my airport shuttle to drive me to my hotel (took about an hour to get there) I arrived at my hotel which was located just off of Time Square. I put my suitcase up and hung a few things in the closet. I had just enough time to brush my teeth and comb my hair before my first meeting at Wal-Mart's New York Apparel Office. For those of you who know me well....you know I love fashion. I had the opportunity to spend some time learning about our operations in NY, and was privileged to see next season's line-up. I think most people will be surprised at how nice the 2008-2009 collection will be. It was really interesting b/c there were several rooms throughout their offices that were lined up with different categories and styles of clothing (men's, women's, children)...they were also separted by brands. This was pretty cool.

I spent Monday evening walking around Times Square; which was INCREDIBLE. There were people everywhere....and I loved it. I also managed to make it to a Boardway show; Cry Baby! It was hilarious.

Tuesday 4/8/08:

I had a "Corporate Compliance and Ethics" conference to attend which was my main purpose for the trip to NYC. It was a really great experience. I heard new speakers, and met a bunch of new people. Afterwards, I went out to dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe and spent more time walking around and shopping in NYC.

Wednesday 4/9/08:

I attended my conference, and then spent the evening walking around. Before I realized it I was at the famous Empire State Building. So, I forked over $20 and went up to the top floor. The view was amazing. You could literally see all of Manhattan....in the distance you could see the Statue of liberty. Pretty neat. On my way back to the hotel, I hit up H&M and the Manhattan mall. Monica should be happy b/c I "hooked her up."

On my way back to my hotel I stopped and grabbed some pizza at this little tiny place on the corner. It was the BEST PIZZA that I have ever tasted. Half way through my dinner an old local guy sat at my table (all of the other tables were filled)...it was a little awkward at first, but we had a really great conversation that lasted about an hour. That was a good time.

Thursday 4/10/08:

I check out of my hotel around 10 a.m. and spent a few hours exploring the city before it was time to leave. I took the subway to Downtown NYC. I decided that I needed to pay my respects and visit Ground Zero. My heart was torn and the emotions that I felt right after 9/11 were reinvigorated. It was really sad; however, they were in the process of clearing the land to rebuild, which demonstrates new hope. Across the street there was a film crew that was blocking off traffic and pedestrians b/c they were filming a documentary about 9/11 and the World Trade Center.

I left there and went across the street to St. Paul's Church. This was the church that helped thousands of people right after 9/11. They still had tributes throughout the santuary honoring our fallen heros. That was really cool.

I also found 5th avenue. This is where all of the high-end luxury stores can be found. So, needless to say, I spent some more time shopping.

Overall, I had a really great week, but I missed Monica a great deal.

Other things that I saw:

The New York City Library

Grand Central Station

Central Park

Bryant Park

What I wanted to see and didn't:

Parson's Fashion Design School

Mood Fabrics

Madison Square Garden

The Statue of Liberty (up close)

What I regret:

Not taking walking shoes with me. My feet are still killing me.

Sorry Charlie

Ok, so I know it's been forever since I've posted, but seriously my life is a bit crazy right now. School is almost over, praise the Lord so then I won't feel guilty about playing around on the computer. Right now, I have about a million things to be reading and studying that I can't justify blogging. Just you wait, Henry Higgins, come May 2nd I'll be blogging the fire out of this thing.

I Wanna Dance

Last night, Trista, Ray and I went to see Flamenco Vivo at the Walton Arts Center. Wow, it was awesome. Those people can dance like nobody's business. The music was great, too. The musicians are so tight; I can't imagine how many hours of practice they put in for this. In my online Music Appreciation class, we have to go see 8 different productions and write papers on them, so this will be one of them. Our professor said he would be there and would buy anyone coffee afterward who wanted to discuss the show. I had never met him before 'cause it's an online class but I knew what he looked like. Tell me why our tickets were right next to his. Out of all the seats in the place, we were right by him. The cool part was that he had binoculars and that helped since we were literally on the back row of the balcony. The only bad part was that I couldn't talk and be disrespectful. Shucks. Just kidding, it was so good I didn't really want to talk.
We went over to Common Grounds for come coffee and cake with my professor. Nobody else showed up but we had a good time.

Trapsing through the woods

We went on a hiking trip with Josh and Chrissy this weekend to Devil's Den. For those of you who don't already read Chrissy's blog, here are some photos of our adventure.

We like to fight...

Always playing of course. (We have scary faces)
What in the world?
Pretty waterfall


We were in the "Icebox" and it was so cold just a few feet down that we could see our breath.

Heck yes, I went in a cave. There were bats.
Aww, Josh and Chrissy.
Aww, a giant and a little person.
We really do like each other...see?

And the glory of the lord shone upon Ray's face.

I felt like a hobbit in Middle Earth.

I like caves, they're fun times.

P.S. I need all of Josh and Chrissy's family to stop hating on Arkansas and encouraging their unrest here. They will be back in Ohio soon enough, no need to pour salt on my wounds. I greatly appreciate your cooperation in this matter.
Love always,
Monica

Revenge is Sweet!

Did you guys know that our dear friend Chrissy used to be Amish?

Payback for putting a gazillion sick pictures of me on your blog, Christina Galloway!!

Reading is Real Fun

I got this from my friend Hannah's blog. If you're always looking for a great book to read like I am, here's a hefty list.

Instructions: Bold what you have read, italicize books you’ve started but couldn’t finish, and add an asterisk* to those you’ve read more than once. Underline those on your To Be Read list.


Jonathan Strange & M. Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One hundred years of solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi: a novel
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre
A Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveller’s Wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner*
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations*
American Gods
A heartbreaking work of staggering genius
Atlas shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales
The Historian (I started having nightmares!)
A portrait of the artist as a young man
Love in the time of cholera
Brave new world
The Fountainhead
Foucault’s Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A clockwork orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible
1984
Angels & Demons
The Inferno
The Satanic Verses
Sense and sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One flew over the cuckoo’s nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s Travels*
Les misérables
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The curious incident of the dog in the night-time
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela’s Ashes
The God of Small Things
A people’s history of the United States : 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A confederacy of dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The unbearable lightness of being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake : a novel
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit*
In Cold Blood
White teeth
Treasure Island
The Three Musketeers

- Monica

I Luv Grammar

This is a post that a girl in my online music class wrote on the discussion board.


"Seeing that I have a very little musical background I found all theterms differently than I have heard before. I have just heard the basicinformation. However, with my background in literature I found the waythey identified a lot of the terms similar to sentences very easy tofollow. Throughout all of the reading I found myself trying to carrythis parallel to the structure of a sentence as very benefical to myunderstanding of the elements. One of the things that caught myinterest was the rhyme power just because it reminded some much ofdifferent types of poetry specifical iambic pentameter "

Moral of the post...Don't brag about having a background in literature if you don't know how to use correct grammar. Seriously.

-Monica