m to the i to the t.

so i worked at an MIT conference for astrophysics and space research all last week and let me tell you why i liked it.

the week before last week i got to put in action all of my efy registration skills by making a million name tags and putting lanyards together (do you see that jonah's affiliation is nasa?! these name tags were blowing my mind). during this time I also met the best old man and had a great conversation with him about the twelve tribes of israel and mormonism (he is an atheist in case you were wondering). later i found out this cute old man was in fact rainer weiss who pretty much rocks the scientist world. who knew!

last week the weather was the BEST. seriously. it was perfect. so i really enjoyed waking up bright and early and seeing pretty sunrises while waiting for the bus to come. i also liked catching a little bit of ellen in this gas station. i feel like i should watch her show more often because it always cracks me up (if you can't tell she is having people try to grab a marshmallow while being pulled back by a really strong rubber band across their face haha)

while walking to work i would pass our massive and beautiful new stake center

i can't quite decide if i liked or hated this but these baby wrapped jelly bellies. why is each jelly bean wrapped individually? this is still making my brain hurt.

having a great time facetiming with the frei's after temp time one day. there are plenty more screenshots where this/these? came from.

halfway through my temp days i realized i could actually walk along the charles river from the bus to my destination which made the walk ten times better. should i mention again how wonderful the weather was? if i had to walk as much this week as i did last week, i would die. boston remembered it should still be cold and this week has already been brutal. but anyway, moving on.

 

this lady marie. she is so great. she was the one in charge of the conference so i worked with her the entire time and we became bffs. we talked about our families, religion, how neither of us know what any of the people at the conference were talking about, job searching, and i would walk her through her melt downs that would occur every so often. it was a nice friendship.

another night after work i found this MAGICAL park that overlooks various cities of boston and then these friends who look like they are from that cartoon that was on when we are little but i can't remember for the life of me what it is called. (if you have even the slightest idea of the cartoon i'm talking about PLEASE tell me so it can stop driving me crazy)

and grocery shopping with maren. i'm glad little things like a tissue box can bring me so much happiness! and really. such a true statement.

donna. she was over the conference on the hotel side of it and was the liason between us and everyone working the conference with the catering and such. she is also my new bff and i will miss her dearly.

wednesday (okay and thursday) hit an all time boston in march high of 80 degrees so i decided to walk home along the charles river rather than take the bus like i had been doing.

perhaps it took over an hour and a half and was like four miles but i didn't mind at all!

it also helped me piece the city together

 (considering i see it all in my brain according to subway stops. it really is all so much closer than i think!)

thursday was my last day so i tried to take in the beauty of the various skylines one last time

 (i know i don't need to be this dramatic but when else am i going to pull myself out of bed to see the sites this early if i don't have to? probably never)

and i just love them so much.

(and they really are different! even though they probably all look the same)

and i wanted to sit at this dock and read a book but i'll have to save that for another day.

pretty much i just ate like a princess all week and did whatever i wanted and occassionally helped people find where they needed to be or give a receipt, etc. it was kind of the coolest temp job ever.

and when i wasn't doing those things i was hassling this sleeping friend fred about his eating habits or talking to random scientist friends about things i pretended to know but really didn't

and then to top it off marie delivered these DELICIOUS cinammon and sugar pastries to my door friday afternoon that donna and val (another bff that was not pictured) made sure i got because i raved about them all week. (nicest friends!)

 who knew i would make the best MIT/royal sonesta hotel friends ever and seriously love being a temp? i didn't that is for sure. it was such a pleasant and much welcomed surprised and i feel lucky to have had the opportunity to get to know and work with such nice people!

i have friends in boston.

i feel like most of my posts are about me having solo adventures or having visitors so i'm here to say i really do hang out with boston friends sometimes! even if those friends are usually my roommates.

this first friend would be brie. i hadn't ever had this cheese before and everyone raved about it so i was excited to finally try it and i liked it! we noticed the very last piece in the bowl was shaped like a heart, it was very fitting. my friend izzy made that salad and it was delicious and she is great (btw).

meet rachel van. some of you might already know her from her provo days (or when she lived in our yellow house before we lived there!) she is a treat and i'm glad she loves asian bubble tea and being awesome.

carrie and erica are two of my new roommates and i love them. carrie has taught me the glory of zumba and we bond over making up routines together and erica is the sweetest and most genuine person alive. she has also seen a million broadway musicals which i think is pretty impressive and worth noting.

oh hey there she is again! i found one more picture from friend mike's party. for some reason so many hipster glasses were lying around so don't worry that i took a pair (okay they let me have them i didn't steal them) but will never wear them for real because they look so stupid on my face! this saddens me.

sister missionary friends. definitely ran into them in china town on their preparation day which made me happy on so many levels. seeing them buy all the little asian trinkets and stationary took me right back to when i did the same thing. except i think this was a one time event for them and i can't really say that about myself.

they pointed out these shoplifter pictures hanging up and i died. i love asians so much.

fhe friends. impromptu poetry night was a hit obviously. look how happy everyone is! my poem was about my kindergarten crush, adam allen. if only we were still friends so i could show him it. ps i want you all to know that the guy on the stool is not just any guy but joseph from those bible movies the church just put out a few months ago. i was so happy someone finally pointed it out to me because i couldn't tell why he looked so familiar haha

the last few weeks were so nice that many roommate walks happened along the charles river.

these are not my friends but i enjoyed walking behind them. i thought it was so funny how she only had her bum covered and he had everything but his bum covered. i wonder if they planned this joke.

more walks with roommates! charles river walks are seriously the best. honestly when i say the term roommates i usually mean maren. she served in the philipines and gets my love for asia and macintosh computers. she is a really nice friend to have and it is so convenient that we are both out of school!  this is a very good thing for our friendship.  

this was when we saw the very first blossoms of spring. she looks puzzled but don't let that fool you, she was really excited

now pretty lady in the pink would be our downstairs neighbor kallie. she is the life of every party and really so much fun. she makes me sad i didn't bring my rollerblades!

so much happy singing for maren's birthday.

friendship is about buying all the ingredients for cookies without a recipe and then trying to think of how to make them on the spot, again, without a recipe. i guess the fact that i have only made cookies from scratch once in my life proved to be our downfall. they look especially awesome because we put green dye in them since it was almost st. patricks day. they ended up tasting a little like pancakes! so even though they look like a failure they weren't completely.

this cute man is my new church friend who used to be a photographer but became blind from diabetes ten years ago. we bonded over that and architecture and i just really like him. he claims he is going to show me all around the city but we will see if that really happens haha

i thought i would mix things up a bit and end on a sad note instead of a happy one.

these three pictures above explain the sad tale of when all the good flavors of slurpees were too frozen to come out but all the other flavors were too runny so they ended up just being disgusting. within five seconds we just threw them in the trash and cut our losses. this was a very disappointing first slurpee experience of 2012 but i am optomistic for slurpee runs in the future.

anyway. sorry this post said the word friends 203948 times. i bet that wasn't annoying at all!

more grace (kind of)

so the day after our drive up the coast adventure we decided to go to the MIT science museum. 

she wanted to just meet there but when i was already on way she cancelled sooooo i went to the museum by myself haha. 

 at first i thought it was really stupid and almost left but then realized there was a second floor which is where the good stuff was. lots of robots and metal and so many polaroid cameras! 

and moving holograms (seriously. i watched that lady write out whipped cream probably five times) that made me feel like i was in harry potter. it was a fun time. 

 saturday was supposed to be sad weather but look it got nice! my bus friends and i were happy about that. 

 that afternoon some of grace's ward friends threw her a baby shower. i almost feel like saying they went all out is an understatement.  

 especially with the FOOD. holy cow there was so much food! i probably ate all of those homemade pretzel bites and maybe half of the baby funnel cakes.

and for some reason i thought i had already uploaded all the other pictures from that weekend to my computer so i deleted them from my phone. sadly i really hadn't so they are all gone forever except for this gem. 

my friend mike moved to chicago so we all got together at his house for a goodbye party. little did i know that mike and mitt are bff's (or to be specific mike does a lot for the romney campaign) and mike had this hat of mitt's and didn't know what to do with it so of course i gladly took it off his hands! don't you think i could pass as his number one fan? i think i look pretty natural. gooooooo mitt!