And it's Thursday.

This is the time of the week that I tend to start fearing the weekend so I have to prepare my activities ahead of time. I must admit, I have a tendency to be a little..... melodramatic, but I don't want a repeat of what happened last weekend because it wasn't pretty. First of all, I think I talked to my dad on the phone for nearly 2 hours-and that's saying something. I should have known my parents weren't going to give me any answers, but what else was I supposed to do? Play hangman with myself? Hangman is barely fun with another person, let alone without one. I mean, why does someone have to die just because I can't guess the "secret word?"

But, contrary to what you might believe given my blog, the situation has improved and I've been managing to keep myself at least slightly more entertained. At the moment, I'm partway through the 5th Harry Potter book and have been reading it as slowly as possible, to make sure that I'll finish both 5 and 6 before the 7th book comes out while still keeping myself busy when there is nothing better to do. And thankfully, my awesome bosses in the College Relations Department here at Vassar (which is clearly the best department, by the way) have also pulled through in getting me away from the 5th floor of Main, and my friend, Rowan the rat.

On Monday, my boss Julia, who is the editorial director for Vassar, invited me over for some leftovers at her house, and as you may have guessed, I never pass up free food. I'm pretty sure that during dinner I ate at least twice as much as anyone else at the table, and that includes a guy. I think that made it pretty obvious how much I've been slacking off on cooking over here. Currently, I'm trying my best to devise ways to drop hints to my boss that I should become a permanent dinner guest-you know, by tossing out a few phrases like, "Gee. I hope I'll still be able to fit into my clothes in the fall. And I'm not the one who's growing."

One of my other bosses, Martha, invited me to go strawberry picking with her on Tuesday, which turned out to be more entertaining than it may sound. Plus, food is involved, which is an added bonus. And wow, was it delicious. Unfortunately, I don't have a membership to the Vassar Farm so I could only help her pick her strawberries, but hopefully I can convince her to take me more often. It's amazing to recieve fresh strawberries as payment. How could I say no? Going with her to pick strawberries also reminded me of how cool the Vassar farm is, and how unfortunate I was to discover it during my Junior year. The Vassar farm encompases about 500 acres of farm and woodlands, and apparently it has some pretty neat trails because this past year one of my friends was always begging me to check it out. You can read more about it here http://admissions.vassar.edu/visit_tour_farm.html. That will probably be this weekend's activity for me.

Of course, the Vassar staff are not the only charitable people on campus. I've had a lot of friends who were invited to dinner by their professors and had a really great time. None of my professors have done that yet... but maybe I could execute my free food plan on my professors in the fall. That might do the trick. Students also tend to get invited to Trustee dinners, which are often pretty fancy and take place at Vassar's beautiful Alumni House (which is kind of a hotel that's situated next to the Vassar campus). One time I was invited to the Alumni House for a trustee dinner and it turned out that I was invited by mistake. Now, I'm not sure which Trustee it was that had a vendetta for me last spring, but I have yet to forgive whomever it was that revoked my invitation. It was cruel.

At this point, I've probably exhausted my welcome at the Loeb, but maybe I could sneak back in on Thursday before the outdoor film screening. The outdoor film screening is a new program that the Loeb started last week, and I like it because it changes weekly unlike like the traveling exhibits, which gives me a reason to sneak over to the Loeb every week.

Otherwise, I'm always open to invitation. Please?