Songs of Summer

Today as I was pre-cooking tonight's dinner for my family (Florentine Shells and Garlic bread... NOM NOM NOM) and listening to my iPod, I started thinking about how each of my summers has it's own unique soundtrack. My friends and I always listen to music together, be it at a bonfire, a sleepover, or just cruising around in one of our cars, and each summer I can remember there were always one or two (or three or four) songs blasted and put on repeat (and sometime acted out in our own sort of interpretative dance...). So here's a tentative list of the songs I can hear as the soundtrack of my summers:


2007
The Great Escape - Boys like Girls
We'll scream loud at the top of our lungs
And they'll think it's just cause we're young
And we'll feel so alive

2008

Keasbey Nights - Streetlight Manifesto
Dear Sergio - Streetlight Manifesto 
Thunder - Boys like Girls
Your voice was the soundtrack of my summer
Do you know you're unlike any other?

Lake Bomoseen - the backdrop to my summers

The Slate Quarry

2009
I Gotta Feelin' - the Black Eyed Peas
I feel stressed out
I wanna let it go
Lets go way out spaced out
And loosing all control
Weightless - All Time Low

Clockwise: Me, Liz, Alyssa

Fourth of July!
Me, Sam, Liz, and Alyssa

Me, Sam, Alyssa, and Liz... plus our hand puppets :)

2010
Hey Soul Sister - Train (For the record, ERIC RAMEY and KYLE WILSON are guilty of making this the only song on my "summer soundtrack" that has negative conotations as it was way over played...)
Airplanes - BOB feat. Hayley Williams and Eminem (Okay, I lied. This one we made fun of repeatedly...)
Your Love is My Drug - Ke$ha
Alejandro - Lady Gaga
SHOTS - Lil John feat. LMFAO

Liz, me and Alyssa

Alyssa, Chad and I!

2011 (Still under contruction :)
Give Me Everything - Pitbull feat. Ne-Yo, Afrojack, Nayer


**Summer Girls - LFO... an every summer song :)

Saying Goodbye to a Childhood Friend: Harry James Potter

As you know by now, unless you live under a rock - in which case I'd question how you're reading this blog, the Harry Potter series has finally come to an end. The movie series, that is. J.K. Rowling's book series ended July 21, 2007 with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, my personal favorite book in the series followed by Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. Having been an avid fan of both the book and movie series, I wanted to pay tribute to the series that has had one of the greatest impacts on my childhood by attending the midnight premiere with my best friend, Liz, and dressing up as  one of my favorite characters (the Weasley Twins, Fred and George, are my favorite characters but since I'm not a ginger and don't have a twin, I opted to dress up as Hermione).

Liz as... Luna Lovegood!

Hermione Granger!

Lumos!

Dumbledore's Army Forever!!

Liz and I got to the theater to wait in line at 8:30pm. Some people had been waiting in line since  5pm! Though we obviously weren't the first in line, we still got a good spot and some pretty awesome seats!

Liz and I waiting in line.

Adam Cecil, aka Harry Potter!

Luna and Harry combine forces.

The AWESOME backpack Liz made just for the premiere! She's so creative! 

Liz and I had a great time at the premiere! In my opinion, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 was one of the best films in the series. *SPOILERS* Like every film, the director did make some changes like Voldemort killing Snape in a boat house instead of in the Shrieking Shack and Voldemort hugging Malfoy (SERIOUSLY?! WTF WAS THAT ABOUT?!) but overall stayed true to Rowling's beloved book. I give it five stars and a high five!


Well Harry, it's been a great ten years. I already said goodbye to you four years ago at the end of the book series but now that the movie series is officially over, I guess I have to follow your footsteps into the realm of adulthood.


So long, Harry Potter.

The United Nations

"A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart, and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words." 

Top: Morgan (CBI);
Middle: Me (USSR), Alyssa (UK);
Bottom: Melissa (Red China), Liz (USA), Emily (Free France)

Having written a previous blog post about my best friend, Alyssa, I was inspired to write another blog post about our group of friends from high school formally known as the "United Nations." 


The United Nations was officially formed on June 12th, 2008. We'd all been friends for a while; Melissa, Morgan, Emily, and Alyssa had gone to school together since kindergarten, Liz since 8th grade. We played on various sports teams together; Liz, Morgan, Emily, and Alyssa all played soccer, Melissa and I ran Cross-country, Liz, Melissa, Morgan, Alyssa, and I all participated in Indoor Track and were joined by Emily for Outdoor Track. The night of June 12th, we were giddy from having come from a party in my barn celebrating the end of the school year (there were boys at the party, too! OH M GEE!), and gathered around my kitchen  table to eat the cheesecake my grandma had made for us. Being the nerds we are, we somehow decided that we needed a group name (I believe we also decided we needed a hierarchy to control Liz... like that ever worked...) and landed on the UN! Each girl choose her own country based on the original UN formed after World War II (we ended up running out of countries so Morgan, being the gracious, unselfish being she is, ended up with a war front, not an actual country). Each country was supposed to represent something about ourselves. Since Liz's dad is in the Army she immediately stole USA (which is ironic because she wasn't even born in the United States...). Alyssa scooped up second-in-command the United Kingdom, Emily took Free France while Melissa was told she was Red China and I was assigned the Soviet Union. Not being able to think of any other countries, Morgan was assigned CBI. And from that moment on, we weren't merely six best friends but a single entity. No one referred to us by our first names anymore in school and it was always assumed that if one girl was invited to a party, the rest of the girls would also be in attendance.


Together the UN accomplished many great things: we helped win the Vermont Div II Outdoor Track state title four years in a row and were "Runners Up" to Essex four years in a row in Indoor Track, five of us made the National Honor Society, we were voted "Best Friends" in our high school yearbook (contrary to popular belief, though I was editor I DID NOT mess with the votes), and just helped make our high school a better place in general. I would even go so far as to say we were some of the most involved people in our class, if not the most involved. Sure, we had our struggles, fights, and hard times, but we made it through together and supported each other every step of  the way.

Graduation 2010 - We did it!

College Road Trip!
(I saw this in another blog and was inspired to create my own!)

Now that we're in college, things have become a little bit more difficult. We're separated by 400 miles total (I'm the farthest north, Alyssa's the farthest south) with different semester plans (Melissa and Morgan are on the trimester system, the rest of us are on the two semester system), and different vacations schedules and different work schedules (Alyssa is living and working in NYC for the second year in a row). It's been tough going and out friendship is a lot different from how it started three years ago, but I know no matter what happens or where we are in life, these five extraordinary girls will be there for me no matter what, just like I'll always be there for them. <3


THE NATIONS

Name: Elizabeth Nicole Alexander
Nickname: Liz, USA
DOB: August 1
College: Norwich University
Major: Psychology

Name: Alyssa Jean Dempsey
Nickname: Danger, UK
DOB: June 16
College: New York University
Major: Anthropology, Minors: Music Business, Spanish

Name: Emily Jane McIntyre
Nickname: Em, Free France
DOB: November 6
College: West Point
Major: Undecided
Sport: Track and Field - Sprints

Name: Melissa Ellen Childs
Nickname: Missy, LoLo, Red China
DOB: May 30
College: Middlebury College
Major: Undecided
Sport: Track and Field - Pole-vault

Name: Morgan Patricia Childs
Nickname: Mo, CBI
DOB: May 30
College: Middlebury College
Major: Undecided
Sport: Track and Field - Sprints

Name: Megan Mary Irons
Nickname: Margo, Bangs, USSR
DOB: January 1
College: Saint Michael's College
Major: Anthropology/Sociology; Minor: Classics

"Make new friends and keep the old, one is silver and the other gold"

Alyssa Jean Dempsey

STATS
Full Name: Alyssa Jean Dempsey
DOB: June 16th, 1992
Nickname(s): Danger
FB Relationship Status: In a Relationship (with David Atkins, bass guitarist for MCE)
Current Residence: NYC; New York University
Major: Anthropology; minors: Music Business, Spanish
Pokemon she is most like: Snorlax 


Alyssa JDanger Dempsey has been my best friend since approx. the end of my freshman year/ the start of sophomore year of high school. Freshman year I was the "new girl" (a nickname that's stuck with me five years later) and was lucky enough to score into the honors classes. My soon-to-be bff and future class Valedictorian shared 5th period study hall, Spanish II, and 7th period gym with me and we soon bonded over teasing Jessie Maynard about his 7th grade girlfriend (STILL WEIRD) and how much we were creeped out by our third Spanish teacher that year, Señior Willy. The year closed out with many drawings of unicorns in my binders/ yearbook and an invitation to Alyssa's 15th birthday party at Crystal Beach, sealing the deal on our new friendship. Though Alyssa planned to spend the majority of her summer at soccer camps and in Maryland with her dad, I was confident that we'd stay in touch and our new friendship would survive the summer.

The next year brought us closer as friends when Alyssa gained a few brain cells and joined the Indoor and Outdoor Track teams. As the only female distance runners, our friendship blossomed over the many long runs Dave and Kent sent us out on (okay we mostly jogged... walked). A few of these runs were pretty epic, birthing both Alyssa's nickname (Danger) and the "free style fun run" - an event comprising the distance of your choice in which the runner's gain points not based on their speed, but on the complex/ingenuity/coolness of the tricks they preform as they run (it'll make the Olympics one day, you'll see).

Junior and Senior years were a blur of driver's licenses, track meets, fundraisers, proms, AP tests, and college applications, acceptances, and decisions, but one thing in my life remained constant: my friendship with Alyssa. She was always there for me whenever I needed someone to talk to because I was stressed out over school or track or even the poor decisions made by our other friends. I honestly don't know how I would have made it out alive and my sanity intact without her by my side. 

Though we decided to go in opposite directions for college (literally - Alyssa went south to NYC; I went north to Colchester), our friendship still remained as strong as ever. We both went through a lot freshman year. As a high school senior, you look forward to college and life on your own, but you don't realize until later that college means a making new friends and a new home in a foreign city, challenging classes, and sometimes, the loss of past friendships (in this case temporarily, thankfully). I personally struggled a lot with homesickness, missing both my family and close friends from home, which led to me gaining of the dreaded freshmen 15. Alyssa, however, didn't judge me and was there whenever I needed someone to talk to. I, too, tried to do my best to be there for her when she had a brief falling out with one of our closest friends. We also both supported each other through our wish to refrain from using alcohol and drugs; something you don't think will be hard to say no to until you actually reside on a college campus and are constantly surrounded by the pressure to fit in. These struggles and the fact that we overcame them together though we were 400 miles apart prove to me how strong our friendship really is. I'm confident that we'll remain friends through college and beyond... <3 We'll always have 4th of July!

"The only unsinkable ship is friendship."