last weekend i went to amherst to visit a high school friend who is doing summer research at umass! my partner and i took a 3-hour long bus ride from south station to amherst—it was my first time traveling out of boston on a bus, and there was as lot of pretty scenery on our route!
when we arrived on friday my friend took us to a latin-style dancing at a mexican restaurant. we met some of the other people in the research program, and my friend taught me how to salsa and cha-cha (I think that’s what it’s called?) dance. everyone was very friendly and it was cool to (kind of) participate in “nightlife.” the restaurant also had very tasty tres leches and strawberry margaritas.
on saturday we ate a umass amherst dining hall. the food was insanely good—there was a huge variety of options from indian, american, asian, and more cuisines. the dining hall itself was also massive; there were so many different stations and seating areas.
afterwards, my friend and i took the bus (all amherst buses are free) to a supermarket and goodwill. i bought some ingredients to make pasta (we were avoiding eating out in an effort to save money), and we also went checked out the goodwill.
we then took the bus to puffer’s pond, which was a large body of water tucked away in a nearby forest. there were a few beach areas, and many people were swimming in the water. the water was definitely very sus, but we decided to swim across the pond to a rope hanging from the tree. we all tried swinging from the rope and jumping into the pond, which was also pretty sus but luckily we all survived. after that, we swam over to the edge of the pond where there was a artificial waterfall that dropped ~20 feet overlooking a bridge.
by this point i was really struggling to swim; my heart rate was through the roof even though my friends were all fine. we swam back to the beach. upon getting out of the water i began to vibrate uncontrollably. i seemed to have drastically overexerted myself during our swimming excursion. it took a while to calm down, but i was able to recover.
that was a very sus experience; luckily, i survived. the next activity was running back to my friend’s dormitory to quickly shower, and then run to the bus stop to go to my friend’s friend’s (another member of the research program) apartment for the dinner party.
it was a super nice apartment! they made barbecue chicken wings and potato skins, all of which were amazing. i also had a lot of fun playing card games—blackjack, slapjack, ers, speed, 13, president, and my super scuffed “chinese poker” game.
the vibes were immaculate. seeing the potential of living in an apartment as a student low key made me want to move off campus; perhaps i will consider it in the future!
on sunday i made pasta in the my friend’s suite’s kitchen with my partner, which was very tasty. i then went downtown with my friend and checked out a gemstone shop (sidenote: my friend is into manifestation and gems. it was cool to hear her interpretation of how it works for her and i definitely came away with a new perspective). we also got boba—i tried a matcha strawberry drink (which was very strange, i’ll probably avoid this flavor in the future). we also went to a vintage store and i got a super cute purple crop top with hummingbirds on it.
after that we took the bus back to boston. i managed to finish the fall of hyperion on the bus back. i really enjoyed the first book in the series, hyperion, but by the end of the fall of hyperion, i felt fed up with reading it. the plot started to become too complex to follow, and the author started inserting entire john keats poems that didn’t especially add to the story.
i think i might take a break from sci-fi now; i recently organized my notion page for book tracking and there are a few non-fiction books i want to read next. i might also try to simultaneously read a book with my partner while we are both away from boston!
originally i was supposed to leave for solar car on tuesday, but due to a covid situation on the team i decided to fly instead of driving. so now i’m leaving this morning! it’s probably not great that i’m staying up this late since my flight is super early (there are no pictures in this week’s blog because they take so long to process qwq); but i’m excited to travel and to finally race our car!
p.s. i will likely be busy with solar car stuff at this time next week, so the next blog may be delayed (my posting schedule is already shifting later and later though oops); however, i’m sure i will have a lot to talk about!
lyricist 