Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
I just got home from an awesome long weekend in New York City with Uncle Peter, Aunt Dede, Cornelia, and some extended family. I don’t have time to upload pictures and do a big write-up of our awesome weekend, but stay tuned for a whole scoop 
Another week in the life of Hoxie.
Another good week, in fact. A week or two ago at work, I found out that I was allowed to work at Biogen for as much of 2010 as I’d like, which was awesome. Compounding the awesomeness is the raise and official job title (“Associate Scientist I”) I’ll be receiving on January 1. I heard yesterday that less than 20% of recent college graduates have a job right now, and I’m extremely thankful for the opportunities that Biogen Idec has offered me over the last 6 months.
I was browsing the IMDB Top 250 list last weekend and was suddenly overcome with the urge to watch all of them. Through my father’s longtime interest in off-the-beaten-path movies and my own cinematic explorations, I’ve seen a fair number of them already (34 out of the top 50, for example, although I’m sure my hit rate decreases as the list continues). Unable to commit to watching 100+ movies with outstanding grad school applications and a healthy social life, I decided that an acceptable temporary fix would be watching the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, clocking in at numbers 20, 29, and 12, respectively.
I was never a huge LotR fan in my youth… I remember reading The Hobbit in middle school and tried to work through the main three books on my own time, but I didn’t make it. I did dutifully see the movies in theaters, though. At least I think I did. Watching them this week, I remembered some scenes quite clearly but totally blanked on other major plot points. Like Harry Potter this summer, there were some holes that needed to be filled in here, and I feel better now having seen them. Plus, New Zealand is beautiful in the movies and some of the battle scenes were pretty epic. And this makes more sense.
And a good week deserves a good weekend, I suppose. Yesterday, I met up with a BU friend of mine who I hadn’t seen in a long time, Meghan. We grabbed some crepes in Davis Square and went for a nice bike ride along a little winding bike path to Alewife. I didn’t have my camera with me, but the fall colors were gorgeous! I love autumn. We went back to her place for some tea and a quick game of Scrabble. It was close, but I prevailed, 322 to 232. I’m not usually that great at Scrabble, but my doing the NYT crossword puzzles at work every day for the last few weeks has gotten me thinking about words and intersections. I had a nice little run from PHOTO to LAIN/PHOTON to HOVERS/SLAIN, but the important thing is that we had fun
After that, it was off to Harvard Square to meet up with Kate, a friend of mine who was in Boston for an internship last year and I hadn’t seen since. She’s celebrating Thanksgiving with her family in the area, and we thought it would be fun to hang out for the afternoon/evening. And it was! In the search for the perfect “thanks for having me for Thanksgiving, Silsbees!” gift, we ended up at Lush, a store I had never been to but will certainly keep in mind if I need anything aromatic. The employees were super friendly and eager to tell us about body wash jellies, lip balms that make kissing taste like chocolate, and facial masks that look like huge scoops of ice cream. We also had fun in the travel section of the Coop. I’m going on an adventure next summer, and I’m currently trying to choose between sailing in the Caribbean, biking across the USA, backpacking across Europe, and heading to Australia. I’m currently leaning towards sailing, although if anyone has thoughts, feel free to chime in.
Today’s just going to be a day of getting things done: packing, grocery shopping, laundry, getting my replacement phone activated at the Verizon store, etc. It looks like it’s going to be another gorgeous day in Boston!
