Life After Connecticut College

I'm finally blogging after a couple extremely busy weeks. The weekend before last I flew back to santa cruz, california (where my dad and his girlfriend live) to surprise my dad for his 50th birthday. It was a pretty complicated ordeal which involved kenda (my dad's gf) telling my dad that she was taking him on a trip which involved going to the san jose airport...which was true. I played the role of "Melinda", kenda's friend flying in to meet them at the airport to take their car and stay at their house while they went on their "trip". Anyway...my dad was surprised to pull up to the jet blue terminal and see me...so much so that he almost drove right by me. The next night we took my dad out to dinner which was actually his surprise party with about 50+ in attendence, including my grandparents and uncle who drove up 7 hours from san diego to be there. It was a wild party equipped with DJ (sporting glasses, a tux and bow tie), a taco bar, and lots and lots of booze. Kenda also fashioned a Scott Pepper (that's my dad) jeapardy game on power point which got really competitive with all the loopy 40-50 yr olds. So all and all it was a successful trip....

Continue reading "My trip back to cali only to return to all sorts of conn reunions" »

Posted by Jaime Pepper at 4:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

So during this phase in my life where all I do is work and lack much of a social life, I've been following election 2008 closely. I was encouraged yet terrified after Iowa voted Obama and Huckabee to first place. I loooove Obama...the i want his babies kind of love. As a woman though, as I'm sure all women feel, I'm a bit torn because I feel that I should vote for Hillary. She's a tough gal trying to make it in the male dominated world of politics and I say "you go girl!". I'll inform you all about what I actually decide to do. Now...Huckabee is the reason I'm completely terrified. Anyone who doesn't believe in evolution scares me initially, then after that to throw on the homophobia and anti-pro-choice (my term for pro-life)...I share absolutely no morals with this man. He can play bass though...I'll give him that! Ok, enough politics! I just hope New Hampshire does the right thing. I don't care if Hillary or Obama get first but I do ask that they stay away from Huckabee. I don't want the country thinking that this guy could actually win!

Alright then...so chris asked me to talk about the baby I nanny because everyone loves babies! His name is Toby and he is now 7 months old which means I've been taking care of him for half of his life. He's really friggin' cute and I promise to post a pic of him soon just to prove it to all of you. I nanny 20 hours a week because #1 I'm good at it and #2 no taxes. The one issue is going out with Toby. When I take him out I usually "wear" him, which means I strap him to the front of me. I do this instead of strolling him because the town of Newton doesn't plow their sidewalks and lifting an 18lb baby is easier than lifting the same baby in a 20lb stroller. So anywho...these Newton townspeople are a little bit snobby, and if you know me...you know that I look no older than 17. So whenever I take toby out I have to face an incredible amount of judgement, even though he is a little jewish baby and I'm of scottish/english decent. I really want to make a hat that basically says i'm a nanny and something to the effect of "shove your judgement up your a%&". If anyone has any design ideas, please email me at jlpep@conncoll.edu.
K that's all I can write for now because i have to go to work!!!! i'll report back soon!

Posted by Jaime Pepper at 2:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Although I spend most of my free time playing scrabble on facebook, I've managed to get out and discover the boston music scene. This may be the best place to meet people because you already have something in common with the people there (the type of band) and if you're a musician this is a plus because a lot of musicians go to shows! so that's 2 things in common. So i've finally figured out how to make friends...yay! The only thing I regret is that I haven't actually played any music since I've been in Boston which is sad because it used to be half of my life. Unfortunately there isn't a Boston MOBROC.
Moving on...I had a great time in DC with Alex, Eric, Duncan and Jesse...photos will be on facebook when I figure out how to do that (I just bought my first digital camera). DC is an amazing city. The free museums were the best part. I also got to go to the free zoo which was tons of fun. The whitehouse is a lot smaller than I expected.

Ok I have to talk about what happened to my roommates sunday night FOR ALL YOU DRIVERS OUT THERE WHO ALSO DRINK!!! All of my roommates were in a car with a friend of ours that was driving who was slightly intoxicated when they hit a patch of black ice and crashed into a tree, the drivers car is totalled. All of them walked out of the crash with reasonably minor injuries. My roommate who was sitting in the front passenger seat thankgod had her seatbelt on but the seatbelt gave her 2nd degree "friction" burns from the force of impact. The two who were in the back have massive brusing on there legs and knees. They are ridiculously lucky considering that same night 6 people in boston died from driving on black ice related incidents.

Ok I gotta end this blog here...sorry its on an intense note. but I'll follow up soon with details of my christmas party i'll be having this weekend!! Anyone who's in the area feel free to stop by! DRIVE SAFE!!!

Posted by Jaime Pepper at 4:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

So...lets see...first of all I want to thank Chris Reilly for choosing the 6 of us to publicly display our lives after Conn. I've never been a "blogger", I don't even use myspace..I guess I'm pretty loyal to facebook which I noticed most '07 alumns have been. The greatest thing about facebook...aside from the new scrabble application...is the message "thread". My riverridge roommate Laura Brown (who now lives in Barcelona) started a thread about a week ago and since then my other 3 riverridge roommates and I have been sort of 'reunited' through facebook which seems ridiculous since we're close friends but it has been very easy to get out of touch with even my closest friends during this first year of our "real lives". I'm sure many of you can relate.
Alright I guess I'm supposed to update you all on my life...
Boston is a really tough city to live in. ESPECIALLY when you don't know very many people. It's a transitional city where most people only stay for a few years either during college or right after college. You'd think that with all these college-age people wandering around it would be easy to meet people but you're WRONG. And maybe you're just thinking that "you're just being antisocial and it doesn't help that you work one job with 60 year olds and another job with a 5 month old" but I do have a couple good friends who have lived here for 4 years or more who feel the same way as I do. Alright I'm done ragging on Boston for now. I mean a lot of things are good like I have a great house, great roommates, the red sox won...
Ok so...exciting things in my life...
I just booked a flight to Washington DC! I've never been there so that's exciting. Me, H. Duncan Rollason and Jesse Taylor-Waldman are visiting Alex Tenenbaum and Eric Cloutier who live there together. So I'll let you know how that goes on my next entry.
Flying to California for christmas and hopefully seeing Ms. Trent Hardman before she moves to Brazil.

I guess what's important to know is that I'm making every effort to get together with people at Conn who truly had an impact on my life and to stay connected. Maybe the Chris Reilly mentality is rubbing off on me but I think that Conn gave us all something really special and we should never forget that. Alright I'm done being sappy and I really have to get back to work!!!

Posted by Jaime Pepper at 2:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

After graduation I spent the summer working at Connecticut College for the physics department running my independent experiment using the accelerator. In July I was connected through the Conn jazz ensemble conductor to the curator of the Harvard Observatory and in August I was hired as the curatorial assistant of the Harvard Observatory. This is only a part time position and Boston is expensive so I took on a second job as a nanny. I now work five days a week 10am-6pm, each day alternating jobs. I live in Brighton with my dog and three roommates and I often get together with ’07 alumni who live in the area.

Posted by Jaime Pepper at 4:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)