Guess what I did today?

I used nine rolls of pennies to buy myself breakfast.


My new neighborhood is of a higher caliber than I'm used to, so I haven't been buying myself breakfast as much. Gone are the days of daily doughnuts and iced coffees for $1.50. Now if I'm running late, all I can get my hands on to make it through the morning are a vegan cookie and organic tea for $4.25.

(P.S. I'd seen a sign at this deli previously saying they NEEDED pennies, so I wasn't being a jerk by bringing my pennies over. Plus, I had no cash on me and was an hour late for work, what would you have done?)

(P.P.S. I moved again in case you didn't pick up on context clues. That's 5 neighborhoods in 2 years!)

There goes my schizophrenic dream

of becoming a successful Hollywood writer in the next year before going to medical school.

Day 3 of the Writers Guild of America strike, no more episodes of The Office for awhile.

In spite of my dashed hopes, I support the writers. As someone who never bothered buying a television or getting cable, I have never seen most of my favorite shows on anything other than a computer. Needless to say, I can see why the writers need to make sure they're compensated for shows on the Internet.

I should really be focusing on writing my crappy chic lit novel anyway (or maybe even those med school applications).

Note: I put a link to the WGA website because I like other people's blog entries better when they break up the text with links. I'm not sure how useful this one is though, and I'm not sure what the 'West' on the website means.

ADHD

The other night I went to a dinner party with a bunch of people that I don't know all that well and haven't seen in at least a year, longer for some people. Even though they were all perfectly nice, interesting people, I could not pay attention to a word anyone was saying to save my life. It wasn't for want of trying, I really tried to focus and be engaged in the conversation, but I kept completely zoning out and picking up something to read or looking in the wrong direction without realizing it. Eventually whoever was trying to talk to me would ask me what I was doing, and we would start the cycle all over again.

Focus...randomly start reading something...look up to realize people are staring at you...repeat.

It was a pretty awkward night overall, and that's when I realized how incredibly spoiled I am to have so many close friends in my life who don't really expect me to listen to them when they talk to me. Either I'm really lucky, or I've trained you all well over the years.



Hmmm, three useless posts in one night, I must be procrastinating on my applications or something.

Even more disturbing

...and embarrassing for me to admit, but I like Kellie Pickler's album. I'm not sure what's going on with the world.

Vaguely disturbing

Lily Allen says 1 in 10 people have a third nipple! That's a little more extra nipples than I think is necessary in the world, maybe she meant 1 in 10 British people have a third nipple.

Note: This post is not meant to make extra nipples feel discriminated against. Some people just have weird issues with nipples and I feel that even more nipples won't help the situation.

Week in Review 06/18-06/22

It's been a solid week over here at NYP-CWMC. A bunch of pharmaceutical companies sponsored a week long conference to update doctors here on progress in medicine. Of course they need pharmaceutical companies to update them on medicine. I mean, we're not at an academic institution with research and conferences going on all the time or anything, and no one's ever heard of viagra before. They gave us free food and post-its twice a day, every day.

In other news, I figured out the difference between balsamic vinaigrette and balsamic vinegar/olive oil. One tastes good and one tastes bad. It's really made a difference in my salad eating.

And finally, I finally got up the courage to try speaking in spanish to the people who work at the columbian cafe I like, and they said "ella parece como espanol, pero piensa como ingles."

23.5

Well, my half birthday is next week, 23.5 big ones. Looking back, I can think of three things to summarize my 23rd year so far:

~Awkward social exchanges~
~Awkward work exchanges~

and

~Celebrity crushes~

I have no idea why I was so impenetrable to them before. I just never really got that into anything about the entertainment industry beyond being entertained for the half hour I watched a show. Let me tell you, things have changed and my eyes have been opened.


Hello Hottie McHotness:

For those of you so unprivileged as to not realize who this is, you are missing out. Doug Murphy: I could rewatch those two seconds he has on camera every other episode over and over if I was willing to put in the time and effort it would take.

And Johnny Kastl, I registered for imdb.com just because it's the only website out there where anyone says anything about you ever. In sum, I registered just for you.

Seriously though, he's beautiful and funny. Mama has another reason to watch Scrubs.

Creepy

So, I sent my mom some flowers from 1800flowers for Mother's Day. Normally, flowers from 1800flowers are not my family's style but I felt guilty when I got a phone call from my mom saying she was looking forward to seeing me and I wasn't planning on coming home.

Anyway, I felt very 'The Net' ordering everything online, but I just got a phone call from my family asking how I'd managed to get a handwritten card mailed from Ludlow! I tried to explain how 1800flowers works, but they insisted that they know my handwriting and it is definitely my handwriting on the card.

Now here's a predicament, I can either admit that I was so impersonal as to send a card that I did not handwrite and admit to my family that they do not, apparently, know what my handwriting looks like. Or, I can lie.

So, I did what anyone would do and sort of mumbled that I didn't know what had happened and trailed off. We left it at that.

I can't wait to see this card.

The guy totally gets it

I'm jealous

of Stephen Colbert


he has achieved everything I want in life...
he makes up words that get recognized in the dictionary.
and he mainly talks about how awesome he is, which is also one of my favorite things to do.

But, what really breaks my heart, what I've been dreaming about ever since I first visited the Ben and Jerry's factory at some young impressionable age, he has his own Ben and Jerry's flavor!

I want my own Ben and Jerry's flavor! I've wanted this for as long as I can remember! What if I never achieve anything worthy of getting a Ben and Jerry's flavor named after me?

My Ben and Jerry's flavor would be named Mujamint. Maybe Diana Mujamint.

Diana Mujamint

It would be, no WILL BE, mint chocolate chip ice cream with Reese's Pieces in it, and maybe hot fudge and peanut butter swirls. What if by the time I do someone else has stolen my flavor? What if someone's reading my blog and steals my idea? I'll sue. And I'll be heartbroken.

In fact, right now I have a pint of mint chocolate chip ice cream in the freezer into which I have already poured a bag of reese's pieces. I should be eating it, not posting on my blog. I can't figure out how to end this blog entry so I can go eat my ice cream. This is getting very awkward.

I think I need to go. Yeah, I just need to go.

Yah!

Peter Petrelli You scored 54 Idealism, 58 Nonconformity, 16 Nerdiness

Do you ever... get the feeling that you were meant to do something extraordinary? Congratulations, you're Peter Petrelli! You are a compassionate, idealistic person, which is great. You're searching for your identity and purpose in life, and you have a strong desire to be special, and do something great for the world. You're a bit on the emo side, but you have the best of intentions. Your best quality: Empathy Your worst quality: EMO

My test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 99% on Idealism You scored higher than 99% on Nonconformity You scored higher than 99% on Nerdiness

Ok, I'm not really sure I understand why my answers gave the result that it did, especially the nerdiness part, but oh well, I like Peter Petrelli.

which hero are you?

Shopaholic tendencies

So, I'm realizing I really like raincoats. I almost bought one this weekend, and I had to stop myself and say "you don't need a raincoat, you already have three." I just don't think that's normal.

So I've instated a new shopping policy for myself wherein if I buy something, I have to get rid of something. So far, I bought a blue cardigan, and got rid of an old blue cardigan. If anyone wants a new raincoat, holla and I'll think about it:).

A Dream for a Dollar

My coworker and I went and bought lottery tickets today, it's up to $370 million or something right now. Daydreaming about what you would do with that much money (or half that much) is fun. Unexpected result though, I'm actually pretty happy with my life as it is. Very happy: when I really am honest with myself about what I would do if tonight I won a ton of money, there's not much I would do differently than I'm doing now. All the things I really want but am not sure I'll be able to achieve, I couldn't buy with money anyway (like fulfillment and a happy, healthy family). At any rate, thinking it over made me feel like I was doing pretty well for myself, so, thanks New York Megamillions, I'll stop complaining so much.

Here's my plan for if I win:

So, let's say, after taxes and other people's collecting their winnings you get $90 million.

I would set aside $3 million each for my sisters in some kind of trust fund deal, and give my brother $3 million up front to do whatever he wants with (he has a family now). Then I would also give my parents $9 or 10 million to do whatever they want with.

I would donate money for more programming in schools, I'm not sure what yet, but I would probably donate to LHS music since I really felt like it helped me out and maybe something for programming to encourage students to push ahead more. I know people might argue with me, and all this talk about genius kids not being pushed enough in public schools is annoying, but I do think it would be worthwhile to make kids feel like school is worth their time. Also, I would fund more bilingual education programs. I would also probably donate to st. jude's children's hospital in my mom's name since she donates a lot to them already. Then I would probably make a donation in my dad's name too.

I would invest a bunch of it in things like bonds and set aside a couple million in a high interest savings account for myself.

I would buy an apartment building somewhere that my friends and I could live in rent free and make look nice and then later if I don't want it anymore I could just sell it for a profit.

Then I would keep working at my current job until next february , and then try to get a science writing internship next spring like I want to do anyway. Then, hopefully after getting into med school I would travel the hell out of summer 2008. Then I would go to med school without having to worry about acquiring lots of debt.

And I would buy myself new glasses and a nice laptop because I need them. I'll probably buy myself new glasses anyway, and actually I bought a refurbished desktop yesterday because I really need a computer, so I guess I don't really need a nice laptop. I'm excited to get my new computer, it's coming this week! Then I'll have a computer in my apartment too and maybe I'll blog more!

Awesome conversations I've had this week

Cab Ride Home on Saturday night

Driver: "Where are you from if you don't mind me asking?"

Me: (No big deal, they always ask me this)

"Massachusetts"

Driver: "No, I mean, you know, I mean, you look like you're from somewhere else, you look like arabic or indian."

Me: (Fine)

"Arabic"

Driver: "Where, egypt, Jordan?"

Me: (Usually I lie, but I was surprised that he guessed Jordan)

"Jordan"

Driver: "Well are you a real Jordanian? Cause Jordanian's don't usually have black hair like that."

Me: (Again, surprised at his accuracy)

"Also Filipino"

Driver: "Ah, see? I know a lot of things. Can you imagine, our grandkids and great grandchildren, how awful they'll look?"

Me: (What?)

"What do you mean?"

Driver: "Oh you know, all this mixing, bleh, it will be horrible."

Me: "Well...you know, I'm mixed."

Driver: "I understand that."

Get over it Texas

I'm not normally much of a Connecticut fan (it's clearly the lesser of the New England states) but I thought this was funny.