CyClone Milk is the perfect way to start your day.

My friend Liz just showed me this. I assume it's a hoax.

While I'm here, here's something else kind of odd. I'm a big fan of Owen and Mzee (and really any inter-species friendship story), but I think it's weird that they think Mzee has a hippo face on his butt.

Cover the Uninsured Week

is almost over...sorry for the delayed post:

http://covertheuninsured.org/

Stupid free brownies

One isn't enough, and 5 is too many. There's just no way to win.

Location, Location, Location

Two Part Post-

Part I: a haiku

On Oatmeal

In bowl so yummy
A glob falls on work report
Suddenly so gross

I had oatmeal today, and it made me think about how location can be important to perceived worth. Something might be part of a delicious breakfast, and a mere two inches away become slimy garbage that stains your papers right before a meeting.

Part II: departures and arrivals

I'm in the denouement of my time here in NYC, and I'm starting to feel more poetic about everything. I've decided to start filming and posting all my trip departures and arrivals. Cheesy I know, but whatever, I like the way it looks. I wish I'd started earlier because I would have a pretty good collection. For now, a trip often travelled over the past few years:

Here's me leaving western Mass.



And here's me coming to NYC (I exercised creative use of the zoom so get excited.)

Here's one more of coming to NYC just for kicks.

I'm a neurotransmitter

Being a grown-up is fun

This weekend I went and visited my nephews (I have two now!). They're like new pets that I don't have to clean up after. Actually, I guess they're more like new babies that I don't have to clean up after. Well, really, they ARE babies that I don't have to clean up after.

Anyway, that was a good time. Then I came home and gave my fridge a much needed cleaning. I found my ipod shuffle, a long-lost hair barrette, and something that I might have found beautiful had I found it growing at the bottom of the ocean. Unfortunately, it was instead located in one of my favorite pieces of tupperware (REAL tupperware, not reused take-out containers), which I had to sacrifice because I was too scared to clean 'it' out.

Lesson learned.

Happy Fall!

I'll admit it, I don't like Halloween. I know I'm going to sound like a loser, but I don't think I've had a fun Halloween since I was 10. My Halloween memories are full of being left behind at frat parties by drunken friends or having to fight Japanese subway style onto the third bus that has passed at 2 am Boston for an hour long ride home. Besides, every Halloween since college I've moved into a new apartment, and we all know how much fun it is to move.

I do, however, love candy and always will. I'm going to reach back to one of my earliest Halloween memories and name a girl I knew growing up, Katie S. In kindergarten one day she brought in a singly wrapped orange pumpkin candy for a snack. It caught my eye when she bit into it to show our teacher, Miss Colton*, it was actually a marshmallow. Katie S. would grow up to speed through life and master karate and buy a house and have a baby by the same age most of us are proud to rent an apartment with 5 roommates, but I didn't know any of that then. I only knew I wanted that marshmallow pumpkin. I wanted it so badly I had a dream around then where I had one of my own and when I held it up to show my classmates they all accused me of stealing it from Katie S. (Yes, I really remember all of this).

Every other Halloween or so since then, I remember that Marshmallow Pumpkin and wonder where it came from. Of course, marshmallow peeps are always prevalent, but it couldn't have been a peep since they're not individually wrapped. Was it possible I imagined the whole thing?

Then the other day I saw these in a Duane Reade:
I promptly forgot the toothpaste I'd set out to buy as the memories all came rushing back to me. It had been awhile since I'd last thought about them, and I wondered if I still wanted them. Plus, I'm trying to be Eco-friendly, I don't really think individually packaged marshmallows are necessary for someone who lives by herself. But, if I didn't buy them, I'd always wonder about what might have been. So, against all odds I picked them up and set them on the cash register counter. They rang up at a startling $4.32, but I convinced myself that $4.32 is a small price to pay to indulge youthful dreams.

They were TERRIBLE! They weren't marshmallowy at all, they were chewy and weirdly vanilla flavored. I stuck them in the freezer where I stick everything that I don't know where else to put in my kitchen, and there they'll stay indefinitely. Halloween had made a mockery of me again! Boo Halloween and all its eternal disappointments! I'm just going to hole up and wait for Easter, the only holiday that produces candy worth acknowledging (besides Christmas and Valentine's Day).

In other food news, I'm going to the Big E this weekend, and everyone else should too! It's the greatest fair in the world, ask any carnie.

*I normally refer to women who are not Mrs. as Ms., but we actually called her Miss Colton (it was the eighties).

I forgot

to mention the best part about my successful bubble tea experience from last week (see previous post). Upon completion of my drink, I realized I had to call my college roommate who introduced me to bubble tea and is the only individual to ever try to help me overcome the flaws in my bubble tea consumption. We're good friends but we don't get to chat much because she's busy with medical school on the west coast. Anyway, as I'm picking up my cell phone to call her to let her know her support was not in vain, I notice my phone is blinking because someone is calling me, and of course it's my college roommate just randomly calling to keep in touch!

I'm not a phone person, so I didn't answer right away. I called her back after listening to her voicemail and we had a good talk. It's so weird how often it happens that you're just thinking about someone, and then randomly cross paths with them.

I'm into listing things these days.

I just realized I had a pretty good week last week. Here's a list of the highlights:

1. One morning, I scored over 1000 points playing Parachute on my Ipod. I was only shooting for 100+ points, but I think the game malfunctioned cause they stopped dropping parachuters on me. I just kept shooting those helicopters, so I count it as a win. I like to pretend the helicopters are rats and the parachuters are spiders.

2. I got a bubble tea and for the first time ever, I finished the boba at the exact same time as I finished the tea. Normally I drink all the tea before I realize what I'm doing, and end up with a ton of inaccessible, delicious-looking boba at the bottom.

3. My lab presented at ICAD with exciting results. I didn't get to go but I helped with two posters and my supervisor was only supposed to show them for half an hour each and he ended up staying for four hours for each because there was so much interest. It was pretty amazing to see all the work from the past two years summarized on a poster, but I don't feel like going into that right now. I will say that when my PI was showing one of the posters to the clinic girls I got so excited I clapped by accident.

4. My PI was taped for the 'marketwatch' section of the Wall Street Journal online, and I'm in the background which gave me something to tell my parents about. Check it out:
Me me me me me
I show up somewhere between 2 min and 50 seconds and 3 minutes and 11 seconds. I was fairly taken to task by my lab friends for not wearing gloves, but to be honest I wasn't really working.

I should really go work on my secondaries...(this is how I seem to end all my posts).

Submitted

Only one year, one week, and one day after I said I would submit it. Not too shabby if I do say so myself (and I think I'm the only one who would:) ).

I'm about to be 3 hours late for a pot luck that's an hour away and I'm still in my pajamas, but I'm still having an Alaskan brewery IPA that I've been saving in my fridge since the end of May for this moment.

The Smiths are hot

A few of my friends got engaged this summer so I've got couples on the mind...

I was going to pretend that this post was going to be about perfect couples, but in truth this photo caught my eye because in my occasional daydream that I'm winning an academy award for screenplay writing I'm wearing this exact dress! I had the daydream before I even saw the photo.

Isn't it beautiful?

Ngan's right

Why aren't I writing on this blog anymore?

Here's a list of things I'm excited about:

1. My new sweatshirt
I thought it would cost $30 but when I went to pay it rang up for $20, and on that website it says it's $54! Now that's a good shopping experience.
2. This must be the place
That's not actually what they chose to title the movie, but I like that name better than what they did choose. Either way, I love comedies, I love road trip movies, I love mayarudolphjohnkrasinskiallisonjanneyandprobablyotheractorsinitthati'mforgetting, and most of the time I like Dave Eggers writing. Plus, figuring out the best place to raise your family is something I've thought about as a neurotic 20-something multiracial chica who is in no way close to starting a family of her own. I don't know if they're going to hit on racial themes but I hope so.
I'll admit to being a little worried about John Krasinski keeping up. Of course, I'm a fan of The Office and he seems like a nice guy, but the only film I've seen him in is Smileyface. As someone who spends most of her time with awkward nerdy guys, I just didn't buy it. Now, Johnny Kastl, there's someone who can play an awkward nerdy guy. Good effort with the hunched shoulders though John.
Still, it should be great!
3. SYTYCD
Yah Mark Kanemura! Bye bye doing anything productive on a Wednesday or Thursday night until the fall starts when I'll at least get Wednesdays back.
4. Table of Contents'
I just like them.
5. Snap crackle pop
Enjoy:)

Now back to work or sleep.

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.