6 posts tagged “things on tuesday”

I've really got to get back into the habit of writing regularly again.
Loathing:

• My apartment, which at the moment still smells really bad. My roommate killed an aluminum pan on Sunday night that still had a half batch of brownies in them. Think you want to know what really, really done brownies smell like? Think again.
• Impending finals... a week from Friday, they start again. I just feel like I'm always testing now. Can't wait for this quarter to be over.
• P.F. Chang's... went for a friend's birthday tonight, and was just really unimpressed. Nobody's food looked particularly good, and the brown rice was not cooked enough... thus confirming my hypothesis that it is a chain catering to suburbanites who want a very sanitized Chinese food experience.
• Not being able to sleep. I'm never tired when I need to be lately, and always tired when it's very inconvenient.
  
• The funk I've been in the last week or so. I don't know what it is, but I feel like I've been more reticent lately, and just generally not feeling good about myself for any number of reasons.
  

Loving:

• My new-to-me television, a gift from my friend Matt, who moved back to California this week and didn't want to take it with him. It feels so state-of-the-art to me - it has a flat screen, and it has a working remote control!
• My kitten-almost-a-cat, Fred. He has gotten very big (especially compared to his brother), but he loves me quite completely and is the sweetest cat ever.
• The new brownie recipe. I've been working on my brownie recipe for well over a year now, trying very hard to come up with one that is fudge-y, rather than cake-y. I've always felt like my homemade brownies don't match up particularly well to the ones in the box, but knew that there had to be a better way to make brownies that weren't so full of processing and chemicals. These brownies alone as good as the boxed kind - with a handful of chocolate chips and another of walnuts, they are the best brownies I have ever eaten.
• The professor coordinating summer research at school. She's this tiny old Jewish lady, who is herself hilariously funny, and moreover, thinks that I am hilariously funny. The best half-hour of my week last week, such a pick-me-up.
• Spending time with friends who don't go to medical school. It's so nice to know that there's a world outside all of this.
  

Anyway... I'm going to try to be better with the posting. There really isn't all that much to my overly-charmed life these days. Just a lot of studying and friend drama. High school drama doesn't have ANYTHING on medical school drama. It's ridiculous.

Loathing:

• Feeling repeatedly like I'm being played for a fool. I shall not further divulge.
• Matzah and gastrointestinal warfare
• High gas prices... like everyone else.
• Automobiles in general.
  

Loving:

• My rabbi and his family - my first night was so great this year. It was wonderful to be able to have dinner with real people and ::gasp:: small children. SO much fun.
• Seeing Sean for the first time in a very long time.
• "Colin Meloy Sings Sam Cooke" and anything by Laura Gibson
• Strawberries!! I bought a huge thing for $4!
  

Loathing:

• Midterms and everything that comes with it. Everyone's high-stress, and I just don't want to be around it.
• The general asshat-ness of some of my classmates the last week or so. We might not like what we have to do all of the time, but there is a time to complain, and there's a time to shut up and swallow it.
  
• Spring allergies, per usual, but...
  

Loving:

• The OTC status of Zyrtec. An allergy med that works for 24 hours AND puts me out like a light - I'm in unstuffed-up heaven right now.
• Being the only woman in my epidemiology group (and one of maybe two in my ethics group). It means that it's my birthright to pick articles for analysis that expose them to things like endometriosis and other things they'd really rather not think about. That'll teach them for dumping the midterms-week post on me!
• Lemon-iced shortbread Girl Scout cookies, matcha, vanilla pomegranate swirl ice cream, Cadbury eggs, and foods cooked in ramekins!
  
• My Monday nights... which are rapidly becoming one (if not the) high point of my week.
  

Loathing:

• The last week of Genetics lectures. I am SO ready to not have 8AM classes every day. We had our quiz at 8AM today, and naturally, I was struck with a bout of insomnia last night. Did alright (I think), and I'm glad it's over, but am certainly ready for the class as a whole to be over.
• Gas prices. Le sigh...
• The laundry EXPLOSION in my room right now. I think... I might take a few hours tonight to clean up. I was doing so well before finals, too.

Loving:

• Woodman's! Oh, my goodness, Woodman's! For those of you who have not yet been initiated into the cult of amazing grocery shopping experiences, I'm so sorry. Any time you're around, I'm happy to drive the 20+ miles to Kenosha to show you around and stock up on the greatness (and the cheapness... the savings is well in excess of what I spend on gas to get there, even when gas is $4 a gallon). Last weekend, I found Mexican Coca-Cola, and bought the things I needed for St. Pat's/"'The Big Bang Theory' Returns" dinner on Monday night, including something for a dessert that I am really very excited to make.
• My roommate. She's the best person I've lived with at least since Beth. I'm surprisingly sad to be moving out at the end of the year, and I almost wish I didn't hate living on campus so much so that I could stay here. But it's not like I'm not going to see her all the time next year, and visit over the summer.
• Having things to look forward to, even if it's just a little glimmer of something to get you through the day, or through to the end of a horrible, horrible week. And knowing that, even when there isn't much to be happy about, there are still friends and family to pull you through.
  

So I'm a little bit late, but you know... whatever.

Loathing...

• Petty thieves: my parents' house was robbed the other day. It was more scary than anything, I think, and they made a big mess, but it's causing headaches everywhere - even here. One more thing on my plate that I wish I wasn't worrying about right now.
• Stress-related breakouts: ...and the winter skin continues.
  
• My "online" courses: A ton of online postings every week for both of them... I'd rather just have a regular class, thanks. Epidemiology is a lot more fun when you're actually learning things and not just poring over studies. Ethics is silly if you're just arguing about beneficence on an online discussion board.
• Personal drama: my inability to get out of my head on a (very) personal situation... I'm no good at making decisions like this, and especially not any good at confrontation of any sort. I don't know how to do it. The reason I write so much - here, in my hard journal, letters, rants, and otherwise - is because it's the only way I know that lets me say everything I want to say, in as protected a way in possible.
  

Loving...

• Friends with the complete box set of "The West Wing." It's not like I haven't seen them all before, or that I don't have copies of most of the episodes, or a means of getting them... but it's nice to have them in a slightly more convenient format.
• Comfort reading. On tough weeks, I find myself revolving around the same two or three books. I'm reading "Contact" for the millionth time, and I've just gotten past the part about the ants on the grass - totally unrelated to the overall plot of the book, and at the same time, not at all. On the weeks when I'm not sure where "home" really is, it's lovely to go back to something familiar.
• Jelly beans, and the great roommates who give them to me. My fantastic roommate is one of the few things I will miss about living on campus next year, along with the other fabulous friends that I've made who live in my building and on my floor.
  
• The one-hit wonders of my youth. I love finding the songs that I loved when I was thirteen, and I'm always overjoyed to find that my taste in music has improved, but that it was pretty good even then. Currently falling back in love with the Alana Davis cover of Ani's "32 Flavors." I want desperately to learn the guitar part for this one.
  

Loathing...

• My class schedule this week - I have classes, meetings, and labs scheduled late every day this week. I'm not saying that my life is rough by any stretch of the imagination, but all of that class time is exhausting, and there's still studying to be done at the end of the day.
• Poor quality of television - I'm so glad the writer's strike is over, but waiting until April to get new episodes for anything good is no good at all.
• Winter - it's wreaking havoc on my skin and hair this week, and it snowed again yesterday.
  
• Class reunions - my high school's five-year reunion is this summer, and suffice it to say, I'm not going. Anybody that I want to see from high school, I'm still talking to and I see when I'm home. After five years, most of us haven't done anything yet. There's a lot of pressure there anyway - if I show up having done so little with myself, I'm going to regret it. For now, I don't want to explain to my old classmates that, while I'm in medical school, I'm not making any money, I'm studying/in class for 16 hours a day. Better to decline for now and show up for the tenth.
  

Loving...

• New classes - it's still early, but I'm really enjoying the new classes, and we just started lipid metabolism in biochemistry. We had wet lab today in Neuroscience - an hour of looking at brains. It's sort of frightening to me that I've liked all of the cranial stuff we've done better than really anything else. I still don't think I want to match into neurology, but the brain is just so fascinating to me. We'll see if a quarter of neuroscience knocks that out of me.
• Feeling settled - it took a long time, but I'm feeling like I've finally established something of a support system in Chicago, between my synagogue and my friends. I'm celebrating the first night of Pesach with my rabbi and his family, which I'm terribly excited about. We're putting together an appetizer potluck in the same vein as the much successful dessert potluck, probably after midterms. 
• Guittard chocolate chips - the best chocolate chip cookie recipe ever lives on the back of those bags.
  
• "Field Manual" - Chris Walla - Yes, still. I keep falling in love with different songs on the album... the drives are so catchy and the lyrics are amazing. I want someone more talented than I am to post the tabs already!