Saturday Night Fever

We got out of the house last night and went out like regular people with friends and social lives. woo! R and I went with our friend C to Thai in the West Village, and then to see the Oscar nominated live action shorts at the IFC Center (doesn't that mean the international film center center? But is is what their web site says). All the films were quite well done. I'd already picked who I thought would win for my yearly competition with Melinda, and seeing them did not really change my mind. I realized I've never seen an Oscar nominated or winning short film before, so I have no reference for knowing what kind of movies win.

Today I am trying to get some work done and also plan to go shopping for some new clothes. I somehow don't fit into anything I own, and have gotten down to one pair of pants and one skirt that I can teach in. I want to get something new before Tuesday to trick my students into thinking I have a wardrobe. After that, it is the Oscars! R and I were talking about buying tasty snacks to eat while watching. I'm not going to a party, though, because next week is Buckle Down and Write Like Crazy week and I am planning to get up early on monday and commence the buckling down.

OK, gotta get some work done so I can shop and Oscar without guilt.

Catch up in pictures

The weekend before Halloween R and I took the commuter train north and walked along the Old Croton Aqueduct Trail. We'd originally wanted to go look at pretty leaves, but thanks to Global Warming they had not changed yet. It was still a nice walk.

We walked the trail to the Old Dutch Church in Sleepy Hollow. That's right! Sleepy Hollow of Headless Horseman fame.
Here is the cemetery from which the Horseman rose. The covered bridge is now North Broadway though. Oh well. I was glad we were not there at night.

They really love the Headless Horseman there though. Here he is on the police cars. He is also the mascot of the high school and we saw an awesome realtor sign which had the Headless Horseman carrying a house instead of a pumpkin for a head. Ha! Anyway, it was a really nice day in the fresh air out of the city.

Why Fox News sucks

So there was a steam pipe that exploded in midtown. I was watching TV around when this happened. I happened to stop flipping on Fox, not realizing it was Fox. I picked up on what station I was on, though, when the newscasters started talking about how of course it made everyone think of 9/11, and especially in these dangerous times we had to think it was terrorism. Then the newscaster interviewed someone from the electric company (who is in charge of the pipes which carry steam all though Manhattan -- it is used for heating and other things. I actually watch something about them on tv, but I remember very little.) and just kept attacking the poor electric company person. The Fox guy kept asking why they didn't respond better and why they had pipes that could explode and basically was very combative. The poor electric guy was like, we did respond well, the pipes are old, dude, shit happens. It is sad that a person died because of it, but I think freak accidents are a part of life.

Anyway, all the other stations managed to mention that it was not terrorism in a non-sensational way, and did not attack electric company officials without reason. Stupid Fox News.

PS: be careful if you are on the New York Times web page as my sources say they write too much about the new Harry Potter on the front page. Do not be spoilered!

licenses, NYC, fireworks and hotdogs, oh my!

Hello my little blog readers!

Here is a post about a bunch of stuff I have been up to.

Let's see. Last Sunday night I got back from my month of teaching the smarty kids. It was fun, the kids were awesome, I got to hang out with a bunch of NHPs (nonhuman primates), I lived in a dorm and the food was awful. I also missed my community college students and came to feel that teaching the gifted was not where my passion lies. Hopefully I can post more on that later. However, I also got an email saying my one community college adjuncting job was taken from me due to the hiring of full time faculty. Boo! hiss! Now I have NO sure teaching for fall so I am scrambling. Anyone need a bio anthro/anthro/biology/primatology/ or anything else teacher for fall? Let me know!

R surprised me and met me at the airport which was so nice! He was almost foiled by my flight being early, but we met up and had a taxi ride home together and he was able to help me with my heavy bag. Monday I was exhausted so I lazed around the house. At night we struck out for the Bronx and Yankee Stadium to watch the Yankees play the Twins. R and I cheered for the Twins, and it was very weird to be for the away team -- I have never had that experience before. Also, the Twins lost in a very embarrassing manner. Seriously, R or I could have pitched better than they were.

Tuesday we finally used the Empire State Building tickets R got me for my birthday. It was very cool! And the line was not too long. I'll have some pictures up on Flickr soon. After that we walked to Grand Central Station and R had oysters (I had a few as well) and calamari. It was R's end of first year of grad school present. After that we went to see Sicko, which was pretty good although not one of Michael Moore's best. Also, I already know the health care system in the US is screwed, so no new info there.

Wednesday was the 4th and we went to Coney Island to watch the hot dog eating contest. So fun! The MC was hilarious and the whole things was just awesome. The world record was broken twice! The winner at 66 hot dogs in 12 minutes. Actually, that is pretty gross, but it was fun to be there. Afterwards we met Christopher and Corbett, rode the Wonder Wheel, and then walked around Brighton Beach.

Thursday I did lots of wedding planning work like planning the ceremony and looking for readings. R had school related work, and at night we went to C&C's and watched some Battlestar Galactica.

Friday we met up with Christopher and Corbett again and headed down to City Hall for the marriage license! We stood in a wide variety of lines, reminiscent of the DMV, but emerged (we thought) triumphant. Afterwards we all headed to Chinatown for awesome tasty veggie dim sum followed by Chinese ice cream. We said bye to C&C and got on the subway to scope out Central Park for the wedding again, when we looked at the license and saw R's birthday was wrong, making him 6 years older than he actually is! Curses! There is a fee for corrections done more than 24 hours after getting the license, so we had to get off the train and head back to City Hall. Luckily the correcting went pretty smoothly and we got a correct license but by then we were too tired for the park so we came home, had leftovers and watched Mission Impossible 3 which is not a very good movie. Whew. What an exciting week!

Next week is all dissertation all the time. I keep joking that I will have it done when R comes back on the 21st -- I think ridiculous deadlines are good motivators for me.

blah de blah blah

So I am a little disappointed in the state of the blog. I feel it has degenerated into lists of books and poetry by other people. Alas. I would like to write fabulous blog posts about my witty thoughts, but I am not sure I have those thoughts that often. Maybe I am just not that kind of blogger? I should at least write a little more about my life, since the purpose of the blog is to keep up with friends. I should also write a little more about the dissertatin', as another purpose of the blog is to not feel so isolated in the cold cruel world of academia. Perhaps I will try and set aside a day each week where I write something more than what I read....

On Thursday Melinda is coming! I am so excited! She is the first visitor I have had in NYC and although she is here for a conference, she will sleep on our air mattress in our living room so there should be some awesome Melinda times. We are also going to see Grey Gardens on Friday night, which, since I saw Xanadu with Christopher last week, will mean I have been to two Broadway shows in 8 days. I am so cool!

After Melinda departs, I am off to my undisclosed teaching location where I will begin teaching the gifted high schoolers about primates. I am pretty excited. I have a TA AND I might be mentoring a middle school teacher. I am a little alarmed about both those things as I do not really feel mature enough in my teaching to do either, but we will see. I will also be living in a dorm and eating in a dining hall. ha! That is going to be an experience. I had to have my mom mail me extra long dorm bed sheets.

Okey doke, that is all the catch up you get for now as I must go to sleep soon. R is back, but my insomnia had not totally disappeared as of last night. We'll see how it goes tonight....

Pretty Day!

Today was a beautiful day, so R and I walked around Central Park looking for wedding spots. I think we found one we liked, but I am going to wait to talk about it until after we successfully go through the permit process. We saw three wedding picture couples as we went through the park, as well as many ducks, biker, rollerbladers, and the scary Alice in Wonderland statue. Also, we briefly thought it would be cool to get married in front of this statue.

The walk in the park was nice, and it made us super excited to get married in the park. One of the things we are most excited about is the unpredictability of having it in a public space. Who knows who will happen by!

Week Update

Let me update you on the last week with subheadings!

Bread
Awhile ago Christopher gave me some sourdough starter who I named Alberto and put in the fridge. Since I finally have a day off I got Alberto out this morning and fed him and now he is getting revved up to be in some sourdough wheat bread. Yum yum. Also, sometime in the recent past I made my first successful loaf of wheat bread! yay! It was very good, with the most beautiful crumb ever. The problem is I don't really know how I did it. When I first put it in the bread machine it was too wet (I over-corrected for the previous too dry bread) so I just threw in bunched of both bread flour and whole wheat flour. I really thought it was going to be terrible, but it was very good. Hopefully I can recreate it sometime, and write down what amounts I use.

NYC
Because my job is down in the Village and I live way way uptown, I get to ride the subway all the time now. I bought an unlimited Metro card which is very freeing. I just subway all over the place, because the more I ride the better of a deal it is! One day this week I went down to work, then way up to the Bronx, then back down to Lincoln Center. Good times.

Saturday it was so nice out so R and I went to a near by Farmer's Market. As it is winter in New York, there was not much to buy -- mostly apples and baked goods. We did get some tasty apple cider and I think I will go back for apples and some cage free eggs. We walked home via two huge parks. One of them was so big, you really didn't know you were in Manhattan when you were inside it. We hope to walk more in the spring.

Job
My job is good, although a little crazy. After one week of work I am apparently fully trained and can open and close the store. It is cool, though, it is the kind of job I thrive in, where you are given no direction so you just do stuff. I worked the last 6 days though, including 9.5 hours on Friday and I was tiiiiiired. I stand the whole time and my entire body was sore on Friday night. I finally have a day off today, so I slept in until 10:30 and am going to get all kinds of errands and stuff done.

School
I did some work on my dissertation -- mostly arranging data. I have a lot more of that to do. This is the pre-analysis stage. I have an organized method, though. I am going chapter by chapter and working on that data only, it really helps to keep me focused. I am supposed to have a really detailed outline in the next few weeks. I don't really work in outlines, but I'll put what I have in that format I guess.

Social
Part of why I was so exhausted this week was that I was out late so many nights! On Sunday I had to go watch the Oscars, of course. I predicted 19 categories correctly! Go me! Monday night R and I went to see This American Life Live, which was super good. They are making a TV show out of the radio show and it will be on Showtime. The clips of the TV show looked good. Too bad I have no fancy cable. And then on Tuesday Maggie and I went to see the Vagina Monologues with Alix Olson. They were very good, although the venue was beset by logistical problems, so the show started an hour late, we were packed in like sardines, and I didn't get home until very late at night.

So that is what was up with me lately. I have some pictures I need to get off the camera and then I will put them on Flickr soon. There are some of bread! So click the Flickr badge in the next few days.

New York weekend

Laura asked to hear more about living in New York, so here is some. Don't worry, Shannon! I will write about bread making soon as well!

Anyway, this weekend R and I went to see Bodies: The Exhbition. This is one of those exhibitions where actual human bodies are dissected in interesting ways and we can see how all the muscles and organs work. It was pretty cool, but R and I were a little underwhelmed as it wasn't totally amazing, as we had heard. We decided you can only look at so many muscles. There was a cool part that just showed the circulatory system. They injected a polymer into the system, it hardened into plastic, and then they dissolved the rest of the body away. It left behind these really beautiful and feathery structures. We also really liked the embryo/fetus room. Especially the embryos. I find it amazing to think about how we were all little single celled things once, and now look at us! R wanted to see more diseases, and I would have liked more organs systems. Organs are cooler to me than muscles.

So that was fun, although it took us a million years to get there. It was located on the A train, which we also live on. So at first you think, hey! No prob! The prob is we are impatient and the museum is pretty much on the exact opposite end of Manhattan from us. Usually the A runs express for quite a bit, so it is fast, but it has not been doing so lately due to construction on the C. Anyway, we get on the A, then remember we have to switch anyway to another A, because of other construction. We decide to outsmart the system and instead switch to the 1, which we will then take to the 2 or the 3 as one of them is allegedly express (isn't this fun to talk about?). We attempt this, get off the 1 to go to the 2 or 3 and find a sign that says no! The 2 and 3 are not running where we want to go. Then there is a very confusing sign saying something about the 5 running on the 2 but only as far as blah-de blah, but then we can take the 6 to the P to the Q or something ridiculous. We finally ascertained that the only train going to our destination was the A, so we got back on the 1, then back on the A, and finally arrived. Whew. On the way back we learned our lesson and just sat on the A the whole way. No problemo.

This discussion of subways is what, to me, makes NYC so unique. People like to talk about New York being special in lots of ways, but to me it is mostly just big. I am not enthralled by its 'specialness'. But the subway conversations are awesome! Nearly every time I am out the evening ends with "OK, I'll see you later, is the 2 near here?" "You can get the 2 at 32nd Street, but why don't you take the 9 to the 2?" "I don't like the 9, but can't I get the G at 30th and take that to the P to the 2?" "No, the P is not running this week, but you could take the J to the L." I love it! It is hilarious! I also overhear conversations like that all the time, and I think in depth discussions of the merits of different subway lines will always be New York to me.

Random updates

We have returned to NYC from our tour of the Midwest. Much fun was had and many friends and family were seen. Highlights were my parents at the airport with Santa hats, Vietnamese food with a bunch of friends, driving to Iowa, Dairy Queen in Minnesota, New Year's Eve trivial pursuit, a pug dog and a baby in a Surinamese costume. Awesome.

R got money for an Ikea bookshelf for Christmas, so we have a journey to New Jersey planned for Wednesday. Billy bookcase here we come! When we moved to New York we went from a 1200 square foot apartment to a 600 square foot one. We are having some serious organizational problems to say the least and this bookshelf will save our lives. We're also going to look for some cheap housewares. Love the Ikea kitchen section!

The other good Christmas gift was money for a bread machine from R's entire family. I am so excited! We are going to eat tasty fresh bread ALL THE TIME. So I am now searching for the perfect machine. What bread machines do you guys have, and how do you like them? Any recommendations?

This upcoming week is going to be some recovery from the trip, plus shopping. I also need to write a new proposal for my dissertation as my methods changed, but that is mostly done so it shouldn't be a problem. I also might work a few days for the temp agency, get a hair cut and organize the rest of my life. I have been on the go so much since I got back, and have not had much time to explore New York, so that will be good to do this week.

Feliz Navidad

Merry Christmas and Happy Happy New Year to all! R and I are off for our annual tour of the Midwest -- 4 states in 2 weeks. It will be great. We're going to see my parents and brothers, R's parents and grandparents and many friends including Melinda, Laura, and many others who do not have blogs but are still fabulous people. :)

Today I had a long but good day. I woke up early and went and had an interview at a temp agency. They loved me and my mad Excel skillz so I should be able to make the rent each month. woo! Afterwards R and I met a friend for lunch and then did some Christmas shopping. We spent way too much time in Kmart and then nearly got trapped in Macy's, land of the never-ending escalators. After all that we walked around looking at window displays and finally saw the tree and Rockefeller Center. It was a great time and now I'm ready to head off for the Christmas celebratin'.

oooh! Also, there's a building near Rockefeller Center where there are big Christmas light snowflakes and they blink in time to Mannheim Steamroller Christmas songs. Awesome!

more NYC and maintenance

Today my big project is to go to the DMV and get a new driver's license. I am having some serious health insurance getting issues and am going to apply for Healthy New York which needs a driver's license from me. I am not 100% sure I am eligible, but it is worth a try. Health insurance SUCKS. Maybe I'll have some good DMV stories for you later.

I also moved to Blogger beta, so if you are reading on bloglines you might need to update the feed.

NYC

Howdy ho all!

I am trying hard toget my stuff together to post a lovely summary of what all happened to me in Suriname, but it is hard. Right now I am pretty overwhelmed with figuring out my life and how I am going to make my half of the rent plus tuition.

Also I am all getting used to New York, so I have that whole adventure to process. I love it here so far and I can even travel around on the subways by myself as well as someone tells me which trains to take! We live on the far north end of Manhattan and to our east is a very Latino neighborhood. I walked around exploring it yesterday, and bought some $2 jeans. Also in our 'hood we have several Dunkin' Donuts, grocery stores, and lots of restaurants. There is so much going on.

Last night I saw Stranger Than Fiction with some friends. I really liked the movie, and on the way home I learned an important subway lesson. The lesson is: if there is a full car next to an empty car on the train, there is probably a reason that one car is empty. I hopped on to this empty car, proud of my cleverness, until I noticed the horrendous stench. Indeed, some poor man was ejecting some sort of bodily fluids and smelled sooooo bad. About 8 of us had gotten in this car and we all kind of huddled in a corner until we finally got to the next stop and could flee. So that was my first important subway lesson. It also reminded me of how fun it is to live in a big city and bond with strangers over incidents like this. All of us in the car were brought closer together. It was really beautiful, except that it was disgusting.