in the morning when i didn’t feel a thing

As break winds to a close…

+ having a golden retriever next to me (his foot is touching the key board)
+ J Crew outlets (3 tank tops, 2 dresses. 1 sweatshirt, 1 pair of shorts, 1 scarf…)
+ Shamrock Fest on Saturday (I dropped the ball on this I owe Jen big time for being on top of it)
+ Finished American Wife – by far my favorite Curtis Sittenfeld book.  So much better than her others.
+ I love sunshine.  I love Florida.  I love being warm.  I don’t want to leave.
+ I have somehow normalized my sleep cycle here.

I am bitter and should be ignoring college basketball.  And I am not really capable of doing this, so instead I’m probably somewhere just above the level of your average March Madness follower who doesn’t know much about the teams involved.  Watching the end of ‘Cuse/UConn and cheering for  Uconn against  Syracuse.  I may not have a team in the Big East tourney (let’s not discuss, RIP) but I have opinions.  And I still plan to represent in the LTS NCAA pool…

In other news…
Sent my thesis draft to my adviser a few days ago.

Saturday = Shamrock Fest, a DC St. Patty’s Day tradition – it’s my first time and we’re going VIP style.  Should be fun.

Traveling tomorrow – BWI cannot possibly be as painful as the Philadelphia airport.  But I’m not looking forward to unpacking/cleaning the apartment/food shopping.

How is this the last official spring break of my life?  I think real jobs should come with spring break.

 

let’s “break” it down

On what is possibly (hopefully?) the last spring break of my life… in Florida at my friend’s parents’ house.  Complete with ample pools and sunshine, two big dogs (oh how I’ve missed life with dogs), great food, good wine and to top it off I’ve already acquired an uneven, unslightly sunburn.  Only one side of my neck?  Really?  Fail.  Here’s hoping I manage to improve upon this before the end of the week.  And I’ve already had two fabulous margaritas… one which was served at lunch, beachside with a view to kill for.  Right now?  I love my life.

Goals for break:

• tan lines.
• get overdue thesis to adviser
• type up conference notes (I got into a conference for free this week, on the condition that I took notes.  The notes?  Are currently under my suitcase).
• finish the book I’m reading – and the other one I brought – so I can say I’ve read THREE nonschool books and hopefully next time someone asks what I’ve read, I can reference one of these three and NOT what the latest politics & the media book is.
• read the latest politics and the media book.  and my sustainable development reading.  sigh.
• attempt to forget that I have a spring break to-do list/at least not add anymore items to this.

Regular posting to resume when I’m back in the District. And now before.  I’m taking this whole break thing as literally as possible (you know, other than the whole to-do list thing… let’s not discuss).  I’m out… there’s a hot tub calling my name.

 

Decaff’ing for Lent… kinda

Lent snuck up on me this year, especially since I skipped my school’s Mardi Gras/(Sorta) State of the Union Party (yes, we’re a policy school, we combine those two things, deal with it) and didn’t acknowledge Mardi Gras in anyway.  (Which is strange because I don’t think I ever really HAVE acknowledged it, except that I always think I should).  So Lent.  I’m blatantly stealing from Marc of Marc’s Gchat Status but I’m sure he’ll forgive me.

A Brief History of Me and Lent

Freshman year of college I gave up whining about The Acorn.  If you knew me then, you know how big this was.  The Acorn was out student paper and it was the world’s biggest drama-creator/headache/nuthouse on campus.  Needless to say I probably broke that one.
Sophomore year I have no recollection of.
Junior year I gave up alcohol.   All was fine and well until I got back to my empty townhouse Easter night after a cold, miserable weekend in Cazenovia, NY for equestrian team finals.  It was cold, the house was empty, I didn’t get to spend Easter with my family and I had a bottle of liquor waiting in the fridge.  I may have cracked it up.  Shortly after midnight.  But close enough that I felt guilty.  Still – how many college kids do you know that can go without drinking for 40 days?
Senior Year I gave up chinese food.  I LOVE chinese food.  It’s my thing.  My housemates also loved chinese food so this was hard.  Once, after a very very bad day at work I gave in and ordered – and in a grand show of karma the place got my order wrong and left out ALL the rice.  For all of us.  My housemates were furious and told me I better not slip up again.  Lesson learned.
First year out of school: I gave up potatos.  As in no chips, no fries.  This was challenging because my coworkers and I used to lunch at Chickie and Pete’s on Fridays.  And if you’ve ever been to Chickie and Pete’s you know what crab fries are.  Old bay and french fries.  One of the finest things in life.  So several weeks of watching my co workers enjoy THEIR fries and none for me.  Ouch.  I survived.

That gets us up to 2006 – I honestly have no recollection of 2007 or 2008.  I’m guessing 2008 I gave up skipping quant class for Lent (you have no idea).  So 2009.  Lent.  I’m thinking about this.  I’m trying to think what I do regularly that I shouldn’t do.  I should stop buying cookie dough and eating it raw.  I should stop drinking on weeknights (I’m a broke grad student and free beer is free beer).  I could give up facebook but I might actually lose my mind.  I don’t drink soda, so that’s out.  I’d love to say I’d make an effort to go to Mass or Meeting (exactly how Catholic I am is a whole other post) but I’m out of town two weekends and apparently kickball starts during Lent so…)

Then it occurred to me.  Coffee.  Or more specifically, Saxby’s.  My beloved Saxby’s two blocks from school where this morning I had a medium dark roast with two sugars which got me through class.  I have a coffee maker at home – that I never use.  I have travel mugs.  There’s a coffee pot in the kitchen at school too.  It’s just that Saxby’s is so good.  And so easy.  And it’s there. So for Lent I am forgoing Saxby’s (and for good measure – Starbucks and all other coffeshop type places – and yes, Wisey’s counts as cheating).  I can only have coffee if I brew it myself (or someone else brews it here in the kitchen).  This is controlling my caffeine craving, my willpower and helping the environment by making me use my travel mug instead of disposable cups.

Now considering that I have a thesis draft due this week and a 10 page paper (that’s what I should be doing right now) it’s going to be a long week on campus.  This could be a challenge.  Here we go.

 

restaurant week and when is spring break anyway?

Senioritis (secondyearitis?) is so much worse the third time around.  Trust me on this.

Restaurant Week has ended and of course I need to chime in my $.02 on it.  I went to Cafe Atlantico with two friends Saturday night and was quite impressed.  First, the cocktails, although a little on the overdone side – were good.  The “Magic Mojito” is served in a martini glass full of white cotton candy and then the liquids are poured over it at the table.  The “Salt-Lime-Air Margarita” was good (and the foam smells like the ocean) but hard to drink and you’re left with this foam at the end.  Both are sort of novelty drinks, but well worth tasting.  The conch fritters were amazing – served with avocado paste which I wasn’t sure I’d like but it was good.  The conch was more of a mixture of conch and dressing/flavoring than traditional fritters (less solid) but still wonderful.  Highly recommend.  I had the Chicken Veracruz, my tablemates had the Shortribs – and both were amazing.  My friends are still obsessing over the puree that the ribs were sitting on (it involved truffles, and yes, it was that good).  Dessert was chocolate cake with bananas – good but by far the part of the meal (for me) that stood out the least.  Overall, definitely worth the experience and definitely a place I would recommend.

We finished the night off with some dancing at Cafe St. Ex which despite it’s hit or miss music and crowded basement/long bathroom line remains one of my favorite places to dance in D.C.  No cover, decent crowd (older/less meat market than Dupont or Adams Morgans can be), fairly easy to get to (I can always get a cab when I’m ready to leave) and when the music’s good, it’s good.  It was a nice way to end the night.

Or it was until I woke up Sunday with some sort of flu/plague/what is that in my throat? thing.  (And considering that we were sharing beer at the game Saturday AND passing cocktails around Saturday night I’m just waiting to hear that I got someone else sick…)  Still recovering, if by recovering you mean hiding in my apartment and praying my module final paper just magically appears on my computer (no, it hasn’t so far).

Midterms Round # I’ve lost count.  It doesn’t get better with age.

I’m dining at The Source tonight for my sister’s birthday.  I’ve had lunch there before, so I expect great things.  Assuming I can find the energy to put on a skirt and get across town.

Happy Tuesday all.

 

what we learn from sports

Blogger’s Note: I had an entirely different basketball story in mind to blog about, involving college fans and a rivalry that went too far last weekend at the Carrier Dome.  But I came across two stories about high school basketball teams tonight – showing both the best and worst of sports and competition – and this seemed a more important – and more universal – post to write.

Two High School Basketball Stories:

The first was one of the front page videos on ESPN.  It is a video of a brawl that broke out at a state tournament game in Alabama between Carver-Montgomery High School and Valley High School. – it began with a single foul and escalated into fans coming out of the stands, multiple people being arrested and the game being suspended.  Now Alabama High School Athletic Association officials were looking at video and talking to witnesses to determine a winner (Carver was up 52-37 with 6:23 left in the game so I can’t imagine how this would be to difficult).  The winner is scheduled to play in the next round on Friday morning.

Honestly, I kind of feel as though whoever the “winner” is should forfeit the game.  It seems like the title would be tainted if they won, and as it sounds like both schools were at fault, it seems likely that some sort of sanctions would be imposed at some point.  How can Carver allow their team to represent their school on a state level after this event?  Why would the school want the publicity that will likely follow them into the game, given that that the video is all over ESPN and googling “Alabama high school hoops brawl” brings up tens of hits.

The second story I found on Tumblr tonight.    It is about two missed free throws.  Johntell Franklin, a player from Milwaukee Madison had his mother die of cancer.  The basketball team from DeKalb (Ill.) High School had travelled two hours to play Madison, and agreed to delay the game a few hours, because Aaron Womack, Madison’s coach, was at the hospital with his player, and had to gather his team.  The game began.  Franklin arrived in the second quarter, and was not on the roster his coach had handed in.  Playing a player not on the roster would assess a technical foul to Madison, allowing DeKalb to shoot two free throws.  The DeKalb coach asked the referees not to make that call – the refs said they had no choice.  And so DeKalb coach Dave Rohlman asked which of his players would take the shots.  And then he said, “You realize you’re going to miss, right?”  As the players of Milwaukee Madison watched, DeKalb’s senior point guard went to the line, poised to shoot, released the ball – and the ball rose two feet in the air, fell to the court and rolled towards the ref.  The ref returned the ball to him.  Repeat.  Play continued.  The game ended – Milwaukee Madison won.  The coaches took the two teams for out for pizza.

And then afterwards, Womack emailed a letter to the DeKalb Daily Chronicle recounting the story, praising the DeKalb team, coach, and the player who stood at the line.

Two different games, four different teams, two very different endings.  Sports are about passion, about improving, about learning, and yes – about winning.  But what you do on the court stays with you when you step off.  Some players in Wisconsin and Alabama have learned that this month.

 

quant in real life

In which I things I learn from my thesis apply to real life:

• Regression is so much more than a concept in quant class. (Need I say more?  I’m channeling college like it’s 2002 again).
• Sometimes there are just too many variables.
• In that vein – some variables just aren’t worth controlling for (I.E. you can only control so many things in your life.  Sometimes you need to just let it go.  The world will not end if you do not read every word of your econ assignment.  It also will not end if you miss a happy hour because you are too tired to leave your apartment).
• Sometimes the smallest things are significant.  (Like that ranking of housing unit variable I almost cut out.  Or that email I deleted that had the form for graduation attached to it.  Oops?)
• Sometimes the things that seem really important… aren’t (apparently income and rent have no place in my housing policy analysis… who know?  Also on this note, your huge break up or trauma that seems like such a big deal… is probably only a big deal to you).
• Sometimes you just need to start over.
• Save your work.  Repeatedly.  In multiple places.  This applies to your STATA code, to your thesis, and to anything important you ever need to give to anyone (I.E. boss) ever.  The “my hard drive died” excuse stopped working about three years ago.

Upcoming things  of interest (in other words things I might actually post about): is my basketball team actually dead?  The deep (or not) inter meaning of Gchat status messages.  Restaurant week in D.C.

Also, I make really good chicken-corn chili.

 

Maybe the groundhog lied…

Or maybe Mother Nature is playing a cruel joke but I am perfectly okay with it being 55+ degrees in early February.  Especially when I have painful blisters on the sides of my feet (apparently those cute black flats I wore out dancing on Friday weren’t as broken in as I thought?) because this means I can wear flip flops. Not that I need much of an excuse.  As someone who can’t wear heels (ankle problems) and hates how sneakers look with anything remotely nice, I’m basically left with two options – cute flats or flip flops.  Flip flops, when it’s not freezing, win by default.  I have been known to wear flip flops while wearing my Northface.  (And right now flats hurt the stupid blisters).

Next winter someone should make me buy sensible shoes – really.  My response to snow this winter?  My fabulous Joules Wellingtons - knee high water proof boots designed for barn work.  The stripes looked awesome with dark blue jeans.  A slightly bold fashion statement but as someone who HATES winter it was nice to have something bright to make me smile.

So now of course, spring will come (eventually) and I’ll resume living in flip flops and promptly get shin splints and further mess up my ankles.  Fabulous, I can’t wait?  Regardless, I’m ready for spring, for sitting outside on the rooftops at school, for long walks wandering around NorthWest, for sitting outside having dinner at Bangkok.

—

It’s like a train wreck.
I simply cannot stop watching college basketball.  It’s a sickness.  I need to stop.  I know this is going nowhere.  I know that no amount of obsessing over conference standings, bubble teams and RPIs is going to change anything.  I am afraid my basketball team is going to add to my long standing tradition of horrible Valentine’s Days by losing at Syracuse on 2/14.  Thank god I’ll be in Florida during the conference tournament (meaning I can either ignore it – or watch it in a place where it is warm and beautiful).  And yet… I can’t quite give up.  I mean… the Phillies looked dead at one point this fall, right?  Right?  (pleading…?)  At least there are some good games on tomorrow night.

—

Hold Onto These Moments As They Pass…

I am the queen of “this time last year…”  I remember everything.  So graduating (again) four years after I got my BA is invoking a lot of those memories.  All the little things you don’t think of while you’re there but that were such a *part* of the experience.

There are days when I do miss going home to a house I shared with 11 other people.  In theory, I do NOT miss the thought of living with 11 people.  But I miss those 11 people.  I miss us sometimes.  I miss the ongoing phase 10 game that would play out on our kitchen table senior year.  On ealy almost spring days like today I miss having people to celebrate with, miss those first warm days when we opened all the doors and windows, dragged the furniture onto the patio and drank margaritas.  When I think of inside jokes, I remember the quote board by the stair case with it’s multi colored notecards and memories – and although I can only recall a few, I know if I saw them, they’d still mean something.  I miss going to the other end (aka toe – the coffee house in the basement of Sitterly House) on Sunday nights to drink tea and eat quesdillas and pretend it wasn’t really Sunday – because once agains Sundays summon that “oh-shit-I-did-nothing-this-weekend” feeling that sinks into the bottom of your stomach.  On lazy nights when I log onto campusfood.com to order chinese, I miss the incessant arguments over which chinese place was best and who had to call and place the order.  I miss that this was all part of a time before facebook and twitter – when we relied on AIM to stalk people and actually made phone calls from our cell phones (not just texting) and actually had land lines in our rooms.

I wonder what will stick out most about grad school when I leave, what I’ll be remembering 2, 4 years from now.  Sometimes you never know what stays.

 

Pitchers & Catchers report Saturday!

It seems like an eternity ago that I posted about (and never updated on) Game 5.7 of the World Series and then the Phillies won it, two nights later, while I watched in 51st State in DC with a girl I went to 9th grade with.  She and I had barely spoken in years but sports bring people together and apparently neither of us knew many diehard Phillies fans in DC.  We drank champagne and the next day once it all sunk in we ordered Amtrak tickets to go up to Philadelphia for the parade.

The was 14 weeks ago.

I can’t decide if that surprises me because it seems like yesterday or because it seems so far away.  Either way, despite my World Series hoodie hanging in the closet and the commemorative DVD filed with my DVD collection – it still doesn’t feel real sometimes.

It’s been an interesting off season – my favorite beat writer from the Philadelphia Inquirer has stopped updating his blog and rumor has it he’s working for MLB now (I am going to miss the blog).  Pat Burrell is a Tampa Bay Ray now (he can show them what a World Series ring looks like).  J.C. Romero got suspended for fifty games because of the supplements he was taking (which he bought at the Cherry Hill Mall – seriously).  Ryan Howard and the front office finally agreed on a salary.

And as for me – my basketball team is struggling and I’ve found myself really missing baseball.  It’s sad when you think that Beerleaguer post-loss is less depressing than Hoyatalk post-loss… but I don’t think the Phillies ever actually lost 6 of 7 in a stretch including some games against teams that had incredibly bad records entirely possibly I’ve blocked this out…  Then again my dad did comment this weekend – as the Hoyas struggled against Cincinnati – if we were in Philadelphia, we’d be booing them right now. Probably true.  (Do Philadelphians boo college kids?  How do I not know this?).  It’s all of a sudden looking like I won’t have many distractions during March (again, I’d like to thank the Phillies for all the work I didn’t get done in October… so.  totally.  worth.  it.)

Anyway - SPRING TRAINING.  Less than a week.  It’s going to be hard to top last year’s insane season but I’m sure I’ll have lots of fun watching and screaming my heart out when my teams comes to D.C.  (I have to admit I laugh at the Nationals commercials and their “dramatic” moments they highlight because really?  They were horrid last year…)  Next Saturday will also begin what will be some of my favorite stories of spring training – namely:

• What pitcher will get that coveted 5th spot in the rotation? (Is Happ for real?  Can Kenderick come back?  Is Carrasco ready to step up to the majors?)
• What catchers will make it out of spring training to the big club?  (Is Ruiz’s post-season offensive game here to stay?  Can Chris Coste add yet another chapter to his fairy-tale rags-to-richs story or is he going to end up a Florida Marlin?)
• And purely for comic relief – what exactly is our team going to DO with Adam Eaton?

Suffice to say, I can’t wait to find out.

 

collecting writing prompts

So many blogging sites have “prompts” they post daily to “inspire” bloggers.  I used to see them on Vox and I always thought their’s were lame.  I guess they vary by site.  But although I’ve mocked many of these, I do think when it comes down to it the prompt is just a place to start, and if you’re really a writer, you can start pretty much anywhere and make something out of it.  Writing is about where you go, not where you start.  But sometimes starting is the hard part.  I had a writing teacher in college who made us write about the meal that changed my life and the vacation that meant the most to me, among other things.  I hated her prompts and deliberately wrote what I knew she wouldn’t expect, to screw with her.  But I have to say, the meal that changed my life did produce one of the best pieces of writing I had crafted in ages.  It’s all in how you look at it.

And thus I present:

List of writing prompts I actually like/should use on this blog at some point:

• “I used to be… but I’m not anymore” (from Judy Blume’s Just As Long As We’re Together thanks to Krystin for the idea)
• Take one item from the Twenty Five Random Facts About Me meme that’s on facebook and expand on it.
• “I tried to be but I’m not…”
• “If you knew me, you would know that…”
• “Cliches are cliches for a reason – they tend to be true.  I know this all too well…”
• Who were you before?
• Who is home to you?  (IE from the High Fidelity quote about people who feel like home)
• “I used to believe that…”
• “you’re older than they were then…” (this is one I have so many ideas for)
• Subject to additions!

I really miss writing sometimes.

 

beaten at my own game?

And for future reference – Pandora doesn’t automatically log you out when you close your browser – so make sure you log out if you use public computers that your devious friends have access to.  Not that I’ve done this to anyone or anything.  Really.

I logged into Pandora earlier today and the top listed station is “I Love Kenny G”.  Obviously someone got ahold of a computer in the lab that I left logged in.    I later found out it a friend of mine (not the same friends who were involved when I pulled this last semester) who was on “my” computer doing some quick file transfers, opened up Firefox and found my Pandora.  I told her I was slightly disappointed in her weapons of choice (and that she should have left a calling card).  While I don’t listen to Kenny G, I can’t say I have any especially strong feelings/reactions to him.  She had no clear reasoning for why she chose this – although points for the complete and utter WTFness I suppose.

Regardless, lesson (re)learned: log off Pandora if you log on anywhere anyone else has access to.