Today was a bad day so far. [Anatomy Exam I]

Anatomy exam.  Yuck.

Went to get my lunch out of the "fridge"... frozen coleslaw... sad face.

At least I have Jewish New Years, cuddles, and Karissa to cheer me up.

Sometimes you have to work hard in Grad School.

At this very moment...  cup of instant coffee might be as good as a nap.

I forgot about my presentation today... should have worn fancy shoes.  I can handle. I've got good content...

Anatomy quiz on the thigh tomorrow.

Anatomy test on the lower limb Thursday.  Article summary also due Thursday.  And my first academic advising meeting! 

When Thursday is over I want chocolate cake and beer for dinner! 

PS.  Additionally Aunt Flow is expected on Saturday... so at any moment I feel like I might cry.

dolly studies for anatomy exam [Weekend 5]

Thursday
Fuel and Fuddle for happy hour with Chelsea.  Began my furious studying for the anatomy exam count down 1 week.

Friday
Went to Quiet Storm for dinner.   This place gets the dolly approval.  My fake lamb gyro was pretty tasty.  And they had other things I would like to try... like their coffee.  Brunch?  To be visited again.  Afterward went to the world famous [well Joy, Matt & Josh rave about it] Gooski's.  It was fine.  Nothing could match the magic it is described to have.  They DO get bonus points for having Erotic What's the difference? [Kristi!] With time there will be love of Gooski's. If only it wasn't terribly out of the way...  

Saturday
Studied anatomy.  Went to Trader Joe's to get the fixings to cook up some pad thai.   Studied anatomy.  Cooked pad thai for dinner.  Went to a x number of poets for change at Hemingway's.  The poetry was thought provoking.  I was slightly confused about the title Gulf... which I mistook for golf.  Why is golf slimy and black?  She wasn't talking about Tiger Woods.  Really not into Hemingway's bar [scene]. Then we introduced Carol to the All American egg roll.  Yummy!  And called it a night.

Today [Sunday]
Studied anatomy. Josh came over, we walked to lunch at  Dapne Cafe.  Dapne's is a really cute little restaurant.  They don't have an outrageously large menu. I don't know that it feels particularly Turkish, which it is.  Had a baba ganoush sandwich.  I'm really digging the baba ganoush... must be some sort of phase.  Dug the olives on the sandwich... possibly as good an option as pickles would have been.  And the pita bread was really tasty. The tomatoes were perfectly ripe. Really tasty. Very fresh. Walked home. Then a little more anatomy.  Then some HOT [Amazing Yoga] Yoga. [Just a short walk from my house.]   Really cannot be sure if it was the yoga itself or the heat, but I was a hot sweaty [sauna stoned] mess.  I've commit to 5 more weeks of Sunday night yoga, prepaid.  Then home. Took an amazing shower. Talked to my dear miss Emily on the phone for a bit.  Updating this.  Soon to bed.  More studying tomorrow!

2 quizes passed today... anatomy and mint.

Monday...  seems so long ago already.
Terribly dry evidence-based practice lecture.  Went to Razzy Fresh for frozen yogurt for lunch.  It's no Yoz.  It was not only 8 calories an ounce. It was pricy.  But it hit the spot.  For dinner there was cooking and cuddling. And I successfully used the bus twice!

Tuesday...
Woke up fairly early to do some school work.  Tuesday is just such a long day.  Coming home @ 7pm had such an intense bibimbap craving.  Made fried rice and a fried egg at home. Sriracha <3

Today...
 We had wheelchair day in Assessment and Intervention.  Pretty self explanatory... got to navigate getting into and out of the building and into and out of the bathroom as a person who uses a wheelchair.  That was pretty fun.  In cadaver lab, we used the lady today instead of the man.  There are very obvious differences, because of her age.  She was much older.  She also had a lot more adipose (fat). If I am to be a cadaver one day I best stay in shape!  We also had our first lab quiz!  95%  got a little confused by some vocabulary.  Then I walked to Mediterranean Grill in Squirrel Hill for a falafel and baba ganoush sandwich.  The restaurant is in a creepy basement (which didn't seem handicapped accessible).  But it is pretty fancy once inside the actual dinning area.  The sandwich was maybe $2 more than I would have liked to pay (Detroit prices?).  And there were NO pickles (this is the sad part).  And I would have liked it grilled or crisped.  The falafel and baba were fairly tasty tho!  On my walk between the Mothership (main campus as Professor Jodi calls it), Mediterranean Grill, and Chatham Eastside, I identified 4 types of mint growing in folks front gardens.  There was catnip, apple mint, spearmint, and lemon balm.  The exciting thing is that the front lawns were pretty shady (not very sunny) so it gives me hope for my shady green patch, hopeful to be a garden next spring!  Then back at Chatham Eastside we had CPR training.  It was relatively fast and painless.  Nothing compared to the training that MORC or Camphill put me through! Then I walked home (which I do everyday, because it only takes 30 minutes).  As soon as I walked outside it started raining and as soon as I got home it stopped.  Awesome, right?  At home Joy was listening anxiously to Democracy Now and screaming about the Troy Davis case.  Since... she has gone out to dinner with Matt and his family.  What to do tonight?  Study?

The Tin Front Cafe stole the show. [Weekend 4!]

Hmmm... where did I leave off in my story?

I'm planning a Jewish New Years Party for Friday the 30th. I ordered Apples to Apples [the game] to play.  Hopeful.

Friday I had a date.  With a Jewish [you can pick up your jaw now], nice, cute, smart, funny, food conscious, all around delightful gentleman... who claims to have a tragic flaw, but I can't figure out what it is.  I like him, but don't need to jinx things.   ...Afterwards [say 11:30pm], I was going to hang out with Carol, but I fell asleep on the couch.  At around 1am I scooped myself up and went to bed.  So much for being a party animal.

Yesterday went to The Waterfront.  I drove, because the bus was taking too long. [I don't normally drive anywhere here.] 8th street is pretty cute.  We [Carol, Venera, Sho, Trisha, Amy, and I] went to The Tin Front Cafe. [Pictured below.]  It was lovey.  [Obvious by the picture, no?] They had good coffee and I enjoyed my cheddar and apple grilled cheese.  I would return again if the opportunity presented itself.  The Waterfront "Mall" lacked little to be desired.  Huge strip malls.  Big parking lots.  No view of the waterfront!?  Bleh.  In the evening, Carol and I went to see a movie that was being presented at U of Pitt.  But the movie was slow...  so we ditched out to go get hot apple ciders.  Came home.  Talked to Ronnie on the phone for an hour.

Today.  Should need to be productive.  That is all. <3

Beer & Wine

Adventures of a Thursday night....

dolly [I] wanted a case of Two Hearted Ale.
Joy wanted a 6-pack of Woodchuck's Fall Seasonal.
Carol wanted a bottle of wine.

How many stores does one have to go to in order to get these 3 items?

3 stores.  That's right 3.
The beer distributor store only sells cases (24 and 30 packs) of beer.
The 6-pack store (which charges a hefty $14.99 for a 6-pack of Two Hearted... thus why I needed to buy a case $40) sells 6-packs, singles and typical Michigan gas station/corner store items.
 The wine & spirits distributor store sells only wine and spirits.  

... an hour and a half later.  All were happy.  

God bless Michigan's alcohol buying laws...  Meijer's and Trader's Joes. That's all I got to say.  <3


PS I just purchased the Martha Steward Comic Book off Amazon.  Anxiously awaiting its arrival!

Mooncake Festival!

Monday night we went to Lou's they have a new policy that there is no glass allowed on the patio. Plastic cups.  I am sad, but I still love Lou's Little Corner Bar.  The patio was a beautiful place for a little [Chinese] Mooncake celebration with friends.  White Lotus Mooncake was my favorite.  But I am not trading in 7-layer cake.   

Yesterday I came home @ 7:30 pm and no one was home.  It was bit sad.   Carol and Joy individually returned home shortly after.  Generally, yesterday I was a little stuck in my head.  Less so today?

Class in a breeze/ trip to Mark and Marchen's [Weekend 3]

I can't believe I just finished my 2nd week of class!

Wednesday we had our OT buddy lunch.  Rebecca is my 2nd year OT buddy.  She seemed to have some good insight and she helped to relieve my anxiety about the amount of work.  They served FREE pizza at lunch.  No salad.  And the pizza was pretty blah.  I live across from Pizza Palermo and it is blah, too.  I've also tried Pizza Sol's and while it is the best so far, I'm generally not impressed!  Where does a girl have to go to get some good pizza?!

Thursday my TB test came back negative! Passed the first test of the semester.  I have another TB test next weekend.  I had 2 classes, they were pretty uneventful.  Came home.  Did a little studying. Pickled carrots, but not daikons.  Banh Mi in the future! Went with Carol to meet Venera, & Tarisha [anthropology girls] and Lucias & Sho [engineering boys] for dinner at LuLu's Noodles.  It was pretty unanimous that despite being dirt cheap, none of us would return there sober again. The food was all on the sweet side, a bit odd for Pan Asian, and the dishes were light on the vegetables and meat [tofu] and heavy on the carbs [rice or noodles].  After LuLu's we headed over to Fuel and Fuddle.  I found it to be a delightful bar, but not cheap. The boys [the engineers] couldn't order drinks, because they didn't bring their passports.  So it was time for just the ladies for a bit! The Fall Seasonal Woodchuck is just like candy, very delightful, not intended for children.  The Great Lake BC's Oktoberfest isn't anything special.  Bell's Two Hearted Ale reigns supreme.  As we were leaving Fuel and Fuddle there was quite the lineup for half off pizza starting at 11pm.  Maybe we could try that one day.... maybe.  Got home late for a a school night.  I also got a text message from the Andes Mountains.  Swoon. 

Friday in Intervention and Assessment we watched some great YouTube videos.And had some lecture, too.TBI= Traumatic Brain Injury

In the lab portion we talked about the subtle and not so subtle movements people make when they standup.  Then we did an exercise in giving instructions on "simple"tasks... brushing teeth, writing a check, making coffee, putting on a coat,and  looking up a number in the phone book. In summary, it is the OT's job to pay attention to the small details. It was a good class!  After class was over, I walked to the beer store.  You have to buy 24[!] beers. I couldn't just get a 6 pack...  I passed on the beer, whereas I was on foot.


Out to Mark and Marchen's in Derry, PA.  They made a lovey pasta meal.  Then we walked up a little hill to go to Twin Maple [private] Hunting Club for a yuengling.  Not very fancy. But nice.  Marchen made apple crumble for dessert and we tried some of Mark's home brewed Wine!  I spent the night, because it a little bit of a hike out to Derry and it is nice to get away from the city and have quality time with friends.  I had a hard time falling asleep because it was too dark and too quiet.  [Have I mentioned how the Red and Green lights of the pizza place illuminates my bedroom and the sound of people chatting at the bus stop and cars driving down Center sings me to sleep at night?]  After I got over how dark and quiet it was I had a lovely night sleep.  In the morning we went to this nice little flea market out on Rt.22. Afterwards, we went over to the Town of Greensburgh.  Had a coffee at Dv8 Espresso Bar & Gallery.  The nicest coffee shop I have seen since I moved home from New York!  Where are the nice coffee shops in Pittsburgh?!  We also went to some thrift stores in town.  Greensburgh is pretty cute.  Went back to the house, had lunch.  Mark and Marchen sent me home with a bag of tomatoes and a zucchini!  It was a nice trip away from Pittsburgh.

Came home. Did some studying.  Made butternut squash, carrot, and apple curry soup for dinner.  The 3 of us ladies reorganized the kitchen in a fabulous way.  <3

Today/Sunday  Woke up to the someone screaming, "I'm going to kill you, I'm going to murder you," outside on the street.  [Have I mentioned how quiet it is here?]  Joy was making Sunday brunch.  Cinnamon and raisin swirl bread french toast stuffed with cream cheese [low fat] and apple butter, & topped with freshly stove baked apple slices.  Yummy!  Did some studying.  Some cleaning.  Went and walked around Ellsworth and Walnuts streets with Carol.  Looked at the fancy boutiques and restaurants. Pricey.  Didn't find any great coffee shops. Came home.  Had dinner, nothing fancy.  Made a frittata [spinach, tomato, feta, swiss, & olives] for quick meals throughout the week.  Relaxing a bit.   Mondays aren't so bad, only one class.  

This frittata was for brunch last week, it had a carrot crust.
Photo credit goes to Carol!  <3

It feels like Cider & Donut Time.

Tuesdays are such a long day... 10am to 7pm.

Today in classes I really felt like all of my reading had paid off.  I am learning things.  I understand the concepts and connect them to what I've read.  Go me!

I really like anatomy class.  Maybe because it is what I am most familiar with studying... last year it consumed a large part of my life.  But also the professor is so nice.  And we watch very relevant YouTube videos, see below.

Had super tasty lunch at the East End Coop at risk of being considered antisocial for not eating lunch with my classmates, whom I've not really warmed up to just yet. 

Got a TB test for free thanks to the school nurse.

It was a fairly cold rainy day, very Autumn.  I thought about how beautiful the campus is going to be as the leaves change colors.  I also thought about apple picking, but really farm fresh cider and donuts.  After a little research I've yet to find a proper cider and donuts mill locally.  I will continue in my search, but am prepared to be disappointed.  I will have to visit Franklin Cider Mill when I go home for Yom Kippur.  What is better than Fall in Michigan?

It's going to rain all week.  I am wearing flannel pajamas.  Waiting for laundry.  Soon to bed.  Planning to celebrate the weekend with Mark, Marchen, and Beppo. 

<3

Weekend 2.

On Saturday.

Pamela's was very disappointing.  The lyonnaise potatoes were so buttery/ greasy.  The omelet was just ok.  They don't incorporate spinach into an omelet the way I'm used to/ prefer... it had the mushy spinach texture stuffed into the omelet.  Next Saturday a different brunch restaurant might need to be explored. 

After Pamela's, Carol and I walked around the strip.  We did a little grocery shopping at an Asian market.  Carefully reading ingredients to avoid MSG. 

Went back home. Did some reading. 

Went thrifting.  I found a desk for $30! By desk I mean fairly old/ dare I say vintage vanity.  It needed a bit of elbow grease.  And it still smells like old lady.  I also got a nice sized gold framed mirror to hang over my vanity.  I am very excited as to how my room is coming along.  A bookcase would be a nice find and a way to display my ridiculous collection of earrings? Carol and me also picked up a very soft, loud/bright, plaid futon cover.  [Joy hates it.]  We also stopped by the East End Community Thrift, looks very promising, but sadly it was closed by the time we arrived.  We did have a chance to peruse Awesome Books,which was awesome. They have cats.  Very sad to think about my sabbatical from reading for fun that I am on while completing grad school. 

After thrifting went over to the East End Food Coop to get some granola, organic TVP, Bragg Liquid Aminos and Annie's Goddess Dressing.  Then we went to Trader Joe's [that does not sell wine].  Carol's never been to a Trader Joe's before and they have some products I adore... aside from the 3 Buck Chuck...

Hanging around for the evening doing not too much of nothing.


On Sunday

Again woke up 8am.  Made a frittata/quiche without a crust. Carrots, spinach, sun-dried tomatoes, feta, swiss, and olives and topped with locally grown fresh tomato slices.  Home fries, too.  Next weekend Joy is going to cook us brunch.  <3 

Did some studying.  The 3 of us [Carol, Joy, and I] sit in the sunroom and each do our respective readings, so nicely. 

Joy drove Carol, Sho, Venera, and me to the Mattress Factory.  It's a nice place.  Could have spent more time there than we budgeted for.

Afterwards we walked over to this colorful house we noticed.  This is where we met Randy of Randyland/ Old Allegheny City.  He is very colorful and talked our ears off.  The world of the day, "nice."  The quote of the day, "I'm not a rebel, I'm an activist."  ... The video will give you just a taste.

Went to The Brillobox for Vegan Sunday dinner [$6] and Church Brew Works on tap [$3] for very happy taste buds.   

Came home.  Make coconut lime bread/cake.  It turned out moderately successful. If you want a slice, come on over.

Matt [Joy's boy] and Trisha [Anthropology girl] came over.  We played Settlers. Joy and Matt were on a team... and they won, proving two heads are better than one. 

Overall very good weekend...  but it just keeps going.


Today Labor Day/ Monday... no school... & Happy birthday Carol!  

I slept in today [10am].  Since I woke up, I have been studying. Took some time to write this.  More studying to come.  Hopefully I will mop and sweep the floor.  O boy!

And then the first week of class was over.

Monday we had OT orientation.  No much to report on there.  My classmates are 35 ladies and 5 gentlemen.  Don't ask me names, yet.  The professors and the 2nd years kept saying the program was going to to hard, but not to stress out!  Not helpful. 

Tuesday was the first day of classes.  Going over the syllabus plural... syllabi, syllabuses?  Tuesday is an extremely long day, with 3 classes spanning from 10am to 7pm.

Wednesday I had my first cadaver lab.  When our professor was talking about the respect we should be giving the cadavers, I thought I would cry.  He's a very nice professor.  Looking at the cadaver was much less of an emotional or physical reaction than I would have expected out of myself.  The hand is what really looked human, because it still had skin and finger nails.  Lab is going to be fun.  I think.  I really like that there are 8 of us in lab, which is a much more reasonable group to get to work with than 40. 

Thursday the reality of the workload I was undertaking finally set in.  Did some good studying and then went to Lou's Little Corner Bar with friends.  Was drunk for the first and not the last time in the fine city of Pittsburgh.

Friday we had a first year health studies interdisciplinary meeting OT, PT, PA, nurses, and psych.  There was a guest speaker who was quadriplegic.  It was nice.  Than I came home and read for hours and hours.  Carol and I fixed the toilet by safety pinning the chain to the plug.  You are very impressed with our mechanical skills. Carol took me with her to go out with the U of Pitt Anthropologist at Hemingway Bar.  The inside of the bar did not match my expectation based on the outside of the bar.  There was one TV that was tuned into the Baylor/ TCU game. I wanted to have the tv switched to the State game, of course.  But another table was watching that game. Boo. Regardless State (and Baylor) did win and Carol's classmates seem like more than decent enough folks. 

Today I already woke up at 8am.  Showered, did some reading.  Reading parent's testimonials about having babies with special needs makes me cry.  Going to Pamela's in the strip for brunch with Carol soon.

<3