The BEST baseball team in the UNIVERSE

...that is if there're no other planets that play baseball! Congrats Phillies...woot. There were trash can burnings on Broad St last night, it was crazy!

photos courtesy of Reuters and NYTimes: http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2008/10/30/sports/1030-SERIESROUNDUP_index.html

No snow, no A

Yesterday, it stopped raining just as it was supposed to snow, so no snow. Today, the exam was 2 hours and 40 minutes of frustration and hell. Nutrition sucked, biochem sucked, I suck, I will never be a physician. I'm right now looking at help wanted ads...maybe I can cut lawns for the rest of my life. I think I can do that.

rain --> snow? phillies --> win world series? me --> ace exams?

The scene outside my coffeeshop/study place. It's been raining non-stop since last night when I rode home in the rain. It's not raining hard, but it's windy and COLD. It's going to be below freezing later today and we are expecting SNOW!

With that, the Phillies is 3 and a half innings away from winning the World Series over the Rays from Tampa Bay! Last night's home game (game 5) got suspended in the middle of the 6th, with a tied score of 2 runs each. We just heard that the game won't be resumed tonight because of the wind and the cold and the rain and possibly the snow.

So here's hoping for snow and the world series title and an A on my biochem/nutrition exam manana baby!

nothing here...move on

I have absolutely nothing to post other than I'm taking 3 exams over 5 days and they're all HARD. But I did find this recently: http://www.aintitcool.com/node/38879
and it lifted my spirits in a way only Zombie MJ can do. How about you?

postquiz refeeding

So remember the Comcast building, the tallest building in Philadelphia from the Love Park post? My friends took me inside, they said there was something awesome in there, what was I to do but follow like a flock of sheep...or maybe just one sheep. The surprise was this gigantic LCD screen, which was awkwardly interrupted by the architecture of the elevator halls. Very weird. But they had a cool show on with people dancing at noon, we caught the tail end of it. Then they showed scenes around philly. The image on the screen now is of the row houses along Kelly Dr and the Schuylkill River. It's where I ride past when I go cycling. They house rowing boats for the rowing teams around philly like UPenn, Drexel, Temple, etc.

They also had fake people statues all over the place. Can you tell which are people and which are inanimate objects? I sure can't and they're my friends!

The inanimate people were also mounted on cross braces along the pavilion in the lobby of the building.

We ate at Coronary Bakery

So excited to eat!

The food was CLEARLY delicious


My ham and cheese panini...ahh the simple things in life. I should've had this with ketchup now that I think about

looking for a scarf

After brunch I went to look for scarves because it gets cold on the ride into campus in the morning. Wind chill is a deadly killer, almost up there with cancer...it's that bad

Avenue of the Arts and city hall again. This building looks spectacular in the evening with the fog surrounding it and a light that shines up through the center of city hall behind the towers.

They colored the fountain at Love Park pink again for Breast Cancer Awareness Month...did you all get your mammograms? No suspicious lumps I hope. Seriously!

Old building among new ones


And a night picture of some clock tower near campus.

I did find a scarf, but it didn't help the windchill thing one bit. How come they don't make long wide scarves? You either have short wide ones or long skinny ones. So I've got a long skinny UCI one and a wide short one now. Anyone know where to find long wide scarves so I can wrap my head like a ninja in the mornings?

turkish brunch with the fun bunch

There's this turkish cafe called Cafe Fulya by my house that has their menu on a white board outside and I always pass by on the way home and it always looked like they served delicious food.

My lunch mates, Jolene and Dolan.

My friend Jenny

What is she doing?

Now she's lecturing Dolan, notice the very serious slight pursing of the upper lips, Dolan's walking on glass...excuses are pointless at this point

My food, they are little dumplings called manti filled with beef and cheese with yogurt sauce, they were DELICIOUS!

I also had the special pie, also DELICIOUS although I'm not sure what was special about it! I then had baklava at the end, which was also delicious.

She had the spinach pie I think. Later she had a heaping bowl of rice pudding which she says was made with condensed milk, her most favorite thing in the entire world. Did you ever sneak spoonfuls of condensed milk from the half opened can in the fridge when your mom or grandma wasn't looking? I did, I got a good spanking when I got caught too, worth it though.

I forget what this was but that's yogurt sauce on top.

and a salad for Dolan, which was good. He had a slice of cake afterwards which was also delicious. He also liked my baklava, they were ooozing honey! The BEST baklava I've ever tasted!

Earlier, Jolene made spam musubi and they were the BEST spam musubi I've ever tasted! It's hard to believe because spam musubi is so simple, heck I didn't believe it either at first, but once they passed my gastronomical gates (lips), my taste buds screamed for more and you bet your bottom dollar I gave it more! I am craving them now

studying

In an effort to humanize (add more humans) this blog so that it doesn't look like I'm here for the architectural graduate program, I'm creating this post, entitled "studying" which may seem contradictory with the contents of the post. Have no fear, we put in some studying in between these shots.

First, is the coffee shop by my house where I will sometimes study alone...and take random window pictures.

...and pictures of customer's new puppies. He says this little guy will grow to about 130lbs just like his daddy. He was carrying him marsupial style in a forward facing backpack. At one point, he tried to escape the sack and get on the counter, I think he wanted some maraschino latte with 2 shots of espresso just like the one I was enjoying.

Let the blog humanization begin:

yes, I do know these two girls below, I didn't just take random shots of random people I don't know. They were going over old lectures on video, because our lectures are taped for future enjoyment...very considerate of them. By the way, running the lectures at 1.5x speed is soo trippy. But there's this one professor who talks really really slow and so she's only normal sounding at 1.5x...for her I reserve the 2x speed!

Another fellow brownie person enjoying the holy grail of brownies

This guy only seems like he's very angry, but he's actually not! It seems like only the guys will strike you silly poses without being asked???

More people enjoying brownies

This here could be used to sell MILLIONS of brownies!

After dinner, we played pool and air hockey, okay they played pool and air hockey, I took pictures and provided witty commentary...not really I had food coma.

First winning goal by Elise!

Greg's smiling now, but little does he know, Elise will crush him like a little peanut in 5 minutes of playtime

Number one, and she only just started playing!

back to studying...on a Saturday night...

fall colors

Went riding last Tuesday on the 14th with my classmates/teammates. I took pictures of my riding buddies Aaron and Andrew, the dynamic duo...with me we are the tyrannic trio.

Anyway on to the ORANGE TREES!



My escape from torture and pain:

a lightpost/mailbox, yes very interesting indeed. The owner of this lamppost has a lot of raking left to do...

So does this poor poor bastard...

But at least he's got these to look at above his house...and in another month, he'll have great panoramic views of the sky from his porch...save for the empty branches...



Imagine driving your convertible sports car right through the middle of this lane on a quiet Sunday morning in the Fall and the sound of your exhaust going VROOOOOOOOOM and the wake from your car disturbing the fallen leaves on the pavement creating little whirling dervishes of orange and yellow leaves behind you. Maybe you're going to the quiet countryside to see more fall colors, maybe you're going to the bustling city to do some shopping for scarves because it can get chilly driving your convertible sports car in the Fall here. Who the heck knows???

The owner of this tree trunk carved this bird looking thing carved from the remains of the trunk that it sits on. Pretty creative don't ya think?

Not quite spectacular yet, still needs to stew in the oven for a few more weeks

This red door has always caught my eye. It's at the end of a series of rolling hills culminating in a short steep climb that always takes my breath away. I like to think, the door takes my breath away, not the climb. My friend says that if a house has to have a red door, it has to be a secondary side door....NOT the main door. I'd like to have a red door with white trim all around and little windows on the side, to greet your guests who prefer to use the warmer more welcoming red side door, and Mediterranean style vases with exotic flowering plants in them standing on each side when I have my own house.

That night, I took a picture of the full moon on the way home from somewhere. It was hiding behind the clouds, I really need a mini tripod for these night shots.

That's it. Fall colors is supposed to last all the way to Thanksgiving, maybe longer says my friend who drove to the countryside last year at turkey day. Maybe I'll get in a nice drive in the country one of these days and take pics of the spectacular views.