Plato & AJ

Despite some major sinus-y crap going on in my face yesterday (and the day before and today and probably tomorrow), I felt I needed to get out of the house for some fresh air.  I was up by 76th Street picking some dry cleaning (fun, fun) when I discovered Plato's Closet, a nifty high-end resale shop.  

I remembered hearing about this place from my friend Leah.  Since she always has the best fashion sense, I decided to pop in.  The place is nice, with a lovely shoe selection (think lots of Steve Madden for $12).  I didn't have the energy to really browse, so I glanced through the shoes, dresses, and skirts.  After trying on a handful of items, I came away with this little darling for only $6.

After making a few more stops, I ended up going to AJ Bombers on Water Street for dinner with my mom.  My go-to burger joint is usually Stack'd.  It's close to home, delicious, and has nice atmosphere.  However, a friend of mine suggested AJ Bombers over Stack'd, so I figured I'd check it out.  

This is the first thing I noticed when I walked in the door:

At first I thought I had walked into a barn or a wood-working shop.  But that is not hay or wood shavings.  It's peanut shells.  I had heard of places like this before (mostly viewed via the Food Network), but I didn't know Bombers did it.  To eliminate any questions I had, a man, not two feet away from me, threw (yes, threw, not poured or sprinkled, threw like a bucket of excrement from the top floor of a tenement house in 1800s Ireland) a bowl of peanut shells across the floor, nearly showering me.  Welcome to Bombers.


I guess I would have had a lot more fun with the peanut thing if I actually liked eating peanuts (which I really don't).  At least I'm not allergic to peanuts.  That would have been a shocker all right.  So we were seated and waited upon in a timely fashion.  The menu is simple, and self-serving, which was kind of cool.  Prices were average.  I was quite impressed with the speed of the wait-staff.  We got our burgers in no time.  

Honestly, I wasn't horribly impressed by the food.  Granted, this could be due to the fact that I order probably the simplest burger ever: burger, cheese, lettuce, ketchup, pickles (sometimes bacon and mayo if I'm feeling adventurous).  Thus, most restaurants, if they can cook the meat correctly, have burgers that taste similar.  However, I prefer the pretzel buns at Stack'd, and they have a weird sour-ish taste to their pickles that's rather interesting.  My mom had the Milwaukee burger with bacon and beer onions.  She loved it, though my bite was rather bleh.  I do have to give them props for their Bomber Sauce.  I dipped my fries in it, and found myself scarily addicted to it.  The flavor was interesting, something I couldn't place, but it was like onion flavoring mixed with thousand island dressing mixed with cocaine.  At one point I had to put it across the table to keep from eating it with a spoon.


Overall, the place was decent.  I'd probably go there again if asked, but I wouldn't go out of my way for their food, and it probably wouldn't be my first burger choice.  It would certainly be a fun place to hit up before heading out on Water Street for drinks.  And, of course, I couldn't help but add my name to wall (despite my indifference towards their food).  You'll have to look for it if you ever go there.

Wardrobe Remix!

Cardigan: Anthorpologie, Belt: H&M, Shirt: H&M, Tank Top: Charlotte Russe, Jeans: Walmart, Shoes: American Eagle, Necklace: Luv Unlimited, Sunglasses: Forever 21

It's Thursday! And it's Awkward and Awesome!

Emo much?  Eh.  It happens.

Remember Awkward and Awesome Thursday?  Well, it's back!  Huzzah!


Awkward

• The above photo.  Dressing room pictures are always awkward.  But alas it's the only picture I have of my new cardigan (see: Awesome).
• Being served fish at a meal when I hate fish.  How do I pretend to like it?  Answer: I don’t.
• When my bangs get sweaty and then they swoosh to the side with all their dramatic might so that I get little pointy tips sticking out from the side of my forehead.  Once my bangs go this direction, there’s no getting them back save showering. 
• Trying to put in my contacts.  No matter how much I clean them, they’re always dirty.  As a result, it takes an unnatural amount of time for me to put them in, always resulting in me getting very frustrated and nearly having an emotional breakdown.  Awkwardness intensified when other people are standing around watching.

Awesome

• Finished Mockingjay.  What a great young adult series.  I can't wait to watch the movies.
• Watching Battlestar Galactica with my mom.  I've been wanting to watch it for years and now that summer is here I am so excited.  My plan is to get through the whole series by fall.
• Three words: Tactical. Lazer. Tag.
• My first buy from Anthropologie: the cardigan in the picture above!  It's an awful picture because you can barely see the cardigan, but hopefully I'll have a better picture of it up soon.  I never buy clothes from Anthropologie (though I want to) because it's so expensive, but I got this cardigan for $20!  What a steal!

Hope your past week was more awesome than awkward!  Mine was, thankfully!

Hello! I'm Back! And I Come Bearing Gifts of Oxbridge Scholars, Fancy Luncheons, and Chocolate!

Okay, first of all, I suppose I have to apologize for being absent so long.  As you can see, my 365 Project became the Fail Project.  Do you have any idea how hard it is to take a photo a day?  Oh, don't be fooled, my fair reader.  You may think to yourself, what's one photo a day?  But it is INCREDIBLY DIFFICULT!  My absence these past months has also been due to the fact that I was completing my senior year of college, and that took up most, if not all, of my free time.  No worries, though, nothing too exciting happened, so you didn't miss much.  However, now that it is "summer" (I put this in quotes because it is currently 40 degrees out and stormy) I plan to update more often.

What is even more exciting is that I will have Cambridge updates!  Cambridge updates?  What?  If you haven't been informed of this, click here for the lowdown.

And so today is my first Cambridge update!  Yay!  On Monday morning, I flew to Washington D.C. with my mother to meet the committee that selected me for my scholarship.  We arrived before noon and got settled in at the place we were staying, an apartment complex/hotel called The Westchester (if that doesn't sound British, I don't know what does).  Since my lunch with the committee wasn't until the next day, my mom and I spent most of Monday wandering around Georgetown, this fancy little area close to where we were staying.  I don't know D.C. very well, but we seemed to be staying in a very hoity-toity location.  The houses/apartments were gorgeous!  Stupidly, I only took a picture of one, and this picture hardly does justice to the housing of the area.

Graham Down, a lovely British man who helps run the committee, suggested my mom and I go to La Chaumiere, a French restaurant only "about a mile from The Westchester."  Mom and I decided to walk since it was about 85 degrees out and cabs were unbelievably expensive.  However, it turns out that this restaurant was a good four miles from The Westchester.  After about an hour and a half of walking, starving and sweating unattractively, we found the restaurant.  Here is a sampling of the menu: calf's brain, mussels, frog's legs, snails, chicken liver, and veal.  Each of these dishes was around $35.  *sigh*  We ended up getting some good ol' BBQ at a restaurant called Old Glory.  Much preferred to random animal organs.  

After dinner we wandered some of the shops around Georgetown.  They had a lot of fancy clothing stores--Banana Republic, Kate Spade, Steve Madden, Anthropologie--but we were thrilled to find a Dean & Deluca's store.  We didn't buy anything there, but we admired their wine and chocolates.  They were like works of art!  Incredible! 

Exhausted at the end of the day, we took a much need cab back to The Westchester, turned on the air conditioning (Yes!  Can you believe it?!) and settled in for the night.  The next morning I got myself all dolled up to meet the committee.  Though Graham told me not to be nervous, I was.  I had no idea what to expect, and I was about to be surrounded by men and women who had either graduated from Cambridge, Oxford, or both (in Graham's case).  I was afraid they'd ask me crazy random questions such as, "Do you think Americans are the last Victorians?" (a question Graham had to answer at Cambridge) or "What do you think about [insert important political policy/current event that I know nothing about here]?"

All ready to meet the committee.  You may notice that

1.) I am wearing the same outfit I wore to my graduation, and

2.) I look like the president of a sorority somewhere in the South.

[in Southern accent] "Welcome to Alpha Kappa Kappa!"

When I finally met the committee members, I was happy to find they were much more welcoming than I expected.  Yes, they were formal, yes they were scary intelligent and accomplished.  But I had to keep in mind that I am a pre-Cambridge scholar, only 21 years old.  My time will come.  They didn't ask me any scary questions; mostly they asked me if I had any questions for them.  They told me a lot about my degree (actually another Bachelor's degree, not a Master's, though the degree equals a Master's) and what classes would be like (tutors and no set schedules and no final dissertation, just a HUGE SCARY exam).    We discussed how literacy isn't considered as important in the United States, but public speaking is (though I think this varies from location to location).  They told funny stories about falling out of punts (a type of boat very popular at St. John's), meeting famous authors on stairwells, and maids opening bedroom windows in the middle of December because it was good for the health.  One of the gentlemen told me to invest in long underwear because in England I would experience a cold damp unlike anything else in the world.  I wanted to say, "Sir, I live in Wisconsin.  I spend 8 months out of the year in cold damp and long underwear."

Overall, it was a lovely lunch.  They have made me even more excited for Cambridge.  I know it will be an experience unlike anything I have come across in my life, and I'm thrilled for the culture shock.  One of the committee members told me, "After Cambridge, you will no longer be the simple Midwestern girl you are now."  I don't like to think of myself as "simple," but I understand what he means.  Cambridge will culture me, show me the world.  Part of the scholarship includes travel money, and the committee stressed that I must must MUST travel.  Well...if I have to...  :)

So that was the lunch.  I have wanted to go back to D.C. for years (I went on an 8th grade class trip, but at 13 I hardly cared), but this trip didn't allow me to do any sightseeing.  After the lunch, however, I walked over to the Washington National Cathedral which was just down the road from The Westchester.

I walked around the cathedral for a while, trying to remember if I had been here before (in 8th grade).  It seemed really familiar (though I suppose many cathedrals resemble each other).  Then I had to hurry back to The Westchester and pack.  Mom and I said goodbye and headed to the airport.

Goodbye, Westchester!  No time to even make the beds.

And home again!  It was a great trip, even if it was rather abrupt.  I feel better having met the committee, but I am even more aware now of how much work and adventure I have ahead of me, starting this fall.  For now, though, I won't dwell on four papers a week or that HUGE SCARY exam.  Right now, I am going to keep thinking about equestrian lessons and where I want to go with my travel money.  Any suggestions?  

064/365: All Stars (April 4, 2011)

065/365: Skateboard Pro? (April 5, 2011)

A Week of 365s (Minus Monday's)

058/365: Doorway (March 29, 2011)

059/365: We Can Do It! Part 1 (March 30, 2011)

060/365: We Can Do It! Part 2 (March 31, 2011)

FEATHERY FRIDAY RETURNS!

061/365: Best Friends (April 1, 2011)

062/365: Raptor Saturday (April 2, 2011)

063/365: Playing at Nazis (April 3, 2011)

Complaint Blog Post

You know what sucks?  This 365 project.  Here's why:

1.) Most days I do the same thing: I get up, I go to class, I go home.  So for the first few weeks, okay, there's stuff to take pictures of.  However, I've gotten to the point where I feel like I'm running out of interesting subjects for my photos because I see the same people, places, and objects every day.
2.) Okay, maybe if I took ten minutes I could wander somewhere, find an interesting shot.  But honestly, most times I don't have ten minutes to spare.  You may think I am being dramatic.  I'm not.  I have five weeks left of college (that's right, college...not just the semester or year) and I am a busy person.
3.) Quite a few times when I do get to snap some unique shots, the photos don't turn out.  What's up with that?  Lighting sucks.  Person's making a weird face.  The picture's blurry.  I'd like to think that when I put in the effort I'm a decent photographer.  But honestly, sometimes my cameras don't want to cooperate.

So, anyway, this is a complaint blog.  It's hard to follow through with this 365 project.  Laziness and business combine and then it takes me a week to upload the 365 photos.  I guess this is just a warning then for the 300+ days I still have ahead of me.  (300+ days!  Rather frightening isn't it?)

The Day My Hair was Awesome!

057/365: Still a Little Tired from Travel but With Awesome Hair All Curly-like (March 28, 2011)

A Week of 365s for You!

050/365: Self-Portrait in Mirror (March 21, 2011)

051/365: Hello Pittsburgh (March 22, 2011)

052/365: In the Cathedral of Learning (March 23, 2011)

053/365: Fancy Pittsburgh Mall (March 24, 2011)

054/365: Leah (March 25, 2011)

055/365: Vinnie Channels Hamlet (March 26, 2011)

056/365: A Welcome Home from Wisconsin (March 27, 2011)

This School Trumps My School

Not gonna lie...Pittsburgh has yet to impress me.  The city is kind of eh; the weather is bleh; the food is meh.  However, the Cathedral of Learning erased all of this from my mind.  What is the Cathedral of Learning?  Basically it's a part of the University of Pittsburgh--students have classes there--but way cooler than anything I've seen on a college campus.  Basically different countries have funded classrooms in the building and designed them based on the specific country.  Here is an example: the Israel Room.

It's a classroom!  A classroom!  Amazing.  Each room has different seating, windows, lighting, designs, and (this is the best) hidden chalkboards.  Here I am pretending to write on the one in the Chinese Room.

The rooms were so beautiful, they made me want to go to class.  If I went to school here, I would study all the time and pay attention in class, and never want to leave.  Well, I say that now, but that would probably change in a few weeks.

Maybe my mind would wander more because I would just be daydreaming about how cool these rooms are...and I would be writing stories that take place in other countries...*sigh*

And they're still adding more rooms!  I hope I can come back some day and see the rooms we didn't get to go in (some had classes in session) and the new ones.  See this ceiling?  It was hand-painted and took over seven months to complete!

This is the English Room.  It was the largest room we saw and it reminded me of pictures I saw of St. John's at Cambridge.  It just made me super excited for grad school; I hope at least some of my classrooms look like this.  How perfect!

This is the Armenian Room.  It reminded me of an old castle where princes and princesses would be tutored in Latin and mathematics.  

The Greek Room was so picturesque but my picture of it was a little dark.  Alas.  This one turned out nicely.

The main part of the first floor was this great hall that reminded me of Hogwarts' Great Hall.  I wished I could be one of the students reading and writing at the cute little tables.  It was beyond gorgeous.  I really, really hope St. John's looks like this (pictures are convincing me it does!).  So, okay, Pittsburgh...you've got some stunning places.  But this was definitely a well-kept secret.  If you ever go to Pittsburgh, this is a must-see.  And the best part?  It's free!