Beat down

This morning I had an interview scheduled with an important doctor and med school professor at Duke and he rescheduled on me so he could go running with his wife this morning. That shows you how important I am in the hierarchy of the "medical arena." Nevertheless, we ended up meeting later in the morning.

It started off a little rocky. He sat across from me in his yellow Ralph Lauren sweater over his plaid button-up with his head in his hands like “ohhhh I’m so important and busy I can’t even look at you.” Finally, after a few minutes of awkwardness he started elaborating on his research. We had a really long, helpful talk. He told me about his very first job the summer before he began undergrad at Duke and how he had to jump on trash in a dumpster to compact it, and now he sees that his employers were just trying to decrease his ego as well as the amount of trash. He gave me a lot of advice about getting into medical school and told me that it would all come down to what happens over the next two years. And how it doesn’t matter how convoluted your path is, if you just say to yourself “Dammit, I’m going to do it,” then you will do it. In his opinion, he said, medical school is an endurance race. You don’t have to be the sharpest knife in the box, but you have to be willing to keep cutting and cutting and cutting and cutting. He also told me “when you sit down for your med school interview three years from now, this is what you should say…..” He questioned me really hard about my future plans and how I’m going about accomplishing my goals. It was like a really hard grind. He gave me two compliments. 1- That he was impressed that I was not “flustered” by his questions and 2- That he was confident in me in the lab without even knowing me very well. He also told me that what I want to do is “absolutely attainable”. It was like a free motivational/advising meeting. It was the first time I had the opportunity to talk personally with someone like him and the advice he gave me will stick with me, and was well worth all of the drama that ensued afterwards…

Me, being the boy-girl that I am, paid for my prissy-resistant attitude today. I absolutely cannot carry a purse over one shoulder. I don’t know what my complex is with this but it is just so hard for me. I can totally handle a messenger-style bag that goes across my body, but I don’t mess with the shoulder bags. Well, the only brown one I have is kind of raggedy so I decided to leave it in the car and just carry in with me my phone in my pocket, my notebook in my hand, and my keys. Then I left my keys hanging on the coat-hanger on the back of the bathroom stall. When I went back for them they were gone. After about an hour of scavenger hunt style searching (and their aloof ignoring) with the Duke police, Lost and Found, Janitorial services, and Information desk I had no luck so I had to have the car towed from the fourth floor of the parking garage to a service center to have a new key made.

When the tow truck arrived we had to break into the car to put it in neutral to get it out of the parking space. Meanwhile, a lady passing by us in the parking area in her brand new BMW got smashed into by some guy trying to exit his parking space. He felt that if the tow truck wasn’t parked nearby then none of this would have happened because the lady wouldn’t have been hesitating to pass by. The police came and handled that.

Today was a challenge and I got beat up a little bit but I learned some valuable lessons. And I'm really sorry about that mishap with the brand new beamer. :-/

Mini Me

My little niece is so cute. Look at her eating edamame and watching the Carolina-LSU game on Saturday.



She always says “I want color,” “I want phone,” I want bubbles.” Sunday I found myself saying “I want dog” at the flea market in Raleigh. I was there wandering around and found that they were having a dog show. And I love love love huskies but I know I can’t have one until I’m an old dinosaur because I will need a yard for its wolf behavior and money for its obedience lessons. There were really pretty huskies and a lot of freakish looking dogs. Like a long haired greyhound that looked like it was ice skating instead of walking. And a lot of people grooming and vacuuming and curling their dog’s hair.



This lady had her little pooch on a table atop a stroller, which I’m sure is its home that it travels to the mall in. She was rolling her hair and that dog was so still for her.

No-makeup sick-face

I’ve been sick since last week!

This weekend I took a shower at my grandmother’s house (because the power went out at mine due to a broken main breaker or some electrical stuff that I don’t understand that couldn’t be fixed until Monday) and I realized that I forgot my hair dryer at home. I asked gma if she had one I could use and I came in the room to find her setting up this…





She was so serious. So funny!

Kelsey is looking at the “turtles in the wa-wa”. Wa-wa means water.

Peace

I have nothing to do but look for a job and practice painting my nails so I'm reading a book about a feminist who is trying to make changes at a magazine company ran by her sister’s husband to teach women to appreciate one another instead of always hatin’. The book is Miss Understanding. I got it for a quarter in a thrift store.

I had two job interviews last week. One was for a position that I really, really want and I’m counting down the days until I can start calling and harassing them. The other would just be very temporary until I find something else because it’s in an office. And I’m pretty sure they would beat me up if I ate lunch out of the Hello Kitty container.

There's always room for glitter

After my flight to NY, Julie picked me up at the airport and we walked around and ended up at Henri Bendel where Julie had her makeup guy produce some pretty fierce eyes for her to recreate at a New Year’s party in Miami. He used tape to make very straight lines by her eye.



We ate dinner at Mary’s Fish Camp and it was soooo good. We ate lobster knuckles that are hard work to get into. And I also ate a lobster roll, which is a garlicy breaded sandwich thing with lobster salad inside. It’s necessary for me to eat like this because I have to fill up my good food tank before suffering trough a month of tuna and ramen from my suitcase.

Today we went to Times Square and stood in line to get tickets to see Katie Holmes in All My Sons. We ran into Elmo on the way..


And this Hello Kitty statue..


Waiting in line was crazy and they routed you back and forth across the street for a couple of blocks and it was impressively well organized. The police officers manning it will discretely hit on you if you so much as make 1/8 seconds worth of eye contact with them. The play was really good and dramatic but ended very sadly. We sat in a little booth like this..


It was restricted viewing and we had a clear view backstage. I was really excited to see Katie Holmes. She is so tall and skinny and pretty.

Afterwards we went to the Hello Kitty store and I got a little bag to put shit in and a massive lollipop for Shafaq.

Then we walked across the Brooklyn Bridge. It was such a nice view at night and these pictures don’t really do it justice. Sooo pretty..

Christmas

Kelsey's new Elmo’s Restaurant..


Disney Princesses Vanity..


My mom still gets a kick out of filling up stockings with candy and oranges and soap for us and she thought her choice of stocking for me was exceptionally funny. I'm the fancy one there in the middle...



My cousin Gracie and I fried some chicken on her Nintendo DS. I liked the cooking game the most but she had to get me through the hard levels like bread slicing.

Jim Brickman

I received tickets to see Jim Brickman & the NC Symphony as a graduation present but when he comes back through I will pay to see his tiny little piano playing self! It was so wonderful. I mean, it’s not like I was a lonely little girl sitting in my bedroom listening to his songs on Delilah while planning my wedding in which my bridesmaids would wear spaghetti-strap, lavender, floor-length dresses, or anything. I wasn’t that little girl at all. But his performance was really nice and the new Durham Performing Arts Center is huge!

Hi

A lot has happened lately! I didn’t post anything for a while because I was so concentrated on school. My last exam was a really hard disease genetics test and it required my full attention.

Sunday was graduation day! It couldn’t have been any more perfect of a day. The speaker was Dr. Valerie Ashby, whom I had for Organic Chemistry. I listened very intently and it was really good... you should read it. I especially loved the fact that I could relate to the classroom references she made... like poor Venable Hall and how her exams are "insane". At the end we filed out up the stairs and I jumped over into the line beside me so that I could walk up to my mom and grandmother.



The past couple of days have been restful, but now the real fun is beginning… Tonight my aunt is going to meet me at work and take me to dinner. The Tobacco District is so cute right now with all the Christmas lights! I’m anxious to walk through. Then tomorrow I’m taking my grandmother and mom to see Jim Brickman at the new Durham Performing Arts Center. It’s a holiday music special and my joy is going to come from how happy this is going to make my grandmother.

More to come later..

I know I've been MIA but that's because SOOOO much has been going on. BUT, I'd like to point out that yesterday, on the second anniversary of this blog, and quite possibly one of the most wonderful days ever, I graduated from UNC!!!

...Yummmm.. water from the Old Well!

Such a tragedy

My beloved camera has decided to kill itself. The screen is just black. It’s not black like its dead; it’s black like I’m in a pitch-black, dark room. Like it WANTS to show an image, but it can’t because it’s too dark. Then when I take a picture, all it shows is that black darkness. I tried re-setting it, talking to it, reasoning with it, beating it (kidding). I loved this camera so much for so long and then I finally received it as a gift… seriously, like A FULL YEAR after we first met in Best Buy.



I really love my electronics too! Especially this camera! I think I love it more than I love my iPhone because I invested so much time in wanting it. The iPhone.. I was just like “I think I need that” and then the next day I got it. But this camera… that was some serious time spent lusting! To me, digital cameras are like underwear. You always have to have your own. I am going to take her to a couple of camera stores and see if they know something about it that I don’t. My friend also has a Sony Cybershot and his did the exact same thing. It would cost $141 plus shipping charges to have her fixed by Sony. I could just put that towards a new camera!

Scrambled Pancake

This morning when I woke up it was all cold and rainy outside so I decided I was going to make a pancake with the spoonful of mix that we have left and then watch Face the Nation and stare at the Christmas tree and this is what happened...

A+ for effort

In my plant class everyone has to do a project that is 20% of our grade. Mine is on the species Paulownia tomentosa, also known as The Princess Tree. We are graded on content and creativity and I have been very obsessed with wanting my introductory slide to have the tree with a tiara. This is what I came up with: