New Semester

Yuck. School. Why am I still subjecting myself to this? Oh right, because I can't get a decent job with a Bachelors...

At least my program doesn't suck too bad. Brief update on my classes this semester:

Project Research Seminar: we call this "How To Be a Grad Student Class".  It's sometimes useful for keeping us on track thesis wise but other than that it's kind of a waste of time.  At least it only meets some weeks

Managing Public Service Organizations: This class is actually in the NYU Wagner School of Public Service and Public Policy.  I had to apply to take it since it's not in my 'school' at NYU (Applied Psych is in the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development).  This class is the first time in a long time where I feel out of my element, unprepared, and not able to beat everyone.  It's like being back at TJHSST all over again but without all of the science.  The class has a lot of useful information but it's not necessarily interesting.  (It's a required pre-requisite for a much more interesting class I want to take next semester).  On top of that we have a semester long group project that meets for an hour after class every week.  Everyone in my group is at least 5 years older than me and has professional working experience in the Public and Nonprofit sectors.  They all had so much to contribute about organizations we could study in NY for our project and connections they had from all of their years working in the field and I have nothing. Nada. Zip.  I just moved here I don't know any organizations we could study and I've never held a real job.  They looked at me like that little sibling that tags around with the older sibling and the other big kids.  It's required that groups assign roles to everyone and guess what super important role I was assigned... note taker.  How sad. I am going to try to embrace my noobie-ness and do what I can to bring a fresh perspective to the group, hopefully I will learn a lot in the process

Evaluation Methodology in Behavioral Sciences: Thank God this class comes right after the previous one so right after having my self esteem torn to shreds all morning I get to have my self esteem boosted all afternoon by this class.  I have taken at least three versions of this class plus I lived it when writing my thesis so I know this material like the back of my hand, I'm familiar already with half of the assigned articles, I know all the answers, and don't have to pay attention much.  Some would call that boring but I call it refreshing and ego boosting.  Not to mention it's a required class so there's not much I could do about it.

Child Development and Social Policy: This class is also very intense.  It is actually more oriented towards PhD students so it's more difficult AND it is taught by the (somewhat famous) professor who runs the lab I work in.  He pretty much holds the future of my thesis and thus my graduate career in my hands so I have to do well in this class.  The readings are more difficult than in most classes I've come across and there are a lot more readings but they're SO INTERESTING.  Children's rights...social policy governing and protecting children's rights, child development, international cooperation.  It's the stuff of dreams for me.  I would love to base my entire career off of the information in this class.

My lab is the same as last semester, studying elementary education initiatives in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.  It is still interesting and I still have fun using syntax coding to solve problems with the data because I'm an N-E-R-D.

I guess school itself isn't that bad, If I only went to classes and had no homework I would love it to pieces. but I guess only 1.5 more years and then I can finally start my life.

Occupy Lost?

So I felt like a news photographer whipping out my camera as I happened to come upon this sighting on my way to study at Argo.  I'm not sure if they got kicked out of Wall St. or if they were just lost...because they were in Washington Sq. Park about 30 blocks (~2 mi) north of Wall St.  I didn't ask.

Argo Song

A former coworker of mine found this on YouTube, it makes me miss working there a little :)

Seven Years

Today was Pietro and I's seventh anniversary :)

He showed up and my door early surprising me with cupcakes in hand (he knows the way to my heart :P) and after a quick job interview with the field marketing department at Argo (hopefully more details later...) We went out to a romantic dinner at the previously mentioned Peruvian restaurant La Mar Cevicheria. IT WAS SOO DELICIOUS. Most expensive meal I've ever eaten but it was so good.  We spent most of the meal just making nom nom nom noises instead of talking to each other.  It was pouring rain when we went into the restaurant but when we left the rain had stopped leaving a hazy but pretty night and we were in the flatiron district so we took a quick stop to take some night time photos of my favorite building in NYC, the Flatiron of course.

Ceviche

My finger is in the picture to give reference for how big the corn was

Jalea

Papa a la Huancaina

Quinoa Salad with Scallops

Peruvian Gastronomic Dictionary

So with our seventh (!!) anniversary coming up on Monday, Pietro and I decided we want to go to a really nice Peruvian restaurant that was just opened here in NYC by Peru's most famous chef, called La Mar.  While making reservations I was browsing their website and came upon a section titled "Gastronomic Dictionary."  It's all about Peruvian food and I found it very enlightening.  I was going to re-post it here but it turned out to be SUPER long so instead I am going to just share the website:

http://www.lamarcebicheria.com/web/index.php

Now you can sound super informed when ordering at a Peruvian restaurant (which you should all do at some point because Peruvian food is SO delicious, hence why they are the most gastronomically famous South American country)

Enjoy!

The Dove Parlour

I just went to the COOLEST place with my friend Katherine.  Its called the Dove Parlour.  It's a bar with really creative drinks (both hot and cold!) I had something called a French Lavender and Katherine had a Ginger Twist and we ordered a cheese tower.  It was all so fancy but not bankrupting!  And it was super cozy for winter, decorated like a parlor in the 1800s

TOTALLY going back, especially because M-TH all drinks are half price and it's right around the corner!

http://www.thedoveparlour.com/

http://www.yelp.com/biz/the-dove-new-york#query:dove%20parlour

Vegetarianism

I like the taste of meat.  I also like animals and would not choose for any animal to suffer.  This is a conflict that has been fighting itself out in my brain recently.  Sadness that cows and pigs have to die, but NOM what a delicious cheeseburger... I'm just confused now.  I have always held these two opposing views but have always pushed it to the back burner unwilling to consider giving up meat.  As many of you know my boyfriend has skirting the vegetarian line for years, but funnily enough he was not the one who finally got me actually thinking about it (despite his many desperate tries).  It was actually a fictional book series in which talking Animals exist alongside normal animals (note the capitalization differentiation).  Some Animals had speech and consciousness and other animals didn't seem to.  

It's just a small dumb fictional thing but it got me thinking, don't all animals in real life have consciousness? I mean I kind of think a dog knows its a dog, it may not be able to solve mathematical problems but it can make decisions and preferences and most importantly to this topic suffer and feel pain.  And because of that we don't eat dogs... but wait, doesn't the same apply to pigs? and cows? they are also able to make decisions and have emotions and suffer and feel pain as far as I know.  And if you keep going down that road where do you draw the line for animals just brainless enough to justify eating? That line seems like it would be arbitrarily placed because we don't actually know whats going on in an animal's mind.  If you don't know if it had consciousness or not, best to stay safe and avoid it all together (which funnily enough was discussed in the book series).  

BUT I do love a good cheeseburger, all juicy and cheesy with delicious toppings mmm. And I'm always treading the anemic line so I have always needed more iron and protein than most people, so giving up meat might actually be unhealthy.  And I rarely eat it anyway.  I dislike cooking it because I'm scared of getting the temperature wrong and giving someone salmonella so I rarely cook it and really only eat it when I go out which is once a week, and even then not every time.

See my dilemma? Is giving up meat a future possibility? I don't think I can ban cheeseburgers from my diet yet, but I will definitely think hard before ordering to decide if the deliciousness is worth it.  I think I'm going to start small.  I'm going to completely stop cooking it (which doesn't take much effort as I rarely do anyway).  I'm also going to start with cutting out pork.  This will be easy because I only eat bacon and that can be substituted with turkey bacon which I happen to like better anyway

Beef might be in the future, but that will  take a lot of will power so we'll see.  Poultry would be last and I will probably never give up seafood.  But I think this is a start nonetheless.  I don't care who else joins or disagrees because this is about how I feel about the issue, you all can make your own decisions, I won't judge.

HOLIDAZE

So Sunday I got back from two weeks at home in the DC area for the holidays.  I spent two days unpacking and sleeping a lot to recover from a bad cold I've been fighting but today I ventured out of my apartment to run a bunch of errands.  I started with tea at Argo mostly to visit my friends there :) I am slowly running out of money so I may have to go back to work there over the summer, we'll see.
ANYWAY after two weeks at home sitting on my butt most of the day in a quiet suburban neighborhood with not much going on it felt GREAT to walk around in the brisk cold air around the city for a few hours.  I forgot how ALIVE it is compared to home.  A two week break in a quiet neighborhood was just what I needed to appreciate the city again (I admit my appreciation was waning a little before the holidays).  Today I felt energized walking around and realized that while it may have its quirks, I really did miss it.  I loved my time at home though and now I realize that I need to take more frequent trips home to maintain a balance of city life and suburban town life.  I miss my family now that I'm back but I'm sure I will go visit again soon.

Some of the highlights of my time at home were visiting relatives on Christmas eve, a great Christmas morning, seeing my friends, going to Orlando for New Year's, a couples photoshoot in DC, and more of seeing my friends :)

As always, HERE ARE SOME PICS!
*Side note the ones from the photoshoot were taken by Erin Brennan, view here page here

^New official Faturday shirt^