Reflections

The title of this blog is once again no longer fitting, as I am currently at home and not in DC. I am thrilled to be home and once again be reminded of how much I love this town, but sad to be done with such an amazing summer. I learned a great deal at work - mostly how to write more elegant Stata code and what the hell propensity score matching is, but lots of other things too that might be boring to read about. The summer was also a chance to learn life lessons - how to dress for work, pick a place to live in a city (HAS TO BE NEAR A METRO STOP), be more socially forward (though I'm still working on that one), buy and cook my own food (I'm never going to eat as much as I think I will). All in all, a great trial run in pretending to be a grown-up. 

Look what I made

This evening, despite the fact that it was really hot outside, since my housemate isn't here to be upset over the amount of heat generated by the oven permeating throughout his un-air-conditioned house. Cookies with semisweet and white chocolate chips and pecans. Yum.

In case you need a close-up (really, I just want to brag)

That is all.

Extreme day

Today, I went hiking in the Great Falls - a park that flanks the Potomac on both sides and provides many opportunities for outdoorsy fun that is either too extreme for me or almost so. Against my protests, we took the trail rated "strenuous" by the National Park Service, due to the amount of scrambling it requires. However, there was pretty much no elevation change, so it really wasn't very strenuous at all, I just had to use my hands to balance and slide down rocks on my behind when I was too afraid to jump down. I made a fuss before going on the most extreme part of the trail, but with the rough texture of the rocks providing lots of footholds, it was actually easier than it looks.

Mid-hike, we stopped in a beachy area and my companions disregarded the signs that cautioned against swimming while I waded near the shore.

In the evening, I helped make and eat a yummy dinner at my coworker's new apartment, which wasn't very extreme, but fun nonetheless. 

This past week

I went out after work twice, including last night, which is pretty much a requirement, even with my hermit-like habits, so it doesn't exactly count. The other three days, I spent at home making chilling and making delicious food (potatoes, kale and chickpeas with cumin and garlic) and baking (cinammon-spiced dinner rolls). The latter were actually kind of a bust because I didn't add enough sugar, but I've been eating them with sugary yogurt, which makes the experience much better. I haven't been diligently taking photos of my culinary accomplishments partly because the energy associated with the walk upstairs to grab my camera seems too great, but mostly because by the time my dinner is finished, I just want to EAT.

My project at work seems like it's never going to end because inconsistencies in the data coding keep hurling discontinuities onto my otherwise beautiful graph. 

Last night, after a nearly month-long hiatus, I attended Jazz in the Sculpture Garden with a couple of my coworkers. Afterwards, we went to Adams Morgan where we tried to go to the wildest club but then settled on a less intense one. A friend who lives in the city let me stay over so I wouldn't have to trek back to Alexandria at night. I did trek to Alexandria and then back to the city to get to Union Station to visit my brother. It was a morning full of struggles, which isn't surprising considering that last night was the night I learned to add "splash" at the end of my order for my preferred concentration of mixed drinks. 

I had a lovely afternoon in Baltimore. We had lunch at an Italian deli, took a detour to my brother's house at my request to watch the Food Network and play with the cat, then went to a museum. The art was a bit too much for even my taste, but the exhibit was about laughter, so there were comics and a bench covered in whoppee cushions stationed in the "Toot room" which appeased my inner five-year-old. 

I have the house

All to myself because my two housemates are currently out of the country. The absence of the male housemate is something I've been looking forward to for a little while, excited by the idea of not having to chat with him or endure his bragging and aggressively conservative political viewpoints.

I was so thrilled by the prospect of having almost 2 weeks alone that I even took the plunge of buying yeast so that I can make bread unencumbered by my housemate's request that I only bake early in the morning to avoid heating the house that he doesn't want to cool with the AC.

So far, however, my solitude hasn't been as enjoyable as I had anticipated. Today's rainy weather has resulted in a series of splashes on the windowsills long after the rain had stopped, the noise from which was just ambiguous enough to make me unsure and worried about their source. The bathroom has been inhabited by a giant moth, which is actually not really something to complain about since I'd rather have a giant moth hanging around than a giant cockroach. I was going to catch the moth with my yogurt container, but it went to sit in the light fixture, which I think is an acceptable place for a moth to be. 

New York, re-visited

I actually had two NYC trips planned this summer, mostly because of my sheer love of the city, partly because I wanted to spend sufficient amounts of time with various friends.

This time around, I spent most of my time in Brooklyn. We started the day by getting our hipster on at the Smorgasburg, an outdoor food market in Williamsburg. I had delicious Vietnamese noodles, the same kind that later caused me great mental turmoil and anxiety after my friend, who is extremely allergic to peanuts, ordered and had some.

Said friend is ok, in case you are wondering.

I also had one of those trendy gourmet popsicles, the recipes of which have been flying around the food blogosphere all summer long. Mine was raspberry basil.

After lunch, we went to Coney Island, which was a rather high-thrill place to be. I got my adrenaline rushing at the combination roller coaster water splash ride, the highest elevation of which was probably 10-15 feet. As if that wasn't enough, we proceeded onto a wooden roller coaster, where I squeezed my eyes shut and clutched the handlebar while everyone else smiled and put up their hands for the photos.

At my request, on the way back, we made a detour to my motherland, otherwise known as Brighton Beach. I listened to spoken Russian and other Eastern European languages to my heart's delight, purchased some fresh sour cherries, walked barefoot in the sand, and dipped my feet into the water.

The second day in the city was uneventful, aside from the delicious brunch I had with my host at a tiny restaurant with a rather intimidating host/server.

I left my phone at home yesterday

Which was entirely uncharacteristic of me, since I live by and always preach the refrain "keys, phone, id" to my roommate at school, encouraging her to check for all three before leaving to make her life easier and avoid having to rely on my forgetful self to open the side door of the entryway. But I had a very good reason for it.

The day before yesterday, I was sitting on the chair in my room, right next to my bed, with my laptop in my lap, probably creeping around facebook or something similar, when I saw something out of the corner of my eye. (Grossness alert - skip ahead to next paragraph if you are grossed out easily) I turned and saw - on the corner of my beautiful lavender fitted sheet, less than a foot away from me - a GIANT cockroach. After leaping across the room in a very prompt and athletic fashion to secure my laptop (and get away), I tried to deal with the situation using my designated bug catcher - an quart-sized empty yogurt container. After an extended struggle, the cockroach eluded me, so I cleared away my belongings and slept downstairs. 

Then, my morning routine got messed up, I took too long to get ready and had to run out to catch the 8:10 bus (avid readers of this blog may know that the 8:20 is a whole different story). 

Work is going well. I've started asking my co-intern about Stata and Excel commands, which has been working out very well. Just today, I learned to "concatenate," or combine strings of characters in different Excel cells and put them into one cell and made 350 lines of repetitive labeling code in approximately 5 minutes. It was awesome. That was a very nerdy thing to write, but it was such a highlight of my day, I had to share. In other news, I've been struggling with an education-related dataset, but mostly in a good way. 

Although I'm enjoying work and life in general, I sort of wish I wasn't sticking around for so long. I wish I could spend more time with my parents in my air-conditioned house, eating their food and being appreciated. Maybe the grass is always greener on the other side, but I even missed school a little bit this week. The other day, a friend sent me a link to a feature on one of the residential houses with photos of quintessential components of house life - studying in the dining hall, student performances, housing day, and a spring event in the courtyard. I'm glad I have a chance to get a glimpse of the "real world" this summer but still get one more year at school. I will just need to remember to appreciate it.