Let me tell you about my family!

Disclaimer: This is not my real family. My real family is socially adept, they just hate people. Which is fine, because sometimes I do, too. In fact, I have had to train myself over the years to willingly hang out with people. This wasn't too hard, because hanging out with people is fun. But I digress.

I will now present you with a hypothetical situation.

Hypothetically, I'm dealing with a lot of stress right now. Hypothetically, I like distracting myself by organizing bitchin' hangouts and playing weird games. Hypothetically, I have friends who not only humor me in these endeavors, but have come to enjoy themselves. (If they don't enjoy themselves, then they are good actors!)

There was the street fair extravaganza, the karaoke madness, and this weekend, there will be fun at the beach. There are also the summer winds hangouts. (Taking 7 classes + a job + work study during the school year makes it difficult for me to be social. Boo.)

But now, on to the games!

1. Guess His Name and Scream It

The thing I like about this game is that the name says it all. I'm sort of afraid to actually play this game.

2. Cuter Than Dillon? (No.)

Toni's adorable little brother Dillon is 1) cute and 2) Asian. I spend my time trying to find Asian children, and when I do, I text Toni with descriptions and whether or not the kid is cuter than her brother. So far, the only contender is a little boy who was running naked through the women's locker room, screaming, "I am a muffin!"

3. Pick Your Grandpa

There are a number of awesome elderly gentlemen in summer winds. Like, no joke, they all rock. They rock so hardcore that I spent time wondering, "If I could pick one of these dudes to be my grandpa, who would it be?" I eventually made my decision, but realized that this game doesn't need to be limited to grandpas! So far, I have: BadassGrandpa, CoolUncle, CreepyUncle, GayUncle#3 (Because you can never have too many!), and CRAZYAUNT. Seriously, CrazyAunt is super cray cray. She was the first "addition" to my family, because I decided that she was legitimately crazy enough to be part of my real family. Now I just think it's fun to call her my aunt and confuse people who do not know the backstory. Which is almost everybody. Oops.

so.freaking.busy

This past week was spent hanging out with friends and learning the ropes of my internship. Highlights have included checking out the awesome restaurants near my internship (still to come: Gray's Papaya and Shake Shack) and not organizing my room. Summer Winds has started (I'm playing the horn solo in Shostakovitch's "Festive Overture", which I'm insanely excited about!), and I am attempting to plan various social events for myself so that I am not cooped up in my apartment all the time.

One of the benefits of my internship is that I get access to the gym in the building. Both times I went last week it was relatively empty and I didn't have to wait to use any of the equipment. I could get used to this! It's better than running outdoors in the gross weather or paying the summer fee to use Dodge.

On Wednesday evening my friend Mara from camp stayed with me! I hadn't seen her since September 2007, when I went to the airport to see her off before she left for Israel. And now...she is moving to Israel in August! I am super excited for her and hope that the transition is smooth.

Yesterday was Columbia/Barnard alumni weekend. CUMB met up with some alumni, played songs, and did our usual shenanigans. We might have posed on the Barnard Greek Games statue, and I might have gotten to 2nd base with the statue. This is debatable. What isn't debatable is that the chair of our alumni fund has a super adorable baby boy! That is all.

After we were done playing, the alumni went to other activities while we took advantage of the lunch, which included things I would not want to keep outdoors in the heat...like clams. Oh well, it was all delicious! We then put our instruments away and shared stories...a bottle of Nikolai might have disappeared in the process.

We then went to Lerner where there was a "meet and greet" with the alums. We heard the most incredible stories! It was thrilling to hear about all the awesome things they did, and the alums were proud that we are continuing their glorious tradition of G(tb)^2. 'Nuff said. We then continued the hanging out...I think I was with bandies for around 13 hours on Saturday, which is fine by me!

Today was also very fun. A group of CUMB and Wind Ensemblers decided to take advantage of all of the street fairs going on today. After buying metrocards (I got my first Monthly Unlimited pass, which I DEFINITELY took advantage of today), we went to 12 Eldridge St for the Egg Rolls and Egg Creams street fair. The subway was a bit weird, but we made good time. I ate a pickle, drank an egg cream, and got to hear authentic Chinese instruments.

We also went into the synagogue (it was built in the 19th century and is now in the heart of Chinatown) for a Chinese tea ceremony. The man leading (the tea artist) talked about the teas. I learned that there are green teas, red teas, and black teas. The color refers to the amount of oxidation the leaves have undergone. Green is the least oxidized, black is the most.

The tea leaves were in a little pot. The tea artist passed the pot around, instructing us to first smell the leaves in the pot, then the tea lid...and to only breathe in, not to exhale back into either. He then poured hot water into the pot. "You cannot time the steeping, you must feel it," he said. (However, the leaves cannot be steeped for longer than 2 minutes...just the loose leaves, not the bagged kind I buy in the store.) Each person had a small cylindrical glass and a larger handle-less teacup. He poured the tea into the cylindrical class. We then poured the tea into the cup and then smelled the cylindrical glass. He always asked us what it smelled like. I could never exactly say. It smelled good, herbally, but I couldn't pinpoint the smell.

When we drank, he instructed us to slurp the tea, so we would take air into our mouths as well. We then moved our tongues up and down and inhaled, and then swallowed and opened and closed our mouths, so we could smell the "tea mist". It was a very cool process. The tea artist only bought expensive teas. "The least expensive tea I will buy is $600/lb," he said. He accidentally brought out his most expensive tea, the $40,000/lb variety (or so he told us). It had a rich taste, very aged. This makes sense, as he said that the tea was aged for 40 years.

Throughout this, there was a demonstration in the lower level of the sanctuary, where the cantor was singing various hymns. I would explain and translate them throughout the tea ceremony.

Downstairs, we made challah! Or rather, we braided the challah and then took the unbaked loaves with us, to cook later.

We then got lunch in a Chinese restaurant nearby. My criterion was that the menu needed to be in English. This was satisfied, and the food did not make me sick! Win.

We then went to the World Science Festival street fair, but didn't do much there...except take pictures with a child in a T-Rex costume!

Throughout this, the challah was rising...because it was full of yeast. I had crunched my and Tim's challah tins, and they spilled over their tins and were conjoined twins. This didn't happen to anybody else's challah.

The weather was looking pretty iffy, so we went to Camille's parents' apartment to bake the challah and play President. All of the challah were delicious (ultimately, they all looked exactly the same when cooked), and the hanging out/card game was fun. The sky was very dark (there was actually a tornado warning), and it rained while we were inside. The weather cleared up pretty quickly, and we eventually returned to campus. The rain had taken the humidity out of the air, and the weather was gorgeous!

It was the perfect end to an incredible weekend. :)

this bed freaks me out a little

I've been meaning to write a legitimate post for awhile. Then, Hannah discovered my blog, and I felt the need to both uphold my reputation and write something that wasn't emo.

Last Tuesday, I moved into my apartment. I still haven't unpacked. The room is small. I have a full size lofted bed, and all of my stuff is under it. There is a piano in the room, but I'm not particularly motivated to play it. The guy I'm subletting from left stuff in the closet, books on the shelves, and...unused condoms and hair ties tucked between the mattress and the bedframe. Also, there was a piece of gum on one of the headboards.

In conclusion: Boys are super icky and gross.

The bed is also kind of wobbly. He might have put it together himself? One of the end boards is unevenly nailed in.

In conclusion: I could have made this bed much better. Also, despite various efforts, the bed hasn't yet broken. Though the condoms assuaged some of my fears, since it meant that the primary renter clearly has had sex in this bed and not died.

There are three other guys who live here. One is in California. They are pretty cool.

I haven't told my parents exactly where I live (not that they would know the names of the streets) because it's flirting with Harlem, and my parents have more important shit to worry about than the fact that I get off at the 125th subway stop.

On Wednesday and Thursday I had orientation for the leadership training component of my internship. I'm not going to go into detail about my internship so far. I started on Tuesday and things have been going well. The only annoying thing is that the last intern made a really confusing spreadsheet that I spent all day trying to fix. Now I need to add in all of the missing information. Fun.

On Friday I slept in and in the late afternoon I took the NJ Transit to see Toni! I learned that "Delayed Green" is a traffic sign, not a street name, and that Elizabeth drives a car with lots of silly bumper stickers on it. She had an extended weekend and obviously wanted to spend it with me and Toni. We might have drank a bottle of Bartenura and Facebook stalked/texted people. We probably Facebook stalked you. Just saying. We spent the night at Toni's house and in the morning met her SUPER ADORABLE BABY BROTHER DILLON. He is super cute. I also met Toni's mom, who is also super cute. But back to Dillon. He has inspired me to create the best game, ever. Everytime I see a passably cute Asian child, I text Toni and tell her about how much cuter Dillon is. Examples:
1. Small Asian child wearing a Harvard t-shirt. Dillon would never be so pretentious. He would go on, driving his little bike around, too busy being adorable. Besides, MIT geeks have more fun...
2. Small Asian child with pseudo rat tail. It's obvious why Dillon is cuter.
3. Small Asian child in the women's locker room at the JCC with his mom, yelling "I am a muffin!" while running around butt-naked. This was almost as adorable as Dillon.

We then embarked on a holy mission: Snuggie shopping! You see, this weekend was to be dedicated to our new favorite show, Cougar Town. In Cougar Town, they all buy blumfies ("Half blanket, all comfy!"), so we needed to imitate this. We went to several stores and sacrificed what was left of our dignity by approaching salespeople and asking if the store carried snuggies. An angry salesgirl at Walmart said that they were "Up front, near the cigarettes and shit." In fact, they were in the "As Seen on TV!" section. We could have bought a pink or blue snuggie for $14.88, but since they had no leopard print snuggies, we decided it was not worth it. However, Elizabeth did capture an awesome picture of me disposing of the Bartenura bottle in a garbage can in the Walmart parking lot. Super classy.

We then completed the next part of our mission: buying cheap wine! You see, in Cougar Town, they are ALWAYS DRINKING WINE. This is another reason why we love the show so much. We went to Trader Joe's, picked up four bottles of 2 Buck Chuck (now $3 a bottle, sadly), and made Elizabeth wait outside while I paid. It turned out not to matter, the saleswoman didn't card me. Toni and I then packed the wine into our backpacks and we drove the car back to Toni's house, said goodbye to Dillon and Toni's mom, and walked to the train station.

We had a Cougar Town marathon and drank some wine, then went to Sam's apartment to watch the first game of the Stanley Cup. Long story short, the Blackhawks won, Elizabeth drank a lot of Blueberry Stoli, and MANY interesting things were texted to Paul. We then went back to my apartment and continued the Cougar Town/wine marathon.

I learned something about Elizabeth. She is a serial spooner. Seriously. My bed was able to fit the three of us, but Elizabeth insisted on being in the middle and spooned Toni the entire night. This is after she licked Toni, me, and herself. The next day, she did not remember doing this.

The next day (Sunday) was more of the same, though Elizabeth went to hang out with Bryan for a bit and I made the bad decision to embark on a walk with Toni in the middle of the day. I still have the sunburn. We then watched crappy movies on Hulu until Elizabeth returned. We then watched MORE Cougar Town and then went to Pisticci's for dinner, which is right by my apartment. The significance of the location is that they have outdoor seating. While seated outdoors, I spotted a cute guy. Toni said I should shout his name. Obviously, I do not know his name. This created the game titled "Shout a Name and See if He Turns Around". If the guy turns around, the game's participants get to lady chest bump. BING! We then continued the marathon (we got through 19 of the 24 episodes!) until Toni and Elizabeth had to leave.

I'm exhausted and need to sleep, so I'll recount the ridiculousness of this past week tomorrow. Later, player.