good morning world!

Another long day today (class from 9 am – 8 pm, blech!) and I’m armed with a paper cup of homemade hot chocolate, my planner and a pad of sticky notes for random list making/doodles during my day.

I’ve become extra senior-tastic as of late, giving up on my homework for precious hours of extra sleep. Can’t blame me, acceptance into higher education does that to you. I’ve come to realize the complete air of self importance that a blog gives you. How can I think that other people would want to hear me ramble on and on? Would I want to hear me ramble? Maybe. On second thought, maybe not, but I’d like to think that I can provide some entertainment value.

Anyway dear reader, I extend a heartfelt good morning, hoping that your day is better than mine. How are you spending your Monday? What are you eating for breakfast? I had an blueberry Eggo…my fave on the go breakfast. Yum.Okay, now lets go tackle this Monday.

february <3 list

Why February is going to the BEST. MONTH. EVER.

1. I’m going to lose 5 pounds, I’ve already decided.

2. Long weekend to see the boyfraaan. Thank you George Washington and Abraham Lincoln for being great presidents, I salute you!

So I want my life to be a J.Crew ad

3. My best friend is coming to visit me this weekend!

4. Snow in DC just happens to be really really pretty.

5. Target is selling heart shaped plates…if eating wasn’t already fun enough.

6. I’m into med school and don’t give a darn about school anymore.

7. Its 28 love filled days with chocolate around every corner. Yum.

What sorts of things do you all have planned for February?

they say you can smell success

Smell me everybody! Yesterday was absolutely the most glorious day ever. You know those days when good things just keep on happening to you? And absolutely everything goes better than planned. Well that was yesterday for me.

First things first, I got into med school!!!! I still can’t believe it. Its so funny because even though I thought I did really well during the interview, its a complete relief to know that I have some sort of plan. That and I’m going to be a DOCTOR. Amazing. I’m going to channel my inner Christina Yang, except with less of the I’m-going-to-crush-your-soul-because-I-have-zero-mercy-when-it-comes-to-competition.

Second, ridiculous heart stopping Georgetown vs. Louisville game. It was down to the last minute and we finally won by three thanks to a couple of clutch free throws. HOYA SAXA baby, we can only move up from #13 and I’m hoping that this streak continues this weekend at the Providence game.

Finally, I just signed up for the Chicago Marathon! Countdown to race day: 249 days. I’m nursing a stress fracture right now on my ankle which makes it difficult to run, but I’m planning on hitting the elliptical to stay in shape. Had a good 10k run yesterday before the game. Is anybody else running it? I’m so excited, I love Chicago and this will be my first marathon!

new goals

I’ve decided that not only am I going to run my first marathon, but over the next five years, I am going to run in the world marathon majors. Five cities, five races, five years. The reason is simple…marathons are expensive. And I don’t have the money to shell out for the ones I really want to run, so this way, I’ll hit the best of them and get to see cities that I love and also cities that I’ve never been to. For those who don’t know (I didn’t), the majors consist of Chicago, New York, Boston, London and Berlin marathons. I’m also taking 5 years to do it because realistically, I won’t be making it to Europe on two different occasions anytime soon.

So…where does this little journey begin? This Tuesday. February 1st marks the day when registration for the Chicago marathon opens up. I figure from here, I can train a good long time to run the 26 miles in October. That’s a excessively long training though so maybe I’ll look for a small race between here and then that I can condition with.

Thoughts? Anybody want to run with me? This is a generous offer since I hate running with people.

 

“On the contrary, [the people] came to recognize the importance of seeing meaning in life just the way it is instead of trying to force life into their definition of meaning.”

BEAR DOWN

Being from the great state of Illinois, there is an obligatory Chicago Bears post required in honor of this weekend’s playoffs against the Packers. I’m not even the biggest football fanatic but really, how can you not get into the sheer “quintessential-ness” of the intense Bears-Packers playoff for a berth to the Super Bowl? The rivalry is electric and I fully plan on decking out in Chicago gear to watch the game where I’ll be getting drunk and eating wings like its my job.

Also, Obama thinks the Bears are going to win over the Packers. Duh.

things I fucking love

1. how a good outfit immediately brightens an otherwise, terrible day.
I’m a big follower in dressing to impress. Always. Especially at Georgetown, you never know who you’re going to run into and there is nothing worse than a first impression where you just look like you rolled straight out of bed. When things are getting particularly hectic (like this past week where I’ve averaged 4 hours of sleep a night) then I tend to overcompensate for how groggy I actually feel by putting myself together. Even if I’m feeling like complete crap on the inside, its uplifting to hear people comment on how nice you look…kind of makes you temporarily forget the fact that your body is begging for some R&R.

Happy Thursday!

2. french food.
I really don’t think I need to explain this.  But I will. My internship mentor took me out to eat today after our usual Thursday meeting. Being Belgian, he loves French food and we went to this really nice place in Dupont Circle, Bistrot du Coin. I had the pan seared salmon with braised portabello mushrooms and asparagus over tagliatelle pasta. The salmon was probably the best salmon I’ve had in a while. I don’t really think I can do it justice with how perfectly it was cooked – soft, flaky, delicious…I could go on and on with the adjectives. And it came in this salmon colored cream sauce that perfectly balanced it. Oh my god, I could eat another one right now.

3. Georgetown architecture.
What I love about my morning run is that I can run a different path everyday and still see the gorgeous houses that are here in Georgetown. I used to think pretty little of rowhouses to be perfectly honest with you. Being from the midwest where everything is spread out and houses are sprawled on acres of land, the thought of paying upwards of a million for a house that looks dinky on the outside made me want to throw up. I just didn’t get it. But some of these houses though…amazing. I’ll admit, the majority of them still look pretty sad and weird on the outside but even those are cute in a colorful, hobbits live here kind of way. But I really have fallen in love with the big brick ones that look extremely Victorian or colonial and just packed with history.

4. Good news.
I met with my academic advisor yesterday and got the official confirmation that I WILL in fact be graduating on time this coming May. It seems completely ordinary to be graduating in 4 years, but really the process was made a lot harder by the fact that I transferred to Georgetown between my sophomore and junior years and had to fulfill a ton of major requirements as well as general electives that I had tested out of at U of I. So, I’m officially graduating with a bachelor’s in International Health with over 150 credit hours…big relief, because I think I would’ve really regretted transferring had I known I’d have to go to extra years of undergraduate. Instead, now I’m extremely happy I transferred and think it was really pivotal in helping me decide a career focus of global health. I mean, I got to spend a semester in Manila and travel to Cambodia and Thailand, I’ve had internships at places such as the World Bank and the World Health Organization, I joined cheerleading, and met a ton of cool people. Plus I get to be in DC which isn’t too shabby. That being said, taking 20+ credit hrs each semester my junior and senior years has been a complete pain in the ass. Thanks a lot, Georgetown.

5. Old friends.
One of my best friends is coming down to DC in a couple weekends from Mt Holyoke and I can’t wait to see her. We lived together for a couple years at boarding high school that we went to, and she’s one of my absolute best friends in the world. I love the type of people where you can not talk for months at a time and then pick up one day and its still the same. I’ve been having a lot of conversations with people recently about this, and I genuinely believe that if you have a group of these friends in your life, nothing too awful can ever happen to you because they’ll all have your back. What I’ve noticed is that whenever I do go home, I’ve become a big homebody (sad, I know) but I’m always more than willing to make a tremendous effort to see these friends of mine that I truly do care about.

my girl

On that note, I’m off. We have presentations this week to sum up our internships/research from the semester we all spent abroad and today is the last day of presentations. Annnd we have a social event afterwards to welcome us seniors back to the US. With food. I am so there.

DETOX

Planning on going on a serious two week cleanse. If anybody has any recommendations or tips, please shoot them my way!

Countdowns

Sorry that I’ve been MIA. It has been a whirlwind of a week. Syllabus week has been hectic and uncharacteristically full of homework already. Not a good sign for the semester, but I really enjoy my classes so that’s promising. This past week was full of some highs (reunited with my girls, a lot of drinking, good start to my internship at the World Bank, returning back to Annapolis to hang out with some good old Navy boys) as well as some lows (depressing Gtown loss to Pittsburgh, my complete inability to focus on homework, a lot of drinking, realizing I suck at Spanish). Nevertheless, I’m determined to make this semester a really good one. I love it when I have things to look forward to, especially weekends. Last year with Steve out in Annapolis, I looked forward to seeing him every weekend. Without him out here now, there’s a lot more free time on my hands and I’m working on finding new ways to busy myself.

Next weekend, I have plans to reunite with two old high school friends also in DC (one at GW, another working at Accenture), plans to eat at Chef Geoff’s for DC Restaurant Week with my cousin Stephanie, and plans to hang out with the Navy boys D and T again in DC. This weekend also is cheerleading initiation, which is a glorified name for making the new cheer babies drink. Plus my beloved Chicago Bears play the Green Bay Packers for a berth to the Super Bowl.

Weekend after that, I’m flying down to Florida to see the boy. Keeping my fingers crossed that the weather will cooperate so I can get out of the DC area with no problem (pleeease, no Snowpocalypse). Cannot even describe how excited I am for this…the long distance thing has been a strain and I’m more than ready to get to sunny Florida. Even though he lives in Niceville…if that doesn’t sound like fogiest retirement home town, I don’t know what does.

The beginning of February brings one of my best friends to DC from Mount Holyoke College to watch me cheer. I’m excited to do the touristy DC things with her and for her to experience Georgetown. Plus the Super Bowl Sunday means guaranteed rowdy fun.

Valentine’s Day alone. Don’t want to talk about it. Georgetown game that I have to be at…fun. Followed by a long President’s Day weekend…hopefully spending that in Florida too!

With all that to look forward to on the weekends, the next month and a half will fly by. I can’t wait. I’m kind of over school and waiting for my post-grad plans to happen, whatever those may be.

BOYCOTT CLASS

Not really, I still have school today. But I’m happy to announce that this is my LAST first day of the semester of college ever, at least at the undergraduate level anyway. Woohoooo!

Despite a full 22-credit hr class schedule, I’m really excited about all most of my classes this semester. I think they’ll generally be fairly interesting courses and I’m determined to do well this semester after a semester of working since I don’t feel particularly burnt out on school just yet. My classes include:

• Spanish (bleh. Word of advice, don’t transfer if you don’t have to. And if you do, make sure stupid things like foreign language requirements transfer over. This is a bitch trying to remember Spanish from four freaking years ago.)
• Organic Chem II (ditto.)
• Problem of Suffering (my religion class)
• Health Promotion
• Eliminating Health Disparities: National and International
• Disease Control (senior elective. Would be more excited for it if it weren’t on Friday mornings. Seriously, what asshole teacher schedules seminars then?)
• Global Health Ethics
• Internship at the World Bank (so excited. I’m working with a former professor on population policy stuff)

Good stuff. I’m excited for this semester. Plus cheerleading and DC adventures. Like I mentioned in my last post, I’m also seriously thinking about getting an unlimited month membership to Down Dog Yoga to do their hot yoga classes, especially since more and more of my friends want to do it now.

Have to get ready for a full day of classes now and then the Pittsburg game tonight. Great.