Oral Hygiene

The third floor of the sororitee is an excellent place. We bond. We watch Grey's Anatomy. We drink together. We have a facebook group. The third floor is truly at its best, however, at about midnight every monday through friday. This is when we all assemble in the bathroom for our nightly toothbrushing party.

(This is a truly flattering picture of everyone. It was taken on an off-night. Usually we are very attractive as we brush our teeth.)
Anyway, our toothbrushing parties are not just fun and games. We take oral hygiene VERY seriously. We brush for two minutes, and then we listerine for thirty seconds or a minute, depending on whether we use gingivitis-killing or tooth-strengthening listerine. I have both kinds, but I usually go with the gingivitis-killing variety.

This morning, after I'd brushed my teeth and killed the gingivitis, I started to worry about my teeth's strength. So I used the purple kind for a minute, too.
And then I realized that I have a problem.

And I'm Back

After a lovely weekend visiting boys at Swarthmore with Marissa, I return to Hanover to write a paper and do other sorts of homework I don't really feel like doing. However, I haven't told you about my trip, and I'm sure you're all dying to know.
It was superfun. Highlights included:
1. Seeing Mikio's performances with Marissa and Manoli, and sitting next to Marissa joking about things you can only joke about with your sorority sisters and select other close girlfriends. The concert on Sunday night was hi-larious. I'm not really sure why. I just couldn't stop laughing. Sitting between Marissa and Manoli certainly didn't help.
2. Learning how to tell the difference between bad feta and worse feta from a real Greek person. Unfortunately, Swarthmore Pennsylvania is lacking in any feta that is better than bad feta.
3. Lovely weather, and sitting outside on the (non-muddy!) grass in the sunshine, pretending to do reading but really just talking.
4. Donuts on weekday mornings from the construction people. Dartmouth students need to learn to negotiate better; I spent an entire year living in a building that shook next to a construction site where they started work at 7 a.m., and I never got a single donut. Or anything at all. Except woken up by a shaking building and loud construction. I don't even like donuts that much. I just like the idea.
And that was my weekend. It was fun. Now I shall go write my paper.
p.s. Happy Birthday to my Favorite Child in the Whole World! I can't believe she's five today!

Yaaaaaaay!

I have to write a paper!
It's about a play!
I haven't started it yet!
It's due in eight hours and twenty minutes!
I want to do a good job!
That's unlikely!
Luckily, I'm in the 1902 Room, which never closes, and I have coffee and two granny smith apples and one kozy shack tapioca pudding and a fake nalgene full of water and one little bag of ruffles potato chips that I just finished.
I think I'll be okay.

Special

I totally inhaled a snowflake through my nose while walking to the new math building just now.

Also, I have a brilliant post brewing about how I got to tell my favorite story in class yesterday. But right now I have a paper and a midterm tomorrow, so I must get back to work.

I Must Really Hate My Homework

Last night, instead of reading about traditional African theater, I did my laundry. So far, we're good. Nothing out of the ordinary. I do this all the time. This time, however, I needed to bring in EXTRA procrastination tools. That's right, I brought out the iron.
Ironing is great. Fantastic, especially if you're not the most dishevelled person in the world, rendering even the most perfectly ironed skirt or shirt a big ball of wrinkles within five seconds of putting it on your dishevelled body. Unfortunately, I am that person. Thus, I spent two hours yesterday preparing my clothes to be more perfectly wrinkled by me. I want to do the whole job. Let the washer and dryer take any credit for wrinkling my clothes? I THINK NOT. That is my job. And so I need to start with a clean, wrinkle-free canvas. Apparently. Or maybe I just didn't want to do my homework.

Also, aren't you all ridiculously jealous of my socks? You know what will make you even more jealous? The fact that I wore them to bed with boxers and a t-shirt from the farm where I used to work. That's right. I am just that fashionable.

They Really Do

Kids really do say some pretty amazing things. Today at daycare with the little guy, one of his classmates was looking at the belly of a very pregnant woman. She then announced, "Mommy said that she and Daddy are working on making me a baby brother!"
It was special.
On a different note, the little guy was awesome today. As soon as we got outside in the snow, he started making all sorts of sounds and just being really verbal. It was exciting.

What the Hell?

I took this picture from my window less than a minute ago:



What's going on? It's April, yet outside, it looks like a veritable winter wonderland.

Delicious Food

This required another post because food and bodily functions should not be written about at the same time.
I have discovered the most perfect food Dartmouth College has to offer: chicken pita melts with guacamole from the Hop.
It starts with a pita. Not the kind with the pocket; the other kind. The round kind that's a little bit sweet. (Maybe this is just a pita that hasn't been cut in half, thus revealing the pocket, but I don't think so. It's more like the bread the gyros at Greek Corner , the most amazing restaurant in the world, come on.) On top of that are placed refried beans, followed by shredded taco-style chicken, followed by cheese. This is then placed in the toaster-melty machine, where it is heated and the cheese reaches the most perfect state of meltiness. It is then topped with shredded iceberg lettuce, red onion, sour cream and guacamole. You eat it with a fork and a knife, and it is amazing. Many thanks to Marissa for introducing me to it.

Eeew

The only things that smell more strongly of urine than the library bathroom today are dirty diapers and subway stairs.

Domesticity

Today I didn't have class, because my schedule is just that amazing. So I did some homework, but mostly I got all domestic. I started my laundry last night, and I finished it today. I went to CVS to buy all sorts of things, including purple listerine for toothbrushing parties (I PROMISE they'll get their own post. It'll be thrilling). Most of all, however, I COOKED!
I'd read this post about mujadara, and ever since then, I've been thinking about it obsessively. After Berko went grocery shopping for me and got the appropriate ingredients, I finally had time to cook this amazing dish today.


Pretty, it is not, but amazing and creamy and flavorful and slightly sweet and OH MY GOODNESS I LOVE THIS DISH it is. With a side of broccoli tossed with a little olive oil, salt and parmesan, it made a delicious, filling, comfort-food-y dinner.

Just as I was sitting down on the counter (yes, ON the counter. In the sororitee, we do not have dinner tables or chairs in the basement, where the kitchen is. We only have pong tables. So I sat on the counter.) a whole bunch of people came to the kitchen to make dinner. We're not huge cookers at Dartmouth College, so it was kind of cool. Berko and Lesley (who is in a DIFFERENT sororitee, but we like her anyway) made kosher-for-passover chicken:

And Julie, who's always in the basement cooking something amazing, made curry:

Also, Caroline and Theresa made tacos, but my picture of them will not upload 'cause my computer is stupid.
I was so impressed by my sisters and their culinary skills!
p.s. I promise the posts will get better. If I have energy later, I might even edit this one and make it better.
p.p.s. I also multitasked. While my mujadara was cooking, I folded laundry. I'm so domestic!

Holy Shit I'm Ahead on My Homework

Wow. This has not happened since sophomore year of high school, I think. I am so proud of myself. Maybe this term I will actually be on top of my shit. Here are all the on top of my shit things I've done so far this term:

• Cooked Tonight for dinner I made emergency pasta, but then I also sauteed peppers and onions that Mandell bought at the salad bar, and mixed those in. It was very delicious. Tomorrow I think I'm going grocery shopping so I can buy ingredients to make Mujudarah like I read about in Orangette, one of my most favorite food blogs.

• My Homework So, I used to be an engineer, right? When you're an engineer, you have problem sets due and projects to do, so you don't really have time for wimpy homework like reading. It just doesn't get done, 'cause it doesn't really count as homework. This mindset can be a problem when you start taking classes that are all reading-based. But lately I've been going to Rosey's, the most lovely little cafe in Hanover New Hampshire, and getting a pot of Earl Grey tea and reading about Developmental Psychopathology.

• Exercising It is finally warming up here in Hanover New Hampshire, and so I am starting to run again. Yesterday my friend Berko and I went for a glorious run around Occum Pond. Twice. (We did two laps, not two separate runs. That would have been weird).

• Going to Church I went with Emma today 'cause it was Palm Sunday, and it was fun and enjoyable and I made a lovely little art project out of the palm that they gave me:

I had to do this craft project (which my mom taught me how to do) because I am not good at sitting still, even though I am 21 and should know how to sit still in church by now. I go to a lovely Congregationalist Church, of the sort that you will find in most New England college towns, and I like going because it is an hour on Sunday mornings where I am forced to be still and not think about my homework. Even if I can't sit still very well, I like going.
And that is it. I am sorry this post is so boring. I will write about Microfiche and Toothbrushing Parties soon. Or maybe something EVEN MORE interesting than Microfiche and Toothbrushing Parties. If such a thing exists.