Adventure 12 - The Hansel and Gretel Conspiracy

Just like that witch tried to fatten up the two kids so she could eat them, my school has been offering so many food events that I'm starting to wonder if their motives are the same.

Ok, obviously I'm joking about the cannibalism thing, but since I've been here, I've been a complete foodie and taken pictures of a lot of the special food things they've had both on- and off-campus.

For our school magazine, I had to do a review for a local Japanese restaurant that just opened.

This was the almond bubble tea, served in a beer stein, with bubbles that I accidentally inhaled and partially choked on...

...and this was the bento box that I ate the entirety of; it consisted of salad with ginger dressing, rice, two pieces of California roll, a dumpling, some seaweed salad and steak with teriyaki sauce. It was delicious.

My honors program "big" (all the freshmen have upperclassmen mentor people) took me to the waffle place downtown. This monstrosity was a single Almond Joy, which had almond butter, coconut and chocolate sauce, plus strawberries I added to give the illusion of being healthy.

This was a gyro I picked up at the mini farmers' market I pass on the way to work. The full farmers' market has an insane amount of food to choose from, but the little streetside one is really good too. I mean, by the time I walked from there to the bus station, which is only about two blocks or so, I had eaten almost all of the cucumbers in my gyro.

Because it's sacrilege to go to a food-based festival and not eat food, I caved in and had an apple fried dough at our city's apple festival. It was obviously good, it's fried dough, but I just now realized that the whipped cream and my fork make a smiley face.

After the chocolate tasting at our school no-showed (a friend of mine emailed the chocolate society to ask why, and apparently they couldn't get funding for it), we went to a chicken wing tasting sponsored by the marketing club. There were fifteen different wings from six different restaurants; my personal favorite in terms of flavor was the honey teriyaki one (the really dark one at the top), but the four on the bottom were incredibly meaty and juicy. I'm a bit spoiled with wings back home; we don't adulterate them with sauce, just throw them in the deep fryer and throw some salt on them. They're divine.

I can't really consider this to be the "gourmet fruits and cheeses" night that the dining halls advertised, but the spread was nice and I got to try carambola (it tastes sort of like a grape). Plus, hello, it's cheese and fruit and crackers.

And if that wasn't enough, the student activities organization thing (you know, the organization in charge of the other organizations) sponsored a "taste of the city"-type tasting. My friend and I had already eaten a little, so we pigged out on dessert instead. More cheese and crackers, a bagel and cream cheese, some killer baklava, a chocolate coconut cupcake, some local-made root beer and a white chocolate macadamia cookie (the cookie people are only open from 7pm to 2am and deliver right to you. I have not used this service yet but I imagine that, at some point in my four years here, I will).

A friend and I needed to go to the supermarket for groceries (and ended up spending way too much money on stupid things like ice cream and chocolate), but stopped at the city bakery on the way. She had a plain roast beef sandwich that I almost wanted to eat myself, and I had a chicken cutlet sandwich with provolone cheese and basil mayonnaise. So simple but so good. And the pickle was nice and crunchy, because floppy pickles suck.

During our grocery shopping adventures, I decided I needed ice cream, and even though I've tried Ben & Jerry's "Schweddy Balls" and liked it (it's Whoppers candy in ice cream, how can you not like it?), I decided to go with a new flavor, hence "Late Night Snack". In case the label is too small to read, it's vanilla bean ice cream with a caramel swirl and, no joke, chocolate-covered potato chip balls. It's a surprisingly good combination of sweet and salty, plus most of the potato chip balls are still crunchy and aren't as overpoweringly salty as you'd think. I'd definitely recommend it.

And for my final masterpiece, the honors program held their annual ice cream social tonight, and this lovely conglomerate of five scoops of ice cream and seven toppings was my dinner. And yes, I bothered to keep track. One scoop each of a chocolate mint Oreo, chocolate-covered strawberry, chocolate with brownie bits, chocolate chip cookie dough (noticing a pattern?) and that ubiquitous "insert-animal-here tracks," topped with whipped cream, chocolate syrup, Reese's pieces, M&Ms, mini chocolate chips, butterscotch chips and pretzels.

Before you ask, I am not planning on becoming a food critic. It would be really hard for me to tell someone that their food sucked, even if it did. I might be willing to do one of those shows where the host gets to travel all over the place and eat...

Adventure 11 - Simplicity

One thing I've learned in my time at college is that, among all the chaos of class and homework and clubs and whatnot, you develop an appreciation for the simple things in life, those hidden gems that are often overshadowed by the hustle and bustle of the university system.

Take my photography for example. It's not professional by any means, and I have a bad tendency to take pictures of the same things, but my decision to focus on nature isn't only because that's all we have up here (though it certainly doesn't help). Nature is just... there. It doesn't try to be anything, it doesn't require special circumstances, and it's a slow but certainly dynamic change throughout the year. Unfortunately, my foliage pictures that would prove that last point are of a corner of campus not documented earlier in the semester so I can't create a proper comparison, but my point still stands. Feel free to click on any for a larger pic.

These first four were taken on campus, and I picked the sunsets in three because of the colors they produce. The clouds one is one of many that I have; cirrus clouds always make for cool pictures, in my opinion.

The next three were taken at a local nature center that I went to through the school's honors program. We definitely have a lot of rocks back home, but there isn't much slate, and I find it fascinating the way it cuts itself almost perfectly. Also, waterfalls, enough said.

This is a picture of a waterfall just past the nature center, taken out of chronological order but I felt it fit with the nature theme. It might not seem like much, considering how far back I was, but keep in mind that this waterfall is 30 feet taller than Niagara Falls. I kid you not.

I chanced upon this tree on my way to class one morning. Note that I pass this tree every morning, yet I didn't bother to really notice it until I realized that it was this brilliant golden orange.

Another sunset, somewhat obstructed by the cloud cover, but I also like the lights.

Distance foliage, definitely more impressive in person but the picture gets some of it.

A random heron I passed on the way to work. It's been there the past few days.

I believe this is a drainage source, but again, the slate turns it into a nice, little waterfall.

And this one I save for last because it illustrates my hidden gem point. I took this on the way to work, and I have to walk through some... not necessarily sketchy but certainly run-down areas of town. This flower is proof that you can find beauty in unexpected places.

Next post: the foodie issue. 

Adventure 10 - 171 Steps

171 steps to get to my hideout in the 5th floor of the library, though I'm sure that I've done far more than that going up and down the stairs trying to find the books I was looking for.

Aside from the flipping of pages, the clicking of keys and me just being naturally noisy, it's perfectly quiet, and so much more so than the other levels of the library. It's such a nice change from my dorm; it's the honors building, so it's not terribly noisy, but I like the ability to unadulteratedly listen to my own music, read my own books and do my own thing.

Libraries, and books for that matter, have been an escape of sorts for me for a significant portion of my life. Once softball ended last spring, I spent every afternoon in the town library. It wasn't like I had any homework (let's be real, I was a second semester senior, we did absolutely nothing). I just liked the solitude that, while no one was home when I would have gotten home at the normal time, I couldn't get at home. And even though my town library wasn't anything to write home about, I could go in there every day and still find something new to look at. So now that I'm at a library that has... well, a lot more books, I think I'm going to find quite the living here. (Not to mention that they use the Library of Congress-type organization which is confusing as hell for me, so I'll spend more time searching for my book and wind up finding other stuff along the way.)

Also, please tell me this isn't cool and terrifying at the same time.

Adventure 9 - The Joys of Happenstances

Because if happenstances didn't... well, happen... I wouldn't have had the opportunity to go pantyhose shopping with a complete stranger yesterday.

This weekend is a hee-uge apple festival in the city, which means that the public transportation system was one big CF. The fact that it's consistently late isn't a problem because I usually rely on it being late, but you would think that, if this festival has been going on for longer than I've been alive, they would put more buses in service this weekend. Opinions aside, by the time the bus got to the stop, it was not only 20 minutes late or so but also completely full so we couldn't get on anyway.

I mentioned as a bit of an external thought process that I wasn't even going to the festival and instead needed to go to Walmart/Lowe's, and the guy standing next to me said that he had to also. I suggested walking down to the transfer bus stop (it's not a direct route from the school), and lo-and-behold, my trip with a complete stranger begins. It turned into the best decision I made all day.

Ok, maybe stopping into Dunkin Donuts on the way back for some hot chocolate was the best decision, but this was a close second and my hot chocolate wouldn't have happened without it.


It turned out that my new complete stranger friend is also a journalism major, and that he needed to go to Walmart to pick up costume supplies for our school's annual production of Rocky Horror, hence why he was the one buying pantyhose and I was the one buying wooden dowels. He apologized that our meeting had to be over something weird on his part, but then again, I was the one making wooden spears for a class project, so it wasn't a big deal.

It was pretty dreary out; Mother Nature wasn't sure if she wanted it to rain or just be cloudy, so it was an on-again-off-again drizzle, but it wasn't bad to walk in. It's about a mile and a half down to where we would have had to catch the bus, but we decided to walk through the festival and just walk the additional mile and a half to Walmart instead of trying to work through the public transportation CF.

Dunkin Donuts was an impromptu decision on the way back because the traditional cold weather of upstate New York decided to kick in and I was starting to lose feeling in my fingertips. We eventually decided just to walk all the way back since the bus back to the school would only take 14 more people and we didn't have much to carry; good decision in terms of exercise, bad decision in terms of my exercise-induced asthma.

We ate dinner together, and it was a really nice course of events that wouldn't have happened had the bus been cooperative. It was really nice being able to talk to someone who, until a few hours before, I had never met.

Adventure 8 - Falling Apart

Let's just say September was not a good time for the Sox.

Then again, the entire season hasn't really been a good time for the Sox.

Not all of that was their fault. Injuries happen to the best, worst and in-between of players. However, it doesn't cover up the fact that it seemed like no one on the team showed up to the games this past month.

Take Wednesday night for example. Wednesday night was nothing shy of downright embarrassing, and I'm a little annoyed that I stayed up that late on a school night to watch such a poor performance. As a somewhat sport-familiar person, I take nothing for granted, especially leads. I feel that, yes, the Sox could have definitely played better this month, but it's hard to designate specific players to blame for what happened because a lot of the game is left up to chance and no one is perfect. That blown save is proof of this. You can be mad about blowing the lead and the Wild Card, and you can blame Papelbon, God or your next-door neighbor, but it won't change the fact that they lost and ended the season in what is probably the worst possible fashion (though the Yankees blowing their 7-run lead was pretty spectacularly bad as well.)

Now that Francona is leaving the team, the team is going to undergo a lot of changes, and I'm a little worried about how the team will fit together. Tito has been the manager as long as I've been watching, and he managed the '04 and '07 teams, so it's not as if he isn't physically capable of doing his job well. I certainly respect his decision, but Varitek isn't getting any younger, and with the possibility that he might be retiring soon as well, this upcoming winter could potentially pose a large problem in terms of leadership on the team.

Every team goes through some shifting, shuffling and occasionally a complete revamping. Sometimes it works, and other times it doesn't. Here's to hoping 2012 will be better.

Adventure 7 - Futility

Learning that your intended major has, on average, a 60% job rate after graduation will dampen your mood pretty quickly. Especially when your college doesn't have the other aspect that you're interested in and could also help you get that job.

I hate these existential crises. They happen, I think I solve them, life is good for a while and then they're back.

Adventure 6 - Self-Sustainment

As a college student, I have a reasonable stash of food in my room, mostly consisting of carbs like cereal, Ritz crackers and ramen. (Don't judge, you know you did it too.) When I ran out of milk on Saturday, I took advantage of my grandparents being in town and asked them to bring me to the local supermarket after lunch. Between that trip and my impromptu trip today, I learned a few things about food.

1. I have definitely taken advantage of knowing where everything is back home. Obviously things differ a little from store to store within a chain, but starting over with a completely new company makes life really confusing. Thus, no fruit snacks for me today.
2. Buying items like loose candy or dried fruit in bulk is a neat concept, but not when you can't scoop the little chunks of whatever out of the bin. I probably destroyed far too many dried pineapple tidbits than I should've because they kept sticking to the scoop and making it impossible to pick up.
3. The store I went to is a decently large store, so they have a killer international section. What I don't get is how they could sell Pocky but not coffee syrup. Pocky is from Japan. Coffee syrup is a New England thing. I am in New York. This does not compute.