Blurbs From Eunee's Mind (and Life)

Today was the last day of classes for my first semester back in school, and I must say that I am relieved and happy about it, although I cannot believe that it's already over! I just checked my grades for my Biostats exam and I did quite well! I was so excited I called my friend Sylvia and jumped up and down, sharing the news with her. I'm so excited because I was quite anxious about this exam. My final grade hasn't been posted yet, but still, I got to see my grade for the final exam. Anyway, it is quite amazing to find myself at the end of my first semester. I have at least 7 more semesters to go before I'm finished, but hey, who's counting? Heh heh. I have adjusted to a new life and a new climate. It definitely is different out here, compared to southern California; and the weather? Well, let's just say that I laughed at myself when I told my friend this morning that it was a comfortable 43 degrees Fahrenheit, even with it feeling like 38. It's about 50-so...

Today is the 3rd time it has snowed since I have been here. You saw my first snow experience (or if you didn't, you can click here to see it). The 2nd one came and went in the blink of an eye - with no telltale signs that it had come at all. But today, it made its presence known. Have you been hearing about the severe storms that have been hitting the midwest? Well, we got it here today. This morning it was very pretty - and I bundled up in excitement. But in the time it took for me to get myself together and out the door, it quickly turned into tiny little pieces of ice - my classmate called it rock salt. Pretty accurate. By the time I got to campus, it had turned into lots of different sizes of pieces of ice, and the roads were slushy and slippery. I was walking to class from the parking lot and as is my habit when the umbrella is up, I listened to the sounds of ice bouncing off my umbrella, and I concluded that it was much noisier than rain. It didn't have that soothing sou...

When Sylvia was visiting me for the week of Thanksgiving, she told me one day that she needed caffeine in order to stay up for the rest of the night (we were going to be up late doing things so she figured caffeine would be of help). So I insisted that she try Dunkin' Donuts. I told her not to worry; she'd like it. So I took her and got her a small coffee with cream and sugar, and then I watched her try it for the first time. There's a picture of her at the bottom of this blog where she's got her eyes closed, enjoying her Dunkin' Donuts coffee. I remember one night (yes, she drank coffee more than once during the week she was here!), we got some coffee and I had to run to the bank. I parked and asked her if she wanted to come in with me; she said no. So then I asked her if she wanted me to leave the radio on. "No," she replied, "I'm just going to sit here and enjoy my coffee - just me and my coffee." Ummm....OK then! I laughed and left her al...

So I said that the train trip into Manhattan was a bit of an adventure because - of course - we took the train. We also happened to be heading into Manhattan on the day before Thanksgiving. When they called the Wednesday before Thanksgiving one of the biggest (or is it THE biggest?) traveling day of the year, I had no idea they also meant rail travel.... We had decided not to stress about catching an early train and thus got on the train maybe at about 1 p.m. To our amazement the train was packed!! Fortunately we had bought our tickets about an hour earlier so we did not have to stand in the looooong line for the ticket machines in the station! I had never seen it so packed!! It was primarily due to all those students going home after their last class (yes, we were catching the train from the Stony Brook station which is right on the edge of our campus). Oh joy.... As we piled into the double-decker train (as I call it), we grabbed a couple of empty seats - me several rows in front of ...

My dear friend Sylvia came to visit me the Saturday before Thanksgiving, and then left this past Saturday. It was so good to see her and to spend some time just having fun. While I did have work to do and had little sleep on some nights, we managed to squeeze in quite a bit of fun. =) The Saturday she arrived, I had to circle JFK 3 times because I couldn't find the terminal sidewalk where you pick up passengers, and then couldn't find her because she was waiting at a different terminal while I was looking for her at another. Thank goodness for cell phones. So finally, I circled again and then met her at a different terminal (she took the Air Train to Terminal 1 while I circled back). Joy oh joy. I am a bit irritated with the signage here in New York; they're not very clear and they're kinda last minute - you know, turn right here, RIGHT NOW because when you're going 45 miles an hour, you really don't need any preparation other than a small sign three feet before...

So the cold weather I was waiting for has arrived. The other night we had a freeze warning during the daybreak hours (3 a.m. to 8 a.m.) and the temperatures that night dipped down to 28 degrees! And with the decrease in temperature, I am happy to say there has been a decrease in crickets - outside AND inside. Granted it's not frequently that freezing, it's still chillier. It's definitely jacket-and-scarf weather, reaching maybe only a high of 50 - usually only in the mid to upper 40s. So it has been COLD for a native tropics and warm-weather kind of girl! BUT I must say that I'm adjusting alright and have not yet found myself bundling up till I feel like I can roll my way to class. I've heard it doesn't start getting too bad out here until mid-January, so maybe I can prolong my tire changes until December or something. We shall see. The leaves have changed colors, for those trees that do. The firs, of course, remain continuously green or white-tipped, making me ...

Although a change in weather will bring its own little concerns such as getting anti-freeze for my car and new tires to drive in snow (in the event it does snow soon), I am looking forward to it for several reasons, one of them being NO MORE CRICKETS. If the superstition that crickets are supposed to be good luck is true, I must have loads of luck to last me till January. I have had a steady stream of cricket invasions in my apartment over the last two months since I've been here. (Wow....can't believe it's been over 2 months already!) Anyway, while the situation has improved to where I can have several cricketless days, from time to time those little buggers still find their way in. One would hope that the word has spread - no cricket has ever left alive out of my apartment, save a couple that were fortunate enough to be in my kitchen because then the door is right there so I just sweep them out. Still I've pretty much had it. I was eating dinner last night and heard a...