I have to fry my own bacon.

This is devastating.

Also my rate of consumption of eggs is getting ridiculous.

(Kerry: They’re fried not poached!)

My Most Exciting Non-Exciting Weekend Ever

Since this weekend was a holiday, I decided to do some exciting things. But now that I look back on it, yesterday was pretty uneventful and here’s why:

I started off by going to the Starbucks on campus. I needed to load some photos for a photo book that I’m working on and thought that the internet at school would be way faster and I would be done super quick (except for the fact that I had 600 photos but never mind about that.) The Starbucks is huge compared to any of the Starbucks at the U of A. It takes up a good chunk of the basement of the 1920’s commons building. They even have a fireplace!

It started out great. The pictures were uploading super quickly and I thought I would have been out of there before lunch. But then all of a sudden I had a giant allergic reaction to something. My eyes got super itchy and my nose would not stop running so I basically ran out of the Starbucks. I still have no idea what happened. (Maybe my random cat allergy is back…)

So basically I got home and I just felt super sick… and that’s when I decided to get Netflix…which is the most exciting thing for me (Canadian Netflix is terrible). Anyways so to complete my horrid day, I just stayed at home on the couch and watched Once Upon a Time.

Seriously Netflix, it isn’t even fair that you only give me 15 seconds to decide whether I want to watch another episode or not.

Oooh also Mark went home so he let me fishsit, another thing that’s super exciting but not really:

Minute to Win It

Yesterday was the Alpha Omega’s Minute to Win It Competition. The D1s were split into different teams and teams would nominate one or two people to complete minute long challenges. Some of the games included trying to stack chapsticks on top of each other using only a pair of chopsticks, or trying to stack die onto a tongue depressor in your mouth.

For my challenge, I was supposed to make Ivan into a mummy. We had a pretty awesome tactic (he span in circles and I unrolled toilet paper). I was pretty sure that we won but apparently another team just beat us =(

Me posing with my tp =)

The Ivan mummy!

Even though our team wasn’t close to winning, we still had a great time! Thanks to Alpha Omega for hosting such an awesome event!

Also, I love the 3 of the Canadians have Herschel bags:

Oh! and American chips are very different:

Hummus

Today I met up with my big sib (a D2) and we went to get lunch from Hummus! (40th and Walnut).
I’ve heard a ton of people say that the food was really good so today I tried the chicken shawarma sandwich.

The chicken was super moist and tasty, and I think that I’ll definitely go back!

Definitely fresh, delicious and nutritious!

There’s snow place like home

Today was the first day that we had “real” lecture. Was it harder than what I expected it to be? A million times over. Is first year going to be the worst year of my life? Yes it will be. Second year better not be crazier than this.
We started out this morning with embryology. Before class it looked great! 21 slides…. 2 hour class… it was going to be a blast. Then Dr. White started lecturing and I think I had a panic attack. Don’t get me wrong… Dr. White is probably one of the best lecturers that I’ve ever had. He takes the time to explain things, he repeats key concepts 2 or 3 times, and he even throws in a little joke here and there. The problem was how darn fast the lecture was moving.

Here were my notes for just three slides:

And that wasn’t even my intense course! Biochemistry was loads worse. So let’s not even talk about it.

On a more positive note I had poached eggs and avocado toast for lunch! (I went home since I had an hour break.)

This evening I also went to the grad student reception hosted by the University’s President. I’m extremely glad I went because it ended up being quite swanky! They catered sushi and it was quite delicious =)

They also had different services booths set up, so the hoarding side of my personality was quite happy. I now am the proud owner of more toothpaste and another toothbrush, 2 Penn lanyards, a GAPSA Tshirt, a rape whistle (the campus is in West Philly), pens and….. AN AMERICAN FLAG. The flag is definitely the weirdest thing that I have ever gotten for free at an event, so naturally I had to have one.

Did I mention that it’s over 30 90 degrees over here?
I must now go lie down in front of my fan and think about snow.

Dinner Parties and Other Shenanigans

Yesterday was my friend Sejal’s birthday, so for lunch we headed over to Hip City Veg, a vegetarian restaurant right next to the school. The food was absolutely amazing! One of the guys in my class has actually gone there three times… and he isn’t even vegetarian!

I had their version of the Philly Cheese Steak. Though it doesn’t taste like a cheese steak, I thought it was amazing on its own. It was like the healthy alternative of cheese steak. I know that this is usually where I insert a photo of said food item but I was really hungry… and I might have gotten a little overwhelmed with school starting….

But here’s gorgeous Sejal with her birthday cupcake

Later that evening we headed over to Mad Mex for dinner and margaritas. Except they have the weirdest rule that if not everyone at the table has ID then nobody can have alcohol. I’ve never heard of a rule like that before and we were wondering if it was to prevent underage drinking since it’s in the university area. Anyways Liz and I split a giant platter of nachos

Sorry, the lighting is absolutely terrible mainly because they insist on only lighting the restaurant with these baby pepper lights. Completely adorable but completely useless.

We had tons of fun and most of the class came out to celebrate!

Tonight we also had a dinner party. Mark made curry tonight and it was heavenly! We invited some people over to the house and it was a blast!

I’m super happy that my house is so awesome!

Yesterday was the very first OFFICIAL day of class and my housemate Mark made us breakfast. He made whole wheat pancakes (from scratch!) as well as banana pancakes. (I made scrambled eggs but they kinda pale in comparison to homemade pancakes.)

I’m pretty short and I had to get the guys to crouch down in order to all fit in the photo with the food. (I have a lovely photo of them just standing there nicely.) Yingfei (the architect) also joined us for breakfast, but he doesn’t start classes till Wednesday.

Now I bet you’re all wondering what the first day of class was like… and I’m going to admit that it was a bit of a let down. We were supposed to have two 2 hour long classes scheduled for yesterday, but we only covered the syllabus. Class ended up being really short and I was sad because I was a tiny bit excited to get started.

But now we have a holiday for a day! I know.. dental school is so difficult.

The Fambam!

We’re all finally together!

From L-R, the best housemates ever: Mark, Gary, Jing, Me, Jeemin, and Min
(Ok so it wasn’t really left to right and more like a curving circle)

Penn Pride

Today, Mark, Liz and I went out to explore campus a bit. On our way to school, we passed by these little kids selling lemonade virgin mojitos. I kid you not… these little tykes were offering virgin mojitos for $1.50. Apparently, it was the most popular drink at the stand today. They had a lime juicer, some kind of syrup, tons of ice, and topped it all off with “mint right from their garden”. Earlier they had told Liz that the mint would add a burst of flavor.

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Gosh they were so pretentious about selling their lemonade… I bet they’ve already submitted their applications to Wharton! Mark was super nice to them. They were very quick in putting that money away in their little toy cash register.

Our next stop was Ben and Jerry’s which is about a minute away from the dental school. Liz and I both got ice cream (I got Stephen Colbert’s Americone Dream).

It was delicious! It had caramel and chocolate covered waffle and other things. I’m going to have to be really careful about this place….

Next we stopped off at the Grad Student Center (after lazing around in the grass for a bit). They were running some kind of gnome hunt (the gnome is the grad center’s mascot). We were too late to join the hunt but we nabbed a photo with a little gnome!

The grad student center is a super cool place. They have free coffee and tea, and they also have a child play area with 2 of EVERY Hasbro toy ever created (hello alums!). They also have study areas but they weren’t open today so we’ll have to check back another day.

We also payed a visit to the Fisher Fine Arts Library. Apparently once upon a time they wanted to knock the building down because it was so different in design from the rest of the ‘ivy league’ buildings, but they eventually decided to keep it because the students loved it (thank goodness!)

It is absolutely gorgeous inside!

They also have cool mottos all around the study area such as this one: (I know it’s backwards)

And my all time favorite one:

“Some books are to be tasted. Others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.”

Our last stop for the day was the Penn book store where I got a PDM shirt!
(There’s also a sale on all champion clothing BOGO50%). It was definitely an awesome day and I can’t wait to start school tomorrow!

My Mother is the Cutest

The day my mom left, I had orientation so I didn’t get to see her right before she left 😦 But she left me the cutest notes next to my bed!

She even cut out little hearts from post it notes!

Seriously, my mommy is the best!!!