Pecan Pie, Blood, and Threats

I had pecan pie and apple pie at my scholarship donors home yesterday. Whew, it was yummy. Their daughter owns a bakery and certainly lives up to the title. We also had veggie wraps and sandwiches. There were the other scholarship recipients, including the guy who won this past year --- and he goes to Cornell too. So, I met a lot of fabulous dancers/artists who went to LaGuardia: Amber, Jaime, Quincy, and Vincent and the Stuy alum: Frankie, Chin, and Connie (?). Man, it was like a little family reunion. Tara and Sari were also there. Their Riverside apartment is fabulous --- with lovely views of the Hudson river. We sang "Willow" --- which was Tara's song that she had to sing to graduate from Brooklyn Tech, hahaha. We also took a lot of photos for the Stuy Alum Newsletter and such.
Also, I survived being around a dog. She kept on walking around us. Granted the dog was about the size of my head, it was a pretty big accomplishment for me!

Oh, I had an incident when my umbrella attacked me and I started bleeding while I was waiting for the train. Blood was on the umbrella, on my jacket, and eventually on my gloves. The guy who sat down next to me saw my bleeding finger and got up and left. I felt like I had just been in a movie and committed some murder, leaving the scene of the crime on the subway with my finger covered up with some random tissue I had in my pocket. It was weird.

Oh, I also witness some of the hostility between nurses and doctors firsthand today. Apparently, a doctor had "pushed" a nurse out of the path of a patient who was taking some sort of walking test and the nurse got all defensive, saying stuff like "I'll see you outside" and the doctor reply, "Yah, right." Sure, manners matter, but the doctor did say "Excuse me" and the nurse was in the way of the test proceedings, but did it have to end up being a shouting match in the middle of the hospital?

We got some halal chinese food and bought more puzzle today now that the 1000 piece that we started last week is done.

Bowling Mission Impossible

We were going to go ice skating today. But then I remembered the last time I ice skated, this past summer in Lynah as an RA. I was so bad that my residents had to hold my hand while I slowly made my way around the rink. It was fun, but not worth paying for. So, we decided to go bowling at this bowling alley that we went to before last summer.

My cousins rode the bus all the way to our neighborhood. After showing them the hilarious videos from the birthday party they missed (i.e. Rod "backing dat a** up" amongst crazy Bengali girls twirling their hair and having a lot of fun), and giving them cake, we walked all the way to Middletown to go the bowling alley. Only another train stop away, and it was a nice day so the walk was nice. When we finally got to Middletown, we had to walk around this construction site; we wondered what they were building, but kep on walking. Then, we saw it --- our beloved bowling alley had turned into merely a parking log and the building next door was going to be a medical office. Drat! We have been away from the Bronx way too long.

After laughing about the whole situation, we walked back home --- picked up some real Bronx pizza and borrowed some movies from the library. We watched the old version of the Parent Trap with Haley Mills (remember that she played the teacher on Saved By the Bell years later).

Home!

I have been home for over a week, and no blogging as of yet. I just don't like to write about myself. But here goes:

Trip Home:
I took the 4am sketchy Shortline bus. Of course, it was even sketchier because it was at 4am. The bus driver came late. He stoppped at the Shortstop diner for coffee. He stopped at Ithaca bus terminal. People started leaving to buy their tickets (as it was Saturday, and the Student Agencies does not sell Saturday tickets there --- though I thankfully passed my own ticket as a Saturday ticker). The bus driver decided to not stay at the terminal because it would take too long for the oldest credit card machine in history to sell over 35 bus tickets to sleepy college kids and he did not want to wait. So he urged the kids back on the bus. We went to Bing. Then, there was a slight commotion between the bus drivers and the management who apparently did not like the fact that my driver left Ithaca without selling bus tickets. And then another bus driver wanted to go express to NYC, and so he wanted to move some luggage and passengers on another bus if they were going to a no-name town. Anyway, I slept for most of the ride and woke up the the NYC skyline. Sweet.

Sis came back on Monday.
Her birthday party on Saturday, Christmas Eve.
BUT before then: NYC TRANSIT STRIKE.

For real -- after weeks of talk of transit strike, it actually happened, it was for 3 days. Ma couldn't go to work. People walked over bridges to get to work. Cars had to carry 4 passengers to get below 96th Street before 11am. My cousin came and stayed with us for a few days since her high school is right near our nieghborhood and she couldn't take a bus to school. It was fun. We watched movies: Ek Khiladi Ek Haseena and Dus. Both had some twists like whoa.

We also decorated the house for the party with crepe paper and lanyard. We made a sort of tent-like structure with lanyard in the kitchen when we ran out of streamers. Oh, and we made a disco ball out of a balloon, cut-paper-circles, and glitter that I have had since the 8th grade.

So for the 18th birthday party---The neighbors and friends came over. G12 took all our food, but at least they were well-behaved. The twin girls came over. So cute when they sang Britney Spears songs. Aaje Nachle was the big hit, as usual. We played board games, watched dance songs, and oohed and ahhh over the beginning of our 1000 piece puzzle. OH, and really chocolate cake with strawberries. She got lovely gifts, and I even got some purple earrings! Fun times.

Since then, we have been working on the puzzle. We are almost done with the 1000 pieces. It is a scene of a lighthouse on a coast line. I worked on the water for over 2 hours yesterday. My back hurt, but I really accomplished a lot. We hope to finish it tonight before my cousins come by tomorrow. Shej is going to be so shocked to find that the puzzle that we started with her a week ago is now done! :::keeping my fingers crossed:::::

Finals Week

Oh, one more to go!
Then I can watch all the 24 as guilt-free as possible. I am currently in the middle of the second season. I just saw the episode where the body of the mother was found in the trunk of the sports car that Kim Bauer and her relatively good-looking boyfriend stole in the process of rescuing/kidnapping the girl that Kim baby-sits. OMG! How much more wrong can happen to them? They just want to save the young girl from her abusive father and get to Aunt Carol's house outside of Los Angeles which is in danger of being in middle of a nuclear attack.

Can you see why I like this show? -- All this is happening in ONE DAY!
What do I do in one day?
Like today:
I woke up. I cleaned up, usual brushing of teeth, washing of face.
I ate cereal.
I studied for my exam.
I took my exam.
I ate a burrito and macaroni and cheese.
I put away my book for my previous exam, and am about to begin studying for my final tomorrow.

All right, peace out.