Weekly Update #8

The headlines: Jenni's family's visit, Ultimate update, books, and it's cold!

As I mentioned last weekend, Jenni's dad, sister, and grandmother came to visit. We went out to dinner to the literally world-famous Moosewood vegetarian restaurant. The wait was a ridiculous hour and a half and the food wasn't really all that great, but I can now at least say I've been there.

Some members of the "Breakfast Club"
on a similar weekend outing.

The next day we brought them along to our weekly weekend breakfast with various other grad-students and friends. The venue was our fall-back: Waffle Frolic, a local waffle-oriented restaurant opened by some Ithaca College grads. I ventured to try the chili-cornbread waffle; the risk paid-off wonderfully.

We then went up to give a tour of the Cornell campus, mostly by car due to Grandma Jean's immobility. We did get out to see Jenni's lab and a few of the bridges crossing the larger gorge that runs through campus. I've never seen someone so impressed with waterfalls. Jean was litterally jumping around and smiling. The falls were truly impressive do to recent rains.

As the trees show, this is a picture of
Beebe Dam above Fall Creek in summer

Jenni's family left that afternoon. That evening I played in the weekly Ultimate game. The temperature was in the upper 30's, so when we weren't on the field, we we literally jogging in place to keep warm. Our team won handedly, most of our veteran players returning after their fall break absence.

As you may be able to tell, I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel trying to find things for this week's update; it was a slow week. There was much reading, studying, and cups of tea. I finally finished War & Peace nine months after starting it and then blew through Harry Potter 7 over the following 3 days (in preparation for Part I of the film incarnation which comes out in November.

The studying to which I referred is in regard to the MCAT which I have decided to retake both due to a need for more recent results by some schools and for a chance to improve my chances at applying this time around. After swallowing my pride, I am looking into taking one of those terribly overpriced but annoyingly effective Kaplan courses in preparation (donations are very welcome).