[tiffy trying] to get used to the routine

and the routine thus far looks like this: 

[where the magic happens. and by "magic" i mean

procrastination]

[routine: (new) food for the mind + 

(leftover) food for the body]

[i don't care how cold it is, ice cream is therapeutic]

no long paragraphs today. my day was long and i am le tired.

<3,

Tiffy

[tiffy trying] maryland!

Yesterday was a pretty eventful, fun-filled Monday. Jela, my cousin's gf is in DC for a few days and wanted to meet up for lunch. We decided to meet up at the Starbucks nearby then walk around the area and figure out where we could eat. I ended up walking to the wrong Starbucks because there apparently are quite a number of Starbucks cafes in my area. Eventually I found her and she introduced me to her niece, Nica, who was with her, who apparently works in my area.

We then decided on a whim to head over to Bethesda, Maryland for lunch since I haven't really ventured out of my little DC bubble. To be honest, with the weather being as ridiculous as it was over the last few days, I've barely ventured out of my apartment! So off to the train station and to Maryland we three went.

I've only been to Maryland once and it was a very quick overnight stay. I had visited one of my bestfriends in Baltimore and I didn't get to see much of the city other than her apartment, bits and pieces of her campus, and her boyfriend's family's house.

We ended up lunching at Nando's Peri Peri which is a fairly famous Portuguese chicken chain that they both frequent quite a bit. Funny story, when I was looking up possible restaurants to dine in, this was one of the options that stood out on my list because it sounded pretty interesting. The chicken was really flavorful with a nice, spicy kick. The sides were yummy too- spicy rice and creamy mashed potatoes.

For dessert I wanted to try out Georgetown Cupcake (DC's famous cupcakery) and we devoured the four flavors we ended up buying- Toffee Crunch, Red Velvet, Caramel Praline Crunch, and Cookies and Cream. We washed it down with coffee (green tea for me since I was already wired on sugar) and decided to catch a 3pm movie. We ended up watching Hansel and Gretel which... wasn't great... but wasn't that bad either. Really action packed and highly entertaining. We also found a photo booth nearby and ended up taking (and overpaying for) silly pictures of ourselves. Not bad for a Monday afternoon.

[pretty in pink! check out the bling on that mixer!]

[L-R top: toffee crunch, red velvet

L-R bottom: cookies & cream, caramel praline crunch] 

After this, we went back to DC where Nica's parents picked us all up (they were on their way to their son's birthday dinner) and insisted on dropping me off at my apartment just to be on the safe side. All in all, a really great way to spend a random Monday afternoon. Jela and Nica were so much fun to talk to and were so bubbly and cheery to be with. Considering that I had only met Jela once prior to yesterday's lunch, and it was my first time to meet Nica, it's pretty cool that we got along so well.

The rest of my night was spent doing the usual nightly routine- catching up on emails, talking to my mom on the phone, and working on homework (with the usual internet distraction thrown in).

<3,
Tiffy

[tiffy trying] neighborhood restaurants

For the rest of the weekend, K and I decided to try out some of the restaurants in DC since I haven't had a chance to venture out and explore yet. Here are some pictures from our Saturdate and Sunday Brunch.

[duk bokki and bulgogi at mandu]

[grilled pork chops w/ 2 sunny side up eggs and

corned beef hash w/ fries from trio]

[breakfast of (indecisive) champions: 

buttered wheat toast with grape jam on one side

and strawberry jam on the other side]

After brunch, K needed to head back to NY *sad face* so I packed him a little corny, dorky snack for the ride. 

["be mine clementines" and "ham & cheesy sandwich]

The rest of my afternoon was spent doing never-ending chores (this apartment gets really dusty really quickly for some reason) and now I'm doing homework (while getting distracted by the internet as usual).

[OC housebunny chore for the day: labeling all the food 

in my fridge w/ their expiration dates]

[found my to-do list for this weekend's meals.

good thing we ate out on Sat!]

<3,
Tiffy

[tiffy trying] work-life balance

Make that (home)work-life balance.

Yesterday was a full day of homework. Graduate school so far seems to be a process of surfing through a sea of reading. The reading assignments, admittedly, are extremely interesting and I am learning so much. Instead of just skimming through the text I find myself highlighting and taking copious notes on some topics because I feel like these will be useful information to refer back to in the future (although ideally I know I ought to commit those to memory).

It was also a day of household chores and cooking. K is visiting this weekend and he's been fixing up around the apartment because I've seemingly been behaving like a baby bull in a china shop. He's fixed the space heater, the sink drain, and my curtain rod. He's also attempted to seal the air leaks in the apartment but some cracks are trickier to deal with than others. And he did this while managing a full day's work of spreadsheets and conference calls and I had my full day of homework.

[K doing work, K buying things at the hardware store,

K fixing things]

In between homework, I tried to be a good little housebunny and cook. I'm still stubbornly resisting going down the takeout/delivery route and instead opting for the healthy cooking route. I succeeded at doing this for lunch, but dinner was a pretty unhealthy feast of bacon and carbs. As you can see I was in a bit of a tomato mood.

[tomato-basil soup, grilled cheese sandwich w/ brie, 

& a side salad w/ turkey bits & sesame-ginger dressing]

[bacon brussel sprouts, chicken parmigiano, spaghetti marinara,

& a bottle of cheap (but yummy) moscato]

I ended up finishing homework (for the day, there's still a lot more reading to do) at around 11pm and we watched the tail end of Ocean's 13 on TV before calling it a night.


<3,
Tiffy

[tiffy trying] to acclimatize

As much as I love snowboarding, I really dislike winter. I'm not comfortable with below zero temperatures, wind chill feels like invisible ninjas slapping exposed skin repeatedly, and slush looks and feels very gross.

But on mornings like this, I can admit that winter can be really pretty in its peaceful serenity. The light dusting of snow over the buildings and streets reminds me of confectioner's sugar sprinkled on little desserts.

[hallo, pretty street. you remind me of gingerbread houses

photo taken at 6:41am]

[pretty weather widget]

I had another productive day today. I did laundry, did more cleaning, did some homework in the library, and attended my Thursday night class. This class was on Persuasion and it's the professor's first time teaching this particular course. She typically teaches a different course but my uni wanted to rehaul this course and they picked her to run it. Based on first impressions she seems like a great professor- she kept the class engaged and also managed to give off the facade of being pretty chilled out and reasonable. For every 1st class I attend, it seems that each student is required to share an anecdote as a means to introduce himself/herself to the rest of the group. For this class, she mixed it up a little bit by asking people to narrate an incident where they successfully managed to use their powers of persuasion. She encouraged everyone to be open and to keep it interesting (and preferably scandalous) and even revealed a funny, personal story of her own.

I ended up telling the class about my little personal story last November when I managed to convince my parents to let me fly to New York to get back with K (and to lock down an apartment for grad school) and when I also managed to persuade K to take me back after I broke it off with him for rather stupid reasons.

My classmates were shocked to say the least because the story was pretty juicy, and having lived to tell the tale I can attest to how dramatic the whole thing was. There was culture and back story and love and conflict and travel and it was quite surreal (a story I'll probably get into at some later point in time). Needless to say, I guess I made a pretty memorable mark during my first day in this class.

Some more pics of my day:

[trying to get a little more adventurous w/ lunch- 

honey ham w/ pepper jack cheese & assorted greens

on italian bread & a mug of vanilla almond milk]

[hitting the books already #supanerd]

<3,
Tiffy

[tiffy trying] out day 1 of grad school

Today was quite the eventful day.

My day started at 4am. The fire alarm in my building decided to have a full-on meltdown blaring for about an hour triggered by something that did not even happen in the building! It had something to do with the pizza smoke from the 7-11 next door. To make matters worse, the building super and the firemen who were called to the scene could not seem to find the kill switch. So the building residents and I stood in the lobby (since the threat wasn't from our building and it was just so ridiculously cold at -9°C outside) for a long while before the ear-splitting wailing finally stopped and we could return to our apartments.

Silver lining though- I managed to capture a pretty sweet night shot of my neighborhood and I found out that my neighborhood has a super cute corgi. Corgis bring me inordinate amounts of joy with their fluffy, stumpy legs and happy smiles. So adorable!

[corgi butt and fire truck picture taken by me on instagram]

[top: view from my apartment window

bottom: view from the lobby]

I managed to get a few hours of shut eye before I woke up and did errands- cleaned, washed dishes, organized stuff, retrieved mail, and prepared breakfast and lunch. I headed to the library before class to check out the amenities (I need internet in case my connection in the apartment goes down), then went off to attend my first class of the semester.

[breakfast of cheap, sleep-deprived champions: 

peach yogurt w/ granola and raisins]

Class was pretty great. There are 16 of us in my Organizational Communication course. The professor seems like the kind of lady who walks the talk and really emphasizes mixing theory with actual, real world application which I think is awesome. She facilitated healthy discussion in the class and tried to get students to voice their opinions and respond to other people's observations and contributions. My 15 other classmates come from diverse backgrounds- healthcare, politics, and education. I seem to be in the minority coming from a business background. Embarrassingly, I had a little bout with "stage fright" earlier in class today which has never happened to me before. I tried to contribute to the discussion but I flushed bright red and felt hot and completely uncomfortable. I'm just glad I didn't stutter or say anything silly (or get tourettes because that would suck).

After class I walked over to the grocery store to get some food for the weekend. The walk over was really cold because the sun was gone by then and the wind was really painful. Juggling my book bag, my handbag, and 3 grocery bags while wrestling with my keys and the weather was not the most ideal way to end the day. But as I'm sitting here on my couch, wrapped up in a blanket, watching Big Bang Theory reruns on TBS, and typing on my laptop, I'm struck by how quickly and how much things have changed, and how much I am strangely enjoying it. I'm attending class, doing homework, and preparing my own dinners (I'm giving myself some points for not having succumbed to take out/ delivery yet). It's somewhat surreal and yet really cool at the same time and for the first time in a really long time, I feel very mature and very grown up.

I also feel very, very cold. But I'll take my little victories wherever I can get them! :)

[little victory case in point: my sweet phone case w/c just came in the mail. 

I love it because it reminds me of storm troopers!]

<3,
Tiffy

[tiffy trying] to start new adventures

I had grand plans of starting this blog on January 1, 2013. I thought it would be rather fitting for me to start the new year with a new blog. There's something about fresh starts and the clean slates that come with new beginnings that seem to attract all manner of ambitious undertakings.

As it turns out, it is now January 22, 2013. Well, so much for THAT grand plan. But better late than never, right?

My new adventures actually started last week when (1) I packed up some of my worldly belongings and moved halfway across the world to (2) become a "starving student," aka attend graduate school full time. I did not always want to attend grad school. After years of being out of the academic world, it is a little intimidating to return to the world of lectures, homeworks, papers, and tests. But after much pondering and somewhat (over)dramatic soul searching, I finally came to the conclusion that this was indeed something I wanted to pursue. The nerd is strong in this one.

Those two decisions eventually led me to new adventure #3 - being a domestic girlfriend again after 4 long years of international long distance with my boyfriend of five years, K. While we are still not going to be living in the same US state, being a 4.5 hour bus ride away from each other is much, much better than being an 18 hour plane ride away. There's also something to be said about finally being in the same time zone again.

It is with a lot of excitement (and anxiety) that I've decided to TRY to chronicle my new adventures on a public space. From graduate school to living on my own for the first time, to in-person date nights with the boyfriend, it's bound to be an eventful ride. I'm going to be trying and failing and trying and succeeding at a whole slew of activities and projects, and hopefully, I'll come out of these experiences older and wiser (and more or less unscathed) - just like most folks believe themselves to be at the end of every long year and the dawn of each new one.

Cheers! :)

[gorgeous morning view outside the window of my NY--> DC bus ride]

<3, 

Tiffy