Taste Test

I am officially finished with four out of the seven semesters of this nurse anesthesia program - over half way! Since clinicals have started time is flying because we are so busy. We have class on Mondays and then we work Tuesday - Friday. Weekends are reserved for studying, doing laundry and catching up on sleep. Monday evenings after class have become a good catch-up day for me and my classmates since we are spread all over Manhattan during the week. A few weeks ago we decided to go to Emily's apartment after class and make dinner. We were at the grocery store when one of my classmates, Eric, said he wanted some chocolate chip cookies and as he was reaching for the Tollhouse brand dough I spotted some ShopRite dough and insisted that we get that instead (that is Chuck's brand, his company supplies one of our local groceries, Gristedes, with ShopRite products). Eric did not believe that ShopRite cookie dough could hold a flame to Tollhouse so we decided to get both brands and have a blind taste test! I would like to proudly report that every person at the meal picked the ShopRite cookies as being superior to the Tollhouse cookies :)

The taste test in action.

L to R: Emily, Paige, Eric, Kim

South Africa

Girls Weekend

I got out of the hospital around three on Friday afternoon and called Katie to convince her to escape her office a bit early and come meet me at the Pig 'n Whistle which is a pub near her apartment. Sheldon was out of town for his bachelor party so we decided to have a girls weekend! After Pig 'n Whistle we stopped by PJ Clarke's (another bar) for some appetizers before picking up a pizza and then heading back to her apartment to watch Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1 in preparation for going to see the final film! We woke up Saturday, and grabbed some bacon, egg and cheese breakfast sandwiches on our way to the movie which was AMAZING. After the movie (and a fair amount of candy to wash down those breakfast sandwiches) we spent the afternoon at a spa, soaking in lemon, ginger and cucumber infused pools; rotating between the hot and dry saunas; getting full body exfoliation (it was like when they rub the pumice stone on your feet when you get a pedicure but they did it over our entire bodies - I have never been so soft!); and finishing up with massages. We ended the afternoon reading in Bryant Park and then went back to her apartment to cook dinner, watch The Glee Project and play Dominon. All-in-all I would say it was a pretty awesome girls weekend!

Fire Island

Last weekend Emily (one of the other students in the anesthesia program) and I went to visit one of the former anesthesia students (she switched to the Nurse Practitioner program at Columbia) Kim at her summer beach house on Fire Island. We woke up early Saturday and took the Long Island Railroad to Babylon where we got on a ferry to Ocean Beach. Kim is renting a room in a beach house on Fire Island for four weekends this summer. There wasn't room for us to stay overnight but we made the most of our day by arriving at the beach around 9am and then leaving on the ferry at 9pm right after sunset! The beach was beautiful, there were huge waves and soft sand and don't worry mom, I think I re-applied my 45 SPF sunscreen about 5 times to keep me pale skin from burning after 12 months of sitting in libraries and ORs every day :)

L to R: Paige, Kim, Emily

"Mmmmm Chicken Nuggets"

New Chicks arrive by mail!

We got two types of birds. One is a Chinese Silkie...which we will keep as pets. They will end up looking like little snow men. The others are the "meat" birds which we will keep until they are about 12 weeks old. The one in front is the Silkie.
This is how the chicks arrived at the post office this morning.

4th of July in CT

I went up to see Chuck over the holiday weekend and we went hiking to the Heublein Tower and then tubing down the Farmington River! It was a wonderful weekend :)