Julie's Photo Journal

I am a material girl.

2009-09-01T00:57:40Z

Stuff I got today:
SFS bag
SFS coffee cup with candy #1
SFS coffee cup with candy #2
An SFS lanyard so I can stop using my WNA one
Replacement Social Security card (I lost mine back in middle school)
2 pairs of jeans from AE
1 check from Bookholders.com for $138.97
1 $25 gift card from B&N (for accumulating points on my credit card)
A Mid-Atlantic tour book (including DC) and 7 different maps of DC from AAA
Replacement 1 cup coffee maker (so basic that no one sells it in stores anymore) from Target

Not pictured:
yummy free food and wine
confusing info about benefits

Cosmopolitan? No...

2009-08-24T18:05:03Z

Yesterday I successfully navigated the Metro and streets of DC all by myself (unless you count the one phone call to Matt). I walked to the Metro and successfully took it to the Metrocenter stop. I got off on the wrong side, but that didn’t detract from the pride I felt in my autonomy. I did some shopping then walked my purchases to the Museum of Natural History. I felt very DC-resident-ish when I arrived at the museum by myself amidst all the groups of tourists and went through the security check-in with my shopping bag. As the tourists talked excitedly with each other about the amazing variety of our ocean life, I nonchalantly mused over the exhibits, my bag slung over my shoulder in a very offhandish way. Then I walked about a mile through the city to Matt’s apartment, had dinner at a restaurant (founded by an Iraqi-American artist, activist and “restaurateur”) that pays tribute to Langston Hughes and other American poets, took the Metro back to Tenleytown, and walked home.

This morning I walked to Starbucks and ordered a Café Americano. I sat outside with my sophisticated choice and watched the old handicapped man with the Sherlock Holmes hat smoke the Sherlock Holmes pipe, smiled at the dogs that owners left out front (leashes hooked on the gate) while they went inside to get their coffees, and listened to two old men and a lady behind me converse about politics, utilizing fancy ivory-tower words with the same familiarly as the F-bomb. I felt very “in.”

A few times this past week, I have thought of that Simpsons episode where Lisa masquerades as a college student and ends up in a coffee bar / bookstore. She is all excited but trying not to seem so, and in her head she says with glee “there’s a cat on the table and nobody cares!” That’s me all over. I find myself feeling all cosmopolitan with my new activities, but also like a child who reads what she wrote in her diary last week and decides that she’s “so much more grown up now.” Because really, what truly cosmopolitan woman feels pride in using the subway successfully (especially when she ends up getting confused into taking an escalator down and then immediately back up because she went the wrong way), acts nonchalant on purpose, wonders how to pronounce “Café Americano,” and then goes home to blog about it? (Also, what cosmopolitan woman feels slightly like a fraud when referring to herself as a “woman” instead of a “girl”?)

And if it’s really not a big deal to see a dog left outside a Starbucks sitting next to an old man with a pipe and a funny hat, then why take pictures?

PBM at SFS!

2009-08-20T18:41:07Z

I wandered around campus a little today, and discovered a Paperbark Maple Tree!

The building in the background is where I'll be teaching.

Flickr

2009-07-18T23:47:56Z

Check out my new uploads on flickr!

Pray that the children don't hurt the babies.

2009-05-05T02:38:16Z

I've seen the momma goose on her nest often these past few weeks, and here is the result! That big one hissed at me in my car and gave chase a little when I drove away.

New place?

2009-05-03T19:14:17Z

Here's the floorplan of my new (maybe) studio apartment in a nice residential-y complex right across the street from Sidwell.

I can either have the couch or the comfy chair - one will have to go. The couch is really hard to get into and out of doors, so I'm not even sure I can get it in.

Forgotten yolk

2009-05-03T19:10:22Z

I put these eggs on to cook, then forgot about them for a while. When I remembered, I quickly pulled them off the heat and one of the yolks just popped right out! It jumped about a foot into the air and fell right back. Very cool.

Cherry Blossoms

2009-04-27T23:37:29Z

Maybe after years of living in DC I'll begin to see cherry trees blossoming in the spring without thinking of the cherry orchard behind B&L at UR, but I hope not! This one is on our campus right next to a very similar apple blossom tree, and there are a group of three (cherry) nearby. It's very nice.

Evolution

2009-04-26T04:39:08Z

During detention this morning, I discovered this very cool moth, who held still while I took a few macros. Last Saturday morning on duty!

Hilarious!

2009-04-24T03:17:42Z

Charlie (like most kittens) loves to play with things that hang - including the pull-cords on my hoodies and, when I'm trying to take a picture of him, the camera cord.
(He's particularly interested in cords that hang behind door cracks - like when I put them there on purpose.)

My Backyard

2009-04-23T01:17:21Z

We had a very interesting day, weatherwise. Here's the western sky early this evening. And yes, there's a clothesline in my backyard! My neighbors have one too, and they actually use theirs. The fancy car is my landlord's - he has two of them even though the carpet in my house is 0.5 mm thick and I had to spray insulation foam in between the wall and the floor of the back room of my house to keep inch-long crickets from getting it. (Yeah, class warfare at its least important.)

The building on the far left is part of the funeral home services my landlord also owns. When I first met him he showed me all around. One of the rooms he took me into was a big room that looked like a industrial kitchen with a huge dishwasher. He announced "this is the crematorium!" Later he tried to show me the embalming room, but I backed out when he told me, with his hand on the doorknob, "Oh, I should warn you... there IS a body there... she's all covered from the neck down, though!"

Jess

2009-04-21T03:49:25Z

Jess is the Chemistry teacher at WNA. We get together now and then to grade, and she often accompanies me to Longwood Gardens. I "teach" her about trees and she teaches me about culture. (She has lived and worked in Africa and Korea, and oh man, she KNOWS! Also she has a hybrid - she let me borrow it once.)

ailanthia @ 2009-04-20T11:49:00

2009-04-20T15:50:35Z

Look what I learned to do!

(The new thing is that it links directly to flickr - I didn't have to put it in my scrapbook or anything!)

My parents came to visit this past weekend, and we went to Longwood Gardens. Flower overload! (As if there is such a thing....)

Hippo!

2009-04-11T02:42:56Z

Hippo!
Originally uploaded by Ailanthia.

I'm a published photographer! (For the second time, actually - the first "published" photo was of a macaque at the Cincinnati Zoo.) You may have to flip for quite a while until you find mine.... Turns out you don't have to have a good camera or mad skills to be recognized on the internet! Who knew?

Spring is Almost Here!!!

2009-02-25T02:43:21Z

What are the first flowers to show up in the spring? Crocus, you think? Snowdrops? Perhaps Forsythia? Nope, all wrong. It's
WITCH HAZEL!!!

In Longwood Gardens (my inadequate but great-in-its-own-way substitute for Highland Park).

See a close up of a similar flower (in my very own Highland Park) here.

This looks like a nice place to lie down.

2009-02-23T00:46:15Z

Thanks to Matt for taking the picture!

February 9, 2009

2009-02-10T23:29:14Z

I made borscht over the weekend! This is the last of it. :(

February 8, 2009

2009-02-10T02:06:56Z

I have been able to wear my spring jacket these past couple days. According to tradition, this means that even though the groundhog saw his shadow and even though we're only just halfway through winter, I am allowed to start looking forward to spring! This jacket works especially well because it smells like spring! Not really, but it has a very strong plasticky smell that always reminds me of the previous year's spring.... or perhaps it'd be more correct to say that it reminds me of wearing it during the previous year's spring.

Only 40 days to go!

February 7, 2009

2009-02-08T23:09:54Z

Longwood Gardens with Jess again - the Orchid Extravaganza is going on! If you ever get a chance to go to this place - do it. The huge conservatory alone is well worth the $18 (or $40 ish for a yearly pass).

A few more of my favorites from the conservatory:

ailanthia @ 2009-01-21T20:41:00

2009-01-22T01:45:22Z

People make fun of me because I wear sunglasses over my glasses, but my grandpa does it too! It must be cool.

I cleaned my apartment the other day, and when I moved the couch, this is what I found. Charlie was thrilled! He has been losing them there for weeks, apparently.

First big snow in Rising Sun, Maryland.

Charlie

2008-10-05T18:54:20Z

Here he is!

He had fleas, but has now been treated and is a very happy kitty. He runs around the house with his tail straight up in the air, and Matt and I laugh at him and his questioning "Mrrraaaouu?"

Thanks to Laura for taking the incentive to find him a home and take care of him in the meantime!

Haha!

2008-10-03T13:57:38Z

Funniest search engine ever.

Yay!

2008-10-01T23:59:14Z

I'm going to adopt a stray kitten on Friday at noon.
Exciting!

Biscotti

2008-09-30T00:33:22Z

I made this biscotti over the weekend. Quite a successful endeavor.

From this recipe.
Except almonds instead of hazelnuts, no chocolate chips, and no confectioner's sugar.
Yum.

By order of RUDY! and following the example of Jesse (!)...

2008-09-30T00:19:07Z

Following the instruction on RUDY!'s blog,
1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 56.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next seven sentences in your journal along with these instructions.
5. Don’t dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST.

(Does the "next seven sentences" include the fifth sentence? Or does it start after that?)

From The Art of Racing in the Rain, by Garth Stein

"... It's too much! I can barely take care of myself!"
"You shoudl have called Mike or taken him to a kennel or something! Don't try to kill him."
"I didn't try to kill him," she whispered.
I heard weeping and looked over. Zoe stood in the door to the hallway, crying.

I read that novel before I started school this year. I enjoyed it a lot - it was a great escape from impending doom. It's written from the dog's perspective. I plan to take it to Lollypop Farm and add it to the Clyde Glover Memorial Lending Library. Good stuff.