PHL=PHaiL

Angela and I had an awesome weekend in Pittsburgh, despite the awful transportation to and from Pittsburgh.  

On Saturday I rowed with my alumni boat, and gosh darn, we didn’t lose!  We even beat Pitt’s alums and a case western varsity boat.  I think if we worked on it (not that we will), we could actually be a pretty formidable boat. 

Immediately afterward, I hot seated into a double with Alyssa and began rowing to the starting line.  (It had been 40 minutes since last call for the event.)  The race was behind schedule enough that we arrived at the starting line with plenty of time to spare.  But it was not to be, shortly after turning to get called up to start lightning was seen on the horizon.  We were instructed to paddle into the boathouse.  Not interested in waiting to row, we decided to walk back to the point where we had launched from.  I walked back with Dave and Natalie, who were also in the event, wearing only our unis.  All of a sudden, and unmarked white van pulled up next to us.  What would a couple of rowers wearing nearly nothing think in this situation…maybe other rowers!  Sure enough, the Duquesne boat that was also forced off the water was driving back and gave us a ride.  From there, I got a ride with Dave back to Jon’s house where we were staying.  Angela had gone a head as she had had made an appointment to get her hair cut.  I was able to meet up with her just as she was finishing.  It took a little while getting used to the new do, but it is pretty chic.  

That evening Justin Samuels, soon to be married, was kidnapped by a couple other alumni rowers and brought to Jon’s house to begin a surprise bachelor party.  The evening started with the Union Grill, then to Doc’s where some of the guys were hunted by ‘cougars’ from a bachelorette party, and finally a couple of bars on the Southside.  All along Paul (the DD) stopped the rented van to get Justin to get out and get a picture with some girls on the side of the road.  

THe evening ended with an attempted visit to the Cricket Lounge (a strip club), however, Justin was far too incapacitated, and luckily (as I was not so interested in going-I’ve heard it is quite seedy) it closed at 2am (it was currently 1:55am).  On the way home I got dropped off at Ashleigh’s, where Angela was hanging out, and we walked back to Jon’s from there.

Sunday morning, we awoke and went to meet my cousin, Josh, his wife, Rachel, and new daughter, Rosemary for breakfast at Pamela’s.  It was delicious as usual (although the hotcakes weren’t as crispy as usual.

After breakfast we walked back to pick up our stuff and then dropped by our chem. advisor, Karen’s house.  We chatted briefly, then began to walk toward campus to pick up the airport bus.  We missed the one that would have given us ‘plenty’ of time, but the next one would get us there ‘just’ in time.

 

Now on to how the Philadelphia airport (PHL) sucked this weekend.  

Friday evening we leave our house at 7pm.  Deciding that the $11/24hr parking at the airport is a better deal than 1 token + $6  each way per person on the train (assuming Friday evening-Sunday evening = 2 days).  We arrive with plenty of time to spare only to see that our gate is swamped with backed up flights.  Not a word is mentioned about our Pittsburgh flight.  (Maybe they are just getting these poor folks out before they board us.) Nope.  9pm (5 minutes after our scheduled departure, I ask what’s up. Delayed, no earlier than 12:30.  12:30!!  That’s 3.5 hours! Ridiculous.  We decide to hunker down and nap in shifts.  Oddly, the flight was never updated on the departure TV monitors, and eventually is wiped all together.  This initiated another round of “How bout Pittsburgh?” “12:30″

oy.

Thinking we were done with this nonsense, we decide to fly home on Sunday.  We get to the airport, delayed 30 minutes.  OK, not so bad, we were running late anyway.  We get onto the plane and are told, no, Philly isn’t accepting and more flights at this time.  Long story short, we were stuck in the plane (able to leave if needed) until 7pm!  

In summation, for a total of 80-100 minutes of flight time, we were stuck in the airport for a total of 7 hours this weekend, sweet.

Background on the first banner

Upon consideration of changing my photo banner for this blog, I thought it might be a good idea to let you curious folks in on what’s happening in each picture.

From left-to-right / top-to-bottom:

My lovely girlfriend, Angela.

Angela and I watching the sunrise at Bethany Beach.

Two of my cousins, the second’s wife, and my grandmother at a third cousin’s bat mitzvah.

Welcome ceremony at summer institute.

Cool picture from children’s museum in Pittsburgh.

Angela and I at the John Williams concert in Pittsburgh

Me in my graduation garb.

Another shot of Angela

Angela and I as a snack.

Me at Phipps Conservatory

Me, John, Ben, and Amos during summer institute.

Shubh, Dr. Armitage and I at dinner after my graduation.  (I researched in Dr. A’s lab and worked with Shubh).

Angela and I at the bat mitzvah. 

Half Marathon

The half marathon is complete. 

Spring Break

Back in school, and I’m already starting to lose my voice.  I haven’t actually lost it once yet, but with a mild sore throat, it might not be good. My spring break was so relaxing.  By the end of it, I actually started to forget what I was getting away from.  (Reminded on Monday).Two weekends in Pittsburgh sandwiching 4 days in Florida was pretty sweet.  A rent-a-rower took me back, and baking baklava was  amazing.  The week in Florida was very relaxing, tennis, short jogs, kayaking, lazing around reading.  I started and finished “Freak the Mighty,”  got through a few more pages of “To the Lighthouse” and made significant headway in “Clear and Present Danger.” Upon return to Pittsburgh I went and ran a half marathon, attended the URA regatta, and baked spanakopita.  Talking with Angela, and starting some planning for our trip to Europe and some remodeling in the new house I am getting very excited about this summer and fall.  

A great weekend

My weekend started out Friday morning when I went to the dentist.  Apparently, I’ve been grinding my teeth, and that’s why they are so sensitive.  I feel like this should be covered by OSHA or something.

I then took the rest of the day off and drove to Pittsburgh as planned, although, I kept the early part a secret from Angela.

I got to her apartment just as she was leaving for crew practice and buzzed her apartment.  (It just calls the phone in the apartment, so it isn’t clear at first if someone is actually at the door.)  I see Angela coming back into the apartment through the window in the door, and tell her roommate who gives a confused “what the…” as the pieces fall into place for her, the fact that I am actually right there at the building.  She demands that Angela pick up the phone, but she’s late for practice and pushes back out the door toward the front (I’m at the back).  I pound on the door, she ignores me, thinking some creepster wants into the building.  I rush back to my car to intercept her on the street, I am somewhat successful after a couple of yells.  We then went to crew practice together, and I was tired. :O

The rest of the weekend rushed by, highlighted by a trip to Costco and Giant Eagle,  the making of 4 kinds of cheese cake (all delicious), a new peanut and pork chili (interesting and takes a few bites to get used to it), breakfast at Rocky’s, french toast and 2 crew practices.

Being in Pittsburgh again, and getting back into some of the things I did while I still lived there showed me how dissatisfied I am teaching.  I really saw that my life didn’t have to be full of stress, and aggravation.  At this point, I am highly considering not continuing for a second year.  It might be one of the first ‘big things’ that I actually quit, but at this point, I’m not too worried about losing face on that.

I salute the veterans

With an extra day off of school for veterans day, I was able to spend 2 full days with Angela in Pittsburgh.  Instead of the typical get-in-late-Friday-rush-to-do-everything-on-Saturday-sleep-in-on-Sunday-to-have-only-a-couple-of- hours-before-I-leave-weekend, we were able to spend a lot of time together, and even got up relatively early each day, which gave us a lot more time to do stuff together.

The best things about the weekend:

1. Being surprised at the airport by Angela and David to give me a ride back.

2. Seeing a lot of my professors and some other alumni at Dr. Brown’s memorial service (a CMU biology professor who died during surgery this summer-62 years old) and hearing about how he touched all of their lives.

3. Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (PSO) – I always feel like such high societ, even though it was CMU night and they had free cake.  This makes it sound like my motivations are a little…underhanded, but I really have been enjoying my classical music appreciation training.  We heard pieces by Brahms, and Beethoven.  I really liked them, but I’m still struggling to get all of the meaning in.  Angela liked that there was a piano piece (the Beethoven, something about the number 4), but wasn’t really impressed by his interpretation.  (She’s a bit snooty like that, I love youuu ).  I agreed though, I thought he played all of the notes at pretty much the same loudness (I’m sure there’s a fancy term for this in the piano world, but it escapes me), and I like when some of them stand out.

4. Breakfast at Pamela’s – The breakfast special really hit the spot, but I do need to start branching out again.  I just need to figure out a way to get something new AND still have some of their hotcakes.

5. Making pies – 2 peacan pies that I will not be able to full partake in, but Angela did sneak a slice for me.  I don’t feel all that terrible that Danielle will be getting a molested pie at her dinner.

6. Max and Erma’s – Since Angela and I had apparently been  too shy to be seen in public with each other during the first month of our relationship, our first “date,” or outing with date-like activities, was about 1 year ago (well a couple of weeks early), and a month after the “beginning”.  On that fatefull night, I staggered out of my apartment, getting out of bed for nearly the first time in  3 days or so after a hernia repair surgery, we went to Max and Erma’s where I downed multiple glasses of raspberry iced-tea and promptly left my scarf at the restaurant.  Similar events were repeated, only this time Angela pocketed the waitress’ pen, upon being questioned while leaving, I gave a non-commital grunt, shrugged toward the table, hoped I had everything and lunged down the stairs.

7. Going to class – Even C. elegans can be fun.  Finally, realized that the genetics stuff isn’t as confusing the 3rd time around.

Considering that that was about all I did this weekend, I’d say it was quite enjoyable.  Just one more week until a 5 day weekend, and food!

Some rowing, a wedding, the frr, and Welcome to the Monkey House*

 I’ll start out with a re-cap for the last few weekends.

Two weeks ago, I flew up to Pittsburgh (the plane actually took off, AND landed at a different airport) to visit Angela, and participate in some rowing events.  It was a great weekend, as usual, packed with a ton of stuff.  I rowed in the alumni 8+ in the Head of the Ohio regatta, beating the thrown together CMU men’s varsity 8+.  The anual HOTO banquet followed that evening, which was nice, and a bit weird since it was held in Mellon Institute.  I tend to wonder what other people think of the place, people who hadn’t spent 3 years doing research there.  It was kind of a thrill to be back there again for something that wasn’t science related.  Later that night, I went with Angela and David to Kennywood frightnights.  I pretty cool, totally decked out set of haunted houses and some rides.  I hadn’t gone since my freshman year, so it was nice even if I had a couple of scaredy-cats hanging on my arms.  Sunday was mostly relaxing and then flying back home to lesson plan.

The following weekend, I met Angela in Philadelphia for a wedding of one of my high school friends.  It was a nice ceremony, the first Christian one I’d been to, and the reception was nice and relatively low-key as well.  They had a roasted hog, too!  One the way out of town I stopped with my mom to see my step-dad’s mother who has been in the hospital.  It was sad, a woman who had been quite full of life a few years ago, and seemed to have a healthy weight, lying frail and having difficulty breathing, hooked up to dialysis.  It was nice, however, that she recognized me and was able to see me there, and refreshing that she still had her caffeine free diet-coke preference even while holding on to life.  She’s made the decision not to stay on dialysis, so she will probably pass away soon.  She will be missed.

This past weekend, Angela came to visit me in NC (I know, 3 weekends in a row, an amazing change of pace from 5 weeks without seeing her).  We went to the NC state fair Saturday night (the locals call it a fur, but really with less vowel sound, so I’m going with fr or frr) .  The amount of oil in that place could probably power Henderson for a month.  Every food imaginable was fried,  snickers bars, oreos, reeces’ cups, dough (multiple forms), potatoes, ice cream, and of course vegetables.  A excess of spinny rides kept me planted to the ground, but we did go to see the petting zoo, and the agricultural exposition.  The exhibit about the bees was facinating, as was staring at the 1178lb pumpkin.  This thing was deformed under its own weight, and was over a half-ton! Ridiculous! (Also a new NC state record).  The animals were cute and stinky.   As usual, a great weekend with my girl.

Back to school.  This week has been interesting.  My first 2 periods continue to behave fairly well, and my last 2 do not.  I still get virtually no work done in my 6th period (2nd to last) and even less in my last.  I turn around for a moment in the last period, and nearly everyone is out of their seat moving around talking.  Yesterday, I even heard students making monkey sounds.  I threatened to bring in cages today, they seemed to like that idea.  I just feel like that epitomizes my situation with those classes.   Responding to basically nothing, and when they do respond, they forget about their fear of me 2 minutes or closer to 10 seconds later.  (I called a parent, leaving a message saying that “their child”, not indicating who it was, was behaving poorly in class, everyone was silent for a moment.)

We’ll see about today.

* suggested by Angela

The Pittsburgh Odyssey Part II

Sleeping in on Saturday was amazing.

Breakfast at Pamela’s hit the spot (breakfast special + homefries).  Angela and I went with Kim and her boyfriend Jesse, we realized that we now have ‘couples friends’.

Saturday afternoon I worked on grading and lesson plans, just being close to Angela made these things enjoyable enough.  Angela continued her brutal MCAT studying.

Saturday evening we drove up to Seven Springs.  My friend Jon was participating in a 24-hour mountain bike relay race.  He, his fiancee Kathleen, and Lenny (all rode the century last weekend) along with an old friend of Jon’s  and wife took turns riding a 12 mile mountain course.  Needless to say, they were wicked tired.

It was pretty cool to watch the transitions, and some of the people following the course as it came across the camp.  Plus, it was Angela’s first time camping out in a tent.

Sunday morning  we broke camp and headed back to Pittsburgh.  After a bit more work
we broke for an evening out watching Mr. Bean’s Holiday and then some games at Dave and Busters. Skee-ball was the game of choice, between that and some other games we won enough tickets to get a pint glass and coffee mug.

Monday morning we slept in a little bit, and after I packed up my stuff we went for lunch at Chipotle’s (I owed her a burrito, although she ended up getting tacos..I hope those count).  I then set off for the long drive home.

All-in-all, it was a great weekend and well worth the extra time invested in driving.

I miss saying that I’m back in the burgh.

The Pittsburgh Odyssey Part I

My weekend started with me dropping my students waiting for the bus with one of my team teachers so that I could break out of the school before the buses started pulling into the parking lot.

This gave me plenty of time to get to Raleigh for my flight at 6:30.  I stop for some food on the way (after parking and walking around the building, I realized that it was a drive through only type of place, someone yelled “Whatchoo doin’?” as I walked past one of the ordering microphone/speakers).

I arrived in the extended parking lot ($6/day as opposed to $10/day..sweet deal), park my car, and hop on the shuttle bus.  The bus takes me directly to the terminal where I enter the security line and realize that I’ve left my new blue nalgene bottle behind somewhere (*interesting point to remember).  Well, one of the first on-time departures I’ve had in a long time (yay), and we’re in the air.  The normal acceleration and feeling as you lift into the air.  Some mechanical sounds, a feeling of deceleration and decent. (hmm, sounds like they are playing with the gears..just keep reading).  Then..

Capt:”We’re experiencing some difficulties with the nose section of the plane, the landing gear is not retracting.  We’ve tried recycling the gears, but it’s still not retracting. Let’s go back to RDU.”

We land (yay, although I didn’t realize how much).  We taxi….past rows of fire trucks, ambulances, and a news helicopter ready for gory footage.

Back in the airport..huge line to get transfers settled so that they can try to get where they need to go.  First not so awesome announcement: The flight has been officially canceled.

Folks going to pittsburgh..let’s see who we can get out tonight..hmm, not many.

Second not so awesome announcement: There are no more flights tonight.

My cue to hop back on the bus and hit the road.

Back at the extended lot, I grab my waterbottle still sitting on a bench (yay, little things really do brighten my day).  Long story short, 8 hours later I arrive in Pittsburgh to be greeted by a very appreciating girlfriend.

The Move and Settling

After finishing the seminar in New York City, I flew back to Pittsburgh for a moment.  Upon landing, I took the 28X to Oakland, packed the last few items into my car, then started the drive to Philadelphia with Angela.  Arriving in Philadelphia, I packed up a rented mini-van (thanks mom), with all of the possesions I thought I’d need for the next two years (or at least could get away with for a couple months when I drive back for thanksgiving).

The next morning van packed, I set off for Henderson, NC.  Six hours later, I pull in to my new abode.  I somehow found time to get over to the Vance County School district office get booked, sign some stuff, and pee in a cup (fingerprints, paperwork, drug screen).

Then the unpacking began.

The room was basically filled to the brim with boxes, until I was able to stack things on and under my table/desk.

Then the unpacking process began. Angela and my mom helped me a great deal over the course of the first few days (then my mom left, and Angela kept helping).

This is how the room looked by night time of the first day (not too bad, despite the fact we slept on the floor for a few days).

(I’ll post a picture of the current room soon)

During the days I went to new teacher orientation, some of which was useful, but most of it was not very helpful, and stressed me out by not giving me enough time to get everything done.  Although, now I realize that the majority of the new non-TFA teachers have basically nothing prepared (I feel bad for the ones who are new to teaching).

In the evenings I continued to settle in, rearrange furniture, and do things so that I could become a resident (I now have an NC drivers license, car registration, insurance, license plate, and voter registration, whew.).

Over the weekend I attended a TFA ‘All Corps Conference’ where we got to meet the ‘06 corps members and worked on some of my stuff for unit 1.  It was again, pretty helpful to have time to work on stuff when there’s someone there to ask questions of constantly.

Sunday was pretty excellent.  Waking up late, a drive to Durham to get cake at the Mad Hatter bakery ,hang out at Costco (way upscale compared to the Henderson Wal-Mart), a little Target perusal, and finally a tasty dinner of indian food at the Sitar Indian Palace (we had Mushroom Saag, Naan, Samosa (fresh from the fryer), and Chicken Mahkani, Yum!)

I have the next week to finish preparations in my classroom (I have pictures of that too, soon).  Actually, there’s an open house on Thursday, so I should probably have things more in order by then.