A Day in the Life

Dear Familia,

I know that I've been completely ridiculous about returning calls and emails, but it's not b/c I'm sitting around being lazy. I thought I'd take a minute to give you a glimpse into the glamorous life of a graduate school student. And, yes, but glamorous, I mean completely nerdy. 

• 12:45 am Finally get to sleep after finishing a stats quiz and sending out the wedding invites. 

http://www.etsy.com/shop/yourveryownartist

• 7:00 am Wake up and check my email to see who has RSVP'd...Roberta gets the prize for first RSVP :) Wash face, brush teeth, get dressed, and pack lunch. I made a quinoa, chickpea, and broccoli salad this weekend and luckily still have some left over. Would that be considered a salad?
• 8:00 am Head to school on the T. I biked to school until Friday when I finally had enough of getting soaked in random rain showers or in my own sweat b/c it's so muggy here. I'm not a fan. Plus, soon enough it's going to start looking like this:

Obviously not bike friendly weather

• 8:30 am Meet with my Econ group to go over our problem set one last time, Read for Ethics (this is the last of 4 readings for the weekend), and start this blog post. 
• 10:10 am Economics
• 11:30 am More Ethics reading
• 12:30 pm Recruitment event for the Dean's Ambassador's Program...Helping out with recruitment is a little selfish on my part as I want as many amazing people as possible to come to Kennedy and keep it's reputation where it should be ;) 

Click to see what HKS alum are up to

• 1:30 pm Ethics study group and Lunch. We meet in the library to discuss the study questions that are on the syllabus for every day of class. Our professor cold calls, so I definitely appreciate the study group to help me collect my thoughts about the readings. 
• 2:40 pm Ethics
• 4:00 pm Institute of Politics Study Group with Linda Moore Forbes and David Axelrod. She was the Deputy Assistant to President Clinton & White House Deputy Political Director and the Senior Advisor to Senator Bayh and he is the Senior Strategist for President Obama's re-election campaign. No big deal. The event was off the record, so we'll just leave it at "interesting." 
• 5:30 pm Home on the T
• 6:00 pm Met Amanda, her friend, and Thomas at Killer Cupcakes. They actually have a different name, but I always forget and this is a family blog. They gave us 3 free mini-cupcakes that were pretty decent. Amanda and I were supposed to do this co-op dinner thing, but she had something come up at the last minute so we did the cupcake thing instead. DC cupcakes have these guys beat, but I didn't try any of their signature, regular sized cupcakes. I'll have to let you know how that goes in the future. 

From Amanda and her iPhone

• 6:30 Dinner (chipotle) and half an episode of Pushing Daisies which could be one of my most favorite shows ever. I'm so sad there are only 2 seasons. 
• 7:30 pm Finish this blog post then finish the Stats problem set that is due tomorrow and start on my study schedule for the midterm on Friday
• 8:30 pm Chat with Zane about our days and wedding stuff
• 9:00 pm Global Food Politics and Policy reading that I am about a week behind on...oops
• 12:00 pm (hopefully) SLEEP

So there you have it. I'm pretty lucky that I get to spend my days studying and hanging out with cool people, right?? However, this does not leave very much time for social interactions with my friends and family not in Boston :( Don't worry though, I'll be home for Thanksgiving and Christmas. 

Love,

Jem

My Sugar Daddy

 Dear Familia, 

Ok, don't get the wrong idea from the title. Hear me out. In honor of our anniversary, I would like to share a little story about my amazing my fiancé. 

While in DC this summer there was never ending talk about who has the best cupcakes. In Georgetown, there were 3 major contenders: Sprinkles, Baked & Wired, and Georgetown Cupcake. All Summer I wanted to do a taste comparison of the three, but for one reason or another it never really happened. Well, to be honest one of the biggest reasons was that you had to literally wait in line outside of Georgetown Cupcake to try one of those babies and it was hotter and stickier than even 2 minutes outside could justify. Haha. I still really wanted to try them all, but between school and the wedding and the move it just didn't seem like it would happen. 

THEN, one evening close to when I was heading off to Boston, Zane came home with a surprise...

The packaging 

Yep, that amazing man of mine had gone to all three bakeries, waited in line outside of Georgetown Cupcake and bought me 3 red velvet cupcakes. It's in the details ladies, and Zane has that down pat!

Baked & Wired

Georgetown Cupcake

Sprinkles

The Three Contenders 

I bet you're curious as to who came out on top, yes? Well I broke it down:

Frosting- Georgetown Cupcake
Cake- Sprinkles
Presentation- 3-way Tie...they all were great
Value- Georgetown Cupcake (the smallest, but also the cheapest)

Winner: Georgetown Cupcake...although if I were craving a cupcake, I wouldn't wait in line over it. I'd definitely pop into one of the other two shops. Or I could even try out one of the other DC cupcake shops :)

Ok, that is your story for the day. I am going to make it my goal to make a post about Boston soon. I'm actually caught up after today so I will have some time to update everyone.

Love,
Jem

Happy 3 Year Anniversary

Day 1 of 1,095

Dear Zane,

Happy Anniversary my love! It's been the most amazing 3 years and I can't wait for the 3 months (102 days!) until we get married.

Love,
Jem

I'm Alive

Option were -, ✓-, ✓, and ✓+...rocked it!

Dear Familia,

So sorry that I've been terrible about returning phone calls/emails/etc. I am OVERWHELMED with school right now. But in a good way...I think ;) Haha. Anyway, today I received my first graded assignment and even though it took me over 8 hours and is only worth 1% of my grade, I felt pretty amazing. The Nerd in my heart lives on :)

Love,

Jem

PS Click on the image if you want to see it a bit bigger

Summer Wrap Up

Dear Familia,

I'm actually writing to you today from $30,000 feet (ok, I don't remember how many miles the pilot actually said, but we were allowed to turn on our electronic devices at 10,000 feet and we are still climbing). I think it's absolutely crazy that I can actually use Wi-Fi in the air!

Anyway, I just finished chatting with Zane on ichat and it reminded me that we had done some things over the summer that I never got around to telling everyone about. So without further ado, here are some random JZ outings:

The first time I went to DC (back in high school), we did a tour of the monuments at night and I really loved it. We finally checked them out near the middle of July, but it was pretty late when we got around to it and I was a but cranky, so we only ended up going to two of the monuments. However, we did end up going to the Washington Monument which I had never been to at night and it was AMAZING. I would highly recommend it for anyone visiting DC.

Washington Monument

The Jefferson Memorial also looked very pretty at night. Seeing this passage from the Declaration of Independence reminded me about the fact that in some Mesa schools the kids have to recite these lines. I really liked that little tradition.

Jefferson Memorial

I look so small against the walls of the memorial!

We also went to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. At first, I wasn't very excited b/c museums can sometimes be a little "meh" for me, but I had a great time and I definitely want to go back. I think it's pretty incredible that all of those museums have completely free admission. They have a butterfly exhibit that was closed when we went, so I am going to have to do a little pre-planning before we go next time.

View from outside

Door Greeter

T-Rex

 We couldn't figure out if the meteor fragments from AZ were part of the meteor that left moissanite (remember from my ring) on Earth, but it was still very interesting!

Oh ya Arizona, represent!

Really cool photo installation...this was one of my faves

Cute Sea Creature

Life size!

After the museum we went to Silver Diner which is Zane's version of Denny's. Then we walked home and it took 45 minutes and my feet felt like they were on fire. Not great, but it felt good to walk off some of that greasy diner food. Haha.

Another cool thing we did was head out to the Theodore Roosevelt Island for a jog. It was actually pretty fun and they had a really cool monument on the inside of the island. Felt very "Lost" while we were there. This was of course in my running days. I have to say that even after that little running class business, I'm still not a big fan. I could bike for miles, but running is a bit of a downer for me.

So ya, that's the skinny. I should have some Boston posts for you soon :)

Love,
Jem