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

Orientation 1

Dear Familia,

Yesterday I had my first official day at the Harvard John F. Kennedy School of Government(HKS). It was our first day of orientation :) We were at HKS from 8 am to 5 pm doing various activities, but I was pretty happy because we finally got a better idea of what the program entails. In the morning the large group (MPPs, MPAs, MPA-IDs, etc) got together in the forum (where the most ridiculously amazing speakers come every year) for the Dean's address. They had displayed all the flags of the countries represented by this year's incoming class and it looked very cool. I think there are over 40 countries in our class!

It was definitely a full day...we were at the school from 8 am to 5 pm. I stopped back home for a bit before I headed back to meet up with about half of the class (100+ people) to go on a boat cruise down the Charles River. I definitely had a lot of fun...I didn't get to take a lot of pictures, but here are a few :)

A couple of shots looking over the river from the bridge that meets up with JFK street.

Our boat and the bar on the boat. Still not a drinker, but they set up a snack station after this so you know I was definitely all over that!

The sunset was completely gorgeous!

I got home a little after ten and went to sleep shortly after b/c we had another long day today. Luckily, we had a long break in between the massive amounts of information. A couple of my classmates and I checked out a Harvard staple, Mr. Bartley's Gourmet Burgers.

I got the "Drew Faust (Harvard Prez)" which was a veggie burger with feta and red peppers. It was pretty decent, the bun was buttered and toasted which I definitely liked. It was really nothing too great though and at $10 even for the plain jane burger, I probably won't be going back anytime soon.

At the end of the day all 215 MPPs (master of public policy) got up in front of everyone to do a 15 second intro. Some were funny, some were awkward, most were just normal (mine included). We learn all about registration tomorrow and we have some other fun things planned for the rest of the week so I will be sure to do at least another post about orientation before the end of the week.

Love,

Jem

Sugar Body Scrub

Dear Familia,

I don't think I mentioned this before, but I follow Gwenyth Paltrow's blog Goop. Although really it's less of a blog and more like a newsletter. Anyway, Goop introduced me to the Clean cleanse and also a wonderful Brooklyn based company called Sprout. The owner sells completely all natural skin care products. I have yet to be able to purchase any of them (long story involving me waiting till I went to NYC and then never actually making it up there), but there was a recipe for a sugar scrub included in the Goop article that I was excited to try.

I bought the ingredients at the Whole Foods trip I mentioned before.

• 1 cup organic demerara sugar (or any other coarse sugar will work)
• 1-2 tsp organic unrefined coconut oil
• 2 tsp organic shredded coconut

Then I followed the recipe directions: Mix shredded coconut and sugar in a small bowl, stir until blended. Heat coconut oil in a small pot just until melted. Pour coconut oil over sugar and shredded coconut, you'll notice it liquefies some of the sugar. With a fork or spoon, stir oil into the sugar mixture. It will start to spread. Continue until the sugar is all one consistency.

And you already know what container I used to store the scrub... ;)

I tried it out the other day on my face while I took a shower. It felt nice, but I think it would be a better bath body scrub. It was not liquid-y enough to use easily for my face.

Love,

Jem

The Oil Cleansing Method

Dear Familia,

It's always up and down with my skin. Sometimes it's clear and smooth and sometimes it's a mess. While I was home in AZ I managed to get it back on track, but I was using Cetaphil and with the new "clean" beauty regimen I'm trying to get on, that wasn't going to fly. This articleexplains why even though there are only a few ingredients, they are pretty bad. When I got to DC I went ahead and started using Dr. Bronner's. Although it's "clean," I think maybe it's too much for my skin b/c I've been breaking out all summer. My friend Cali talked to me about the oil cleansing method a while back. I had read about it through some of the blogs I follow, but it seemed very counterintuitive to do something like slather oil on your face to get it clear. I have heard the saying "like dissolves like" though so since I do have some major events coming up in the near future involving lots of picture taking I thought I would give it a try.

I did some light reading on this site and then picked up a couple of bottles of oil on my recent trip to Whole Foods. I mixed 3/4 cup (75%) Sunflower Oil and 1/4 cup (25%) Castor Oil and did my first treatment yesterday. I massaged about a tablespoon in for a good twenty minutes, laid a hot washcloth over my face, let it get cool, and wiped (in an upward motion...I heard this is better than dragging down) the oil off my face. My skin did feel both clean and moisturized when I was done and looked pretty dewy. I'll probably do it three times a week. I'm not sure how it will turn out, but I am going to give it a few weeks or so.

Oh, AND I'm using one of my Goodwill/Ikea spice jars to store my oil mixture. Nice, right? My trip to whole foods also produced the ingredients for an all natural sugar scrub that I'll post about tomorrow.

Love,

Jem

Thrifty Thursday

Dear Sarah,

I've finally taken the plunge and become a bonafide used store patron. I know you would be proud that it's only taken about, oh, ten years for me to discover what you've always known. Haha. Anyway, we live in this area of Somerville called Davis Square (i'll have to do a post on that at some point) and when I went exploring on Tuesday I happened upon a Goodwill and a Buffalo Exchange. I went in with pretty low expectations and I walked away with:

1. An REI rain jacket for $28 from Buffalo. It has three small (pencil eraser sized) bleach stains on one arm, but they are not very noticeable and it was a steal. I think retail price is around $120. It poured on Monday and I definitely knew I needed one of these asap.

2. A pair of rain/snow boots for $7.49 from Goodwill. I actually saw a girl try these on and walk around the store deciding whether to buy them or not. I quasi stalked her till I saw her put them down and leave. I was super happy. They have a rain boot bottom and then "thinsulate" and suede top. They may or may not be a bit small, but they will definitely work. Also, they look pretty ugly in the picture, but the girl had them laced up over her jeans and they didn't look bad. No idea on the retail price, but I know even Walmart rain boots are at least $30.

3/4/5. Two glass jars for bulk purchases of grains and the like for $.99 each from Goodwill. I discovered when I got home that Amanda has these exact jars from Target. Do they look plastic in the picture? I got the woven basket for $1.99 and I think it will be great for keeping things above our fridge. We have a decent amount of storage space, but with 4 people's food it can't hurt to find other places to stash things.

6. I eyed these babies on that first trip to Goodwill Tuesday, but didn't end up buying them b/c I had already bought some from Ikea that I planned to take back since I didn't have a real need for them. I originally bought them for my desk supplies, but my new desk has 8 drawers for all my supply storage needs. Then I realized later that day that they would be good in the bathroom so I went back today and bought them. They normally retail for $3.99 for 4 and I got 7 (couldn't find the lonely 8th) for $2.99.

7. I don't have a picture of this, but I found a Liz Claiborne leather hand bag for $4.49 at Goodwill today also. It needs to be cleaned so I'll post a picture when it's all pretty.

Anyway, I've been pretty proud of myself for not being the super consumer that I usually am. So far the only brand new things I have purchased (that are not getting returned) are some pots and dishtowels for the kitchen, a shower caddy, and a comforter. Yay for re-usng...remember the 3 Rs? Oh ya, I know you do.

Love,

Jem

Boston Baby- The Move

Dear Familia,

So sorry for the lack of communication as of late. It was a little crazy getting everything ready for the move up here to Boston. Zane and I had originally planned on asking Dean to use his SUV to make the 8 1/2 hour drive to bring my stuff up here. I didn't really have a lot except clothes, books, and a ton of random craft supplies. Then, my roommate Amanda asked if I wanted to go in on a moving truck. She was coming up from North Carolina and would have to go through DC anyway. I thought it was a great idea so that Zane wouldn't have to make two 8 1/2 hour trips in one weekend. I decided it would be a good idea to see what other big items I could procure so that I didn't have to find a lot of stuff up here. I found a bed on craigslist, Mrs. Ramadan gave me quite a few things, and I made an ikea run before we left. I was majorly stressed about finding parking for the moving truck in Georgetown, but it all worked out pretty perfectly (thanks to some hard work from my lovely fiancé). We loaded up on Friday and hit the road at 5:30 am on Saturday morning. Then the fun began...

It was pretty smooth for the first few hours. We stopped somewhere in Delaware for gas and breakfast. We of course went to McDonald's because I think it might be an unwritten law that you have to stop at a McD's at least once on a road trip. Haha.

We made it to New Jersey with no problems. They have ridiculously expensive tolls, but I can't really say that there was anything else of note while traveling through. Oh, it did smell really weird for a 30 minute stretch somewhere in NJ (wait, is that the state abbreviation??).

Really up until we got to New York it was smooth sailing. No traffic even. We should have realized that we were due for something crazy to happen. And it did. We got to the toll to go over the George Washington Bridge entering NYC and there was a sign that said "trucks use upper level." Because we had been warned that these signs usually meant semis and we had had luck not using the truck lane back in New Jersey, we decided to go to the lower level. We were definitely wrong though and the lady at the booth said that her manager would have to stop traffic so we could cut through the lanes and loop back around to get on the right level.

The photo above makes it look like perhaps there wasn't a lot of traffic and it wasn't a big deal. Well the manager had actually made an announcement that we needed to pass and for about 30 seconds people didn't go...and then they went...and we hadn't made it through! There was a lot of honking and near accidents, but we somehow made it in one piece to the other side where the was a police officer waiting to check out cargo. For what? I have no idea, but he must not have found anything good b/c he let us pass through.

Then we were able to cross the GW bridge and it was gorgeous and the views were amazing. See exhibits above and below :)

Anyway, after the bridge snafu, things were good through New York and into Massachusetts. We stopped somewhere outside of New Haven I believe to get subway. They were not stingy with the veggies which always makes me happy since I'm ordering a veggie sub. It kills me when they put literally 3 slices of green pepper across my sandwich or 5 olives or what have you. So annoying.

Massachusetts definitely gets the best sign awards. Their interstate signs have pilgrim hats on them! What the heck adorable. Amanda had to kinda pull over/drive really slow so I could get this shot. I'm sure the other cars on the road loved us ;)

We made it all the way to our exit off the interstate without getting lost, but we got lost pretty much as soon as we got off and got into Cambridge. I thought DC was a mess road wise, but Cambridge is ridiculous. It would have been a lot easier if we had known that even though we were heading East on Mass Ave that would still somehow get us to Somerville (my town) which is West of Cambridge. Don't ask me. Pure craziness.

We made it to house in decent time even after the detour. One of our other roommates (there are 4 of us) Thomas came over to help us unload and pick rooms. That took a long time and we were sweaty and nasty and tired when we finished. We ended up eating at the closest non-fancy restaurant...Chipotle. It was delicious and definitely hit the spot. Did you know you can get brown rice?? After we got home, I put my bed together, took a shower, and went to sleep. I was tired!

The next morning we went to Thomas' house (he lives in Cambridge right now) so that he could move his big stuff while we had the truck. On the way we stopped by this furniture store near our house and ended up walking away with a free desk and chair for me. I was super excited. Amanda also found some very cheap chairs for her room and a screen thing that she is going to get crafty with and do some sort of photo display. I'm excited to see it. Thomas didn't have that much (boys definitely live light) so it got done pretty quick and we then we decided to make an Ikea and Target run. I loaded up the things I needed to take back (since I ended up with the free desk and chair and had picked up some other things we really didn't end up needing) and we hit the road. Of course we get there and I realize I didn't have my dang receipt! Ikea can't look up receipts so I was a bit angry, but then I let the wave of mass produced cheap furniture euphoria wash over me. We spent far too much time there (is it even possible to get out of Ikea in less than 3 hours??) and I was so fried at Target I ended up getting 2 things...one that I didn't even need.

On the way back to get one more thing from Thomas' house we were asking him why exactly he wanted to leave since his place was nice and close to his work. And then we turn on to his street and see...

Some sort of drug bust type situation. Less than a block from his house. We understood completely after that and were happy that he decided to stay at the new place that night. When we took the moving truck back and witnessed a possibly bike theft. A nice enough looking girl and guy were very rapidly disassembling a bike that was locked up. I asked them what they were doing and they said they had lost the key, but I'm still a little sketched out. On the way back I got to take my first official ride on the T as a Harvard student from Harvard Square. Oo la la, no??

For dinner Sunday we wanted to step out of the big chain box and used an iPhone app (not sure which one since I don't have an iPhone but two of my roommates do) to find a delicious Thai restaurant called...Yummy Thai!!! It was indeed yummy. I accidentally left behind a piece to my bed that had been in the truck when we dropped it off and it was pretty hilarious when I called back trying to explain it to the server that didn't really know that much English. Amanda was laughing really hard as I said "It's a silver stick thing" when he didn't understand my first description.

So that was moving-in weekend. This post was entirely too long, but I hope you enjoyed it. Miss everyone very much!

Love,

Jem