I set up the Atom feed for this blog. Now you don't have to come to the site to read it!

# : 8:21 AM : :

I went apartment-hunting today. That was tiring. I managed to go to 6 complexes but only got to look at apartments in 4 of them. And they're all more or less still on the "possibility" list, but I think I have two contenders. I'm glad I'm going to be learning to sail while K and our moms come down to see apartments, because today it wore me out. I have a lot of floor plans though!

The results of my cholesterol test came back, and they're pretty high. I'm not sure how that happened, but I guess it means more gym and fewer potato chips for me. Hmph.

# : 5:11 PM : :

I must have stayed up too late last night, because I definitely got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. See my grumpy face?

But the baseball game was a lot of fun, even though the Orioles lost 18-5. (We gave up in the 7th inning when it was 17-3.) We ate barbecue for dinner, squeezing in to one of the very few picnic tables available. Amy said the guy across from me was trying to hit on me (his brilliant opener: "is that beef?") which surprised me because I was sure he was gay. Maybe he was just socially inept.

In an attempt to make myself feel less sullen, I made a cute outfit this morning, with a white button-down shirt that actually fits, a pink/black/white scarf, and a black cardigan. This is the first time I've gotten up the courage to try the scarf thing, and I got compliments so I will do it again. Yay for looking like an adult.

Of course, the fact that my blouse is wrinkled kind of puts me back in the college-student category, but I did iron it! It's just that Express apparently left it wadded up for so long that the wrinkles aren't going to come out until I wash it. (Yeah, I wear clothes straight from the store without pre-washing.) This, too, makes me grumpy. I remember when stores had steamers and obsessively de-wrinkled all their clothes. Now they throw them on the truck, then wad them up on the tables and leave them like that.

# : 10:28 AM : :

I feel the need to pimp a few great blogs I just recently discovered.

The Underwear Drawer is the blog of a pediatrics resident in NYC. She's hilarious. I'm working my way through her archives now, and currently laughing at this post about learning to drive. I'd link the rest of the great funny ones, but that would take way too long!

Then there's This won't hurt a bit! by a med student someplace in the UK. He's a superb writer. Yesterday I was reading his blog and laughed out loud at one entry then cried at the next one. They're both excellent - check them out.

# : 12:51 PM : :

I've been so sociable this week. Sunday was my dinner party, then Monday I went to volunteering at the hospital. We were crazy busy so I ended up staying late to get everything done. Tuesday, we had a birthday dinner for one of my coworkers. And last night I went to dinner with some friends and got dragged to a bar afterwards. I was pretty proud of myself for socializing. There were several people I knew, then they had a bunch of other friends who I'd met or seen only briefly before, and so I even made conversation with near-strangers. It was fun, so I might go again sometime. Tonight people from work are going to the Orioles game. I am going to be really tired when I try to wake up for work tomorrow!

Yesterday I went to the doctor for a physical, since I just randomly picked the practice out of my insurance's list when I had strep - they said they'd give me penicillin but I had to come back for a full physical to be their patient.

You can laugh at me: I had bloodwork done for cholesterol, meaning I had to fast before the appointment. By the time I had my blood drawn at 11:30 I was famished, so immediately after my cholesterol test I went over to the deli and bought a chocolate muffin and potato chips. That's the way to keep my cholesterol low!

# : 12:37 PM : :

Some of you might recall me wondering why earlier this month the amount of spam I got decreased to almost nothing. This change coincided with Case rolling out "New Online Services" for alumni, giving us a new interface for setting up email forwarding (not sure what was wrong with the first one) and letting us know that our storage space would be gone in August and we could do forwarding ONLY (though we'd been told our email addresses were good for life, but that's another rant).

They were also adding virus/spam checking for non-alums. This wasn't a big deal for me, since I already had my Case address forwarded to my current ISP, and I have a perfectly fine virus checker and spam filter of my own, so I didn't pay that much attention. So when I quit getting so much spam, I just figured they'd accidentally started to filter my email for spam, and I wasn't complaining.

As it turns out, when they started this "new" forwarding service, they somehow managed not to KEEP forwarding mail to accounts that were already set for forwarding. So my email just stayed on the Case server, since I have my email client set up only to check my ISP account since that's where my Case email is supposed to go.

I figured this out today when I realized that I was supposed to have gotten emails from AMCAS. At first I thought they'd been deleted for spam, then when some test messages failed I thought the Case mail servers were down (not an uncommon occurrence), then I finally thought to check the Online Services web page. Oops, no mail forwarding for me!

So I switched it back on and spent 10 minutes (on broadband) downloading emails. One of them was this:

Subject: Possible Mail Forwarding Problem
From: Case Mail Admin

We recently became aware of a problem with the mail system that could reset your mail forwarding setting to local delivery under certain circumstances. If you are receiving this message it is possible that your mail settings were reset. Please check your current mail settings to be sure they are set correctly.

Don't they mean, if you are NOT receiving this message it is possible that your mail settings were reset? Because I didn't GET the message until I put my settings back to forwarding, you jackass.

Luckily, all of the AMCAS messages I missed were "We successfully received your transcript" and other than that it was mostly mailing lists and email forwards. I'm still Not Pleased with Case.

# : 8:48 PM : :

I'm so indecisive! But this really isn't my fault.

It turns out that my friend K had to make a grad school decision this month for financial aid reasons. She really disliked her other option, so she chose the one in DC even though she hasn't gotten to see it yet.

That, combined with the fact that the rent at my current place is going up 10%, means I am almost definitely going to move and get an apartment with K. I'm pretty excited. I think I'll be able to find a good place since I've gotten to know the area a little. Yesterday I did a little online hunting, and it was so much fun. Am I weird for liking apartment-hunting? I know I'm weird for loving to look at floor plans.

I think in the next couple weeks I'll do some preliminary looking, then when K and her mom come down to visit they can check out the places that look good. I think I'll collect a sheaf of floor plans so I can page through them and mentally arrange furniture when I'm bored.

# : 1:18 PM : :

Yesterday I went to the DMV to become an official VA resident complete with driver's license and car registration. While in line I reached for my wallet and it was gone, so I went back to the car, couldn't find it, came home, couldn't find it, looked in the car again, found it wedged against the passenger door. Who knows how it got there. Once I got back to the DMV everything went smoothly and I only had to wait for a few hours. Now I have nice shiny new official documents.

This morning I played handbells in church - we did "This is the Feast" which I think is a Lutheran thing, then "Earth and All Stars" which I hadn't heard since grade school. The sending hymn was one that makes me choke up; it has a gorgeous organ accompaniment and ends with the lines "For the wonders that astound us,
for the truths that still confound us,
most of all that love has found us,
thanks be to God." I always laugh at myself for tearing up at what are hardly Shakespearean-level lyrics, but I like them.

After church I came home and started cooking right away, because I had a little dinner party. I made lasagne and chocolate souffles, which both turned out quite well. We went to see Shrek 2 before dinner and I loved it. I got teased for laughing so much, but I thought it was funny! Then we came back and ate and talked. I was proud of myself because nothing went horribly wrong, and I think everyone had a good time. There were 6 people today, compared with 4 at my last dinner party, and I think it's easier with more people because I don't have to worry about keeping the conversation going; I can let it split up into side groups. Maybe I can do the socialization thing!

# : 9:32 PM : :

What's up with the current fad of URL-shrinking services? I've been running into a lot of links from tinyurl.com, makeashorterlink.com, and similar services, and it's annoying. I went to both of those web sites to try and figure out why this has become popular.

Apparently it's because pasting lengthy URLs into emails is inconvenient because they often get broken up and then you have to patch them back together in Notepad before pasting the link into a browser. OK, that does make sense; it is annoying to receive broken links to Mapquest directions, for example. I can see using a service like this for emailing links. Or possibly for use in blog comment boxes with character limits.

But WHY are people putting the links in web pages? If you're using a web page, you're using HTML, which means the URL will be hidden in a nice href tag. It can't get broken apart, and no one is going to copy-paste it anyway.

I hate running across links like this, because it's impossible to tell where they point without clicking on them. (That one points to this blog, FYI - no need to click it.) And I want to be able to hover on a link and see where it's taking me - if it's to CNN or Mapquest, fine. If it's to nakedfarmanimals.com or popupheaven.net, I'm not going to click. (I hope neither of those actually exists.) If people would do something like Mapquest the White House I wouldn't complain (though I'd still think it's weird because why not do Mapquest the White House), but no one does. They just put out these mystery links, and I wish they'd stop.

UPDATE: Right after posting that, I read further on TinyURL.com. They also suggest using the service to redirect to pages in your site or hide affiliate links. Again, why? If I can see that a link is taking me to another page on the same site, I'll click it. If I don't know where it goes, I won't. I don't know why anyone would avoid clicking an affiliate link, but wouldn't they also, then, avoid mystery links that *could* be affiliate links? (And come on, if there's a tinyurl link that, from context, goes to a merchant site, what the heck kind of link do you think it is?)

# : 3:27 PM : :

I saw my first cicada on Saturday, and have since seen scores more. No live ones though! Only dead ones on the ground. I am fairly pleased with that state of affairs, though I imagine more will be coming.

In other news, I had a nice sick day yesterday. My penicillin gives me a stomachache so I couldn't do anything useful and had to lounge and watch movies all day. I watched Better than Chocolate which was great, then I ventured out and saw a matinee of Mean Girls which was mediocre but fun.

Now I'm back at work; my stomach mostly just hurts when I stand up so today I'm happy to have a job where I'm tethered to my desk. I hope this doesn't continue all week, though.

The med school applications are going well - I actually have my AMCAS application almost done. I'm so proud of myself. I also have a tentative list of schools to apply to. I'm wondering a little about requirements; several schools require a year of English which I sort of have: AP credit for freshman comp, then "Professional Communication for Engineers" ... I'm not really worried about this, since ENGL does show up twice on my transcript and it's clear that I have basic English competency, but I'm not used to only sort of meeting requirements!

Then a few schools recommend (but don't require) a biochemistry course, which I don't have. I considered trying to take one this fall, but the only one at GMU I could possibly fit in around work turns out to be for PhD students - I do have the prereqs, but I am thinking that a PhD level chemistry course would be a bit much for me.

# : 11:25 AM : :

Standing on the Left? You Must Be on Vacation

I was going to buy a T-shirt but they don't have any fitted ones. I'm not going to wear a men's shirt; I'd look like a tourist. (smirk)

# : 6:51 PM : :

I've had white patches on my (swollen) tonsils for a few days now. The other day my mom told me I should go to the doctor for a strep test, but I was skeptical because my throat wasn't sore. Today it started to hurt, plus I had a headache, swollen glands, and a probable fever, so I looked up a practice and made an appointment. The doctor's reaction to my throat: "That's disgusting!" Yeah, he's pretty sure it's strep. So now I have a bottle of penicillin and a day off tomorrow!

# : 6:05 PM : :

I decided, after having pizza for lunch twice and Arby's once last week, that I needed to start cooking ahead so I could eat reasonably well during the week. So I cooked a lot this weekend.

First I made cornbread muffins with extra corn, jalapenos, and cheddar cheese. They turned out really well which was impressive since I started with Jiffy corn muffin mix and just added things by feel. Definitely something I'll make again.

Then I baked a quiche with onions, green peppers, mushrooms, and smoked ham. I can bring slices of that to work for breakfast, instead of Pop Tarts. I just tried a little chunk but it tasted good.

And rather than buying sweets for desserts, I made homemade rice pudding (with Indian basmati rice - so tasty) and put it in little half-cup Gladware containers, so I have my very own pudding packs. This is something I'll do again, too, because it was so easy. I did think the recipe called for too much sugar, and the very scant quarter cup I added did turn out to be a little much, so next time I'll add less. Though next week I might do chocolate pudding instead - if I pour it straight into the containers, it will set properly rather than having a bowl of it in the fridge that gets soupy whenever I spoon some out.

I also bought carrots, pita and hummus for snacks, and black beans, corn, and salsa to put with cheese over rice for easy lunches. And when I made the quiche, I cut up extra vegetables and put them in baggies so it'll be easy to make good dinners this week.

I'll be so healthy!

What I actually ate over the weekend, though, was yummy but not as ambitious - strawberries with chocolate sauce (well, that was homemade), frozen Trader Joe's stirfry, frozen stuffed flounder from TJ's. And muffins. I'm not a domestic goddess yet.

# : 9:57 AM : :

My mom is such a nut. She just told me that she hopes I get to live with my friend K because "she's a Kerry supporter, maybe you can get her to become a Republican." So I told her that I'm planning on voting Libertarian instead (I'm pretty sure my vote isn't going to affect the outcome in Virginia) and she said she's disappointed in me. Then she started talking about how the Democrats are acting out of partisan motives. I asked her what exactly she thinks the Republicans are doing - we have a two-party system; both sides are partisan. She told me that once I live a little more*, I'll understand that the Democrats are more partisan than the Republicans.

Sometimes I want to be inside my mom's head for a day, so I can figure out her logic. But I'm afraid I wouldn't survive the experience.

*That's the second time this week she's told me I will understand something when I'm older. I swear she's trying to get me to throw a temper tantrum and prove that I am not, in fact, a grownup.

# : 4:32 PM : :

This is hilarious (-ly mean):

Language Log: The Dan Brown code

I haven't read The Da Vinci Code. After that post, I briefly considered it just as fodder, but I won't bother because there's no way I could make fun of it as well as Geoffrey Pullum does.

# : 4:41 PM : :

Last night I talked to the woman in my handbell choir who rents out a condo. It's still empty, so we popped over after practice and looked at it. I liked it quite a bit - great location, similarly sized rooms to my current place, 14th (top) floor, nice westward view, washer/dryer in the apartment, 24-hour desk. The bedroom is a little smaller, and the cooking is electric which I don't like as much, but overall it was definitely nice.

She would give me a really good deal, but it would still be about 20% more than I'm paying now, which I don't think I can really justify.

My friend who's considering grad school here won't decide for another month or so, and my roommate needs an answer from me as soon as possible. So I think I'm going to stay in my current apartment.

I wonder if I can convince her to let me get kittens.

# : 8:58 AM : :

The road to med school, that is. I called Ohio State and it turns out that I won't be considered an Ohio resident because I will have been out of the state for over a year without being financially dependent on my parents. So I guess now I will get a Virginia driver's license and so forth, and apply to the state schools in Virginia. I'll still apply in Ohio, but maybe not to all of them.

In other news, I went and checked my chemistry grades. I'm getting a B+ in lecture and an A in lab. A little disappointing, but pretty much as I expected.

# : 2:46 PM : :

I saw this article awhile ago and forgot to blog it:

The big fat con story discusses Paul Campos's book The Obesity Myth. Campos disputes the claim that "obesity" is necessarily unhealthy, and apparently supports his thesis by analyzing the research.

The first assertion is that BMI is not a useful gauge.

The core belief of those prosecuting this case is that the BMI tables testify to a strong, predictable relationship between increasing weight and increasing mortality. That, after all, is what most people assume when they read that medical and public health authorities have determined a BMI of 25 or above is hazardous to a person's health. This belief, however, is not supported by the available evidence.

When the BMI fad started, I couldn't figure out why this scale was supposed to be so great - it's simply a formula that converts weight, height, and sex into a single number. In essence it's no different than a height/weight chart, and we all know those are insufficient since people have different body types. For example:

According to the public health establishment's current BMI definitions, Brad Pitt, Michael Jordan and Mel Gibson are all "overweight", while Russell Crowe, George Clooney and baseball star Sammy Sosa are all "obese".

Apparently half the women in America have a fat fetish.

It goes on to say:

Over the past 20 years, scientists have gathered a wealth of evidence indicating that cardiovascular and metabolic fitness, and the activity levels that promote such fitness, are far more important predictors of both overall health and mortality risk than weight. Yet none of the studies most often cited for the proposition that fat kills makes any serious attempt to control for these variables.

I'm intrigued by these claims, and will have to read the book so I can check out the research. I imagine that his case is slightly overstated, but I don't doubt at all that the usefulness of BMI has been greatly inflated, and the emphasis ought to be on fitness rather than weight.

# : 10:00 AM : :

My roommate needs me to decide whether or not I'm going to move when my lease is up, and I can't decide! So I am going to ask my blog readers for advice. Please tell me what you think I should do.

Stay in Current Apartment
Pros	Cons
perfect location	pest issue (currently fixed or dormant)
big kitchen	not-great plumbing (shower temp changes, toilet stops but I can fix it)
beautiful big bedroom	less-than-responsive management
nice roommate who is often gone	she doesn't want any cats
Get Apartment with Friend
Pros	Cons
would be fun	don't know if she's actually moving here
she would almost certainly want cats
Get Apartment Alone
Pros	Cons
I like living alone	it would be somewhat more expensive
could get cats if allowed

There are several nearby apartment complexes where I could look if I wanted to move; none of them have the exact perfect location that I have now, but being a block or two away would be fine.

# : 1:37 PM : :

I'm finished with organic chemistry! Woo hoo!

The final was not too bad; I think I did at least OK. I should have studied more, but eh. For some reason we had to provide photo ID in order to get our tests, but they didn't check the IDs against the class list (unless the prof has memorized all 75 names?) so I'm not sure what that accomplished, except terrifying the people who hadn't brought their IDs to the test (they were eventually allowed to just sign their names). Coming from Case, where we needed to swipe our IDs to get into the dorms, the thought of going to class without an ID was weird!

Immediately after the test I went and sold back my books. They paid pretty well; I got $130 back from the $300 or so I paid originally. It felt weird to do it - I've never sold back books before and usually try to hoard them - but then I remember that I'm not really going to read them again, there's always the library if I do want to, and I already have a set of o chem books from CSU.

It feels great to be done.

# : 10:17 AM : :

Back in high school, it was my boyfriend's goal to be intimidating, and he was always offended when I told him he just looked like a big teddy bear.

I kind of wanted to be intimidating, too, but as a small giggly blonde, that was not going to happen. In high school it was especially bad, since I was also pretty shy and unconfident. I kept complaining that, as a senior, I would get run over in the halls by freshmen!

But today I noticed that no one runs me over in the hallways anymore - actually, I see a lot of people ducking aside to avoid hitting me, or looking at the wall instead of making eye contact. How cool is that!? People get out of my way now! I don't know if it's that I'm taller now, or I exude confidence, or I walk fast and people are afraid of being bulldozed, or maybe just because I work with a lot of geeks, but I am SO proud of myself.

# : 3:01 PM : :

I've gotten to test GMail more and I'm loving it. The conversation display is so cool - while I'm reading my most recent email, I can see the first lines of the previous emails in the conversation, so it's easy to remember what we were talking about. And I can go back to read those emails very easily, rather than having to sort through a whole bunch of old ones.

Since I don't have a lot of email yet, I haven't used the search, but the label function is cool. Instead of sorting mail into folders, you can tag it with labels, and one email can have more than one label. So if my dad emails me about taxes and birthday parties, I can tag it both Taxes and Family, rather than putting it in one folder or the other and not being able to find it later. Very nifty. My next thing to try is the keyboard shortcuts.

There have been a couple of glitches; I think they must not have allocated enough database resources yet because sometimes I get an error saying it couldn't complete my request, please try in a few seconds. But it always works the second time, and it's just an annoyance -- I haven't lost anything.

I got my mom to use it, and I was wondering what she'd think about the ads* since she's fairly privacy conscious, but I explained to her how it works and she was OK with it. Then she said she'd have to make sure to write a lot about her conservative politics, so "they" can see those viewpoints have a lot of support. Interesting approach.

*Speaking of which, I haven't seen any of these supposed ads! I don't know if they haven't been installed yet or what. Maybe my emails are just too boring to advertise in.

# : 2:57 PM : :

I sat down yesterday and wrote my personal statement. It's not done, but it's there. I now feel much better, plus writing it reinforced my decision so I guess that means it must be persuasive!

So now I have to study for my O Chem final tomorrow, but, you know, I'm just trying not to worry about that. I probably should, but I have a pretty good grade and I feel like I understand the material, so I'm not as terrified as I could be. It's not like I ever studied more than a few hours for my finals in undergrad, and that worked out well for me.

# : 2:47 PM : :

As it turns out, I didn't have a very long non-anxious period after the MCAT. Because now I have to do hard stuff like asking professors to write me recommendations. Last week I wrote to a few profs asking if I could meet with them on Friday to talk about recommendations. I thought having made the appointments would make me feel accomplished, but oh no. Now I'm terrified of the actual meetings, plus I have to produce an updated resume, samples of class work, list of activities, and worst of all, a personal statement. I was supposed to have longer to work on this! And I don't WANT to! (Can you hear me whining?)

I'm not sure why exactly I have so much dread about writing the essay, since I've basically told the story to 50 million people already. Why I got interested in medicine, what I did to make it possible, why I think I'll be good at it. That's what I'm supposed to write, right?

The part about why I'll be good is the hardest. Eric thinks this is ridiculous, but the way I see it, sure it's clear that I can handle the academic side. (Actually, my prowess at memorization is questionable, but whatever.) The problem is that there's a lot more to it than that, and that's the hard thing to get across. I think. (Maybe I should have Eric write that part since he has so much faith in me!)

So of course, my difficulty in writing the statement has spread so that now I'm worrying (again) about whether I'm ready to make the decision, should I wait another year, have I really thought through my other options, blah blah blah.

I need something better to think about.

# : 12:07 PM : :

The 17-year cicadas are supposed to be emerging soon. I'm fascinated and disgusted.

Today the Post has a few articles about the biology of the cicadas. The theories about how they evolved these life cycles are pretty neat.

No Cicadas on Ice: Biologists Theorize That 13- and 17-Year Broods Evolved to Survive Climatic Changes

But why 13 or 17 years? Life cycles that long are mathematically more likely to have survived the Pleistocene era than shorter ones, but that doesn't explain the benefit of a prime number.

It turns out that if an area contains populations of cicadas with different life-cycle lengths, broods with long cycles that are high prime numbers will share summers less often with other broods. But why is that an advantage?

When broods with different cycle lengths emerge at the same time, some members will interbreed. Their offspring will be hybrids, carrying a mixture of genes. If the precise timing of a cicada's life cycle is produced by the interaction of several genes, then getting those genes from two different populations might change the interaction. That might affect the length of the life cycle.

If the offspring of 11-year and six-year cicadas are cicadas of a third cycle length -- say, nine years -- then the number of insects emerging on either parent's schedule in the next generation will decrease. That, in turn, will diminish the strength-in-numbers survival strategy on which all Magicicada species depend.

Poised to Emerge, Uncanny Masters of Counting

How periodical cicadas know when to emerge from the ground after 17 years (or 13, in the case of some species of Magicicada) is a bigger mystery than how they got to be so long-lived or periodical in the first place.

Unfortunately, the cicadas themselves are more yucky than interesting.

# : 2:29 PM : :

I tried to give blood on Friday. (Skip the rest of this paragraph if you're squeamish.) I never had before, because I'm scared of needles, but I decided now was a good time to conquer my fear (since I want to be a doctor and all) so I tagged along with two of my work friends. But it was cold in there and I was really nervous, so my veins hid. I had to squeeze the little ball forever before my vein showed enough, then when the nurse put the needle in it really hurt. Turns out that was because she missed the vein - when I looked I could see that the needle was just sitting in my arm. Ouch! So she took it out and started taking off her gloves - I asked her why and she said "I'm going to call it a day. But you can come back another time if you want to give it another try." I was really disappointed; I had faced my fear up to and including the time when there was actually a needle in my arm, and I was willing to try again while I was still psyched up, but they wouldn't let me! I guess I will try again eventually, but not with the same nurse. (My friends said now I'm going to have to answer yes to the question "have you ever been refused for donating blood" - ha.)

After work on Friday a bunch of us went down to the Mall to see the new WWII memorial, which was very impressive. I definitely recommend going shortly before dark - the monuments look really gorgeous at dusk.

I was really lazy over the weekend. I went to the gym, shopped a little (I got a sleeveless silk blouse and a chiffon scarf - I decided to start dressing more like a grownup), got my hair cut, went to church, grocery shopped, and cooked. That's it!

My cooking was a little bit interesting. Saturday I tried to use my leftover chipotles in adobo to make a marinade/sauce for chicken. I chopped them and added tomato paste and beer and brown sugar. It smelled good but it had a little bit of a weird metallic taste; I think the tomato paste might have had funny preservatives or something. Then the chicken somehow got stringy and the sauce was way too spicy, but really tasty. I think I'll have to add more brown sugar and serve it over rice or bread or something in order to use it up.

I bought a jar of red pepper and artichoke tapenade at Trader Joe's. It was really good and it reminded me of the crab and artichoke dip I like to make. So then I bought a can of crab meat and mixed them together with some parmesan as kind of a shortcut to the dip. Apparently, you need to rinse canned crab meat. The dip turned out disgustingly salty. What a disappointment.

But my final cooking experiment turned out well - it was a takeoff on bananas foster. I cooked pear chunks in brown sugar, butter, and port and served it over vanilla ice cream. Very yummy. Though next time I won't cook it for quite so long; my syrup reached hard ball stage (I think) and when it hit the ice cream got chewy in places and crunchy in others. It was really good though!

Now this week I need to eat up my leftovers (not the salty dip, though) and study for my O Chem final since I didn't study at all over the weekend! The final is on Thursday morning, then that evening I catch a plane to Cleveland for the weekend.

Clevelanders - I won't be in town for long, but I'll be free Saturday night after dinner, and maybe Friday for an earlyish dinner. I'm free on Sunday as far as I know but being Mother's Day I imagine most other people will have plans. If we miss each other this time I'll be back the first weekend in June.

# : 9:03 AM : :