What's in your fridge?

I've been reading the archives of The Amateur Gourmet, and an entry from June 2004 inspired me. Here's what's in my fridge!
The first thing I noticed about my fridge, compared to the AG's and his readers, is that it's FULL. I don't know if you'd guess that this is a fridge for one person.

Starting at the top...there's 2% milk, the strangest looking apple juice you'll ever see (it's Kool-Aid!), club soda (hello, mixed drinks), a small container of left over angel hair (hello, part of lunch!), a bag of romaine hearts, and hiding are 4 packages of faux seafood (they were $1! and will make a great seafood salad) and a bottle of Hershey's syrup.

Moving down...there's butter, sour cream behind that (which needs to go out!), a lime, shaved parmesan, mozzarella, a block of cheddar cheese (it's hiding under the mozzarella), French onion dip (which was dissapointingly icky), a roma tomato, and colored hardboiled eggs (which are NOT from Easter, we dyed them last night). I'm particularly proud of these eggs because they are SO vibrant! Take a gander!


Moving to the bottom shelf...there's my condiment row: grape jelly, mayonnaise, regular mustard, spicy brown mustard, and honey dijon mustard, balsamic salad spritzer dressing, raspberry jam, sweet pickle relish, and more parmesan cheese (grated this time). Then there's Ready Bacon, tortillas, brown sugar, pancetta, homemade chipotle glaze (which was delish, but I need to throw it out...), pizza sauce, chicken broth and coleslaw mix.

In the veggie drawer, there's alcohol because the drawer freezes EVERYTHING. And since alcohol doesn't freeze, it's a good place for it. Thinking about that always makes me think of the line in the Crucible--"Elizabeth, your justice would freeze beer". Good times.

I was going to do the fridge door and the freezer, but I'm tapped out right now. I'll save it for a different entry.

Now tell me, what's the most interesting/strangest/unique thing in YOUR fridge? (Mine are the colored eggs, because who has colored eggs when it's not Easter? And I love them.)

Academic Update.

My grades for 2 of my 3 midterms are in, and surprisingly (or not) they're both As. A 96% in anatomy and an 80% (which became an A) in my MSE class. The second is what I'm most happy about, as it means I don't have to take the second midterm.

In looking at my calendar of academia, I'm going to be so swamped soon. I'm beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel for my senior project (May 9th is the final presentation and the final paper is due May 21st). I'm almost excited for summer classes because it means I won't have a project looming over my head as I have this whole school year. It sucks because I'm starting to make some headway, and see where I need(ed) to go, which is a slightly (who am I kidding, entirely!) different direction than the project aimed for.

I'm happy though, because I've been told by three different people (my department adviser, the guy who helps me with the cell culture, and the guy who runs the metallography lab) that I'm doing more work than other people. And of course there's the mantra that must keep all grad students going: "It's research, that's what happens." In the end, I think I have a wealth of "what not to do" and "what to think about doing"...at least enough to make it look like I've done more than just fail at doing what I set out to do. Urgh.

I can tell I'm getting stressed again (or shall I say, more than usual?) because my upper lip is twitching nearly nonstop.

Study Break

I'm taking a break from studying to say...that I'm studying. I have two midterms this week, one that I'm wholly unconcerned about (anatomy) and one that makes me nervous to the core (history). Basically, I know that I know the anatomy stuff and I know the format of the test makes it easy (a lot of process of elimination!). The history test, on the other hand, is mostly an essay where I'm supposed to "think critically". We have the four possible essays, and two will be on the test, of which we choose one. I decided to go ahead and write out 3 of the essays, since then I'm covered on the test. I'm just not sure that I'm THINKING enough about the answers. Bah. I really dislike the format of this history class because it's twice a week for 1 hour and 48 minutes (compared to M-F for 48 minutes, with recitation on T&R). There isn't a lot of discussion about the stuff we read and the details on the subject that we're talking about are spotty because the lecturer rushes through the subjects. Ugh. But it was the only one that fit in my schedule and I need to take it to graduate.

Last night, there was a reappearance of a mouse in my apartment. Lovely. Turns out that the special thing they put across the bottom of the door to keep mice out does no good. I prodded the mouse out from under the fridge and he very quickly ran out under the door. Jerk.

I'm done complaining. Back to the grindstone.

Culinary Delights

Occasionally I make a dinner that I think looks really pretty, and tonight's meal was one of those:


Broiled pork chop with pan roasted veggies (zucchini, yellow squash, red pepper, onion, and mushrooms). And it tasted pretty good too!

The Pink Shirt

Several summers ago, while I a research intern, I found out I needed something "business casual" to wear to a presentation. I had pants (fabulous black pin stripe pants that fit really well!) but no shirt (ordinarily I would have worn a sweater, but given that it was August, I decided that was out. So last minute I ran to Target and bought a fuchsia (I just learned to spell that word correctly) button up cotton shirt. It was business casual enough, I figured. I tried it on, it seemed fine and I bought it.

Then when I wore it, it felt like it was cut funny. It didn't quite hit right on my upper torso. I wore it to the presentation figuring I just wasted money on a shirt I'd wear once.

And to this day, of all the "dressy button up shirts" I own, I wear it the most. And it's still not that comfortable.

You would have gotten a pretty goofy picture of me modeling the shirt, but alas, Blogger hates me right now, and it won't upload the picture.

In other news, I found $5 in my dress pants. Cha-ching!

Tragedy

There are no words to express how I feel about the shootings at Virginia Tech. It's entirely too scary that this could really happen on any college campus; the doors to our academic buildings are open to anyone who wants to walk in all day just like VA Tech.

The feeling is like a milder version of my feelings after September 11 and very similar to the sorts of feelings I had after Columbine. I read the stories, and while I personally don't know anyone involved, tears well up in my eyes. My throat gets tight. And most of all, I'm scared. This is one of those events, I think. The one where you remember where you were when you first heard it. Today--I was on the bus when I heard snippets of conversations, but not enough to understand what people were talking about; then I came home and read a friend's away message about "reconsidering" VA Tech, still confused. Then I opened up Mozilla to do my typical browsing, and there it was.

Ugh. Is no place safe anymore?

Rawr.

Dear Right Earlobe,
I get it. There's an unnatural hole in you, so you're doing your job by trying to repair it. But seriously, is there a reason you waited almost 18 years to mount this continuing attack? I'd really like to stop wincing every time I stick an earring in, thanks. Between you and me, it's ridiculous that you're fighting now. Mr. Left Earlobe is totally fine with the hole. Stop it. Now. I refuse to let you heal up because I know that I wouldn't get you pierced again (thanks mom for doing it when I wouldn't remember. I appreciate that!).

Please stop?

Thanks,
The Girl You're Attached To.

Crappy Day...

Today has been a lame day so far, which is saying a lot since it's only 10:36am. Guh.

1. I had to get up early. After a full night of weird dreams, I just didn't feel rested enough to get up.
2. When I turned my computer on, it freaked out. I had accidently changed the date last night while I was trying to find out when a certain date was. This resulted in my computer having a hissy fit about a number of things.
3. I locked my keys and phone in my apartment. The door is locked automatically, so I can't get them until the office is open later and I can get a spare key. Unfortunately I won't have time to do that until 3:30 at the very earliest. I'm just hoping the office is actually open.
4. I had to RUN to catch the bus this morning. For the campus bus, there is no "schedule" per se, other than "every 10 minutes". I hate running. It makes my lungs burn a fiery death. Thank you, years of living with my grandparents smoking.
5. The guy I was supposed to meet with this morning to help me with my senior project was late.
6. And to top it all off, I have to see a cadaver later. Actually that doesn't bother me. It's the intense smell of embalming fluids that gets me.

I suppose my day hasn't been that bad. But it could be a whole lot better.

Colder than a witch's teat...

OMG. I'm so cold. I'm so annoyed because other than climbing into bed with a billion covers, I can't get warm. I'm pretty sure it's hovering around 60-65 in here. At least I was home all weekend, where we have heat. Though, I could've done without the White Easter.

While I was home, my sister made her meal for her "Creative Cuisine" class. I suggested she try a meal from India (they have to choose a country). Despite never having eaten Indian food, she did a pretty good job. Granted she had several sous chefs, but she found the recipes and made her grocery list. And helping her out with the meal, gave me a whole new appreciation for the Indian food that I love to eat--it's truly laborious! We had vegetable pakora (fritters), garlic naan (bread), chicken curry with basmati rice, and kheer (rice pudding). She hit a home run with 3 of the dishes--the curry wasn't as good as we wished it would have been.

All in all, a good weekend. Tonight is dinner and studying for my anatomy exam tomorrow. I should do fine on it!

Falling Down

Last night, I watched a video on YouTube about my former high school. It was pretty sad to realize just how terribly dilapidated my high school has gotten. Now, it was bad when I was there (graduated 4 years ago), but I don't think anyone ever talked about how bad it really was back then. I find it hard to believe that the structural integrity of the walls and tunnels truly has deteriorated so rapidly in a few years.

Recently the school district won a "contest" of sorts for "most dilapidated school in Ohio". I guess it was more of a "grant" than a contest. I think that was the first time I really heard about how bad the school was. It seems that it really came to head this past summer, with a lot of temporary measures being take to make sure the school remains standing. My question is: what the heck happened to this building that makes it unable to stand for more than 100 years. Yes, I know, that's a long long time. But come on! There are plenty of buildings in the US that are that old and older. Why was our high school allowed to fall into such disrepair? I know that now the building is falling into disrepair because the district doesn't want to throw money into a sinkhole, and I get that. I guess the building could just be that old and that decrepit. But the auditorium is falling apart too? That was finished in the 50s! Ah well. The fact remains that the school is old and crumbly.

It's time for a new high school. I desperately hope that the voters can put aside supposed "wrongdoings" of the district, stop bellyaching about some closed buildings, and realize that "punishing future students" is not the way to go nor is it very responsible. I'm voting for the new high school despite the fact that I don't plan on moving back there to raise my kids. I just hope that this new building will be built well and stand for many years to come.

It's crazy to think that I graduated almost 4 years ago.

Is there a big game on right now?

I suppose if I were a good Buckeye, I'd be watching the Game. But I just don't care for basketball. I can at least sit through a football game, but basketball...not so much. At any rate, it'd be neat if we won.

In my anatomy class we have a "test" of our knowledge every week. It alternates between a quiz and an exam. Today was our first quiz and I rocked its face off. Take that, bones and joints of the lower limbs!

They turned the a/c on in my building. Which means it will be on from now until December. Now in someplaces, I'm sure the weather has turned enough so that the a/c can be on continuously. But not here. Not Ohio. Apparently a number of residents "requested" it. Great. Do they know it's supposed to be in the 40s later in the week? Nice work, people-who-are-too-lazy-to-open-a-window. Sheesh.

Tomorrow will be a long day. I might as well hit the hay now. Uck, long days.