Okay, I've had a crazy couple of weeks, but I'm finally getting caught back up with everything. I took the comprehensive exam that is required for my master's program, and that was a bit of a nightmare. I was given one week to write two ten-page papers, but my dad was in town for the first couple of days, and then I had work. I started working on the papers on a Monday evening, and they were due Friday afternoon. Between Monday and Friday, I was getting maybe two hours of sleep a night, and then I pulled an all-nighter from Thursday to Friday to get everything done (don't forget, I still had work while all this was going on). But I was able to get everything turned in on time, and I feel pretty good about it. Ha, and to show you where my priorities are, immediately after turning in my paper, my second thought was that I should go home and sleep. I mean, on the subway ride down, I nodded off three different times for a few brief seconds, but I was paranoid that I was going to miss my stop and end up in Brooklyn. But my FIRST thought after turning in the exam was, "Hey, I'm just a few blocks away from the bookstore."
So I went to the bookstore. It was one of those good idea/bad idea situations. It was good in that I was able to just relax for a bit and not worry about anything, but it was a bad idea because I almost passed out at the bookstore (trust me, I know the feeling---thanks Pere. And for those of you that don't know, the count is currently in double digits for how many times I've been knocked out, with about half of them involving incidents with my brother).
And I had my birthday this past week. It was a lot of fun. Some friends and I went to the Shake Shack, and it was a joint event because another friend was moving to Utah the next day. We ended up having around thirty-five people show up. After ordering all of our food and stuff, we decided to eat outside, and it was one of those perfect evenings: mid-70s, slight breeze, and and we were sitting right next to a fountain just outside of the Museum of Natural History.
This past week, another friend took off, so a group of us went walking around down in the Financial District. I kept getting left behind because I was trying to take pictures. At one point, I saw a giant American flag hung across the front of a building, and I thought that was pretty cool. About an hour or so later, we went walking past the same building and I realized that it was the New York Stock Exchange. I tried not to let everyone know that I was completely clueless about the various historical sites around us, but it was still a lot of fun. Things eventually led to one of those awkward moments. My friend Molly was leaving the city the very next day, so she was trying to finish getting rid of various things. She asked if I wanted some rolling storage drawers, and I figured I could probably use them. So she said, "I guess that means you're going to have to come home with me tonight." .... Yeah, everyone was laughing pretty hard with that one. Oh, and I also I got to try out my birthday present as we were all walking around--it's a tilt-shift lens that I have been having entirely way too much fun with. Some pictures below--
Just outside the Shake Shack
While we were eating dinner -- kind of random, but whatever
Molly --
Neesha -- this lens makes for some interesting portraits because of the way it blurs parts of the image
Also outside of the Shake Shack, waiting for everyone to show up
Anyway, don't forget to leave some comments--
