I'm Cookin', Yes Indeed I'm Cookin'...

Yesterday I tried to cook. Again.

"Tried" being the operative word here.

Mind you, I do know how to use a microwave and make (some) stuff on a stovetop. And pop in ready-made chicken legs and salmon fillets in the oven. That's what I did in London for a year, but I gained 15 pounds because of it. Not healthy.

I can steam vegetables so thats healthy. And heat up soup.

Har-har. I am a horrible cook.

When I cook, I need to follow a recipe. I can't just know a recipe off by heart. Apparently, my mother tells me I am a horrible cook so that just makes me more nervous. And Mel is the golden child of the kitchen (thanks to his mother who is an amazing cook) so he just laughs at me. Not very constructive here! My mom hates cooking and she told me that, so I did not learn much from her in that particular department in my formative years, being high school (ha ha). So what did I do in my senior year?

Signed up for cooking class as an elective. My high school has a Culinary Arts program that gets students into the CIA (Culinary Institute of America, not the Central Intelligence Agency) and to positions at Le Cirque. I wanted to learn the basics and a few recipes. I learned how to cut an onion properly, and that a recipe is a really good thing to have.

So what did I make yesterday?

Chicken, baked with olive oil and lemon juice. I was afraid that the chicken was undercooked so I overcooked the chicken and made it a bit dry. I remedied that with some more lemon juice. Made Rice-a-Roni (the San Francisco treat!) to go with it - herb flavor - and it was a bit salty for me (Mel quite liked it) so I added lemon juice to cut the salty flavor.

I think that will be my cooking mantra - when in doubt, use lemon juice.

And for dessert, apple pie with vanilla ice cream: apple pie a la mode. I did not make the pie from scratch, are you kidding me? That's a weekend job. Stole some Mr. Softee ice cream from my freezer upstairs and took it into Mel's apartment in the basement downstairs.

So I am cooking in the downstairs apartment and I used like a million knives because unlike Mel - who had etiquette courses and knows which knife cuts which - I don't know a paring knife from a steak knife. I used a butcher knife to "butterfly" the chicken cutlets; at least I know how to do THAT. It's a really good butcher knife, Mel got it from IKEA and even his mother liked it and she knows knives. His mom makes EVERYTHING from scratch. I need to learn how to make her chicken adobo, that is one Philippino dish I like.

That's another thing to add: when in doubt, use a butcher knife.

My mother decides to visit me and see how I am doing:

"Lower the flame, ALWAYS keep a low flame."
"What's that burning smell? MARIA! You forgot to take out the broiler pan!!!! ALWAYS CHECK THE ENTIRE STOVE!!!"

I get NERVOUS when I have people watching over me! I didn't burn down the dorm in London so I am quite fine thank you! Geez, having my mother watch me cook is like when my father stands over my mother's shoulder when she is at the stove. Whenever he does that to either of us, we tell him that he is not in the Army anymore and no longer a captain and we are NOT your underlings so quit it.

He was the commander of a paratrooper group so he had to watch everything. As I mentioned previously, he is a slob but has good manners and is neat when the time [i.e. being in a military bunker, but that was the 70s] call for it - he had to take etiquette classes during officer's training; they stuck books under his armpits and he had to hold it in place so he can learn how to hold a knife and fork properly. So every so often we have to remind him to stop looking over our shoulders like he is going to give us a citation for dusty boots.

Which means that I have two men who have more etiquette than my mother, me and my maternal grandmother put together (And mind you, my maternal grandmother is mostly all about following Emily Post's etiquette book, the Greek edition [if there was one]. She is always telling me to "Sit straight and be a lady."). Mel even once suggested that I take etiquette courses at the Harvrd Club, but I wasn't 21 at the time so I couldn't partake due to the wine portion of it.

So I forgot to take out the broiler pan which led to a burst of smoke from the stove. Bah. I like the broiler. I can make a kick-arse strip steak (with Montreal steak seasonings of course) with a broiler.

This is what I can do - nominally. I can make pasta, chicken and steak. I think the toughest part will be fish. And I have to learn fish and learn it fast.

Either that or I will be eating a real college student's diet: ramen.

Let Yourself Go, Let Myself Go

During the summer, it is not impossible to lose track of the days and the weeks. When I went to Greece back in 2002, I had to ask someone every few days what the date was. This goes to show when people (maybe just me?) are out of their "native habitat" shall we say, we just tend to let everything go. Even the day of the week - unless you wear a watch that tells the date. I do not wear a watch - like most people my age, I rely on my cell phone to tell the time. However, I would like to get a watch soon. I am tired of relying on my cell phone, sometimes I just want to throw it out a window. But I can't. The world these days wants everyone tied to a tether of some sort or another and most of the time that leash is invisible.

Sometimes, a cell can be useful, especially when you are down in the Bowery and you need someone to be a backup for a concert when the person your with doesn't have proper ID even with a student ID. I called about 5 people before I found someone(s) to be a backup. Needless to say, my friend was able to get in and the someones as well. The security guard was actually nice.
Nonetheless, I really do wish that I did not have to rely on it so much.

I had recently established a pattern for the week:

Count for 4.5 days and that is I when I do not go to work. Count for 2.5 and that is when I do.

Given that I am only on some sort of schedule for half of the week, and that my mother is not on vacation yet so she can remind me to clean my room and tell me what day of the week it is, I have been quite out of character for the past few weeks. Even to the point of being slovenly. Granted, me being slovenly only amounts to not making my bed in the morning and having a few random things strewn across my desk because I like to switch my bag in accordance with my outfit or my mood and hence, I have to empty the previous bag and leave a few things out if the bag isn't big enough. (I cannot carry my iPod, cell phone, wallet, various little miscellany that a girl always carries, a book to read AND my humongous planner in my green bag).

In short, I like bags. I like to carry stuff in my bags. I like to feel that I have what I need (band-aids, gum, bottle of water, tylenol, etc. etc.) in case I come across an ailment as I pound the pavement in my inter-borough travels. My pencilcase is a microcosm of my theory of bags: highlighters, colored pens, pencils, mini-stapler, you name it I have it. In high school, my nickname was "Staples" for very good reason.

So me being a mess. In London, my room was pristine with a very big P. My flatmates and friends were aghast at the organization. My textbooks were in order according to size and category. I do the same thing with my closet - organize by type, then style, color, and fabric. It helps keep my sweaters in order.

But recently?

My desk has been an utter disaster. Seriously. More so than usual; during finals time my room does lapse, especially my desk. Sometimes I will just stack my papers and journal articles neatly and just deal with it after finals. Every semester, when my mom starts to look in my room - she usually doesn't, as she knows that my room is a mess only when I don't have time to clean it due to schoolwork - I have to remind her of the deal we made back in freshman year: Leave me and my room alone during the second week of December and the second week of May and there will be no harm done to either party and I will tidy and reorganize in the third week of December and May when the madness is done. That is all I ask for.

As you can probably surmise, my mother is a neat freak. It has rubbed off on me (ALOT, I can be really anal-retentive when it comes to ordering my textbooks in size order. My 3rd-grade teacher told my mother at Parent-Teacher Conference that I had the neatest desk in the class because of my ordering the textbooks on one side, workbooks and notebooks on the other in accordance to size and category). But my dad is an utter slob so I have a bit of that too.

However, being really organized does pay off, given the profession that I want to go into. I like tidy offices. I also like tidy offices that look really nice and have character. My favorite professor's office was my Global Inequalities professor back in Fall '05 - not only did she have everything organized - even binders in accordance with the class she was teaching to keep materials in check - but she even had a side table with a cute little lamp next to the chair that students sit next to. And she even had a bulletin board! Those rock. I'm going to try and get myself one of those (or even the bits of cork) in my room in Kyoto.

But back to my disaster of a desk. Little papers and receipts strewn over the desk, 600-page novels stacked upon my laptop (obviously not a good idea, but this is the laptop that I am ready to chuck and the novels are in paperback so it's not an issue). iPod and cell phone chargers, cell phone headset and other miscellaneous wires for my digital camera, Mel's dad's digital photo printer, etc. I should take a photo of my desk and put it on Flickr with notes, just like how people take photos of what's in their bag and post it on Flickr. Everything tells a story, so long as you have a narrator to tell it.

I feel like I have just woken out of a reverie - or maybe a mental vacation? - and I finally tidied up my desk before I went to the Cat Empire concert on Tuesday down at the Bowery.

So I have been working on getting my act together. I am an "adult" now, so I have to keep track of the days - both the date and the day of the week.

That means I have to put the twenty-odd textbooks that are totally irrelevant on Half.com for sale.

And empty out my desk.

Those "little things" certainly do pile up.

I Fought the Law and the Law Won

If I ever express the desire to go into law school, someone take a gun and shoot me.

Seriously.

I have been working here at the law school for almost a year. What did I learn?

1) How to waste my time on the Internet.
2) How to use audio/visual equipment. Which was really fun.
3) Bettered my skills with "smart" podiums - a good thing, since I will be the sort of presenter in the future that is NOT clueless.
4) How do deal with office politics and deal with lecturer's arrogant crap.

And most importantly...

5) That most law students are cocky arrogant idiots and that it gets worse the higher you go up in US News and World Report's rankings.

Fordham is ranked I believe in the top 30 (?) and dealing with them for programs already piss me off. Since I was one of the "children" next door, I was supposed to be pre-programmed to hate the "precious law students." As a former admissions tour guide, I actually said that "Yes, the law school is right next door, its a really great program, we have a 3-3 program for undergrads and as undergrads we can use their facilities, but none of us ever do because the law students are rather terriorial." I never got reprimanded for it because like a proper tour guide, I told the truth and the "reality that is FCLC" that the prospectives student wanted to hear, with the shine and sparkle that admissions officers and parents wanted to hear.

The Law school is the jewel in Fordham's crown, hence they are treated like spoilt princes and princesses. And some of them milk it. I do know a few of the law students that I met personally and for programs and some are very nice. There are, unfortunately that think they are gods because they are going to have a law degree after 3 years. Might I just add that most people who go for law degrees never actually become lawyers, because they fail to pass the bar or are just "burnt out"?

They are the ones that get a library that has WINDOWS and pretty chairs - you know, the ergonomical ones that cost about $1000 a pop? I actually commited the travesty that is entering-the-law-school library and sat in one of them. But this was after their finals, so I didn't have to suffer from the dirty looks that are across their faces if I dropped a pen on the floor. Quinn Library - the one for FCLC, GBA, GED, GSS and FCLS (everyone else that is) looks like a factory and has wierd lighting. New, really cute furniture, but no bloody windows. The "rest of us" will not have a library with windows until the incoming FCLC class of 2039 crosses Columbus Avenue for the first time.

My job is fun, but there are some times that I want to take that gavel and smash it into someone's head.

What was the breaking point for me was working for a PMBR Bar Exam law review in McNally a few weeks ago. Personally, its rather ludicrous to pay "all this money" for this degree and then you need to take MORE classes just to pass the bar exam because apparently, whatever you learned in law school isn't enough to pass the bar exam to become a "real" lawyer!

So they had a three day course, two days of which I had to run. The lecturer was like a law student on LSD although she was a former prosecutor in Philly. She made me run around like crazy - asking for extension cords (can't do it - fire hazard but then I see 10 of them within 15 minutes), portable podiums (after I told her I can't move the main one and that I can't take the one out of the classrooms - she took TWO out) and wanting a table (I told her I would get it for her but me getting it down will make noise, the "precious law students" were taking a test so is it ok if I can do it after the break? NO, she made me drag a table down that I am not supposed to! A heavy table, weak arms and a fear of stairs is not a good combination.).

Earlier, my coworker told me that one of the law students unfolded a table in the back to plug in her laptop since it was uncharged. She told the student that she couldn't do that because its a fire hazard, but the student didn't care! Gave my coworker a dirty look. Fine, and when you unfolded that table I wished you broke your leg. It would have served her right, although she would have probably sued the law school. They think they could break the rules just because they pay 40 grand a year. Unfortuantely, most of American college students think that they cn get away with murder and get whatever they want (even that A grade) because they pay "so much money" for it. I do come from a selfish generation.

I feel sooooo bad for my boss and any future coworkers. This fall they are changing the Atrium - where we hold luncheons and registration for events - into a student lounge with couches because the law students don't have a "proper lounge." Boo hoo to them. So now they have to move the furniture every time there is an event and try to keep the law students from stealing the food - it's ok to do it after the event when there are leftovers, but not before. It's going to make the school look bad. All for the sake of pacifying the royalty.

So the law school wins. They are even going to be the first ones to get a new building in the re-development plan of the campus. Frankly, I think they should add one of the 35-story towers first because it makes more space for the other schools as a whole. But no, the law school come first, because it is a "cash cow."

But on a lighter note, I decided to post a new picture of my future toy:

It is the Apple MacBook. I am going to make the conversion from PC to Mac. Strike up the choir, I am going to leave the world of Windows behind!

I say future because it is a belated graduation gift. In high school I got the Sony VAIO R505, one of the first "skinny laptops" and apprently, one of the most popular computers in 2001-2002. I got it simply because it looked pretty and I didn't know any better. After countless reboots, a crashed hard drive and subsequent replacement, overseas travel clocking in at over 30,000 miles (Greece: 2 plane rides, London: 6 plane rides) a broken cd-burner and over 1500 songs on iTunes, not to mention 4 years worth of college papers, outlines, and bumps and scratches, eating dinner as I type my papers and watching Sex and the City DVD's on it, its time to throw in the motherboard.

It looks like its been through WW3. The keyboard has faded where the heels of my palms rested, the A and S keys are almost gone, the screen is always dusty and it really ,really, battered - like there are nicks in it. And did I mention that the battery went kaput? Like it decided to not work anymore, so may laptop is nothing more now than a tiny PC since it awlays has to be plugged in. Microsoft Word freezes, and slowly my other programs are freezing on me as well.

Still, it WAS a purple laptop. I didn't want a standard, gray or black IBM/Dell.

The black Apple is really shiny, as Cat would put it, but its not worth it price wise to spend another $200 for a black casing. I'm getting the white (2.0 gHz), and using that $200 to upgrade the memory to 2GB.

Now if only there were cute laptop cases to go with it. I never used my old laptop case because it was this ugly office-looking industrial black. I would like kelly green. Or black, but with polka dots.

Yeah, I am very picky.

The Janus Effect

There is a greek god (or entity, something like that, my knowledge of Greek mythology has lapsed somewhat, which is a personal embarrassment) called Janus. He has two faces: one looking foward and one looking back.

This summer looks like it is going to have that dual-quality.

In the wake of graduation, I have been particularly moody and happy at the same time. Moody because I GRADUATED. I am DONE, FINISHED, FINITO, TELIOSA, OWARI.

Comprende?

According to Mel, I am somewhat depressed and bitchy precisely because I have graduated. There is no looking back, unless you look back on what happened in the past four years. Mel can relate, because he went through the same process last year, combined with the anxiety of going on more than ten interviews for a job in the finance world and getting rejected every time. He gave himself 6 months to get the "dream job."

The lucky stiff. He got the job that all of his classmates covet (as well as the bankers at Citibank and Chase). Without having to go through the hell known as the MBA (though he might do it in the future, but not for management - he thinks its a load of bull___. He likes to play with the real thing, hence the reason why he uses four computer screens at work to track the stock market. He gets to play in the dirt).

As for me, I have to go through six or seven more years of school to get that shiny Ph.d, maybe a post-doc somewhere and try and pray to get a job as a professor at a decent school in the NY-Metro /Tristate area. My top choices: Fordham, NYU and Columbia. I obviously do not need to explain myself why.

Not that I mind going to school - the routine of it is so ingrained in me that I like it. I am a geek, though I do not wear thick glasses and pocket protectors. I do dress like a prep though.

However, the Ph.d field seems highly overpopulated with equally amibtious people which is why I need to work extra hard to stand out so I can get that job. I want to make sure that I get a turn to play in the sandbox, too.

For example, applying to that East Asian Urban/Architectual History Conference in Kyoto this coming December - if I get selected, then my paper (the joy and bane that is my thesis) will get edited and PUBLISHED. I WILL BE 22 YEARS OLD. Mega cool. (I have a good chance at being selected - I corresponded with one of the people in the commitee and I sent him the thesis, and he was floored. I have the emails to prove it - to the point that he is trying to recruit me to study with him for my Ph.d at the University of Sydney. Mum is the word - my priority is to come back home.)

Mel was originally not too happy at the situation that I have presented/am presenting to him:

1) a year in London
2) 1.5 years in Japan
3) The prospect of 4-5 years in a city outside NYC for grad school. (However, my top three are Harvard, UPenn and Princeton, so that's not too bad. If I go to either of the latter two, Mel would probably come with me, as it is east to commute via car to his job in Jersey City, aka "Wall Street-West" (after 9/11, most of the financial big-wigs jumped ship and crossed the Hudson into presumably safer territory. Goldman-Sachs built a whole new building for themselves along the Newport/Pavonia waterfront).

My friend Cat told me that UPenn has off-campus housing in these old converted mansions in the historic-college town part and that just makes me drool. It's my dream to live in a townhouse in the historic part of Brooklyn and have an office with those bookcases built into the walls.

You can imagine it was rather difficult to part, especially when I left for London. However, Mel does understand that I have to do what I have to do in order to get "my dream job."

I am babbling. There is a lot of fog in my head.

There is this social stigma that says "after you graduate from college you will enter the 'real world'." What is the "real world" per se? I was told once by a classmate (who was an older student, already tried and tested in the "real world") that I am never entering "the real world" because I am going into academia and in a way its still like staying in college. Cat (who also wants to go into academia as much as I do) and I cheer to the prospect of a 12-hour workweek, never having a 9-5 job, getting paid to read books in a library, etc. etc. but it is still going to be a JOB. Just not a "conventional" one. Which I do not mind at all - I have worked part-time in offices since i was 15 and I hate it. The only thing I learned was how to waste my time using the Internet.

Facebook now has this new feature for our profiles called "Work" - where you write where you are working, for what organization and what your job is. I actually filled it out, because in essence, my fellowship is a job. I have to be accountable for the quality of my research and the quality of my language study - if I don't reach a certain level within the 6-month language study period, I get kicked out. Talk about quality control and employee review.

It may be called a "stipend" but it is still a salary. When I go to Japan, I have to pay rent, pay my cell phone bill, my credit card bill (I'm thinking of cutting it up actually, but all 'necessary' graduation miscellania is complete so I can return my AMEX to its hiding place) buy my own groceries, budget, make sure that my student loan is paid (I know I can defer it because technically I am still a student, but I choose not to, I want that sucker paid off) and make sure that I have some fun so that my time in Japan is not going to be like my time in London.

This little rant is the result of looking back over the past four years everytime someone asks me what I want to do for a living and they look at me strangely. So WHAT if I don't want to have a job that is in a shiny "office" (because I will have one at the university) in a the corporate sense. So sterile. You can decorate your cubicle, but I will be able to go teach class in hot-pink rainboots if I want to when the skies decide to open up and flood the NY subway system (my commute was HORRIBLE this past Friday). And I can wear jeans. Everyday. With sneakers (Or J.Crew ballet flats - I have grown up shall we say, I don't like to wear sneakers anymore). So WHAT if I don't want to run out and get a so-called "real job" right after college.

People have told me that they are envious of me - I get to live in Japan almost for free for 18 months! To them, I have this to say: I busted my ASS to get to where I am. I am the one who took 6 classes EVERY semester since freshman year so that I can take Japanese and graduate on time (except for junior year because that was London, but I sat in on the grad class with over 150+ page readings of really hard stuff plus over 5 hours of prep for it and the 3 hours+ Japanese I did every day so I can catch up and do well on the final) and got sick almost every semester for it, while working part-time so that I can support myself nominally so that I was not a burden to my parents, making sure that $3500 lasted for 7 months in London because my dad does not run the ice cream truck in the winter and they couldn't support me, handing over my paycheck to my parents in the winter of sophomore year because my dad was unemployed so that we could have groceries and pay the mortgage, paying for my Japanese classes every semester and in the summers (except for senior year, because Fordham helped me and for that I am eternally grateful) making sure my thesis was as good as it can be and fearing that I would get an F on it because it was still missing so much (although if I had more time I think it could have been better), running around and trying to get new jobs ASAP so that I can save money and yes, I did have to worry too about what I was going to do after college! Why do you think I took the GRE twice and almost applied to 10 grad schools and studied every spare moment I had (on the train, on the bus, in the 15 minutes between classes, even sneaking the readings in my desk at my old job) so that I can keep up my GPA?

When I explain to people this, they tell me I overreact and worry too much, and me getting sick proves it. First, college is a breeding den of germs. Every fall, everyone gets sick at my school because we have to become immune to the freshmen. Secondly, I had mono a few years ago and that whacked up my immune system from here to kingdom come. This past semester, I got laryngitis, lost my voice completely, hurt my back had a fever, couch, cold and allegies that are still bothering me. It's not that I overreact. It's not that I worry too much. Yes, I can be a bit hard on myself. But that is how I am. I do know when to stop or slow down a bit at least - as Mary says, "take it easy." Which is why I am seriously chilling out this summer. No classes, just work and yoga. And alot of sleeping and reading, for fun, with some studying so that my brain doesn't go to sleep entirely. Japanese is tough.

I am ranting - and I will admit to that. But this is my way of coping with the fact that I have graduated: I rant and be moody, which is not entirely constructive. Others are in denial, mellow about it, try ever-so-hard to stay in the city, go out and party (and get trashed doing it), etc. etc. Everyone has their own method. At least I get it out here. But I will make this perfectly clear: what I have now was not handed to me on a silver platter.

In my high school, I was a minority (demographically speaking, not that it says much, but my high school was zoned for the projects) and in my freshman year, there were 1000 kids. By the time I graduated, there were only 400. The college counselor struggled to make sure that every one of us at least applied for a CUNY and forced us to apply to two. Not many of us were amibtious; my fellow classmate who went to Fordham with me told me in conversation a few months ago "We are different, that's why no one liked us [in high school]."

By senior year, I was ostracized for two reasons: 1) my ex-best friend liked my now-fiance and turned agsinst me for it because she couldnt "have" him and 2) because I actually cared about school and wasn't satisfied with just going to CUNY. Not to knock it, but I wanted something more than that. I was tired of my 3500+ student high school and I wanted classes that were not 41 students because of overcrowding. When I told classmates my freshman year that size of my high school, they were floored. Kids in my high school didn't go to schools like Fordham, Columbia or Cornell (3, 1 and 2 went respectively in my senior class. The college counselor posted our acceptance letters and our financial aid packages because they were such huge firsts - 1 who went to Fordham and the student who went to Columbia went through HEOP).

It was a total fluke that I applied to Fordham, I wanted Columbia so badly. I just saw the brochure with the application that came in the mail because of the SAT release score program, my mom said it was pretty decent and I applied. Never visited, never went on the website - I was ready to give the application to a friend instead. I still remember the day I got my financial aid package - it practically covered 95% of my tuition, and only one (subsidized) loan. I got the letter in the mail and my mom was going down the stairs in the front porch to go to a friend's house. I stopped her and showed her the letter. She called the relatives, because I was the first one in my family to go to a private school, as opposed to SUNY or CUNY. Because of the financial aid, I was able to study abroad. Like I told Mary, when she asked me to sum up my financial need to determine if I qualified for some fellowships - "If I didn't get the financial aid that I got, I wouldn't be sitting here."

Nor would I be going where I am going now. I got rejected by Columbia twice in the same day; nonetheless, I am happy I went to good ol' Ram-land. In the beginning I was considering to transfer, but I never regretted not doing it. Things would have turned out very differently, mywself included.

One thing that will never change: the fact that I am a horrble - but fast- typer. I have to reread my entries twice to get the typing mistakes (Although, this time it was three times. But don't bother giving me typing lessons as a gift. This is why they have spell-check. I am a good speller - I won my class spelling bee in the 7th grade.).

Looking back is a good thing, even though it can be painful (refer to the rant above) at times. But then, you also remember the happy and the crazy times, as well. Working on my London scrapbook showed me that although I hated the city I still loved it. I miss the little squares and the bookshops where I got tons of books cheaply. I miss the cold sandwiches cut along the diagonal and filled with interesting combinations of filling. I do regret not having photos of me by the fountain in Russell Square, or exploring Islington more. I do have a photo of me at the Round Pond in Kensington Gardens. But going back to Russell Square and having a mocha in the little cafe is a reason for me to go back to London. But in September or May, that's when London is at its best. When I was watching "The Da Vinci Code" in the movie theatre last week, I actually sighed when the story shifted from Paris to London. Never got to see the Templar Church, either.

So I think I am done looking back. I can' t be bitchy any longer because I do have something (or many things really) to look foward to. At times, the whole Japan thing is very scary - I am practically moving to another country and have no relatives there at all or anyone else, but I hope I will manage. My biggest fear is that I get depressed like I did between Janaury and March 2005 and not appreciate my time in Kyoto. However, there are opportunities for suprises, and you can even shock yourself at what you find yourself doing, especially when its fun and not something you would not do under normal circumstances at home.

Like the time I figured I was able to survive getting a needle, then a scalpel down my throat due to an abscessed tonsil in August 2004 (yes, I have now grossed you out, but it is the truth, I was the "textbook case" so all the residents and interns saw me BEFORE the ENT doctor came to the ER) so I got my tragus pierced in London. I always thought of getting something pierced, but I never had the guts to do it. Something in London - combined with the tonsil fiasco - gave me the balls to do it. There is that stereotype that college students do crazy stuff, especially when you study abroad. So instead of puking my guts out after a hangover (something I am proud of never having to do) I chose get a piercing.

Being me, of course I still asked my mother for permission via AIM first though.