Most Fantastic Birthday Present EVER!

Tomorrow is my birthday.  More specifically, tomorrow is my 22nd birthday.  The very idea of birthdays becomes significantly less appealing once you pass 21, so I had relatively low birthday expectations.

Those expectations have already been exceeded by leaps and bounds.  Today, I got THIS in the mail:

Yes, everyone, that is a pink stethoscope!  My bff Amy sent it to me in the mail.  When i opened the package, there was a box with a black stethoscope on the outside.  Then, when I opened the box, I realized that it wasn't an ordinary stethoscope, it was a PINK one.

Thanks Ames for a great present!

To anyone in the Ohio State area, I will be celebrating my birthday on Friday night in Columbus, let me know if you're interested in meeting up.

When I write my next post, I'll be a 22 year-old! :-)

Until then,
B

Baby, when the lights go out...

....it is really hard to do research.  (Yes, that is a reference to the band Five, famous for approximately 13 minutes while I was in middle school).  Yesterday, the power went out in my lab building.  This is highly unfortunate considering that many of our supplies and experiments require temperature-controlled environments.  I was worried about my cells (that I have been growing for a full week to prepare for an experiment!)  Luckily, the cell incubator was connected to an emergency outlet, so they made it through the outage.  Unfortunately, I had been analyzing some data in an excel document and had even generated a pretty graph which was all lost when the computer shut off unexpectedly.  I can't complain too much though - the extra half hour that I spent redoing that was much better than spending a week to regrow cells.

As promised in my last post, it's picture time!

I'm embracing my heritage in the Irish room at the Cathedral of Learning!

Ellie, looking intense, in a fancy chair.

Darci and Ellie behind bars in the Romanian room.

Showing some Siena love in the Italian room.

I can't remember which room this is, maybe Slovakia?

We rode the incline to the top of Mount Washington!

Pittsburgh's really pretty :-)

Until tomorrow,

B

Didn't we JUST drive on that road?!

This weekend made for some adventures.  Darci and Ellie, two of my best friends from college (and in Ellie's case elementary school through high school), came out for a visit.  They arrived around 10 pm on Friday, and we kicked off the weekend at the Harris Grill, a great restaurant on my street.  We sample the spinach artichoke dip and pierogies.  (For those who do not know, I have a sick addiction to spinach artichoke dip.  To prove to you just how much I like it, I will divulge the number of times I have had it since moving to Pittsburgh.  FIVE.) 

On Saturday morning we went to Strip, the same market-style place that Andrew and I had visited.  We also visited the Cathedral of Learning, one of Pitt's most recognizable buildings.  It's a huge tower (37 floors!) that contains all sorts of classrooms and offices.  The inside of looks like something from medieval times and/or Harry Potter.  On the first and third floors of the Cathedral, there are a series of rooms known as the Nationalities Rooms.  Each is decorated in the style of a different country.  We wanted to check out these rooms, but promptly found out that they are locked to anyone not on a guided or self-guided tour.  Deciding that we didn't want to actually go on guided tour, we opted for this huge tape recorder thing that had a key attached.  The idea was that you listen to a recording in each room and then move onto the next one.  Well, there's only so much you can listen to lady tell you about the way in which artisans carved a particular chair or painted a particular wall, so we eventually ditched the recording and just explored on our own.  Maybe I'm biased (actually I'm DEFINITELY biased), but I liked the Irish and Italian rooms a lot. (Pictures will come tonight of the Cathedral!)

Saturday evening, we decided to check out the Southside area and ride the Mt. Washington Incline, which is essentially a trolley that goes up a hill across the river from downtown and has spectacular views.  Prior to leaving, I took a look a google maps to determine how to get there.  Unfortunately, Andrew has my GPS as a result of the drive to Charleston, so google maps is the best I can do.  As we were driving over there, I got caught in a turn only lane, and ended up entering the freeway, which I most certainly did not want to do.  There was no real way to back track, and I knew that I needed to cross the river, so I took the first bridge that I came to.  This was apparently a mistake.  Getting off of the bridge, there were two choices. 1) Go through a tunnel (I knew we did NOT want to do this).  2) Turn right.  I took option 2, and we turned onto a road that promptly started a rather steep uphill drive.  As we were driving, the city just kept getting tinier and tinier.  We came around a corner, and all of a sudden, there was the incline station.  At the TOP of Mt. Washington.  Essentially, we had driven all the way up the hill.  While we were driving, I was yelling at Darci and Ellie not to look out the windows so the incline trip would still be something of a surprise.  Luckily I was able to find a way back down, and we drove down the opposite side of the mountain and finally got ourselves straightened out.

When we actually rode up the incline, we could look down and see all of the roads we'd mistakenly been, but we got some fantastic views of the city to make up for it!  Pictures of that will also come soon.

That's all for this post!

Britt 

Hot (aka SWEATY) Yoga

It should come as a surprised to no one that "hot yoga" was an incredibly hot experience.  I showed up in shorts, a t-shirt, and tennis shoes.  This was breaking unwritten yoga rules #1 and #2.  People do not wear shorts to yoga class.  Instead, they wear yoga pants.  I will concede that they must be called "yoga" pants for a reason, but I struggle to see why anyone would wear pants in a 90 degree room.  Additionally, people do not wear tennis shoes to yoga.  Instead, they wear flip flops AND as soon as they get in the door they take their flip flops off.  I was completely clueless.

When I finally untied my tennis shoes and headed into the room, I tried my hardest to blend into the crowd.  Since I am brand-spanking new to yoga, I do not own a yoga mat (unwritten rule #3), but I had read on the yoga studio's website that I could rent one.  Glancing around the room, I saw a row of hooks with yoga mats dangling from them.  I walked over to grab one, when I hear a voice say, "No honey, you don't want one of those, they're used."  Sure enough, my hand landed on a gross, wet mat that was covered in someone else's sweat.  The man who had spoken directed me toward the front of the room.  I found out later that he was the yoga instructor for the day and mentally renamed him yoga-instructor-man (or YIM for short).

Class got going, and YIM started calling out poses.  It was a beginner's class, so luckily he described them in detail as well.  It seemed like everyone else in the group already knew what do to though.  As he called out directions, the YIM also said vague things like "this is something that will help you pick up your grandchildren when you turn seventy."  Ummm, I'm pretty sure "picking up my grandchildren" is far from a priority, but thanks anyway YIM!

Another of the YIM's duties is to walk around a correct people who aren't doing the pose right.  At one point we were doing some intense leg lifts, and the YIM comes over to me.  He says, "You really need to bend your knees more to put your weight on your fingertips."  I'm pretty sure I gave some kind of death stare that read, "What you are suggesting is physically impossible."  The YIM left me alone for the rest of the class.

What's weird about "hot yoga" is that even though you know from the name that is is going to be very hot, you can't physically imagine how much you will sweat.  At one point, I changed poses, and sweat that had come from my wrists and collected in the crease where my wrist meets my hand literally dripped off of my fingers.  Leaving, I felt so soaked with sweat that it was as if I took a shower with my clothes on.

Even after all of that, I actually kind of liked it.  I had one of those intense feelings of accomplishment when the whole thing was over, and I'm pretty sure that I want to try it again next week!

Britt

PS - Milestone!!! I have reached 1,000 views!

PPS - Exciting weekend in store, Ellie and Darci are here to enjoy some Pittsburgh tourism!

Cinema in the Park, Number 2

Last night, I went to go see Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince in Schenley Park with three med school friends.  Then, I had a dream that I went to medical school at Hogwarts.  This is my new number one wish. 

Honestly, that was about the only exciting thing that I did yesterday.  Well, I guess going to the pub at 2:30 to watch soccer was somewhat exciting, but the game turned out to be pretty boring, and the spinach-artichoke dip that I ordered was fairly lack-luster.

In somewhat exciting upcoming news, I will giving "hot yoga" a try tonight.  You might be thinking, "What is 'hot yoga'?"  It is a type of yoga that is done in a room kept at 90 degrees F.  Supposedly, it's a really good work out and way to "center" yourself.  Honestly, I'm pretty nervous about it considering my flexibility is limited to touching my toes AND I get really sweaty in a normal temperature environment while I work out.  Nevertheless, I think it is definitely worth a shot.  Look for an update (if I'm not too sore to type) later tonight!

Britt
 

Britt Went to Charleston

I realize that Charleston doesn't have quite the same rhyme power at Pitt, but that's where I disappeared to the last few days.  My aunt, uncle, and their four adorable children (all 6 and under!) live in Charleston, and I try to get down there at least once a year.  My dad and I were just down there over Spring Break, but this time we went down for a family visit/retreat to Kiawah Island along with my mom and Andrew.  It's the perfect type of trip: family, good Southern cooking, and the beach.  Here are a few highlights:

1. I got pulled over.  Yes, as in by a police officer.  Andrew and I woke up early on Friday to leave from Pittsburgh.  We made it into West Virginia and turned off of I-19 onto a more local highway that doesn't follow the standard 70 mph speed limit.  Well, I decide that I'm going to maintain my cruising speed of around 76 anyway, completely oblivious when a cop pulls up next to me and drives alongside our car for a while, "tracking" my speed.  Before I know it, there are flashing lights in the rear view mirror, and I'm freaking out, and Andrew's totally calm (which by the way is TOTALLY ANNOYING).  The officer walks up to the car, and here's how the conversation goes:

Police Officer: "Do you know why you were pulled over ma'am?"
Me: "Um." (nervously shaking uncontrollably) "Probably because I was going a little too fast"
Police Officer: "You were going 11 mph over the limit, I was riding right beside you."
Me: (Blank stare)
Police Officer: "Usually, people don't speed when I ride right beside them."
Andrew: (slight chuckle)
Police Officer: "Where are you going?"
Me: "South Carolina."

He then takes my license and Andrew's registration, and we sit and wait.  Before I know he's walking back up to the car.

Police Officer: "Are y'all going on vacation."
Me: "Yes, we're going to visit my family."
Police Officer: "Well, I don't want you to start out vacation with a ticket.  Here's your warning.  Don't speed."
Me: (incredible sign of relief)

Andrew swears that if he were driving in my place, he definitely would have received a ticket.  I guess it's lucky that I'm a girl :-)

2.  My cousins are adorable.  When we first got to my aunt and uncle's house, Emmett (who is almost five) introduced me to "HIS little brother and HIS little sister" (even though I have been to their house four times in the last two years since the twins were born).  Emmett also told me at one point that he had "never had a bagel in his whole entire life," and was ecstatic when he got to eat one at our condo on Saturday.  While we were at the beach on Sunday, Nora (one of the two year-old twins and the only girl in the family) spent a large majority of her time getting whoever would give in to walk her bucket down the ocean, fill it up, and give it back to her so that she could dump in a huge hole in the sand.  I was a sucker and made the trip at least six times.

3.  Andrew and I rocked the euchre world.

4.  My dad can cook.  We had a delicious shrimp boil (true to Charlestonian form) and brats with pierogies.  How much better can it get??

5.  When Andrew, my mom, my dad and I all sporcle together, we do a pretty darn good job.  (check this out if you're unfamiliar with the verb sporcle - www.sporcle.com)

Despite those highlights, my vacation came to a screaming halt today when I had to fly to Pittsburgh for class and work.  Andrew is still down in SC with my parents, earning his position as the new favorite O'Neill child.  My parents are staying for the full week, but I think Andrew is heading back by Thursday.

Now that I'm back in the 'burgh, look for regular daily updates again!
Britt

Cinema in the Park

Note to self: You can't really handle seeing a "thriller" movie late at night in a park.  It makes you scared to get out of the car when you get back to your apartment.

Explanation: Last night, I went with two friends to see State of Play, a recent Ben Affleck/Russel Crowe/Rachel McAdams movie.  The movie was pretty good.  It was a little cookie-cutter, like the whole time we knew a big twist was coming, we just couldn't be sure what.  Definitely worth a watch though if you enjoy politically-charged thillers.  In fact, there were only two small downsides to this outing. 

1. Most movies that are shown late at night in parks are happy.  In fact, the entire summer, this is the only movie showing that is rated PG-13.  Most of them are things like How to Train Your Dragon.  This movie, however, was definitely not happy.  There were creepy guys with guns, drug deals in dark alleys, you get the picture.  Not exactly uplifting.  In fact, kind of scary.  This left me jittery the rest of the night.  Luckily, I live in a safe, well-lit area.  If not, I might have spent the night in my car.

2. It was frigid last night.  Flip flops and a light sweater were a terrible idea.  Next time, I'm taking Uggs and my winter coat.

Other than that, my days have been pretty normal.  Tomorrow, things will get a little crazy because I'm heading to sunny South Carolina for a long 4th of July weekend. 

In case I don't get a chance to access internet before - HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!  AND HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO AMY (she shares her bday with the US of A!)

Brittany