a week old - oops

oops - these are a week old and i never got around to posting them.  my birthday week was chock full of fun - no time for blogging!  here they are now - photos from my birthday weekend in vermont!!

kelly and mike at the ben & jerry's factory:

q and becky love ben & jerry's, too!  look how cute becky is with her milkshake.

tickets to go on the tour at ben & jerry's!

group shot outside ben & jerry's!  (i promise we did things on this weekend other than eat ice cream...it just had the best photo opportunities!)

q at the cabot creamery gift shop after a tour of their cheese making facilities...and LOTS of cheese tasting:

awesome picture of me and beck before a DELICIOUS dinner on saturday night:

it was SUCH a fun weekend with good friends.  and then the american people gave me an obama victory as a birthday present.  hooray for birthdays!  exclamation points everywhere!  life is good.

Dear Megabus driver,
You are lucky that your overzealous use of the brakes did not result in me vomming all over your bus.
Love,
Miss Claire

what i'm listening to right now

missy higgins, "if i'm honest"


she's a great songwriter!

a photo a day

Birthday flowers still going strong - and smelling so good!

“Have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts.”
--Charles Dickens

Um, it snowed kind of a lot.

So glad to be hanging out and playing birthday board games with friends!!

a photo (from yesterday)

the election watching party was a success!  this is the joy we felt after all the channels declared obama the winner:

sometimes i wonder who these other people are who call themselves americans, as we seem to stagnate or move backwards on gay rights, abortion, women's issues.  how can my fellow americans see things SO differently?

last night was a great comfort to me as a majority of voters elected obama, voted for marriage equality in several states, voted down candidates who talk about rape and women's issues in shocking ways.  every day we get closer to the america i believe in.

here's my favorite part of obama's speech last night:
What makes America exceptional are the bonds that hold together the most diverse nation on earth. The belief that our destiny is shared; that this country only works when we accept certain obligations to one another and to future generations. The freedom which so many Americans have fought for and died for come with responsibilities as well as rights. And among those are love and charity and duty and patriotism. That's what makes America great.

love and charity and duty and patriotism.  my grandma norma would be very proud of america for the way it voted last night.


today i'd like to wish a big happy birthday to marie curie, leon trotsky, morgan spurlock, and my girl joni mitchell.  as has become a tradition, here's some joni to celebrate the day:



WHAT. A. VOICE.

additionally, mark your calendars: november 7th = first day of snow in NYC!  flakes are coming down as we speak...

a photo a day

My friend Trevor made me this button!! Love it!

Gobama!

“The struggle of today is not altogether for today – it is for a vast future also.”
--Abraham Lincoln

another great email

in my continuing series, "awesome emails from people i love," my dad sent me this email last night:

Nate Silver has Obama with a 92% chance of winning. Barack's giving a rocking speach in Des Moines right now. I'm voting first thing at the Halls Mills Community Center. 
dad

on the phone just now he proclaimed that he had done exactly zero work today because he was so excited about this election.

i love my family.

gobama!!

a photo a day

Day 3 of the best week ever: Susanna Hoffs (of The Bangles) at City Winery, the cutest venue EVER. And yes, that's Fred Armisen, inexplicably, on drums!

Huge thanks to Ben for inviting me along!

OMG she just played Manic Monday. Life is so good.

a photo from yesterday

last night at 11pm we found out that our friend wendy had her baby - a week early, so we weren't even expecting it.  surprises are so fun!  this is the photo we texted her to visibly show our excitement.

wendy is a blog reader and a dear friend - i couldn't be happier for her and her new baby girl!!

flying into new york tonight on a tiny little plane from vermont:

as we were descending towards our landing, i look on the window of the plane, and it looks like we're right above manhattan.  the view out the window is gorgeous: skyscrapers all lit up at night, bright lights that mark the road, all seemingly SO CLOSE - maybe we were 3,000 feet up at most?  (my only measure is that the new world trade center memorial building is going to be 1,776 feet tall, and we didn't seem too much above that.)  it's breathtakingly beautiful, new york city at night from the air.  i am talking to the city through the airplane window like a loony person.

as we get further south i realize i should be confused, since laguardia airport is now north of us.  i realize later that we must have been asked by air traffic control to circle for a couple minute to buy time - i can't imagine any other reason we would have taken this route.

then manhattan is dark - huge buildings on the south end of the island are totally black - the power outages that remain because of the storm.  poignant at night.

then we're over brooklyn and queens and i can still see the city (those people on the right side of the plane MISSED OUT), though it's further away at that point.  then we swoop into our landing.

i made you a pretty picture (i am basically a professional artist) to show our path - it was SO COOL to be able to figure out where we were as we were doing it - i felt like i was a real new yorker.

a screenshot a day

Weirdest weather picture ever.

Glitter in the air!!!

a photo a day

Free bus ride to the airport - thank you, New York City!

Smooth time getting through security!

The tarmac isn't underwater!

I think this weekend in Vermont is going to happen!!!

Exclamation points everywhere!

october: 28

yep, that's right: just one book for fun this month:

central park: an anthology, edited by andrew blauner (a great book - a collection of essays about central park.  other claire gave it to me as a going away present, and it was the perfect gift - the stories are short enough to read one before bedtime, and i love getting more perspectives on central park.  my favorite part about this book is that it is filled with great essays that just happen to feature central park - not stories whose entire focus is central park.  the latter could get a little dull, i think, but this book was really interesting.  hooray!)

i am a lucky girl - my grandma norma, who died in june, was a diehard lifelong democrat and my grandma jane is a big obama supporter living in a republican-heavy retirement community in florida.  i got this awesome email from her today:

Hello fellow democrat, 
Have you heard of the October surprise? – something unexpected that shifts the election one way or another. I think maybe Obama’s performance since the storm has helped him. Also his great relationship with Christie. 
Grandma

LOVE IT.

a photo a day

It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!

this happened again.

i'm not surprised...subways are still closed, and without them professors and some students won't be able to get here.  but you know what?  i'm ready for the routine of classes again.

tomorrow will bring more studying in the library, more tv watching, more time on the phone with loved ones, more time with new friends here.

a photo a day

my umbrella and i made our way to the one library on campus that is open today; i'm going to do some homework for a couple hours.

i didn't lose power, though the lights flickered a little last night.  a cold rain is coming down and there are some broken tree branches on the sidewalks, but other than that we are totally fine.  not so in other parts of manhattan - i feel lucky that i'm up high enough (my neighborhood is called morningside heights for a reason) that we were spared any crazy flooding.

several people in my program live in brooklyn and two live in connecticut - no clue if they're going to be able to make it in if we have class tomorrow...

mini hurricane update

the photos and videos of the flooding and damage in new york are crazy - but i'm not experiencing any of that where i am!  as of now i still have power and the storm is still just rain and high winds.  whew!  not much has changed since i posted earlier.

It's official!

(Also, anyone else really bugged by the comma after "classes"?)

hurricane update

last night i went to bed with this vision of waking up in the middle of the night to crazy winds and rain. that did not happen.  trashman came at 7:30 like usual, and i woke up at 9:30 to...pretty much what i went to bed to: winds and no rain.

a 109 square foot room is kind of like a prison cell when you know you can't leave...except it has a tv and internet access...so maybe it's not like a prison cell BUT YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN.  i ventured out at 11 to see what the outside world looked like and find a place to study - the columbia website said that the main library was open as a study space.  it had started raining and there weren't many people out at all.  every business i passed was closed except the grocery stores - those are still open.  kind of weird to walk through a normally busy neighborhood and not see many people around.

after an hour and a half in the library i was able to buy a bottle of diet coke and a delicious egg salad sandwich from the grocery store across the street from me.  hooray!  but the winds are DEFINITELY picking up and it's raining harder now.  according to the weather channel the worst of it will hit new york this afternoon and into the evening.

the sense i'm getting is that the coastal areas are the ones really in trouble because of the rising waters there.  i feel secure on the middle of this island...it's going to take a lot for us to be in any real danger.

the subways are closed again tomorrow, as are the public schools.  we haven't heard about whether we're having class tomorrow but i can't imagine we will...

now: excessive tv watching.  don't judge.

hurricane update

0 drops of rain have fallen so far.

i got take-out sushi from my favorite place...they were definitely still open at 8pm.

aaaaand that's about all i've got for you right now.  from the radar it looks like it should start raining in the middle of the night.  but then again, from the radar it looks like it should be raining right now and it definitely isn't...

trash pick up is continuing as scheduled tomorrow, so i'll be awakened at 7:30am like normal.  GREAT.

FINE.  i will admit that perhaps i should take more precautions in preparation for this hurricane.  i have cash and made a quick trip to the grocery store this afternoon.

in addition to my class being cancelled for tomorrow, NYC public schools are cancelled, public transportation shuts down at 7pm tonight, and people who live in "zone a" have a mandatory evacuation order.  i am not even in a zone, we are so high up, so don't you worry about me.  but THE CITY IS DOING THINGS, so i have decided maybe this hurricane is really happening.

i'll keep you updated!  as of right now it's not raining, though it is pretty windy outside...

four freedoms park

today i went on an adventure to roosevelt island to see the newly opened four freedoms park.  i wanted to do some exploring and it was fun to have a destination in mind.  plus, you know, HURRICANE'S A-COMING, so i wanted to get outside before the four days of rain that are being predicted.

view of manhattan (the weird rectangular building is the UN) from roosevelt island:

new baby trees at the FDR memorial:

the memorial is really simple, but the views from the memorial are gorgeous.  i like that idea: to allow people to appreciate FDR in a place where they can also appreciate the world around them.

CREEPY SMALLPOX HOSPITAL on the island:

i am a creepy hospital:

things i have done to prepare for the hurricane:
1. find my flashlight.
2. fill up one pitcher of water.
3. assume that columbia university will take care of me if the power goes out.

friday afternoon walk

yellow and green on the same tree:

i live 3 blocks from grant's tomb!  who knew this was a real place and not just a riddle?  (apparently grant is not BURIED in his tomb, but entombed in his tomb.)

black kitty cat who posed for me.  happy halloween!  i hope you have a home, little kitty.

riverside park:

one orange tree, overlooking the hudson:

A hurricane might be coming!

headstands

i am taking two yoga classes here at columbia.  the one on mondays is a basic class...and it's pretty basic.  it's important to focus on the basics - make sure you're doing the pose exactly right - but that gets a little boring sometimes, particularly since a lot of people in this class have never done yoga before.  knowing this, the second class i signed up for is an intermediate class that meets on wednesdays.  i've never taken an intermediate class even though i've been practicing yoga for probably 5 years...and i am 100% the worst person in this class.  but i don't even care.  i can play along with all of it and modify as i need to.

the intermediate teacher is having us practice headstands.  this was initially very intimidating to me, but the teacher is great and she is working us into it.  some of the people in the class just throw themselves up into a headstand like it's nothing, while a couple of us scoot our mats over to the wall and work with the instructor.  i am at the middle step in this picture - which is really the first step, but whatever.  actually, i'm more in this step - you make yourself into an upside down v and then walk your legs up the wall.  it is hard and i can only hold it for about 5 seconds, but presumably i will keep getting stronger and stronger and someday, who knows.  maybe i'll do a real headstand.  that would be fancy.


additionally (and on an unrelated note), i haven't been posting many pictures recently because it feels like all i do is go to class, eat, go to the library, sleep, repeat.  it's midterms time and the library is PACKED, so i know i'm not the only one with a lot on my plate.  the good news is that i turned in my last midterm-y paper today, so i will get to be a real person for a while this weekend.  hooray!!  my plan is to take some long walks and capture some pictures of fall in new york.  stay tuned.  i'm also going to try to go to the new four freedoms park on roosevelt island - looks beautiful, and i need some FDR quotes in my life right now.

anyone else more excited about election day than halloween?  i'm like, "oh right...a costume," whereas i have my election night outfit ALL PLANNED OUT.  stay tuned.

my aunt monica sent this to me, and i LOVE it - she knows me so well.

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120710.html

it put a huge smile on my face and then i got teary.  humanity!  humans!  we're so alike - why do we often only focus on our differences?

some of you lovely readers out there will LOVE this.

at midnight on election night i turn 30.  my school friend ben and i are planning an election night party (the one 4 years ago was the most fun EVER, so i obviously have to have one this year, too, and he's offered his apartment - yay!).  i just emailed ben about the party and included this sentence:

At midnight I turn 30. I hope to be so joyously drunk on Obama's victory that it is the best birthday of my life.

this about sums up my feelings on politics right now.

ballot accepted

should i be creeped out that all of this is available online if you just know my first and last name and that i'm registered to vote in north carolina??  (i've deleted my full name and address, but it's on the original online.)

i don't know.  something about the whole world being able to know this weirds me out.  maybe it's a public record?

it is nice to be able to know that they've got my ballot...but somehow i feel like there should be more security...like you should have to input my social security number to find this out.  nope.  first and last name and you're there...

final debate tonight!  go obama!

a photo a day

Brain food for late night studying in the library!

I would really like this paper to write itself.

a photo a day

I'm in Portsmouth, New Hampshire with some great friends, all of whom worked with me in Atlanta. Hooray for friends and fall weather and this cute little pumpkin patch!

what i'm listening to right now

how did i not know that the killers covered dire straits' "romeo and juliet"?!?!  IF ANY OF YOU OUT THERE KNEW ABOUT THIS VERSION AND DIDN'T TELL ME YOU ARE IN BIG TROUBLE.

i have loved this song since high school, when i first heard the indigo girls cover it.  then i heard the original: also good, obviously.  tonight my itunes shuffle played the indigo girls version and i was all ready to find it on youtube to post here for you.  but then youtube told me about this version.

swoon.

it was all i could do this afternoon to not check my email while reading a research study about how IMing and checking email affects productivity and retention of information learned.

ugh.  the internet is so distracting!!

the results of the study were that IMing and checking email while reading slows the reader down (even when you subtract the time spent IMing - it takes them a little while to get back on task after they read or send an IM), but that they do no worse on tests measuring how much they learned from doing the reading.

you could tell that the researchers were so PISSED at these results.  they clearly wanted to show that IMing is detrimental to learning and kept saying things like "even though they performed just as well on the tests, it took them a long time to get through the reading and students who are crunched for time will suffer if they IM."

i had this sick satisfaction that the IMers did just as well on the test as people who weren't IMing.  yes!  beat the system!  stick it to the man!  no one can tell me to stop checking my email while i'm doing work!

i was perhaps too into it.

a photo a day

5:30pm, walking up some very tall stairs to yoga class, looking down 120th street at union theological seminary.

a video a day

newsflash: new york is NOISY.  my room overlooks an internal courtyard, so for the most part i don't get too much traffic noise in my room, which is wonderful.  sirens, loud trucks - those make enough noise to get into my room, but otherwise there's just an ambient hum that comes from millions of people packed into the city, and i can totally work with an ambient hum.

except.

except for the daily pick up of trash.  you see, my room overlooks an internal courtyard, but mostly it overlooks the alleyway next to the teachers college dining hall.  every day except sunday, trash gets picked up around 7:30am, which means every day except sunday i wake up with it.

ugh.

i thought you'd appreciate a little taste of the sights and sounds of my room, circa 7:30am every morning.  (note: the first 20 seconds are out of focus I KNOW...i stumbled out of bed to tape this while crouching under the window so the trash dudes wouldn't know i was doing it.  i had a lot to think about, people.  you will still get the picture.)

what i'm listening to right now

drew holcomb & the neighbors, "fire and dynamite"

another artist i discovered from noisetrade (seriously, people, you need to check this out).  GREAT line: "you are a novel in a sea of magazines"...

 

a photo a day

my research methods class has moved from critiquing educational research studies to learning enough statistics to REALLY critique research studies.  i am slightly terrified, as i've never taken a statistics class before.  what is comforting, though, is that this is on page 32 of the "statistics for school leaders" book we are using in the class.  pie charts.  it took 32 pages to build up to PIE CHARTS.  i think i'm going to be in okay shape here.

and while i'm thinking about my grandma...

i had to share this photo of her peeing next to a model T.  it's 1923.  she's 4.  and a badass already.

a photo a day

This one's for you, Grandma.

For the first time since moving to New York, I randomly ran into someone I knew on the subway! I know people! I see them places! I live here!

This is not the cheater version of this story, where I run into someone in my program at our subway stop, 5 minutes from my dorm. No! I ran into my friend Jill, who lives in Hoboken, New Jersey, on a train on the lower east side that was bound for Queens. Queens! She was going to a birthday party and I was headed to a book club that a friend invited me to join. We were both on a train we don't normally take. So fun to see her! Two friends, floating through a city of millions, end up on the same car of the same train. I love it.

Book club was nice - loved the people there, and it was fun to expand my circle of people. Hooray!

Now, home to catch the end of the vice presidential debate. Go Biden!

a photo a day

it does not take much to make my day - a halloween-themed netflix envelope in my mailbox will do it!

a photo a day

best sushi i've ever had,* ordered online during (oops, don't tell) law class and picked up when class ended at 7pm.  perfect dinner!

*there is probably a discrepancy between what i define as the best sushi ever and what normal people define as the best sushi ever.  this is because i don't eat fish.  so!  the best sushi, in my view, is when there are lots of delicious veggie options, and the place down the street has this on the menu - i didn't have to assemble it myself.  it is: an avocado roll + 7 pieces of sushi (sushi = an item on rice, held together with seaweed).  left to right: egg, asparagus, avocado, tofu, weird item that is delicious, weird item that is okay, carrots.  plus: bowl of miso soup.  i am in heaven.

a photo a day

30 Rockefeller Plaza!

I did not see Liz Lemon, but a former student who now works for MSNBC did take me and my equally liberal and MSNBC-loving friend Talia on a tour of the studio. Aah! It was so exciting!

i never saw the movie taken because it is about being kidnapped and this is SCARY and i don't like scary movies, particularly when the kind of scary is REAL LIFE SCARY.  i am actually okay with zombies, usually, because they are not real life scary.  zombies will never happen.  (right?!)

yesterday i took the bus from boston to new york after my awesome weekend with TIP friends.  i had never taken the megabus before, but it was $27 and i loved that and so i gave it a shot.  the bus had a bunch of TVs hanging from the ceiling, and TAKEN PLAYED ON A LOOP ON THIS BUS, WITH VOLUME AND EVERYTHING.  i watched it not once, not twice, but three times in 4 hours - it would end, the credits would roll, and it would start again from the beginning.  and by "watched it," i mean "read my book and looked up every 2 minutes because scary noises were happening and i needed to know what was going on."  things i learned:
1. the movie didn't seem that scary, mostly because i couldn't hear a lot of the dialogue.
2. the movie didn't seem that scary, mostly because i only saw about 50% of the action in any single watching.
3. the movie didn't seem that scary, because after the first time i knew exactly what was going to happen before it happened.

all in all, though, it was bizarre.  and who decided we should watch taken - a movie about kidnapping and sex slavery - on a bus with strangers?!

a photo a day

Tie dyeing onesies for the baby-to-be! (Baby's last name will start with a "w," hence the super-w one!). So much fun.

I love my friends!

a photo a day

I'm in Boston for the weekend with my TIP friends...and this newest addition! Yay!

Bring on the beer, board games, and good memories!

what i'm listening to right now

music twin,* do you know about tift merritt?  you would love her!


*my music twin is christy, and we are twins because we like the same music.  duh.  it is awesome to have a music twin, and my public service announcement is that everyone should try to cultivate one.

a photo a day

I watched the debate tonight with a former student - one of my all-time favorites - who lives in New York. We did a lot of talking/yelling at the screen. Very fun! This is my post-debate commute home.

It's 70 degrees above ground, but sweaty on the subway platforms. Ugh.

“To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.”
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

a photo a day

spotted at the sushi restaurant in my neighborhood while i was picking up food - a 5 gallon bucket that once held 5 gallons OF SOY SAUCE.

i decided this is cool, not gross.  it's a close call.

september: 26 & 27

in this new grad school life of mine, i spend probably 3 hours a day reading articles and books for school.  this has cut down on my reading for fun - i find that i'd much rather watch tv than read a book before i fall asleep.

i think we all knew this was going to happen.

i did finish 2 books this month, though the first i finished just as classes were starting, so i'd still consider it a summer read.

the amazing adventures of kavalier & clay, by michael chabon (sometimes i read books and i think: i am not smart enough for this book.  this is one of those - allusions that mean nothing to me, the realization that there's something going on below the surface that i don't QUITE get.  i wasn't as engaged with this book as i'd been with the previous two i'd read, but i didn't actively dislike it either. that changed a bit halfway through, as i got more interested in the storyline and everything that was going on started to make more sense.  by the end, i was ready to recommend it to people.  so!  a pretty good book!  the story of two cousins who create a comic book character who can help people escape from any bad situation...while one of the cousins struggles to help his family escape from nazi germany.  it's a long book and a little hard to get into, but i definitely enjoyed it by the end.)

is everyone hanging out without me?, by mindy kaling (i read this for the first time less than a year ago, and i feel no differently now.  a good, light read.  and i'm so excited about her new show!)

a photo a day

spotted on a phone booth near my dorm.  love it - both the font and colors and the message!