Goings-on in Chapel Hill

Since I hate when Eric whines at me, I decided that it's time for an update. It's been a month, so it could be a long one; if you don't like reading these lengthy things, skip to the bottom for a summary.

Things are going well here as far as classes and research are concerned. I really like the lab I'm in for this rotation and am making decent headway on my project. That should make the research talk I'm giving next week a little more interesting. Classes have lightened up significantly since my last post, and I've also found out that I passed at least two of the three exams in the "my-life-is-hell" class from earlier this semester. Hopefully the third one went just as well.

Fall has finally started to give Chapel Hill a tip o' the hat. The leaves are just starting to change, and the weather has been nice and cool lately (although today was in the mid-70's). A few weeks ago I made butternut squash soup. It was excellent. Most of it is now frozen so I can indulge during the winter without the work. (As a side note, I have become a huge fan of my crock pot in recent weeks. Dump everything together the night before, pull it out of the fridge in the morning, let it cook all day, and voila! Dinner for a week! If anyone has any good crock pot recipes, I'm up for some new stuff).

Speaking of fall, I went camping with some people from my program (I'd call them "friends," but I know that offends some readers) a few weekends ago. We were in the mountains about 3 hours away from Chapel Hill, and it was absolutely gorgeous. It was just about the peak weekend for leaves changing colors, and of course I was all about the photos. If you want to see some photos from the weekend, they're here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/msmola/ . This weekend also revealed to me that I've met someone here who serves as an acceptable agent of Nathan's "drink bish!" mentality. This girl hands me a cup full of literally everything we brought (which was an obnoxious amount) and says "Drink. Now," just like Nathan! Only Nathan makes drinks that are palatable. We're working on it.

Whilst camping, we agreed that we should check out the North Carolina State Fair, which just ended today I think. We went Friday night, and were part of the 1,000,000+ crowd that attended the fair while it was open. I have no idea exactly how long it went on, so one million people might not be that impressive. In any case, it was interesting. I'd never seen so many fried foods in one place. There was the usual fried onions, fried chicken, fried pickles (yum), etc. But on top of that, there were several vendors peddling fried candy bars (I had a fried Reese's....it was really good), fried oreos, fried hot dogs (not a corn dog...think crispier), fried BUTTER (as in, a stick on a stick), and other ridiculous things I can't recall at this time. To top it all off, a few places sold burgers on Krispy Kreme (a North Carolina original) donut buns. I split one of the bacon cheeseburger varieties with a friend I have to admit, it was kind of tasty. Not that I'd ever want to eat a whole one or that I feel at all ok with myself for having eaten 2 years of my life. Just sayin'.

In other interesting news, I discovered that in some sad areas of the country, they refer to "pre-gaming" as "pre-partying." I'm pretty sure that whenever I pre-game with people, it's like it's own little party...whatever, California is a weird state anyway.

Speaking of parties, I'm going to a Halloween party next weekend, and I'll probably be dressed up like Target Team Member Matt. It's like a costume but not. Perfect.

If you skipped all that, here's what you're looking for (or not).

Summary:

Went camping.

Went to the state fair.

Still in school.

Science rules.

Currently Listening to: Easy Wonderful, Guster's new album.