Winterbreak entertainment

This winter break has been a strange time for me for a number of reasons. The first is that I am actually in NJ, my freshmen and junior years I went with my family to India for the bulk of the break. (If you have not realized on my parents are from India) My sophomore year I was in NJ for part of the break but I also spent a lot of it traveling. This year beyond a couple of day trips, I am in NJ for the bulk of the break. The other major reason that this break has been odd is that many of my friends (who are older than I am) now have real lives; what I mean by this is that they are not in school any more, some of them are in graduate school but the majority of them are working. Since they are working, they do not want to just randomly go out for lunch, spend half the night watching movies, or playing cards; instead, they have to be at work in the morning and go to bed early.

I have made a couple of trips up to NYC or “the city” over this winter break. Even though I now live and go to school in Philly growing up in central NJ, New York is always what I think of when I think of the city. It is actually one of my favorite places on earth, but it actually has one major downside: expense. Generally, every time I go to the city I spend at least $60 (not counting travel expense to the city); and I am not a huge spender either, but between subway/cab fare, food, drinks, entertainment the cost just gets huge. It’s also why I choose to go to school in Philly vs NYC; the cost difference between the two cities makes a major difference when you’re a student. In Philly even if I spend an entire Saturday out (lunch, an activity, dinner, after dinner entertainment) I usually can get away with spending less than $50, especially since the subway is cheap and most of what I like to do in the city is within walking distance of where I like to eat.

Below are some pictures from a recent trip to NYC, we ate at a coal oven pizza place with the most amazing lemon Gelato I’ve ever had.

Even though I still have 2 weeks left until the semester officially starts I can’t wait to get back to campus. I miss the energy, the people and even the classes.

Crazyness

The past couple of days have been nothing if not crazy. It is that point in the semester when everything is due or soon to be due so my days have been spent writing and studying. On a happier side note, I am taking the GRE on Sat at 1pm so I am finally, hopefully, I think ready for the exam. Schoolwork has been going pretty well but I’m defiantly feeling the pressure as the end of the semester is slowly coming up.

In an interesting development has recently occurred, current Philadelphia Mayor and Temple Alum John Street has decided to teach a class in the spring semester in Poly Sci about Urban politics, I was tempted to sign up for the class but it meets at 8:40am which is way too early for me.

It’s official that I’m graduating. A couple of days ago I met with an adviser in the CLA Advising dept, to have my Grad Review. The purpose of the Grad Review is to ensure that all students have completed all the requirements mandated for graduation prior to petitioning for graduation. The meeting took all of 15 minutes; but I had to wait 20 min for the adviser to be ready to meet with me. The adviser told me nothing I did not already know which is why I’m wondering why this doesn’t just become an online form that we have to fill out like signing up for financial aid.

 

Thanksgiving is next week and I’m more than looking forward to it; this year I’m making dinner with the help of my cousin so it will be an interesting meal. The day after thanksgiving, black Friday, is a very special day for me; every year for the past 4 years my best friend Nik and I have woke up at the crack of dawn to get ourselves some great deals. This year we have even set up a little bet as to what is going to be on sale where.

Movies instead of class

Shortly after lunch yesterday, I checked my email to find that my afternoon class had been cancelled due to the professor being ill. Now I really like this professor so I feel bad, but I am also happy since it gave me a free afternoon. If I was thinking clearly I would have taken the time to do research for 2 papers I’m working on, or get ahead on my reading, or do some GRE prep work, but since the weather was nice and my roommate was free too we decided to go see a movie. There are a number of independent theaters called the Ritz, which each have 2-5 screens, and run independent along with mainstream movies. Lucky for temple students we have our own on campus theater called “the reel”, its only 1 screen and we get semi-old movies, stuff that was out a couple of months ago, but tickets are cheap $2. There is also the Bridge, which is unnecessarily expensive out in west Philly, the tickets are something like $11 for a day showing, I have only gone there once and that was to see V for Vendetta. Recently we also got the Pearl that was the first multiplex in North Philly in quite a while, the tickets are reasonable $7.50 for a student ticket and it plays all the major movies that are out.

My roommate Matt and I headed downtown to the Ritz to see The Darjeeling Limited, the new Wes Anderson movie. The movie was great, well paced, and the music was really good. The only downside with seeing a movie during the middle of the week is that once I got back to my apartment I had to do actually get some work done since I goofed off all afternoon.

 

 

This picture was taken using Google Maps and their recent addition of the street view to the map of Philly.