home for the weekend

PS 165

PS 165 field trip to central park zoo
:)

feeding the giant female goat

alexis loving the chips

saphire making a monkey face

ANGELICA !!! THE TINIEST LID

workin it

ernest, the love of my life

post lunch energy rush

sharing! :)

you just can't HANDLE this

my sibs

My siblings are the shit. For real. Last weekend Robbie came to New York for the night. On Friday we hung out on campus (Robbie played frisbee while I showed off Isabelle), went shopping in Soho, met up with Dana for dinner, attended an ice cream social in Lerner Party Space, beat all my roomies in Scatta, and spent the rest of the night climbing on Alma Mater and playing simon says dance on the sun dial. Saturday we took an early morning trip to the Met, put some Nussy in our tums, played more frisbee, then hopped on a train back to Denville. Dad picked us up and we all went pumpkin picking then Robbie and I took an epic trip to Target. Sunday morning I watched him lose his hockey game and get really pissy.

Jay was in town from LA this weekend and stayed with me for two nights. Dana came up to Columbia and we went to every single bar, did jaeger bombs minus the bombs, and went to an EC party where I pretended to be Jamie Lynn Spears. Friday night they met me at work with Stina and Liz and we went down to R-Bar where Nais was with Blaise. It was a family fest like never before.

Robbie's really cool because he loves mini skateboards, has a blog, and knows how to gchat. He also would vote for Obama if he were old enough. And his hair is long.

Dana's a lot cooler than I am and everyone knows it. She makes really amazing tshirts and baked tofu. And she's my best friend.

Jay is so L.A. and complained about the "freezing" weather every five seconds. But he's also pretty cool. And he has some kick ass little siblings.

Manda gets serious

The following are some quotations from Bill McKibben's book "Deep Economy"


'The economist Richard Layard, in his pathbreaking book Happiness, lays out the matter almost as an equation. "Both income and companionship have declining marginal returns," he says. The evidence shows that "increases in income produce large hedonic gains in developing countries," small and variable gains in Europe, and, "at least over a fifty-year post-war period, negative gains in the United States." Community follows precisely the opposite pattern: increased companionship "yields more happiness in individualistic societies, where it is scarce, than in collectivist societies, where it is abundant." What this means is: if you are a poor person in China, you have plenty of friends and family around all the time; perhaps there are five people living in your room. Adding a sixth doesn't make you much happier. But adding enough money that all five of you can eat some meat from time to time pleases you greatly. By contrast, if you live in a suburban American home, buying another coffeemaker adds very little to your quantity of happiness--indeed, trying to figure out where to store it, or wondering whether you picked the perfect model, may decrease your total pleasure. But since you live two people to an acre, a new friend, a new connection, is a big deal indeed. We have a surplus of individualism and a deficit of companionship, and so the second becomes more valuable.'
...
'Of course, it's obvious to most of us that having friends is better than not; but the data show that for people in the rich world, having connections with others is much better than having more money....It's not so hard, then, to figure out why happiness has declined here even as wealth has grown.'
...
'When psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, whose works on "flow" helped launch the study of human satisfaction, studied dozens of activites to see what actually made Americans happy, he found that volunteer work of all kinds generated "high levels of joy, exceeded only by dancing."...This sounds silly and soft-headed to some of us, but only because we've so internalized the economist's idea of the human being as a self-contained want-machine bent on "maximizing utility." Think about your own life: which moments mattered most?'
...
'The knowledge that you matter to others is a kind of security that no money can purchase.'

andd we're back!

okay so i know i haven't blogged in a while. but chill. (i'm talking to you jessica best and christina dittmann.) i don't even know where to start...and since i'm a listy person i guess i'll just make some lists...

reasons i love my life
1. cuddlegan is the best thing that has ever happened to me
2. i love my roomies
3. unfortch we don't have a garbage disposal
4. i got a really cute new winter coat
5. i've already been to pisticci four times
6. robbie is visiting tomorrow!
7. i don't currently work in finance so i didn't lose my job
8. i love ballet
9. christina and i are getting really good at singing

things i have been baking
1. apple pie!
2. pumpkin bread
3. granola (obv)
4. oatmeal chocolate chip cookies
5. cupcakes for stina's bday
6. banana blueberry muffins
7. cuddlegan cuddlewiches

things i have been cooking
1. roasted squash
2. tofuuuuu
3. X&A's Michael's pasta
4. steamed asparagus
5. POLENTA

things i plan to bake/cook
1. zucchini bread
2. banana bread
3. something else apple
4. carrot soup

recent GREAT DAYS
1. the day carolyn came over and we gossiped and got our nails done. i got purple on my fingernails and pink on my tootsies.
2. free beer at homecoming with some roomies followed by babysitting followed by sunil's 25th birthday party
3. when stina and i went shopping and had the best day ever. and then we ate lunch at that really cute cafe.

things that aren't so hot
1. i'm sick! snotty! grumpy! booo.
2. i miss nils!
3. 2 papers and a presentation next week!
4. isabelle = aggression
5. the coffee people in Dodge keep messing up my order

things to look forward to
1. the thing that christina and i are creating this weekend
2. GW for halloween!
3. getting over this sickness
4. napping after work today
5. being a blogger again

:)