Tuesday Morning of Midterm Week

Today I was even more rushed than usual as I visited the local Farmer's Market. Why, you ask? Because this is Midterm Week! I had a graded element yesterday, major exam this morning at 11am, and another major exam tomorrow morning at 9am. So today's vist to the Farmer's Market was a quick romp around the stalls. In my brief time there I had some lovely and interesting interactions. First, the egg lady remembered me from last week and put a dozen eggs aside for me again. And she had the most beautiful chives that I have ever seen. They were quite large, and in addition to their diameter, they are about 18 inches long! They are very pretty. In addition to the amazing eggs and lovely chives, Miss Taylor (that's the egg lady) had something resembling lettuce on her table. I was intrigued, as the Farmer's Market lettuce is delish, but there hasn't been any for a while. I asked Miss Taylor about the lettuce-like items and she informed me that it was mustard greens and a special creole red mustard green. She also conveyed all of the deliciousness that mustard greens would provide me. I decided I am not that much of a cajun, and passed on the mustard greens. She also produced some "very nice kale that they picked off of their farm this morning," but I had to pass on that too. Again, not quite cajun enough for that!


Speaking of cajun, as I circulated the farmer's market this morning, it occurred to me that the market is really much like New Orleans as a whole: has all of the same items as every other farmer's market you've ever been to, but also provides you with a little something extra. As I trolled the market waiting for the bell to ring I came across the fresh creole tomatoes that are divine.


Homemade jams, jellies, and preserves, which always transport me home to the berry fields in the summertime, gathering berries for our jam-making.


Fresh or frozen shrimp. And yes, you can get all of those shrimp for $1. Crazy ain't it?


Then I came across the prettiest creatures at the market this morning, the live blue crabs. And when I say live, I mean live. As in crawling out of the cooler they were being held in, out onto the path around the market.


Oh, and then I came across the alligator stand. What, you don't have alligator sold in your farmer's market? Here you can get it in lumps, fresh or frozen, or pre-made into alligator sausage.


Like I said, just like every market in the country, but with a little something extra. It's called "lagnaippe" here in cajun country.

Midterms Midterms

As previously mentioned, my midterms are this week. So please excuse the light posting, but I'm busy working on my bookwormyness. Have a super week!

Saturday, Pre-Midterm

Today being Saturday, specifically the Saturday before my midterms commence, I thought I needed a bit of R & R (Rest and Rejuvenation) as I have been studying for a few days now and wanted to put myself into the optimal frame of mind going into this week. And I have a firm belief in the theory that if you study hard, take a break and let things percolate for a while, then resume studying, you retain much more than if you study continuously. And my exams are still a few days out.

I began my R & R segment of my day at one of my very favorite places. Bamboo Apothecary. It is amazing! Arianna and I discovered it last year, converted Katina into a believer, and I am working on everyone else I know as well. It doesn't take much to become a devotee, generally a look into the windows will do it, I've never seen a walk through the retail portion leave anyone not a fan, and once you have a service you are a die-hard! So back to my morning. I arrived with enough time before my service to survey the retail part, test all of the perfumes, peruse the nail polishes and begin paging through a magazine. Then my technician found me and brought me back into the service room. On the way our conversation went like this:

Her: Hi Jessica, please follow me, how are you this morning?
Me: I'm wonderful, thanks for asking. And yourself?
Her: Oh I'm great. So swimmer or gymnast?
Me: Excuse me?
Her (motioning towards her left pectoral region): Swimmer or gymnast?
Me (clueless as to what she's talking about, looking down at my left pectoral region and notice I'm wearing a shirt with writing in that area, therefore conclude that she misread and thought it said swimming or diving): Oh, neither, I'm a Chi O.
Her: No, I meant do you swim or do gymnastics? Your shoulders are very wide.
Me (more than slightly horrified by the turn of events): Oh. Neither, I run.
Her: Hmm, you have the shoulders of a swimmer or gymnast, someone who's built up their shoulders. People always ask me if I'm a swimmer or a gymnast because I have similar shoulders to yours.
Me: So are you a swimmer or gymnast?
Her: Swimmer, I earned these shoulders.
Me: How nice, I was born with mine.

Immediately following said conversation, my massage commenced. In case you were wondering, it is, yes, a bit more difficult to get into the massage-zone frame of mind immediately following your massage therapist carrying on an entire conversation about the massive size of your shoulders.

Following said massage, I was looking to be a bit more in the "spa zone" so I inquired as to whether there were any nail appointments available. I was in luck! They had a manicure spot open right at that very moment. As I went to pick my polish there were a plethora of the pale pinks Essie is famous for, a black bottle, and a bright pink bottle. Having recently been very into the pale, pale pink manicure, I was about to grab the trusty "Sugar Daddy" bottle when the earlier conversation with the massage therapist involving my shoulders burst back into my mind. Suddenly, my hand whipped out and grabbed the bright pink bottle. I may have naturally "athletic" shoulders, but by golly, I could have bright pink nails if I so chose. Thirty minutes later, out I strutted with very well shaped, very bright, pink nails. Please see above picture of Essie's Summer Neon Collection for an exact image of the brightness of my nails. If anyone asks, or gives me any looks other than "Wow, those are some pretty fly nails," feel free to say I had a neon party to attend. I'm pretty sure that's E's plan of explaining them away. I kinda think they rock. I absolutely LOVED Diane Kruger's outfit to the Met Institute Costume Ball this year (please see top photo), from her hair to the dress, to the shoes. I think she's pretty fabulous all the time, but she was looking might fierce at the Met Ball. And if you look closely, I'm pretty sure she's wearing the Essie Pink neon nail polish. On her fingers. Just like me. See, neon pink nails are totally BDC.

After my Bamboo escapade I was on my way home, driving down Magazine, looking in store windows as I passed them and suddenly I saw it. No, it couldn't be. In the bread racks at La Boulangerie there was still bread! Multiple loaves of it! La Boulangerie makes the most divine bread you have ever had in your entire life. And you may wait your entire life before you ahppen upon the store at a time when they actually have some available and ready. I quickly parked Somerset and headed in. Not only did they have loaves, they had the 9-grain deliciousness that my favorite sandwich on the city, egg salad from Martin's is served on. So divine! So I purchased a 9-grain loaf and a whole wheat loaf for E and I. Mmmm, Mmmm, Mmmm! Fresh bread from La Boulangerie, with farm-fresh, salted butter from the farmer's market.

Definitely the best study snack ever.

A Helleva Hullabaloo

As my devoted readers, many of you know that I LOVE Tulane University and work in the Admissions Office, sharing the most amazing parts of Tulane with visiting high school seniors who aren't really sure what to do with the next 4 years of their life. This year I am so busy that I am only able to work in the office on Fridays, but I pack a lot of "Come to Tulane" in one day! This morning I worked with a counselor planning a special tour I am to give next Friday. Then a family arrived waaaay early for the afternoon tour and I chatted them up a bit. Turns out the prospective student is interested in neuroscience, so then I was really able to chat them up, and eventually invited them to attend the Neuroscience lecture I was attending at noon. I walked with them from Admissions to the LBC, joined along the way by the 2007-2008 Homecoming King, a great friend of mine. Taylor chatted with the prospective student for a bit (they bonded over being male and from Louisiana) and I bonded with the mother and younger sister (who was a total doppleganger for Taylor Momsen [Little J from Gossip Girl], except about 10 inches shorter...aka, average height for a 15 year old!) over girly things. At the lecture, I introduced them to the head of the undergrad Neuro program and I think they were not totally bored during the lecture, so that was good!

I've been giving tours since my freshman year, and believe you me, you get some doozies of questions when you are giving tours. Today I gave a tour on the spur of the moment and the questions asked were all doozies. Perhaps I should preface the questions by the fact that of my rather large tour group, there were only 3 questions during the whole tour. Word to the wise: if you are going on a college tour, oh EVER, ask questions. This serves 2 purposes: 1-if the tour guide won't answer them, they are not nice and may have something to hide, 2-the tour is your opportunity to ask a current student anything, use this to get your questions answered. Just, please, for your tour guides sake, please make sure it is a relevant question. So my questions of the day:

#1: Why are you called the Green Wave?

Answer #1: Tulane is known as the Green Wave because in the early 1900's Tulane did not have a nickname. Around this time the football team was steadily improving, and they wore green uniforms. Apparently our defense was so dominant that an opponent remarked after a game that it had felt like "a green wave was heading towards him". That got the Tulane newspaper's attention, and they started using the term, Green Wave, and it was later officially adopted .

#2: Why are there no Asians at Tulane?

Answer #2: There are actually many Asians at Tulane. In fact, I believe we have passed at least 5-10 Asian students throughout this tour. Above you will find a photo of the Officers of AASU, Tulane's Asian Association.

#3: Why is Tulane called Tulane?
Answer #3: In and of itself, this is not a doozy of a question. It is only considered a doozy today, because I had very specifically gone through the "founding of Tulane" part of the tour in the beginning, and really, does it matter how the school got it's name? For those readers who do not know the story, Tulane was founded as the Medical College of Louisiana in 1834, as a public medical university. In the 1880's Paul Tulane, a wealthy alum of Princeton who made his fortune in New Orleans, was looking to bequeath said fortune to a university. Originally he wanted the money to go to his alma mater, Princeton, but they refused to rename the university after him. He next turned to the city which had given him his fortune, and the Medical College of Louisiana had no such qualms about accepting the money. So the Medical College of Louisiana was renamed Tulane University, was incorporated as a private university, and Paul Tulane had a school named after him. And everyone lived happily ever after.

Thursday Afternoons

This semester, I have a Service Learning component to one of my classes, Brain and Language. I am all about service, but previous to this semester, went about it in my own way, in my own time, in my chosen areas. As I was pre-K enrollee in Tulane University, the Service Learning Graduation Requirement did not apply for my graduating class, so I was not personally familiar with the Service Learning requirements. Anyways, for my Service Learning, I was assigned to the Bright School, which is a truly wonderful program. Previous to Katrina, there was a building dedicated to the school, but it was seriously damaged in the storm. Post-K, the director of the program, has worked with the students in their homes and has now joined forces with the Rayne Early Childhood Program to provide the youngest Bright School students with an opportunity to develop social interations with other children, with the goal being to prepare the Bright School students for mainstream kindergarten when the time comes. Like I said, its a really amazing program.

So on Tuesday I went in for my Orientation. And what an orientation it was. First of all, nobody knew I was supposed to be there, and director's daughter-in-law had just gone into labor with the director's first grandchild. Needless to say, the director was a bit, erm, shall we say, distracted. Basically, the orientation went like this:

Her: So you will be working with two little girls (for the sake of the blog we will call them C and B). They are both severely hearing impaired, and the goal of having them in the Rayne program is to work on their interactions with "normal hearing" students.
Me: Wow, what a wonderful program, what can I do to help facilitate these interactions?
Her: The girls are both quite adept at signing, so if they are unable to communicate with the other children verbally, they will sign to you and you can interpret to the other children.
Me: Umm, sign? As in, sign language?
Her: Yes, we do American Signed English. You do know it, don't you?
Me: Ummm, no.
Her: Even a little?
Me: Not a word, letter, or number.
Her: Oh. Well. You can just play with them I guess. And if you don't understand what they are saying, just try.
Me: Ok, so, do the teachers know how to sign in case I need help?
Her: No, I'll have one of my assistants copy a packet of information for you so you can start learning how to sign. You really might want to start working on that. Now I have to go, my grandchild is being born RIGHT NOW.

With that, she left, and informed me that she wouldn't be seeing me again, but would be receiving reports of my work every week.

So yesterday, I arrived at Rayne right on time and went upstairs to the classrooms where C and B are. As I approached the doors, I realized something: I wasn't really sure what I was supposed to be doing...which girl I was supposed to be working with, what I was really supposed to be doing, if the teachers knew I was coming, I didn't even know which ones were B and C! Oh my.

Have I mentioned that me and children are not exactly like white on rice? More like water and oil. Yep. It's true.

So into the classroom I went. And what happened, you ask? Nothing. The children were all sleeping, and the teachers did not even so much as glance in my direction. Then a child near me woke up (apparently from a bad dream) and started screaming. Yes, screaming, that I was a monster. Well that got everyone's attention. As well as conveniently woke up all of the other children, who all promptly concurred that if one of their own thought I was a monster, then clearly, I was a monster. So the teacher's took a bit of pity on me at this juncture, and pointed me in the direction of C. Due to her hearing difficulties, C was still asleep. I woke her up and smiled. Apparently that was enough from her and she smiled, laughed, and started ordering me around to help her organize her napping implements, namely, her mat, blanket, and Dora the Explorer pillow. At least she liked me! The rest of my time with C went something like this: her saying something, me not understanding what she was saying, me attempting to interpret what she said, her smiling and laughing (mostly at me and my attempts, but at least it wasn't screaming!). Have I mentioned that C is super cute? She has pom-pom hair accentuated with pink glitter hair-balls. And pink checkered shorts. AND pink, Dora the Explorer sneakers. She's pretty fly. And she giggles when I giggle. And when the time came for her to go home, she left and started to leave, then ran back, hugged my leg, flashed a peace sign and ran out. C is a firecracker.

Then I moved into B's classroom. Here the teacher's welcomed me and said hi, but again, no instructions. So I surveyed the room, and observed...a whole lot of 4 year olds doing...pretty much anything they wanted. Including engage in some semi-mild tussling on a carpet. So my dream afternoon. Then I notice that B is sitting at a table alone, reading a book. I went over, and discovered it was an instructional tome about tying your shoes. So B and I undertook an effort to tie our shoes. This mostly consisted of me repeatedly tying her shoes, spending the majority of time having bunny-ear loops hopping up and down her legs. I think it was my killer shoe-tying skills that won her over. Apparently my mad skills impressed the other children, because they began to FLOCK towards the table. Mostly the girls. Who summarily got into fights at the table and then went and told their teachers that I was mean. And then came back and tried to get me to give them toys they weren't allowed to play with at the time. Pretty soon B was bored with the options at the table and decided she wanted me to read to her. So over to the reading area we went (we being B, myself, and my posse of 4 year olds). At the reading area, another little girl joined the group. At first, said newcomer was very impressed by me, and I apparently warranted a sticker (ps-giving 4 year olds stickers is a very bad, no good, horrible plan!). Then, I read the book that B picked out, which upset the newcomer in posession of the sitckers, who apparently wanted to read a different book. She went storming away. Five seconds later, guess who was back. I thought to myself (admittedly smugly), Aha! She came back to hear me read. Oh no, the little squirt came back and RIPPED the sticker off of my hand because I was a "meany and didn't deserve a sticker" (this is a bit of an interpretation. But her meaning was very clear). This stickering and de-stickering continued until the end of the day. At one point, I had accumulated 2 stickers. I ended the day with none. But I made it out alive. Which is a miracle considering how many germy little hands were all over me for 2 hours. I'm not sure that B is totally sold on me, but at least she didn't give me stickers and then take them away.

And thus begin my Thursdays at Rayne.

Daddy's Joke

In case you weren't previously aware, I should preface this post with the fact that my dad is brilliant (like the book), and hilarious. He sends excellent emails (sometimes in french which I feel is a paternal effort to create some language skills in his youngest offspring-which is generally fruitless, but the effort is appreciated!) with chatty details about his day, the office (where I work in the summer) his workouts, generally his life. His emails are much appreciated, and a true show of fatherly love and devotion, as I RARELY reply to his emails (except during the summer when I am a rapid-fire replier). So even though he rarely gets a return email, he faithfully sends emails out into the great abyss that is my inbox on an almost daily basis. Which I totally love him for (among a multitude of other reasons). This morning, my email from Daddy Dearest was chock-full of laughs, which he had heard on the radio (apparently my efforts to encourage morning music-listening are to no avail).

Joke #1:
Two bears go swimming, one in Yellowstone, one in Alaska. Which bear disolves first?

Ready for the answer?


Do you have a guess?


It's the bear in Alaska, because its POLAR! (If you aren't into science you probably don't get it...sorry!)

Tuesday Mornings

Tuesday mornings involve a mad dash to the farmer's market before my classes. Except, that you can't really "mad dash" a farmer's market. It is just not possible. There are too many treasures in each stall to find and discover. The biggest find of the Tuesday morning Crescent City Farmer's Market are the eggs. There is only one lady that brings eggs. And there are only 7 dozen eggs each Tuesday. Which is a lot of eggs for one person, but not a lot of eggs for everyone that wants them. Basically, the first 7 people get a dozen eggs. I have been previously unsuccessful in my quest for the eggs. Not this week though. This week, I loitered around the egg lady sufficiently to convince her of my dedication to the egg cause and she SET A DOZEN ASIDE FOR ME! Now I feel like a true farmer's market regular. I went, I saw, and I got those eggs! I also was able to procure farm fresh salted butter. To best summarize the butter that comes from the farmer's market I must steal an advertising phrase from my favorite show ever: Oh My Freakin' Goodness. This butter is truly amazing. The stall that sells the butter also sells fresh milk and cream. Now, we in the 7221 apartment are not big milk drinkers (in fact, we only buy milk when we need it for baking purposes...) but man-oh-man, is that farm fresh milk tempting.


Pretty much everything at the farmer's market is tempting. I abhor the idea of seafood, particularly the kind with legs, but I swear, when I'm walking around the farmer's market, I'm almost tempted. Instead of succumbing to the crawl-ly, oceanic creatures that smell funny, I chose to go with the fresh juices. Orange-Pineapple and Papaya. Soooooo delish.


After acquiring my little gems, I quickly returned home in an effort to get the little lovelies into the fridge and myself to class on time. This quest was successfully completed due to my excellent sweet-talking skills which convinced the men doing work on the road in front of the apartment to allow me to drive down the "Closed" Willow St to park and run to class. The men are very nice-they seem to be working on our street every day, and yet we still have the largest crater ever in the middle of it (which they seem completely unconcerned with!), and when I walk past them 8947547856 times a day on my way to and from campus I always wave and say hello. I think this helped my sweet talking cause. The best surprise of the morning was not my sweet-talking success, rather it happened back in the apartment when I was putting my beauties away. I had to sneak a peak at my big prize-the eggs. I popped open the container and SURPRISE! My little gems are brown eggs. I'm a bit obsessed with brown eggs. They are just so pretty. The color variations, the marking variations, the knowledge that the browner the eggs, the paler the chicken who produced it (which is pretty surprising if you think about the pigmentation genes that implies), and mostly, they just seem so much more fresh and wholesome compared to the generic white eggs from the grocery store. Anyways, my beauties are brown and I am so super pleased :)

Kitty Heaven

Kitty Heaven received a royal new member yesterday. Her name is Pheobe and she was the best kitty-cat a girl could ever dream of. She was a princess and will be missed in every possible way, but forever loved and never forgotten. I love you my sugarplum!