Days 126-127: New York with family

So our great US family road trip has gotten off to a rocky start. We've learned many lessons. Such as:

• Be a traveller, not a tourist (i.e. don't buy a New York Pass, go on bus tours, or get around via the sightseeing bus). We ended up wasting a lot of time, and didn't make the most of our trip. Walking or subway is always faster!
• Take the weather into account before going up the Empire State Building! Here was the view yesterday:



From the 86th floor. A patch through the fog...






From the 102th floor. We bought the upgrade, not realising that it was zero visibility. Woops.

• Shit happens! The weather was just not on our side today either, and my parents didn't even get to see the Statue of Liberty which they were really looking forward to since it was actually stormy. And then, when they tried going to another museum, they got there 2 minutes after it closed. So unfortunate. (I ditched them after the failed attempt at seeing the Statue, and went to the Museum of Sex instead - which was actually pretty legit!). But hopefully this means that the rest of our trip might go a bit more smoothly?
• Try and see less, and see it better. I personally would prefer less photo-taking and more engagement.
• I don't think I could live in New York. Just wayyy too many people (aka tourists like me :P). But I haven't seen enough of it aside from Times Square, which is not really representative, so I should reserve judgement!
• US roads are so dark at night and pretty scary to drive on in the dark, especially with pouring rain. Even my dad, the expert driver, was finding it difficult to even stay in the lane!

But of course, there are always things that make me smile, like:

1. The moment we drove into the parking lot at Princeton even though a sign said "Do Not Enter' (you were supposed to drive to the next entry) and my mum was just like, "Well, I guess we have to enter". LOL.
2. Princeton is stunning.



Chapel. Someone was playing the organ beautifully inside. A moment of peace.









Dad and I under our Chinese zodiac animals.









Awesome fountain. Photo does not do it justice.

3. Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum!!!! So much awesomeness. I was literally confusing real people for wax models and wax models for real people.







4. Getting a really helpful reply from an academic I reached out to regarding a book chapter he'd written. He generously sent it so I could read it since I won't have access to a university library till August.
5. We had dinner at Hangawi, a Korean vegan restaurant!!! The food and the ambience made for an excellent and very satisfying experience. It was probably the highlight of my visit to New York this time. I will definitely come back next time I'm back in New York (I'm sure I'll have another opportunity to return). I recommend the stuffed shiitake mushroom appetiser especially.

Day 125: Goodbye, Philly!

What went well? 

1. Managed to finish downloading journal articles for the literature review I'm part of, before my parents woke up in the morning.
2. Took my parents on a tour of Penn. Then they helped me move out. Which went really smoothly. And we were able to waive the fee for the parking garage because we had move-out vouchers! Yusss.
3. Bought a new bag and dress at Macy's. Wow. That place is HUGE.
4. Had dinner at Mi Lah again. It was fabulous as usual. My non-vegan parents were impressed!

What did I learn? 

• Macy's is huge. And the place to shop. Whereas The Gallery at Market East really isn't.

Day 121: Vedge

What went well? 

1. Checked out the community fair down in Clark Park this afternoon. It was a really wonderful sight to see so many people in the community there and enjoying themselves. Also, thought this jewellery was MASTERFUL:



It's made of REAL FRUIT!!!!! 

2. Had the most special dining experience ever, at Vedge Restaurant. It's an upscale vegan restaurant, and I highly recommend it!!








3. Went back to my friend's place where I finally watched Pitch Perfect!!! Great movie.
4. My parents landed safely in San Francisco!

What did I learn? 

• Vedge Restaurant is amazing!! Have a look at their pictures: http://vedgerestaurant.com/

Day 120: The (Official) End

Wow that went fast. I will write a more reflective post later.

What went well? 

1. Had my last exam today, and it went really well!
2. Had a really productive lab meeting.
3. Checked out the BioPond!!! Finally!!!!! I can't believe it took me this long to go - it's only 5 minutes from where I live. And it was so peaceful and recuperative.






Turtles!!!







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4. Skyped my parents :)
5. Had a wonderful, wonderful and profound conversation with a friend. So excited to continue to keep in touch and hopefully collaborate in the future!!

What did I learn? 

• I've realised that I have recently developed a serious sugar addiction. And that I need to break it now.
• The end of exams is more anticlimactic than OMG FREEDOM WOO! It was more of an "Oh, that's it."

Day 101: I just increased my limitations

What went well?  

1. I guess I essentially took the weekend off since my friend was visiting me, and I had a great time hanging out with her and catching up! I didn't get any meaningful work done, but, that's not a bad thing because work always gets done, especially when the deadlines are looming. Hence, limitations (in time, resources, energy) make you more productive.
2. Visited Liberty Bell and Independence Hall! I can't believe I've been in Philly for 3 months now and only just went properly into Old City to see the historical sights.

3. Had the most efficient group-work experience ever. Wrote a 1400 word paper about the issue of self-immolation by Tibetan Buddhists as a form of protest - from the standpoint of a student of Buddhist ethics, with a group of 5 people, in 1.5 hours. Penn kids are efficient! Especially when we don't care because it's not graded and was sprung on us on Friday at recitation =.=""""""""" How can they dooooo that!!! Anyhow, it was a positive group-work experience :)

What did I learn? 

• More about American History in one afternoon than I did my whole life. I had actually been oblivious to the fact that America was formed from British Colonies. Wow. #ignorance
• Philadelphia is a super-historical city.

Day 100: Spontaneous Saturday

What went well? 

Today was actually a cool day that I can say, yeah, that's a pretty cool story.

1. Visited the Morris Arboretum in the morning - the University owns this place. Enjoyed the sunshine and the nature.







  

2. A couple of guys started talking to us on the bus back. We ended up getting lunch/dinner with a bunch of people (who they'd also just met), then jamming with violin, electric guitar and ukelele, then going to the "Night Market" at Rodin Rooftop lounge with amazing performances by several cultural dance and arts groups. Totally random but awesome turn of events!!

3. Did my grocery shopping and my friend helped me to carry stuff back, which helped a lot.

What did I learn? 

• People at Penn respect culture a lot. Also, we have some amazing dance groups here, who really love to dance, put their hearts, intensity and energy into it, and are amazingly supportive of their team-mates. And everyone respects that.
• Good things happen when you clear your schedule and go with the flow. Just say yes!
• Writing this Buddhist paper brings up experiences that relate to Buddhist teachings. Like, dukkah. Oh my god, I feel so much unsatisfactoriness towards this paper at the moment. Just, MRAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. (my reaction every time I look at it). MRAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

Day 94: Sunshine and smiles

What went well? 

1. Ancient Voices concert went really well. It was the best we'd sung the pieces. After my 10-minute test on Wednesday, that'll be one subject down!
2. Hung out with my friend afterwards and went for a long walk to the art museum & back. We admired the cherry blossoms there and on campus (and also the squirrels. always squirrels.). It was so energising! And a GLORIOUS day. Again. Sunshine and 27 degrees celsius (Hello, NZ summer!) with a warm breeze.



Crazy selfie






Wind






Sunshine! I look ridiculously happy in this photo. 

3. Got a reply from the guy who gave the talk a couple weeks back about how digital tools can help bootstrap Chinese learning. He gave some really helpful suggestions and kindly offered to help me with the process and invited me to stay in touch! I'm actually pretty excited about this now, and I've realised that it's all about making learning personally meaningful by getting down to the why of why you want to develop a skill, and the specific content that is interesting and useful for you. I'm glad that digital tools can bypass a lot of boring stuff and help me get straight to translating stuff about positive psychology and mindfulness back and forth from Chinese & English. This is another thing I have gained from Penn - just by going to this talk, I got inspired to improve my Chinese - and I had no strong intentions of doing so prior to that! Interconnectedness is an amazing thing. If this didn't happen, then that wouldn't have happened...etc.
4. Got another 1600 words on the page for my Buddhism paper.

What did I learn? 

• This choir can pull it together really well. I think in the end, singing is a lot to do with attention. We often made mistakes during rehearsals, but were great in concert, and I think it is to do with the fact that we were all on the ball today.
• My level of Chinese has a term - "kitchen Chinese" - "i.e. a good basic mastery of the language and good pronunciation and tones, but just lacking a lot of specialized and "adult" vocabulary".

Day 63: Durham, North Carolina...and first hostel experience

So, my flight got delayed so it's now nearly 12am and I'm not yet at my hostel for the night. Need to get decent sleep before conference tomorrow so this post will get written tomorrow!

But while I'm waiting...some WWWs today:

1. Really enjoyed seeing Duke University's campus. It is super green and beautiful. Especially appreciated their impressive chapel and the huge garden they had.
2. My plane landed safely. That is always a good thing.

Edited 14/03/14!

Here is the proper post.

We got the bus from Richmond in the morning to Durham, North Carolina. Arrived at noon, got lunch, spent a couple of hours exploring Duke's campus, then left for our flights back to DC & Philly, respectively. So yeahhhh we literally spent less than an afternoon in Durham...possibly ill-conceived (mea culpa!), but hey, at least we can tick another destination off our bucket lists! Plus, Duke actually was very beautiful. Look:

Sarah P. Duke garden!

This garden is huge!! And probably unbelievably beautiful when the flowers bloom in Spring.

Even the Admissions office is cute.

Duke Chapel.

This place is about as big as St Paul's Cathedral in Melbourne. It's HUGE!

Pretty building.

Duke apparel is cheaper than Penn's.

And if you're really keen, you can even buy Duke chairs! 

Worst photo ever. Posted just for lulz. Visited the Cameron Stadium (basketball). It was pitch-black, but at least I know that they're environmentally friendly, not wasting light when there are no players on the court!

Thought I might as well wander around the psychology/sociology building. Was hoping to get a sense of the kind of research taking place here.

Such as this. An interesting topic indeed!

This made me smile too. Mentoring should totally be recognised more at Melbourne (and higher ed in general). Mentors are awesome!

Another pretty building.

So that was all fairly smooth sailing, until the evening, when my plane got delayed for about an hour, so I didn't get to my hostel in DC until nearly 12am. And when I got there, I was greeted by an EXTREMELY frazzled manager. I mean, this dude was frazzled to the max. Why? Well, due to errors in their system, they screwed up royally and totally overbooked their hostel, because various sites kept advertising their beds even though they were booked. This has been going on for about 2 weeks. Since I'd arrived so late, I didn't get the bed I booked (they gave it to someone else), but they managed to find me a bed in the incomplete hostel they were renovating two doors away. For a moment there I was actually worried that I was not going to have a bed for the night, because they actually had to turn people away after a certain point. So it ended up ok. But the dude seriously needs to stop complaining to every single customer (he's still doing it!!) about how shit the situation is and how he needs to fix it and how it's a total nightmare...I felt like I was giving him therapy or something ("Sounds like it's been really stressful"), and it was 12am! I do appreciate his efforts in trying his best to make sure everyone got a bed though, even if it meant calling up every hotel/hostel in DC and being resourceful with using spaces that hadn't been completed yet.

What did I learn? 

• Shared shuttles aren't necessarily faster than public transport. I was totally mehhhhhing at the thought of a 1 hour journey on two buses to get to my hostel from the airport, which would have got me there just before 12am. So I decided on a whim to go for the shuttle bus that was at the airport, and it got me there at about 11.40am. So, it wasn't that much faster and at $29, nearly 10x more expensive. Possibly more reliable, comfortable and safe though.
• Travelling is definitely an opportunity to practice mindfulness and acceptance. There is great value in a mindset that I realised could be a gratitude exercise - let's call it the "could be worse/at least I have ___" exercise! "Sure, I booked a bed in a four-person dorm and ended up in an unfinished 8-person dorm, but hey it could be worse, at least I still have a bed, a working toilet, and running water!!!" Also, I realised that my 4-day hike around Lake Waikaremoana over summer definitely helped build some resilience and tolerance for not-so-ideal conditions. Bare-essentials accommodation on hikes kinda make hostels (which I just overheard someone saying, "this is like a homeless place", LOL) feel like luxury hotels. Almost. My standards for being satisfied have dropped dramatically, apparently.
• Apparently, Chicken & Waffles, together, is a thing. Weirrrrrrd!

Day 62: Richmond, Virginia

Today was a day of perfect timings for everything, plenty of nature, and good food! Although the main reason we came to Richmond was basically because it was on the East coast and we randomly picked it off the map, we found plenty of things to do here and had a pleasant day.

What went well? 

1. It was an early start. We got up at 5.50am to catch a 7.30am bus to Richmond. We got to the train station at about 6.30am and were wandering around looking lost because we couldn't find the actual station, but someone kindly asked what we were looking for and pointed us in the right direction, and we caught the train on time and therefore got to our bus on time.
2. Enjoyed sight-seeing in Richmond. We walked to Maymont estate, and walked around the sprawling, peaceful grounds and a tour of the mansion.










3. Also, went to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts! I can't believe this place was free too. Very extensive collection, and so interesting to see how much art varies according to time and place. Was also really impressed by the work they had on display from some high schoolers (the first three pictures):



The artist who drew this was 14!? Wut.



Clever.










...art?










4. Public transport in Richmond was super cheap. It was only $1.50 from Maymont to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, and only $1.75 to our hotel (which was over an hour away by public transport - it would have been a 15 minute taxi ride, but we chose to save that money and put it towards good quality food since we didn't really have anything better to do in the evening).
5. The weather generally worked out really well. It didn't start raining until midday, when we'd walked around most of Maymont, so went and took shelter on the mansion tour. Then it rained while we were in the art museum and really pour when we were on the buses, but generally wasn't that bad when we were actually outside. Thanks, weather!
6. Found a great place for dinner (the HappyCow app has served us very well, showing us all the veg-friendly places close by). I got this miso tofu dish, and it was probably the best meal I've had since I've been in the US. I was inspired!

7. Satisfied my cupcake cravings induced by the sadness of Georgetown Cupcakes running out of vegan cupcakes yesterday. We walked down the street after dinner since we had some time to kill before the bus arrived, and found Carytown Cupcakes just down the street! And they had vegan cupcakes, woo!! So I got a lavender vanilla one and an apple cinnamon one. Totally savoured the lavender one, it was actually a perfect cupcake - perfectly moist, fluffy, and yummy. You would not be able to tell at all that it was vegan, and I can say that honestly since that statement does not apply to all vegan baking!!

8. Saw this on the street too and thought it was cute:

9. Our hotel was really, really good value! We stayed at Days Inn Richmond and it was only $45 for a double room. Yes, $22.50 each. Actually cheaper than an actual hostel. Including free wifi and free breakfast! Highly recommended!

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10. Proof-read the final study design for the new positive intervention we've been working on in our Positive Psychology lab!! It's actually super exciting to see it finally coming together and getting ready to be submitted for IRB approval and then unleashed onto the public!! Wheee!!

Woah that was a lot of WWW's. Hey, what can I say - it was a fab day!!

What did I learn? 

• You have to pay a $1 "exit fee" to get out of the metro system in DC. What!
• If you look sufficiently lost, people will help you :P
• Carytown cupcakes are awesome.
• Apparently, according to Victorian etiquette, it was not ok for two women to converse for more than 15-20 minutes. Bizarre!
• Just read that an Obesity gene has been identified, apparently. I find these genetic developments very interesting to follow, because it really creates questions about determinism, free will, and personal responsibility. What proportion of variance do genes account for? How much control do we really have? Hmmmmmm...