Nov 7, 2009

I got up early and drove to Rowan to meet the buses in the cold. I was hoping for coach buses but we ended up with old school buses instead. Oh well, they weren't too bad.

We took the drive up the Turnpike to the Museum of Modern Art and filed off the bus, gathered in the lobby and got our tickets.

There was a lot of really great art there, including this piece that uses typed pages to make a forest of Birch trees. It's a really interesting idea.

There were a lot of large scale print pieces. I don't remember the names, you can ask me if you really want to know.

This was one of my favorite pieces of the whole museum, making a statement on security and marketability. The top of the gate has cute animals on it..

A smiley face lock and a chain of hearts. It was really well done.

This was another of my favorites. The piece was part of a series for a library where each artist was given a punctuation mark. This artist got the apostrophe and worked it into a gun because apostrophes eliminate words. I think it's an awesome representation of that idea.

I found this piece, which was displayed in a window in Philadelphia a year or two ago and I was never able to find out who it was. I was happy to come upon it!

We wandered the rest of the museum and Josh posed in front of this light sculpture. I'm glad he did because I think I'm going to use this shot for my "power" assignment.

After walking all of the museum, we headed uptown to Blossom Cafe for lunch. It's an all vegan restaurant. I got this amazing alfredo with vegetables, Joanna got a Seitan steak sandwich that was great as well. Josh wasn't thrilled with his veggie burger but he liked the fries!

After dinner, we got smoothies to go and headed back to the subway to find our train back. We waited for a while and ended up being the last three back to the bus. It was a bumpy ride home with our bad driver but we made it back to Rowan safely.

I met Katie for some tea at Starbuck's, where we stayed for about an hour. I've been wanting more chai tea lately.

I met Ryan for a walk around Vineland to talk about things. It wasn't too bad because it felt like it was getting warmer as we went along.

Overall, a really fun day in New York. I love field trips!

Nov 6, 2009

I met up with Ryan at the gym and we did our challenges again. We added a new one to the list and we ended up the day with a tie. We went to play tennis after and it was surprisingly easy after all the stuff we did at the gym.

I went to Saigon for dinner with my grandmom. I got my usual spring roll vermicelli and she was surprised at how much she liked something new.

I went up to Rowan After Hours later and played the "Name that Tune" game show but never really broke into the lead at any point so I couldn't get up behind a podium. It was an alright game but not a lot of music I listen to.

I went upstairs and played Wii Golf and Wii Bowling with one of the guys that was hanging out there. I played some Mario Kart as well but I was getting yelled at by the kid playing with me because I wasn't as good.

I had some celery from the wing bar and waited for the raffle. I thought I had a chance because there weren't many people there and there were a lot of things to give away but no such luck. Maybe next week.

Nov 5, 2009

Once I decided to get up, which wasn't even late considering what time I got to sleep, I went to Parvin to run. I walked around for a while after running.

After I came home and got a shower I met Katie for some tea at the Fuel House. One good thing about the weather getting cold is an excuse to drink tea. I couldn't stay long because I had to go to class.

I got to Russian a little bit late but just in time to learn about verbs and their endings. It's nice that I know some French because the whole conjugation things is pretty much the same except for the endings.

When class was over I picked up Chuck and Diebra from a nearby parking lot and we headed to Philly. We ate at Cosi on our way to the Merriam Theater. The tomato basil soup was great as well as the rest of the food.

We walked quickly to the Merriam after eating, getting there with several minutes to spare before Kevin Smith took the stage with a couch he never sat on.

He started with a story about his father's death but soon answered a lot questions about comic book and then got into working with Bruce Willis and everything else you would expect from a Kevin Smith Q & A. Another great appearance.

I went to Rowan After Hours and hung out for a short time. I got this bobblehead with my face in it. It's pretty ridiculous and I have nothing to do with it now but there it is. I don't play soccer either but that's what they had left. I got some lame mac & cheese before leaving.

I walked down to the Landmark where there were people fighting and I didn't feel like dealing with that nor did I want to pay the cover to go in for last call so I just left.

Nov 4, 2009

My third and final day with this history class was pretty easy. They just worked on worksheets while I worked on things. And now for a four day weekend.

I ran home before school to see if my camera had come and it was sitting on my porch. This is the Canon D10, which will be known as The Submarine because 1) it looks like a submarine and 2) it can go underwater. It's waterproof, freezeproof, shockproof.. something else crushproof? In any case, I'll be taking this all over the place.

I headed to Photo class and put my camera together on the road. This is the first picture I took.

After some critiquing in Photo, we went to see the work in the Gallery from Dusk til Dawn. I like this one. I ate one of those fortune cookies.

These are two prints Joanna did. They make me think of underwater Mario Bros. levels.

This is another of hers that I like a lot.

We watched It Happened One Night in my film class. It was a decent comedy. It was funny enough to hold my interest at least.

After class we watched the sixth and final game of the World Series as they Yankees won. We played another game of Phase 10. I won again.

After watching random Cartoon Network shows and browsing the internet for advertising costs during different hit tv shows I headed home with no worries of having to get up early.

Nov 3, 2009

Day two as a history teacher was pretty quiet as I had to give all the classes a test. They really didn't give me any trouble about it, which seemed strange. I got some of my own work done while they did their tests.

After work, I met Ryan for a few games of tennis. We took advantage of having some extra time but our games lasted a while anyway.

Since we didn't have time restrictions, we went to the course for a game. It was the first time in a while that we've been over there. Ryan scored his best game of -2 with some really awesome shots.

After going home to get ready I picked up Joanna and we went to Olive Garden to use some of our gift cards for dinner. We had some really great Portabella raviolis and for dessert we had to go with pumpkin cheesecake. So good.

We went down and met Chuck and Diebra for Quizzo. It seemed like we were doing pretty well but we ended up in third even after doubling our points on a perfect round. A free appetizer was disappointing after all the stuff we won at Rowan trivia.

After stopping at Rowan for a short time and checking out the gallery of the Dusk til Dawn art and hanging out with Josh and Alex in the comp lab, we went to Philly to get pretzels. It's been a while. Joanna had never had them so she got to experience the wonder of soft, hot pretzels fresh from the conveyor belt for the first time.

After checking out a view from center city we headed back over the bridge and stopped at Camden to see the city from one of my other favorite spots at the waterfront. We stood out there for a while but it was pretty cold so we got back in the car.

I got home pretty late so I had to get to sleep right away since I had work in the morning. I tried to anyway, even though it didn't work out that way.

Nov 2, 2009

I began my three day job as a history teacher at Lakeside. The classes just had worksheets to do so I wasn't really involved besides taking attendance and handing things out. Not too bad.

After work I went to class. The power went out for a while so we left Photo early and I got together with my Logic group to work on our Power Point for our presentation. It turns out it wasn't really necessary because no one wanted to do anything except me. We gave our presentation which I thought went alright, thanks to me. I didn't even do an over-the-top job, I just managed to actually do something. I went to Landmark and met Shannon and some of her friends for a few Coronas while watching Game 5. I got into it a little bit.

When the game was over I went to Westby to see what was going on for the Dusk til Dawn all night art project. People were working diligently but also having a good time. I wish I didn't have work in the morning so I could have stayed and worked on something.

Nov 1, 2009

I got up quite early in the morning and tried to edit some photos to use some of my time. After a few hours I went and picked up Ryan to drive about three hours north to Mount Tammany for round two. The weather wasn't great when we left but it got really nice once we got up in the Delaware Water Gap area.

We hiked up the steep path and climbed up the rocks. The first part was the most strenuous and fun part; it just keeps going up and doesnt' level off until you get to the top.

This is the view from the top looking toward Pennsylvania. We didn't spend too much time at the top since we had seen it before and since it didn't take us too long to get there..

On the way down, we stopped at the creek area and Ryan walked across a few logs that I had a mental block on for some reason. At least he got it done.

I got some photos of the really nice waterfall. I want to spend a lot of time sitting here. I could get a lot of reading done in a place like that with the rushing water drowning out all other sounds.

We couldn't stay there forever though, so we enjoyed it for a while and then continued along.

We followed the stream back to the end of the trail and the parking lot. It was a good hike and we were both hungry so we set off to find food. We stopped at an Applebee's on the way home and then continued the long drive back.

Once I dropped Ryan off I picked up a few things at Wal-Mart and went to Joanna's to play Phase 10. I thought it would take a long time to play the full game but it didn't take too long once we figured out how to play. I won a close game though..

Another fun day and night. I want to find some waterfalls that are closer to us so I can just go sit there.