The Cardinal Rule of Public Transportation

Well. There have been some changes recently. I'm no longer a grad student. I no longer live in Virginia. I no longer live by myself.

Let me explain: After three years of grad school, I have a framed diploma and am awaiting Bar exam results. As the result of said graduation, I left Virginia and moved to Pennsylvania to start a job (yippee for being employed!!!) Finally, as a graduation present, the Guy gave me Zeke: a very sweet Maltese-ish mix who had previously been abandoned outside a vet's office in northern New Jersey. Zeke and I have spend the last week or so settling into (both of our) new apartment and getting to know each other (and our trainer, Matt!).

Although I've been horrible about posting in the last two years, my new situation has led to many thoughts along the line of "I should blog about that..." And so, here I am.

Let me tell you how I broke the cardinal rule of Taking Public Transportation today.

The story: As a newbie in this city, I have come to realize that making some new friends would be good. Don't get me wrong, I've got a friend or two from Undergrad still here, but, it'd certainly be nice to meet a few more people... So, over the past three or four days, I've been on a quest.

This quest has taken me high and low: to the synagogue for services, to the dog park with Zeke (Matt the Trainer come help!), and most recently -- to Craigslist. I can see you, shaking your head in despair: "Sarah PB&J," you say, "You're too cool to be browsing the Craigslist ads looking for friends." But let me respond. See, there's this section called "Strictly Platonic." On it, I found my former running partner turned friend M. Plus, I figured, there must be other newly-graduated-and-relocated-people-like-myself on there. And low and behold, I found a post. A 25yo self proclaimed geek. Sounded similar. So we e-mail back and forth a bit and discover that we both just moved to this city from the same Virginian city - and even had a friend in common. Score! So we decided to rendez-vous for lunch.

Oh right - back to the story of how I broke that cardinal Rule.

She (let's call her E), lives in a suburb that has a really cool urban feel to it. I offered to take public transportation out to meet her there. Wearing my easily recognizable orange pants, I set out. Only I forgot one thing: to bring reading material. The train ride itself is only 15 minutes, so I didn't think twice about leaving the house with only my wallet, keys and cellphone. Oh, did I learn my lesson.

I took my seat and settled in for the ride. I didn't see an older man sit across the isle from me. "Hello" he says to me. I responded to this with a curt, "Hi." - as I really had no desire to engage in any sort of conversation on my peaceful mid-Sunday ride.

"I saw [the name of my graduate school] on the back of your t-shirt."

"Yep." (Still trying to avoid conversation)

"Did you go there?"

"Yep." (Thinking my curt responses, and the fact that I never looked directly at him, and turned to look out the window after each response would give an appropriate hint.)

"When did you graduate?"

"In May." (He clearly didn't get the message)

"Do you have a job up here? Or are you going to open your own place?"

"I have a job" (As I pray he doesn't as where. This guy could totally be a stalker... )

....

Anyway, as you can imagine, this went on and on. I never once asked him a question, or looked him in the eye. Thankfully, after 15 painful minutes, I arrived at my destination, met E, and proceeded to have a very lovely afternoon. On the return trip, I made sure to pick up a train schedule, so that at a minimum, I could focus on something should a creepy person decide to sit next to me...

Recap: always, always bring something to read if using public transportation.

_____________________________

to be continued...

Going Under

Sarah PB&J just learned that it is very possible that she will be getting surgery on her hamstring.

Sarah PB&J won't know for sure until December 9th.

Sarah PB&J thinks this could well ruin her trip to Rome.

Sarah PB&J is feeling a little light-headed and is going to try to sleep.

________________________

to be continued...

VOTE

Hello all friends!

Go, VOTE. And then tell your neighbors and your friends and your coworkers and your families and people you pass on the street!

It's all about the cool sticker...

__________________

to be continued...

Out Vacuum Goddess

There's a mysterious Vacuum Goddess in SPB&J's apartment.

My little apartment-sized vacuum has seen better days. At this point, I never even bother to take it out of the closet. Instead I typically borrow the Guy's.

In the past week or so, I had commented a few times about how much I really wanted to vacuum the apartment. But, ultimately, I was too lazy to do it.

Both the roommate and I were away this weekend. Although I haven't been back to the apartment to confirm this, apparently, a Vacuum Goddess visited while we were away. The place has been vacuumed!

There are are only a few people (other than the roommate and me) with keys to the apartment. As far as I know, none of them vacuumed my place...

I could be a little creeped out by this whole thing, but in fact, I'm quite excited.

Thank you Vacuum Goddess! You are well loved by Sarah PB&J and her roommate
_________________

to be continued....

Laptops in Class?

What follows is my 150 word tirade on laptops in class. Warning, it's didactic and smug.

In lecture classes: If you want to waste your time and tuition buying clothes off of Amazon or reading ESPN, be my guest.

In seminars: The whole point of these classes is to converse with one another and share ideas. If you're surfing, and not making meaningful contributions to the discussion, then all of your other classmates are loosing out.

BUT WHAT BOTHERS ME MOST:

If you are g-chatting/IMing, remember that other people can read your screen. Today, in class, the person next to me was chatting with someone else who was also in the same class. After anyone spoke, they commented about what they think about that person. Some of the things they said were quite nasty. I doubt they would want those words broadcast throughout the school. But, when you are sitting in class, it's very likely someone is reading over your shoulder. Your conversations are not private. Remember this, and don't badmouth others in public. Keep your criticisms of others to yourself. It's not nice, and it only reflects poorly on you.

My 2 cents. Pshew.

_____________________

to be continued...

Marathons for All!? and A List

Two friends of mine completed marathons today! Sonja did a 26.6 miler in San Francisco. Chris did a 26.6-er in Columbus. You guys rock.

_________________

After the failed attempt of 2006, I keep contemplating trying again. (In fact, Sonja and I discussed briefly doing today's Women's marathon together.) But anytime I start running any distance over 2 miles, my femurs yell at me.

At this point, nearly 2.5 years after the fractures, I start wondering if I'll ever be able to check that item off my "list to do before I die."

__________________

But, I'm getting quite close to one goal: filling a passport (completely) with stamps and visas. I recently learned that my ABA gig will be sending me to Madrid and Lisbon in May. It means I'll miss graduation, but, I'll be 3 stamps closer to a full passport. Who could turn down that opportunity?

__________________

I need to put some new items on my list. Any suggestions?

__________________

to be continued...

Let's try this again

Yeah, yeah. So I've been a bad blogger. The Life of Sarah PB&J has continued despite her notable absence from this blog.

Notable updates:

• I'm down to a semester and a half of school.
• I've got a job (in Philly) when I graduate.
• I've been to Israel and back.
• Green is my new favorite color.
• I have a roommate, kind of
  

So, all in all, it's been a fairly good few months.

Now if I weren't perpetually upset with Chase and SunTrust. I hate banks...

_____________________

to be continued...