we love visitors, yes we do!

This past weekend my cousin Sasha came and visited us from Massachusetts! And then, the day before she left, my sister Becky flew in to visit too! I can't even tell you all how nice it was to have them here. Like having friends again!

Cue photo evidence:

(i made this collage using powerpoint. how ghetto is that? any suggestions for better software to use for this sort of thing?)

We did all the required Philly things: Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, cheesesteak at Jim's. And then we did all sorts of other great things like getting caught in a rainstorm after eating crepes in University City, walking through an earthquake on our way to Betsy Ross's house and Elfreth's Alley, buying a Donna Summer record and a record hot pad at the Italian Market, throwing pennies on Ben Franklin's grave, lots of shopping (thank you thank you thank you Mom for the back to school shopping money!), taking touristy photos with the historically dressed people at Independence Hall, playing plenty of Dance Central on the Kinect, making coca cola cake, and watching "Raising Hope".

A perfect way to end the summer, really.

(Orientation starts on Monday!)

How was your last week of freedom?

death be not proud

Today in Aaron's doctor-patient relations class they watched a video chronicling an English professor's struggle with stage 4 ovarian cancer. Since all of his lectures get posted online, I got to watch it too, at home. It was heartbreaking. And it reminded me of my grandma and visiting her in the hospital, so you know, I was practically sobbing in half of it. This poem by John Donne was mentioned over and over:


Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not so,
For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,
And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better then thy stroake; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more, death, thou shalt die.


The last two lines are especially beautiful. "...wee wake eternally" isn't that the truth? Because of Jesus Christ, death is dead. It is overcome, and we live forever.
Beautiful.

i am studying potions, after all.

I am currently blogging from the Fisher Fine Arts Library of Penn's campus.

Guys.

This is Hogwarts.

This was the closest image I could find on google, but believe you me, it is even better in real life. It has a wrought iron spiral staircase leading to what looks like the restricted section of the library where they keep all the dark arts books. It has beautiful arches. The entry has this incredible peacock stained glass window. I may never leave. 

This may make it impossible to earn my PhD, but my inner witch will be so happy.

edit: I had to add another photo.

Gryffindor common room (with slightly more study tables than I usually imagine it with)!!! Hello!!!

first world problems

Dear Penn,

Please stop being an enabler for my husband's compulsive studying habits. By posting videos online of every lecture along with the slides, and by giving him a stack of notes a foot tall, you have encouraged him to spend every minute from noon until 11:00 PM cooped up in our study.

The bored wife downstairs is not happy!

Sincerely,

Your only chemistry PhD student from BYU

disclaimer: I usually do a good job keeping myself entertained, and once school starts I will look back fondly on these bored days and wish with all my heart that I had nothing to do.

Also, thank you for all of the fashion blog suggestions! Now I have lots more reading to do, which helps take the edge off the boredom!

i miss back to school shopping

Lately I've discovered some great style blogs, and I wanted to share my discoveries with all of you! I love these blogs because most of the outfits they feature feel like something I could actually wear, instead of being so high fashion that I would feel completely ridiculous wearing it. And, all of them are quite well-written, which makes reading even more fun.

Kendi Everyday

Married Kendi decided to have a blog instead of a baby. Ha. She always has great outfits and incredible photography.

Sidewalk Ready

Hairstylist, photographer, and fashion maven Kayley blogs about her life with husband while wearing great clothes. She also has a ton of great hair tutorials (hello, she's a cosmetologist).

The Other Emily

Recently graduated from grad school in architecture, Emily is currently traveling the world with her boyfriend for nine months on a design fellowship and manages to look fabulous while living out of a suitcase.  

What Would a Nerd Wear

Tania is a British literature grad student (so all of her posts are exceptionally well-written). I particularly love her blog because she features a lot of outfits that are dressy enough for teaching/TAing a class, but casual enough to be comfortable. 

Have you found any fashion blogs that you enjoy perusing? Do tell!

(This post is slightly inspired by the fact that my sister is coming to visit this Saturday, and I will finally have a shopping partner!!! I've gotten a lot of inspiration from these sites.)

we all hold dual citizenship, in the kingdom of the well and the kingdom of the sick*

I just finished reading The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee a couple of days ago, and guys, you've got to read this book. Chances are, if you don't get cancer, someone you know will. One in three American women and one in two American men will develop cancer at some point in their lives. Isn't that insane?

This book gives an excellent history of our understanding of the disease and the evolution of treatment for it. It's very well-written (it won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize), and does a really great job of making highly technical things accessible to a non-scientist. Mukherjee also does a great job of capturing how complex cancer is while still making it understandable.

One of the things that stood out to me the most is the almost brutal natural of cancer treatment, even 20 years ago. In the early 1900s treating breast cancer meant not only a mastectomy but carving out most of the chest muscles and going up into the neck, leaving the patient partially paralyzed and highly disfigured. And the cancer still came back. Chemotherapy, even today, is devastating, because you end up killing your own cells in the attempt to destroy the cancer. Reading the case studies in the book made me want to cry several times, reading about what people went through. I couldn't hold back tears listening to a physician speak about her struggle with leukemia during Aaron's white coat ceremony.

Anyway, I loved this book. I can't get it out of my head. It's made me seriously consider doing cancer research for grad school.
You should read it too. :)

*paraphrased from Susan Sontag

an official med school student

This weekend was the Parents and Partners Day at Penn Med, so I got to attend and get a mini look at what med school will be like for Aaron. (plus, we got free parking in the middle of University City. that'll never happen again!) It was neat to hear about the curriculum, see some demonstrations of their simulators and standardized patients, and go to the white coat ceremony. This was when Aaron got his shorty student white coat (once you get an MD you've earned the right to a full length coat) and legit stethoscope, and recited the Hippocratic Oath.

I know I've already bragged about how great of a med school Penn is, but that was really reaffirmed to me yesterday listening to all of the great things and research they're doing there. I'm really grateful for the chance that Aaron has to get this awesome education. We feel very lucky for all of the opportunities we know this will entail. It was incredible because during the white coat ceremony all 166 entering med school students got up and introduced themselves- name, hometown, university attended, major, year graduated- and nearly all of them had attended Ivy League schools, or universities of equal prestige (UC Berkeley, MIT, etc.). Maybe 30% had also graduated with multiple degrees.
Folks, we're not in Kansas anymore.

putting his white coat on!

look at that nifty stethoscope! a $160 value!

roy's chocolate souffle

Yesterday I made these chocolate souffles/molten lava cakes for me and Aaron. It was great because ever since I stuck ramekins on our wedding registry and someone got them for us, I've been looking for a use for them! (I don't own a creme brulee torch or a little propane torch, so the obvious is out.) Aaron and I got all excited about the idea of souffles after watching an episode of Masterchef recently, except they made cheese souffles. I discovered this recipe and decided to give it a try. I halved it because I didn't have enough chocolate, it worked just fine (in case you ever just want to make two-Valentine's dinner, hmm?)

It was like heaven in a ramekin. So, so good, and so easy too!


ramekins (4) or a muffin tin with cupcake liners (chocolate souffle cupcakes? how cute!)
parchment paper

Soufflé Batter:


8 oz. good quality semi-sweet dark chocolate (i.e. Guittard, Vahlrona, Callebeaut-pretty sure my supermarket doesn't carry any of those brands, so I just went with Hershey's)
12 Tbs butter
1 cup granulated sugar
3 Tbs cornstarch
4 whole eggs plus 4 egg yolks

For the batter, mix sugar and cornstarch together in mixing bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs and yolks. In a saucepan, melt the butter until it begins to simmer. Add the chocolate and mix until smooth and the chocolate simmers along the edges. Pour the chocolate mixture into the dry ingredients. Mix until combined. Add the eggs and mix at low speed until smooth and sugar is dissolved. Transfer into bowl and refrigerate overnight.

Preheat oven to  400°. (I don't know if our fridge is just way cold, but the batter was much more solid the day after, like more solid than brownie batter. I let the bowl sit on the oven while it heated up, and it thawed a little, but it definitely wasn't as liquidy as the first day. My lack of patience in waiting for it to come to room temperature probably added to the baking time, but it still worked!) Line the bottom of the ramekins with a circle piece of parchment paper, and the sides with a long strip. (I used cooking spray to help the parchment stick to the walls a little easier.)

Fill each ring mold or ramekin with soufflé batter ¾ of the way full. Bake on top oven rack for 26-28 minutes. You want the top to be set, but the middle to still be gooey. (and actually, even for me, the overbaker, our middles turned out perfectly gooey! So you can make these without fear!) Remove baking sheet from oven. You can run a knife along the edges of your ramekin and invert it on a plate and dust with powdered sugar for a pretty presentation, but we just ate them straight out of the ramekin because we're lazy like that. 


Partake and be happy!
Recipe source: The Girl Who Ate Everything, who got it from Roy's Restaurant (like she emailed them and asked, "What's your chocolate souffle recipe?" and they told her! Cool!)

the top started caving in they were so gooey