Dress Shopping

With my brother's wedding coming up in a few months, I was asked by my future sister-in-law to be her maid of honor at the church ceremony. Since my brother is Christian and his fiancee is Hindu, they are having a large, colorful Hindu wedding followed by a small church ceremony. The colors for the church wedding are pine green and ivory.

Having seen pictures of standard bridesmaid dresses, I initially wondered a) where would I find a dark green bridesmaid dress and b) did I have enough time to get it delivered. Many bridal stores have a 16-20 week waiting period, not counting alterations. Being 5' 2", I anticipated major hemming if I got anything that wasn't designed to be very short on a normal-height woman. Not able to wait 16 weeks (the wedding's in March) my mom and I temporarily fumed, then marched into Saks with a close friend of my mom.

We entered the evening dress section and, to our surprise, found several dresses in green. I tried on about 8 or 9 dresses. The final pick was a long green, stretchy, slightly slinky synthetic one-shoulder dress. It looked a lot like a Grecian goddess dress dyed green with a slit that hit just above the knee. And, obviously, without leather sandals (I found black satin heels the same day). I'm planning on also wearing this dress at my school's junior/senior formal, whenever that is. While it is a relief to be "done," there are still details to figure out - hair, nails, jewelry. But it can wait, because I've got the dress.

Fall Semester Goals - Revisited

In terms of academic goals, I've found that staying on top of my written work has not been very difficult — I already had developed a "system" for budgeting time for doing readings, research, and writing papers. What was difficult was budgeting time for studying Organic Chemistry and Biology. I realized, perhaps a little too late, that studying the week before an Orgo exam was not effective. In order to really get the material, I had to practice it until I had dreams about reaction mechanisms. It is rather similar to learning a foreign language — you don't learn just by hearing, but by writing and speaking everyday, until the rhythms of the language become natural.

Organic Chemistry has been a difficult class, probably the most difficult class I've had since AP Biology in high school, but not necessarily a "scary" class. While many of the nurses I work with respond to the phrase "I'm taking Orgo" as if I said "I eat cactus for breakfast," and describe Orgo as a sort of necessary evil, I've found the material quite interesting. While I can't find a direct connection between Orgo and nursing (other than the pictures of pharmaceutical compounds in some of our exams), I've decided that Orgo being a requirement for some nursing schools is enough of an "ulterior" motivation. When I need a "boost" while studying, I try to imagine getting a first set of scrubs for nursing school. It helps.

So does cooking. While emotional eating is not recognized as a positive habit to develop, I've found that when I'm in a studying/working rut, stabbing dough with a spoon is surprisingly cathartic. Grocery shopping, which I know most adults view as a chore, is relaxing for me. The half hour walk to the grocery store is a good time to just plug in to my iPod, and after being on a meal plan for two years, it's a lot of fun to decide what will be in my kitchen. While most of my non-"quickie" cooking has been desserts (pumpkin pie, brownies, cookies, apple crisp), I've found that that's the kind of cooking I can get excited about. It's a good thing I spend so much time walking to class/work. Otherwise I think this kind of cooking would have serious consequences.

Perhaps I should start venturing more into entrees. I've already done mushroom quiche and vegetarian chili. Today I made fried polenta with cumin and pepper, which was very yummy, but perhaps not something I should make on a regular basis. So, my next unofficial cooking goal: practicing recipes that don't involve copious amounts of sugar or butter/oil that aren't chili.