i wish it were warmer and i hope you're the same

I am so close to what I plan to make the most amazing summer ever. One more exam. Unfortunately, it's my least favorite class. Fortunately, I am trying to be a tougher student who likes all classes. Since I had another exam I was working on today, I only have tonight and tomorrow to study for this exam, so it should be interesting.

I've been inadvertently dreaming about all the things I want to do when school gets out. I have about a month and a half before Poland. I want to go on a road trip. I want to babysit to alleviate the mind-staggering student debt ("Why are you stealing high schoolers' jobs?" -Dad). I already have a few jobs lined up for the day after exams are over. And I think I will spend some downtime in the library, finding books for fun and travel guides. One of my favorite things to do is go to the travel section and find some cool random travel idea books mixed in with the usual travel guides.

I like Johnny Cash's to-do list which is apparently on this auction site.

the handwritten letter

I grew up with a few pen pals as a kid. My first one was a girl I found through American Girl magazine's pen pal exchange. You were to send them an index card with some information about yourself on it and they paired you up with someone else. She wrote me before I got a chance to send her anything and included one of those things that you can pull a string and confetti pops out. I had never seen one before. I never used it, but I think I saved it.

We kept in touch for quite a long time and I had the best time ever checking mail. I also got the opportunity to use my cat stationary, which was huge, obviously.

A few years after that, a childhood friend and I began writing to each other. I think we were 11 at the time we started being pen pals. She used Bugs Bunny postage stamps. I smile thinking back on those days because we were so far away from knowing all the things that would begin happening to us in the next 10 years. Our brothers also began writing letters to each other and plotting evil schemes and such against us. None ever came to fruition.

The point is, I think there is something special about letters. I wrote these about a month and a half ago and decided to decorate these kraft envelopes I had gotten when I went to NYC a few years ago:

I'm still waiting to hear back. Shocking, I know.

I got the fun pass.

 Caine's Arcade from Nirvan Mullick on Vimeo.

I think this is the most amazing video and the most amazing kid. Sometimes you meet kids and you get this instinctive reaction, "I should definitely never have kids." And then sometimes you see kids like this and realize that you could solicit out your cute kid to achieve fame and fortune in ways that you, as an adult, have failed to do in your own life. Kidding. 

Honestly though, so many things about this video kill me, from the 500-play fun pass to the calculator fun pass security to the fact that he only wanted one customer. And mostly, the fact that he did all of this out of cardboard boxes.

Dessert: Bake Chicago

This is one of my favorite bakeries, admittedly for the extremely adorable vibe. I have to be honest about that. This is what I think my house should look like. The treats are also delicious, but I usually can't eat as much I see in the counter and I think that adds an element of (very temporary) sadness. This is Bake. It even has an awesome name and logo. I know, unrelated to taste. They had run out of most treats by the time we got there, which was too bad because I really wanted a chocolate chip-involved cookie. 

 I did end up getting a Bailey's chocolate cupcake. There was a little too much frosting for me, but that is a problem easily solved by scooping it off my cupcake and giving it to Nitin. The cupcake part was perfect though.

I like the horrifying awkwardness of this picture. My effort to take more pictures, especially of people, is being exhibitioned in a very forced manner. But somehow I like it. We look strange and the positions are awkward but it's very us. And technically it was taken on a table with no one looking through the lens, so I think I will choose to interpret it as having come out shockingly well.

Hoanh Long- Vietnamese

"Jocelyn, I'm wearing my baller sweatshirt today for your blog." And with Nitin's statement, we embarked on our journey to Hoanh Long in North Park. For anybody who is Chicago neighborhood crazy (okay, mostly for myself because I'm a little bit neighborhood crazy), North Park seems to be just slightly northwest of Edgewater. Besides a foray onto Devon Ave, where our ethnic food experiences began, I'm really unfamiliar with the area. You go a few blocks north and you start getting confused about whether you're still in Chicago.

First thing I learned is not as much about the food as it was about us. We are not photogenic. Nitin doesn't look bad in his baller sweatshirt, but I'm including this picture of me and Saad for two reasons, and they are simple ones. A) Observe his shirt. This is possibly my favorite shirt of all time, anywhere. It is rambunctious, and Saad wears it with pride. B) Saad's face in this picture is halfway there to his "consideration" face. When he tests something out and decides it's actually pretty good, he makes this face. It's pretty elusive and its full effect has yet to be captured on camera. I have lofty dreams of getting it someday.

Nitin was the most excited to try pho. He kept making pho jokes like, "Pho sho," and "Pho no!" Saad and I tried, but we were not as talented as we hoped to be (much like medical school and many other functions of daily life). I've had pho before at Pho 777 (I couldn't remember the name of it, which is why we tried this new place and I'm glad we did), but Nitin and Saad had not. I definitely love their willingness to try new things so fearlessly.

The reason I love pho is that it tastes simple and nuanced at the same time. It has so much flavor to experience, but is not overwhelming at all. And the best part about it is that it achieves this flavor without just being a strong salty sodium-esque taste. Nitin thought his was too minty, but I only tasted the subtlest flavor of mint, if at all. Just another indication of Nitin's body shutting down.

We also got this dish. I can't remember the name of it, even though I have had it at Chinese restaurants every weekend I, as a 5-year-old hater of food (especially Chinese food), considered a torturous family friend dinner. The difference was that this dish had short, flat noodles (they are the white things in this picture). I enjoyed it a lot. I definitely applaud this restaurant for its strong flavors that didn't overpower everything else.

#1- Pictures

These pictures are by David Cartier. He has so many beautiful pictures of the aurora borealis-lit night skies. Honestly, all I could think when I saw this was "Wow." It makes me really excited to travel this summer and eventually cross seeing this in real life off my bucket list.

love in the time of cholera

In an effort to stay caught up these past few weeks for this random school thing I'm doing, I've been neglecting a lot of other stuff. I've also been trying to avoid collapsing into bed without showering. Trying to keep the hygiene together. But I got called out majorly about not blogging in the form of a text from Nitin, "Why u aint blogging our pho experiences son?" Therefore, Nitin, Saad, and my endeavor into Vietnamese cuisine will be up soon.
And since waking up this morning, it has been my favorite kind of day so far. Rainy (intermittently) and cool. I like constant rain if I'm going to be indoors but during the day, it's nice to have the sun peak out and so I have a small window to make a mad rush to wherever I need to go. Today, it's for coffee since I haven't had caffeine in about 48 hours (totally not feeling it). That's neither here nor there.

I realized that I didn't post pictures for Cherita when she sent me flowers for my birthday. I never used to be a flower person but I think getting flowers on your doorstep and then getting to enjoy them and think of the person who sent them to you for the next several days (and these lasted like... 3 weeks at least, crazy longevity), is awesome.