Apparently I'm broke

So what happened this week... huh... not that much really. School, grading, some hanging out with friends. Nothing huge. Oh I signed up for Mint.com this week. Apparently the fact that there is any money in my accounts is basically a miracle. Like a serious, write-to-the-pope-to-get-this-validated act of God. Mint is basically budgeting and money managing software online. It reads your bank account and categorizes your spending. It sets budgets based on your spending habits and shows you at the end of the week how you're doing. It seems as though I've had no concept of my spending up to this point. Hopefully we'll get that under control.

Wednesday I had a birthday dinner at Olive garden with a group of my people. Leslie, Kristin, Stacey (and Mike), Carrie, Scarlett, Emily, Robbie, Brant, Jeff, and Ed all came. I felt so loved! :) It's always fun to sit down with you're people to break bread.

Speaking of hanging out with your people, we decided on a new Friday ritual--Friday FroYo at 5! There's a new self serve place called The Orange Leaf and it's awesome! Go check it out online (you can see a local perspective at thescoopmanhattan.com) and then promptly go there to experience it! This week we followed up our desert with dinner (just Robbie, Scarlett, Sarah, Ed and myself) at Pat's and then Robbie, Ed and I spent a night in (as opposed to spending money out and about) watching that old classic film, Mystery Men.

Today I mentored for a GROW event (because of the aforementioned lack of cash flow) in spite of having a weird vertigo type feel all day. I bucked it up and toughed it out and it got better enough to go to Emily's for a chilly dinner (which was spectacular to say the least). I still feel just a little wonkey but I think I'll survive. Hopefully I'll shake it enough to be productive tomorrow.

Oh and finally the highlights of Chicago! Enjoy!

The big city lights... as seen from the Hancock Building.

My drink at the Hancock Building-- so pretty!

Free hat at the Sox game in honor of 1/2 way to St. Patty's day!

Dinner at the Sox game--as good as(or better than) it looks!

Postin' up at the bean in Millennium park. Possibly favorite part of Chicago.

See? I rock the Sr. Pics at the bean...

Crew at that classy silver bean again...

Adam walks on water sometimes... whatev.

In the new viewing boxes that hang out over Chicago in the Sears (Willis?) Tower. I am breaking ground in the field of fake Sr. pics here people. Check me out!

And that red thing... I forget what it's called. We checked it out though. Also very cool. :)

There are more up on the Facebook and even more on SnapFish. These are just the ones that struck my fancy enough to make it into the blog...

Desi food makes you sleepy

***Before I say anything else, my mother pointed out that my last entry implied I flossed my teeth for the first time ever. I would like to point out that I have flossed many times before, it's just...been a little while... nobody tell Melvin!!!***

So day two of school was pretty good. I only have one class on Tuesday Thursday (T and TU as the University calls them) and it looks like it's gonna be easy. John and Matt (a guy in my department and a friend of another guy in my department) are in it with me so if nothing else I'll have study buddies (but I reinforce that I don't think I'll need them that bad). When I finished with that I went and transcribed my notes from paper to OneNote (if you haven't tried it you should-- it' s pretty great!) and then went home for lunch. I spent my afternoon doing a couple errands and then I helped Mahj make some desi food (the main event of my day...maybe my week). I made palak paneer which is literally translated spinach cheese. It sounds sketch, it looks suspect, but it tastes pretty good. We had all kinds of food and I ate enough for at least three normal sized people and possibly enough for a small child as well. It was amazing.

I would have stayed at Em's eating all night but I had to grade a quiz (thankfully... I think that much food could kill a person). I went to bed early so that I could get up EARLY (6 am...which I considered sleeping in this summer...oh how times have changed) to go swimming (I had to try to compensate for all that eating I did...). Since I was up I decided to blog. I know you are riveted by all this recapping...settle down.

Tonight is "old" roommate dinner with my girls Leslie, KVD, and Stacey. Gumby's! I'm excited! I figure since I'm off to such an ambitious start, my day is gonna be pretty good. I'll let you know how it goes.

Heel, toe, dosey doe!

Last night we went to Caravan Cattle Company, a line dancing bar in Tulsa. It was amazing. We had so much fun watching everyone two step and swing their partner round and round and we even participated in most of the line dance numbers. We also tried our hand at two step and though not many of us had really done it before we held our own (or at least didn't cause any major pile ups as we did our laps around the floor). We rounded up two cars worth of people to go so we had a good time watching each other as we mingled with the local folks. So much fun. I don't know why I quit going to the country bar in Aggieville... two steppin' is where it's at!

Jennifer, Shawna, Anjelica, Kevin, Leslie, and Rifaah--livin' the dream at Caravan Cattle Co.