of road trips and red eyes and arrests

Vivek and I have been talking of a trip to White Castle (pilgrimage, really, for him) all summer and it was always "maybe next week" but on Tuesday at 1pm the time had clearly arrived. nice day, just enough work to avoid, and a recently fixed car at my disposal. Sun came along and it was generally a good time. Too far away to go to the Harold and Kumar one in NJ but we made it to the White Castle in Nanuet, a random New York suburb.

Who knew that their food was so awful? One $0.50 burger was about all I could stomach. Nevertheless, we got souvenir glow cups and convinced the manager (I think?) to take our picture in front of *the castle*. At first we asked the guy taking out the trash but he didn't speak English so well and thought we were asking to take a picture of him. Bewildered, he ran away into the store. ha ha, we're so menacing.

Fun times making fools of ourselves by acting like complete tourists at a mediocre fast food restaurant. The five hour mini road trip was the best part .. I love driving adventures. I took 84 there but on the way back followed 87 past the Tappan Zee. Naive little me didn't realize 87 connects to 95 in the middle of the Bronx, and at a certain point I thought I'd taken a wrong turn and was about to be dropped off in the middle of the city. My mini flip out was pretty amusing to my passengers ... oops ... made it out all right, though! Got back to New Haven and realized I really do like living in Connecticut. I get a nicer vibe than I do from New York. The state, not the city. I like the city just fine. Just not driving in it. Ever.



In other news, there's nothing like learning from a gossip blog that someone you see every day has gotten himself into quite a bit of trouble ... seriously, I woke up on Wednesday and found out about it on ivygate, of all places. I hate the internet. And all the negative media attention our school receives is stupid and unfair. Hope everything turns out ok because the person concerned is not nearly as horrible or threatening as the articles make it sound.

I was at home and not in lab Wednesday because sometime early in the week my left eye became extremely angry. By Tuesday night, it was so red and irritated that I couldn't sleep. Paranoid that I'd gotten some kind of fungal infection from lab, I went to the optometrist. I really was just paranoid though, because I was told there was no infection, just irritation from a contact lens. I was sent to the pharmacy for some overpriced prescription eye drops and sentenced to wear my glasses for six more days. So for now it's studious chic, what with my four eyes and still-boring/ugly hair. I actually am not too broken up about it; I just like to complain.

So it's the time of summer when I start worrying about next year. do I want to take research for credit? will I have to quit my job? will I take what may be my last chance to back out of a science major? am I "taking advantage of the opportunities" at school? help!