It's been well over a month since I've blogged and I'm very, very sad about that. Aside from wanting to maintain a semblance of order in my life by regularly showcasing my day to day activities, blogging is a lot of fun and gives me time and reason to put in thought towards reflecting on how my day went or being more self aware. I'll probably post a few entries retroactively so I have something in my September archive, but the unfortunate reality is that I did not blog during the month of September 2016 :(
What have I been up to instead? Classes have certainly been busier, as I'm taking four 4-unit classes instead of three. I've also joined archery, which is probably the main reason I haven't had time for anything else. Practices are a mandatory four hours on Sunday, and an optional ten hours through the rest of the week. It's a lot of fun, but as a result I haven't had as much time to do non-school related things like hanging out with friends or blogging. Unfortunately, it also looks like I won't be able to continue doing archery next semester due to the likelihood of a greater time commitment to classes (I'm trying to take 5 classes this spring). I'll make sure to do a blog post about it, probably around November at the novice tournament, so at least I have a record of an interesting thing I did in college.
To make up for lost time, I'm jamming all of September into a MDIP type post, but since it's the whole month, it's more like MMonthIP. A lot of food happened in September, but I'm not too fond of Food Friday posts anymore. Also, if anyone is vegan/vegetarian, please be aware that there is raw meat in this post (might be triggering to some people?) Here goes:
Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. I would eat breakfast for every meal if I could. It would probably be really unhealthy, and expensive, given the new waffle place that opened on Telegraph Ave. —
Little Gem Belgian Waffles. Their pieces are seriously Insta-worthy (somehow I didn't post either of these photos on my Instagram, and now I've deleted them from my phone). I'm still a pancake person for regular breakfast, but occasionally a fully loaded waffle makes a well-deserved treat.
I was back for a weekend in San Jose, and Karan and I spaghetti'd around Santana Row (see September post that I will post some time in the future) before ending up at an All-You-Can-Eat Korean BBQ place. I definitely should not be around any sort of All-You-Can-Eat establishment, and the fact that it was all meat made it so much worse. Nevertheless, it was delicious and I would go again in a heartbeat.
There are so many amazing coffee places in Berkeley, and I haven't been to any significant fraction of them. Sporadically, I'll pop into an underground coffee place with a friend, but those occasions are few and far between. However, they're always well worth the effort.
Sodoi Coffee is literally underground on Durant Ave. They don't do lattes or anything but black coffee, so anyone who's serious about their coffee should give it a try (aka not me, I love my sugary creamy drinks too much). Their decor is a very carefully crafted aesthetic, and their different brews have cute names, so I think it would be a nice place for a date if you're into that kind of stuff.
In a random turn of events, I spent a few hours dogsitting sometime in September. My housemate works for a dog walking company, and one of the clients asked her to take care of Brussel, an 8-month old "puppy" for a weekend. It turns out Brussel was more of a handful than a puppy, and was not very happy in our tiny apartment. When my housemate had to leave for the day, I was left in charge of the dog. I invited a friend over to help walk the dog, and he ended up asking if he could keep the dog overnight, to which everyone in the apartment readily agreed. We moved all of Brussel's supplies to his apartment, but then he had to leave for an event. His housemates then took up the charge of walking the dog, so we went around Berkeley and ended up at
Ben and Jerry's. Aside from the delicious ice cream, I also love the company's dedication to social justice. I can't wait to try out their new flavor "Empower-mint."
That's about it for September. I have two more food places that I'll do separate posts on, so they'll be up soon retroactively. Hopefully henceforth I'll be more consistent with the posts, at least one every two weeks, but it's only going to get busier. The daily grind doesn't leave much time for fun things, but I am making an effort to keep it balanced between work hard and play hard. ◊
