Crazy Carl’s Birthday in Baltimore

[On location in Baltimore, Maryland]
So apparently yesterday was “State” Patrick’s Day in State College, since the real Saint Patrick’s Day falls at the end of spring break for Penn State (March 10-18). I discovered that the undergrads were gonna be celebrating St Patty’s Day yesterday when I walked past the frat house next to Walker Building, and there was loud, fast Celtic/Irish music playing at 10:30 in the morning with all the frat boys trying (and failing, I might add) to dance to it. And some of them had full green body paint on. Kinda ridiculous. And then when I was leaving Walker for the day, they were shouting “a**hole” at me as I was walking by just because I wasn’t wearing green. Whatever. It’s not even the right day, for crying out loud! If I’d known it was Fake Patrick’s Day I would’ve worn an orange shirt anyway.
Yesterday evening I made the 3-hour drive from State College down to Baltimore. Carl threw a birthday party for himself at his apartment, and there were probably 30 people here at the height of it, it was packed. Most of the people were other Teach for America people here in Baltimore, but the other Gusties besides me that showed up were Betsy (who had driven up North Carolina for an interview at George Washington University earlier yesterday), Jolene (who flew out here from Minnesota for a biophysics conference), Chantal & Erin (who both live here in Baltimore currently). We had been planning on going out somewhere for karaoke last night, but everyone was so tired we just stayed in and had a mellow evening catching up and talking and whatnot, it was still lots of fun. We were gettin kinda tired by 3am though, haha. Then this morning Carl, Jolene, Betsy, Chantal & I got some brunch at this really cool greasy-spoon type diner just a few blocks away called Pete’s Grille. Mmmm, blueberry waffles and eggs… So good…
So yeah, this afternoon the plan was for Carl & I to get lots of work done (grading/reading/research/whatever). Before I came down, Carl pleaded with me to bring down stuff to work on because he desperately needed to do stuff this afternoon, because otherwise he knew he’d just procrastinate like usual. I don’t know why we make plans for doing work when we hang out, because it just doesn’t ever work, we always get talkin about tons of stuff, haha. Especially about cool tech toys and computers (when it’s not politics or philosophy). So now I’m ogling over maybe a digital photo frame like Carl has, or starting to consider getting a new Mac desktop computer at some point this year. Though when I pimped out the computer like I wanted, the sticker shock really set in, because I almost certainly wouldn’t be able to both get a sweet new computer *and* take a 2-3 week trip to Australia next year. I just know my budget wouldn’t be able to handle that, not on a grad student salary, even with the slight pay bump I’d get for finishing my Master’s Degree this summer (and even with the Apple student discount). So anyway, now I have to take some time thinking about what to do, what to choose, or if I should choose either. They’re both so tempting…
Hmm, maybe I should start workin on making my research poster for the upcoming Penn State Graduate Exhibition like I had planned to, at least until whatever fun stuff we end up deciding to do tonight. 🙂