Home Sweet Home

We are here! Just wanted to send a quick howdy to everyone from Syracuse. Jess and I arrived at 203 Hawthorne Street about 12:30 this morning and decided to save the unpacking for a more reasonable hour! Luckily we were able to borrow a padlock from the Stovers so we could lock up the Uhaul for the night. Speaking of the Stovers . . .

. . . after enjoying (too briefly!) good food and great people for Luke and Ellie's 18th birthday/graduation party we drove away in our new car!! Well, it is new to us - it's an '85 Volvo, tan, a tank, fantastic! We'll have lots more to tell you about it soon but for now we are simply grateful to the Stovers for fixing up this car - and then parting with it so we could bring it to Syracuse! The trip from Middletown to Syracuse was smoothe as can be - we're brainstorming a name already; I thought of 'George' and Jesse came up with 'Wally' (Walter) on his own, which I thought was kind of sweet :) So we'll see . . . and for those of you who think it's silly to name a car, just you wait, this car is loaded with personality - it deserves a name.

Ok, just checking in for now, I have to study hard for my midterm tomorrow!! Lotsa love to everyone - yay that Nally is home!

The Honeymoon is Over

For my DPT program, at least. I still think Jess is pretty hottsy tottsy - and I'm pretty sure he feels the same :) So, this is how I felt after my first quiz today: not so hottsy tottsy (Nally, I am determined to help you make this phrase popular!) It wasn't even necessarily that I did poorly - I think I did ok (75 to 85 range) but it felt like I just wasn't grasping the material, that even more material was starting to pile up that I hadn't even thought of getting a move on because I was too busy studying for the first quiz . . .I know everyone goes through this transition period - today was just my day to feel down for a while. I'm not smart enough, I have no friends here, nobody likes me, etc. But then we had a pretty good afternoon class, which was surprising because all I had wanted to do was go wallow at home. We did a fun activity with personality types that got us outside and talking to each other and connecting with some of our classmates - it was fun and the time (3 hours!) went fast. Maybe the gi-normous chocolate chunk cookie and the Dunkin Donuts latte helped too . . . :)

By-the-by, my personality color is BLUE - I'm emotional, receptive, caring, a good listener, mean people make me stressed, and I cry a lot. This is opposed to being ORANGE and a freedom-loving party person, or GOLD and a strict, traditional organizer, or GREEN and an analytical, scientific, precise conceptualist. Of course I've got a bit of each in me but my BLUE list was about 3 times longer than any of the other color descriptions. We all laughed a bit at each other and our selves, it got me outta feeling sorry for myself, and I learned a bit more about my classmates. I find even after all I've experienced, I'm too quick to judge people as certain types - and it's cool that I'm daily being surprised by the inclusiveness, kindness, and budding support of my fellow classmates.

Wish I Could Take a Steam

I've finished my first week of class - ! In celebration, I decided to devote all of Friday afternoon/evening to relaxation, i.e. sour patch kids, cafe au lait, movies, live music later tonight!

Here's a little side story especially for Nally: I was so eager to open my lovely little bag of sour patch kids that I ripped it open with too much excitement and vigor . . . the bag burst apart, sour patch kids went flying, and little rainbow-colored, sour-sugared bites of heaven rained down upon me, my computer, my empty tea and coffee cups, the floor. None should be surprised that I picked every last patch up off the floor and - several hours later - I am still wiping sugar crystals off my chest.

The movie that I was revving up to enjoy is called The Shvitz by documentary director Jonathan Berman. The "shvitz" is where you go "take a steam." The film explores some of the last remaining bath houses and their changing role within a changing society; it's neat to see how these bath houses were (and some still are) places of socialization, companionship, a weekly family/community ritual passed down from generation to generation. Lots of the footage was of Brighton Beach, so I got a kick out of seeing Astroland and the Coney Island boardwalk! Anyway, it's about 90min long, very funny, and I ended up wanting take a steam myself, bare-all with other women of every shape and size, cleanse out all the toxins, all the while pick-a-littling about the men folk bathing it out on the floor above :)

Snow in June?!!!

Ok, I know everyone calls Syracuse the Snow Capital of the US, but come on!









Did I get any of you? Ok, so it hasn't snowed yet - there is a big cotton tree on our street that has been blowing white fluffies all over the roads, grass, bushes, and flowers! It's pretty wild to see, because it actually does look like a cheery little snow storm. I think there may be more around town because as I was walking down to the post office today there were more of them flying about!

So we had our first dissection today! **Warning** The following material may not be suitable for the excessively squeamish. Please leave the room until the next paragraph ;)

Our cadaver - let's call him "Abraham" - was hit by a car so his spine, hips, and legs are out of whack - pretty cool to get to see a dislocated leg due to "posterior trauma" but not cool when the six people at our table are trying to locate specific muscle groups! Once we dove in, it wasn't weird at all, and everyone is there to learn and is excited so it is a very enthusiastic but respectful atmosphere. At the end of the year, we'll all attend a memorial service with the families, give thanks for the donation they've made to our education as doctors of physical therapy.

As students, we are all strongly encouraged to join the APTA - the only professional group for physical therapists in the US. Through it we can connect with mentors, learn about current research, issues important to the profession. There's also a discount with certain materials that we'll be using in our courses so I'll be signing up for that soon. I think our Professional Behaviors class is going to be very interesting - not quite what I'd thought, ie we'll be doing more than learning not to giggle when treating man and lady parts. We'll be learning about core values of the profession, our duty as health care professionals in our jobs, our communities, and globally. The program seems like it will place a lot of emphasis on service and volunteerism, so I'm excited to get into that.

Let's see . . I still need a bed and a trash can (and my sweety, for that matter!) but at least I've successfully gotten the garbage and recycling out to the curb (and they took it!) so I'm feeling pretty accomplished :) I'm starting to get my face out and about on Westcott Street so we can feel like 'regulars' in some of the establishments down there. We're actually in a pretty neat spot - only two minutes from the downtown "Westcott Community." There are a couple bars, several restaurants (Alto Cinco is my favorite so far with really tasty south of the border food and a thoughtful wine and beer bar), two bookstores (one with african drumming twice a week!), a diner, sushi, a public library, and a cool coffee shop. Plus, we've got Thornden Park immediately west of us, and Barry Park several blocks to the South. This weekend is the Westcott Art Trail with tons of local artists and craftspeops demonstrating their wares out on the sidewalks of our neighborhood. On top of that, Taste of Syracuse will be going on, as well as Greek Fest - lots to do my first weekend in Syracuse! Maybe I'll even make it out to Armory Square Friday night to see JDB (for free!).

I'm glad I'm doing so much exploring now so that I can show around Jess when he gets here - ususally he is the one leading me around! I'll leave you all with some more fun pictures of the cotton tree droppings . . .

lotsa love
caitlin

In The 'Cuse!

Hello everyone! I am officially here up in Syracuse - holding down the fort while Jesse finishes out his school year in Brooklyn. It still feels a bit like I'm camping out (Liz's words) - but I'm sure that will change as soon as:

A) I get a garbage can.

B) I buy a big - girl bed.

C) My sweety joins me!


We've already met quite a few of our neighbors who have invited us to bang on their doors at any hour of the night (literally) should we be in need of anything. People do drive through our little cross-street at Hawthorne but for the most part it is people from the neighborhood who will periodically stop their cars in the middle of the street to chat. We have alternate-side parking so the same (for the most part) parade of vehicles sashays back and forth each day. You can tell who's new in the area (aka - me) because they are the ones squinting up at the 'parking permitted' signs, trying to solve the riddle some sadistic public official dreampt (?spelling?) up in order to most confuse nice respectable grad students who briefly begin to question their suitability for academic life if they can't even figure out which side of the road to park their rental car on. Needless to say, for a while there, I was just parking where everyone else was, peeking out the window occasionally to confirm that no one had switched on me in the last hour! My bellwethers were usually the twin tan LeSabre's with license plates of "MUSTAFA1" and "MUSTAFA2" - they seem to be on track.

So all in all I'm doing pretty well up here 'in the 'cuse' - registration is tomorrow and classes start Tuesday. I've just successfully made myself a cafe au lait using our fancy new coffee pot and coffee grinder - beautiful brushed stainless steel things! - and I'm sitting in our little yellow-walled office, sipping and typing away. We can't wait to keep you updated with our goings-on here upstate - check back here frequently for updates, pictures, events, rants, and requests for guests! I'll leave off this first entry with some photos from the beautiful garden our landlady, Danielle, planted. You should be able to see several types of iris, a fennel plant, clymatis, and lots of other lovelies that I'm only starting to get to know the names for - if you see any you know, write me back what they are! *hint hint Janis, Renee, and Margaret* :)

Love to you all!

Caitlin