Dinner Party and Etiquette Question? Living Room West View

These "evolution" posts are fun.  I'm always fiddling my apartment decor but it wasn't until a photo organizing session last week that it became apparent how significant the change of all the combined little tweaks was.  So y'all are at the mercy of at least 2 more evolution posts: North/South views of living room.

My dinner party went well. I need to start taking photographs of the food.  Last night, in homage to the heat (I really did not want to use the oven), I went with a chilled finger food theme: 2 kinds of pinwheels (roast beef/provolone & ham/brie) on long skewers arranged as bouquets (I don't have many serving dishes- so I tried to get creative),  chicken salad (cranberries, pecans, celery, onion, mayo) bites (scooped on celery cuts), Greek salad (feta, kalamata, sundried tomatoes) on cucumber slices, Caprese skewers (ciliegine mozz, grape tomatoes, fresh basil & balsamic redux).

One of my friends brought an unchilled bottle of wine wine so I set it in the fridge and opened a bottle of sparkly and made bellinis.  After everyone had left, I noticed during my clean up that they had taken the bottle back when they left.  This has happened with this group before.  It struck me as weird before and last night it bothered me a little.

We're all poor college kids and even a $10 purchase can be a hit so I know that I shouldn't be sensitive to it but it strikes me as being really rude. 

What do you all think in blog land? What is the contemporary etiquette in this situation? Is it appropriate to take back a dinner offering if it's unused?

Onward to The West View:

 I wish that I had taken a pic before I put in the mantel (Craigslist: $45).  It was such a weird spot before. My neighbor who has the mirror of my apartment layout is using it as a closet space.

The white rug (now in the bedroom) is actually 2 ($9/each @ Kmart) that I sewed together.  The mirror under the mantel was a splurge ($40 @ Bedbathbeyond).

I went wild with the white paint: gathered twigs, rocks and the wooden box under the candles. The curtain behind the mantel was on clearance (Bedbathbeyond $12.99). It's actually a really pretty green in real life. I haven't been able to capture the true color yet (sea foam). I think the satin reflects the filtered light weirdly- it's shown as much yellower in the photograph. See here for the real color. I made the hanging lights from materials from HD (about $10/each).

 
 The green rug was in the Ikea as-is clearance ( I think it was a display piece, $24). The pillows on the couch ($12/each), the hanging lamp to the left ($9), and the sheepskin ($9) were bought on the same trip. 


All in all, my goals in this room were to add strong color without painting the walls (powers-that-be forbid it).  It's amazing the difference that adding the green rug made. I'm really happy with the result.  :D

EDIT: I've since lowered the paintings & added shelves.... More New Photos

Yes... another Evolution Post; + Social and Political Ramblings.

I'm really enjoying this summer. I've become friends with my neighbor, an recent art school graduate trying to break into Big City theater scene. We shared a bottle (two actually.. Eep) of wine and bonded over Josh Whedon, the Big Bang Theory, women's rights, our mutual girl-crush on Rachel Maddow, and certain other nerdy idiosyncrasies. 

Aside: NJ has the best state political scene ever.  A few years ago, when I was couch surfing in Cherry Hill (mom, hospital, Phillie, long story), I was introduced to one of the few Republicans I actually like (Christie).  Now.. it's looking like he's going to appoint my reigning boy-crush, Cory Booker, (sorry Hrithik, you've been usurped) to the newly opened Senator seat (RIP Lautenberg- you were a great force). Maddow mentioned in a recent episode that this would be a nightmare to the Dems facing the 2016 election season because it would portray Christie, GOP, as a bipartisan awesome person.  Even though I'm quite liberal (and so staunchly democratic- b/c of the current political environment), I'd love to see a electoral fight between two candidates (Clinton/Christie?) who actually represent coherent and practical political ideologies- something that hasn't really existed in the last couple decades.

I'm having another dinner party tomorrow night. I've been hosting these every couple of weeks or so (sans exam weeks). It's awesome. My school friends don't have a lot of gastronomic experience so they've been really impressed with my efforts so far. I'm so cool. (laugh)

Here's my living room evolution, east view:

 I regret buying this extendable table. It was $99 @Ikea. I use it now as a corner console to hold books/plants. It does come out occasionally when I have sit-down dinners for > 6 people.

New table.  I liked the cherry top but the industrial-cheap base bothered me. See this post to see how I 'doctored' it up. The dracaena and pot were $15 at HD. I made the chair runners from 2 yds of burgundy satin ($8 walmart).



 Current manifestation:

 

The mirrors on the wall (5 sets @ $9each) really brightened the room up. The old dracaena had become infested with mealybugs and I hadn't noticed until all the blades weren't salvageable. (aside: I stripped them, treated with soap/water and the plant is making a remarkable recovery outside on my doorstep). The new one was $18 @HD. The dracaena on the table was $6. The paper lanterns were on clearance at Pier1 for about $12 total. The ribbon tacked to the wall was another Walmart find ($4.00).

Caveat: I don't have a camera so all my photographs are taken with my 5 MP Ipad camera. I'm thinking to get a new camera when my financial aid disperses this August. 

Cheers.

Evolution of a Bedroom, East View

I realized that I never mentioned how final exams went. A.W.E.S.O.M.E.  Both the (cumulative-ugh) physiology and immuno finals were insanely challenging. I wanted to cry when I finished because I was certain that I failed but I ended up doing really well. Huh.

Now that the semester is over, I can actually reflect on how I like the type of material that has complicated convoluted interconnections (immuno, metabolism, endocrine etc).  It's more interesting to learn and it's actually fun to apply- kind of like in Orgo when 'making' a certain molecule- being able to choose different paths to get to the same place.   I can't wait until patho next year when it gets really interesting.

As for the promised bedroom photos:

Here ya go.  Again, mostly rearrangements of my already owned stuff. I'll mark the cost of new things (mostly plants) in the photo captions.  I put the curtain up on the one side because I only had the one curtain rod left (& I was too cheap to buy another..) and I wanted to hide the ugly little AC unit.

Moving day. You can see that there's absolutely no privacy without the blinds. I hate blinds.

I switched the chairs out for the bench when I rearranged the bed.  The laundry basket is new: It was the cheapest wicker @ Bed Bath & Beyond. I don't remember how much it cost... under $20, I think.

The window film (and applicator) was apprx $15 at Home Depot. I didn't want to spend the $30+ on the decorative films so I got the cheap stuff and carved waves at the top to make it more interesting. I found a piece of scrap wood in the basement and the shelf brackets were about a dollar each at HD. Plants: orchids $8.99, aloe $3.99  at Trader Joes. The Ponytail Palm was $7.99 and the jade (RIP) was $5.99 @ HD. The jade was my first final exam fatality.

 FINAL (for now) result....

I love how glowy the room looks with all the mirrors (see west view). I really tried to position them to maximize light and minimize people reflection. I do NOT want to stare at my own sorry self all the time. I actually have to bend and crane to see myself in any of the mirrors. Phew. 
 

I picked up the shelf ($5) and the Sheepskin ($9) from Ikea. The Dracaena was $6 @HD.

The shelf & brackets were about $7.00 at HD.

So all in all, I spent less than $25/month deuglifying my bedroom (east/west). I've convinced myself that that's okay because I'm saving 3x that by not having cable TV. 

Evolution of a Bedroom; West View.

So...

A while back I promised that I was going to discuss my hoarding and addiction problem.  I realized that I never got around to that. Oops.  My dirty little secret is that I collect plants. It's a compulsion. I consider it a very good day when I can leave a grocery store without a little pot and when I get stressed (ahem- finals) I go to the neighborhood nursery or plant seeds that I've already accumulated.  I counted the other day and I have over 40 plants. I was going to show photos of all my beautiful little green things but I realized how boring that would be for anyone reading.

It seemed (to me) much more interesting to show the 'evolution' of my rooms over the last year. Plant aficionados will see the plants in the 'final' photos of each room.  Most of the changes where just rearrangements of things that I already had. I'll note the things I bought and their cost underneath each photograph.

Here's my bedroom, view of the bed. I'll post the east view (windows) later today.

First Month

Rearranged furniture.. I realized that I did, in fact, have enough room to face the windows.

The powers that be forbid painting, so I hung the curtain (from kitchen)  behind the bed to add color. I added the throw because it was winter and cold.

Again, no paint. I found the bamboo fencing at Home Depot for $23 +tax and with a couple of strategic tacks, wrapped it around the wall. The big plant was $12 and the pot, a splurge, at $18.

The room seemed so tiki-lounge, I exchanged the big plant for a little one ($4-HD) and added the mirror (porthole) (Walmart $9- painted yellow ($2)). I wrapped the plastic pot with blue electrical tape (pots are expensive!). 

I put privacy film on the window which darkened the room. The windchimes (Pier1- as is section $25- they're missing a strand- I retied them to cover the hole) were my effort to maximize the light in that corner.

The mirror behind the chimes ($9-Bed Bath Beyond), the fern ($4 HD, pot $18). I hung the bowl from Kenya with some twine and a screw- sling-like and used it as a shelf for the Dracaena ($4 HD).

 NOW, The final (laugh) result: 

The mirrors are from Ikea ($9 for a pack of four- I used 3 packs in the bedroom)

The Bromeliad and pot was a final exam-stress purchase (eek!- $34 HD).  The faux sheepskin was $9 at Ikea

The pillows and furniture were my mom's.  The rest of the stuff I've accumulated over the years.  The total new cost was about $200 give or take.  *cringe* It didn't seem like that much spread across the year.  Considering that almost half the spending was on plants, My addiction does seem to becoming a problem.


Evolution posts:

south living room
west living room
east living room
east bedroom
north living room & sunroom

Today's Offering to the Gods of Procrastination

I'm in the midst of reviewing 107 physiology lectures for our cumulative final Monday morning but I needed a break to give a shout out to my amazing classmates.

I really lucked out with my decision to go to BCMS.  I've friends at other schools who talk about the competition and the frustration of the ubiquitous gunners.  Here, we have a contest for 'resource of the week'.  It's such a collaborative environment. There is competition but it's mostly as a class trying to beat the performance that other years had on exams. (we rocked the immuno midterm- our average was 7 points higher that the '15 class).

Pre-exam weekends always show a flurry of activity on our facebook page with post after post of practice exams, summaries, review material from upperclassmen or other schools, people posting info garnered from office hours. It's pretty amazing how so many of my classmates are so generous with their discoveries.

For anyone applying to medical school, a non-curved grade structure really makes a HUGE difference in the learning environment. I remember when I was looking at schools, it fell lower on the totem pole of priorities.  Now I wouldn't trade it for a full scholarship to JH.

VA tape

 BCMS arranges lots of rotations at the nearby VA hospital so we had to go thru the federal background check, fingerprinting etc for access. It was a pain in the *#a.  Last year, I had 5 ppd skin tests, 3 background checks (in which I needed to list ALL of my lifetime addresses & local (to said addresses) people to vouch for my existence there, and two fingerprinting sessions.  The extent of my civil disobedience consists of 3 parking tickets that I accumulated a decade ago by parking in the staff lot at a local community college. I can't imagine how much worse it would have been if I were a naughtier person.

I've lived in 7 states. I had to dig through old letters that I saved to find all my former addresses (15 of them that I could recall- I'm sure I missed one or two..). Then I had to supply references for a) places that I had lived and b) places that I had worked.  I actually used myself as a reference a couple of times.  I laughed when I received the letters "Can you confirm that 'Narrow Room' was a resident here between August 1997 and July 1998?". Why yes, yes I can.

Ironically, the med students who struggled more than me with this insane process were the few who were actually current members of the armed services (and already had partial clearance). The VA required additional paperwork from them. Insane.

But now I have a med school ID AND an official "get thru security at the airport quickly" government ID.  I'm so cool.

But in reflection, the VA sat on our application paperwork for 4 months. I received an email in December that all was in order for my background check. The class didn't get notification until last week, though, that all was in order with our application and we could go to the HR office to press our fingers to the confirmation screen and pose for our (dashing) ID photos. 

Then, two days after this notification, BCMS sent out an email that the background check/fingerprinting for the VA expired that weekend, leaving us just 2 days to get to HR before we would have to start the process all over.

I waited in line (the day before an exam, mind you) for three hours. Apparently, all the VAs in the US operate on two servers so the backup during busy times can be insane. Several of my fellow students did end up having to be re-fingerprinted thus delaying their "go straight thru security cards" by 3 months.

Now I ask: "Why did they have us submit our application, background check and fingerprint us on the same day leaving only 4 days for the processing completion?"  Wouldn't it have made more sense to process the application (the rate determining step), then do the background check?

And this is for (useless MS1s). I can only assume that all new VA staff, those who can actually help the backlog of over a million veterans, struggle with the same stupid delays.

I'm not even going to start on the old Commodore computers they still use....

Procrastination

I have 4 exams, 2 papers, an OSCE and about 20 hours of online learning modules to complete in the next two weeks.

So I thought it a brilliant time to glue rocks to my table. It was a $10 craigslist stop-gap purchase that I can't afford to replace. I actually really like how it turned out. I'll add another coat of white paint tomorrow.

Oh- and my physio prof calls Asians "Orientals". Ack!

And I've realized that I'm an addict and a hoarder but that's tomorrow's procrastination post....


BEFORE:

 AFTER:

 

I can't paint the wall- so I tacked some ribbon to add color but I did it mostly because I mistakenly hung the Rorschach blots off center. Oops.