People up here don't know how to make...

Sweet tea

Biscuits

Potato Salad

Rock You Like a Hurricane

Irene was a bust. Everything is fine in my neck of the woods, just lots of rain and some strong wind gusts. We didn't lose power, and we slept right through it last night! Although there are places outside of Philly that look like this:

From philly.com

I will say that I haven't gone down the street to check on my car yet, so fingers crossed that it wasn't smashed by a tree.

This weekend in allowed me to more or less finish up my room, a project which has been going on for what feels like 5 years. Here it is!

Before:

Check out that wallpaper! Also, sorry I look so weird in this.

And after:

Watching Untold Stories of the ER, natch.

Hope y'all had a safe and dry weekend!

I Spent My Last Five Dollars Getting Out Of New Jersey

Snapshots of the life of Kate:

1. The other day, I took a wrong turn and realized a bit too late that I was crossing the bridge into Camden, NJ - not too sure how that happened, but it was not my finest hour. Then I had to pay a toll to get back across the bridge. Later, I started to pay for something in cash and remembered I'd spent my last five dollars getting out of New Jersey. My mom said that should be the title of my memoirs.

2. I've spent the last couple of weeks redoing my room, which was a much bigger ordeal than I originally thought. The icing on the cake was when the box springs I'd ordered didn't fit up the stairs. Oh life! Luckily my mom was here to help me, and it's finally starting to come together. I'll post pictures as soon as I get my mattress off the floor!

3. A bunch of celebrities have visited CHOP since I started in June: Ryan Seacrest, Selena Gomez, Cee Lo Green, Keri Hilson, and Miranda Cosgrove, among others. It's pretty neat that I work at a place that had to send out an email to its employees outlining the protocol for celebrity visits.

Selena singing with a CHOP patient

Kate < Backpack

Most of my supervisor's caseload is kids with autism/PDD. Each time I see one for the first time, we try a little experiment to see if they'll notice/say anything when a new person (me) follows them into the room. So far, zero of them have. Personal favorite:

Supervisor: "Do you notice anything different in the room?"
Kid: "Um, your backpack? It's on the floor. Usually it's in that chair."

Literally. Nothing. This kid didn't notice that another human was in the room, but had memorized the place my supervisor usually puts her backpack. Not sure if they don't notice me or don't find it odd that a stranger came in. Either way, I now know that I'm officially less interesting than a backpack. Welcome to the world of autism!

Sunday

Sundays in the city are pretty great. Today I walked down to the Headhouse Square Farmers Market and picked up a delicious scone, some blackberries, and fresh flowers. There was tons of other stuff but I'm scared of vegetables and don't know how to cook anything so I went for the sweet and pretty things, naturally.

Headhouse Square

I also went to a service at St. Peter's Episcopal Church. It's almost 250 years old and gorgeous inside. It's in Society Hill, which is a really old, fancy part of town with cobblestone streets. The one downside to going to such an old church is the lack of air conditioning. It was pretty hot in there today.

A Taste of Society Hill

On another note, yesterday I had to go pay for my aforementioned ticket (bleh) at the Philadelphia Parking Authority, home of Parking Wars! In order to get in, I had to go through security and a metal detector. People are serious about parking around here, y'all. And I thought Chapel Hill was bad!

Hot Child in the City

I've been feeling right at home lately because it's been H-O-T here in Philly. It's been getting up close to 100 degrees everyday, and it's super humid all the time. It's not quite as bad as NC, but, unlike at home where the only time we spend outside is typically walking to and from our cars, in the city we have to do quite a bit of walking each day. Depending on which way I go (subway or bus), I might have a 20ish minute walk each morning, which translates to me looking gross and sweaty when I walk in the door to work. I'm sure my coworkers love that.

The Family of Four (Amy, Lauren, Allison, and me) was reunited this weekend! Each of them had quite an adventure getting here on Friday. There was horrible weather up and down the east coast, and Amy got stranded in Richmond, VA for hours because the airports were closed. Apparently someone was hit by a train in NJ (???) which temporarily halted all train travel at exactly the time Allison was on Amtrak. Lauren's bus didn't have air conditioning for awhile, and she got stuck in bad traffic. Thank goodness, they all eventually made it here and I got a chance to show them around my new stomping grounds!

We ate a lot of delicious food all weekend. The most exciting was probably Reading Terminal Market, which is a huge, amazing market in Center City. Everything we had was so good! I also showed them around some of the historic sites. The highlight was the fascinating scary tour of Independence Hall, which was led by Lois, one of the most unfriendly people I've met here so far. She actually kicked a mom and her small child out of the tour because the baby was making too much noise. Not making a great name for the City of Brotherly Love there, Lois.

We went a little crazy and went on a Duck Tour, which is a tour of the city via an amphibious vehicle (you drive straight into the water!). It was pretty fun but also terrifying once Allison remembered hearing about a horrible Duck boat accident in Philadelphia last year. Luckily we made it out safe and sound and got to see some sights along the way.

Amy diligently took pictures all weekend, but every one managed to be really awkward in some way. My personal favorite is this shot, in which an overeager Liberty Bell guard totally photobombed us.

We felt very Sex and the City all weekend. I'm sad that we are spreading out across the country (in Philly, DC, Durham, and San Francisco), but I'm glad we got to have a couple of days together! Can't wait to do FOF in the City Part II!

Learning the Hard Way

Well, the city kicked my butt for the first time yesterday. I got a ticket for being on my phone while driving. Big oops! I was actually on the GPS trying to figure out where I was going, but the cop had no sympathy for this little country girl in the big ol' city and slapped me with a fine. The funny/not-so-funny thing is I JUST bragged to Katie last weekend about how I'd never gotten a ticket in my life. It was also pathetic because I had not even seen my car in over a week (the bus, subway, and my own two feet have been my means of transportation) and I made it approximately 5 blocks before I got pulled over. Turns out Philly has a strict no cell phone while driving policy - lesson learned!

Other than that slight snafu, things have been going really well. I started orientation for the LEND program this week, which is an interdisciplinary program aiming to train all sorts of clinicians to treat kids with developmental disabilities. My focus is autism, so I will be doing a research project, community service, and family outreach all related to kids with autism and their families. I've gotten to meet lots of people from all over the hospital, and I know I'm going to learn a lot!

Most importantly, I get to see some of my bestest friends this weekend! Amy, Allison, and Lauren are taking planes, trains, and automobiles (respectively) to get to Philly for some much-needed girl time. Hopefully I can pretend to know what I'm doing so I can show them around the city! I can't wait!

Until next time, friends, remember: no cell phones while driving! :)

I Made It!

Consider this my official postcard to each of you! I've been in Philly for nearly a week and I have managed to survive so far. My mom and I got here last Wednesday, my dad came on Saturday, and they both left on Sunday. In that time, we were able to start to figure out our way around and do some touristy stuff  - all of which I would be happy to do again if I have any visitors! It's a city with lots of history and culture, and most of it is very walkable.

Liberty Bell!

Cheese steak!

Rocky Steps!

I'm not going to lie, it's a pretty big transition. City life is way different than living in small-town North Carolina! I'm starting to figure out public transportation, and I'm not as tied to my car as I was the first couple of days. I felt more comfortable than I had in days when I walked into Target: they're the same everywhere, and I was finally in a place where I knew my way around. How lame is that? I guess commercialism is universal. (That sounded way more philosophical than I meant it to.)

I started my job this week! Sort of. I had orientation yesterday and I'm going to be observing lots of different therapists over the next couple of weeks. I'm going to see everything from outpatient therapy to acute care. Today I saw a 9-month-old with Down syndrome and then a 17-year-old with a brain injury! It caught me off-guard when I was introduced as a speech therapist (instead of a student who will maybe one day be a speech therapist). I kind of like it :) It was such a great day, and it totally reminded me why I made this crazy move in the first place. I know more good things are to come!

In other news, my good friend from grad school, Katie, and her boyfriend Blake up and ELOPED this month and just broke the news to everyone. I think it's totally BA and I'm so happy for them. I'm going to see them this weekend and I can't wait to gush over the rings!

On a scale from one to creepy, how weird is that I just saved this on my computer?