My First Child Will be Named Jason Tate

Hello to all my devoted readers ( what is that four of you subscribed now? Bam - feeling accomplished ; )

Today I am struck with a need to talk about my new city. The good news is, every day it grows on me. From campus to new "perks" I discover in the streets. Or in my geeky way, new road's I discover to get to the old perks. ( Yes I am a direction geek - I love my backroads). I will now just hit the highlights.

Barnes and Noble (with Starbucks cafe) - This is the first place I discovered due to the need for an internet connection. It is about 3 minutes from my house and therefore convient and I need not explain the perks of coffee and books and free wi-fi. Together and apart, everyone can find something exciting in an establishment like this.

Harris Teeter - for those of you not of this region, this is a grocery store. Also 3 minutes from my house. The connivence is killer, let me tell you. Or if you some of the dear people in Cherokee or White county you understand the excitement of not driving 10 - 30 minutes every time you run out of bananas. This store, while odd enough in its name, has a few nick names in our house. From Megan (roommate) Harvey Tweeter, the name, she informed her family back home, of the grocery store she'd be using. Like I said, Harris Teeter is a regional thing, and can be somewhat mis-named. From my end I call it "The Teet" this name comes from my sister's time in Chapel Hill, where they also had a Teet, within five minutes of their abode. Needless to say, with such sparkling name options, Harris Teeter is becoming as foreign to us as it is to you.

Wal-Mart (and Target) - these stores are of critical importance when moving in, or when you are cheap like us. 2 days after moving to Greensboro and armed only with a semi-clear google map, Megan Beth Muthersbaugh and I set out to find them. After some sketchy trial and error. (There is a road called, "Burnt Poplar" - yeah its as forbidding as the name suggests) We came across a Wal-Mart, but failed to find Target. Megan tried again at another point and eventually went with her parents when they came down a few days later. They found it, reportedly "past the Wal-Mart" on Wendover Ave (big busy and my so far my biggest nemesis street - we are not such great friends). Later as I ventured to Wal-Mart I decided to look for this Target myself. So I turned right out of the Wal-Mart parking lot and lo' and behold there is a HUGE sign not 30 yards up the road stating: TARGET! ROSSES! MICHAELS! MACYS! PETSMART! Yea even as I felt myself laughing in irony I discovered that not only were they close there was actually a small connecting road that binds the Wal-Mart and Target etc parking lots together...that's just how massive they are (or how blind we were...but lets just stick with the massive bit)

UNC-G - Yes, my school itself is magical. I love the campus! Every day there is some new little out of the way pathway I discover that leads between these amazing old buildings that look downright Revolutionary War period. I love it! While they are land locked and running out of space to expand there is still an abundance of trees in the back part of campus where all my classes are. I'll do my best to get some pictures of it. I love it!

And finally, the place that inspired this post and it's title.

TATE STREET COFFEE HOUSE!

I am now in love with this place as well as Jason's Deli (as it was a large section of my last post I did not feel the need to include it here). I went here because of my friend, Michelle, informed me that they have gluten cookies and pastries etc. I walked in, surveyed the goods and decided I was not feeling a ginger cookie or a truffle at this point in time and considered walking out, but thought, okay I should check out the coffee too and get a vibe on this place. They are the friendliest people ever! There were regulars that came in behind me and as soon as the man I perceived to be in charge saw them, he whipped out their coffee of choice. Or if they came up to the register the right hand man would be like, "Iced coffee and a muffin?" and he'd be right. Every person that walked by the counter got a "Happy Friday" as you leave you got a "Thank you sir!" or "Have a good day sweetheart!" nothing really matched or looked really new and it could be considered over crowded, but the people who ran it, saved it from any of these depressing adjetives. I am needless to say a fan and will definitely be going back. Also I have decided to check out the other coffee shops surrounding campus. Coffeeology up the street looked like a posher, possibly more expensive version. (By the way I also got the best soy latte I've ever had for a dollar cheaper than I've ever paid). The Coffee Bean is down Spring Garden and there are at least 2 more I can't name. However, rest assured they will appear here, on this blog, for all my reader's viewing pleasure. Who knows maybe we can get 10 followers! Make this happen people! I BELIEVE IN YOU!!! Also in Jason and Tate, my new best friends  : )

Have an awesome day!

Welcome - AKA Potato Salad, Aristotle, and my Love Affair with Jason's Deli

So as the title may suggest: I transfered to Greensboro! For those of you from North Georgia, the one in North Carolina and for everywhere else, why yes there is a Greensboro GA!

I transfered from a lovely little community college in Murphy NC, where I spent a happy 3 years. And before you judge 3 years at a 2 year school...I was in high school for two of them. Yeah I graduated with 45 college credit hours! How's your laughter now?

To keep moving forward in life I am an English major who likes to write and therefore today, as I was chopping up my successfully boiled (first attempt and I didn't even call my mom!) eggs and potatoes to make my random potato salad, I thought, "Hey I could write about this and it would be fun!" I often have a random commentary of life going in my head anyway so why not let the world hear part of it?!

So first - Welcome to "Excerpts from the Commentary in My Head". And now we're moving on.

As previously stated I made potato salad this morning which is currently chilling in the 'fridge so the flavors can meld (I'm making this word work) together better, before I take the plunge and try my recipe-free creation. This got me thinking about food, which I like. My brother, before I left expressed his concern that I should take a stand against the "freshman 15", a battle that he lost in his own time. We were both quickly reminded of two things going in my favor against this. (1) I am not a freshman, but a junior (2) I am off campus and while that means that I could get fat off of the abundance of cheap food, I am allergic to 95% of the junk food that he ate. (I am a proud member of the Lactose Intolerant Celiac club). As a result of these realizations we did not put much effort into to worrying about this.

To tie into this food discussion I need to mention my new love affair with Jason's Deli. Upon my first arrival in Greensboro, I went shopping at Harris Teeter (aka Harvey Twitter or The Teet) with my mom. While shopping for bargains in various "junk food" as soy yogurt and rice and beans, we took it upon ourselves to find if The Teet had any gluten free bread. My mother, the go getter that she is, decided to pull aside an employee and just ask. Now, normally I fully support this practice and as a former employee getting to help customers could really brighten a dull routine. However, I do suggest that you make sure it is an employee in the store you are shopping in. Yes, my mother had snagged an unsuspecting, dread locked, Jason's Deli employee to ask about Harvey Tweeter products. He was terribly nice about it and simply informed her that her guess was as good as his about this store, but he knew that his own establishment sold it by the loaf. Not a bad ploy if you think about it. This could have been his whole job, just standing in the bread aisle hooking dissatisfied Harris Teeter customers. However odd the ploy may be, it worked. Not 2 weeks later I was out running errands and decided to explore this option. (Jason's Deli is conveniently located on the opposite side of the Harris Teeter parking lot - yet another clue to this mass plot against each other). I entered the deli and came out 12 dollars poorer, but the owner of the biggest loaf of bread I had ever seen, period. I took it home and discovered that it was THE FREAKING BEST THING EVER!!! And am now in the acceptation phase of a newfound addiction to toast.

Disclaimer: I say "freaking" to emphasis the point in a G rated setting. It is not a part of my normal dialogue and should therefore to be taken as the very extreme happiness I found in this loaf of bread. You celiacs will back me up, you normal Wonderbread people...well, we can still be friends.

Now to the final point and possible reason for the length of this post. Aristotle.

I am required for my degree to take ENG 305, aka Introduction to Rhetoric. This teacher had a "rebirth" so to speak in her teaching style. She was so bored with her previous text book that she decided to dump it and now we read direct from the big guy himself....Aristotle. Who unbeknownst to me (till now) is somewhat of the king of rhetoric. And so I have been assigned some 60 pages of his work on the subject. A very tiresome thing. This is not your daughter's high school debate class. This dude is serious, and seriously long winded. I mean, how can someone write on logic in so illogical a manner? If you try to read this stuff in speech form to an audience you are going to loose them faster than Sunday night preacher during the Super Bowl! So my question is, what in heaven's name possessed this man to think that he could hold an audience ( who have other lives in fact) if he wrote it all down?

In all seriousness, if you weed out the wordiness and the way he talks in circles sometimes, its really good stuff, but its rather tiresome and somewhat boring to do so, but that is the price we pay for knowledge. And that note I sign off, to make some egg salad with my successfully boiled eggs to put on my love, (TOAST!!!) to eat whilst I wade through the final 40 pages of this blessed assignment on Aristotle.

Au revoir!