good food on a poor student's budget

being a poor student after making decent income for 5 years takes some adjusting. being a poor student while living in manhattan takes A LOT of adjusting. being a poor student who is also an extreme food-lover in manhattan means you have to get REALLY creative.

and so, to help other poor students in manhattan who love to eat, i've compiled a list of cheap eats that actually taste really really good (because there's nothing worse than eating bad food).

(i'm also helping other law students at my school by taking the time to create this list instead of studying for my exams in 2 weeks, therefore lowering the curve.)

so enjoy! and please let me know if you have other ones to add.

yummy things under $10
1. florentines from Sweet Melissa's - 2 for $1
2. cream puffs from Beard Papa - $1.49
3. slice of grandma's pizza from Bleecker St Pizza - $2.50
4. zucchini/potato/funghi pizza from Sullivan St Bakery - $2.50
5. pork chop over rice from May Wah - $4.95
6. soft serve ice-cream from McDonalds - usually $1
7. everything bagel with sun-dried tomato tofutti from Absolut Bagels - $2.95
8. toasted yummy flatbread edges from Cosi - free
9. de pabillon arepa from Caracas - $5
10. cheese and potato pierogies from Polonia - $4.50
11. truffled egg toast from 'ino - $7
12. sauteed rice cake from nyonya - $5.25
13. spicy korean casserole from Albene - $13.99 (for two people)
14. beef shabu shabu from happy shabu - $8.50
15. masala dosai from chennai garden - $6.95

and you thought spider solitaire was cool

the girl who sits next to me in contracts must be a genius or something. she plays all these crazy online games throughout the entire class, and still coherently answers questions from the professor (questions that i don't even get when paying attention), all the while creating color-coded case briefs on Word.

i once watched her play a game where cartoon mosquitos were drifting towards what appeared to be a piece of skin and she had to use her mouse to kill them before they landed on the skin, or else they would suck on it.

i don't even know how to comment on this. so i won't.
(yes, another poor substitute for creative blogging)

i have a good excuse

ok, so i haven't posted in almost a month (not like anyone ever reads this except for me) but i have a great excuse.

you ready?

i had my first law school exam AND my bacheorlette party in vegas AND i found an apartment on this island full of insane people that we call a city.

so there.

now that we have that out of the way, i can move on to my true reason for not posting which is that i have nothing interesting to write about. i have been sucked dry of the minimal creative juices that i once had.

i think some of my creative brain cells moved to the other, non-creative side of my brain to study for my exam and stayed there. some other ones were destroyed by being in vegas for 48 hours (oops, correction, i meant 36 hours thanks to a missed connecting flight &%**%%@@*!!). and the last few remaining ones were so angry at the manhattan real estate market that they flew back to california.

and so i go back to my old staple of posting a list instead of really writing anything --

number of law school exams i have sat for: 1

number of hours this exam was: 4

number of pages i typed for the exam: 6 single-spaced, times new roman 12 font

number of times per week that i have a class before 9am starting next week: 4

number of my professors who have a blog (that i know about): 1, my property professor who focuses on cyberlaw. kinda cool, huh?

my new favorite game in vegas: pai-gow poker

number of times i had to wear a veil covered with plastic penises in vegas: zero (thank god for good friends)

number of times guys asked what nationality we were in vegas: 15

number of times this was a successful pick-up line: zero

number of times i will ever take a connecting flight to vegas again: NEVER

number of days i have before moving: 11

number of boxes that i have packed: zero

how confused my dog will be after we move to our new place: very

furnished 20,000 sq ft apt - FREE! (manhattan)

there is a large chance that my fiance, me and our dog will be homeless in about 30 days or so, because apartment hunting in Manhattan is the most annoying process in the world. you would think that with 20% of the island's population being real estate agents (well, it seems like it), it would be easier for poor souls like us to find a place that we like and (here's the kicker) that we can actually afford. but no, that's just not the case.

i've realized that NY real estate agents are either:
1) sketchy as hell
2) stupid
3) bitchy
4) a combination of any of the above

and apartments in manhattan under $3,000 per month are either:
1) the size of my dog's crate
2) dark as a dungeon with a view of a barbed wire fence
3) on the 10th floor of a walk-up building
4) located so east or west on the island that you might as well be in brooklyn/queens or NJ
5) renovated from dead WWII veterans housing with living WWII veterans as your neighbors
6) a combination of any of the above

with all of this mind, i'm beginning to consider less conventional options. at the top of my list is living in the library of my law school. not only is it in a great neighborhood, we can also benefit from the free food offered by the various school clubs. free broadband internet connection, too.

i mean, it will take my fiance and my dog a little adjusting to get used to it. but it'll pretty much be the same for me, since i spend most of my time there and it's easy for me to fall asleep reading case books anyways.

it's nice to know that there are always options.

oh, and just to keep track:

how much weight is currently in my backpack: 10 pounds (i figured out that finishing all my work in the library can save me from the fate that is the rolly duffel)

my current favorite professor: still Professor Torts, but newly close in second is Professor Contracts, who talks about tangents but is actually becoming kind of interesting once you get past his super-variable sound levels ("so the damages that are really due is the difference between the MARKET value of the goods...")

number of days of class i have had: 7

number of pages of cases that i have read: 360

number of hours i have studied in the library: 18

number of days until my first exam: 36

number of days until my vegas trip: 29

how happy my dog was to see me come home today: 45 wags per minute (not as fast as last week because she ripped opened her toy dog's leg, so she had to hide from me for a little bit while i cleaned up the stuffing)

if you ever slam your finger in the door...

... and your nail is turning purple and it feels like your finger is going to explode from the throbbing pain (the doctors call this subungual hematoma):

1) don't go to your primary care physician because you will wait an hour to see him, and then he will tell you that you need to get your nail removed and he can't do it

2) you could go to the emergency room afterwards and wait about 4 hours to get an xray and to finally see a resident-in-training who will poke two holes in your nail (yeah, kind of like when you open a can of fruit and need to drain the syrup), which takes her about 5 minutes - but don't forget, now you need to now pay the hospital for the robbery they call emergency room bills

3) but what you should *really* do, as i learned today (5 days too late) is go to your dermatologist! she will do the poking of the nail and you won't need to wait forever. and you just pay her your normal non-emergency co-pay.

just wanted to share this tidbit of advice. because it's bad enough when you get your finger stuck in the door and think that it's going to fall off; worse when you have to wait 5 hours to relieve the pain.

poster on my school wall (i did NOT create this)

Supreme Court Justices are dropping like flies!!

[picture of Rehnquist]

[picture of O'Connor]

insert your mug here

Take their place by joining the Moot Court Competition!

The winner is guaranteed to

start on the path to

become a Supreme Court Justice!!

Is it just me, or is there something inherently wrong about a a future lawyer referring to justices as flies? (i mean there is MUCH more wrong with this poster than that, but just as a starting point...)

I admit that the poster did help me pass some time waiting for the slow elevator though.

riding the magic yellow schoolbus

how much weight is currently in my backpack: 30 pounds

how much i wish i bought a smaller laptop: a LOT

my current favorite professor: Professor Torts, who talks like Count Dracula (and got very excited about my comment in class today, therefore making me feel nice)

number of days of class i have had: 2

number of pages of cases that i have read: 80

number of hours i have studied in the library: 6.5 (which, should be noted, might be the most time i have ever spent in any library in my entire life)

number of days until my first exam: 48

number of days until my vegas trip: 38

how happy my dog was to see me come home today (measured in speed of tail wagging): 60 wags per minute

no! not the rolly duffel!

since i'm going to be carrying a 7-pound notebook computer plus 30 pounds of case books to school everyday, i'm starting to accept the fact that i may need to get one of those really dorky rolly duffels. i guess preventing a visit to the emergency room for a slipped disc is more important than being in with the popular kids.

like my parents always told me, "school is not a fashion show."
sigh.

luckily one of my friends clued me in on a rolly backpack that is both cool and affordable: