I'm sure I've put this up before at some point

But this time I want to say: I want Ikram to wear that hat when we get married (insyaAllah).

We have a pretty cute neighbor who plays with his cat on evenings outside. It's the weirdest thing ever to see him play catch with a cat.. but I guess we make do with what we have.

I went on my last run with Sarah earlier before ordering Boli's Pizza (potentially the best pizza I've had in the US of A). On the closing loop we passed by a fruit tree that I had no idea was a fruit tree. But Sarah insisted it was, so we took a break to eat fruits from the tree. They tasted like raspberries but without the tartness.

I can't believe I've been here for 9 months. It must have been only a few weeks ago I lugged my big bag off the light rail onto Baltimore Street and hailed a cab that took me up Stirling Street. The cab driver said it was a bad neighborhood and told me to move. And you know, it's amazing how things fall into place... here I am in this living room, purposely not doing my biostatistics despite having my comprehensive exams in 2 days, reminiscing on how wonderful things have been and how enriching.

And before I go off on a tangent, and I hope I am saying this with as much humility as possible, I'll end this post with my thus-far conclusion on 'life':

The future shapes itself while you're busy making the most of the present.

It sounds cheesy. But really, the more I think about it, the more I'm convinced. The short term plans I make tend to be the more effectively executed ones. But that may be because I have no ultimate ambition (other than having and raising adorable babies and retiring rich and writing as a hobby)... so all my ambitions have been moving targets to make use of time maximally. Not to say that I don't waste time. Boy do I waste time. I'm wasting time right now!

But I enjoy wasting time sometimes. And as John Lennon said, "Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted."

Anyway. I just found out that The Johns Hopkins Hospital is the first research hospital in the US, and among the earliest secular institutions in the 1800's. But because they had to open it in the hick Baltimore town, they had to build a humongous statue of Jesus (which I first mistook as Hippocrates, because it made sense) in the main lobby just so the Baltimoreans didn't torch it down. Irony no?

I love that.