You may have come to notice a distinct pattern in my blog posts these days. Perhaps it’s due to my new apartment lifestyle, or the fact that I’ve made it a priority to explore my surroundings and try out new places here in STL. Especially restaurants. Regardless, going to a bunch of restaurants that I otherwise wouldn’t have known about had I not had a car has been quite the adventure. Yesterday, after trying to cope with the rather short weekend that I had, a few friends and I decided to head to 5 Star Burger, a major chain (from what I believe) that’s known for its high quality meat that’s organic, etc. (organic was the only word I retained from the kind waitress who took our order).
Anyhow, as taking pictures has been quite a hassle for me (since I ate my food before I could even think of taking a picture of it), I thought I would definitely give a review on what I thought of the place. However, I have taken photos from my good ole’ friend Google Images, which should do just the trick.
5 Star Burger, located in Clayton is definitely a friendly environment when you walk in. The waiters and waitresses are very kind and are open to any questions and concerns that customers have. When I got there, one of my friends and I ordered the 5 Star Burger (it’s an angus burger from what was written on the menu). Another ordered the Magic Mushroom, which was sautéed mushrooms, caramelized onions, and Swiss cheese. It definitely looked delish and I definitely intend on having it at my next visit (which, given how much I loved it, will be very soon.) We also ordered a combination of regular and sweet potato fries. For dessert, some of us ordered milkshakes. I got an ice cream shooter for only one buck. While I assumed it would be a spoon of ice cream beautifully placed in a shot glass, it was actually a small scoop of ice cream in a cone! Either way, it was still delish and definitely the bang for the buck.
Over all, I would rate their burgers 3.75 out of 5 stars. While it wasn’t the best burger I’ve ever had, it was definitely worth the drive. The service only made it better, since they were incredibly kind and quick with getting us our order.
Take a look at the pics below and definitely give it a try sometime!
The sound of my alarm clock, with its obnoxious and indescribably painful tone, abruptly forced my eyelids open that morning. It was the 10th of December, a day to remember because it was the beginning of the end of all that I knew. And as I managed to lug myself out of my bed in hopes of sustaining my auditory abilities, I rehearsed the intricate schedule that I had written out the night before. I had also mentally prepared myself in advance for the events that would unfold in the next few days. Ten days to be exact. I prepared myself for the hours that would be consumed just being at the library, the calories that would be burned just walking to the library, the boxes of Kleenex that would be used when moments of hope would be lost and nowhere to be found, the stashes of chocolate that–when I thought about it holistically–would need to be rationed each day in fear that I consumed it all out of stress in order to restore my exponentially dwindling confidence would make its way to E sooner than later.
And indeed, I can say with full confidence that the predictions that I had foretold had sadly come true. And so, for anyone who would be concerned to read this list that I have compiled in regards to finals week, here it is:
ONLY DURING FINALS WEEK THAT…
1. You suddenly become a human clock
You are counting down the days, hours, minutes, seconds, and milliseconds until your next final. With the next one only hours away, you…
2. Always have a box of Kleenex in your bag
When all hope and optimism is lost amidst stress and thoughts of failure, there’s nothing a box of Kleenex can fix (except a red nose and puffy eyes)
3. Beethoven becomes your BFF
Forget listening to your favorite jams, studying for finals has got you feeling desperate and that means listening to Beethoven even if it doesn’t really make you smarter or study any better. If it’s going to block out the sounds of the person next to you who is always chomping on Doritos in the library, you might as well blast that classic music anyway.
4. You’re basically a ghost.
Friends? What friends? Family? You don’t have one for now. All time must be spent carefully. While social ties are important, you’ll see your friends and family on Christmas, when the times of finals will soon pass.
5. You’re. Always. Eating.
You had a granola bar in the morning. An apple two hours later. Before you know it, you’ve already consumed a good 2,000 calories right before noon. What has gotten into you? Answer: stress. At its finest. Right before your family’s annual holiday party. Have no fear, you can stills shed the pounds right after your last final. Hopefully.
6. You’re now in denial.
One does not simply stop believing that there exists more than what their bare eyes allow them to see. One does not simply wake up to see dawn and force themselves back to slumber like other members of the human race. One does not simply call herself a normal human being. Because you may convince yourself as you please, through all the denial, through all the constant occasional scuffles with your self-consciousness–the very self consciousness which never ceases to undermine you–that you are capable of living a life that is too known to those around you, yet so foreign and un-you. You may try to find sheer happiness in what surrounds you, but at the end of the day, there will always be an emptiness that will subsist with every heartbeat, that will overcome you once the feeling you always knew, the feelings whose presence always closely surrounded you, suddenly disappears. And that’s when you begin to feel your heart beat faster with every second that you realize that you are now indeed, finally, free. Free from the shackles that once held you so close. The shackles that held you against your will. And now that they’re gone, at least for now, the world feels like a different place. Because now it is a different place, indeed. It has been turned into a different realm that you could only experience a flicker of in your dreams; now it is a place guided by the will of your inner desire where you are free to live, sleep, and be as you choose to be. Where you are given the freedoms you so sadly lost so long ago.
This, dear readers, is what happens when you take your last final and you are still in shock of what you have just experienced in the last few days. This is what happens when it’s finally over and you are at ease.
Dear busily-studying, and all the more stressed Readers,
As you all (including myself) are adamantly waiting for Thanksgiving break and Winter break, which will subsequently follow assuming that we will be able to save our grade point averages from their fall over the infinitely steep cliff of doom, I’d like to begin this blog post by thanking you for your consistent support for my some-thousand worded posts and ridiculous ideas that inspire me to keep writing (when I can) considering my heightened and therefore, occupied schedule. And so, without further ado, I’d like to begin my blog post with these assumingly poetic words:
This is the tale of a dreamer.
This is a tale of a dream.
Both are inevitably separated.
Only to be united again.
“You…suck.”
Her words hit my face like a crater; hard enough to shatter me into a million pieces, cruel enough to make me feel as irrelevant and useless as floating dust. I was saddened, discouraged, and of course, heartbroken, as if a plethora of preceding synonyms did not suffice for me to express how my confidence, my future, and my life was ultimately set to end. It was over now. At the age of ten years old, my dream was gone. It dissipated into thin air. Poof.
At the very serious and crucial age of ten years old, as I struggled to wipe away the tears that would reveal my defeat, I had come to the saddening conclusion that I surely was not meant for the greatness that I had aspired to achieve. I was told- no, I was spat in the face, and told with a sneer and mocking tone, that I was never cut out to be, and could never sport a snazzy snapback, and the ultimately unbeatable, immortal, and” un-mess-able ” persona that most people vie to be when looking at those who are prevalent in mainstream pop culture. At this milestone in my life, it had (literally) hit me that I could never be Jay-Z or Eminem. Because at this particular milestone in my life, I was sadly convinced that I could never be, and was clearly never destined to be a rapper. Not because I was a female, not because I was a brown child of a rather smaller and not-so-intimidating physique who was better off holding slides to put under a microscope instead of a microphone. But rather because I was simply told that I didn’t have what it would take.
And so, with my head drooping low, I made my way on my journey through my sad and boring life and was still in search of my medium to greatness. Unless I wasn’t meant for that, either. For years, I searched for solace with the empty space made my in my heart that was in need of wholeness. I found some comfort in journaling, mainly to report fights with siblings, feelings regarding my distaste for my parent’s preference that I could only have ice cream once I finished dinner and not before as I would have wanted. A part of me still wished to write poetry. But I dismissed the thought, and even had to stop my pen, knowing that the words I wrote could never be read aloud and would only stay confined to their two-dimensional form on paper. And that wasn’t what I wanted.
And so, life stayed that way. And soon the dream was almost forgotten, metaphorically speaking, tightly shut in a box and shoved in the back corner of the attic, never heard of again. And practically non-existent. The pain was patched up, and while the wound still hurt, it was now merely a scar that was seen, but numb from being forgotten for so long.
I thought I would never feel the same feelings again. I thought I would go on without knowing what it was like to convey my ideas to the masses, until four years later, when I would find my dream again, but in a better and perhaps more suitable form.
Amidst the pressure to put as many AP and fancy honors classes on my plate during the start of high school, I found myself in an Honors English class that was seemingly uneventful Fall of the year 2009. Clearly motivated only to get the well desired A, more than ready to move onto college where I planned on pursue medicine at the time, I certainly expected nothing short of boring and dry literary texts coming my way. Instead, I found myself more surprised.
As we studied poetry, I found myself assigned to read works by Shakespeare and other elderly men who were far from deceased. That day, however, my teacher had decided to show us a video of Russell Brand’s show, Brave New Voices, a show that allows mainly urban youth to display their talents through the use of something called spoken word. I was instantly mesmerized by the performer’s command of language, her ability to use beat and rhythm (yes, there is such thing as using beat and rhythm in spoken word poetry), while displaying her intelligence which made her all the more convincible and in my mind, pretty fierce. While I still struggle to find the original video to this day, I did however, find other artists that inspired me as I began to discover this new hobby that I had taken to liking.
Spoken word, though it does not require music, is music of its own. It’s the performer who sets the tone; it’s the performer who decides how they want to convey their poem. There’s no technique. There’s no right or wrong. It’s just you, your microphone, and your words. And that is all. After simply watching videos for years, I finally began to write poems of my own. I competed in the Spring of 2013, and though I only placed fifth place in state, knowing that I had performed was an accomplishment. And it wasn’t until then that I started to feel my wounds being healed. And it wasn’t until then that the words of discouragement that were said to me years ago were nothing but wrong. Nothing but hate towards a dream that I had, that was now fulfilled.
Until my next predictably overdue post, feel free to check out a spoken word performance by one of my favorite artists.
I have come back to my homely blogosphere after many weeks of being labeled MIA to deliver glad tidings to you all, after many weeks of disappearing into the abyss of the unknown. Today, dear Readers, I have come to you with my hands bearing a sweet gift; I come to you to deliver a message from the Higher Power, a revelation that I had just merely 72 hours ago while my mind ached with pain as I suffered from Writers Block illness, while my fingers were too weak to type even a letter on my Fujitsu as I travelled home via the Amtrak for the Labor Day weekend. Today, I have come to convey a very important fact to you all as the idea of a ninth month school year finally kicks into your brain, as you prepare to say goodbye to the cold weather that is doomed upon us. And before we know it, finals week will soon head on over. And that’s when all anxiety and nightmares are unleashed. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Anyhow, as the title suggests, it has been revealed to me during my virtual hibernation that our species Homosapian-Eutectus is not merely equivalent to a miniscule human as we had always assumed about ourselves. In fact, we must give ourselves more credit and pride knowing that we are indeed more gifted than that. We have the potential mental capacity to rule the world; the potential to be recognized as heroes. That’s right, heroes.
You see, the years we spend here is not merely a journey as we struggle and strive to earn a Pharm D. Rather, it is a quest in which we must battle the obstacles that not only come our way that inevitably exist to put us down; obstacles in the form of ferocious beasts and enemies that we formally know as exams and even worse: final exams. It is only when we battle these demons and dragons that we earn the respectable title and the bragging points that consequently follow; it is when we ultimately end one chapter of our lives and hopefully move onto the next. This quest that each of us have chosen to take on (surely one of many that we will take on in a lifetime), when finally achieved, will not only mark a milestone, but an epic as we take on the title of a true hero; a warrior who fought till the last beast was conquered and put to rest in its place. Because who said that the only heroes were Odysseus from Homer’s The Oddysey, who said that it was only characters from The Lord Of The Rings, Star Wars, and Gilgamesh himself who could be given the title of a hero and/or a warrior?
If you do not cease to disbelieve me, here’s a few points about mythical heroes and epics. And here’s why we fit the description completely… (as taken from my Cultural Notes)
Patterns Of Ancient Western Myths (STLCOP Style)
1. Gods and Heroes die and come back to life.
2. Destruction of the world and then the world is reborn.
There is nothing godly about being a STLCOP student. It is notable that while we possess the strength, the courage, and the power of will to take on the curriculum, we are indeed still under the rule of our “Godly” superiors (hint: the person whom your grade depends on, the person who will affect your GPA forever and beyond) who ultimately use their power to grant us our title. But one thing is for certain, coming and leaving STLCOP is like the cycle of life. Weeks before heading onto a long weekend, we exhaust our brains enough to resemble apocalyptic zombies. It is only when we go home or take a break, even, and come home to continue on our quest that we are recharged and reborn, ready to conquer that Pharm D. once and for all.
3. The world was created by supernatural forces.
Many, many years ago around the time that the Epic of Gilgamesh was finally discovered, a group of supernatural beings came together and decided that the academic world was in need of an institution with both prestige and pride. This institution, these supernatural forces thought, would bear both a curse and a blessing. Simply having one over the other wouldn’t do, they noted as they took a rather gigantic pot and stirred both sugar and spice together, made brick walls and built a building that they would proudly call STLCOP. This building would be a blessing to the world, an opportunity for students to get their Pharm D. right out of high school, a great place to add to one’s resume, a great place to mention at a family reunion when you want to impress your relatives whom you haven’t seen in ages, or when you want to put down that one cousin that got into every Ivy League school simply because she was able to discover the existence of unicorns on Pluto. However, every good in the world comes with a price, and that price was that students would have to exchange their soul for the next couple of years if a Pharm D. is what they indeed wished for. It is only when they would graduate that they would be able to live again, when they would find something human in themselves, when they would finally be free.
And so, dear Readers, I must leave you with this. Look at yourself in the mirror and tell yourself that you are indeed a hero. Look at your strength, your courage, and your optimism (whatever is left of it that is). Look into the empty part of your heart that once contained your soul which you will soon see again on graduation day. Look at the loans you will have to pay off, the pile of work that sits on your desk, and your phone that doesn’t hesitate to send you a million alerts from Pinterest, Twitter, and Facebook. Turn your phone off. Sit on your desk, and get to work because the study break is over.
Dr. Zee in 19 