Streets of Philadelphia

Thirty-eight dollars. The ticket I bought a month ago to watch my Atlanta Braves finish their season in Philadelphia seemed worth it at the time, especially considering the Braves were playing great baseball and it appeared the game would still be meaningful with the playoffs fast approaching. A dreadful month of September later, and nothing was on the line yesterday. Suddenly $38 looked like a waste. After all, the money was already spent, so why even bother making the 90-mile trek to Philly?

Good thing I changed my mind yesterday morning and decided to drive up. The game itself was my third trip to see the Braves in the past three weeks, in three different cities – I had already been to Washington and Atlanta (see my previous post). I’m a dick, I’m addicted to them. I can’t pretend I don’t care. Channeling my inner teenager there. What up, Simple Plan?

Good seat, right?

Baseball

The game itself was nothing to note about, other than to say it was played in a tidy 2 hours, 18 minutes and ended 2-1 with Craig Kimbrel saving it in style for the Braves by striking out the side in the 9^th inning. More games should follow that exact script. I was joined in the City of Brotherly Love on a stunningly gorgeous day by 38,081 of my best friends. My ticket was somewhere near the sun on the left field side, but the advantage of going to games by myself is it’s always easy to find another seat wherever I want. And by wherever I want, I always mean on the third base line, on an aisle.

There were two kids in front of me – middle school aged, I’d say – that I was disgustingly put off by the whole game. I like to think I’m a very observant, perceptive person, but these two really perplexed me. The boy was an animal – first it was peanuts, then it was pizza, then it was a cookie. None of which were consumed with a closed mouth. Believe me when I tell you this young whippersnapper didn't need any of the above, much less all three in two hours. The girl was potentially his sister, and I say that because they kept referencing “mom and dad”, and glancing over to adults in another section. But then, they had their arms around each other and were holding hands at times. When she ate her orange frozen lemonade and regurgitated it back on the spoon, she fed him what was left. It was weird. Maybe they were brother and sister, or cousins, but they seemed too old to be so touchy. I know West Virginia is close to Pennsylvania, but really.

MotownPhilly

Temple

After getting out of my $16 parking spot at Citizens Bank Park – the Phillies’, Eagles, and 76ers’ and Flyers’ venues are literally all in the same massive parking lot off I-95 in Philly – I headed for downtown. This fall I've had a major realization in my life that I want to teach, art history specifically, and to do that at the level at which I want to do it, I need a PhD on top of the Master’s degree I have now. I’ve made a significant commitment to researching schools and narrowed it down to four – Delaware (lukewarm about that one. A school whose nickname is Blue Hens, I can’t be too sure about), Penn State, Pittsburgh, and Temple. Temple is in northwest Philly, about seven miles from Citizens Bank, so it was an easy drive to get there and wander around campus.

The campus is wonderful. It’s leafy, green, and very quiet. You wouldn't know you’re in a major city (and more specifically, on a campus in the middle of some very shady neighborhoods just a couple streets away) when walking around. I was able to find the Tyler School of Art building, in which my program would be located, and charmed the security guard to let me have a look around even though I don’t have the requisite Temple ID and it was a Sunday so pretty much everything was locked. By charmed, I mean, she asked to see my driver’s license and I had to fill out a sign-in sheet. It was great to see where I could end up spending the next 6-8 years – that PhD is no joke – and was valuable information for me as I go further in the application process. There are almost 10,000 postgrad students at Temple and nearly 30,000 undergrads, and

Wikipedia tells me that the main campus occupies 105 acres and an estimated 12,000 students live on or near it. With that said, the campus is eminently walkable and I had no problems navigating it.

Sorority girls wearing Bid Day 2014 shirts were out in full force, and I made careful observations. Alpha Phi, I’m not sure about you all. American University Field Hockey team, I see you ladies. Tough loss yesterday. I saw lots of Temple football players walking around as well after their 36-10 drubbing of UCONN on Saturday. Well played in Hartford, fellas. I got a delicious blondie for $2 at a coffee shop on Liacouras Walk. For a Sunday afternoon, the campus seemed pretty busy, and that’s what I was hoping to see. Having experienced life at a small school already in undergrad, while visiting some of my closest friends at major state universities and with my favorite lovely Meatball at one now as well, I've really come to value that atmosphere and it’s what I’m seeking in the schools to which I’m applying.

An hour and a half later, I was back in Baltimore. Gina comes to visit this weekend and the plan is to show her my hometown of Fredericksburg. And meet mom and dad. So, there’s that.

More soon.