Yummmmm... Pancakes

So I woke up this past weekend and was craving pancakes.  Possibly because I was ridiculously hungover after have a 'date' with the Bf the night before.  He just got the new Mac (which I also have) and gmail has a new video chat program, so we had a dinner and drinks date.  We also had our Draft.  I am in one fantasy league, and it is for Top Chef!  Yes, not at all a real sport, but it is an awesome TV show and its fun to do, since Bf looves fantasy sports.  My team right now is Ashley, Ash, and Michael Voltaggio.  I'm pretty pscyhed and ready to kick the Bf's butt!  I haven't gotten to watch the episode last night yet to see how I did, hopefully it went well!

But I digress, I should get back to pancakes.  So I woke up craving pancakes, but pancakes have eggs and milk.  So I scoured various websites wondering if such a thing as vegan pancakes actually exists.  It does!!  Plus, I used whole wheat flour, which made it even healthier.  The recipe had whole wheat flour, rice milk, baking soda, baking powder, and a bit of maple syrup to sweeten it.  They came out pretty freakin good.  A friend came over and had them with me, and although he said they weren't just like regular pancakes, they were close!  

On the legal front, I had coffee yesterday with the partner at a law firm here in DC.  He is actually an alum at the same school I am at now, and was absolutely interested in helping me with my career.  He called me 'impressive,' which is pretty cool- it gave me a small confidence boost for the day!  He took my resume and is passing it onto people he knows are looking to hire.  He also offered me a job if I wanted it, but its not the type of legal work I'm looking for.  

So I've actually been working on this post for like 3-4 days.  This week has been crazy busy b/t resume building, coffee dates, and studying for school, but since its now Thursday I am super excited b/c Bf is coming tomorrow!!!!! :-D  I haven't seen him in two weeks so I can't wait!  I think I'm going to cook dinner for us on Friday night and then we'll go out Saturday.  The weekend is going to be awesome!  

Hope everyone else has a great weekend!! 

Pizza Paradiso and Other News

Tuesday night I was in pizza heaven, courtesy of my new friend Chuck.  Chuck is in my LL.M. program, just moved from Cali, and is also into exploring the District and checking out new places.  He has been talking about a pizza place called Pizza Paradiso so when we got out of class early on Tuesday evening we headed down to check it out.  Although I had already resigned myself to having a drink and nothing else since pizza is a pretty big vegan faux pas, they had vegan pizza!!! And I'm not just saying that it was pizza dough w/o eggs with nothing but vegetables on it.  They had soy mozzarella cheese also, and it tasted awesome!!  The pizza dough was also whole-wheat, making it even healthier!  

On a negative note, the pizza dough was made with honey.  Until about 24 hours ago I didn't even know that vegans don't eat honey, but I have recently been educated.  Unfortunately for my vegan diet, though, I'm drawing the line.  As a consequence though I am now a disgrace in the vegan culture: http://www.vegetus.org/honey/nomenclature.htm.  

To set the record straight on my whole viewpoint on the vegan diet I've been experimenting with, I am not doing this because I suddenly woke up one day and decided animals were treated horribly and I could no longer stomach the thought of meat or any type of animal product. Without a doubt, animals are treated terribly and the treatment is pretty flippin' gross, but that isn't why I'm doing this.  For me, this is a lifestyle change is more about being healthy than it is about protesting any person who has bacon and eggs for breakfast (quite frankly, I really enjoy bacon and eggs).  

I'm not sure I'm willing to fold on the vegan thing though simply because I'm not running around protesting treatment of animals and giving dirty looks to people who eat filet mignon for dinner (again something I really enjoyed prior to this new vegan diet).  I'm just switching it up and trying new things.  All aspects of the vegan diet seem extremely healthy, and I already feel more energized and awake during the days.  So from this point forth I am:

Meg-- Vegan Without A Cause

Or:

Meg-- Honey-eating, not really vegan, totally not true to veganism, wannabe vegan blogger.  

On non-vegan note, school already has me swamped, but it is definitely great!  Today I contacted a guy who graduated from my law school and now owns his own legal staffing firm here in DC.  Hopefully I'll have a chance to take him out for coffee and pick his brain on his life and how he ended up a founding partner at a DC law firm.  

Back to work!  Class in 2 1/2 hours!  

Starved

Today I fell victim to what I have already read about on multiple occasions - being hungry without vegan snacks on hand.  I headed down to school at around noon this morning with some sunflower seeds and raisins packed to eat throughout the day, but unfortunately I ate both snacks before 2:30pm (apparently I was hungry today).  Then suddenly at about 4pm the kid next to me in the lounge opened his chicken caesar salad and I realized I was starving.  And not only was I hungry, but I was about 3 seconds away from reaching across the table, knocking the guy unconscious, and running off with the chicken in his salad.  Once I realized I was about to commit battery I headed out in search of a snack and proceeded to strike out repeatedly.  A sandwich stand- can't eat there, a pasta place- can't eat there, pizza- definitely can't eat there.  Eventually I stumbled into an Au Bon Pain, which surprisingly had some options.  Fresh strawberries and vegetarian minestrone soup- yum.  Except there was pasta in the soup :( , and I only realized after I bought it.  I ended up eating around the pasta and considering it a job well done.  

I have got to remember to bring more snacks in the future.

Off to my second class-- advanced evidence.  Hopefully I won't fall asleep since I've had some dinner!