Farmer’s Market


In Philadelphia there a several year round and some seasonal farmer’s markets all throughout the city. The Food Trust [http://thefoodtrust.org/] is the main organizer. For more information on the Farmer’s Markets locations, hours, and stands use the following link: http://thefoodtrust.org/farmers-markets


I enjoy the excercise I get from walking to Clark Park in University City District on Thursday’s and Saturday’s for a bit of fresh produce. Produce is not the only thing you can find at the farmer’s market. The market set up in Clark Park has several produce stands, a flower stand, a fresh fish stand, a few stands selling meat of all kinds, an art stand or two, and a few informational stands. One of these informational stands has a cooking show that starts about the same time as the market opens. This show has neat little tips, fun quick recipes, and if you fill out the survey at the end you are given $4 dollars to spend as you please in the market. One weekend that amounted to me purchasing a large bunch of basil and some leafy green lettuces.

Some of the informational stands give handouts and often pertain to events occuring in the city. One weekend I picked up a magazine titled Fringe Festival by FringeArts. This fesitval is an annual event that begins in September and ends in December. The magazine has descriptions of all the art events to be staged around the city from performances, to music, to gallery openings, to interactive sculptures in the parks. Had I not gone to the Farmer’s Market that saturday I probably would have found out after the events occured. The Farmer’s Market and Clark Park are great places to learn a little more about the area while interacting with the local community.

If you’re in Philadelphia I highly reccomend the walk to the nearest Farmer’s Market, if Clark Park is too far.

Orientation!


Most of us think of orientation as a set of hours any institution we are integrating into has set aside to talk us to near informed boredom. The information is all, of course, very important but perhaps not in that moment. As a student, I’m generally a little more nervous and excited to meet new classmates, faculty, and staff than be lectured about my health. Despite my reservations about orientation I was quite pleased with how the day turned out!

The day started with lunch! At least as students we were able to focus for the remainder of the day on the content and not our stomachs. Lunch was a plesent affair with students from all the degree tracks eating under one roof. While we ate we were introduced the the Dean, Chairs of Departments, and Dean’s office Staff.  Post lunch we were split into groups based on the colors on our name tags: in my case this was green group.

The next several hours green group proceed to four different rooms for various instruction. We met with current students, were informed on available resources for our health, introduced to the library and the archives, and updated on everything we needed to know about the IT department (the mechanical heart behind all our makings).  Each was informative and thankfully their information would be made available again on the Thrive at Penn Canvas page students are added to upon accepting admission into Penn.

After the information sharing was done, it was time for social fun! The student groups were further split up into smaller groups for a campus wide scavenger hunt! Though my group, “Yes we Khan!”, did not win, the prize being 1TB hardrives each, the secondary goal of the excercise was certainly achieved. By the end of the scavenger hunt the majority of the group had spent an hour introducing themselves and enjoying the company of their new group while rapidly walking through campus in search of answers to our clues. With the scavenger hunt complete a BBQ in front of Meyerson Hall commenced. A genuinely lovely end of day event with plenty of food, deserts, and drinks! More introducing and long conversations ensued with the Dean meandering between student groups.

All in all it was a pleasantly social day meeting classmates and gathering basic information for my success as a student at Penn. Orientation is one event not to miss.