Let's Talk about Body Image

        Hi friends, I have been looking at other fashion blogs and vlogs for inspiration lately.  I've noticed that most of these blogs spread a consistently inconsistent message about body image.  This is not just done by blogs, but by magazines, TV shows, and just about anyone who doles out fashion advice.  They will claim they endorse body positivity, because body positivity is cool right now, and then give out body shaming advice.  They say embrace yourself—then tell you how to hide your flaws.  They say love your body—right before discussing how to look more skinny in photos or how to look like you have bigger boobs or a better butt.  "Embrace yourself" seems to really mean "embrace the things that fit a narrow beauty standard, and hide or change the rest."   The original reason I started blogging was to provide a body positive perspective on fashion that was, you know, actually body positive.

No Beyonce, you didn't wake up like that.  Normal people don't wake
up professionally made up.  We should be deeply concerned about
 the person who does.  

        Body positive fashion is important to me because I struggled with my body for a long time. Most people probably find that social media and the fashion industry hurt their self-image.  These sources saturate our world with imaginary ideas about what people should and do look like.  This makes it difficult to embrace the beauty of a real unphotoshopped human.  In contrast, I found that pursuing fashion as an interest helped me develop a much healthier relationship with my body.  So let's talk about clothing, body image, and how, in theory, to make them play nice with each other.

 

Instagram has left us unable to appreciate Squidward's natural beauty.

        I am generally very open about the eating disorder I had in high school.  If you are close to me, I have probably told you this already.  If I never got around to mentioning this to you, Surprise! Admittedly, an eating disorder is kind of a shitty surprise.  Sorry about that.  I promise I'll provide a better surprise later. I have tried to be very open about the eating disorder to, in some small way, help reduce the shame and stigma around struggling with one.

        Toward the end of ninth grade, my health class assigned us to record everything we ate for a week and the nutrition facts.  For some reason I really wanted to seem 'healthy'.  So I adjusted my eating habits that week to try to model what I thought our health teacher would want to see.  From there, I very slowly but surely became fixated on what I ate and how much I exercised.  I thought I was just trying to be healthy at first.  But then I signed up for a school award that required a certain number of hours of personal fitness as an excuse to exercise obsessively.  Eventually, I would get very anxious if I could not get my full exercise routine in.  I remember watching a movie with my boyfriend after eating a concerningly large meal, and trying to sneak in ab exercises without him noticing.  He noticed.  I remember sitting in the car going to a holiday dinner and trying to sneak in exercises to offset the upcoming large meal without my family noticing.  They noticed.  I remember that I only give myself an apple and 125 calories of peanut butter for lunch.  Yes, I know exactly how many calories of peanut butter I allowed myself.   I never actually lost weight doing this.  I would have said that I lacked the self-control for a real eating disorder.  Still, the obsession with food, exercise, and not being able to pinch any fat on my stomach completely occupied my mind.

SURPRISE!  Cute baby pandas have come to lighten up the
rather heavy discussion of my screwed up body image.
Thank you baby pandas!

        My warped view of myself not only hurt me, but also those I cared about.  I was skinny, and if I was so insistent that I looked bad, what did that convey to my friends who were less skinny than I?  If I was so visibly appalled by body fat on myself, how could I possibly tolerate it in my boyfriend?  My negative view of myself spread like an illness, infecting those closest to me.

 

Baby elephant to the rescue!

        I cannot quite say what got me over it.  If I had to guess I would point to a few incidents that scared me out of continuing my obsessive behavior.  The first incident was during the winter of my senior year of high school.  I tried to make myself throw up, failed to do so, and then panicked.  When your reflection stares back at you from the bottom of a toilet bowl you suddenly become one of those girls.   You become one of the girls you thought only existed in after school TV specials because no real person would actually be that desperate to be thin.  I thought no real, rational, sane person, which I certainly felt I was, could be that desperate.  But now I was one of those girls.  I could no longer pretend I didn't have a problem.  I could no longer pretend that careful calorie control, followed by gorging on junk food because I was hungry from not eating, followed by neurotic exercising was just normal weight management.  This was the first time I actively tried to push back against my obsessive behavior.

 

This polar bear cubs can't read.  They don't know that we are talking about
an uncomfortable topic.  They just want to cuddle.

        In the spring of that year my health teacher described the symptoms of eating disorders to our class.  Even though I had scared myself out of traditional purging, my obsessive working out and eating habits still made me qualify as bulimic.  Bulimic is a loaded word.  It was scary to suddenly have that label. This was the second wake up call.  It got me to again push back against my obsessive behavior.  

       While it scared me to be labeled bulimic, the freshman fifteen scared me more than an eating disorder did.   Part of me still intended to "have more control over what I ate" when I got to college.  By more control I mean more disordered behavior.  I was a smart girl, I figured I could handle "control" without letting the food obsession get out of hand.  Because you know, thinking constantly about what I had or would eat didn't count as things getting out of hand already.

 

Baby hedgehog is happy to tell you that the heavy part is almost over

        Fortunately for me, the opposite happened when I got to college.  I just stopped caring.  This I attribute to the some of the girls on my freshman hall.  The girls on my hall freshman year were a bit obsessed with avoiding the freshman fifteen, perhaps even more so than I was.  It was their fixation on avoiding the freshman fifteen that gave me perspective.  Seeing how preoccupied they were with working out and with what they ate and with looking a certain way in fling tanks made me realize how ludicrous my behavior had been.  I didn't want to behave like the girls on my hall.  I didn’t want their lives, and I mostly stopped obsessing over being thin.

 

The girls on my hall made me realize how unhealthy I had been.
I do not intend to shame them, or Meghan Fox here for being
concerned with their appearance.  There is immense pressure
on women to look good.  It's hypocritical to shame women for trying
 to look good, when we also tell them that it is essential that they look pretty.

      In time I learned much healthier ways to take care of and think about my body. These helped me avoid relapsing.  I started taking group classes at the gym with the intention of becoming strong and athletic, not so much of becoming thin.  The classes did a few things for me.  They provided a very positive and encouraging environment for working out.  This released the stress that usually contributed to my body issues, without encouraging a fixation on getting thin.  The instructors had a variety of builds, from tiny and lean, to large and muscular, to distinctly chunky.  They showed me there were many ways other than just being thin to be powerful and healthy.

        I also learned how to dress myself in a way that complimented the things I liked about my body.  This brings me back to my discussion of fashion and body image.  I don't blame the fashion industry for my eating disorder.  I think I always considered models to be unrealistic and never particularly cared to look like them.  I'ld say my eating disorder rose out of my personality.  I was a perfectionist, very competitive, very controlling, and not getting into the colleges I wanted to.  I was basically a perfect storm for an eating disorder.  But many people, likely including the girls on my hall, feel compelled to go to unhealthy ends to meet the impossible standards portrayed by entertainment, fashion, and social media.

        I found a way to love my body through fashion.  In trying to dress nicely, I learned to focus on things I liked about myself as opposed to things I didn't.  I like to think of clothing as self-expression.  Part of self-expression is deciding for yourself what counts as pretty or cool or interesting.  When I started decided for myself what looks good, I became much more indifferent to external beauty standards.

 

My beauty standard = Looking like a dinosaur

        One does not just learn to think positively about themselves overnight.  I still struggle with my body image at times, particularly when people around me complain about their bodies, or when I get mistaken for a fourteen-year-old, or when I get overwhelmed at school.  I still have many of the habits I picked up during my eating disorder.  Some are harmless, like a taste for spicy food (spicy food is supposedly an appetite suppressant).  Some are less harmless, like a tendency to pinch my stomach.  So I still need to be kind to myself to keep unhealthy thoughts from creeping back up on me.  I have found setting fitness goals, such as being able to lift a certain amount of weight or stretch in a certain way, instead of setting weight or clothing size goals has helped me focus on what my body can do as opposed to how it looks.

 

Obviously I need to grow a beard so people stop saying I look 14

         I have found that dressing to focus on my favorite features, keeps me from fixating on what I don't like.  The ideal body is a completely made up thing.  Thin bodies or thick bodies or squiggly bodies are just a passing trend.  In a few years a new body type will come into style, and then everyone will have to scramble to make their bodies fit, or look like they fit the new ideal.  It is a pointless marathon—one you cannot win.  The clothing industry is perfectly happy to keep changing the ideal so that you keep needing to buy new clothing to fit it.  You will feel much better about yourself if the fashion industry can't tell you that the body you worked so hard to get to fit an old ideal is no longer considered beautiful.  If you create your own ideal no one can take that away from you.  Focus on what you like about yourself.  You don’t even need to focus on physical traits, mental and emotional ones deserve love too.  If you are in the habit of only seeing the worst in yourself, it will take time to unlearn this behavior.  Every time you fixate on a trait you don't like, remind yourself of one you do.  In time you can train yourself to see the good in you first.  Dressing to play up your best traits, or to fit your own ideal will help with this immensely.

 

We all know dinosaurs were the original hotties

         While fashion has created a minefield of insecurity and screwed up body images, it can also create a space for self-expression and self-love.  Next week I will discuss how to dress yourself in a way that encourages the self-love and self-expression most fashion experts only pretend to believe in.  If you are feeling bad about how you look, I can guarantee that you are not alone.   Don't feel ashamed of your insecurities, we all wrestle with them.  When I opened up about my insecurities and eating issues, I found many other people, both male and female, who struggled with the same issues.  Some people who opened up to me had much more severe disorders than I, some had much milder symptoms.  But, all of our experiences were valid.  Now we can help each other avoid falling into old habits.  We all got past our disorders.  We are all far more than our disorders. If you feel like you need someone to talk to, I am happy to listen, that's part of the reason I wrote this. I promise you, it gets better.

On Physicsing while Female

        This blog is called Food Fashion Physics for a reason.  I have an interest in food and in fashion, and while I primarily discuss those things here, my first love is physics.  I am pursuing a PhD in Physics.  I qualify as that peculiar creature some people call a "smart girl".  In fact I would even say I am a rather smart girl, one who very much values and partially defines herself by her intelligence.

        You may have heard that there are not terribly many women in Physics or other STEM fields for that matter.  This is what makes me a peculiar creature.  Many people, including us rare female physicists have long wondered why we are so rare. This lack of women remains a great problem for STEM fields.

Where are the female scientists?  They probably are not hiding
in the Schrodinger equation.

        I have heard many proposed explanations for the lack of women, but there is one in particular I want to focus on today.  Many claim that women do not go into STEM fields because they are taught that science is unfeminine.  I cannot speak for all female physicists, but I can say that I and other female scientists I asked were either not actively aware of this message, or never much cared about it.  Maybe that's why we pursued physics.  Perhaps there are legions of potential female scientists and engineers who abandoned a future in science because they believed it was an unfeminine pursuit.  In truth, the lack of women in STEM fields is driven by forces more complicated, nuanced, and subtle than this or any single factor.  But the lack of women in science is not the purpose of this post.  What I wish to discuss instead are the ways in which women in science absorb the message that science is unfeminine.  For years I thought the message either didn't exist, or that no woman who actually pursued science cared about it.  What I have come to learn is that many of us did unknowingly absorb the message that science is unfeminine, but in a very different way than the women who never pursued science did.

        For most of my recent life I have described myself as a "girl who does not get along with other girls."  Pursuing physics means I spent most of my time around the men in my classes.  This never bothered me because I was more comfortable around men than women.  I felt special to be one of two female physicists in my graduating class of 30 physics students.  I was proud to see myself as one of few trail blazing women.  This isn't to say I was without female friends.  I was friendly with other STEM girls, mostly fellow "girls who do not get along with other girls."  Most of us felt some degree of discomfort, or difficulty connecting with "typical girls."  One friend went so far to say that she would not take math classes with too many girls in them because that indicated they were too easy for her.

Yea...most of my friends are dudes

         I have another friend, a social scientist, who was much more comfortable around women than my other female friends, and was in fact quite feminine.  She once complained that most female role models or strong female characters she saw growing up had abandoned their femininity as if it were a shackle holding them back.  This upset her because she grew up believing she couldn't be strong without rejecting the femininity that was a key part of her identity.  I didn't know what to say to her at the time.  It seemed perfectly obvious to me that the strong female characters had to reject acting feminine in order to succeed.  This conflicted with the fact that I considered my friend to be a very intelligent person who also only ever wore skirts and dresses.  I didn't think much of this incident until a few years later when someone asked me why I thought there were so few women in physics.

This basically sums up the outlook we learned

        Many of us were not so tormented by this choice as my friend was.  If you could only be smart or feminine; strong or feminine; unique, ambitious, useful, valuable or feminine; the choice was obvious for us smart girls.  We were smart first and girls second.  No one explicitly told us that traditional femininity was in direct conflict with being ambitious or useful.  Yet when we only hear about powerful, successful women who rose above the expected behavior of their gender to succeed, it is easy to view traditional female traits and behaviors as incompatible with success.  From there we would start to link femininity to vapidity and weakness.

       To anyone who knew me when I was young, the fact that I blog about fashion must be quite shocking.  Growing up, I hated shopping, had little interest in clothing, and generally resented any attempt to make me presentable that required effort.  I did not hold the people who enjoyed these things in high esteem either.  They were being traditionally feminine, which as I saw, meant they were being shallow, they were being mindless conformists, they were not being smart.  I wasn't quite a tomboy, I wasn't athletic enough, but I certainly identified with them more than with other girls.

My idea of being fashionable circa age 14.
Notice I rocked the strong brow before it became popular.

         I remember watching Cheaper by the Dozen 2 when I was about 11.  This movie would have been entirely forgettable if I hadn't been very upset by one scene in it.  One of the daughters in the movie, Sarah, was a tomboy, the character I most readily identified with.  She develops a crush on a boy and covertly tries to steal makeup so she can wear it and look pretty for this boy.  I didn't care about the stealing.  It was the fact that she wanted to wear makeup to impress a boy that bothered me.  To my 11 year old self, make up was what girly girls who cared too much about their appearance wore.  This character wearing makeup felt like a personal betrayal.  She had turned coat.  It felt like she was giving up her entire unique tomboy persona, her true self, to impress some unworthy boy.  Smart or unfeminine women "learning to be feminine" to attract a man is a terrible and painfully common movie trope.  However, it simply never occurred to me that this tomboy who wanted to wear makeup could do so without giving up everything that made her special and valuable.

Sarah from Cheaper by the Dozen before she turned coat

BETRAYAL!

      About a year later, my closest friend at the time whom we will call Kelley, started hanging out with the preppy girls.  This was the friend that I had beheaded barbie dolls with, that I had mocked the preppy girls and played video games and dreaded puberty with, and now she was hanging out with the very girls we had disdained for their girliness.  This time the betrayal was much more personal.  Kelley had changed.  My best friend in the whole world was willing to give up the things I liked about her for something as utterly lacking in value or purpose as being feminine.   As far as I could tell we could never again perform our 'surgeries' on Barbies, nor do any of the things we had once enjoyed together.  I did not take this well and the friendship quickly unraveled.

This both shows what we did to barbie dolls and acts as a visual analogy of
what became of our friendship after Kelley started hanging out with the preppy girls

         These stories should give you a picture of the view of femininity I and many smart girls like myself carried around as we grew up.  Knowing I grew up with the view that femininity is just some useless thing that gets in the way of being smart or strong, you can imagine how confusing it was for me to develop an interest in my appearance and in fashion.  I was a creative person and had many creative interests.  The interest in fashion grew out of that creativity, yet  I was so nervous about people knowing about this interest.  I feared that it would show that I had changed, or had given up that fundamental, driven, intelligent part of myself in exchange for an air headed fascination with a topic as shallow as fashion.  I avoided allowing people to think this by always emphasizing that my interest in fashion was purely a creative outlet;  a form of self expression that I approached rather intellectually.  I would say I respected people who put thought and skill into how they presented themselves, not those who followed whatever the media told them was pretty.  All of this was, and is still true about my view of fashion.  I only felt I needed to qualify and justify my interest in fashion because I feared I would fall into the trap of traditional femininity if I didn't.  I could not risk anyone thinking that my traditionally feminine interest was anything short of an intellectual one.

This is my prom dress, evidence of my early fashion interest.
 I made it out of duct tape and old physics homework.
This pretty much sums me up.

          About midway through college I realized I had not compromised my ambition or intelligence or strength by baking or wearing high heels and skirts.  As the only person many of my male friends felt comfortable talking with about personal issues, I began to appreciate how traditionally feminine characteristics such as empathy and patience could actually make a person quite powerful.  I learned that not only can women be smart and pretty or strong and feminine, but that these is strength in femininity itself.  I began to realize that there was something very sexist in the notion that intelligence was the antithesis of femininity and beauty.  There was something wrong with the idea that a woman can be great and powerful but only if she acts like a man.

        Men are not the only ones who must overcome their own sexism.  Women, smart women, smart women like me who "didn't get along with other women" must overcome our own sexism too.  This can be particularly difficult.  I spent so long rebelling against gender roles and resenting the social pressure to be feminine. This makes it difficult to continue trying to redefine gender roles and simultaneously say that the very femininity I rebelled against is valuable.  I am still trying to perfect this, and admittedly still get strangely angry when I see a woman being basic, and still feel more on edge around people I perceive as girly.  I still worry that my male peers will not view me as an equal if I try too hard to look nice.  While I am still working these things out, I'll at least say traditionally feminine traits have long been undervalued.  We miss out on so much feminine women can bring to the table when we tell them that only masculine traits are relevant to success.  My hope is to achieve a world in which there is no smart-pretty dichotomy, where you can accept or reject elements of masculinity or femininity without your perceived intelligence being jeopardized.

Ugg boots fill me with illogical rage.

        To destroy this dichotomy, let's tell our children stories of great women of history.  Many rejected their femininity, many embraced it, and many found it utterly unrelated to their ability to change the world.  Their stories can show us that there are many ways to be a smart woman.  Let's stop making TV shows like the Big Bang Theory in which the intelligence of a female character is inversely proportional to how attractive she is.  Let's teach young women that smart can be sexy, but that they have so much more to offer the world than just being sexy.  Let's teach them that the way they present themselves has nothing to do with their intelligence. And please, whether directly or indirectly, through characters, movie tropes, or even who you choose to ask for help on your math homework, let's stop telling girls that intelligence is unfeminine.  I know many very brilliant, very logical women, who are also rather girly.  These people are not intelligent in lieu of their femininity, their intelligence is part of their femininity .

Stop telling me that all female scientists look like this.

Some of us look like this,

but some of us look like this.  There are many ways to look
like a scientist.

        My freshman year of college I sat in an honors electromagnetism classroom full of mostly male students.  The professor had yet to arrive.  As we waited, a cockroach entered the front of the room and scurried across the floor.  The room was silent, and all attention turned to the offending cockroach.  Someone suggested we should kill it, but no one in the room full of men moved to do what was supposedly a man's job.  A heavy silence set in again.  I stood up and approached the front of the room.  My brazenly feminine bright red five inch heels clicked loudly, shattering the quiet as I approached the tiny beast.  Delicately, I put the toe of my platform shoe down over the cockroach.  The crunching sound reverberated through the room.  I wiped my shoe off, sat back down, and waited for lecture to start.  Three years later people still remember the crunch.  I could not have done this without the red shoes.  This incident came to represent how I balanced masculine and feminine traits inside of me.  Only by valuing both masculine and feminine features can we achieve great things--like crushing a cockroach.
   

These are my red shoes.  I wear them to crush roaches and
the patriarchy.

The Good, the Bad, the Smoothie: Ranking of West Philly Smoothies

        If you read my best pizza or best hot chocolate in West Philly posts you might be starting to suspect I spend all of my time sampling food from as many places as possible.  I wouldn't say all of my time, but I do do this quite a bit.  As a result I have one last set of rankings for you.  In my pizza post I said we had monthly pizza nights.  Really they were pizza and smoothie nights.  We needed something we could pretend was healthy to balance all of the pizza.

        Similar to the process we used for pizzas, four to ten judges tried five or six smoothies in a single night.  The judges voted on which smoothie to try from each smoothie vendor using a menu identified by a number.  This avoided biasing their responses in favor of or against places they expected to have better or worse smoothies.  A smoothie was defined as a blended beverage that is composed primarily of fruit, or fruit and yogurt, or is specifically labeled as a smoothie or lassi.  A lassi is an Indian yogurt based drink and a close relative of the smoothie.   Ice cream based drinks such as milkshakes did not count as smoothies.  Slushies did not count as smoothies either,  not that those contain anything resembling fruit anyway.   Smoothies were rated on a scale of 1 to 10 based on taste and texture.  We tried about 31 smoothies in search of the best one.  Below are the  'fruits' of months of arduous smoothie sampling labor.

Top Five Smoothies

5. Pumpkin Chai Smoothie from Kaffa Crossing (4423 Chestnut)

You don't need to stoop to this level.
You have other options

I don't know how many times I need to expound the glories of Kaffa Crossing to convince you guys to visit it for yourselves.  Among other things, they make very good and very interesting smoothies.  Most of their smoothies include cinnamon, honey, spices, raisins or some combination of the above, which makes them stand out from other smoothie vendors. The pumpkin chai smoothie contains pumpkin, chai, cinnamon, nutmeg, and banana.  Drink it, and satisfy your pumpkin spice craving without fear of becoming basic. 

3 (Tied). The Peaches and Cream Lassi from Mood Cafe (4618 Baltimore)

Lassi all day everyday

Accidental sexual implications in the name aside, the Peaches and Cream Lassi from Mood Cafe is just one of perhaps 100 lassis offered by this fine establishment.  Yes, 100 flavors of lassi.  Most of us are lucky to find 3 flavors in your typical Indian restaurant.  If you are wondering, a lassi is an Indian yogurt based drink, close enough to a smoothie to be called one.  Generally they only come in mango, sweet, and salty flavors (the salty lassi will be relevant later).  Mood Cafe offering so many flavors and executing them so well is a big deal.  If you are looking specifically for lassi, this is probably the best you can get anywhere in Philly.

3(Tied). The World Cafe Live Smoothie from OCF Coffee House (2930 Chestnut)

CAUTION: This is not a smoothie
Do not drink!

Don't get confused.  This smoothie is named for the World Cafe Live but served at OCF Coffee House. I am pretty sure the smoothies doesn't actually taste like the World Cafe Live, but I can't guarantee that.  I have never licked the World Cafe Live building.  The smoothie contains pineapple, banana, arugula, and orange juice.  The arugula was the unexpected ingredient that made this smoothie particularly pleasant.  It introduced just a bit of kick to balance the sweetness of the smoothie.

2. Passion Fruit Smoothie from Ochatto (3618 Chestnut)

Look at Ochatto, sneaking around and
pretending to be a different restaurant.

Ochatto offers many flavors of smoothies.  They also give you the unique option of picking the sweetness of your smoothie.  We picked the low sugar option.  I highly suggest this option because it allowed us to enjoy the tartness of the passion fruit, and continue to pretend that we were drinking something healthy.  On an odd note Ochatto used to be called Chattime.  You may find it easier to learn about Ochatto under its former alias Chattime.

1. Pina Colada Smoothie from Mediterranean Cafe (3409 Walnut)

=UNSTOPPABLE

This was a very unexpected winner given the number of fine smoothie establishments in West Philly, and the fact that Mediterranean Cafe is part of a food court next to CVS.  Maybe pineapple and coconut are just an unbeatable combo.  Whatever the reason for its victory, this smoothie did win fair and square.  It taught us all not to judge a book by its cover, nor a smoothie by its presence in a food court cafe.

Honorable Mention

These fruits are heroically going forth to  provide
you with excellent smoothie

Peanut Butter Banana Smoothie from Surf City Squeeze (30th Street Station)

This is a rather self explanatory smoothie; it was a well made cup of banana peanut buttery goodness. This smoothie made the top five in the taste category but failed to make the overall top five.

Fruit Carts

There are many fruit carts, at least four, in University City that sell pureed fruity goodness.  They are surprisingly hard to track down for smoothie night testing, so we were not able to sample them all. But there are many, and their number is growing.  So I encourage any other  lover of smoothies to give these fruit carts a proper investigation.

Something to eat when you want to feel impressive

Brown Sugar Bakery (219 S 52nd) and Hibiscus Cafe (4907 Catherine)

Brown Sugar Bakery and Hibiscus Cafe both offer distinctive ingredients, such as spices or irish moss if you are hoping to sound impressive with your food choices, and flavor combination that I have not found elsewhere.  They did not do too well up against other smoothies, but we might have just picked the wrong flavors.  They are still worth exploring for something different.  By something different I mean paying the cashier through a bullet proof glass window.

Dishonorable Mention

It is difficult to make a bad smoothie.  In fact on average the smoothies we tried were enjoyable.  These places however put in the extra effort into making their smoothies extra bad.

3. Kale and Pineapple Smoothie from Satellite Cafe

A place to go to discuss undercuts and anarchist theory
Not a place to go to drink smoothies

You might remember the Satellite Cafe from my hot chocolate post.  Not only do they make hot chocolate that only a self hating hipster could enjoy, they also make smoothies that only people too cool to have taste buds would seek out.  We should have known it would be bad when kale was in the name of the smoothie.  In their notes one judge wrote, "I DON'T LIKE KALE."  Okay, that judge was me, I don't like kale, but the other judges disliked this smoothie too.  They felt it tasted too bland or too strongly of banana to be enjoyable.

2. Durian Smoothie from Saigon Pho & Cafe

Just look at the durian.
It clearly has no intention of being eaten

I admit, we cannot entirely blame Saigon on this one.  Durian is a horribly smelly fruit.  It would be silly to expect it to taste good.  Of course we did, and paid dearly for our foolishness.  Saigon is still somewhat responsible because they did put this on their menu.  Someone there must have thought it was good enough to sell.  I disagree.  

1. Salty Lassi from Tandoor India

This is a salt lassi.
You can understand what inspired some of
the more unconventional flavor comparisons.

We were not prepared for the salty lassi.  The taste is meant to be sweet and salty, which our uncultured palletes did not take kindly to in a smoothie type drink.  Some judges thought it resembled alfredo sauce.  Another judge said it tasted like a worse version of jizz.  After one judge pointed this out, a few simply refused to taste it at all.  It was that bad.  This reaction was not solely the result of our unfamiliarity with salty lassi.  Our resident lassi experts confirmed that Tandoor India supplied a rather poor beverage, even for salty lassi standards.

The official ranking and scores

1. Pina Colada Smoothie from Mediterranean Cafe (Taste 8.8, Texture 7.4)

2. Passion Fruit Smoothie from Ochatto (Taste 8.29, Texture 7.14)

3. Peaches and Cream Lassi from Mood Cafe (Taste 7.5, Texture 7.17)

3. World Cafe Live Smoothie from OCF Coffee House (Taste 8, Texture 6.67)

5. Fresh Fruit Cart on 35th and Market (Taste 7.4, Texture 7.2)

6. Pumpkin Chai Smoothie from Kaffa Crossing (Taste 7.63, Texture 6.71)

7. Banana Peanut Butter Smoothie from Surf City Squeeze (Taste 7.5, Texture 6.75)

8. Mango Lassi from Desi Chaat House (Taste 7.13, Texture 6.75)

9. Papaya Smoothie from Brown Sugar Bakery (Taste 7.2, Texture 6.6)

10. Peach Smoothie from Joe's Cafe (Taste 7, Texture 6.75)

10. Strawberry Lassi from New Delhi (Taste 7.38, Texture 6.38)

12. Mango Lassi from Sitar India (Taste 6.38, Texture 6.57)

13. Heidi Ho Cafe (Taste 7.2, Texture 6.2)

14. Kaleatta Smoothie from Honeygrow (Taste 6.71, Texture 6.33)

15. Sweet Lassi from Desi Village (Taste 6.33, Texture 6.67)

16. Super Pomegranate Smoothie from Ben and Jerry's (Taste 6.86, Texture 5.86)

17. Mango Lassi from Kabobeesh (Taste 6.5, Texture 6.13)

17. Mango Lime Smoothie from Currito Burritos (Taste 6.5, Texture 6.13)

17. Tropical Smoothie from Saigon Cuisie (Taste 7.38, Texture 5.25)

20. Strawberry Banana Smoothie from Wawa (Taste 6.17, Texture 6.33)

21. Peanut Punch Smoothie from Hibiscus Cafe (Taste 6.6, Texture 5.6)

22. Pineapple Mango Smoothie from Fresh Fruit Salad Cart on 36th and Spruce (Taste 5.4, Texture 6.2)

23. Mango Pineapple Smoothie from Saxby's (Taste 5.67, Texture 5.67)

24. Ashley Smoothie from Milk and Honey Market (Taste 5.86, Texture 5.29)

25. Avocado Smoothie from Sankee (Taste 6.2, Texture 4.8) 

26. Tropical Paradise Smoothie from Pottruck (Taste 5.67, Texture 4.67)

27. Orange Mango Smoothie from Starbucks (Taste 5.13, Texture 5)

28. Mango, Tumeric and Cardamom Smoothie from Bliss Juices and Icecream/ Manakeesh (Taste 4.75, Texture 4.25)

29. Kale Pineapple Smoothie from Satellite Cafe (Taste 4, Texture 4.2)

30. Durian Smoothie from Saigon Pho & Cafe (Taste 4.25, Texture 3.63)

31. Salty Lassi from Tandoor India (Taste 1.5, Texture 4.33)

        After nine months and 31 smoothies here we are.  As with the best pizzas, the best smoothies came from some rather unexpected places.  Fortunately most smoothies are enjoyable, so you can try smoothies reasonably far down on the list before regretting your life decisions.  I found that the smoothie flavor can have a bigger impact on how good the smoothie is than the establishment selling the smoothie.  So look for places with interesting menus, and give the places that fared worse the benefit of the doubt.  These establishments might be capable of making good normal flavored smoothies.  Oh, and don't get a smoothie with a fruit flavor you already expect to be awful (like Durian).  Now go my fruit loving minions, go with this newfound knowledge and explore the smoothie goodness that West Philly has to offer!

WTF is Back to School

        Hey humans, guess what?  It's just about September.  Which means it is back to school time.  Maybe some of you are a bit old for thinking about back to school.  However,  if you are in graduate school, like I am, you will never be too old to think about back to school, you will be in school for the rest of your life, (by which I mean the next 4-6 years).  Even if you aren't in any sort of educational environment, the idea of "back to school style," whatever that means, can still be applicable to you.  I don't even watch and have still been bombarded with back to school clothing ads.  This made me wonder, what is back to school clothing, and why is it being advertised on every single Youtube video I watch?

        Going back to school means meeting many new people, and seeing old ones you have not seen in a long time. Back to school time represents a major opportunity to decide how you want this whole new, or old, community to see you.  For those of us in school, it is similar to what people experience after New Year, when they resolve to change themselves.  Honestly, I think back to school is a better opportunity to start fresh than New Year's Day is.  A person's resolutions to change just aren't that convincing when you just saw them the night before sloppy drunk at a New Year's Eve party.  But when you go back to school you have the entire summer to let people forget all of the dumb or terrible stuff you did before.  Even if you are no longer involved in school, the idea of a chance to reinvent yourself for a new community is pretty universal.

Maybe it is the plastic america number goggles,
maybe it is the quantity of alcohol this man must have consumed,
but something about New Year's Eve revelers just does not convince me of their ability to follow through on those New Year's resolutions.

        How you dress can play a key role in dictating how new friends, or old acquiescences perceive you.  This is why people care about back to school clothing.  Its a tool in helping them reshape how others see them.  Certainly your personality should speak louder than how you look, but the way you present yourself can become something like a filter through which people perceive your personality, at least for first impressions.  So no, despite what retailers and magazines will tell you, there isn't a specific set of clothing earmarked as back to school fashion.  Anything they are pushing right now is probably just fall fashion and the same for people who aren't going back to school.  Retailers are just trying to turn your insecurities, and your desire to be seen as likable into money.  I know...shocking. So how are we supposed to approach this nebulous concept of back to school style if it isn't a real thing after all, especially if we want to decide how people view us?  This September is my 18th back to school in my life.  I have attempted to reinvent myself for a good number of those, and even occasionally succeeded. So I will offer my thoughts on the matter.

The fashion industry is preying on your insecurities to sell you stuff?!
Patrick is shocked

1. Decide how you want to be seen

        The whole point of back to school style is to help people see you the way you want to be seen.  You can't do much in this department if you don't even know what you want.  For example, my senior year of high school started after a major break up that left me very unsure of myself.  I wanted to feel attractive, so I ended up wearing a lot of short skirts and high shoes that year.  In that time, I learned that I liked dressing well.  So that became part of my reinventions in college.  As I felt more proud of being different my goal became to present myself as unique, interesting and cool, and intentionally avoiding being pinned down to one type of style.  So ask yourself how you want people to see you.  Do you want to be taken seriously? To be seen as very clean and traditional? Approachable? Cool? Chic? Edgy? The options are endless, and any combination of them is fine.  What is important is that you are still being true to yourself.  You are deciding what about yourself you want people to see, not inventing an imaginary person to play dress up as.  If you are super into makeup and you want a legion of instagram followers, go ahead and glop the make up on.  If you don't enjoy makeup or have the patience for it, then this probably isn't a good way for you to try looking pretty.  If you do not care about how you dress, then don't start pretending to.  You will attract people with different values then you that you might not care for.

This child is not actually a shark, he is just pretending to be one.
He is doing back to school wrong.

2. Realistically think about how much effort you want to put in

        Most of us work very hard to look good on the first week of school, and then look like sad potato sacks by finals week.  I know, I do this too.  Starting a new back to school look or routine is entirely pointless if you can't actually maintain the look once classes kick into full swing.  For example, I do not have the patience to mess with my hair most days.  I want to get out of bed, shake my head around, and have my hair look good.  So I would be wasting my time trying to rock a hairstyle that requires fastidious attention, when I know I won't want to deal with it in a few weeks.  There might be things you care about and are willing to put time or effort into caring for.   This is great, but make sure you have something else you can be lazy about to leave time for the more intensive aspects of your routine.  If you are ready to invest time in an elaborate look, awesome.  If you are lazy, own it. You can look exactly the way you want to in either case, if you put some thought in ahead of time.

Me, attempting to look presentable at the end of the semester.

3. Think about what your life actually allows you to wear.

        Your look will implode if you can't simultaneously wear it and live your life.  Think, what sort of constraints does your school or work life put on how you dress?  Do you need to walk around a lot? Do you need to use your hands? Do you need to look professional?  Maybe you are like me and have to take a short trek through the woods to get to classes.  In that case, leave your heels at home (or in your bag).  Maybe you work at a bank but want to look like you belong in a punk band.  Then you may have to reserve the look for weekends.  I am all for self expression, but not at the expense of comfort, practicality, or your ability to pay rent.  Just be aware of the demands your life puts on you, and how these impact the way you can present yourself.

If you are really like me, you see these as a perfectly
appropriate pair of hiking boots.

4. Build an achievable a look that makes you feel good.

        So you know what you want people to see when they look at you, and how much you are willing to or can do to make that happen.  Now you have to put these ideas into action.  If you are down to invest large amounts of time in how you look, you probably don't need my advice.  But if you are lazier, or have a limited understanding of how to look the way you want, read on!

LAZY PEOPLE UNITE!

        One of the easiest ways to transform how you look is with a hair cut, and/or change of facial hair for my hirsute friends out there.  Simpler, neater, and sleeker cuts tend to look more professional, more serious, and more approachable.  More experimental, textured, or complicated cuts look more cool, edgy and distinctive.  Talk to the stylist about how much effort you are willing to put in, and how to give you a cut you want that you can actually still rock once school gets busy.  For the men out there, if you don't have the time or patience to shave everyday, being clean shaven probably isn't for you.  Facial hair tends to look less professional, so if you want to look professional and be lazy, keep a neatly trimmed beard of some sort.  If you want to be lazy and look like a bad ass, just rock stubble all the time.  If you do not grow facial hair evenly and want to look like a person who bathes, please clean shave.

Look! It looks like I am trying to be presentable.  Secretly I am
being lazy.  YAY NEW HAIRCUT!

        You can take a similar approach with your wardrobe.  First make sure your clothing fits and makes you feel good about yourself.  Then, research the style that interests you, and put together outfits that fit this style.  I mean this literally.  Literally put outfits together in your closet.  If you are not busy right now, you will be soon.  It will be much easier to keep up your look if you have outfits ready to go and don't have to think about it during midterms.  You may not even need any new clothing.  You could just wear what you already have in a different way.

        Finally, consider the details of your look.  A pair of sunglasses can make you look cool, a watch can make you look professional.  You do not need to think about extensive accessories to complete your look every day.  Instead, make sure you have something that you can wear most days, will not take much effort to put on, and will round out your look.  A pair of shoes that goes with your style is the easiest example of this.  Most of us need to wear shoes anyway.  They are a detail that can say quite a bit about you.  If you want to look professional loafers, or low simple pumps are the way to go.  For a preppy look, rock boat shoes or flip flops.  For a cooler look, high top sneakers are always a good option.

To look cool just wear sunglasses,
at night,
indoors,
forever

        In the end, there is no such thing as "back to school clothing."  It is just the clothing you wear once school starts.  What clothing stores and magazines try to sell us is the belief that if we do what they suggest we will become the person we always wanted to be. This isn't how it works.  Like new year's resolutions and diets, any changes you make to go back to school will quickly disappear if they don't fit into your life.  If you intend to change how you present yourself to the world, remember to make it easy on yourself.  Get a haircut you can actually look good in after an all nighter, grab some shoes and accessories you can wear without maiming yourself (or others),  and have outfits planned out so you don't have to think about matching colors when you wake up 10 minutes before your class that is a 20 minute walk away.  The remaining details of how you build your back to school look depend on who you want to be seen as, and that's unique to you.  Remember, you are reinventing your look to show the world your favorite parts of yourself, not someone else's idea of what you are supposed to look like.  Good luck this year!

The Good, the Bad, the Cheesy: Ranking of Pizza in West Philly

         Those of you close to me were probably invited to one of my many Pizza nights, an event that happened once a month, that involved buying five or six pizzas from different "Pizza Places" across West Philly, sampling the pizzas, and rating them on their quality.  Pizzas were rated on a 1 to 10 scale on overall taste, the quality of the crust, and the quality of the toppings.  Over the course of the school year, we sampled 38 different pizzas from 38 "Pizza Places" across West Philly, and have picked what we think is the best.

         What's a "Pizza Place" you say.  Well curious consumer, a "Pizza Place" for this experiment is defined as an establishment that sells at least two different kinds of "Pizza, " where a "Pizza" must have a crust, even if this crust is a bagel or pita, and have cheese, tomato sauce, or be marketed as pizza.  While were sixty some places that sold something that resembled a pizza, and a number of Chinese restaurants that sold pizza rolls, only about 38 places qualified to participate in this pizza tasting.

          The number of judges at each tasting varied between four and ten people.  The judges voted on which types of pizza to order from which restaurant.  Each restaurant and pizza was identified by a number, so that the judges did not know where the pizza came from until after judging.  Instead of picking a plain pizza from each restaurant, we tried to pick what appeared to be a specialty, or a type of pizza unique to the location.  Sometimes we may not have chosen the best pizza a restaurant had to show for itself, but a strong pizza place should be consistent in quality across the flavors it offers.  The last caveat I will identify is that all pizzas were either delivered or picked up.  Many sit in restaurants offer very good pizza, to be eaten in the restaurant, that simply do not retain their quality during the up to twelve block walk back to my house.  With all of this in mind, I present to you the results of my long, arduous, and occasionally scrumptious search for the best pizza in West Philly.

Top 5 "Pizzas"

4 (Tied). Danger Pie from Clarkville (43rd and Baltimore)

I am inserting pictures of yummy
pizza from the winning restaurants

          The Danger Pie is a slightly elevated version of a classic cheese pizza.  It is adorned with garlic tomato sauce, house mozzarella, oregano, and sea salt.  Clarkville does this pizza justice.  While not innovative, the Danger Pie tastes exactly like a pizza should, if everything were executed just right.  The crust has a nice crunch which you can enjoy in the restaurant but not if you order the pizza for carry out.  So to enjoy this pizza properly, eat it in the restaurant.  This is tied as the highest rated traditional pizza we sampled.

4 (Tied). White Pizza from Abner's Cheesesteaks (3813 Chestnut)

I lied.  This is not an image of a pizza. It not yummy.
 Do not consume.

         Abner's does not have any of the frills of some fancier pizza places.  The white pizza is topped with olive oil, garlic, mozzarella and oregano.  You should know that many of the judges do not care for white pizza, so for this one to have received the rating it did, Abner's must have done something right.  This was the highest rated traditional pizza that you can get delivered that we sampled.

3. Honey Goat Cheese Flatbread from City Tap House (3925 Walnut)

Resume yummy pizza pictures.

        City Tap House makes a host of fine flatbreads.  They are a bit fancier (read more pretentious) than other pizza's we tried, but the quality of the pizza itself was worth the higher cost and the pretentiousness.    This flatbread is adorned with red onion, pistachio pesto, rosemary, goat cheese, and truffled honey.  I don't even know how one truffles honey, but it sure does taste good.

2. Zataar and Cheese Manakeesh from Manakeesh (4420 Walnut)

I'm posting these to make you hungry.

        Calling this a pizza might be a bit of a stretch.  Manakeesh are a fluffy Lebanese flatbread.  Zataar is a flavorful middle eastern spice blend.  So this flatbread is just a mash of flavorful spices on a fluffy chunk of goodness.  The Zataar and Cheese Manakeesh may not quite cure your craving for pizza but it is certainly worth trying.

1. Chicken Tikka Pizza from Shaban (4145 Chestnut)

I hope it's working.

         So Shaban makes notably good Paneer Tikka and Chicken Tikka.  Basically they slapped one of their more successful dishes on a pizza and called it a day.  This was a spicy and interesting change of pace from ordinary pizza.

Honorable Mention 

        These pizzas made the top five in either the taste, crust, or topping category, but failed to make the top five overall.

Tres Queso Mollete from Tortas Frontera (3601 Locust Walk)

This mollete has brought honor onto
its family.

        A mollete is a mexican open faced sandwich.  However the ones served at Frontera are typically covered in cheese, tomato and toppings in just the right way to satisfy a pizza craving.  The Tres Queso Mollete is covered in sun-dried tomatoes, poblano rajas, goat cheese, chihuahua cheese, queso cotija, and chiptole garlic mojo.  What can be bad about this?  To be honest, I don't exactly know what many of the ingredients I just listed are, and do not expect you to either.  Though I assure you these mysterious toppings are quite enjoyable. The Tres Queso Mollete made the top five in both the taste and toppings category, it only failed to place because some judges took issue with it's un-pizza-like crust.  Regardless of this, the Tres Queso Mollete is hands down the best Pizza you can get on a Penn dining plan.

Royal Pizza (4200 Baltimore) and Zavino (3200 Chestnut)

You must be on the other side of this
wall to enjoy these pizzas properly.

         Both Royal Pizza and Zavino supplied pizzas that broke the top five in the crust category.  Royal Pizza was a but of a dark horse here.  Even more surprising was Zavino only making the top five in crust and not other categories.  Zavino is a well respected eat-in pizza restaurant.  The eat-in aspect is clear here.  The pizza's just don't travel well, which is probably why they don't deliver.  So try this place if you are down for a sit down meal, otherwise you are doing their pizza a disservice.

Dishonorable Mention

       Pizza's you just shouldn't eat.  In fact, I refuse to give you the addresses of these places so you don't go here and try to eat the pizza yourself.  These pizzas are counted down from least horrible to most horrible.

3. Vegetable Pizza from South Side Pizza

This is not a yummy pizza

        Something was just wrong with this pizza, likely poor quality toppings. The judges said things like "The olives are terrible","The crust is too stiff", or worst of all "This tastes like Commons Pizza."  We intentionally did not include Commons Pizza in our sample set because it wasn't worth the suffering it would cause.  Still it haunted us.

2. Veggie Lover's Pizza from Pizza Hut

Any hunger you are feeling at the  site of
this pizza is just your body betraying you.

        Why would you even get pizza from Pizza Hut?  You should know better.  The crust in particular upset the judges.  The average score for the crust was a 2.71  on a scale of 1 to 10.  This is the lowest score any pizza received in any category.

1. Margherita Pizza from Cosi

This pizza will break your heart.

        This one was a bit surprising.  The food at Cosi is reasonably good, and people have said their pizzas are as well.  The pizza we sampled had rubbery blobs of cheese, and nothing to redeem it.  It wasn't the worst in any given category, just the most consistently bad.

Complete Pizza Ranking (with scores)

1. Chicken Tikka Pizza from Shaban (Taste: 9.25, Crust: 6.5, Toppings: 9.5)
2. Zataar and Cheese Manakeesh from Manakeesh (Taste: 8.2, Crust: 7.8, Toppings: 8.2)
3. Honey Goat Cheese Flatbread from City Tap House (Taste: 8.09, Crust: 6.81, Toppings: 8)
4. Danger Pie from Clarkville (Taste: 7.14, Crust: 6.57, Toppings: 7.29)
4. White Pizza from Abner's Cheesesteaks (Taste: 7.71, Crust: 7.43, Toppings: 5.86)
6. Upsidedown Pizza from Royal Pizza (Taste: 7.4, Crust: 6.6, Toppings: 6.8)
7.  Stache from Zavino (Taste: 6.8, Crust: 6.8, Toppings: 7)
8. Greek Pizza from Colonial Pizza (Taste: 6.88, Crust: 6.5, Toppings: 7.13)
9.  Mediterranean Pizza from Accu Pizza (Taste: 7.38, Crust: 5.5, Toppings: 7)
10.  Tres Queso Mollete from Frontera (Taste: 7.43, Crust: 4.57, Toppings: 7.71)
11.  Vegetarian Flatbread from Harvest (Taste: 6.86, Crust: 5, Toppings: 7.71)
12.  Vegetarian Flatbread from Penne (Taste: 6.5, Crust: 6.25, Toppings: 6.75)
13.  Mediterranean Pizza from Savas (Taste: 6.8, Crust: 5.2, Toppings: 7.1)
14. Tropical Pizza Evan's Varsity Pizza (Taste: 6.2, Crust: 6.2, Toppings: 6.4)
14. Devil's Delight from Powelton Pizza (Taste: 6.4, Crust: 5.8, Toppings: 6.6)
16. Eggplant Pizza from Vegetate (Taste: 6.5, Crust: 5.5, Toppings: 6.75)
17. Green Pepper Pizza from Drexel Pizza (Taste: 7 Crust: 5.2, Toppings: 6.4)

18. Salsa Pizza from Mad Greek Restaurant (Taste: 6, Crust: 5.63, Toppings: 6.25)

19. A La Greek from Dock Street Brewery Co (Taste: 5.88, Crust: 5.13, Toppings: 6.75)

20. Mushroom and Onion Pizza from Enjay's Pizza/ Smokey Joe's (Taste: 6.29, Crust: 5.71, Toppings: 5.57)

21. Greek Pizza from Pasqually's Pizza (Taste: 6.19, Crust: 5.38, Toppings: 7.86)

22. White Pizza from Rana Halal (Taste: 6, Crust: 4.67, Toppings: 6)

23. Vegilicious Pizza from Penn Pizza Cafe (Taste: 5.5, Crust: 5.2, Toppings: 5.83)

24. Sicillian Pizza from Allegro Pizza (Taste: 5.86, Crust: 4.86, Toppings: 5.8)

25. White Pizza from Axis Pizza (Taste: 5.86, Crust: 6, Toppings: 4.43)

26. Greek Pizza from Stacy's Pizza and Wings (Taste: 5.4, Crust: 5.35, Toppings: 5.4)

27. Mediterranean Pizza from New Style Pizzaria (Taste: 5.6, Crust: 5.1, Toppings: 5.4)

28. White Pizza from California Pizza Kitchen (Taste: 5.29, Crust: 5.29, Toppings: 5.43)

28. Greek Pizza from Ed's Buffalo Wings and Pizza (Taste: 5.4, Crust: 5.8, Toppings: 4.8)

28. Greek Pizza from Ted's Pizza Express (Taste: 5.5, Crust: 4.88, Toppings: 5.63)

31. Vegetarian Pizza from Fiesta Pizza (Taste: 6, Crust: 4, Toppings: 5.75)

32. Spinach and Feta Pizza from Dominoes Pizza (Taste: 5.38, Crust: 5.14, Toppings: 5.13)

33. Mediteranian Pizza from Zesto Pizza  (Taste: 5.8, Crust: 4, Toppings: 5.75)

34. Cheese Pizza from Cavannaugh's (Taste: 5, Crust: 4.6, Toppings: 5.6)

35. Plain Pizza with Basil from Pizza Wings Steaks (Taste: 4.89, Crust: 4.67, Toppings: 4.63)

36. Vegetable Pizza from South Side Pizza (Taste: 3.2, Crust: 6.4, Toppings: 3)

37. Veggie Lover's Pizza from Pizza Hut (Taste: 5, Crust: 2.71, Toppings: 4.86)

38. Margherita Pizza from Cosi (Taste: 3.86, Crust: 3.14, Toppings: 4.14)

       Well there you have it, the ranking of most pizza you can get in West Philly.  Maybe you are wondering what happened to Dock Street Brewery.  Why did it preform so poorly.  Simply put, their pizzas were never intended to travel.  

        What do you think?  Did we miss your favorite pizza place, insult your favorite pizza, or inspire you to try something new?  Are you craving a slice of cheesy goodness? If nothing else this adventure has taught me that there is an overwhelming amount of mediocre pizza out there, but also that good pizza can be found in unexpected places.  So be adventurous in your search for good food.  It will often suck, but be very rewarding in the end.  Or you are less adventurous, you can just let me explore food for you and report back from the trenches.  I am happy to take requests.