Merry Xmas

Well it's only been 12 days, so not too bad.

It's kind of amazing/sad how my updating this past year has drastically fallen since 2008 when I started this little online journal. Granted, 3 months without an update probably contributed to that, but still. I'm not sure if I'm just getting lazier with it or my life has become much less
interesting, even to myself. Possibly a mixture of the two, but I probably shouldn't dwell on it.

On to updating!

On Sunday the 18th (after my last post) I received an email from a recruiter asking if she could send my resume to a company. I replied with an affirmative after reading the very vague job description and thought nothing of it. On Monday she contacted me again, stating the company was very interested in me and wanted to set up an interview on Tuesday. I agreed (of course) and on Tuesday had a good interview with the people there (at WuXi AppTec). They told me during the interview that the job I was applying for was basic

ally staring at slides for 6-8 hours a day (painful) but they had another job opening doing more lab related things. They ended saying that they were interviewing into early the following week and so I should hear back by the end of that week (this week so ~29th). On Wednesday, the recruiter called me during my dentist appointment (no cavities! woohoo!), so I called her back, played phone tag for a bit, but finally got the news via email that they wanted to hire me!

Long paragraph for a short story, but overall exciting news! So I gave the VA my notice and I'm starting at WuXi on January 9th. Technically I'll be a contractor working through the recruitment place (Lab Staffing), but I'll be getting a paycheck so that's a relief.

I also took my physics final exam on Wednesday. We started late, but I ended up finishing in about 2 hours (3 hours were allotted for the exam) and I think it went well. No scores posted yet, but hopefully I'll find out soonish. Oh I just checked, I got a 93% on the exam and an A in the course! Hooray!

The rest of the week I attempted to finish knitting my sisters' Christmas presents (finished Sara's, did Megan's wrong and had to start over), gave my coworker her Christmas present (see pic below), and drove down to Rochester on Friday.

All the grandparents and sisters (and parents of course) and Kory and I went to dinner on Friday at Buffalo Wild Wings (Sara was working, so she didn't eat with us but she did provide excellent service :P).

On Saturday we had the Kehoe family Christmas, but it was much reduced because Travis and his new wife couldn't make it and Ben had to work. Lynn, uncle Kevin, Tyler, and the 2 dogs were there though (the little dogs and Addy did not get along). We all ate Mr. Pizza (delicious), watched the Vikings win (shock!), then opened presents (pots and pans! I can cook things now!), then the girls played cards while the boys watched more football until the Koenigs headed home and the rest of us went to church. Headed home and got settled in for our annual tradition of watching White Christmas and then headed to bed.

Sunday was Christmas! Opening some great presents, eating quiche and cinnamon rolls, and lounging in our pj's far longer than normal. Eventually, Megan, Sara, and Kory headed to Eau Claire to go to significant others' Christmases (no idea why Sara, who started seeing someone this past summer, was already going to family Christmas, but whatever).

Monday was mom's birthday but there wasn't much celebrating for it (sorry mom!). She ended up going to Panera with her friends for lunch at the same time that I went to lunch at the other Panera in town with Jackie. It was great catching up with her.

After our long lunch, headed back to an empty house. The rest of the family had to drive down to Iowa for a funeral (my dad's uncle Buzz died over the holidays). So I packed up my stuff and headed up to the cities.

Stopped home very briefly and then drove over to Nathan's. He had spent the week before Christmas in Cozumel, Mexico and then Christmas Eve night in Chicago. So we had our Christmas and exchanged gifts. I got him these painted pint glasses and he got me a cool butterfly thing in a jar that flutters when you tap it (Addy loves it) and the second book in a series. He also got me a souvenir from Mexico - a gorgeous silver necklace with a mystic topaz pendant.

Rest of the week has been slow, no one else at work until today, and even then there's not much to do. But at least the year is getting better from the last post!

Hello impending unemployment!

That's right.

We found out, the Wednesday following my last post, that our entire lab was facing impending unemployment.

Our boss decided to inform us that he was retiring and that meant we would be without jobs. When you ask? Few months from now? Perhaps March, when our grant money runs out?

Nope.

January 1.

That's right, our boss wanted to let us go during the holidays.

When asked if he could delay a couple weeks, just to give us more time to find alternate employment, he said no. The way he said it though was more like a middle finger to our lab. Our lab, which has bent over backwards for the past year trying to do anything we could to make him happy and convince him to not hate us anymore.

Luckily for us, Joe pulled some strings and got the deadline pushed back to the 17th, but it's still not nearly enough time.

So dealing with that at work (and shipping our stuff down to Arizona) has not been fun.

Last weekend Sybylla, Vicki, and strangely Monkey baked Christmas cookies, watched The Holiday, and played a fun game called Blurt.

This weekend Sara and I drove to Eau Claire on Friday and hung out with Megan, watching Say Yes to the Dress and Angels and Demons, ordering and eating tons of pizza/cheesy breadsticks, and making/eating sneak-a-bite cookie dough. We got up early on Saturday and headed over to campus for her graduation ceremony. Met up with the parents and gramma and Bernie and found decent seats in the bleachers. We then realized that I had left my camera in Megan's apartment so dad and I walked over there, got it, and walked back. Ceremony was fine, one interesting speaker (UWEC alumn who worked for Warner Home Video in CA). Went to the school's reception for a little while afterwards where I ran into Kallie, one of my friends from elementary school. Her brother had just graduated with Megan. We then went back to the apartment for a quick tour (for the parents and grandparents) and then drove over to Kory's (Megan's boyfriend) parents place for a fancy pasta meal. Finally headed home and now I have tons to do to prepare for finals and Christmas.

But hovering over it all and tainting everything is the realization that I'm going to be without a job soon.

depressing...

Congrats Trav!

Yesterday, Friday December 2, 2011, my favorite cousin growing up (Travis) got married to Heather.

The ceremony was fine, not a huge fan of some of the pastor's messages, but it was nice. Sisters and I all started crying the first time we saw Travis escort his grandmother to her seat. That was the only time I cried though, the rest of the time I was pretty good.

The wedding was in Alexandria, MN which is a bit over 2 hours drive away. Since the wedding was at 4pm on a Friday, I ended up taking the day off from work. I spent the morning tidying my apartment, dyeing my hair, and showering/shaving/making myself look purdy. I started running out of time, so I had to quick run give my apartment keys to Sybylla (who stopped in to check on/feed Addy Friday night and this morning), and then drive to pick up Nathan from his house.

Drove to the hotel, and my stupid GPS took me to a bank instead. And when I called my dad for directions he made it worse by trying to tell me to go "East." Of course I had no idea which way was east so I ended up driving around for 10 minutes with no idea where I was going. Finally got there, changed into decent clothes, and then dad drove us to the church (driving like a mad man to get us there on time).

After the ceremony we drove back to the hotel, grabbed my camera, and then walked over to the reception (right next door). Buffet food, cupcakes, expensive alcohol, live band (lot of Buddy Holly and Johnny Cash), drunk gramma, aunt slapping sister's boyfriend's butt, all in all a great fun night.

Got up this morning, ate the hotel breakfast, said goodbye to everyone, and then back on the road.

Hung out at Nathan's until Sybylla was home and then I went and picked up my keys, and headed home. Haven't done much at all since.

I do just want to note how strange I feel, having Travis all married and grown up. I mean I remember up north vacations with him jumping off the dock and swimming in the lake, Christmas time playing games and opening presents, just being kids. And now he's married, with a house. It's so unreal... I'm still not sure how I feel about it but everyone is growing up and getting older and I just wish I could go back to playing hide-and-seek at gramma's.

Happy Thanksgiving

On Wednesday at work I was planning to head out early, but instead because my boss FINALLY got back to us after a week of silence we had to stay late putting together ridiculous videos so he can finally figure out what the hell we do in the lab (should he already know? yes, definitely, and the fact that he doesn't says a lot about the lab).

Went home, ate taco ring with the family, and then watched HP 7.1 with them.

Thursday was Thanksgiving, got up, we all went on a family walk which was a lot of fun. We took Addy and Belle and Addy finally learned how to walk on the leash. It was so cute, I just wish I hadn't forgotten my camera. Got home, ate turkey dinner, and then we all took a nap in the family room. Got up, ate dessert (delicious) and then we all went to go see Breaking Dawn. In my opinion, that book did not need to be split up into two movies and the first "part" went ridiculously slow. Later that night we all watched HP 7.2. It was quite the movie-ful couple of days.

Friday was slow and lazy and didn't really do much, other than completely avoiding Black Friday shopping.

On Saturday I met Jackie for lunch at Chipotle (delicious) then went home and watched The Dutchess with Megan (good movie). Finally got my stuff packed up and drove home. I called the parents on the drive and found out they went to Culver's for dinner after I left. So jealous! After I got back to the Cities, Nathan and I went to eat at Noodles. So a really healthy weekend for me. Afterwards we watched Paranormal Activity, and holy crap is that movie terrifying.

On Sunday we went to breakfast/lunch at Fat Nat's Eggs. It was pretty good. Went home, went to Target and bought tons of stuff including a 6' tree for $10. Wrote my lab report, tried to go to bed, and could not sleep for the life of me.

Work sucked today. That's about it.

I'll be under the bridge...

So I've got some more updating to do...

I have been discreetly looking at alternative employment opportunities (ie applying for a new job) and even had 2 interviews at the U of MN (one I didn't get, the other is still undecided). I've been doing this not because I dislike my current job (or the nice salary that goes with it) but because my boss currently hates our lab and is doing what he can to make us miserable. Including refusing to communicate with my coworker about her Masters thesis (which he's supposed to be a committee member for) and basically telling us everything we do and say is idiotic and 'not scientifically based.' Like anything he says is... but I digress.

This week at work we got an odd request from our sister lab in Arizona. Basically it was to take our entire equipment inventory, put it in an excel, and send it to them (complete with model number, serial number, purchase date/price, and where the funding for it came from). There is really no logical reason they would need this information, but we didn't think too much about it.

Until of course the immediate supervisor down there (Miguel, plays a similar role to what Joe does up here) talked to Katie on the phone and informed her that 1. he was quitting and would be leaving around the holidays and 2. our money is running out and the big boss for some reason decided to not resubmit the grant. Not because it wasn't done or because it would be difficult. Just because. Meaning that our lab up here will be out of funds by March. Meaning that we will be out of jobs in March.

As much as I've wanted to leave anyway, I wanted it to be by my choice. No pressure to find a new job, plus the added bonus of being able to quit and leave them stuck there with no way to get shit done without me (or my coworker, who was going to try to leave when I did).

The weirdest thing is that we had to hear about this from AZ. So my coworker confronted Joe about it, and he knew but he remains optimistic that our boss will get his head out of his ass and plan to submit in July and pray for "gap funding" to cover us between March and July.

So the moral of this story is that, come March, I may be jobless...

In other news, I went to eat at Parkway Pizza last night with Vicki, Sybylla, and Sybylla's friend Monkey. Went and got Addy afterwards to bring to Sybylla's house where we watched Tangled and The Incredibles (and the kitten of course). A fun night, despite the crazy first snow making the roads treacherous...

Fail Kat

Yep, I suck.

So I'll fill you all in on the past THREE AND A HALF MONTHS.

I haven't been this bad at updating since I was writing in a diary.

August:

Things and stuff, it's been awhile so cut me some slack!

Near the end of August (22nd ish?), Vicki, Sybylla, and I went camping up in WI near Lake Superior. It was beautiful, but cold. We went on some short hikes, took tons of pictures, ate s'mores and pie iron pizzas, and overall had a pretty good time. Afterwards we drove a little north of Duluth along the lake to stop and take some pictures there as well. It was a fun trip.

The most important thing that happened to me in August was finally moving into an apartment - it's an adorable studio right on Lake Street, within blocks of Target, Arby's, McDonald's, and a Hennepin County Library. I acquired furniture for said apartment (namely a twin-sized fold out loveseat, a small dining table and 2 chairs, a rolling wooden cart, some small bookshelves, and my dad's old lazy boy recliner). The majority of the aforementioned furniture was purchased in Rochester at the Charter House sale and delivered to me the day after my birthday by my parents via the BOAT. Yep, pretty hick. Megan came to help with the move as well as Jackie, and we all went out to eat at Fat Lorenzo's (delicious).

September:

In September I started my Introductory Physics class at the U of MN, meaning that every week (Tues-Thurs) I have to drive to the light rail, take that up to the Metrodome, where I then get on a bus that takes me to campus. The entire commute usually takes around 30 minutes if I time it right. That's each way of course. At first it was all fun and exciting and I met up with Sara a few times, opened a savings and a checking account at TCF (yay free sweatshirt), etc. Now, however, the commute is just a hassle.

Back to September! Celebrated Nathan's birthday with a bonfire (we celebrated mine earlier at Olive Garden - YUM).

I also started getting lonely at my apartment, which is strange because it wasn't like I interacted all that much with Jordan, or even Harley, at my old place. But the idea of adopting a pet (preferably a dog) was becoming irresistible. Finally I talked to my new "landlords" (a company owns my building) and learned that, despite what the caretaker had told me when I toured the place, no dogs allowed, only cats. That bummed me out for a little while until I finally realized that 1) I don't spend enough time at home to take good care of a dog + no yard or anything and 2) I like cats! Trust me, the second one was harder to come to terms with, but I finally realized that it depends on the cats and my prejudice against them really held no merit. So I started kitten-shopping on Petfinder.com...

October:

I also decided to do a little test run, since as far as I know I'm technically allergic to cats. Since I haven't had much of a problem with Nathan's 2 cats, I decided to see if I really could live with them in my tiny little apartment. So when Nathan went on his all-expenses-paid "work" trip to California I offered to watch his cats at my place. Other than the fact that my "bedroom" has no way to lock out a playful cat, it was going well, so on October 2 I arranged and met with a foster mom (at Secondhand Hounds) to meet an adorable little kitten. Sybylla went with me for moral support, and we both fell in love with her. So I started going through the paperwork to make it official.

I returned the cats to Nathan's, then on Friday I drove Sybylla, Monkey, and myself down to Mystic Lake Casino/hotel where we spent the night swimming, eating at the buffet, and playing bingo in celebration of Sybylla's 25th birthday. We stayed up late in our room building a puzzle (no lie) then slept. Headed out the next morning, ate at a Sonic, met Monkey's giant black dog 'Sirius' (who plays dead when you make a slashing motion and say "avada kedavra" - hilarious!), and then I headed out to pick up my new kitten.

Brought her straight to Nathan's house where there was a bonfire party for Chris' birthday. Everyone admired the kitten (who was wearing the cone of shame due to having been spayed only a few days previously) and she contented herself riding on my shoulder or sitting on my lap purring. Nathan's cats didn't care for her though...

Can't really remember what else happened in October, other than carving pumpkins with Nathan and Chris, spending Halloween at their house (only 1 trick-or-treater = lots of candy for me!), finally naming the kitten (Adelaide, Addy for short), taking her to the vet for the sniffles, driving to ND to visit Nathan's family (I brought Addy), and that's about it.

November (so far):

Well I finally made it to the correct month! It only took me 35 minutes...

So far this month nothing really exciting has happened. Took a horrible Physics test on Thursday. Thing is, it wasn't that hard, we just didn't get enough time! As in, in our class of 100, only one person finished before the time limit. That's bad.

After that though I went to Target and bought the final book in the Eragon series. It wasn't the page turner I was expecting it to be and I didn't even finish it until Sunday night. I drove home from Target and had just enough time to do a little tidying before Megan showed up. She stayed the night and then went to an interview in Chanhassen the next morning. I made her watch Kill Bill for the first time and she liked it - of course!

After her interview we met up at the Mall of America (it was Veteran's Day so I had the day off from work). Wandered and chatted and split a pretzel and then discovered the Disney store. I ended up buying a Lion King mug (50% off!). Parted ways and I went home to read more. Then I went to Nathan's, ate dinner, and then we went to meet up with Chris and Kyle to see Immortals. It was okay, lots of gore and pretty half naked men (think 300) but the plot was kind of terrible.

On Saturday I went with Nathan to a Border Collie Rescue of MN adoption event, where we played with puppies and met his new foster dog. He had been fostering a chunky girl named Mylie but she was recently adopted. Now he's fostering a little boy named Chance. Drove home, and headed straight over to my library (been there every weekend except one since moving to my apartment - I've read a lot of new books on my commutes to and from campus!). They were having a book sale so I came home with 6 new books for $3. Score. Waited around and read/napped until I had to go pick up Sara. Picked her up and drove to Target where we bought wedding gifts for our cousin Travis and his fiancee Heather. Then came home, watched some TV while she did homework, and then we put in Harry Potter 7.2 (newly purchased from Target). Sara also made cookies and a chocolate cake (the cake was to bring to the shower the next day).

On Sunday we got up early, got ready, ate Eggos, and were out the door by 9:20am. I drove to Mankato where we met up with extended family for Heather's bridal shower. Only played 2 silly games (I was not very good at them), ate good food, and hung out with family. Eventually the party was over so I drove us both back to Minneapolis.

Monday was boring, today is Tuesday, which means I'm all caught up!

Thank goodness...

Canada

When I was 12 (the summer right before turning 13) I went on my first ever trip to Canada to go fishing with my dad, my grandpa, my uncles, and 2 of my male cousins as well as my great uncle. While I remember very little from this first trip, it began a tradition of me being the only girl spending a week in NW Ontario fishing with the boys. While the trip didn't happen for me every summer (I skipped a summer where I instead went to Spain and France, and another summer was skipped by all due to scheduling conflicts, etc and so on) it was common enough that I just sort of took it for granted.

Flash forward to today: I just got back from another week in Canada, and realized that it has been 4 years since my last trip! 4 years! That's the summer before I went to Australia, before I even started keeping an online journal. This is kind of crazy for me.

I also won't be able to go next year either if my plans to have a big awesome European adventure pan out (and I hope they do). But that also makes me sad because it really is an amazing vacation.

So lets get to the details of the trip. This year I went with my dad, grandpa, uncle Craig, uncle John and his sons Ryan (17) and Griffin (14), and my uncle Brad and his sons Ian (12) and Owen (10). On Friday July 29th I worked the morning, got home around 1pm, and had about 5 minutes before my dad and Brad and a couple of the boys picked me up. I had a lovely lunch of combos and diet mountain dew in the back of the packed van and entertained myself reading my Kindle during the ride to Hinckley, where we stopped at the casino to eat at the buffet and let grandpa get his slots on. Then continued on to International Falls and then Fort Frances, ON. Here we stopped at the motel for the night.

On Saturday morning we continued the drive up to ~Perrault Falls on Lake Wabaskang. We arrived at the dock and waited to get picked up by the boats from our camp (Peffley's). We had stayed here before (when I was like 13-14) but it was under different ownership at the time. We moved in to our cabins (Brad, John, and the boys were in Cabin 4 and the rest of us were in Cabin 3). After we got settled and got our poles set up and ate a quick lunch we got out on the water. Griffin rode in the boat with my dad and I and we got skunked that afternoon/night. It sucked because the first night we didn't catch a fish (dad might've caught one but I don't remember that clearly). Sunday it was just my dad and I (I think) and we did a bit better, catching a stringer full of walleye.

On Monday I fished with Grandpa and I ran the boat, dropped the anchor when needed, retied his line when it broke off, took off his fish, etc and so on and finally appreciated how much work my dad does for our boat (granted I tie my own line, deal with my fish, and can handle the anchor, but still). Even with all that work we both managed to outfish the rest of the boats out there. Tuesday I started the day with Grandpa again, but when the night rolled around it was just my dad and I again.

On Wednesday my dad and I and Brad and Ian went to Lost Lake - a 3/4 mile hike through woods (on a very narrow deer trail) carrying our gear to a couple of boats with a 3 and a 4 horsepower motor (small). It was an okay day - my dad and I caught a bunch of walleye and Ian caught a nice 30" northern pike (decently big) but it wasn't really the giant trophy walleye and northern we went there to catch. It was a good day though - we had a nice lunch on a rock and even saw a couple of loons dancing on the water (some sort of mating or territorial display).

Thursday we all (except Grandpa and Craig) took the boats up to a portage over a waterfall to a waterway over to Wine Lake. The boats were hauled over on rollers and we all just drifted down the water casting for northern. Ian was with dad and I and we were the first boat going down the way and definitely caught the most fish. It was really fun seeing the fish go for the lures and we also saw a couple of otters in the water. A bit before lunch time some dark clouds rolled in out of nowhere, complete with rain and thunder/lightning. We all motored back to the dock and took shelter under some trees while the storm blew over us. Unfortunately no one had any rain gear other than a couple of emergency ponchos so we all got rather wet. After the storm we ate our packed lunch while trying to dry off and then got back in the boats to catch more fish. We motored down to a bigger lake opening but didn't really catch much there so eventually we went back to the area we were hammering them at right around the corner from the docks. Our boat at the end of the day pulled in 42 fish (17 for Ian, 13 for dad, and 12 for me). It was definitely a good day. We went out again later that night and caught more fish (I think).

On Friday we had a pretty slow start to the morning and finally got out on the lake. This time Ryan went with my dad and I and we were all going out fishing for perch (we had filled our limit on walleye, came close to the limit of northern, and basically only needed more perch - we'd never fill the limit on those though because you can take back 50 perch per person, vs 2 walleye and 2 northern). We went over to a spot marked on our map as a good perch spot and anchored down in the weeds and used an underwater camera to look for the perch (pretty cool). We didn't find any in the first spot and I finally convinced my dad to go closer in to shore. We headed inward and at one point my dad wanted to stop but I made him keep going for awhile until I had a "gut feeling" that we were in the right place. We dropped anchor, put our slip bobbers out, and immediately started reeling them in. We dropped the camera down there and saw tons of perch just swimming around. We had such good luck there that the other 3 boats from our group came and joined us, crowding around the spot. We all caught a bunch of perch and ended up keeping 33 that were 8.5" or bigger (which is big for a perch). It was a very good day. Unfortunately we had to turn the boats in by 5pm so that was the last of the fishing. We had a nice steak dinner and played a cribbage tournament (grandpa and I won!) and packed up our stuff.

On Saturday we woke up early, eating whatever leftover food we could scrounge up (mac 'n cheese for me), packed up anything that needed to still be packed up, cleaned up around the cabins a bit, and then hauled our stuff down to the docks. We were told to have our stuff down by 7:30am ready to head out by 8, so we were ready and stood down there taking last pictures and watching a pelican out on the lake and a crawfish right next to the dock. Eventually another group joined us down there, a group who was supposed to be heading out after us. But when they got down there the worker there started loading their stuff into the boat! They got loaded first, taken back first, and dropped off all before us who were supposed to go first and were ready way beforehand. I got so ticked I had to go back up to the cabin and hang out there with the camp dog (Sienna - adorable) and the boys. But eventually we got dropped off back at the vans, loaded up, and got back on the road. We stopped at a few gift stores but I didn't really find anything I liked other than a really cheap lame pin and eventually some post cards. Long drive, stopped at a Subway/DQ to eat lunch, kept driving. Eventually we made it to my place where I got out and said farewell to the guys. I took my stuff in and then went to go pick up my rats from my coworker who was nice enough to watch them for me while I was gone.

The rest of the weekend, such as it was, was not very exciting. I realized that I had left my wallet in the van so I drove down to Cannon Falls on Sunday to meet my parents and pick it up, along with 2 VHS tapes worth of Shark Week episodes and a VCR to watch them on - Thanks Gramma! We met at the DQ there - 2 blizzards in 2 days is A-Okay with me! Later that night I went and hung out with Nathan, Chris, and Nathan's brothers Brian and Kevin.

Then of course today, being Monday, I had to go back to the dreaded workplace. It's always so difficult going back to work after a nice vacation. I didn't sleep well the night before so I had a very tired semi-queasy day at work, but I got through it. Tomorrow will be even more trying - we have a lot of things to get done and I'm not feeling all that much better. I did take a nap tonight that was supposed to last an hour and ended up lasting 2. When my alarm went off to wake me up I was initially convinced that it was 8am and it was time to get up and get ready for work. I was very relieved to finally realize that it was 8pm and I was just napping.

Anyway, not much else to report. Tomorrow I'm going to go see Bridesmaids again (at a cheap theater) which should be pretty fun. Jordan (roommate) is going on a weeklong vacation in Alaska next week, and I'm going camping with Vicki and Sybylla the 20-21st. The following weekend I'm hoping to go to the Renaissance Festival (with Nathan and his dog Jackie, and Belle if I can manage to sneak her in) and then of course the weekend/ during the week after that is my birthday and when I move in to my new apartment. During all this I have to finish my genetics, hopefully woman up and take the dang GRE, and possibly get some volunteer action in. It's going to be a busy August, let's see how well I keep this updated.

Wish me luck!

Here I go again

I'm posting! And it's only been a bit over a week!

It's kind of funny because I was thinking of things to do and I was like well I could update my blog and part of me was like no way I just updated like yesterday, so I checked and it was last Monday!

So here I am, being good and posting again!

Wow I typed the above and then got distracted watching The Office and now I don't want to write anymore, but I will because I'm dedicated!

On Tuesday I don't know what I did. Went to work (solo again), went home, blah blah blah

On Wednesday after work I ate leftover Dominos, changed, and drove up to Broadway Pizza in Robbinsdale to meet up with Amanda (ex-coworker), Sara, Amy, and Sara's friend (Abby??). We played bingo (everyone won except Amanda and I) and had a great time hanging out, dobbing, and just catching up.

On Thursday after work I again got ready right away after work and headed out to pick up a set of bookshelves from a woman off craigslist. For some reason traffic was ridiculous and I ended up there about 15 minutes late (luckily the woman I was meeting was ~20 minutes late so I didn't keep her waiting), bought her bookshelves (they're nice and small and thin - like book deep which is nice), stuffed them in my trunk, and raced back into traffic. I drove down to Khan's Mongolian BBQ to meet Catie, Sybylla, Vicki, and Meredythe for Catie's birthday dinner. It was really interesting (but good!) food (especially the sesame buns) and we also had a lot of catching up to do. There was some crazy Japanese game show playing on the TVs (Vicki loved that) and again just ate and talked.

Friday I was lazy and mostly just read the 5th book in the Song of Ice and Fire series (the tv series A Game of Thrones is based on this book series). I did that for quite a bit of Saturday too. Later though I stopped by the Cardinal to say hi to the guys running the karaoke show there and then headed out to Plymouth to meet Chris and Nathan to see Captain America. It was actually better than I expected. Sunday was another lazy day, mostly spent reading. I also made brownies, which were delicious. Oh and I crocheted 2 tiny harnesses that fit my rats (and they haven't been able to get out of them from what I've seen!). I might try to take them outside one of these days.

Monday (yesterday) I had a full day at work (ie worked solid while I was there and even stayed late). When I got home I basically spent the entire evening reading the 5th book.

Today was another full day at work, although I managed to get out on time. I also rode my bike to work - it's finally not pouring down rain or sweltering hot, although tomorrow it might storm. Realized that I haven't found anyone to watch my rats while I'm in Canada (I leave Friday) and when I mentioned it to Nathan he didn't sound very willing to watch them for me again. When I told my coworker Katie she immediately offered! I hadn't even considered her but now it seems like she'll be the babysitter. Got home, and again started reading. Cooked my last leftover taco, continued reading. Then I decided that I would finish the chapter I was on and then go do something else but when I got to the end of the chapter, the next was entitled "Epilogue." I had finished the book without even realizing I was close. So I read the epilogue and then felt lost. What to do now? I finally got off my butt, did my next genetics lesson, started some laundry, and of course decided to update my blog.

For the rest of the week I'll be eating soup (trying to get rid of all the groceries I have without buying new stuff), cleaning random things (trying to keep my room clean in case Jordan ever shows it - btw there's a craigslist ad out at http://minneapolis.craigslist.org/hnp/roo/2513714228.html, yep that's my room!), buying more rat food so Katie doesn't have to worry about running out, and hopefully packing up and getting ready to go to Canada.

My family (dad, grandpa, uncles, and male cousins) are heading to my parent's house Thursday night and then on Friday morning they're heading up (picking me up on the way) and will be in Canada by Friday evening.

Now Conan's on and I think I need to switch my laundry, so it's goodbye for now!

Catching up again

So I'm going to be flying by the seat of my pants here for some of this but for the rest I'm consulting my calendar and working from there.

I left off (not including SF of course) after getting home from visiting Kristin in Green Bay - holy crud that was awhile ago.

Well the following Friday (May 20) I drove home to Rochester to hang out with Sara and Belle (parents were gone somewhere...) and helped her run the garage sale. We made a killing - I think like $40 each but I don't really remember. Sara abandoned me to run it by myself around 11:30 (I think) and I could hardly close up because the customers just kept coming!

The next weekend (yea okay I'm going to be skipping a lot) I took my second genetics test on Saturday (94%, I'll take it!) and then had to work on Sunday. That was Memorial Day weekend, and Katie and I had to go in and work on Monday as well.

This was around the time that work started getting terrible - working at all hours, weekends and late evenings, and getting absolutely NO appreciation or gratitude or even recognition for how above-and-beyond we were going. Ugh... can't really get into it though, it's kind of still going on but not nearly as bad as it was.

I got nothing now until SF. Although I didn't talk about Wednesday June 8, which is when I worked a half day (starting at 6:30 am) until I hopped on the Lightrail to the airport. Waited there, ate Burger King, then got on my flight to SF. I slept and read the whole time, as well as staring out the window at the snow-capped Rockies (took some pics on my phone). Once I arrived I took the BART (Bay Area Regional Transit?) to downtown SF where I met up with Jackie. I'm pretty sure we just headed to her place and chilled that night, but I don't really remember.

After I got back I turned up my apartment searching and went and saw probably 6 or 7 places. I started with one off Lake street by the Target, and it turns out that my first was the best! There were some in better areas, but small or with funny smells, or others that were nicer and bigger but just too far away or too pricey, so eventually I just bit the bullet and signed a lease starting September 1. I'm really excited about it, and will get back to this excitement after I finish catching up!

On Wednesday June 22nd I went to a Bootcamp class at Anytime fitness. It was intense, and I was dead by the end of it. Other than that however, my working out has pretty much come to a complete halt. I was all into it for awhile but now... it's just hard to get back into it. Even now I'm thinking I should go work out tonight but I feel too full from dinner and it's ridiculously hot out... but I digress...

On Saturday the 25th I went with Nathan to one of his friend's wedding reception downtown at the Millenium hotel. It was fancy - delicious dinner, but not really that thrilling. I did get a rubber ducky out of the deal though (it looks like a monkey!).

On Monday I took the day off from work and Vicki, Sybylla, and I went to Valleyfair! It was a bit cloudy/stormy looking which meant that all the lines were really short! We rode tons of rides, then headed out to my car to grab some lunch, then back in and rode the antique car ride (lame but fun) and then I noticed my keys/wallet were missing! I freaked, ran out and checked at my car and checked with the lost and found and no luck. I thought I might have locked it into my trunk but I wasn't sure. We decided to just keep enjoying the day there and try not to worry about it (easier for them than me). We went and watched the IMAX show, and then I ran back to the lost and found to see if there was any news and lo and behold! Someone had turned it in to a park employee. I was SOOO happy! Anyway, a day of fun was had by all. I came home with a picture of the 3 of us being goofy on the Wild Thing (Sybylla got a matching keychain).

On Tuesday June 28th my family all came up after work and we all went to a Twins game together to celebrate Fathers Day (it wasn't that day but it was our present to dad). We also celebrated our parent's anniversary which was that day. We ate tons of good food and watched the Twins beat the LA Dodgers. It was a fun game.

The weekend of the 4th of July I did very little, other than hanging out at Nathan's and eating hot dogs and marshmallows/smores around a fire at his place. The following weekend I also did very little other than going through my room and super cleaning it. I did go out with some friends on Friday night to Hudson, WI. Otherwise it was all really intense cleaning and packing up things I wouldn't be using for the next 2 months.

On Tuesday the 12th, Sybylla and I went to see Thor for a second time at the Riverview (we saw it together once in real theaters). It was good. Then on Thursday the 14th I played kickball (as I did most every Thursday) and we were short (only 5 girls and 5 guys so we all played the whole game) and we kicked ass - I scored 2 runs. Afterward I ran home, showered, changed, and took Sybylla to the Mall of America where we got in line to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 in 3D for the midnight showing. The line was long and there were some crazy characters waiting with us but it was a great time. We got sweet HP 3D glasses and enjoyed some popcorn and just had a fun movie experience. Once I started crying I'm not sure I stopped (at one point Sybylla looked over and asked if I was crying - I was and my response was "shut up *sniffle*"). Got home around 3am and headed to bed, but couldn't sleep because I kept going over the movie in my head. It was pretty good for a movie, but there were some extra unnecessary corny parts and it didn't follow the book as well as the first part did.

Woke up on Friday ~10:45am. Got up, got ready, and drove down to Rochester in a complete downpour for the majority of the drive. And some crazy people were driving without their lights on, making them nearly impossible to see until you were right on top of them. Made it home, and walked in to a house completely empty except for Belle. She was so excited to see me she had a little piddle accident on the floor. Called my mom and she told me to drive the Jeep down to the Charter house (where she works) because they were having a garage sale and there was some great stuff down there I should look at (for my new apartment). I drove it down there (again more pouring rain), parked, and got soaked walking the block over to the building. When I got there she showed me this great loveseat with a pull out twin size bed in it! I loved it, so we put it on the list of things to buy and kept looking. I also found a nice dining table with 2 chairs and a wooden cart (extra counter space) and my sister found a dresser and we got it all for just $20. We fit all of it but the couch into the Jeep and drove home and my dad found a friend with a van and went and picked up the couch. When we got home the rain finally slowed down and ended so mom and I took Belle out to the park. There were giant puddles of water and a field was flooded so we played fetch with her there and she had a blast running through the water. Friday night we went out to eat at Mr. Pizza (so good) and then home to watch TV. Sara's friend Emily came over and those two made 2 kinds of cookies and a cake - they were baking until 1am.

On Saturday I got up, ate some toast, and then mom and I moved the couch outside and scrubbed it down with soapy water and the scrub brushes we use to wash cars. We scrubbed it with soap, then water, then sucked off the water with a shop vac and set it in the driveway to dry in the sun. Then I went inside and washed the chairs, cart, and table. Filthy water by the end of it but I felt good for doing it. Finally it was time to do what I originally came down to Rochester to do: help dad get fishing stuff ready for my trip to Canada. We went through tons of fishing stuff and got very organized. Eventually I had to go so I drove back up to the Cities.

On Sunday I had to work, so I got up and went in ~9am. I got there and a maintenance guy walked up to me and started telling me about how the temperature warning went off in an animal room in the barrier (he couldn't go in) and if I could check and see if there were animals in there. Of course there were so I ended up having to move all these rats to another room and that ordeal took about 45 minutes. Sigh, then I had to do behavior by myself on a group of 24 animals and then X-ray them all... it was a long day for being a weekend work day. Later I actually started doing some genetics homework a week and a half early! But I didn't finish it so... not that great.

Today I went in to work, did DWB all morning as well as getting stuff ready to ship down to our sister lab in AZ, ate lunch, shipped the package, analyzed the DWB all afternoon, and then had to dose mice with their treatments. Because we have such a huge group (24 animals) and my coworker was in Milwaukee today, I didn't get out until 5:45pm. So another long day. Got home, and I was feeling way too lazy, so instead of eating the leftover tacos (that I made this weekend) or leftover noodles and marinara (also made this weekend) I decided to order Dominos. I watched TV and ate pizza and did absolutely nothing else (other than writing in this for the past few hours).

There are probably a bunch of things I've forgotten to mention, emotional ups and downs, etc and so on but hey if I don't remember it it probably wasn't that important right?

So now I'm all caught up but will I do it again? Only time will tell!

San Francisco

Forgive me readers for I have sinned, it has been two months since my last update.

I'll spare you all the excuses I have ready to explain why I haven't been posting but the simple truth is that I was lazy, and then it got to the point where it has been so long that the shear amount of events I'd have to update on prevented me from even attempting it.

So while I have many things to share, I'm going to just focus on my trip to San Francisco, CA, and perhaps I will get back to the rest later (but don't count on it!).

June 9, 2011

I got up around 9:30am SF time and walked over to Alamo Square and back. The square is a park next to the famous "Painted Ladies" - houses in SF. It's also the park seen in the opening credits of "Full House" where the Tanner family is having their picnic. I got back to Jackie's house, put on some longer pants and a coat, and headed to downtown SF. I got off at the Embarcadero stop and walked over to a Taco Bell for food. I then wandered over to the clocktower/ferry building near the water. There was a big open area so I sat down in the sun, ate my tacos, and browsed through Jackie's walking tours book.

After my delicious lunch, I got up and started walking down Embarcadero road and made it all the way down to Pier 39. I decided to go full on tourist and went into the Aquarium of the Bay - there were some really neat underwater walkthroughs as well as other fish in tanks (pretty jellyfish). I also saw the sea lions that hang out there, went into the Hard Rock Cafe, and went into some random souvenir shops. Eventually I walked to meet Jackie at her work downtown. We hung out at her office for a little while and then walked to the post office so she could mail a package for work. We then went over to the Walgreens to get some sunscreen for me (I was already sunburnt at this point). She then took me over to a place called Yoppi's - where we had some delicious build-your-own frozen yogurt (red velvet cake flavored and so yummy!). We wandered around downtown with our treats and walked up to a walkway above the street level (pretty cool) and found some seats and ate and chatted for a bit.

Afterwards we headed over to Chinatown and followed one of the walking tours from Jackie's book (but we did it backwards, making it somewhat confusing at times). We wandered through colorful shops, lanterns hanging in the streets, went down Waverly street (which used to be full of prostitution), and even found a little fortune cookie factory down in an alley (thanks to the guidebook). We walked in and got free cookies and got to watch the woman make them. We also bought bags of cookies there, including some with "adult" fortunes. We also went into a kite store, and saw the Donaldina house - dedicated to Donaldina Cameron, who saved many underage Chinese prostitutes. We ended our walking tour of Chinatown at the gates and then walked over to Union Square, where we sat and discussed our plans for the rest of the night.

We walked over to the food emporium at Westfield mall and ate some food (turkey burger and fries, yum). We then headed over to the Metreon and saw a private Apple party going on in Yerba Buena garden (we chatted to some security guards who said we could hop the hedge and they wouldn't stop us). We had already bought tickets to see Pirates of the Caribbean 4 though so we couldn't do it. We watched the movie and then rode Muni (the public transit system in SF) back to her place. We got there and found her roomies were a bit drunk and funny, but we were tired and headed to bed.

June 10, 2011

We woke up around 10 am, showered, ate eggs and toast, and got ready to go. We ran to the above ground train/trolley thing and rode to Pier 33 to catch the ferry to Alcatraz. Once on the island, we listened to one of the park rangers give a little speech and then headed inside a building to watch an informational video about the history of the island. It went from being a military fort to a prison to a site of US Indian activism and is now of course a tourist trap/National Park. We then headed up to the prison to take an audio tour, which was very interesting. There were 2 major escape attempts from the prison, one was potentially successful (the men who disappeared were never seen again, after they tunneled their way out with spoons). We then walked around outside the prison and then waited for the ferry to take us back to SF. While waiting, we inadvertently sat on a bench in the designated smoking section and were joined by a woman who decided to smoke right next to us.

Once we got back to SF we walked back over to Pier 39 and wandered for a bit. We decided to stop for some food at a restaurant called Wipeout (I had fish and chips and a tasty margarita). After lunch we walked over to some more souvenir stores, watched a street performer and then the sea lions again, and then headed down towards the Fisherman's Wharf. On the way we passed a guy who was offering a 1 hour cruise under the Golden Gate Bridge and around Alcatraz for $15. We hemmed and hawed about it for awhile but finally decided to be spontaneous and go for it! We climbed onto the little boat and sat/stood on the edge with the salt spray in our faces. On the way out there we saw a sea lion in the water whacking a fish around to break it apart to eat it and seagulls going nuts around it. We went under the Golden Gate Bridge (really awesome) and the nice captain took pictures of us. The boat then went around Alcatraz Island. We walked through the cockpit to get to the right side of the boat to take pictures of the island and of course my camera died! Luckily my phone takes pretty decent pics, so it wasn't a total loss. Not to mention I tend to take too many pictures anyway...

We made it back to shore and then walked over to Ghiradelli Square. We got some free samples (delicious), looked in some more shops, then back for another free sample. I bought a bag of overstocked chocolates, we took some pictures, and then walked over to catch a bus home. We had a long wait for the transfer bus unfortunately, the estimated time of arrival kept jumping up. Eventually we headed over to a little pizza shop nearby and I got a slice of pizza while we waited. By the time I finished the pizza the bus finally arrived and we took it back to Jackie's. Once there we stayed up just long enough to plan our trip to the redwoods the next day and then crashed.

June 11, 2011

We woke up around 9am, showered, got ready, and took Muni to the ferry building. We walked around the farmer's market going on there and got some bread and cheese samples, used the ATM, and eventually got on the ferry to Sausalito. We sat up front outside on the ferry. It was very windy and a bit chilly but a good view (we saw another sea lion tossing around a fish). We landed at Sausalito, walked around along the shops (after checking out the visitor's center), got some saltwater taffy (yum!), and then walked over to a sandwich place and got some sandwiches and a Diet Mountain Dew. We took our lunches over to a park near the water and sat on the grass and ate.

We then headed over to the Muir Woods shuttle drop off and waited there. The shuttle ended up being 25 minutes late, but it got there eventually. We rode on a very windy (that's a lot of switchbacks, not a strong breeze) road to Muir woods. Once we got there we went into the visitor center there and I bought a pin and a poster that I just fell in love with (it's a print of a painting of the redwoods... very pretty). We found out there that the longer trail was closed due to a fallen tree across the trail. So we headed out and wandered along the short 1 mile loop. There were tons of huge trees, lots of people, and we even saw a fearless deer grazing along the side of the trail, jump the path, and continue on the other side. We then went into the gift shop, then waited in the line for the shuttle back to Sausalito. The line was extremely long and we barely made it onto the shuttle (on which we had to stand for the majority of the crazy ride back). We finally got to sit down when some people got off at Marin City.

Made it back to Sausalito, and got in another line for the ferry back to SF. On this trip we sat inside the ferry on some nice cushioned seats. We got back to the ferry building, Jackie got some coffee, and then headed back to Jackie's place with a stop for tacos on the way. I took a short nap and then chatted with Katie and her friend Michelle before we got all gussied up (hah) and heading out on the town.

We walked over to the Castro (the super gay friendly district) and went to Toadies Hall (a gay bar, full of dancing, Madonna, and Lady Gaga). We then walked an extremely long way (or so it seemed) to Mission and the Elixir bar (where we met up with Muy, Jackie's friend). Jackie also randomly ran into an old friend of hers from St. Olaf. We hung out there for a bit and then headed over to Casanova, took a restroom break, hung out on couches and stared at the pictures of naked chicks, and then back to Elixir. We finally headed back towards Jackie's place and stopped at a bar just around the corner (formerly BOC "Bar on Church"). We sat at that bar, drank, and met two guys (one recently lived in Germany, was in New Zealand, and I chatted more to him). Then we got kicked out of the bar (closing time) and went home. Jackie was desperate for tortillas at this point and we finally went to bed.

June 12, 2011

Woke up late this morning (~11am) then showered, and went and grabbed pizza at Cybelle's and walked over to Duboce Park (a dog park) and sat on the grass in the sun and ate. We then caught a train to Powell and discovered the cable car route was messed up so we ended up taking a shuttle to the next place for a cable car ride. We caught the cable car to Ghiradelli Square and the drivers were all flirting with Jackie. We had a crazy fun ride hanging off the edge of the Powell & Hyde car. It went through neighborhoods, past the top of Lombard street (criss cross street), and let us off at Ghiradelli Square.

We stopped in for another sample (of course), and then began the incredibly steep walk back up to Lombard Street. We took pictures there and then walked down alongside the famous street and too more pictures from the bottom. We then walked through North Beach (the Italian district), walked through some art fair at a park, and stopped for some gelato. We continued to downtown where we caught the train towards the real beach on the ocean.

Once we arrived at the end of the line we got off, walked down to the beach, took off our shoes, and walked in the sand. We walked north along the shore, saw a fisherman catch a fish and bury it in the sand, there were some dedicated surfers out in the water (it was chilly), people flying kites on the beach, dead crab parts strewn about, and cute dogs playing in the sand. We stopped and sat in the sand for awhile just enjoying the scenery and the people watching. Eventually we turned and walked back (this time we spotted a live crab sitting in the water).

We got back to where we entered the beach and sat down in the sand again for while. Then we headed back to the train and took it all the way downtown and then hopped a bus back to North Beach. We wandered around and looked at menus at different Italian restaurants and ended up eating outside under a heater at Calzones (al fresco dining, I had delicious lasagna). The food came out really fast, but there was only one bread roll to share between us. We debated getting dessert there, but eventually decided to head across the street to Caffe Greco and got a cannoli to share + we each got our own dessert. We sat at a corner near the window and scared a guy away accidentally with our exuberance. After we ate as much as we could, we took the leftovers to go and headed out. I took a picture of the Stinking Rose (garlic restaurant my coworker told me about) and met some sailors who invited us to hang out with them. We were tempted but declined (we were pretty tired at this point). We were waiting for the bus for awhile when we realized we were on the wrong side of the road, and Jackie was going a little crazy (getting some nice looks from passersby) :). We finally decided to just walk to the train and took that home. Once we got back I packed up my stuff and went to bed.

June 13, 2011

Woke up, took BART to the airport, and flew back to Minneapolis. Unfortunately my flight ended up delayed for about 2 hours due to our pilot not being there. Otherwise it was relatively uneventful.

Well that update took a long time, and considering I had most of it already written up from notes I took on the trip, updating the rest of the past 2 months is going to take even longer.

But since I have to go in to work tomorrow (Sunday) I'm going to end this here and hopefully come back to it later. Maybe even add some pictures! Who knows?

Green Bay

Last Sunday I was woken up by a phone call from none other than Nathan, and we decided to meet at a park (with Jackie) to chat. Had another nice long 3 hour chat (after getting rained on) and decided to remain friends. So hooray!

The rest of the week passed by with little excitement other than getting to do 2 days of cell injection surgeries and one day of dissections - which are the most interesting parts of this job! So work was exciting.

Friday I woke up at 6am and was in to work by 6:30am in order to do the cell injections with Katie and be done in time to then drive all the way over to Green Bay, WI. Surgeries went well (finished earlier than expected) and then I drove first to Eau Claire and had lunch at Culver's with Megan (delicious). Spent some time there, helped her get motivated to pack up some clothes, and then headed out again to get to Green Bay.

I finally arrived at my destination (Kristin's house!) and had a happy reunion with her. Her mom made a delicious dinner, then we talked and played MarioKart on her Wii before heading off to bed.

The next morning I overslept and barely saw Kristin before she had to head out to her graduation ceremony. Had a good breakfast (waffles), then the rest of the family (mom, dad, brother, brother's girlfriend) left to attend the ceremony. I then showered and read pretty much the entire time until they got back. We ate lunch (subs) and then Kristin and I played Tangled (the game) on the Wii until it was time to get ready to go out to dinner. Her aunt and uncle and grandmother joined us at dinner and for a bit afterwards. Then the "kids" (brother, girlfriend, Kristin, and I) drove their grandmother home and then headed to the bowling alley where we played 3 games. The first game I played terribly but the second two I managed to break 100! Back to Kristin's and we played a quick round of MarioParty on the Wii and then back to bed.

Overslept again, but managed to eat breakfast with everyone (some sort of egg bake). Packed up my things, acquired some new books and food from the generous Nick family, and headed out. Stopped in Eau Claire again for a break and hung out with Megan for a bit before resuming the drive home.

Got home yesterday (Sunday) and managed to wash my new sheets from Target (the old ones became holey somehow) and that was about all I did that was moderately productive.

Now I'm at work, and it's going to be a slow day. But I had an exciting weekend!

It's a quarter after one and I need you now...

Ironic that the "I Need You Now" song is playing at 1:15 am and all I can think about is calling Nathan. Sigh.

It's just hard going from being with someone to being alone. Or "single" I guess. It just feels so lonely, calling friends just isn't the same because you can't just pop by at 1am or whatever.

This week I have done a lot and accomplished nothing.

Monday, I got home from work at 7pm because our coworkers in Arizona refused to tell us what they wanted us to do with work, got home, played WoW, and that's about it.

Tuesday, I got my oil changed (stupid people didn't believe me when I told them how to shut off the alarm so it almost became a 2 hour waste of time), played WoW, and that's about it.

Wednesday I drove down to Rochester straight from work, spent the evening at the Green Mill and DQ with Jackie and then home to surprise mom for an early Mother's Day. Drove back up to the cities around 10:30pm and went to bed.

Thursday I got home, played WoW (are we sensing a theme yet?), went to my kickball game where we lost terribly (yet I scored 2 runs, go me!?), came home, went to bed.

Friday (today) I went to work, then met Sybylla and went to go see Thor (good movie, extremely hot attractive manflesh in the form of Chris Hemsworth, yummy), went to the DQ at Southdale after the movie, then home again for many more hours of WoW.

Now I'm updating my blog instead of going to take a shower and head to bed.

I've also wasted the entire week accomplishing nothing, meanwhile my second genetics test is looming on the horizon. I really should be working on that... but I just have zero motivation.

Well I'm going to head to bed and hopefully wake up to a better, brighter, happier, sunnier day.

Firefly says it all...

So with all the buzz about Osama bin Laden's death, I've decided to post about entirely personal matters having nothing at all to do with the world at large.

Since that's all I ever post about anyways, I'm sure you'll understand.

Well it's happened again. I can't say I didn't see it coming but I certainly didn't see it coming quite so soon and from the direction it came from.

What I'm referring to is the end of my relationship with one Nathan D.

I honestly thought things were going well. We'd had lots of rough patches but lately things had sort of evened out. This past week had been stressful, what with me studying for my biochemistry final (pretty sure I did well on it), not to mention the weekend before we had our Easter's at our respective families' homes meaning not much time spent together, but all in all I thought we were okay.

Then on Sunday I got a phone call informing me that "we needed to talk, about our relationship." And of course my first thought is Holy shit, he's going to break up with me!?

So he came over and told me all the reasons why we should break up and how I'd been unhappy lately (news to me) and how that made him unhappy and so on and so forth. So when I informed him that I'd had no idea, that I hadn't expected this at all, he looked surprised and told me that he thought I'd been feeling the same way and that this discussion would end with a "mutual decision to break up."

The talks continued and then his statements started turning into reasons why we shouldn't break up and it was like he changed his mind after realizing I wasn't prepared for this discussion.

Almost like he was chickening out of a decision he'd already come to terms with (oh yeah and apparently he'd been planning this chat for the past two days, at least he waited until after my exam to drop the bomb).

So now he's talking about continuing on, without actually addressing any of the issues he'd brought up for why we should break up.

I wasn't having it, I was tired, cramping, sad, confused, surprised, angry, and upset and he just wanted to get home so he could let his dog out (we'd been talking for around 3 hours at this point). So I hugged him, said goodbye, and went to my computer to play World of Warcraft for a few hours. Therapeutic.

He starts an MSN chat conversation with me, and asks if I've decided yet. Of course he's referring to if I've decided if we're staying together or breaking up. So this whole discussion which he initiated is now my responsibility. So I have to be the bad guy. Well I replied as though he had asked me about my WoW character, and he told me to not skirt around the issue because Chris was waiting for him to watch an episode of Dr. Who! Yea, thanks a whole FREAKING lot, because you should rush the person who's deciding whether or not she wants to do what you told her you were going to do (break up) or if she's going to keep wasting your time on her instead of being on the market looking for your soulmate (his words, harshly paraphrased from our earlier discussion about why we should break up).

So I was more than a little upset that he would be so callous about it, not to mention already emotionally raw from the afternoon's events, and so I replied "you wanted a mutual break up, you got it"

And that was it.

So I guess I broke up with him, but it left me feeling very very dumped.

I can't help but be reminded that it was so very close to a year ago that I was also very very dumped.

And so dumped little ol' me is now whining about it on the internet, instead of doing something productive like folding the mountain of (newly washed) laundry.

Our first date, ironically enough, was exactly one month after buttface dumped me, on May 14th. Of course we had a period in the middle of the summer where we broke up again but from mid-August until now we were very much together. And now I have to figure out how to live my new life without him in it, no puppy, no kittens, no driving to New Hope, no watching Dexter together, it's all going to change and I just wasn't ready for it.

It almost feels like when I procrastinated so badly on my 3rd biochemistry exam and now it's test time and my unpreparedness has left me stressed, confused, and terrified. Eventually I guess I'll get over it and accept it but right now? Well, right now I'm upset. Accept it.

Here kitty kitty...

Sigh, when did my blogging skills take a nosedive down the toilet?

Let's briefly recap what's happened in April:

On Saturday the 9th I took my 3rd Biochemistry Exam and after not having adequately prepared for this most strenuous of exams (glycolysis, Krebs, lipid biosynthesis, etc and so on to be fully memorized) I came out of it convinced I had failed. To top it off I actually got charged for parking for the first time. I headed straight from there to Luggage World, getting slightly lost at one point, but eventually making it in. I had purchased a Groupon for there and at the store ended up getting myself a duffel/backpack hybrid (Eagle Creek's Hybrid Hauler) that I'm hoping will be perfect for my upcoming (read Summer 2012) European excursion. Later that day I met up with Vicki and Sybylla at the Cardinal (where I had a $10 for $20 worth of food Groupon) and surprisingly the bartender (the one that made me cry oh so long ago) still recognized me. Afterwards we came to my place and watched The Princess and the Frog and Tangled. All in all, the day went from bad to excellent.

Tuesday the 12th Nathan and I went to the Twins game vs. the KC Royals. It was the first year anniversary of the first game at Target Field and the Twins won in the 10th inning. Of course Span played amazingly and the rest of the team did well as well. We took the lightrail there and back and I was fully decked out in a new TC cap (from Target) and of course one of my Twins tshirts from last summer. No idea why I had to add that other than because I was very excited about my new hat.... During the game on the big screen at one point they found this old guy in a plaid shirt who was dancing hilarious/awesomely and the crowd proceeded to go wild whenever they panned back to him (and he threw in some new dance moves each time as well). It was pretty funny.

Thursday the 14th was supposed to be our first Thirsty Camels kickball practice of the year but it was rainy and cold so it was postponed. Thursday the 21st was also rainy and cold but practice was not cancelled, however I was not in the mood to attend a cold and rainy practice so I skipped. Bad me.

Bear with me by the way, I know my events are kind of random and not very detailed but I'm going off my Hotmail calendar so if I didn't put it in there it's not making it into this update due to my terrible memory.

Wait! I just remembered something not on my calendar! On Sunday the 17th I got together with Vicki and Sybylla again and gave them awesome crazy straw cups (from Target) filled with Reese's peanut butter eggs and Cadbury eggs for Easter. We went to the Riverview and saw Gnomeo & Juliet - nothing too special but lighthearted entertainment. A short meet up but still good to keep in touch.

This Friday the 22nd (Earth Day) I went and picked up Sara from the U and then drove us down to Rochester for Easter. We were enthusiastically greeted by Belle, who got so excited she actually squatted and peed a little on the front hall rug! She hadn't done that in well over a year so she was clearly thrilled to see us. Spent the night hanging with the fam, taking Belle to the dog park (and getting rained on), watching Harry Potter 7.1, dyeing Easter eggs (my gay pride egg was the best in my opinion), and making sneak-a-bite cookie dough with 2x the amount of chocolate chips.

Saturday was spent sleeping in until noon, finishing reading The Companions by Sheri Tepper, playing fetch with Belle, and watching a lot of TV (a lot of Food Network). Stayed up late reading and finishing the aforementioned book and then off to bed. Oh also mom made us make another half batch of the plain dough to lessen the super chocolate effect of the doubled chocolate chips in the sneak-a-bite.

Sunday I got up early (like 8:30am) and took a shower, then put on my dress and headed to church with the family. Had to sit through a baptism for people who don't know how to schedule events properly and watched my dad's friend Steve present the gifts to the priest while chomping on a huge wad of gum and then headed home for Easter candy eating and more TV watching while waiting for mom's delicious Easter lunch to cook. Ate ham, cheesy potatoes, and rolls and then dad went golfing and the rest of us went to go see African Cats. It was actually really well done, I enjoyed it a lot. Afterwards, dad tried to fix Megan's lack of car antenna with an aluminum arrow shaft (it did increase radio quality but was deemed too unsafe to actually remain on the car) and eventually the girls got on the road (Megan to Eau Claire and Sara and I back to the Cities). Dropped Sara off (hate driving on campus), headed home, and saw an adorable stray kitten wandering around outside meowing. It was very friendly so I pet it and gave it a dog treat I found in my pocket. I hope it found its way home...

Today (Monday the 25th) I went to work, came home, watched a biochemistry lecture, went to the Caribou coffee next to the Anytime fitness (that I am temporarily a member at, another Groupon!) and started watching another lecture there. I was planning to work out directly after but I foolishly forgot the key to the gym and so had to go straight home when I finished at Caribou. So instead of working out I finished the lecture I started at Caribou (leaving only one left to watch FOREVER!!). Now I've just spent the last hour surfing the internet and updating this blog (finally right?) so I'm going to head to bed and hope I get back into the groove. If not, oh well!

April Fools!

While it may be April Fool's Day, I won't be attempting to fool any of my potential readers in this post. This is mostly just a catching up post, because yet again I have let quite a bit of time pass since my last post.

As far as my classes go, I have gotten A's on both of the Biochemistry exams I've taken and I miraculously got a 99% on the Genetics exam I took while I was sick and dogsitting. No idea how I managed to pull that one off but I'll take it!

On the 19th I took my second Biochemistry exam, after a week of furious last minute studying. I ended up finishing the exam (slotted to take 2 hours) in under 40 minutes which was at the same time both a relief and somewhat nerve wracking. As already stated however, I did manage to pull off an A so that's good.

I also saw Rango later that day, it was pretty fun but nothing super-fantastically amazing.

The next week passed by without much incident. My coworker had jury duty so it was a very quiet boring week at work. On Friday however I got out of work early and after a lunch of Culvers, Nathan and I drove to Fargo to his older brother (Kevin)'s house for Kevin's birthday. We met Kevin and his girlfriend Holly at Mexican Village and had dinner. Then we went to a bar/club that both of them work at and had drinks and played pool for awhile. Then back to Kevin's apartment for more drinks and movie watching. Holly's cousin Brandy also came over and we had a good night.

Saturday we got up late, went to Taco Bell for lunch, and then drove the hour to Valley City, ND (Nathan's hometown). Went to his parents house and hung out there for awhile. Eventually Kevin and Holly showed up as well and we went out to eat at a dinner club. We met Brian there as well, who's 21st birthday was that day. After dinner we (Kevin, Nathan, Brian, Holly, and I) went out to a bar at a hotel for Brian's 21st. Had some delicious raspberry margaritas, sang karaoke (with the other 4), and played more pool. We took Brian back to his dorm and then headed back to the parent's house for bed.

Got up around 10am on Sunday, ate cheese and an English muffin quickly and then got back on the road. On the way home, in Buffalo, MN we stopped at an indoor dog agility course and met Jackie, a 10 month old border collie that Nathan was thinking of adopting from Border Collie Rescue Minnesota. Well she was so adorable and sounded like exactly what he was looking for that he ended up taking her home right then and there. Well to be fair we first went to Arby's for dinner and then Petco for some necessary dog items but then it was back to Nathan's. Jackie was amazing in the car, she got in and sat down and curled up right away. Makes me wish Belle was more like that!

This week passed by with not much exciting happening. Went to Nathan's on Wednesday, hung out with them all evening. Ate Papa Murphy's pizza, watched a few episodes of Dexter and played with Jackie a lot.

Today I should be studying for my next Biochemistry exam (speaking of which I still need to schedule it...) but instead I'm updating this, watching TV (so much for Lent) and waiting to see if I'm doing anything tonight.

So very far behind...

I can't even begin to give a thorough update it's been so ridiculously long... however I will attempt a brief overview:

Had the Coughlin Christmas - went ice fishing in the pond, Megan caught a tiny fish with the scooper and proceeded to eat it raw, I won an Iowa Hawkeyes Snuggie for my gag gift, got in a fight with Megan about the drive back, drove back, all was good.

At the end of January I helped Nathan move into his house, along with Chris his roommate and Chris' family. It took quite a few trips and his cats were hilarious but we got it all moved.

Packers won the Superbowl, not much to update there other than I made some delicious foods for Nathan and myself (chip dip, crescent roll pizza things).

Muse won a Grammy for Best Rock Album - that was pretty cool.

Is it sad that I'm filling this in based on my Facebook status updates??

Anyway, Valentine's Day rolled around and Nathan and I (and Chris) had dinner at his house. Nothing too fancy.

At some point I went to a Pure Romance party with my ex-coworker Amanda, that was pretty fun but neither of us purchased anything.

Nathan fixed the broken sound on my desktop, which was a relief after ~2 months of enforced silence (using my laptop for sound and desktop for video was really quite annoying).

I finally took my first exam on the 24th of February. It was my first Biochemistry exam and it was very nerve wracking but it ended up going very well, and I got an A so that's always good. Took my first Genetics exam last Saturday (March 5) but still no news as to how that one went. Have another Biochemistry one coming up next Saturday (19th) and I should be studying for it now but instead... well I'll get back to today once I finish filling in what I remember from the past few months.

At the end of February/beginning of March my parents took a week off to go down to Florida. Unfortunately the Friday morning before my mom was the victim of a car accident, which meant her 2nd VW Beetle was totaled. She also banged up her foot and wrist pretty bad. Their flight was on Sunday morning, so they ended up coming up Saturday night (with Belle). They, I, Nathan, and Sara and her friend Avery all went out to dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings and played the trivia games (did pretty well, go team Gimp - named after my mom's poor foot). Had the DELICIOUS chocolate cake there, it was really excellent. Parents and I went back to my house where they went to bed in my room and I hung out with Belle in the spare room.

That Sunday morning I got up and drove the parents to the airport, came home and slept some more. Later on Sunday I drove Belle over to Nathan's where we discovered his cats are not big fans of canines, Belle in particular.

On Monday after work I took Belle to the Minnehaha dog park for about an hour and a half. It was great, but I didn't realize until we got home how windburn my face felt.

On Tuesday I repeated Monday and again came home feeling not too great.

On Wednesday I realized I was getting sick with chills and a nasty cough/sore throat. I did not take her back to the park but played fetch with her in the backyard a few times.

Thursday I felt even worse, with a fever and a headache added to the previous symptoms. So I went into work just for a few hours in the morning to do what I needed to do and then came home and slept more. Luckily Nathan came over Thursday evening and took Belle for a walk and played fetch with her because I was really not up to it.

Friday was bad again so I did the same as Thursday. Biggest problem for me was that my Genetics test was coming up on Saturday and I was just in no mood to study but had to try anyway. At one point on Friday I just couldn't do it anymore so gave up and figured I'd just wing it. Nathan came over again because I was feeling so crappy and he played fetch with Belle again and helped me get to sleep (yay for hot Tang).

Saturday morning dawned bright and early and I drove to the Saint Paul UMN campus and parked and took my first Genetics exam. I almost cried with relief when I realized that the majority of the questions pertained to stuff I actually remembered reading about in my half-assed studying. Afterwards I went to Michaels and bought some picture frames, knitting needles, and thread to finally finish binding my t-shirt quilt together. Later on Saturday I went out to dinner at the Chatterbox with Vicki and Sybylla. We played Operation! It was very busy in there and I had a little girl peak at me in the restroom under the stall door... that was awkward. Afterwards we all went back to my place to play with Belle and watched Ice Age on TV. After they left, Belle proceeded to act strange and slow and we went to bed. Around 3am she woke me up with barfing noises. It was nasty stuff that almost looked like animal bones and I have no idea where she would have gotten into it. Belle didn't hardly move and made me really nervous so I cleaned it up as best I could and went back to sleep.

Parents got back on Sunday and I had just enough time to get all Belle's stuff together and downstairs ready for them to pick her up when they arrived (made them take the train). They came, grabbed the pooch, and headed home.

Which brings us to this past week. I'm feeling much better, still a bit of coughing but nothing unmanageable. Tuesday was Fat Tuesday so I bought a giant Oreo cupcake from work and ate it along with Dominos pizza. I decided I would give up my random TV watching for Lent, even though I'm not really religious at all. Times like today make it hard to stick to it because I so badly want to not work on Biochemistry...

On Friday I went to see Jesus Christ Superstar at the Chanhassen Dinner Theatre with Nathan, his parents, his aunt and uncle, and his younger brother Brian. It was a pretty good show with decent food and Nathan and I split a giant piece of chocolate cake (not as good as BWW's but still decent). Afterwards Nathan, Brian, and I went to Nathan's house and watched a couple episodes of "Dexter" before heading to bed.

On Saturday I slept in late then spent nearly the entire day doing laundry and going through Biochemistry lectures. I ended up staying up until the wee hours of the morning (4am - but part of that is due to Daylight Savings) doing that.

Which brings us to today! I slept in ridiculously late, ate a bowl of Cocoa Krispies, and have spent the majority of today continuing the massive amounts of laundry, cleaning out the rat cage, taking out garbage, and updating this blog. I just had a little trip down memory lane with "C'est la vie"

Now I'm going to go back to doing productive things and hopefully finish a few Biochemistry lectures.

This has been fun! Hopefully I'll keep up with it better.

Happy 2011?

Seems to be a theme with me, never really sure if it will be a good new year.

On the other hand, I did wait about 3 weeks to post (okay longer, so sue me) so that must mean something right? Like, my life is so busy and full that I just rarely find the time to post anymore.

While that's part of it, a bigger part is just laziness. But hey, no need to start the broken record on that topic.

On to the main events.

I drove down to Rochester after work on the Thursday after my last post. Jackie came over to my house and we hung out for a bit and played with Belle, then I went out to eat at Culvers with the parents and she had dinner with her family, then we reconvened at her house, drove to the Dairy Queen in Byron, ate blizzards, then went back to her house and hung out until late. I wish we could hang out more often. I drove back up to Minneapolis on Friday (New Years Eve).

I spent New Years Eve at Nathan's place, drinking and playing games and generally hanging out.

The next Friday after work I headed down on I35 to meet my family in Albert Lea and then continue on to Des Moines for the Coughlin family Christmas. What should have been a drive of around an hour and a half became a 2 and a half hour drive. It was horrible, the traffic wasn't moving and the weather wasn't even that bad. That drive was maddening. Finally met up with the family and had some McDonald's and then mom drove my car down to Des Moines. After Albert Lea the traffic cleared up more but the weather got worse. The roads were slick with ice and the wind was blowing snow everywhere.

Okay this is ridiculous, I'm going to post this one now and continue updating on the next one and hopefully I'll eventually catch up. I've probably already forgotten a lot of what I'd planned to jot down here for eternity but alas, it is now lost forever.