Mawwage

Weddings, engagements, marriage.

I've been watching a lot of The Tudors - which is all about King Henry VIII who had 6 wives and how he acquired (and disposed of) those wives.  One of my favorite characters is the Lady Mary - Henry's eldest daughter by his first wife Catherine of Aragon (who later becomes Bloody Mary).  In the latest episode I watched, she quarrels with the current queen Catherine Howard, who claims that Mary is jealous of her because Mary is older than she is but is still unmarried.  This leaves Mary distraught and she lashes out at the queen and later cries with great sorrow for her fate.  And seriously, it's so sad that the grand life goals of the women in this time was to marry well.  So that's all about marriage.

Last night I watched a Twilight marathon - the first four movies alone in my apartment.  Was up stupid late finishing them but it was kind of fun.  Then today I went to see the latest movie, Breaking Dawn Pt 2 in the theater (again alone because everyone had either already seen it, lived too far away, or just refused to go with me). Anyway, those movies all lead up to the whole idea of a soul mate, someone to spend eternity with, etc and so on.

Then finally, tonight after I got home from the movie I received a phone call from my sister, informing me of her engagement. It wasn't a surprise, they'd been ring shopping and venue hunting etc for the past few weeks, but still.  It's happening.

That's really all.

I'm Gonna Wreck It!

I went and saw Wreck-It Ralph tonight and it was really fun!  It was funny, and touching, and an overall good movie.  Well done Disney!

I'm also updating so I can beat my record low posts of 17 last year.  That's right, I only posted 17 updates in 2011!  That's pretty sad, and with this post I'm up to 18 for 2012.

Another reason for this update is to avoid studying.  I have a couple of tests coming up, in Physiology and Microbiology, and I just don't want to study for them.  I'm not too worried about Microbiology - it's one of 4 tests plus we have tons of quizzes and homework projects to boost our grades and I did really well on the first two tests.  It's really Physiology I should be stressing about.

Here's the problem with Physiology: I don't go to class.  I know I should, but ever since I realized that he posts all the notes online and doesn't stray from that information for the tests (as evidenced by my first test - aced it) I've decided that sleeping in over that hour is far preferable to sitting in a boring classroom.  The notion would be that I would just teach myself the material from the notes as we go and show up and ace the tests.  But that's what the entire grade is based on - 3 tests.  Two of them (100 points each) are during the semester and the cumulative final (200 points) at the end.  I did well on my first test but the next one is coming up a week from today and I haven't gone over the material at all.  So while all my peers in the class are studying over the material I'll just be learning it for the first time.  Awful, I know, but it's pretty much what I did for the first test and I got a 94.  Just to throw that into perspective, the class average was 72.  Sigh.  Darn you procrastination!

Speaking of which, I still haven't even finished my stats!  I was supposed to finish it before my Micro and Physio classes started and when I lost most of my work due to a technological issue I just haven't felt like doing it.

Watching "Switched at Birth" and drinking hot Tang - I am just so lazy!

Went home this weekend (and took Addy with me).  Friday night went out to Applebee's with Megan and her friend Emily K. Stayed up late watching movies/TV and then got up early on Saturday to go to the free Cinemagic kid's movie with Megan (Happy Feet 2 - pretty good!). Out to eat at Beetle's (delicious but took forever) then back home for more TV and laziness. Sunday followed the trend - although Megan and I went and got our hair cut.  Mine actually got chopped - 8 braided inches donated to Locks of Love.  Was hard to pull the trigger (wanted to wait until summer) but Megan convinced me to.

Lame and horribly written paragraph about my weekend, but meh.

Go see the movie!  Good stuff.

Happy Halloween!

Yep, totally suck.  Didn't post a thing all September or October.

I'm starting to realize that my lack of posting generally happens when I have real stuff to talk about.  Not sure if that's ironic or just sad because it's when I'm bored that all my avid readers (heh, right) get the play by play of every day.

Enough of that.

So I went on a cruise at the beginning of September. It was awesome - went to San Juan, St. Thomas, Barbados, St. Lucia, St. Kitts, and St. Maarten.  We snorkeled with sea turtles, took ferries, saw dozens of jewelry stores (because that's what you do!), bought souvenirs, hung out on the beach and the decks, ate tons of delicious cruise food, went ziplining over the rainforest, and hauled our bags around San Juan at the very end.  It was a great trip, and I came home to find that Vicki had filled my closet with balloons (floor to ceiling, some of them are still around) and wrapped 24 random objects around my apartment (some still wrapped).

Early October Nathan, Chris, and I went to see Louis CK live - for Chris' birthday.  He was hilarious live, highly recommend seeing him. And yes, I realize I skipped the rest of September, but I think I spent most of my time finishing my vet school applications and sorting all of that out.

On Sara's birthday (19th), Nathan, Kory, Adam, Megan, Sara, I, and a couple other people went out to Buca di Beppo's for Sara's 21st birthday.  Great food, great company, and afterwards they went over to a bar.  If there hadn't been a cover I would have gone in with them but I'm cheap so instead I went home.

The next day I got up and decided to make beignets!  The French donuts from The Princess and the Frog!  My boss had gone to New Orleans and brought back boxes of the mix for us to try to make.  So I did!  They were delicious fresh, not so great the next day. I brought them over to Sybylla's and shared them with her, her mom, Monkey, and Vicki.  We spent the afternoon/evening watching movies, carving pumpkins, and playing games.  It turns out we carved them too soon because after a bit less than a week mine grew some gnarly mold/fungus.  Looked really cool but wasn't very sanitary so I had to chuck it.

No worries though because last night (Tuesday) I went over to Nathan's and he, Chris, and I all carved new pumpkins!  Mine wasn't quite as good as the first one I carved, but still good.  Especially since near the end of mine the carving knives broke - poor Nathan only got to do a tiny part before they were broken.

This past weekend I got to go to the dog park twice!  The first time on Saturday with Nathan and Jackie (dog) and the second time on Sunday just me and Jackie.  After the second trip I brought Jackie back to my apartment to hang out until Nathan picked her up, and I was expecting her to annoy Addy the whole time or for Addy to hide in my room.  Complete opposite reaction - Jackie spent the whole time sniffing around or watching Evaine (the rat) or curled up sleeping while Addy proceeded to chase her around, attack her tail, and bat at her from behind/under things.  It was adorable!  I think Addy felt good about it because she was on her own turf - and it probably helped that Jackie was too distracted to get down to kitten chasing.

Tonight is Halloween! Unfortunately I didn't really get a chance to celebrate it.  I worked and then had Microbiology lab.  Came home and watched TV and made pumpkin bars (delicious).

I'm planning on going down to Rochester this weekend - maybe go see Happy Feet 2 on Saturday morning for the free kids movie at the theater (awesome).

August fun times

So I started typing this up on August 7th and am just now finishing it up. I'm going to finish this post up to right before the cruise and hopefully write another one tonight but we'll see how it goes.

Last weekend I went camping with Vicki and Sybylla at Great River Bluff State Park near Winona. We drove down through Rochester and played "Cows Running" in the car. Basically it was a couple of super long lists of random things to find, and whoever found the most won. Sybylla and I were on a team against Vicki but she still managed to win by a landslide. We got to the campsite fairly late on Friday, started setting up the tent in the dark and soon realized that we were missing a piece of a pole. We decided to improvise with three sticks and a lot of duct tape and it worked!

At this point the rest of the weekend is mostly a blur - we ate a lot of pie ironed foods, along with a ton of delicious watermelon, went on some hikes and saw some pretty sites over the Mississippi river, and generally had a good time.

The following weekend I drove up to Heath's Resort (had to drive past Crow Wing State Park again!) with Kory to spend a long weekend with the Coughlin clan. Again, very foggy memories, but I had a really great time with my aunts, uncles, grandparents, and cousins! We played volleyball in the sand, ate delicious food, went fishing, tried tubing, swam in the lake, and all sorts of fun activities. I was sad to see it end but it reminded me how fun it was to hang out with my family.

Man this going back and trying to remember things is just reminding me how I need to be more consistent with my updating.

A couple weekends later I drove down to Rochester and spent Friday night shopping for clothes for my vacation. Sara and mom played dress up with me and I walked away with a bag full of clothes. On Saturday morning we drove over to Lanesboro where we met up with the Koenigs. Spent the day floating on tubes down the Root River and hanging out at their campsite. Another good family day.

The last week in August was a very busy week. I had my first Microbiology lab on Wednesday and it went terribly - it was stupid easy but the other people at our table were morons and had no idea how to work a microscope - and the professor did not help at all. Before I left for lab, mom stopped by to pick up Addy to watch her for the next week and a half while I was on vacation.

On Friday it was of course my birthday :P (I feel so old at 25!). Went to work but left a tad early. Walked from work to Sara's apartment where I met Nathan. We then walked to the bus pickup on our way to the State Fair! Once we got there we met up with Vicki and Sybylla and spent the rest of the afternoon/evening at the fair. Eating fried food (got a free deep fried candy bar from Sara), watching lumberjacks, and just having a good time with good friends :)

Saturday morning I volunteered at Como again and afterwards Megan, Sara, Kory, and Adam met me there and we went through the zoo (I had done a similar zoo trip with Sybylla and Vicki two weekends before... the last time I'd volunteered there). Afterwards we drove to Har Mar Mall (very slowly through all the State Fair traffic) and met up with Nathan at Old Chicago. Ate more good food, then went home and cleaned my apartment and packed.

Sunday morning Nathan and I got up at like 4am and walked our luggage to the light rail station. From there we went to the airport and started our vacation!

I probably won't manage to update the cruise stuff tonight, but hopefully I will before too long...

30 Chihuahuas!

I'm running out of creativity for my post titles - so this is one is based on the Animal Hoarding episode currently playing. The guy has 30 chihuahuas, 1 cocker spaniel, and 1 shih tzu. There's poop everywhere and they never stop barking...

In other news, it's been a month since I last posted, which is bad on me. At some point it gets hard to bring yourself to catch up on all that's happened so it's just easier to not.

Alright so here goes nothing. The last weekend in June I helped move Megan back from Madison to Rochester. I drove down to Rochester and then dad and I drove to Madison. We stayed there Friday night and then loaded up the U Haul and headed out Saturday morning. We had to wait forever for her stupid subleaser to finally show up to get the keys and then I was tasked with driving Megan's car back to Rochester. About 5 minutes into the drive is when I discovered that the air conditioning wasn't working and it was in the 90's temperature wise. I couldn't even easily roll down the windows because they were all hand cranks! I eventually couldn't take it and left the slower vehicles behind and hauled ass to the KFC where we'd planned to have lunch. After lunch I switched vehicles and let Megan drive her own car. Got back to Rochester, unloaded, and hung out the rest of the night. Back to Minneapolis on Sunday.

The 4th of July was pretty laid back - for the most part I just went over to Nathan's where we grilled out and set off cheap small fireworks at the end of the driveway. The following Saturday was my first time volunteering at Como Zoo. I basically stood outside the ducks/flamingos and told people about them and answered questions. I think it went pretty well.

Thursday the 12th I came in to work early for a biometric screening - all my numbers look good and in the acceptable range (hooray). At lunch I went over to the VA and had cafeteria food with Joe. Got caught up on our news and had a nice lunch just like old times. Afterwards I went to Bldg 49 and met with Dave (the vet at the VA). We had a nice long chat and he agreed to write an evaluation for me - another hooray! The next weekend I drove down to Des Moines to meet my cousin's twin boys. Hung out at the aunt and uncle's, went fishing on the pond, ate good food, and had a nice time. On Sunday I met up with Hannah at the Des Moines Art Center. We chatted, got caught up with our lives and our goals, and questioned the artistic value of colored water in empty plastic pop bottles. That was really fun, and I miss having her around to hang out with.

This week I went to a Vet School Application Prep Seminar at the St. Paul Campus. It was incredibly helpful, but it meant I have a lot of editing to do on my application. I've been working on that for the most part. I went to see Dark Knight Rises on Friday night - it made me cry. Yesterday was another Como day - although a morning thunderstorm took out the power and caused me to wake up late. This weekend has been pretty lame - haven't done much other than stuff on Netflix and eat food.

I'm now on a new episode of Animal Hoarding and this woman has 84 cats and man is that place nasty...

I'm so full...

Random title, I know, but I ate at Fat Lorenzo's with Vicki and Sybylla for supper today and it was sooo much food! My stomach isn't used to being stretched out so far in one sitting anymore.

Well we went camping (Nathan and I) at Crow Wing State Park. Got a late start but made it there with some daylight left. When we arrived and checked in we learned that, due to recent flooding and excess stagnant water, the mosquitoes had multiplied to threat level cloud. That's right, clouds of mosquitoes were everywhere, a thick fog of bloodsucking menaces. Got to the site, and (after applying as much DEET as we could get out of the cans) started attempting to assemble the giant 2 room tent. Unfortunately, the stakes were nowhere to be found, and the tent refused to go up without being staked down. So we got in the car and drove to the Walmart in Baxter and bought some fresh bug spray and some stakes. Back to the campsite and of course it's dark so we used the headlights from the car and got it set up. We may have made a fire, but I don't really remember.

On Saturday we slept in, then built up a fire. Breakfast/lunch (not brunch, we opted to rename it brench, for a more even distribution of the letters in each meal) was delicious cheesy hot dogs over the fire. We read for awhile (while digesting) and then attempted to go on a hike. We first headed down the steps to the Mississippi River, only to find the usual landing completely underwater. It was also extremely cloudy. As in, clouds of mosquitoes attacking our flesh. So we tried to hike down another trail but eventually gave up and headed back to camp. Unfortunately, with the lack of campfire smoke, the mosquitoes were intolerable at the campsite as well, so we jumped in the car and drove to the movie theater in Brainerd. I know, we were there for camping, but the bugs were just awful. The movie we decided to see wasn't playing for a few hours so we ended up taking an hour and a half hike on the Paul Bunyan State Trail (see - hiking!). We saw 7 garter snakes during our hike and I made us stop and take pictures of some of the pretty wildflowers growing alongside the trail. Got back and saw Prometheus - it wasn't great but it wasn't horrible either. Mostly it was just confusing, the plot went every which way and that made it hard to follow what was actually happening. Went back to the campsite and started up a fresh fire for pie iron pizzas (dinner!). Then just hung out, reading, stoking the fire, and eventually making smores until bedtime.

On Sunday we again slept in (I didn't think it was possible to do that while camping, but apparently my sleeping skills have grown tremendously) and had leftover hot dogs and pie iron pizzas for brench (that's right, I'm making it a thing). Read some more (good books!) and then made dessert pie irons (peanut butter, chocolate, and marshmallow for me, the same minus peanut butter plus graham cracker chunks for Nathan). Delicious. Eventually of course we had to pack up the camp and drive back to the cities.

The rest of this week has most just been long and painful. Mostly because last week was only a 3 day week for me with two vacations, and then a full week with not much to do at work. Enough of my whining. Monday was meeting at the Animal Humane Society and then dinner with Nathan (Bosco sticks!), Tuesday was strength training, Wednesday was WW (25lb total!) and dinner with Vicki and Sybylla at Fat Lorenzo's (so good). So I started this blog on Wednesday and am finishing it on Thursday (today). Nothing much happened today either, other than strength training again.

So in life news I've been working on my vet school applications. It's mostly through one common site (VMCAS) and it's pretty intense. It wants you to recall every activity you ever did from high school on, which is a bit difficult when it's been so long since high school (over 10 years since freshman year - I am so old...) So far I've managed to get two evaluators, but still need to get a couple more, plus at least one if not two vets. I'm planning to spend an afternoon with the vet from the VA and I'm hoping he'll be willing to write one for me. I'm also hoping that volunteering with Kindest Cut at the AHS (they spay/neuter animals at shelters) will put me in touch with another vet who may be willing to write one for me.

I think that's pretty much it for now, other than my statistics class is going well (working ahead a lot) and today I got an email from my physiology professor (taking it in the fall) who changed the textbook, meaning I had to resell the one I bought last month. On the plus side the new textbook is optional and I already managed to sell my old one for the same price I bought it for. Win?

June is escaping!

Seriously, I can't believe it's already been almost 2 weeks since I took the GRE - it feels like it was just yesterday! Speaking of which, I finally got my official scores: 165 Verbal (96th percentile), 165 Math (93rd percentile), and 4.5 Writing (72nd percentile - ouch). So yay overall for that.

So on Friday night I drove Addy to Nathan's where I dropped her off (she stayed with his roommate Chris for the weekend) and picked up Nathan. We drove to Breezy Point Resort (with a stop at Taco Bell along the way - the Dorito taco is freaking delicious!) and met up with my parents.

I honestly don't think we did anything that night but I could be wrong - I just don't remember! On Saturday we tried to go tubing but it was really windy and the tube sucked. We spent hours reading - on the beach and on the porch of the condo. Dinner was burgers with the parents' friends and later that night we tried night fishing - the bobbers glow! But we didn't catch a thing.

On Sunday we had a big delicious breakfast and then hung out indoors a lot (it was rainy and windy out). Lunch was hot dogs and macaroni & cheese - delicious. Later, Nathan and I went to see Snow White & the Huntsman. All I can say is that it was pretty to watch, but oh my word the plot was terrible. I'm pretty lenient with judging movies and books but this one was just bad, it was a let down for sure.

Monday we went fishing and didn't catch much (some, but no walleyes yet). In the afternoon Nathan and I went to Pirate's Cove Adventure Golf. Nathan and his family used to go there when he was a kid so it was a fun nostalgia thing for him and a fun "I suck at mini golf" thing for me. On the way back we stopped in Nisswa and visited the Chocolate Ox (yummy candy store) and the Rainy Day Bookstore (this is the store that I preordered the sixth Harry Potter book from years ago and forced my family to drive me there that summer during our vacation and then of course read the entire book in a day). We ate dinner that night at The Commander - great food but the waitress was terrible - kept forgetting us and it took almost an hour to get our food.

Tuesday was the last day of vacation :( We went fishing in the afternoon and I caught 13 perch while dad only caught a couple and poor Nathan didn't catch any. We also played golf (the card game) and ate leftovers. Eventually we had to drive home.

Yesterday was WW and I was seriously considering not going - I hadn't tracked all weekend and ate tons of cookies and candy and chips etc. But I eventually decided I had to go, and I even made myself walk there. To my surprise I only gained 0.4 lb! So that was a relief.

Today was a super long day. I woke up and it was dark and scary looking outside so I made the weird decision to drive halfway and walk the rest into work. It's about a 20 minute walk plus the drive time makes it much longer than my usual bike in. Didn't get rained on too much on the way in, then had a semi-slow day at work, then worked on my statistics homework, then went to my weight training class. After that I was starving but still had to walk back! I didn't get home until 8:30 pm, only to discover that Addy had tried to pull the cat toy off the mirror and instead managed to pull the full length mirror off the wall, to shatter on the floor. UGH. So I cleaned that up, fed her, had dinner, finished my stats homework, and I still have to pack for camping tomorrow!

I'm so tired, I hope I manage to get it all done.

GRE complete!

For the past few years, ever since I realized that I wouldn't be getting very far working in research with only a Bachelor's degree, I've had a "To Do" list. At the very top of this list was "take the GRE." Well ladies and gentlemen, I can finally cross that off my list.

That's right, I took the GRE on Saturday and, even though I stressed out before and during the test, I got it done and actually did very well. I scored a 165 in Verbal Reasoning (96th percentile) and 165 in Quantitative Reasoning (math - 93rd percentile). I'm bragging, I know, but I'm just so dang proud! I think buying the prep materials and actually taking a few practice tests really did help. I'm super excited to never have to take it again though.

So I dropped Addy off at Nathan's on Friday night and spent that night both semi relaxing (caught up on Game of Thrones) and semi studying (just going over the vocab flash cards). Then on Saturday I took the GRE (duh) and drove to Culver's to celebrate! After Culver's I drove down to Rochester, where my parents offered to pay for my test in return for some menial labor. I readily agreed; painting/staining the deck was a wonderfully mindless task after weeks of trying to stuff my brain full of math tricks and vocabulary. I finished up right as it was starting to get dark out and then joined my parents for some TV watching (Beauty and the Beast was on ABC Family - almost over but still!). Then mom went to bed and dad and I watched I Love You Man. It was a pretty slow movie, I wouldn't recommend it.

On Sunday my mom had to work and my dad went golfing so I was alone with Belle. We went for a decent walk to Petco and the dollar store and got sprinkled on by a bit of rain on the way back. Left my parents a Mother's/Father's Day gift, ate some leftovers, and headed back to the Cities. At home I watched some TV until Nathan got home and then headed over to pick up Addy. Nathan and I decided to go exploring so I went on another long walk - this time ending at Dairy Queen (chocolate dipped cone, yummy). With those two walks today I totaled about 5-6 miles, and all in terrible shoes for walking, which means I now have some nasty, huge, and painful blisters on my feet. Hopefully riding my bike won't upset them further.

So my busy-ness is continuing: I'm now free to start my Statistics class anytime (since I no longer have to be studying for the GRE), I'm starting a group strength training course this week (every Tuesday and Thursday evening for 8 weeks), I still have WW on Wednesday nights, and of course my vacations. This Friday Nathan and I are going Up North to Breezy Point with my parents from Friday night (or Saturday morning - haven't quite decided yet) until Tuesday afternoon. Then the following weekend we're going camping at Crow Wing State Park from Friday to Sunday and the weekend after that is my Como Zoo Volunteer training. I've probably mentioned all this before, but yea, my June is hectic.

But the GRE is done! One less thing to worry about.

it starts

That's right ladies and gentlemen, we are approaching the end of my lazy days. The GRE is a mere 4 1/2 days away (eek!), I signed up for a fitness class on Tuesdays/Thursdays, WW is still ongoing, and my Statistics class technically starts in a couple of weeks. And then I'm joining my parents up north for a long weekend, going camping with Nathan the next weekend, and doing my volunteer orientation at Como Zoo the weekend after that!

Honestly I'm not sure my scheduling skills are up to the task - I've already completely messed up my GRE studying. I fell further and further behind always saying I'd catch up over the weekends, but of course the last thing I want to do on the weekend is sit and study! So I've put it off like my procrastinating self always does and I'm feeling the pressure now. I took one practice test yesterday and another one today - yesterday I got in the 90th percentile for verbal and the 70th percentile for math and today it was 84th percentile for verbal and 96th percentile for math. Which just leads me to believe that the score is going to end up being pretty random depending on which questions I get, which isn't great to think about.

Other than procrastinating I'm not really sure what all I've done since my last post. I tried to contact the vet down the road to start shadowing but apparently they are very busy and won't be able to fit me in until late July/early August. So we'll have to see if that happens.

I Skyped with Sara (who's in Venezuela), saw Avengers again with Vicki and Sybylla (after dinner at D'amico & Sons - not bad), brought Addy to Nathan's and watched her and his cats slowly stop hating each other, left my lights on in my car causing the battery to die, tried to jump start my car while down pouring rain/hail, have the jump fail and my car dead in the parking lot, and really can't think of much else.

So perhaps my upcoming hectic lifestyle will make for more interesting posts, but probably not. Spending your evenings doing homework isn't that much more exciting than watching anything and everything on Netflix.

I have been watching a lot of documentaries on Netflix and I highly recommend them if you want to learn a lot and then be slightly terrified by what you learn (the US has one of the highest infant mortality rates in the developed world - The Business of Being Born).

Well I have just 4 nights of studying left until the big day, wish me luck!

My life is about to get hectic

The title is true, and I may have bitten off more than I can chew (and I'm a poet! did you know it? :P)

First I'll give a quick update on my goings on lately and then I'll get to the title topic.

You know, I haven't really done a whole lot, which is kind of sad. This past weekend I went to the Festival of Nations in Saint Paul. It was pretty cool - lots of cheap food, interesting market area, and a bunch of native dances from places all over the world (we saw Turkish, Palestinian, Japanese, and Scottish). We took the bus there and back and on the way there we got on our transfer bus only to see that the bus driver was AWOL (he eventually showed up). The way back was even more exciting as we had to run through the rain to get to the stop and then at one point part of the side of the bus opened up (like a flap for the storage area underneath?) and the bus driver had to go out and fix it (or it could've taken someone out!).

I also went and saw The Avengers with Nathan, Chris, and their friends Rob & Alex. It was a really excellent movie and if you haven't seen it I highly recommend it. Afterwards we went to Noodles for food, and then back to Nathan's where we all (plus another guy who showed up later) played the Game of Thrones board game. It was slightly confusing and I did not do so well but it was pretty fun. I played as the Lannisters and was immediately in battle with the Greyjoys. Cool story huh? Probably makes more sense if you've seen the show or read the books.

Monday night I got a phone call from Megan and we talked about her situation in Madison. We had some serious sisterly bonding time for a few hours, when we finally called it quits (around midnight).

On Tuesday I ate lunch with Sara who drove up here to take her last final. We ate at Noodles (again, I know) and just talked. She's flying to Venezuela on Sunday morning so it was my last chance to catch up before she's out of the country (for ~7 weeks I think, 6 in Venezuela and then another week in Peru with mom, gramma, and aunt). Tuesday night I met up with Vicki and Sybylla and we went to Merlin's Rest Pub. It's about 3 blocks away from my house and is supposedly an authentic British pub. I had the "world famous" fish and chips, and frankly was not impressed. When fish comes out and the fillets are all the exact same size and shape, it just doesn't bode well for how they taste. To top it all off, midway through our meal this really weird live music started. Banging sticks, weird lyrics, almost folksy but not. Apparently they were Finnish, if that means anything. It was really loud and not very enjoyable, but now I know!

Wednesday was my WW meeting and it went really well. The previous week I had actually gone up (gained weight, sadface) but this week I dropped all that I had gained the previous week and then some, so that was really awesome for me.

Today I have a lot of work to get done, but unfortunately a lot of it is timed so its hurry up and wait (which is why I'm updating this now). I'll probably be here until 6pm tonight at least, so I don't feel too bad about taking a break to type this up.

And back to the title of my post - it's really not all that crazy but I finally signed up for classes and am starting to freak out a little. Basically I have the GRE on June 2, then my online Statistics course starts June 15. I'm hoping to do that one over the summer, but unfortunately it's an extended term course (like Genetics was) so I have until March 2013 to finish it. I just hope I don't procrastinate, especially because once the fall starts I'm taking Physiology at the U of MN as well as Microbiology at Saint Paul College. Then next spring I'll be taking Chemistry II and Physics II at the U. On top of all of this I'm also starting volunteering at Como Zoo in June and hoping to start volunteering/shadowing a vet ASAP. So I'm a bit nervous that it's going to be too much (because of course I'm still working full time as well) but we'll just have to see how it goes!

Physics

Well I haven't been doing the best job keeping this updated but at least it's been under 2 weeks!

So I did in fact go see Bridesmaids and it was just as hilarious the second time (if not more). Apparently a lot of the humor is "female-targeted," so if you're a guy unwilling to laugh at yourself it might not be as entertaining for you as it was for me.

On Friday that week I drove down to Rochester for the night. I basically just spent that night hanging with the family, eating pizza and cookies, and watching Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone with the parents.

On Saturday I got up, showered, and then met Jackie for lunch at Noodles. We spent a good 2 hours there just talking and catching up (also eating, but I think that's implied). Afterwards I headed over to her place to see her parents' new dog (a little thing, pretty shy) and then drove back home. Then mom, Sara, Megan, and I piled in the car, headed downtown, and fulfilled a dream. That's right, my mom rented 4 Segways for an hour and we got to ride around downtown Rochester on them, trying not to hit things or be hit by anything. It was pretty fun - got some pictures and Megan even took some video. Definitely an interesting experience. After that fun was done we all went over to a couple of fabric stores where Megan and I found this microfleece fabric for mom to make us some softy blankets (Happy Birthday to us!). Headed home and then I scrounged through the basement looking for likely camping supplies to borrow. Got my car all packed up and then Adam, my cousin, came over from Owatonna where he was doing some sort of work thing. The rest of the family was getting ready for a nice dinner (fish fry) with Adam but I pretty much said hi and then headed back to the cities.

I guess I had a pretty busy Saturday, but it doesn't end there! After chilling at home for a bit and socializing with my rats, I headed over to Nathan's where we cooked burgers and corn on the grill and ate outside in the gorgeous weather. It was an excellent meal.

On Sunday I think the only thing I did was go to Target for a few things and then hem and haw over Physics. Basically, at any vet school in the US and a lot of the international ones, you need to have at least 1 year of physics + 1 lab to apply. Unfortunately I waited too long to actually sign up for the completely online version at the U of MN. So that class had filled and I emailed the professor to see if I could get in and he basically told me to hope someone drops it. I kept idly searching for a different option (other schools, etc) and eventually stumbled upon an evening class offered at the U. After too much thinking, I finally took the leap and enrolled. It's 3 nights a week (Tues-Thurs) for around 2 hours a night and includes a lab. I'm nervous but also slightly excited - it should be much easier to stay on track when I actually have to attend classes and everything.

On Monday I realized I only have 2 weeks to study for genetics and so I started studying.

So I broke my face...

I did, but since it's been OVER A MONTH since my last post (bad Kat! BAD BAD KAT!) I'll try to give a brief update on the rest of my life.

The week following my last post I started riding my bike to work (and signed up to the bike commuter program at the U) and had a lot of trouble with the rusty stretched out chain.  On my second day riding in to work I was about to head home and noticed my rear tire was flat.  After just getting new tires last summer, I was kind of ticked.  Luckily for me there's a bike shop on campus, so I stopped in and they fixed it (replaced the tube) for like $10.  Later that week, or possibly the following week, I finally got the bike parts I ordered and hauled my bike up into the apartment and got dirty/greasy hands replacing the bike chain.  After that, the bike worked beautifully!  It's amazing what a new chain can do.  

I've also been going to the Rec Center pretty regularly (5 days last week!).  I pretty much only use the stationary bike (it's the easiest to read while doing, plus the treadmills have to be signed up to use and are generally pretty busy).  At first it was harder convincing myself to go, it's no longer on the way if I'm riding my bike!  But eventually I just made it part of my routine to do it right after work.

WW has also been going really well.  I had a few weeks where I basically stopped paying attention and ate tons of crap, but I'm back on track.  As of my last weigh in I had lost close to 20lb on the program (since Jan 17).  It's really made me start eating more fruit and less processed foods, which can only be good.

Work has been getting better - I've  had more successful experiments, but I think my boss is a little impatient with the progress.  Not that she blames me in any way (which is a delightful new experience for me) but she wants to get it done.

Okay right now I'm going to take a short break (because this is hard work you know) and go run some errands, I'll be back to finish I swear!

And I'm back - went to Half Price Books and bought some GRE prep materials (a book and some vocab flash cards) and then Petco for some rat bedding and kitten food.  When I got home Addy smelled the bag and started purring like a motorboat and nuzzling the bag.  It was adorable.

Back to my rehash of the last few weeks, a lot of biking to work, working, working out, biking home, and sitting around watching TV/Netflix.  Pretty boring stuff really.

Things of note:  On the first weekend in April I drove to Eau Claire and then Madison WI helping Megan move into her new apartment.  Long drive, but really nice apartment building.  We also took a self guided tour of her new workplace (Epic) and it is as its name implies.  The whole place is just kind of amazing. Drove back to Eau Claire with Kory on Sunday, and then home solo.

The following weekend I drove down to Rochester for Easter weekend with the family.  Also brought Addy so she could have fun with Belle (they did do some chasing around the house).  We ate tons of delicious food, had some quality family time, and I even got a chance to meet up with Jackie for a lunch at Zumbro River Cafe (good food!).

The week between driving to Madison and Easter in Rochester I decided I wanted to get a bigger TV.  I did some research on the internet, tried to decide what I wanted and how much to spend, and finally drove down the street to Target and came home with a brand new Philips 40" LED TV (with WiFi).  I love it, and am really happy I pulled the trigger.

Hung out with Sarah H (from Gustavus) while she was in town (from the UK), that was fun.  Also, last weekend on Saturday I got to hang out with Hannah (from high school) who was in town with her parents for a conference.  We watched Winter's Bone and man is that a weird messed up movie.  On Sunday Sybylla and Vicki came over and we watched Aladdin on my new TV while eating Little Caesars.

And finally to the title story.  On Thursday last week, my coworker comes up to me and asks if I would mind giving her some of my blood.  She is doing experiments with immune cells and when she uses her own blood she doesn't get very many.  However, younger blood tends to produce more, so she wanted to try mine.  I said sure, not really too worried about it since she didn't need very much.  We walked over to another building where her MD friend drew about 50ml of blood.  I sat there while it was being drawn and got a little light headed, but afterwards just kept sitting until it went away.  I felt better, so we started walking back to our building.  We headed down the hallway towards the elevator when all of a sudden I got very dizzy and next thing I know I'm waking up on the floor of the elevator with blood all over.  I had passed out and apparently landed on my face and knees.  My coworker was freaking out beside me along with a few random people I didn't know and the elevator was emitting this annoying buzz because it wanted to go to a different floor but they were holding the door open.  Eventually I sat up (while constantly apologizing) and they brought in an office chair to wheel me out of the elevator.  Apparently they had also called the U's ER who called a "Code Blue" for me.  For those of you who don't know, Code Blue is the one they call for people having a heart attack or stroke or are in immediate danger of dying.  So next thing we know 4 doctors come pouring out of a nearby elevator and start checking me over.  After a few minutes, another 8 doctors (and no, I'm not exaggerating with the numbers here) come running down the hallway (they had initially gone to the wrong Masonic building - there are two on campus).  So I'm super embarrassed because I'm not in any real danger, there's just blood pouring out of my nose, my face hurts, and I have a little headache.  They insist on taking me to the ER however, so the bring me this wheelchair (after initially threatening to get me a stretcher).  The wheelchair they brought though is in line with the rising rate of obesity in America and is practically a park bench.  Two of me could have easily sat side by side on this thing.  Finally get to the ER where another slew of doctors, medical students, and nurses come in to see the "Code Blue" patient.  After figuring out what happened though (and realizing I was not nearly exciting enough) I lost the majority of my medical staff.  I did have another EKG and the tech looked at it and asked if I was a runner or an athlete (not sure if I've ever mentioned this but the same thing happened in Rochester when I had an EKG for a research study I participated in - the woman asked if I was an athlete).  So I have an athletic heart, which is nice I think.  There was one woman who thought I must surely be pregnant (despite the 0.05% chance of that being possible) so insisted I give a urine sample.  And, irony of ironies, they drew blood to test as well.  While at the ER my boss arrived (my coworker had left once I got there and told her what happened).  She stayed the entire time I was there and even drove me home afterwards - because she's awesome.  Can you imagine my last boss being anywhere near so kind?  My sister Sara also showed up for part of the time, and thought it was ridiculous that after an hour of being there no one had offered me an ice pack for the giant lump on my forehead, busted nose, and split lip.  All in all, I was stuck at the ER for a good 3 1/2 - 4 hours, sitting around awkwardly hooked up to machines and waiting around for people to get my shit done so I could go home.

This past week I've been healing fairly quickly, the only remaining evidence is a bit of yellow and purple bruising under one of my eyes, a still tender nose, small bruise on my forehead, and the cut on the inside of my lip has been slow to heal.  My neck and shoulders are also still slightly sore.

I've also made some real progress on the whole "life goals" thing this week.  I figured out which classes I still need for which schools, and where and when I can take the classes.  I also finally bought the GRE prep materials (today mid-blog :P) and am going to sign up to take it May 26 I hope. That is very quickly approaching, but I wanted to give myself the option of taking it again before the turn in deadline for applying (I have to take it before July 31st).

And that's all folks!

Update: I just registered (and paid) to take the GRE June 2.  Wish me luck!

Marching on

I can't believe it's been so long since I last posted, but so it has.

I guess nothing truly noteworthy has occurred.

I've been working at the U now for almost a month (crazy) but nothing has really come to fruition as far as my experiments are concerned. Part of that is because the breast cancer cell line I'd been using kept getting contaminated. Since the other scientist in the lab had a similar issue with this line, we finally decided that they were probably contaminated when they were frozen down, so we needed to get new ones. The other issue I've had is the fact that I'd never run a Western Blot before and the first time I ran one by myself (never having even seen it done in the lab) I inadvertently skipped a crucial step. So that's back to square one as well. Sigh.

In other news I finally decided to join a gym. I ended up choosing the University Rec Center. They have everything (like the RAC at home) - racquetball courts and swimming pools among others. That was the first selling point. Then I found out they can just deduct it out of my paycheck (~$11/paycheck). That, plus the $20/month reimbursement program, made it practically free. The final selling point for that facility was that I have to walk right past it to get to my bus home, which means it's harder to find excuses not to go.

Of course, right after joining, the weather turned amazing. I mean the last week it has been in the 70s in Minneapolis! In March! It's unheard of, but so wonderful. On Tuesday and Wednesday I walked home from work. On Thursday I walked to work, and on Friday I walked to and from work.

Actually Friday was a crazy day. It was a University floating holiday, so I walked in to work, did a few hours of stuff, then walked home. But instead of walking straight home I walked down along the river to Marshall/Lake, and then over to my house (about twice the distance of just walking home). And then I got my bike out of storage, inflated the tires, and rode it to the library. After that I got even crazier and decided to take Addy for a walk. It might not have been bad, but I decided to take her all the way to Sybylla's house. Don't get me wrong, it's not a ridiculously long walk (10ish blocks), but it is with a cat who refuses to walk or even ride nicely. Basically, Addy got freaked out, and I did not help by rushing her along on a long walk (I wanted to make sure we got there and back before the sun went down).

On Saturday (St. Patrick's Day) not much happened. Nathan and I had steak and potatoes off the grill (yummy).

Today (Sunday) I was lazy. I spent the majority of the day watching movies on TV and Hoarders on Netflix. I kept thinking about going outside and enjoying the weather some more but then getting lazy. The 9 miles I walked on Friday (I mapped it out) made my muscles sore. Not so much my legs, but my lower back.

I also really need to get my bike fixed, but instead of taking it to the local bike shop as I originally planned to, I decided to order a new bike chain (and chain tool) off Amazon and attempt to fix it myself. We'll see how that goes...

Finally, in 3 days it will have been 4 years since my Northwest trip in Australia. It's amazing to me how fast time has gone by and how much has changed in those 4 years. I feel older and more mature (no kidding right) but also like not that much has really changed. I'm still as confused as ever about my future!

I'm going to be volunteering at Como Zoo this summer! I got approved to work in the bird area, informing guests about the birds at the zoo. Not sure how it'll go, but I'm sure it will be good for my future! Now I need to get the rest of my classes done, take the GRE, and start applying for vet schools. And time keeps marching on

Soaking wet feet

Curious about the title? It's not nearly as interesting as it sounds (although to be fair it doesn't actually sound all that interesting, does it?). I'll get to it shortly...

Flash backward to me getting home from Cancun (a sad day indeed). While it was nice to be back on familiar turf, I definitely could have stayed much longer (a month or two, at least until the weather here turned decent).

Anyway, I picked up my kitten, who I actually did miss quite a bit, and then my last days of freedom commenced.

On Friday night Nathan and I semi celebrated Valentine's Day. Not knowing what to get guys for V-Day, I had prepared by getting a digital photo frame for him. Unfortunately the one they sent me originally failed to turn on, so I had to return it and send in a new one. This meant of course that, since they shipped it via UPS, I had to drive over and pick it up. I did this on Friday, went home and made sure it worked, and then loaded the pictures I had picked out onto it. Back in the box and fast forward to Nathan's. Oh, I had also purchased him a hand painted black and white tile of a palm tree/ocean while I was in Cancun. It matched the ones he got for himself in Cozumel, but that was a "I was traveling, this is what I got for you" gift. He in turn got me 12 red roses and a dinner at Olive Garden (why is the food there so delicious??). We also went and saw Mission Impossible 4 after our dinner at the cheap second run theater in Hopkins.

On Saturday I went with Nathan to Petco, where the dog he'd been fostering for just 2 weeks (Nix) got adopted! Happy and sad, but mostly happy. Headed home just in time to meet Vicki to pick up my rats and then we both met up with Sybylla at the Riverview Theater (actually we drove around the surrounding neighborhoods looking for her walking in, spotted her, pulled up alongside and yelled "Get in!" if you want to be precise) and saw Sherlock Holmes 2: Game of Shadows. It was pretty good - actually better than I remembered it (we saw it when it was in regular theaters as well).

Monday was my first day of work. I showed up to talk to HR at my scheduled 8:30am appointment, and when she was done she asked if I knew where/what to do next (assuming I did). Unfortunately, I did not. So she sent me to get an ID badge and gave me the lab number and my PI's (principle investigator, "boss") office number to call afterwards. I got my badge, called the numbers, and no response. So I found a computer and emailed the PI (Martina), as well as leaving messages on both her and the lab phone. I figured out where the lab was (12th floor Moos Tower) and went there, but the door was locked. So I hung out on the 2nd floor in Moos Tower, randomly emailing and calling again. This went on for a good 3 hours, never contacting anyone. During that time (~11am) I went to Noodles to eat lunch. After that, I gave up and walked the 2.1 miles home. It was a decent walk, I only wish there was a bus that took that exact route (it's so close as the crow flies!).

On Tuesday I tried again, arriving at 8am, and getting ahold of no one. Eventually though I got in touch with Yoshie (another scientist in Martina's lab) and got the grand tour, etc. I also learned that they work 9-5 and Martina took Monday off (it was Presidents Day after all).

The week progressed, me learning various techniques (although more in theory than actual practice). I thawed some cells to start my own cultures and cell lines, but unfortunately they got contaminated with yeast when I inadvertently used tainted PBS (the autoclave tape was a lie...).

The weekend was fairly low key, I made enchiladas on Friday and brought them to Nathan's for dinner (they were tasty). On Saturday we took the bus from my apartment to the Millenium Hotel for Chris' sister (Lisa)'s wedding. A nice short ceremony, decent food (prime rib was okay, also potatoes cut into the shape of mushrooms, why? I have no idea..., cake was meh). Watched people dance, give toasts, etc, then headed home.

So far this week has been pretty slow. On Monday I discovered the cell contamination, so I tossed those and started anew. Tuesday was slow, just checking on the cells and coming up with a plan (doing some Google searching for protocols, etc). When I got home I watched Toy Story 3 and nearly cried again. I may have to hang on to Netflix...

Today has been fast and slow. The morning flew by, I had cells to split and freeze down as well as an impromptu meeting with Martina regarding my project. What is this project you ask? Well I'll tell you!

Cancer, as we all are probably aware, likes to move, spreading and creating havoc where it goes. There are many proteins that cells have that help them move, and my project focuses on one of them. Basically, I take breast cancer cells and knock out that protein (so the cells are unable to make that protein), and then see if they can still move/migrate.

Of course it is going to take many steps to do this. The first thing I have to do is prove that I can actually knock out that protein. Luckily for me, the lab has already done it to ovarian cancer cells, so I just have to let them teach me how to do it and then run a test proving the protein is gone. The next step is seeing how the it affects the cell movement, a bit trickier. This is the step I had to do research on to find a good protocol, but I think I've got it figured out. That will happen in petri dishes for the most part. The last step (at least for our lab) is then trying it in a mouse, to see if the cells that have the protein knocked out already still move as well as seeing if you can just give the mouse the treatment and halt the cancer spread.

I hope that makes sense, it actually helps me to type out/explain the overall project. Makes it seem a bit easier than the daunting task it originally appeared to be.

After the morning rush I went to meet Sara for lunch. She decided not to eat with me (the pooper) but I got Chipotle and we had a good talk, then walked back to Moos Tower together.

But what about the wet shoes? Where does that fit into the story?

Well for the past week and a half I have been taking various bus routes to and from work, with various amounts of walking thrown in because Washington Ave is closed (so I have to walk a bit to get from the bus stop to my building). For two days so far it has been a nasty slushy snow-covered walk, and my boots are just not up to the task. I never manage to realize it ahead of time, but by the time I get to work or home my boots and socks are soaking wet and my feet are freezing. That is the situation right now, my poor feet are quite miserable.

Cancun and Xel Ha

So I drove home (Rochester) on Thursday after leaving Addy with Nathan and Luna & Evaine with Vicki. Hung out with my parents, watched them procrastinate packing, and hanging out with Belle.

On Friday I took Belle on a 2 hour walk - to the dog park and back. She had a blast but it was freezing in the wind and the next few days my legs were in pain. That night Megan came home as well and we hung out.

Saturday I only played fetch with Belle, but she still got a bit wiped out. Megan and I had a lazy day, until we went to Target and got matching dresses (we're nerds/I couldn't find a good color).

Sunday both Megan and I went on a walk/fetch with Belle, then came back up to Minneapolis where we picked up Sara and all hung out at my apartment until late. Went to bed, and Megan woke me up twice during the night talking in her sleep. The second time I woke her up asking her why the poop she was talking to me at 2:36 am.

We woke up at 3am, Sara drove us to the train station, and Megan and I caught the train to the airport. Had to wait for what seemed ages for the AirTran people to finally show up to work (4:30ish), then waited at the gate for our plane. Had a long day of hanging in airports, riding planes, standing in lines, and waiting for people to show up so our shuttle to the resort could go. Met up with mom and dad at the resort, dropped our stuff at our room, and went on a tour of the Grand Mayan (huge!). Ate dinner at one of the restaurants (I had fish tacos), then hung out poolside until bedtime.

On Tuesday we got up with the sun and tried to catch a sunrise over the water. Unfortunately it was really cloudy so it wasn't very impressive. Went and napped next to the big pool by the ocean for a bit, then transferred to these cool chairs with head shades next to the sand pool. Read books and just hung out there for a bit, until we decided to get margaritas (happy hour). Then we broke out the cards and played 13 rounds of golf (card game) while enjoying margarita after margarita. By the end, mom and I were pretty smashed. It hit Megan later and I still don't really know how far gone dad got. We packed our stuff up and stumbled back to the rooms where we made sandwiches and dropped off mom. Then, when it finally hit Megan, dad took the two of us on a walk to see the flamingos and the crocodiles. Back to the rooms for a nap, then got up and went out to dinner again - different restaurant. Enjoyed the live music, bought some hand painted souvenir tiles, and then headed to bed.

Wednesday was an exciting day at Xel Ha eco park. The all inclusive park was a blast - we ate too much food, went snorkeling, tubing through mangroves, cliff jumping into the ocean, saw dolphins and manatees in captivity and iguanas, coatis, stingrays, birds, and fish in the wild, rode the zip lines, hiking through jungles, snorkeling in underwater caves (cenotes?) and overall having a great day.

Thursday was a slow sad last day, we basically spent the morning reading poolside, ate leftover pizza and sandwiches, and then packed up and headed to the airport. Long day in airports and airplanes, then back home in Minneapolis.

So this update, especially for a vacation one, was pathetically low on details, but I'm kind of tired and not really in the mood to go all out. Sorry for that. Either way, the majority of the story is told in the 637 pictures I took on the trip - about half of which are posted on Facebook.

Adios mis amigos.

Vacation time

Had my last week at WuXi, was a very busy week. On Thursday after work a few coworkers there and I went out to Buffalo Wild Wings for happy hour (yummy boneless wings!).

On Friday I went out to Parkway Pizza with Vicki and Sybylla. Good food but we did have to wait for a table. Because of that we got free drinks! Hooray. Afterward we went to my apartment and watched Princess & the Frog and Rock-a-doodle. We also watched/played Sims 3 (waaay too many options!).

On Saturday Nathan picked up a new foster dog (Chance was adopted) called Lix. I decided immediately that that was a HORRIBLE name. I mean it really just sounds terrible, who names a dog that? Anyway, we renamed her Nix, and she's pretty cute. Mostly black, fluffy, and smaller than Jackie. She's a super cuddler, just loves to snuggle up with you wherever you are.

On Sunday I had a Superbowl party - made cheese dip, lil smokies, and pigs in a blanket and Sybylla, Vicki, and Nathan came over to watch the game/commercials. Sybylla and I also played some card games as well. It was decently fun, I was surprised that Nathan insisted on watching the entire game instead of playing cards with us, especially since he originally suggested playing a board game during it. We also arbitrarily decided which teams to support, Vicki and Sybylla had the Patriots and Nathan and I had the Giants. At the last second our team came through with the hilarious touchdown, it was pretty fun.

Monday was pretty low key, I pretty much spent the entire day (that I was awake for) doing laundry.

On Tuesday I decided to go skiing. I went to Buck Hill for the early bird special, 10-2 for $13. It was decently fun, at least the actual skiing part of it. I somehow forgot that the majority of ski time is actually spent on the chairlift, and riding the chairlift alone is incredibly boring. So I got bored fairly soon, but it was still a good choice.

On Wednesday I went out to lunch with my former coworker Katie. We went to Taco Bell (delicious) and just caught up with things. After that I ran a few errands and watched tons of Hoarders and Confessions: Animal Hoarding (I may be addicted - but my apartment is super clean!).

Finally, today I spent running more errands, cleaning things (the rat cage), and now just waiting to hear from Vicki. She's coming by to pick up the rats to take care of them for the next week. Addy is already at Nathan's (not very happily) for the week so the apartment feels really empty. I'm hoping she'll cope well with the other cats and dogs there. As soon as the rats are picked up I'm heading down to Rochester to spend the weekend at home with Belle, and then Megan and I are flying to Cancun on Monday! Super excited - I'll try to update as soon as I get back!

Viva Mexico!

So on Friday I finally gave WuXi a final day - after hearing from the U that they wanted me to start on Feb 20th. So that's going to be exciting.

I honestly don't remember what all happened over the weekend.

On Monday and Tuesday night, Nathan came over to my house and we painted - he painted small models and I painted on a canvas. I also tried to take him out for McDonald's (I know right, big spender me) and their card readers were down so I couldn't use my gift card (courtesy of Katie, it was a parting gift on my last day at the VA). Plus I had no cash, so he ended up having to pay. So much for that.

I also discovered that I won't get the University employee discount for this semester, and the last day to drop courses for a full refund was on Tuesday, so I ended up dropping my physics course. It was a tough decision to make, but considering it will save me over $1400 I really couldn't justify staying in the class.

After making that money saving decision, I also decided to pull the trigger on purchasing a plane ticket to Cancun! My parents' are going down for a week, they got a timeshare down there, and Megan and I are going to join them for 4 days. Unfortunately the shortness of our trip is because the flight was the cheapest, even one day longer cost $100 more. I'm super excited to get down there somewhere warm and just relax, and the week before I start my new job.

Work this week was literally painful, I labeled so many tubes and plates that on Tuesday my index finger was in physical pain. I ended up having to use my middle finger, and it was just sad. The end of the week got better, but next week will be bad again I'm sure.

Yesterday (Friday) at work we got Baja Sol catered in for lunch. It was to celebrate a record month for the lab - apparently in December they had over half a million $ of work contracted/completed. Kind of insane. Last night I spent far too long at Nathan's house watching Once Upon a Time, a really entertaining show.

Today I slept in, and that's almost it. I really can't think of anything else I really accomplished other than reading, watching TV, playing with Addy, and filling my car with gas.

So overall not much to update on, but hey I tried.

I'm no early bird

So I've been working at WuXi Apptec for almost 2 weeks now, and finally starting to get used to the early schedule. And by that of course I mean I'm not at all.

The first week was the worst, I couldn't convince my body that it needed to go to bed and actually sleep at 11pm, so I lay awake tossing and turning and trying every trick I knew to try to fall asleep (curling up on the Lazy Boy in the living room worked once, but not the second time), usually to no avail. So I'd get a few hours of sleep, have to wake up around 6am, work a full day, and then get home exhausted and fall into a 2+ hour nap. Of course, waking from that, I then couldn't fall asleep at a normal time for bed, and so the cycle continued.

On Wednesday I decided to take the job at the U, and so informed my recruiter. Have I talked about the recruiter at all? I'm not sure but I'll give a brief blurb as to why I'm not a fan.

So this chick (Tammy) contacted me about the job at WuXi, didn't really get a lot of information about it other than what I could find on the internet about the company, but I interviewed and got hired. Unfortunately, when I was interviewing I was informed that they were actually looking for people to fill 2 positions, and while I was technically interviewing for one, they thought my qualifications ranked me more towards the second. So while they were explaining the job duties to me, I sort of mixed them up in my head and got the idea that the slide reader job was going to be a mindless sitting at a microscope for hours staring at slides job that would last 4-6 months, but the lab assistant job would be more interactive, cell culture, mouse work, etc. and that was a permanent position. So when Tammy informed me I was hired for the second, I got really excited, thinking that I was getting a permanent full-time position. I accepted, and when I went to fill out the paperwork with her, she informed me that it was a 3 month temporary position. I was like wait a minute hang on wtf? Of course I didn't actually say that because at the time I was desperate for a job and would still take it (I'd take any sort of extension on the receipt of paychecks). But I wasn't happy about it. Fast forward to my last Friday at the VA (6th, a sad day) and I get an email from Tammy asking if I'd had my physical yet. I was like no, you never told me I needed one, come on! Replied, and then she got back to me saying she was wrong, I didn't need one. This is after other phone messages and emails addressed to the wrong person and with the wrong information, etc. Fast forward again to me informing her about my decision to quit WuXi and go work at the U. Part of my decision to do so (aside from the benefits, tuition reimbursement, less hectic/industry related tasks) was the stability of having a job for longer than 3 months. When I told Tammy I was leaving, she stated "well the WuXi job is becoming permanent, does that affect your decision?" And I just sat there and was like, well it would have been nice to weigh that information into my decision, or to have known about it ahead of time! I still probably would have chosen the U, but still! Why withhold that information?? So it became another part of my decision to leave in that I would no longer have to deal with her or any recruiter (at least for now).

On Thursday I got a text message from mom telling me to call her ASAP. At the time I had just started my lunch break so I called her right away. After some random idle chitchat she finally got to the reason she wanted me to call her: Belle was sick. There was some sort of dark mass growing on her chest and the vet in Rochester was afraid it was a really aggressive cancerous tumor. She suggested taking Belle up to the U of MN in St. Paul for more advanced testing. Also on Thursday I talked to the WuXi people about my leaving, and wondering if they still wanted to bother training me in or just stop paying me (ie quit now). They decided to keep me on as grunt labor, labeling things, making slides, sorting inventory, etc.

So on Friday I took a half day off from work and went and met mom and Sara at the U. While there I found out that her "tumor" had started leaking pus and blood and the vets at the U were thinking it was probably a really bad infection. They had to do some tests and so we three went to B-dubs for lunch. Right after we ordered they called to tell us they were done taking samples and were more and more convinced it was an infection. So we ate and then headed back to the U, picked up Belle, talked to the vet, and got her prescriptions. She was in high spirits, I think she was a little dismayed at being cooped up and bandaged all around her midsection.

The weekend was pretty uneventful. Nathan and I went and saw In Time at the cheap Hopkins theater - I actually really liked it, it had a very interesting concept.

On Monday I didn't sleep again, but it was worse than ever. I was awake easily until 4:30 and was woken up by little miss furball at 5:43. So I decided that I did not care enough about WuXi and my new grunt duties to kill myself and took the day off as a sick day.

Tuesday was mostly uneventful, other than that I decided to (we're getting into some possible TMI here) weigh myself and had an unfortunate realization. All those pounds I'd dropped when I went through that depression era were back, and with some friends. I decided that something needed to happen. So I started looking at gyms to join and thought they were all too expensive, plus there was no accountability to get me to go regularly. Then I saw a WW ad on TV and decided what the heck. I signed up for a month.

On Wednesday I had a WW meeting, and while shorter than I expected, it actually did seem pretty helpful. Here was a place where I would be accountable for my actions during the week and if I didn't do something, someone else would know about it. It's like having homework that you have to do or you won't pass the class. So I'm trying it and we'll see how it goes.

That's about it so far, my job has been okay but not spectacular. It is nice getting to know new people, but I really think the atmosphere of working in industry is just not for me. It's all about high throughput and more paperwork than I thought imaginable and just getting massive amounts of things done (this afternoon I spent the entire time making 350+ slides, the morning was spent labelling 100+ petri plates). That kind of volume just makes me shudder.

Plus, getting there at 7am is killing me slowly from the inside. Today I took an accidental 2 hour nap. I did manage to get gas, cash in my winning lotto tickets from who knows when, and put some $ in the bank before I got home, but the rest of my night has been unproductive.

Oh and my physics class started - got the wrong book at first but it's on its way, and my lab kit arrived (5 different colored Slinkies!).

Time to hit the hay... and try to sleep

From Drought to Flood

So a few weeks ago I was desperate to find a job, applying here there and everywhere, wishing I could just get an interview somewhere and cursing my pending unemployment.

Today I have a temporary job, another job offer, and an interview for yet another job.

And of course I'm all worried about how to break it to my current job that I have an offer for a better job and of course if I should accept the better job or hold off to see if I get the best job (still have to set up the interview for that one).

Update:

I found out more info on the job I was still going to interview for and it doesn't sound like a good fit for me. Which means that I'm accepting the position at the U that I interviewed for back in October.

I'm nervous, but excited.

Happy 2012

Well I'm sitting at the gynecologists waiting for my appointment and got so bored that I downloaded the Blogger app to update this from my phone. They informed me upon arrival that they were running up to an hour behind and of course I can't reschedule, what with starting a new job next week.

Anyway, that's today and there are other things to update on. I can't remember where I left off and I dont really feel like looking it up so I'll just start with the weekend. On Friday I packed up the cat, fed the rats extra to get them through the weekend, then drove down to Rochester. I didn't realize how many of my Coughlin relatives were already there, but it was a full house. I don't remember anything terribly exciting happening other than eating a delicious Culvers butterburger for dinner.

On Saturday I got up and we had tasty Panera bagels for breakfast. Waited around for the last of the relatives to arrive, some went and hung out at the RAC, and finally gave up and ate pasta for lunch. The stragglers arrived and ate, and then we opened presents. Took a break and then it was time for fun! The gag gift exchange/game. I ended up with an artificial Charlie Brown Christmas tree. It's so cute and sad. Afterwards, Megan Sara Taylor Emma Kory Adam Z and I headed to downtown Rochester and the hotel room. We played drinking games, were eventually joined by Sean, watched the ball drop, and then those of us over 21 went over to Dooleys. It was so packed it was ridiculous. We stayed just long enough to ring in the new year and wait in line for the bathroom, then headed back towards the hotel. On the way through the skyway we ran into a wedding. So as inconspicuous as can be we joined the party! That's right, my first act in 2012 was to crash a wedding. It was awesome. Stumbled back to the hotel (while singing Journey loudly in the streets) and ordered pizza, played more games, then bedtime.

Most of Sunday was spent reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and just hanging out. The relatives slowly trickled out, heading home, until it was just the Illinois Coughlins, the granparents, and of course my family. We decided to go see the movie of the book I spent the day reading. Great movie with a few deviations from the book, and some scenes that were taken from the second book.

Headed home late after the movie, slept in on Monday (no work), and spent Monday and today reading/finishing the sequel.

Update on the appointment. I didn't get out until 2 hours after I arrived, the doc didn't believe me when I said I had my last stuff done with them, and I had to get my last HPV vaccine shot and my blood drawn.