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!