two infinity

Things I Want in My Next Living Arrangement

2010-10-08T16:27:00.002-04:00

I'm having an interesting time living alone. One the one hand, I absolutely adore being the only one here. Whatever mess there is is mine and I am not bothered by someone else's stuff being everywhere without my being able to clean it up. There are rarely dishes in the sink, the couch is always clean, and everything is exactly where I want it. I can burn candles whenever I want and have the smells I like. The fridge is all mine, which is good because it's very full. I do all the chores, so they get done how I like them. I can sleep with the bedroom door open, something I haven't done since high school. It's quiet, for the most part (unless my neighbors are being loud). On the other hand, living alone is kind of scary and kind of lonely. If something happens to me, no one will know for a long time. If I fall and break myself somehow, it's going to be difficult to manage on my own. I have to actively seek out social activities, and it's kind of a hassle. I don't know anyone at my apartment complex, so no one's ever coming by to chat.

All this aside, I do, for the most part, like my apartment. It's far away from campus, which sucks, but it's inexpensive, it was fully furnished, and it's the perfect size for me. However, there are some things I've been thinking about that I definitely want wherever I live next. I realize it might be a few more living arrangements before I get this, but eventually I'll have them all.

- A porch and/or a deck. You have no idea how much I want this. I want someplace to sit outside and read or drink some tea or something. Even a little spot of grass with a park bench in it would be nice. And on my deck I want a barbeque grill. And some lounge chairs so I can entertain guests.

- Lightswitches that go with lights. I have two switches next to my front door. One goes to the outside light. The other, my landlord hasn't figured out which outlet it goes to after 20-some years. Coming home at night means I have to feel around for the lamp next to the door and manually turn it on...who does that?!

- Giant windows. I have a nice size window in my living room right now but I want lots and lots of windows to let it tons of light.

- A garden or window boxes. I guess technically I could do window boxes right now, but I'm afraid people walking by my motel-style apartment would knock them over. Also, it's cold.

- Closets. I have one closet right now. One. It is where lots of my clothes and shoes are along with all my linens, and is doubling as storage space for everything from the fans (I don't have A/C) to my sleeping bag to well, everything. I would like to have a pantry closet, a linen closet, and a front hall closet...

- A/C. It sucks to be without it in the summer. 5 fans just don't cut it.

- Counter space. I have more now that the fans are gone, but it's still not much.

- Cabinets I can reach. There's a significant amount of space I'm wasting right now just because I can't reach those shelves. Sometimes being short is no fun (but usually I like it).

Otherwise, here are things I'd keep from my current apartment:

- Ceiling fan and light. So awesome. And it's connected to a switch, so I don't have to stand on a chair to turn it on.

- Walk in closet. Yeah, it's the only closet, but thank goodness it's a walk in.

- Carpet everywhere except next to the sink in the kitchen and in the bathroom. I like carpet in living areas. If I had a dining room I would want hardwood floor, but for the living room and bedroom carpet is the way to go.

- Nice views out my window. I get to look at the mountains of North Carolina all day.

Recap from this week

2010-05-14T19:43:00.003-04:00

This was my last week of classes at DePauw. I am not sure when that statement is actually going to hit me (if it ever will...it never did for high school), but it is still strange to think about. We didn't even really do anything in the classes; evaluations take up a good chunk of class, so it doesn't leave much room to actually get into a good discussion. The only coursework I have left is my take-home final (paper) in history. I turned in the final paper for education class this afternoon, and I turned in the other small history paper on Monday. We had our cha-cha test in ballroom, and I think I went out pretty well in that class. I can now foxtrot, jitterbug, waltz, tango, and cha-cha...assuming I remember the steps ;)

Tuesday, Kathy came down to visit from Purdue, and we had a good time doing not much of anything, haha. We went on a walk around campus since she hadn't been here since freshman year for the Guster concert. We sat in the Adirondack chairs for a couple hours just chatting, waiting to see if we would get stormed on, but it turned out to be a pretty nice day, although very windy. Later we watched Dr Horrible's Sing-along Blog, which was funny and good except I didn't like the ending.

Thursday (yesterday) was a pretty big day too. In the morning we had our last tutor meeting of the semester, where we go to Marvin's for lunch. It was a lot of fun, but bittersweet since it was the last tutor meeting. After three years, tutoring is so ingrained in me that it'll be very strange to not be doing it anymore. (Tuesday when I didn't have to tutor lab since there was no lab, it was quite odd.) Also Thursday was Amanda M and my senior dinner! It was so much fun. Eric, Ali, and my brother all came in for the event, and lots of other people came to dinner too. We went to Los Martinez where the normally good service was absolutely terrible, but what can you do. We had some good laughs over it (I hope), and we had a great time. Shelby put together our top tens, and those had some pretty good stories, which was awesome.

Today has been pretty chill. We took the CS senior picture, I finished my paper and turned it in, and I've just been hanging out in the apartment for the most part since then. I will start packing up my life tonight in the hopes that when Dad comes on Sunday he can take a bunch of stuff away. I love packing and organizing things so to me it is very fun and relaxing.

Good things from last night

2010-05-09T16:24:00.003-04:00

Because everything should have balance (and I don't want to work on a paper that I should be doing; also I am trying hard to be more positive about everything; also I try hard to find enjoyment in the little things), here are the good things that happened last night:

- I got to get all dressed up, including getting my nails done (which I rarely, rarely, rarely do). I absolutely adore getting dressed up and don't get to do it very often at all.

- I had a fantastic dinner (parmesan chicken in a delicious sauce on top of angel hair pasta; also some very tasty bread and I even ate some salad, which I never do) and a nice glass of wine.

- There were fountains set up for decorations, and I love fountains.

- The smell of roses was everywhere. I did eventually get/take a rose. While roses are not my favorite flower, they do smell quite nice.

- I was asked to dance twice, once by a friend whose date wanted to rest a little bit longer, and once by a friend who was my first ballroom partner last semester before I broke my foot. The first guy is a phenomenal dancer, and I will probably be spoiled forever because of that one dance. Confidence and ability to lead and keep rhythm are key, and he had everything down. It was so much fun! I enjoyed using my ballroom class skills in real life, too.

- Several people said I looked nice.

- There were a million stars visible last night on my walk home.

Some tips for formals

2010-05-09T12:35:00.002-04:00

Let's say you're a guy and you have a very good friend who is a girl. Let's also say you are one of those guys who hops around from one girl to another, dating one for a while and then dumping her to pursue another girl, and always are convinced the girl you're not dating wants you back so you go back to her; mostly you are kind of a player, but to be fair, a nice player. But let's say you decide to take your good girl friend to your formal, for any slew of reasons which could include a) you think you'll have a better time with her than one of your hookups; b) you feel bad that she hasn't been to your formal before, although she "should have gone last year" and you're "really sorry about that"; or c) you don't want to go alone. Or maybe all of those reasons, who knows.

Great, you have a date who should be a good time, because trust me, she knows how to have a good time at formal dances. But for the whole evening, you can't stop thinking about last year's formal and how you went with the love of your life who then broke up with you last summer, destroying your heart in the process, and has completely changed and blah blah blah. Your good girl friend knows this whole story; she's been there through the entire thing (remember? the entire thing) so really, you don't need to keep telling her the story. She's a very good listener, her one redeeming quality, and she doesn't forget things easily. So really, stop telling her the story. Especially at dinner. Especially when you are the one who asked her to the formal out of your own free will; she is not one of those girls who goes around begging someone to take her just so she can go to a formal. Especially when she was super excited to be going to this formal and had been looking forward to it for a while. Especially when she has just spent several hours getting ready in order to look really gorgeous to make you look even better.

So here are a few tips that you should follow if you want your date to actually have a good time at the formal. Recognize that I am a traditionalist and not all girls would want all of these things, but these are the things I wanted. It's probably going to sound like I swiped it straight out of a '40s women's magazine. Sorry, that's how I want to be treated. My apologies to all the feminists out there. I hope that most people would be in agreement with many of these things, though.

- Bring your car around to pick her up so she doesn't have to walk to your fraternity house in heels. Open her door for her. Shut the door for her (but make sure her dress is out of the way first). When you park, open her door for her and help her out of the car. Shut her door.

- Open any doors for her that you guys will be walking through.

- Offer to take her jacket. Even offer to help her get it off.

- If you actually mean it, compliment her on how nice she looks. Make sure you notice any special things she did, like if she figured out how to put a flower in her hair. Don't wait until it's 1am and she is frustrated with you and has to point out that she has a flower in her hair. Don't say that you didn't mention it because "it's not a rose". You should have given her a rose in the first place. She would have gladly replaced the non-rose with a rose.

- If you don't enjoy getting your picture taken, at least put up with it and humor her. She just spent a lot of time and effort getting ready and she wants there to be good pictures of the event.

- When you go to dinner, pull her chair out for her to sit down. Also offer to take her jacket here.

- Whoever did the inviting to the event should pay. So yes, you should pay for her.

- She should always thank you for everything, including holding the doors, paying, and helping her with the jacket.

- Ask her how her food is. Offer her a bite of yours if she wants. She should ask you the same and offer you a bite as well.

- Engage her in conversation. If she doesn't know someone at the table, introduce her so it's not so awkward. Don't just assume she knows everyone, even if she does.

- When you leave dinner, offer to help her put her jacket on.

- After getting back to your fraternity house, help her out of the ridiculously high van that you went to dinner in. The ground is soft and she is wearing heels.

- Don't take a nap on the way back from dinner unless she is also going to take a nap. It is not as fun for her to stare out the window the whole way back.

- Let her enjoy the decorated, festive walk up to the fraternity house.

- Introduce her to other people she might not know in your fraternity. Introduce her to their dates. Just because she spends a lot of time there doesn't mean she knows everyone, especially not the freshmen.

- Get her a drink.

- Be willing to dance at least one song with her, especially if you know she loves dancing (and you do, because she told you), especially swing and ballroom dancing. Stop being so afraid to look bad. Be willing to accept help from several of your brothers who are quite good dancers. Stop thinking it's always a competition.

- Don't tell her you'll "be right back" and then never come back. If you want her to leave, tell her so.

- Don't leave her by herself for too long. Everyone else is always with their dates, either talking, dancing, etc. She doesn't like constantly being a third or fifth wheel in conversations because you disappeared somewhere. She doesn't like sitting by herself. She doesn't like standing by herself by the food table. She doesn't like that you think because she knows most of the people in the house, that she can entertain herself for hours. You asked her to the formal; you should be willing to spend a good amount of time with her. She is not going to prevent you from going to talk to your other friends and brothers, but she would like to accompany you so she isn't alone the whole night.

- If you're going to sit outside, make sure you pay attention to how cold she is. Remember, you are wearing a lot more clothes than her.

- Stop talking about your ex all night and how much fun last year's formal was and how this formal just doesn't compare. She will feel like a terrible date. It doesn't matter if you try to soften the blow with, "You're a great date, and I wouldn't have wanted to take anybody else but you, but...", because that will actually just make her feel worse. She will think about the fact that actually, you probably did want to take someone else because with someone else you would have the opportunity for a drunken after-formal hookup, and you know you don't have that chance with her. Also, your being so moody and depressed is really killing the night. She really wanted to have an awesome time tonight and you are completely ruining it. She was succeeding, because generally she has a pretty positive, upbeat attitude about things, but you are so negative that it will eventually wear her down and she will get depressed too. Great job.

- If you are going to go off on a "much needed stroll" that's going to last more than 5-10 minutes to clear your mind about all that stuff, freaking tell her. She thought you were coming right back, so she sat outside and had to deal with one of your really drunk brothers for about 15 minutes, where she worried that he was going to either pass out, throw up all over the couch, or fall of the couch and break his head. Then she probably spent another 20 minutes trying to find you in the house, just in case you had simply gone somewhere else, or gone to get another drink, or something. When she finally gave up, went to your room, got her phone and texted you to find out where you were, you probably should have apologized for literally leaving her for over half an hour instead of merely saying you were on a walk. When she replied that she wanted to go home, you should have come back to take her home.

- After the night is over, walk her back to her place. It's 2am, dark, she's in heels and a dress, and who knows who else could be wandering about. Yes, she can take care of herself. Yes, she was completely sober. Yes, she's made that walk a million times before. But it's the principle of the matter. Also, she ran into a group of about 11 guys ranging in age from about 20-50 on the way back, and that could have had bad results. So walk her home.

I'm sure there are other things that need to be mentioned but I can't remember them right now. Most of these things are "the principle of the matter" type stuff, and most of them are just common courtesy and being nice. But she would have appreciated it, trust me.

Sorry this was so long. I'm tired of selfish guys who don't like dancing and who spend what should be a really fun evening just complaining about everything. I am pretty sure I would have fared better back through the 30s-50s.

Really bad at keeping up with this

2010-05-07T14:34:00.002-04:00

Haha. So I am terrible at keeping up with what I'm doing daily. Here's a recap of the things I can remember.

Tuesday: The last CS1 lab I will ever tutor was Tues morning. It was unfortunate, actually, that it had to end on this particular lab. It was the Robot stack lab and I hate that lab more than almost anything except for the other Robot lab. Mostly I just hate the robot labs. They only confuse the students and I never had to do them when I took CS1, so I'm not all that familiar with the code and I end up making stuff up, which isn't always right. Anyway, labs are over forever and that feels very strange. I mean, I've been doing this for 3 solid years. I still have another few hours of project tutoring next week, but then after that...no more tutoring. The rest of Tuesday involved learning some cha-cha in ballroom class, then panicking after forgetting to read a whole bunch of stuff for history, which I got all done during project tutoring hours because no one asked me for help until almost 10:20pm. The kid who asked for help didn't understand for loops, which he should have learned weeks and weeks ago. So I spent a long time taking him through the steps and making him follow the loops on the whiteboard, and I don't know if he got it ever. We leave at 11pm.

Wednesday: I was one of 2.5 people who read the reading that I panicked about for history. I am awesome like that. So that was a fun class. Lunch was great, Nettie joined Amanda and Shelby and me in Julian! It was so nice to see her and catch up. Our social group has tried to stay together since freshman year, but sometimes we have to really try hard. Education class was more scenes, which were fun. Then the rest of Weds was downhill. Mary called to let me know she was coming, and then after getting off the phone with her I started to really feel sick. I ran out of medicine and cough drops so I decided to go to Walmart to get more. In retrospect I probably shouldn't have been driving; I was really not doing too well. But I managed to get medicine and cough drops and I even managed to get carded at Walmart. Cashier lady: "Are you over 18?" Me: "Yes, I'm 22" Cashier lady: "I need to see your ID" ... what? I mean, I probably looked really terrible, but I don't think I looked under-18 terrible. Oh well, someday I will appreciate looking younger than I am. So when I got back to the apartment I thought that I should do some work, but maybe a quick nap would be nice. Yeah right, I laid down at 5pm and woke up at 8. I still felt awful but decided to get up anyway as opposed to just going to bed for real. This ended up being a good decision because I did manage to get some work done on senior project, and then Chuck called and we got to talk for a while. I found out that he went to Wake Forest for law school and lived in NC for almost 20 years, and has a lot of connections in the Winston-Salem and mountain areas in museum work! Awesome. :)

Thursday: I officially committed to Appalachian State, which took a huge load off my mind. We had a tutor meeting (last one ever in Julian 260) where Ron decided to explain some code to us, which he usually does once or twice a semester, so that was funny. Then more cha-cha, where my partner wasn't in class because he had a job interview. Legit, of course, but now we get to practice hard core for the test next Thursday. It should be a good time though. I love dancing.

Today so far: Demoed my senior project this morning, and hopefully it'll work out okay. Other than that, just been bumming around (should be writing papers) waiting for Mary and Nathan to wake up and various other things involving them. It is cloudy but warm (80).

Decided on a school

2010-05-07T11:19:00.002-04:00

Most of you probably know this already, but yesterday I officially committed to Appalachian State University! It's located in Boone, NC. The program is Public History.

I did not wait to hear back from West Florida. I figured if they've kept me waiting this long I do not care anymore. For some reason in my gut I feel like I should go to App St, so that is where I'm going. I've always been drawn to the Southeast (in high school I claimed that I wanted to live in North Carolina and thought it would be the perfect place to be, even though I had never been there before), so now I am getting my chance to really spend time there. I will be in the mountains and only a few hours from the ocean. I am looking forward to the program. Looking at the course listings, I pretty much want to take everything, so it'll be hard to narrow it down. I am excited!

Recap of last two days

2010-05-02T23:28:00.004-04:00

A recap from yesterday and today (Saturday and Sunday):

Saturday was decently boring. I should have done a lot of work and didn't. We practiced for our scene for education class -- we are performing on Monday. It feels great to be back on stage again, even if it isn't really real. We're doing a bit from Neil Simon's Laughter on the 23rd Floor. Very funny show. Saturday night I went out with Melissa to H&C before heading over to FIJI Isle. The bar scene is much more fun for me right now. All I wanted to do at FIJI was dance but it was ridiculously hot in their basement, so we only danced for a few minutes. Then I left and went wandering. Those sorts of adventures are my favorite.

Sunday has been also decently boring. I woke up coughing with a slight sore throat, which is incredibly unfortunate for multiple reasons. I went over to Julian to study with Courtney (and as it turned out, Laura) for a couple of hours, then I went to D&D which was fun as usual. I even video tapped some of the action so we can remember how it all went down.

These posts are probably going to be pretty boring, as I really just want to take down what happened on a daily basis. This is what most of my journals from middle and high school are like, and I kind of miss knowing what I was up to... Don't worry, there will be some more interesting stuff coming soon once I figure out what to do with myself.

Already?

2010-05-01T20:54:00.000-04:00

How is it May 1st already? I have just over three weeks of college left. I still can't believe it. It seems like yesterday I was moving into Humbert freshman year. I thought that year went fast. Heck, I thought high school flew by. Little did I know, college would only go by faster.

I feel like I've done a lot over the past four years. I was in about a million clubs, varying over the years, including holding positions in some. I got to play sports, including varsity. I've made some of the best friends I've ever had. I've learned a lot and picked professors' brains. I've been involved in getting some neat changes to happen on campus. I've been influential in getting prospective students to come to campus. I've tutored CS1 for 75% of the time I've been here (that's kind of cool). I've gotten to take a wide range of classes, from ballroom dancing to music theory to geology to philosophy to literature to math. I've gotten to travel. I have so many memories it's hard to think of them all. Good thing I also have thousands and thousands of pictures.

Yes, there are some things I haven't done. I haven't done a boulder run. I haven't ever set foot in ATO, Delt, Beta, or Phi Psi. I haven't been on the roof of Julian. I didn't rush, so I have almost none of the sorority experiences.

But the experiences I do have I want to hang on to forever. I'm glad I have the pictures, but I want words to go along with them. So for the next 23 days I'll be chronicling my last days of undergraduate study...

Happiness is...

2010-04-28T23:30:00.002-04:00

Happiness is...

... lounging on the couch with a beer and pizza watching football on a Sunday afternoon.

... sitting by the ocean watching the waves roll in.

... holding hands with someone you love.

... getting a whiff of your favorite smell.

... eating cookies and brownies while they're still warm.

... going out to your favorite bar with your best friends on specials night.

... hearing a favorite song on the radio.

... looking up and being able to see a million stars.

... playing in puddles after a summer rainstorm.

... falling asleep to thunderstorms.

... dogpiles with favorite friends.

... running around having fun and collapsing on the floor giggling.

... playing jokes on people or telling jokes and having them be appreciated.

... getting a really good picture of you taken.

... taking a really good picture.

... being on a boat.

... watching the sunset or sunrise.

... going to a live sports game.

... going to a concert of someone you really like.

... getting lost in a book.

... going out for a drive with all the windows down and the sun shining.

... finding a coin on the ground.

... stopping to smell a flower.

... smiling at strangers and having them smile back.

... catching the train going by.

... knowing someone wants/loves you.

... hearing from a friend you haven't heard from in a while.

... getting lost just for fun.

... having everything organized.

... dressing up and having people compliment you on how nice you look.

... having technology work the first time.

... realizing things about yourself.

... having great conversations.

... coloring, painting, drawing, sculpting, doing art or playing with art in general.

... a tasty home-cooked meal.

... drinking tea on your front porch.

... working in a garden.

... playing with a dog.

... playing with your friends.

... getting a good nights' sleep.

... finding something you thought you lost.

... putting jeans on out of the dryer while they're still warm.

... having unclogged drains.

... biking on smooth streets with no potholes.

... laughing.

... inside jokes.

... being in love.

... finding clothes that fit you just right.

... taking pleasure in the simple/little things.

data love

2010-03-10T13:25:00.003-05:00

Something awesome happened this morning. There I was, minding my own business in my history class, and then bam. Whoa.

Backing up. We had to write a paper for history, analyzing an article, determining what house of history (basically, from what standpoint the author writes about history, such as marxist, environmentalist, etc) our author uses and if he incorporates other houses of history in it, etc. Anyway, last week sometime we studied something called quantitative history, which is where the author pulls in data, graphs, charts, all that sort of thing in order to make his point. This is, so far, my favorite house of history, because it makes the most sense to my weird, three-quarters-science, one-quarter-humanities brain. But until today I didn't realize just how much I really like this sort of stuff.

This morning in class we went around telling each other about what we wrote about for our papers (there are only 10 people in the class). First we went around the room and said which house of history we picked, then later we went back and actually discussed the content of our articles and papers. Of the class, 2 picked empiricism, 2 environmentalism, 1 Annales school, 3 quantitative, 1 anthropological, and 1 marxist. Our professor thought it was interesting that 3/10 of the class picked quantitative history, and asked everyone how they felt about the use of graphs and charts and the like in historical writings. Several people answered, saying that they found them confusing and they didn't like when they were used in historical pieces. Data can be manipulated, that sort of thing.

Then I raised my hand, prefacing myself with a disclaimer: "I know I'm the outlier in here, I'm the only science-y person," and then went on to say, "but oh my god I love numbers." (This impassioned statement made my professor almost spit out his coffee and then proceed to crack up.) "I love data and charts and graphs and seeing all the statistics. They make so much sense and they are so fun, data is so cool to play with, I love numbers". And at that moment as I was saying all this about data/statistics/numbers, I felt something that I almost have never felt before in my whole life. This swelling happened in my chest, this feeling like I was just going to burst out of my body. The only other time I have felt like that was when I've been in love. Maybe a similar experience would be that feeling you get when taking in a simply breathtaking view.

I was explaining this phenomenon to two of my wonderful friends, who have both just decided which grad school they are going to, and both who are, it seems to me, pretty into what they're studying, over lunch and asked them if that's what it's like to be passionate about something, is that how it feels? I have never felt like that before, what does it mean doctor? And they confirmed my suspicions, "Yup, that's what it's like!"

Oh my god.

I knew I liked playing with data and numbers. I've always had a knack for remembering the most random statistics. For god's sake I remember for years random license plates I'll see on the highway. I've always been fascinated with census data and other demographics. I want to know how things relate to each other, but specifically in a quantitative way. I like gathering up data and making charts with it. It's so interesting!!!!! You find out the most ridiculous things. My favorite thing to do at DePauw with the first newspaper of the year is look at all the demographics of incoming students, like where they're from and all the percentages. I get obsessive about sports statistics, wanting to know all sorts of things, like when the last time x amount of points were scored, or other completely trivial things like that.

The thing is, I don't really want to study statistics. I just like playing around with numbers and data and seeing what happens with them. While I do, to some extent, care about statistical significance (that was my favorite actual math thing to do in AP Stats in high school), the rest of running statistics on things doesn't necessarily appeal to me, although maybe if I got to know more about it it would, and it would make more sense.

But I think to do anything with data analysis or data visualization or even be a sports team statistician I have to have some kind of statistics and other math background. This kind of sucks for me since the only math I've had in college was discrete. The computer science program here doesn't have a very big emphasis on math at all - maybe only for the graphics class do you even need to know anything besides basic addition. So I am not at all prepared for any sort of career dealing with numbers, which is incredibly unfortunate. Math also tends to be the area I struggle the most with, so it is incredibly interesting that it is the area I seem to be most drawn to.

I think I will still apply to more grad schools in a different field from museum work (although I think I could definitely get in number work in museums). I would like to apply to sports management programs, because I'd say, that if I had to say what I'm passionate about (before my enlightenment experience this morning), it would be sports. One suggestion S had was that I could always minor in statistics. What an awesome idea, right?! Duh Maria. You can have minors in grad school, and that could potentially be a perfect combination.

Anyway, I just got so excited about the fact that I had this crazy, wonderful experience that I had to write it down. I also want to be writing more; it helps my sanity to get it out, and I want to remember as much about my time at DePauw as possible.

well, i got in somewhere!

2010-03-09T15:34:00.003-05:00

Today I received, in a tiny envelope, my acceptance to IUPUI's Museum Studies program. Thank god I finally got in somewhere! However, here are some thoughts on this new development:

- They're not giving me any sort of scholarship or graduate assistantship or anything, and I won't get anything from the FAFSA. This is the breakdown they give of the 09-10 academic year for an Indiana resident graduate student:

Tuition and Fees		$4,900.00
Books and Supplies		$448.00
Room and Board		$11,296.00
Transportation		$5,088.00
Personal		$3,872.00
	Total	$25,604.00

So, yeah, not exactly cheap. It actually is likely that going somewhere out of state could potentially be cheaper. That's another 50,000$ for school...wow.

- I've lived in Indiana my whole life and a little bit of wanting to go to grad school is to get out and see more of the country. I love to travel and see new things, and I am terrified of getting stuck here. Not that Indiana is a bad place to live (I do like it here spring through fall, and I desperately miss my cornfields and open spaces when I live in a big city too long) but it's so familiar and flat and although I haven't nearly explored it as much as I would like, I'd like to go see something else for a while. That said, living in Indy would allow me to still be around lots of DePauw and high school friends still in school, still be close to my parents and super close to my brother at Butler, and still be so very familiar.

- I don't even know if I want to do museum studies anymore, although actually IUPUI's program would probably fit me pretty well. I will really have to think about this, especially if I don't hear back from other schools soon.

- The deadline to tell them if I'm coming is April 15. This is NOT ENOUGH TIME. I haven't even heard back from 5 schools yet, and I'm wanting to apply to other programs too. I don't know what to do at all.

Let's hope I hear back from other schools really, really soon so I can make a better decision and hopefully be more informed.

various things about the future that i am freaking out about

2010-02-26T15:51:00.004-05:00

Too many questions, no answers.

What if I don't get into any grad schools?

Already been rejected from 2. I don't have the background for anyone to even want me in this field (public history/museums). I don't even know if I have the background or know-how to be any good in this field.

What if I don't get any internship this summer?

If I apply to museum stuff, nobody will take me, since I have exactly 0 experience working in museums. If I do computer science stuff, I might not enjoy it, and I'm not even any good at it anyway.

What if I graduate with nothing?

No grad school, no internship, no job.

Do I even know what I want to do?

I thought I did. Now I am not so sure. There are way too many things I'm interested in. I cannot just focus on one thing. This is why I never want to do a PhD. This is why most of the programs I applied to have a non-thesis option. I hate having to concentrate and focus in on one thing. It's so narrow. I like knowing a little bit about a ton of things. I like being able to do all sorts of things. My whole life exemplifies this. Over the past 8-10 years I have gone around and tried so many different things. I switch it up all the time. Sports, clubs, foods even, traveling, hobbies. I can't just focus on one thing, and I lose interest after a while, or it's just not as fun anymore. This is half the reason I stopped running track, besides the fact that my foot started hurting again. It just wasn't doing it for me anymore. It's why I'm playing IM basketball right now. It's why I can't focus on Knitting for Nets anymore. It's why I hated my last semesters' all-computer-science-all-the-time classes. It's why I made it a priority to do soccer and theater and academic team and honor societies and everything else I did in high school, so I wouldn't get bored with just one thing. It's why I've done soccer, frisbee, track, cross country, Hillel, knit night, poetry club, ducks academic team, robotics club, tae kwon do, wics, and I don't even know what else over the course of college, and why those are all mostly in the past tense now. I get bored or burned out or just want to try something new. I have half a dozen needlepoint projects sitting at home because one summer I got really interested in them, started a few, and then lost interest. I like finishing projects, I really do, but sometimes I just can't because it's not fun anymore.

Interestingly, this phenomenon hasn't ever happened with my friends or with plants. Maybe it just doesn't apply to living things, which is more than fine with me. I quite enjoy my friends and my plants.

But I worry about this particular way of living. I do not fit in with normal society. Normal society says that you should figure out this one thing you're passionate about, go to school for it, get a career in it, and stay in that career for your whole life till you retire. I can't do that, I just simply can't. I do not want a career. Not now. Probably not ever, because I've had this mentality for the past like 20 years and I don't see it changing anytime soon. I want to try out a ton of new things all the time. I am so worried about getting bored. Plus I have no desire to move up the career ladder, none whatsoever. So what am I going to do? I have no idea.

I don't even know what I want to do right now.

Museums would be fun. Working in sports would be awesome. I still have a burning desire to be the person who takes statistics at games. I like playing with numbers, but in weird ways that don't matter at all. I am still interested in environmental stuff. I like traveling. I like to write. I don't want to program. I like being outside, when the weather is nice. I like typing. I like singing. I like to explore how people think and what they think about. I like taking surveys. I like physically demanding things, like weeding or planting seeds or moving bricks around. I like being active, like biking or playing sports. I like to build stuff, with power tools and precise measurements. I like being able to flit from one interest to the next during the day. I want to work in a brewery, or at least to figure out how to brew my own beer. I like to cook. I like to take pictures.

Is there any way I can get paid to do stuff I like? Or am I going to have to be just okay with it, just deal with it, pretend to be happy, maybe be miserable in whatever I do for a living so I can enjoy the small amount of time I have to actually go live? In my opinion work should not take up the majority of your life. Life is about having fun and enjoying it, not being unhappy, and definitely not being stuck in something you don't want to be doing.

I definitely need advice on what to do. Everyone keeps telling me that "a year or two doing something you don't like isn't that long" but hello, that is a year or two of my life that I can never get back. I don't want to spend time being unhappy. Especially not right now, not when my body can go on all sorts of adventures and when I'm finally getting to be not afraid to try new things.

Anyway, advice appreciated. What to study, what to do. I really either need to stay in school or find a job that has benefits, because without either of those I have no health insurance and that is not an ideal situation to be in. If I had it my way I would take off and go biking around the perimeter of the US for the next year or two, but the no-health-insurance aspect kills that dream in the dust. So other ideas are welcome. What the heck does anybody see me doing, anyway? Other eyes might see what mine cannot. Thanks.

something i found while cleaning

2010-01-12T12:33:00.003-05:00

While cleaning up my room I ran across an old notebook and decided to flip through it. I found a couple of pages I wrote on February 4, 2006 entitled "Things to keep in mind". I figured I'd rewrite it here so I don't have to re-find this book later. I don't think I necessarily agree with everything my high school self tells me to do (and I definitely don't do all of these things, although there are some I should) but there are some things I would like to remember.

Things to keep in mind

Never forget what it is like to be a kid
- Think the same

- Wonder the same
- Find magic in everything

- Take time to play

- Eat candy, watch cartoons

- Dress like you did in High School

Always keep a journal + write everyday

Dance

Sing

Burn candles

Read

Watch movies

Write with a quill or nib pen

Stay organized

Keep a clean house

Drink tea

Tell them you love them

Take pictures

Scrapbook right away

Get good deals, clearance, sales

Play sudoku, crosswords, mindgames (Mensa)

Build snowmen + have snowball fights

Visit all the states + many countries

Write real letters + send them

Send cards

Things to do with my kids:

- Sing Elton John's "Blessed" to them every day while pregnant

- Get them educational toys

- Teach to read by age 2

- Do science projects

- Encourage creativity

- Teach to cook

- Do chores

- Go on lots of vacations

- Read to them every night

- Eat healthy

- Bike rides

- Soccer

- Visit with grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc a lot

- Tell them stories

- Build traditions

- Drama, music

- Computers

- Torpedoes

- Children's Museum

- board games

- Kentucky Derby

Have lots of plants

Buy in bulk

Stay in touch with friends

Word hard, but play harder

Play video games

Take home videos

Enjoy every day

No regrets - ever

things i do like about winter (more aptly named: i don't want to work on compilers)

2009-12-09T11:58:00.003-05:00

There are not that many things I like about winter. If I lived in a place that only had spring, summer, and fall, I would probably be happy. (It has to have a really great fall, though.) However, there are a couple of things I do like.

- Sledding

- Snowball fights

- Ice skating

- Hot chocolate

- Fireplace fires

- Cuddling

- Christmas movies

- Christmas decorations, lights, food
- The way sunlight hits snow and makes it glitter

- Winter hats

- Football is still going strong and basketball starts up

- Winter stars are the best

did i really figure out what to do with myself?!

2009-10-31T17:44:00.002-04:00

Took the GRE last night but that's not what this post is about. Ugh, GRE... let's hope my scores will be adequate enough. Think my dreams of Brown are pretty much dashed though.

Anyway, what I really want to say is that I think I've figured it out. I'm going to go to school to study Public History, which is basically what people who want to work in museums, at historic sites, at living history places like Conner Prairie, that sort of thing study. That is what I want to do. I can get in everything I'm interested in (history, architecture, tour guiding, reenactment, computer science with building exhibits, ecology, environmentalism, not having a normal job, etc). If I get what I want, it will not be a desk job. There will always be something different and cool going on. It'll be interactive. That is what I want.

So then I narrowed down where I want to go. There are actually several schools that have actual MAs in Public History (or something really similar but named differently, like Preservation Studies), and this is what I'm aiming at (versus doing an MA in History with a track or concentration in Public History). So then my next job is to narrow down where I want to be. Since the majority of the history I'm interested in is US history from around 1760-1900 with focuses on the American Revolution and Civil War, I figure I should be in the area of the country where those things actually took place. So I'm looking around Massachusetts, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. I kind of want to be somewhere decently warm (but still has seasons). There are two schools in NC that look kind of promising, one in SC, and at least one in MA (I haven't checked out all the schools there yet), so I've got four to apply to already.

I'm excited and relieved that I found something that combines all my interests. My whole life I've had such a hard time narrowing down my interests and what I like to do or what I want to study or, well, anything. It's awesome to think I've found something that inherently incorporates everything I like. I'm just going to go with it! If I find I don't like it, well, I can always go do something else. I like trying new things.

Next: trying to find an internship for Winter Term. Let me know if you know of anybody who works at a museum, historic site, or living history park...

lies, lies, tell me sweet little lies

2009-10-27T23:35:00.004-04:00

So I totally didn't update like I said I would. Lame and sorry. For one we only had easily-accessible internet in the Outer Banks and for two I was having way too much fun to bother with being on the computer. Mostly I used it to check my email like once or twice a day and that was pretty much it.

In any case, I had a fantastic time. I think it was my favorite break yet, and I've had some pretty good breaks... (no offense to anyone on the other breaks :) ) We saw a lot, did a lot, etc. Very fun. I wish I was still in NC, though.

Nowadays I'm figuring out grad school stuff. I'm taking the GRE on Friday...wish me luck? I'll need it. I haven't studied for it at all yet so it's probably going to rock me. The problem is I haven't really figured out what I want to do with myself. I am definitely going to go to grad school (I don't think my score will be bad enough that I won't get in anywhere), I just don't know where or for what.

Here are the ideas I have right now. I may very well just end up applying to all sorts of crazy places and see what happens.

- American History/US Civilization

- Architecture

- Environmental Design

- Higher Education studies/etc

- Environmental Studies

- Natural Resources and Conservation

- Parks, Recreation, and Leisure Studies

- Museum Studies

- Historic Preservation and Conservation

All of these things have something to do with either history, being outside, nature, or education. Another thought is that I go get my teaching license/degree/whatever it ends up being. I wanted to be a high school history teacher for years...

As for where to go, here are the ideas for that. I want to live somewhere I haven't lived yet because I like exploring. I halfway want to live somewhere warmer, but I know I would miss fall and winter. I'm also absolutely terrified of starting all over again somewhere new, where I might not know anyone and be really far from home, but I'm hoping that I'll get past that as I always have. I also have to think about how much it'll cost to go there, so I really need to figure out somewhere that gives paying opportunities to master's candidates (I don't really think I want to go PhD anymore, but of course that could change).

- Oregon (somewhere where it's not rainy/cloudy all the time)

- Washington (not Seattle or anywhere rainy/cloudy all the time)

- California (San Diego)

- Indiana

- Maryland

- Pennsylvania

- Virginia

- West Viriginia

- North Carolina

- South Carolina

- Maine

Nothing is really tying me to Indiana/the midwest right now except maybe finances. So much can change within the next year, though, you know? I don't even know what's going to happen tomorrow, let alone next August. I hate having to make decisions so far in advance.

Here's a question just out of curiosity -- what do you see me doing, and where? (don't limit yourself to what I listed above)

Road Trippin'!!

2009-10-17T22:53:00.003-04:00

Break seems to be geared toward road trips. I have taken a road trip 2/4 fall breaks and 2/4 spring breaks. So this is the second road trip I'm going on in the past 6 months (the last was to Panama City for Spring Break 09 in March). I am STOKED. It's going to be, well, fantastic. Here's the plan:

Sunday: leave Greencastle with Mary, pick up Rob in Indy, drive to Harrisburg to see my grandparents and stay the night.

Monday: leave Harrisburg, head to Rockville where we'll hop on the metro to DC, spend the day exploring DC, take the metro back, go to my uncle's house where we'll eat dinner and hang out with him, and stay the night.

Tuesday: spend some more time in DC, then head down to Chapel Hill where we'll meet up with Eric, see UNC, eat, generally have a good time, and stay the night.

Wednesday: head to Raleigh, see Mary's friend Tim for his birthday, and then head on to the Outer Banks. Get to explore OBX, eat, enjoy the ocean since it's right next to our motel, and sleep.

Thursday and Friday: explore OBX - lighthouses, the lost Roanoke Colony, shopping, eating, beaching, and all sorts of other stuff. I want to go hang gliding at Kitty Hawk.

Saturday: leave OBX, drop Eric back at UNC, head back to Indy to Rob's place
Sunday: take Mary to airport, head back to Greencastle, rest, get homework done.

It's going to be epic. 2200+ miles, 8 states + DC, over a day and a half total driving time.

When I have internet I'll definitely post what's up and some pictures. (I'm going to take So.Many.Pictures. and Eric is going to kill me for it, but someday he'll appreciate all the memories I'm saving.) Either way I'll still write something up and post it when I can.

It's going to be good.

the last night

2009-08-18T23:31:00.002-04:00

This is my last night in El Segundo... it doesn't really feel real yet. Tomorrow at this time I'll be back in Indiana, and in just a couple days I will be back at school for cross country and tour guide orientation and just getting ready. I've had a good time in California this year although I definitely missed Indiana more and I definitely noticed LA's flaws this time around. So much pollution and way too many people. Everyone expects me to come back here (a lot of people want me to come for grad school) but I'm just not sure. I guess we'll see. Of course I love the ocean and all but I would rather be in a smaller town with a lot less people and a lot less pollution. I definitely need to spend a lot more time researching grad schools though, and of course I need to take the GRE! I have a ton to do this semester getting things ready, working on projects, and being in charge of random other things so it's going to be very busy. I've got to get on top of everything now if I don't want to just crash in a month or two. I love the beginning of the school year though. Fall is by far my favorite time of the year - everything good happens in fall. :)

From Gearfire.net: Balancing School and Sports

2009-08-11T17:05:00.002-04:00

NOTE FROM MARIA: This article is here because for some reason the Gearfire.net is down. In any case, if you have any comments or questions just email me at milyusha @ gmail . com - thanks!
Also, a big thank you to the guys over at HackCollege who linked this!

Balancing School and Sports
via GearFire - Tips for Students by Maria on 8/5/09

As we race steadily on to the start of this next school year, it can never hurt to think a little about what our schedule will be like for the next few months. We have to keep track of classes, study sessions, working, social lives, and all sorts of extracurricular activities. One major time commitment is if one plays a sport (or two, or three…).

No matter at what level - intramural, club, or varsity - playing sports can really take up a lot of time. Being an athlete generally takes up considerably more time than exercising or working out to stay in shape.

I have experience with all three of these levels of sports so I’d like to pass along some insights I’ve gained from the past three years. First, here is some background about my experiences. My freshman year of college I played club soccer (I played soccer from age 4 up through my senior year of high school, but I wasn’t interested in playing at the college level). A large group of us got together about 3 times a week to kick around the ball and get some games going. I probably spent an average of 3-7 hours a week playing soccer in the afternoons. Two of the afternoons were on weekdays and one was on Sundays. This lasted for basically all of my first year at school and gave me a great group of people to know right off the bat, plus it was a ton of fun. My sophomore year I went to the first couple of club soccer practices but hardly anyone showed up (the majority of the guys playing had graduated the previous May), and I figured it wasn’t worth my time to keep going if no one was going to play. I switched to the ultimate frisbee team (also considered a club sport at my school) since I had a lot of friends on it and loved that as well. We also had practices 3 times a week, ironically enough at the same time as the club soccer met, and again I was spending around 6-7 hours each week playing frisbee. I was very active on the team for the first semester but by the end of the second semester I was a little burned out on it. So the fall of my junior year I took up tae kwon do. We have a physical education requirement so I figured I would just take TKD (I had spent about 5 years when I was much younger working through many belts) and ended up also joining the club that semester for extra practice. I spent 5 hours in club and 2 hours in class each week, for another total of 7 hours. (I see a trend here!) For spring semester, though, I had decided to take a huge plunge and join the track and field team, a varsity sport. I attend a Division III school so we don’t really have tryouts or cuts for the running program, which is really nice! I absolutely loved it and am looking forward to running cross country this fall. Track and field took up considerably more time - two hour practice every day plus going to meets usually meant about 10-15 hours of practice plus at least a full day or two for each meet.

All right, now that you know all that background information you can understand a bit more where I’m coming from with these tips. They will apply to anyone interested in playing a sport at school, whether it’s from the IM level all the way to varsity.

Get stuff done - I can’t stress this enough. If you know you want to spend two hours playing basketball on Wednesday but have homework due Thursday, make sure you get the homework done! Exercise and sports are a great stress reliever but also a great procrastinator. Don’t let your academics slide for sports. If you have a big game or meet over the weekend, make sure you get everything done for Monday so you’re not stressed out Sunday night.
Know when to stop or take it easy - If your body hurts, give it a rest. There’s no sense in injuring yourself. If you have too much going on, step back from the athletics and figure out what you want to prioritize.
Talk to your coach and/or captain - About anything. They are there to help you out with your athletics and, really, life in general. Listen to what they have to say, and learn from their experiences.
Utilize the trainer - If something hurts you, go talk to the trainer! Even if you are not a varsity athlete they can at least point you in the right direction. Don’t wait to get treated for an injury.
Remember you’re in school to learn - Even if you really love your sport, you really came to college to learn (unless you’re one of those high school athletic prodigies who goes to a DI powerhouse on a full-ride athletic scholarship). Don’t let your academics slide. They’re likely what is going to get you a job or grad school after you finish your undergrad, not athletics.

I hope you find some of these tips useful. It’s a big time commitment to play a sport in college, no matter at what level, but it’s also very rewarding physically, mentally, and socially. Have fun with it!

Motivation & Burn Out

2009-08-02T13:00:00.002-04:00

I think I've realized why I've been so lazy the past couple of weekends: I'm burnt out. While I do love being by the ocean and I enjoy a lot of people out here, I think I'm pretty ready to head back home to go ol' Indiana. This is not easy to write, as I know that once I get back to Indiana I'll miss California. But at the same time, I know it's the truth. There are definitely things that would have benefited from my staying around home this summer, but I do think it was good in the end to have returned to LA. The honeymoon phase is over and I can see the flaws out here, all the reasons why I should not live here for more than 2-3 months at a time. (Even that is pushing it.)

I am excited for school to start up; I'm excited for cross country, classes, being a tour guide, tutoring, living with Amanda in what's going to be the most awesome apartment on campus, getting Knit Knite + Knitting for Nets up and running on the web, and a whole slew of other projects. I am going to be so incredibly busy and it's going to be great.

I know I should be taking advantage of the last couple weeks out here (there is a lot going on) but I can't bring myself to leave the comfort of my room or the pool unless someone else is with me. Motivation for running is at an all-time low. I don't feel like biking for the heck of it like I did earlier this summer. I don't even feel like going around taking photographs (instant clue that I'm not totally with it!). The novelty of Los Angeles has worn off, I think. It's a shame. Also, the weather hasn't been nearly that good this summer, and I think that's taken its toll on me. I'm also just ready to get back to Midwest air with Midwest prices and Midwest friends. Don't get me wrong; I really do like LA, but 1. not when I don't have a car 2. not for these long stretches of time and 3. not when it's cloudy for more than half the time I've been here. I will for sure come back and visit (there are too many friendships I've made here that I would hate to see end), but I don't think I'll live here for extended periods of time.

Who knows, that might change. And if it does, awesome. If it doesn't, awesome to that too. Life is unpredictable and I'm not wanting to let myself get stuck somewhere. I want to go around and see other parts of the country, too.

Things to See, Places to Go...

2009-07-29T21:01:00.002-04:00

Here is a random list of all the places I want to see as soon as possible. Unfortunately most of these places I want to visit in the summer, so it might take me a while to get to all of them.

- Maine (some fishing village, an island)
- Oregon (along the coast)
- Washington (also along the coast)
- Redwoods in California
- Wyoming
- Montana
- Arches National Park
- Moab
- Visit every lighthouse on both the east and west coast
- Nantucket

This list is by no means exhaustive, but it's what I thought of in literally the last 3 minutes. Foremost on the list is Maine, and hopefully I'll get to go to Montana soon too.

Commuting

2009-07-28T22:41:00.002-04:00

Biking to work has given me a new appreciation for quite a few things and given even more insight into several others.

For starters, I will never again take for granted the ability to get perfectly ready for work and arrive at work in that same perfect state. In my case, I get mostly ready, hop on my bike, arrive to work a little (or a lot, if it's sunny) sweaty, and finish up my routine, mostly fixing up my hair and de-sweatifying myself, in the bathroom. I also get to put on work pants over my bike shorts and trade running shoes for work shoes. If I drove a car to work none of this would apply.

On a more serious note, biking has really opened up my eyes to the pollution all around me. Los Angeles is, as far as I know, as car-centric as it gets (everyone here drives everywhere...even if it's just two blocks down the street), and this really bothers me. I always imagined California as being this great, green, environmentally-conscious state full of hippies, bikers, and hybrid-driving commoners. Um, no. I see relatively few fellow bikers (to be fair, I bike to work at 6.30 in the morning and bike home at 5pm, so I could just be missing them) who are actually biking to go somewhere, not just for recreation (trust me, there are plenty of those types on the Strand). I've only seen hippies in Venice, but there are a lot of them there, so I guess they make up for the lack elsewhere. (I also haven't ever been out of the Los Angeles area, so I can't say anything about the rest of the state. I heard I need to head to San Francisco.) And while I do see way more hybrids (read: Prius) than I have anywhere else, it's still maybe only 5-10 of the cars I see on my way home, which number in the 100s.

That's another problem. Cars are everywhere. You know what cars do? Pollute. I guess the pollution part doesn't bother me that much as a driver (I will be completely honest with you and tell you that I adore long distance driving, even if I claim to be trying to be environmentally conscious), but as a biker it's wrecking havoc on my body. Seriously, I can tell that my lungs are struggling with the air here. The air quality is not that good to begin with (especially coming from the wide open Midwest where you actually have room to breathe), but couple that with riding behind cars, trucks, semis, and airplanes (I live literally right next to LAX) and it's simply awful. It's probably even worse than all the secondhand smoke I inhaled in Russia. Lungs, I apologize for putting you through this.

Thankfully, one thing that I did expect hasn't come to fruition. I thought there would be a lot more trash than there actually is. Granted, there are shattered glass pieces strewn about the bike path (these patches are pretty scary because I don't have a tire patch kit or bandaids) and some other random trash along the roads, but for the most part everything is pretty clean. Good job, LA. But yeah, I'd appreciate there not being so much glass. I can't even figure out where it comes from...it's not like people are going to be chilling in the bike path having a beer on the highway.

new post at gearfire

2009-07-14T23:56:00.002-04:00

I haven't posted there in a while, but here's a new post from me over at Gearfire.net about a revelation I had when I got home from Russia :)

http://www.gearfire.net/trick-mind/

so many pictures

2009-07-11T21:53:00.003-04:00

I am in the process of downloading all my photos from an online storage site (so I could get the photos from my dad -- they were on his computer, since I didn't bring mine), and there are a lot more than I realized (2130 to be exact, plus some more that are on a memory card still in my possession - probably about 2500-3000 pictures total). So it's taking me a bit longer than originally thought to pick out some pics to post. I'm actually going to do pictures right this time around, as in edit, tag, delete the bad ones (something I NEVER do), etc, so it's going to take a bit. I also need to pick out a few of the best to show around to friends here and at work. I promise stories and pictures from the trip are going to go up soon, though! I want to make a big series of posts about the entire trip, ranging from observations to what we ate and did and all that jazz. I am excited to do it, and I hope you're interested in reading about it.

4th of july

2009-07-05T13:43:00.004-04:00

This year I celebrated the 4th much differently than last year. Last summer, I celebrated it much differently than I had the previous 5 summers. I guess that's change for you.

For the most part I enjoyed myself, although I was in a very strange mood (I think I'm just tired) and probably not all that happy.

It started poorly because I woke up at 3am wide awake (I went to bed at 9, which is actually my normal bedtime here in California because of getting up soo early) and couldn't fall back asleep. Eventually I did around 5 and woke up for real about 8.30. Then I bummed around on the internet for several hours, catching up on a lot of things and generally just enjoying being alone. I went to the grocery store and successfully biked home with a bag of groceries on my back (oh, the small accomplishments in life :) ).

In the afternoon Karen and I went over to Meryl and John's place. I really enjoy their company, although I am the odd one out in my age range. All the people there are either young grandparents or aunts & uncles in their 50s and 60s, young parents in their really late 20s/early 30s, or little kids under 4. So I don't really fit in anywhere with people my age, but I definitely enjoy talking with the grown ups. They know a lot and have interesting stories to tell.

I left for Andrew's party around 5.30pm. The Strand wasn't too bad until I hit El Porto. Then there were a lot of people, but it just kind of felt like any other Saturday afternoon down there. Then I actually hit Manhattan Beach and it was crazy. So many people everywhere! And no one looking to make sure bikes weren't coming. Bikes totally own the bike path, not the pedestrians! Silly peds. It only got worse. I got off the Strand like 20 blocks north of the Hermosa Pier because I just couldn't take it. Crowds of drunk people clogged the path and the beaches were packed. (Unlike in the Midwest, our weather here yesterday was absolutely gorgeous and perfect: sunny and mid-70s and a slight breeze.) I hate large crowds of people when I don't want them around (some exceptions: concerts and amusement parks), and I really hate crowds of drunk people. Like, just despise. So I was not in a particularly good mood with not being able to ride my bike more than 6 inches at a time, and switching to the street is scary when you know half the people driving are probably drunk too, and would think it's a fun game to see if they can hit you on your bike. Luckily, nothing happened. I even saw my friend Mallory which was just crazy. What are the odds of that??!

I made it to Andrew's at about 7, much later than I anticipated (I was hitting 15-18 mph on the bike before Manhattan Beach). The party was pretty fun. I met a lot of people I didn't know before and that always makes me happy. We watched fireworks on the beach. It's hard to beat watching fireworks go off over the ocean, especially when you can see about 7 shows up and down the coast.

Afterward I biked home, although many people wanted me to stay at the party, but I was not really in the mood to party and I was tired. The ride home went without incident (although there were still a ton of people around, even at 10.30pm) but I didn't get the calmness that I was longing for with a bike ride by the ocean under the stars. It should have been really nice but I think I was still too strung out from all the drunk people and being on high alert for any attackers or anything like that. I may take a nice long ride up north to Pacific Palisades and hang out at Will Rogers State Beach this afternoon. I just kind of want to be by myself for a while! I usually feel this way after trips with groups. I am so used to being able to get away on my own that when I can't for several days I start going a little crazy :) DePauw is wonderful for this. Feel like being alone? Go take a walk to the park and you've got it. Love it.

Russia stories coming soon, I promise. I'm going to experiment with taking this netbook baby on my ride and writing on the beach. My dad has all my pictures right now so I've got to wait until he uploads them to put them with my posts, which I would rather do than just have text. You might notice there are no pictures from the 4th here -- I generally don't take my camera with me to parties and also both of my cameras seriously suck in darkness, so I didn't feel like lugging either of them around last night.

the netbook

2009-07-04T15:40:00.003-04:00

All right, so by popular demand (aka Ed's comment :) ) here is some information about the netbook I bought.

First of all, I should tell you a little bit more about my general plan. Mostly, I want to build a really nice desktop system that will be used as my base, and as such I also want a super portable machine to take around with me. The super portable machine is where the netbook comes into play.

Luckily (insert sarcasm here) my Dell Latitude D620, which was one of the computers available on DePauw's laptop program back when I was a freshman (the other option was a MacBook, and I'm just not a Mac person) -- the laptop is "required", by the way -- was dying anyway. The Saturday I left for Russia, at about 10am, an hour before I left for the airport, the screen went black. Just went black, no warning, no nothing. I didn't have the time to deal with it then, so when I got back I tried to figure out what was wrong with it. Unfortunately for me I am not really an IT girl. Luckily my friend Andrew came over and connecting to my roommate's external desktop monitor magically worked. Hooray, it is a monitor problem.

Anyway, long story short, that gave me an awesome excuse to either buy the monitor I want for my desktop or to buy a netbook. I choose the netbook route because the monitor I am hoping to get is not going to fit in my backpack to take through security on the flight back to Indiana. Ha. But I will discuss that when I get back to school and build my machine :)

I did a bunch of research on the netbooks trying to find the best one. Pretty much the only two stores around here for computers are Best Buy and Fry's, so those were my options. I don't feel like ordering a computer and either having to have it shipped to Meryl's house or wait outside for the FedEx truck again, so it was definitely a matter of "what can I physically go get right now?".

Best Buy didn't have as many netbooks as I wanted them to have. But I did find one that I liked (it was my 2nd choice while researching, but my first choice came with Vista and I just couldn't do that to myself). Then BB didn't have any more in stock. Went to Fry's, they didn't have it at all (they only had 3 netbooks!). Second BB had it, finally. Hooray.

I bought an Asus Eee PC Netbook. So far I am pretty fond of it. I actually really wanted a tablet, but the "netvertible" I want is not available in the US yet (the Asus T91). If it becomes available at BB within the next 12 days, I will very likely return this one and buy that one.

Pros: Lightweight (it's like 2.4 lbs), has a built in webcam (whoaaa), the keyboard is great especially compared with the other books I tried out, the screen is bright and clear, it looks pretty, and it's just so small and cute.

Cons: Fingerprints show up REALLY EASILY which gets annoying fast, the touchpad is kind of weird and is taking me a while to get used to it, the screen is kind of small (10" is tiny after coming from a full size laptop), and I'm not so sure about the battery yet. Also the fan is kind of loud, although not as loud as my old laptop.

I'll keep you updated. I've actually never owned an Asus before (had two Toshiba laptops and this Dell one), and hopefully it'll be a better experience than the companies I've had in the past.

Here are a couple pictures:

long enough without a post

2009-07-04T12:39:00.003-04:00

I got back to California after a very long day of travel from Moscow on July 1. Since then I've been trying to catch up on sleep, hanging out with friends, buying a new computer (my school-required piece-of-crap Dell's monitor kicked the bucket, so I bought a netbook I've been wanting), and running around getting things done. I am planning on writing up a series of posts about Russia during the next few days, so stay tuned for those :) First I need to go get groceries, though...

And also, happy 4th of July to all US people :)

i am here and it is awesome

2009-06-26T04:23:00.003-04:00

Just a super quick post to let you know that I'm in Russia and it's great. Haven't had (free)internet until now so no time to post anything, but now we're in Moscow and there's a computer in our hallway that we can use for free so hurray! We got in from St Petersburg and it was fabulous. Now we're in Moscow for a few days. Once I get back to the States I will tell all about the trip and post about a million pictures. (I take a lot of pictures.)

my backpack

2009-06-19T20:58:00.002-04:00

This is the complete list of what I'm taking, in case anyone is interested and in case I lose my own packing list:

What I'll Be Wearing

- Black t-shirt

- Jeans

- Running shoes

- Black belt

Clothing

- 4 shirts, mostly black

- 1 pair of nice dress slacks, black

- 5 pair underwear

- 5 pair socks

- 1 running shirt

- 1 pair running shorts

- 1 pair nicer black shoes

- 1 sports bra

Toiletries

- Contacts

- Toothpaste, travel size

- Toothbrush, travel size

- Shampoo, travel size

- Conditioner, travel size

- Lotion, travel size

- Shower gel, travel size

- Deodorant

- Hairbrush

- Strips

Electronics

- Camera (smaller)

- Camera cord

- 4 x4 packs of batteries

- MP3 player

- MP3 player cord

- Phone (to use until we take off from Chicago)

- Phone charger

In case of ...

- Band-aids

- Neosporin

- Aleve

- Cough drops

- Copies of passport, credit/debit cards, driver's license, e-ticket information

- Safety pins

- Addresses and phone numbers

- Hand sanitizer

- Chapstick

- Extra bag (can be used as 2nd carry on)

Other

- Passport

- Electronic ticket information

- Wallet

- Journal

- Snacks (wheat thins, granola bars)

All in all I don't think it weighs more than 15-20 lbs max.

Okay so I couldn't resist taking a photo of my little bottles of stuff. They're so colorful!

officially: going to russia

2009-06-19T20:16:00.003-04:00

Tomorrow I get on a plane out of LAX and eventually, after several more plane changes and long days, get to Russia.

This trip has been a long time coming and actually been very stressful to put together. I will explain as much of the backstory as I know, and hopefully it won't bore you too much :)

First off, my dad is originally from Russia. He immigrated to the United States when he was 15 and he hasn't been back. My brother wrote a screenplay and filmed several scenes about the move, and maybe he will let me put some of it up on the web (I will ask him) because it's really well done.

So I have always been interested in Russia because I would like to see where my dad grew up. I studied Russian for the past couple of years in college, but by no means am I fluent (far from it), and I enjoy Russian food.

This trip started because my brother, who is a theatre major at Butler University, is studying theatre with several of his classmates and his director, who is Russian, in Moscow for about a month. He has been there since the beginning of June. Dad thought that now would be as good a time as any to see some of the country (we are going to Moscow and St Petersburg). So we bought our tickets after a lot of research, and applied for our visas.

Here's where it got stressful (actually, it was stressful already: the theater director lady was awful about telling us anything about the trip). We worked with the same travel agent as the other students and the director did for our visas. This was a bad idea. Up until about 4 hours ago, I didn't have my passport back. Do you realize how stressful that is? I am supposed to get on a plane at 2 o'clock tomorrow and I don't have my passport.

Luckily, it arrived safe and sound at about 1.40pm PST. Also luckily, I only had to work 4 hours today to fill out my 40-hr week, so I left work at 11 (yeah, I get to work by 7am), literally raced home (I got home in 19 minutes when it usually takes me 24), and physically sat on our front steps waiting for the FedEx guy. If I missed him, I was screwed, because they can't deliver inside our building, and I would have to wait until tomorrow to try to pick it up from wherever it is. But after only having to sit out there for 2 1/2 hours, most of the time during which I was talking to my mom on the phone, the FedEx guy came and I was so happy I almost cried. My dad also got his passport today, so we are all set to go.

I am traveling very light. I'm only taking a carry on with the most essential items: some clothes, my toiletries, my smaller camera and batteries, my mp3 player, my journal, and some snacks. That's it. I am not taking my computer or my nice camera, which most of my friends will probably be shocked when they hear about it. But my dad is bringing his computer, and the nice camera will just be a hassle to carry around and make sure it doesn't get stolen.

Hopefully I can find some Internet to hop on during the trip. I will for sure be taking lots of pictures and keeping my paper journal, so I may end up transferring a lot of what I write in that over to the Internet when I get back. We'll see how it goes!

Here's to a great trip! Moscow & St Petersburg, I can't wait to meet you!

so i am crazy and biked 100 miles in a weekend

2009-06-14T23:36:00.006-04:00

Yeah. 88ish today, then the 12ish from yesterday.

I went up to the Santa Monica Farmer's Market this morning. I didn't know where it was so I decided to bike up to Pacific Palisades to get some extra miles in, then on my way back semi-randomly took a street and tried to find Main St. Actually, it worked out really well because one of the streets I ended up turning on spit out right next to the market -- convenient to say the least! The first thing I noticed about the market was that there were a ton of people, the next was that it was huge (or at least significantly bigger than what I'm used to!), and then that it was totally green. They have a "Zero Waste" policy! Awesome!

Check out those recycling and composting bins!

Crepe for lunch. I would live off crepes if I could...
It had chocolate (of course), bananas, and strawberries. Good.

Everything was compostable!

I ended up buying some organic fresh butter (!) and homemade organic garlic cream cheese-type spread. I would have bought everything at that cheese shop if I could have, and that's really saying something because I am not so much a cheese person. Anyway, that meant I had to get back home as soon as possible to get the items in the fridge. So as I was getting back from that ride I had this great thought of "let's ride the whole Strand from Redondo to Pacific Palisades today!" So I got home, rested a bit, charged up the Zen and got back on the beach.

Starting point, at Redondo Beach, looking at Palos Verdes

Me really tired after getting to Pacific Palisades for the 2nd time today

So I am pretty tired from that, but it was a pretty good ride! And a good day :)

art walk & relax

2009-06-14T01:50:00.003-04:00

This late morning/early afternoon I went down to Hermosa Beach to meet up with Andrew to find him some art. (He needs more art on his walls.) I raced myself and got to HB in 15 minutes. Wow, right? I cut time like whoa. Anyway, we were successful in finding him a piece of art. Actually, it is really cool. This lady exposes objects directly to photo paper instead of photographing them first and then developing the photos, and it plays with colors and lighting like no other. Super awesome! And the picture he got is really neat.

After that we walked around a bit more, checked out this mall that was empty (like, eerily empty even), then he left to go meet some people and I left to go home. Stopped in the bike store on my way back to my bike to see about baskets, but they were 20$ and up and man I'm just not going to pay that much for a stupid basket. Anyway, I feel like having a basket makes you lose some credibility as a legitimate biker. Most people with baskets are girls on Strand cruisers who don't know how to ride in the first place. Of course, it's not all people, and it would be convenient to have a basket sometimes (read: groceries), but still - that's a lot of money for a little wire frame.

As the afternoon wore on it actually got kind of sunny and much warmer, and the beaches filled up a bit more. So volleyball players and, more importantly, surfers were out in abundance. There is little more gorgeous than a talented, good-looking surfer. (Last summer I met the most gorgeous person I think I've ever seen while he was surfing and I was body boarding. Scott from San Diego, if you're reading this, ohmigodyouaresogoodlooking.) Other gorgeousness for the record: good runners, good soccer players, good swimmers. ........ I guess, really, the common denominator that I like is skinny, in-shape boys. ;)

About halfway home on the bike I got really tired and didn't feel that great, so I took it pretty easy. However, I did manage to bike all the way up the ginormous hill on Grand instead of stopping and walking the bike. Ironically enough it was because I felt like if I got off the bike I wouldn't have the energy to walk it up the hill. By the time I got home I had convinced myself to either take a nap, sit in the hot tub, or go get a pedicure. The pedicure won :) mostly because the place right by my condo is awesome - they have those sweet massage chairs and the people there are super nice. And they give really good foot massages.

That has been all I've done, really. Very lazy this afternoon, but I am feeling better so that's good. Tomorrow I am going to go to Santa Monica and try to find their Sunday farmer's market. (I simply adore farmer's markets, but I bet you couldn't tell ;) ) Hopefully it'll be nice out!

the week

2009-06-13T11:50:00.003-04:00

So this week ended up being pretty busy but at the same time not that busy. Unfortunately for me, my computer is slowly dying (it's 4 years old this month, actually) and several days earlier this week it was being a real pain to try to do anything with. Also our Internet went out randomly during a time I wanted to blog. Anyway, let it be known that some of the money I'm earning this summer is going to buy myself a solid desktop, a widescreen monitor, and a netbook (or maybe just a superlight laptop). The laptop I'm currently on is going to turn into a fulltime Linux machine, instead of just having it partitioned.

Anyway, the week. Work was good. For my Python work, I finished grabbing all the data from the PDF and putting it in Excel. (This takes a lot more time and a ton of regular expressions than it seems at first glance.) So now I get to start on using Java to make SQL queries to look at data from this database and compare it with the data I found, which is now also in a database. It should be a lot of fun! I have never actually used SQL or databases before so I get to learn a lot. For my other work, I finished the script in Java I was working on this whole last week (I thought it'd take me like 2 days. It ended up taking 5-6. Sigh.). I am excited because everything I've done this summer so far has actually had a legitimate use, is important, and is actually kind of a time schedule. Woohoo! Yay for feeling useful!

After work I have been biking home. I changed up my route on a couple of days, so that sometimes I was riding on a highway (!). There is a super nice bike path on this highway, and there are very few hills. Monday I am trying out a new route one of my roommate's friends (and now one of my friends), John, gave me. He says there shouldn't be that many hills on this one either.

Tuesday, I visited with John and Meryl for a little bit. Meryl is letting me borrow her ukulele and music for the summer! We chatted for quite a while (I could talk to them for hours!) and then I realized it was past my bedtime (seriously, a 21-year-old should not go to bed before retired people) so I had to leave.

Wednesday, a friend from last summer, Alex, started work again out here, which is awesome. Even more awesome is that he only lives a few streets away from me! So we ended up grabbing a drink at one of the bars here, going to dinner, and going down to the beach. Really fun night.

Thursday is Farmer's Market and Ukulele Day -- it is definitely my most favorite day of the week!! I picked up some DELICIOUS strawberries at the market, and also got some apples, zucchini, and fresh-made kettle corn! It's made in a real kettle! So cool and yummy. Some of the strawberries I took with me to ukulele class. People tend to bring food to share with everyone else. It was really funny because Meryl also brought strawberries (from the same stand that I got mine, even!) and angel food cake. And someone else brought cookies. So we had a lot of food :) Class was fun. Meryl thinks I am pretty good at ukulele for only having played it for like 2 weeks. I am pretty sure it's all the guitar coming through. Learning on 6 strings and going to 4 makes it pretty easy!

Yesterday was Meryl's birthday. Karen and I went over to help her celebrate and most of their family was there. It was really fun, and I got to meet some interesting people. I felt like a grown-up because I was offered wine. Haha. The things that make you feel grown up!

I wanted to sleep in this morning but I woke up at 7.45 so no go on that. I might be taking a nap later then ;) Should be a fun day - going down to Hermosa Beach for an Art Walk!

bike ride and lakers game

2009-06-08T00:22:00.001-04:00

Today I had no plans at all. I figured I would just be hanging out by myself anyway, so when I woke up I looked at the weather. The day looked super nice (sunny and 70s) so I decided that I would try to go north on the Strand this time instead of my usual south. I actually had never been north (besides in a car) except for the bonfire we had last summer on Dockweiler, which can hardly be called going north because it was about half a mile up from El Segundo Beach.

Anyway, I basically decided to hop on my bike and see how far I could go.

It was an absolutely gorgeous day. It was not too warm, and there was at times a strong breeze (which was kind of annoying and kind of nice at the same time). The smell of the ocean was everywhere and people were happy. There are a lot of bikers, roller bladers, walkers, joggers, skateboarders, and random other people like scooters.

I had planned on going to Santa Monica, which is where I thought the path ended, but it actually ends a couple more miles north of there, in Pacific Palisades. Awesome! I made it all the way there in exactly 1 hour and 40 minutes, and I actually was being really lazy about it for most of the ride. Following the Strand path takes you through Marina Del Rey, Venice Beach, and Santa Monica. I made it to Venice Beach in 45 minutes, actually!

Mural on the Strand by Dockweiler Beach

Plane above -- basically right under LAX

My awesome bike (I need a good name for it)

Me. I always wear a helmet.
Also, that shirt gave me some sweet (and not-so-sweet) tan lines.

Proof I made it to Pacific Palisades!

View north

View south

Looking south. I don't think you can see where I started from

I was zoomed it at 16x digital zoom to get this shot of Santa Monica

When I got to the end of the path I checked my phone and one of my friends was inviting me to go watch the Lakers game with him and some friends tonight. So, of course, I agreed, although I am not really a Lakers fan (at all). I really enjoy being social though! And the game and atmosphere were a lot of fun. We went to a family (lol) sports bar & grill called Stick & Stein. Lakers fans are VERY MUCH into their team. As in, I have never seen any group of people more dedicated to something. It's actually kind of scary. And the Lakers won, so they were all happy. (LAL 101, ORL 96, Finals Game 2)

The bar had a ridiculous amount of TVs

Friend from work and his fiancee and me at the bar

a fairly social day

2009-06-07T00:45:00.009-04:00

Today I got to spend a fair amount of time with several different people.

This morning Andrew was super nice and took me to Target to return a bike helmet that I bought before I knew that Karen's sister Connie was lending me hers to use this summer (so nice of her!!). So that was a nice 20$ back on my card (which is good because I've only got like 50$ to last me till Thursday...I think. Hopefully payday is this Thursday?). Then I had a Target coupon, from when I got the helmet in the first place last week, for 50 cents off Poptarts. I went ahead and used that because although they're not the healthiest food (far from it) they are nice treats sometimes and they are really good at filling me up and keeping me full for several hours. So a box of 8 Poptarts ended up costing me 1.02$ (nice...especially because the same box would have cost 2.50$ at Ralph's!). I also took out that 20$ in cash. Around here, cash is always good to have on hand. Some places don't take debit/credit and other places it can be a lot faster for you if you pay in cash.

So then we drove to West L.A. so Andrew could get something he forgot at his grandpa's house. It was a pretty area and I love traveling around so I was happy :) The L.A. freeway system is cool but crazy and totally different from everything I've ever known so it always takes me a little bit to get used to it again. Driving around here in general is kind of crazy all the time though, not just on the freeways!

Here is something we saw on the freeway--we can't figure out why Pepsi would just have a huge ad that says LOL. Because you laugh out loud when you drink Pepsi? No idea ...

After that we went to this restaurant (it's not nice enough to be called a restaurant though, more like a fast food place but better) called Zankao Chicken. They have really good chicken dishes there. This is what I had:

A quarter of a chicken with hummus, pita bread, and rice, and this super yummy garlic sauce stuff. I don't know what the purple things are, but I think the other bit is tomato. Anyway, I don't really like hummus and I didn't like the purple stuff, but the chicken and pita and garlic sauce and rice were delicious!

So then we headed back to El Segundo... Andrew was again super nice and took me to Ralph's to get groceries that I already ran out of. Who knew I would go through cereal, chicken, and granola bars so quickly?! Also, here is another funny picture from the freeway. Seriously, 341$? Not just, like, 340$?

Also, if you were ever curious, this is what the place I work at looks like:

And then another friend from work, Chris, and I went for a bike ride / roller skate ride on the Strand.

At first we were going to try to get up to Venice or Santa Monica (a good hour or two from El Segundo) but he realized he had to be home too soon for us to do that (he lives like an hour away) so we ended up going to Hermosa Beach and back. On the way there we stopped in El Porto and saw my friend Mallory from DePauw -- it's really funny, we almost see each other more in CA than in IN!

On the way back from Hermosa we stopped again in Manhattan Beach and had ice cream at the Manhattan Beach Creamery. They have super good ice cream there, and now apparently they sell candies and chocolates and all sorts of baked goods, even popcorn and cotton candy! But they sacrified like half their seating for it. Anyway, it was super tasty and gave us the energy to get back to my place where Chris could start heading home from.

Really fun ride. It was SO pretty today! We could see for miles and miles --- we even saw Catalina Island! And that's pretty rare!

North toward Santa Monica

El Porto

Later in the evening Karen and her best friend Gloria and I went to dinner at Scotty's in Hermosa Beach. We had a great window view of the pier and sunset and I got some nice pictures of the sun going down! Awesome dinner, too. I really enjoy Karen and I have liked all of her friends a great deal as well!

View down Grand Ave. in El Segundo

Sunset pictures from Scotty's

Hermosa Beach, CA

busy is the word

2009-06-06T13:58:00.002-04:00

Wow, so, I have barely had time to write anything. I have been going to bed about 9pm (lame I know) but I'm so tired! Plus I get up so early! I've been biking to and from work this whole week, and it's been going great. However, it basically means that I am too tired to do much else. I've swum a few days but I haven't been running. Hopefully this coming week my body will have adjusted to this schedule better and I won't be quite so tired.

Work has been great. I am learning Python for a big task, plus I get to do some website redesign stuff, so everything is right up my alley! Thursday I was an escort for the Herndon Science Competition and that was a lot of fun. Basically I walked around (/herded people around) the labs area and got some yummy liquid nitrogen ice cream. Soo good. Also, the keynote speaker was Mark Skaggs! Sweet!

Thursday night I had my first ukulele lesson at Mark's shop. So fun! I went back yesterday for some more practice. Hopefully I will either be able to get my own ukulele or borrow one from Meryl so I can practice whenever. The people there are very nice and helpful and super cool. Mark's shop is my favorite store ever. You can just go in and hang out and it's full of surf and skate and Hawaiian stuff. And there's bamboo on the wall.

This week on Wednesday there was a storm. What the heck? It legitimately rained & thundered & lightninged! How crazy is that! It's been cloudy and rainy the whole week mostly until about Thursday afternoon. Yesterday was nice and today looks like it'll be nice as well. I'm planning on going for a bike ride up to Santa Monica.

first day back at work

2009-06-01T23:17:00.003-04:00

Today's work day was good! I biked to work, and it only took me 20 minutes! That is way faster than the bus. The bus would be like this: leave house by 6:15 in order to get to bus stop by 6:30 so I wouldn't miss the 6:40 bus, bus would leave and get to A-space by 7:07, then I'd have to bolt to STARS so I could get there as early as I could. With the bike, I can leave whenever (I ended up leaving at 6.25 just because I didn't know how long it'd take) and I got to work at 6.47. Pretty awesome. This is with some nasty hills and long traffic lights. (I ended up having to walk up some of the hills. You have no idea how steep & long they are unless you've seen them.) Once I got to work I had to get a temp badge so they wouldn't think I was an intruder and then go get my real badge from last summer. Before I could do this I needed to find a parking spot for my bike. Apparently no one really knew where any bike racks were, and I ended up finding one eventually (after going through a building and two visitor centers and a gate), and I needed someone with a real badge to open the gate for me since I didn't have a swipe part yet. Luckily a lady was very nice and did that for me :). Then I got my badge, and made the badge lady a little annoyed because I was there so early (it was 7.07). Then I had to wait for my manager, who wasn't here yet, and then the boss of my manager came by and said she wouldn't be here for a while yet...so I went to the library and read some web content design stuff. That is where Jose found me and told me our manager was there now (30 minutes before I thought she would be). So basically the rest of the day was running around, meeting with potential clients, catching up with the other interns and other people I know, getting a tour of the new building where I'll be spending about half my time, panicking because none of my passwords were working and therefore having to call the help desk (which is super annoying). My email is still not up because of some complications from the way I set it up last summer (sigh). But oh well. All in all it was a great day!

I left about 4.45, walked with Jose to the rail station, then rode home from there. Got home about 5.20 and immediately went on a short run, then came back and had a short swim. Have to make sure I prevent injuries and get lots of exercise :) Made dinner (just a chicken patty sandwich) and talked with my mom and now I'm pretty tired! The day is catching up to me. Luckily I can just go to bed whenever... :)

the strand

2009-06-01T23:09:00.003-04:00

Yesterday I biked down to Redondo Beach from my place in El Segundo (it ends up being about 9 miles). Mostly I went because I had left the things I bought at Target on Saturday at Andrew's place and I wanted to go pick them up. I also wanted the exercise, and I just plain love The Strand. For those who don't know, The Strand is a bike path (also running/walking/etc) that goes all the way from Redondo Beach to Santa Monica, and most of it is right next to the ocean. *Amazing*. It's beautiful, well constructed, smooth, and a pretty easy ride (if you're not going against the wind). I went down there in the afternoon so I had some time to recover from Saturday's insanity. I ended up hanging out at Andrew's for a couple hours and met one of his friends, and we played Rock Band. I would like to point out that I got a 100% on vocals on all 3 songs I sang (2 on medium, 1 on hard). We were going to cookout but I realized it was going to take me at least an hour to get back, and I didn't want to ride in the dark, so I left around 6:15ish and got home about 7.25. It was a fun time though.

Also, I saw a dolphin on my way to RB, but I didn't have my camera (of course). Very cool though!

dinner & a bar

2009-05-31T15:05:00.003-04:00

Andrew picked me up and he was really nice to take me to Target, and then we stopped at his place and had a drink before heading out, and went to the beach so I could continue my streak. Then we walked to dinner.

For dinner he wanted to take me to this Japanese place in Redondo Beach called Tokyo Blue. He said they had really good sushi there, so I was totally game. Well, it ended up being way more than just good sushi. For one, it was gorgeous inside (they basically had a little river running through the restaurant). For two, the food was *amazing*. We had a teriyaki fillet that was one of the best steaks I've ever had (if not the best), and the sushi was off the hook. I got a Philadelphia roll (my 2nd favorite roll, the first being a Father's roll which only exists at my Japanese place back home in Columbus) and it literally just melted in my mouth. Soo good. My mouth is still happy from it!

After dinner we got a cab to Saint Rocke, this bar in Redondo Beach that has live music. It was fun but I think I would have had a lot more fun if I wasn't so tired (I was plain exhausted). Sorry about that, Andrew. I thought the music was good but it wasn't really dancing music, so whatever. Got a cab to come back home, and got home before midnight. I fell asleep right away and had a solid 9 hours of sleep till this morning. I feel rested and I'm going to spend most of the day just resting, I think. Should be nice for preparation for tomorrow's first day of work!

adventure to griffith park

2009-05-31T14:38:00.004-04:00

If you follow me on twitter you know all about my adventure yesterday...

Saturday I had planned to go on this hike at Griffith Park, this giant park (over 4000 acres) up by Hollywood. I found out about a free hike hosted by these people who run some kind of exercise "camp" type thing, and I wanted to go on it. I thought it'd be a fun adventure and I could meet some people, that sort of thing. So I got directions via bus (metro.net) to there and back. I needed to be on the first bus by 6.30am, so I got up at 5.30 and packed everything up and headed out. I caught that bus just fine. It took me to the stop at Rosecrans & Avalon and I got off. Then I realized that my directions were telling me where the next station to get on was via compass directions. So I got off in the SE corner and I needed to be in the SW corner for the next bus. I do not have a very good sense of NSEW direction (although I do have a VERY hard time getting lost based on other things), just ask Melissa, so yeah, definitely got on the bus going in the wrong direction. So that threw me a little bit. But it was all okay because the bus driver was really nice about it and let me off where there was a stop on the other side that I wanted. So I grabbed that bus, which came just after a couple minutes (nice, if you're used to having to wait at least 30 minutes). That one was supposed to take me all the way to Vermont & Hollywood.

Nope.

It took me to Vermont & Wilshire, which was its last stop so I didn't have a choice & I had to get off, which is kind of a shady part of town. Kind of is a little understatement. Actually, most of where I was while I was traveling to Griffith Park was super shady. Everything looks run down and gaudy and ugly. I probably should have been more nervous about where I was than I actually was, but to me everything is just one big adventure and I don't worry about things too much. As long as I keep paying attention to everything and keep my bag connected to me, I should be okay.

So I ask the bus driver how to get to Vermont & Hollywood, and he says he doesn't know, but to call this number 1-800-COMMUTE, and they should tell me how to get there. It's already almost 9am and I'm supposed to meet this hiking group at 9.45 & Be On Time!. I had scheduled the trip so that I would get to the park about 9am so I would have plenty of time to find the group. Yeah, that didn't happen. Stupid metro.net telling me the wrong thing.

So I call this number, and the lady tells me to get on the 204 and ride it to Vermont & Santa Monica, then hop on the Hollywood Dash, get of at such-and-such, walk 2 blocks west and 1 block north and I'll be there. I didn't have a pen, and you remember about my NSEW failing. So I just rode the 204 to Vermont & Hollywood like I had originally planned and got off there. By now I was in a much nicer part of town. I started walking up Vermont and saw a Bank of America, so I decided to stop in and get directions. They didn't know where the entrance I wanted was (we were supposed to meet at Los Feliz & Fern Dell Dr), but they said if I just kept walking, the top of the hill would be Los Feliz and I could figure out where to go from there.

Apparently that is a very big hill.

So I walked & walked and I definitely wasn't going to make the 9.45 time. So I called the lady who was running the hike and let her know, and she was really surprised that I was walking. She told me the route they were going to hike and I thanked her. (I never did find them.) I finally made it up to Los Feliz Blvd and saw an entrance to Griffith Park. I tried asking some people where Fern Dell Dr is and they didn't really know (how can you not know??), but they thought I should turn left. So I turned left and walked for a very long time and eventually gave up. So I turned around and asked this guy who was walking his dog. He was super helpful and told me that Fern Dell Dr was pretty far away, but I could take the entrance on Vermont and get to the observatory and all that pretty easily from there, and then he told me how to get to Fern Dell Dr from there.

So I just went hiking by myself.

It was actually really nice. I could stop whenever I wanted and take pictures and all that jazz. I actually really love being by myself so it didn't bother me at all. I got to see this guy laying across the hood of a car video taping the people driving. And I got to see the observatory. There is a working Tesla coil in there, and it was AWESOME. And I got to just walk around the park for a little bit. At this point I was pretty tired (I'd been up for almost 7 hours already) and hungry, since all I had been eating were some snacks like granola bars. So I decided to head out of the park and start my adventure back. I got to Fern Dell Dr and then found some people who told me how to get to the bus stop I wanted. I got on the bus and thought everything was great & it would take me to Crenshaw Station. Nope. It end-of-the-lined 4 stops before Crenshaw, so I had to wait for another bus to come take me there. That end-of-the-line was in another shady part of somewhere. And it was kind of chilly. Anyway, it all worked out and another bus came eventually and I got to the station. I had never taken the rail before in LA, and it was pretty awesome. Just like a normal metro that you think of in NYC or Europe. (I wish the LA bus system was this nice.) The rail was the first time I had seen another white person take the public transport system with me, and I had probably seen several hundred people that day on various buses. Yeah.

The rail was fast and it took me to Aviation Station, the LAX hub where you can get to the airport or from the airport and that sort of thing. I had an hour to wait for my bus, the Beach Cities Transit, so I called my mom and talked for a bit. Then these two guys started talking to me. I couldn't tell if they were drunk or high and at first I thought this one guy was Australian because I thought he had an accent (later I realized it was just because his teeth were weird and he couldn't talk right because of it). Anyway, that was nice & exciting. They talked to me the whole way until I luckily could get off the bus. They told me about their band and their cooking and all sorts of crazy stuff. And they called me Emily. Haha.

I finally made it home after about 8 hours of public transportation round trip. Yeah, it was pretty insane. It took me 4 hours to get to Griffith Park, and about 3.5 to get home (granted, a huge chunk of that was waiting for various buses). But it was definitely a fun adventure! I was dog tired when I got home so I took a nap (definitely not a long enough one), and showered, and got ready to go out to dinner with one of my friends out here, Andrew.

settling in

2009-05-31T14:15:00.003-04:00

So, I got to the condo about 10.45am. Karen had mailed me the keys so I could just move in right away. Last summer I met John, one of her friends, with the keys and he let me in and helped me get my trunk up and such. He and his wife are on vacation right now so he couldn't do that. But really, I am glad that I just had the keys already. I don't like to bother people too much and I like being able to do things on my own schedule.

At first, Thelma, the cat, didn't remember me, but after about an hour she did and let me see her again. She always wants to be petted but I can't really pet her (I'm allergic), so that's kind of sad. She's a nice kitty. You know she must be because I really don't like cats :) Haha.

I just kind of threw my stuff down in my room, plugged in my computer, and let my mom know I was here. My body was telling me that it was 2pm back home and I hadn't eaten anything since 4.30 in the morning. Well, I had some crackers. But that was not nearly enough. So I went downtown El Segundo to this deli called Rinaldi's. I ate there for lunch the first day I was really on my own for meals last summer (Saturday; Friday I ate with Karen, John, and Meryl for both lunch and dinner), so I thought it'd be fun if I ate there again. I had a yummy meatball sandwich and a strawberry banana smoothie (they use real fruit, and it's so good). This guy I remembered from last year was still working there, and he was still as friendly as ever. He gave me some aluminum foil so I could take have the sandwich home (which became my dinner).

After lunch I unpacked everything. I brought even less stuff than last summer. I like getting California-related stuff out here, so I try not to bring too many clothes and whatnot. Just enough to get by. After unpacking I walked to the grocery store, Ralph's, which is a little over 2 miles away. I needed groceries for the week and a bus pass. I brought two reusable grocery bags with me, so I knew that I could only buy enough groceries that could fit in those two bags. I also wanted to keep my first grocery bill under 50 dollars, since I don't have very much money to tide me over till the first paycheck, which is two weeks away. I succeeded in both ventures, so that made me feel pretty good. Then I walked back the two-plus miles to my condo, put everything away, and took a short break.

I decided I want to see the beach everyday that I'm here again this summer (I succeeded in this last summer, too. 81 days in a row!). So I walked the 1.2 miles down to the beach, enjoyed the view, and walked back. It was still cloudy and chilly, so there wasn't too much else to do besides be there for just a few minutes.

After that I wanted to go to this surf shop to see the guy who took me surfing last year. I wanted to show him my skateboard with its modifications, because he also sells skateboarding stuff. Actually, he builds his own longboards to sell, and they are really sweet. You almost don't want to ride them because they're so beautiful. Anyway, I hopped over there, and he remembered exactly who I was and everything! It was pretty awesome. He was surprised to see me. He had a friend with him, and somehow we got onto the topics of bikes. I said that I didn't want to buy a bike out here because it's a huge investment, and I already have a bike at home, and I'd want to bring the bike I bought back with me, and then I'd have two bikes, which is silly. So this guy says he has an extra bike that he'd loan me for the summer. Sweet, right?! And for free! The only stipulation is that if something breaks I'll fix it. He also had a lock for me to use. What a way to be in the right place at the right time and know the right people! Crazy! So now I have a bike to use this summer. So, having the skateboard is kind of silly, because the bike will get me everywhere significantly faster. We'll see what I can do with it. I ended up hanging out for a lot more time at the surf shop and meeting all these other guys, friends of Mark who runs the shop, who surf and board. They're all at least 40 with wives and girlfriends and kids, but they still think they're 25. It was awesome to watch and listen to them talk about surfing and all sorts of other stuff. A couple guys were mad that Mark didn't have a TV at the shop so they couldn't watch the Lakers game. Haha.

I left about 7.30 from there, came home to the condo, and warmed up my meatball sandwich dinner. Karen came home about 8 and we had a good time catching up with everything. She has made some changes around the condo and everything is just beautiful! I will try to get some pictures and post them. We watched some TV (So You Think You Can Dance) and then I realized that I was super tired and went to bed. I needed some energy for my big adventure on Saturday.

airplane travels

2009-05-31T13:59:00.002-04:00

My flight from Indy to Chicago was great. The flight itself was so short (only about 45 minutes, sure beats driving 3.5 hours) so that was nice. I sat next to a very interesting lady named Jana on the plane. She spent 7 years in West Africa teaching women there how to read and write in their native language. Crazy, right? She did it through her church missionary group. Now, I don't particularly like missionary groups. (You might not know this about me.) Actually, I am not a big fan of globalization in general. Leave people alone. Leave their beliefs alone. That sort of thing. Also, I believe that if you are going to try to "do good" in the world, you should start at home. (There are plenty of people needing help in your own city!) However, if that's what you want to do, fine. And she was pretty passionate about it, which is great. Anyway, we had some really interesting conversation about that sort of thing. I ended up telling her about our Knitting for Nets project at school and she thought that was great. She had had malaria several times, and it's actually what forced her to come back to the States. She was hospitalized and her church people basically told her that she should come home. I guess she would have stayed in Africa forever if she could have. She was traveling to Missouri for a reunion of the people she went to Africa with and other people involved in that time of her life. Now, after being back in the States for 3 years, she's a registered nurse.

The second flight was less exciting. I was really tired and tried to get some sleep and epically failed. This made the flight last forever. They played Mall Cop on the TV, which I had already seen, so I listened to music and watched the TV without the sound on. Then I found out that TVs on planes now show regular ads just like normal TVs. I can't remember if I knew this before or not (I mean, I just flew in January! That's not that long ago). So I watched some Charles Schwabb commericals, and then there was a Nothing But Nets commercial! So it was kind of like Africa day for me. I sat next to a guy from Toronto, but originally from Iran, on that flight. We didn't talk too much because we were both trying to sleep (he really did sleep--the entire flight!).

As we landed, I got to look out the window. And to my surprise, the entirety of what I could see was clouds. Clouds! There were hardly any cloudy days at all last summer! And these clouds looked like rain clouds. What the heck? I went 3 months last summer without seeing a drop of rain. So the landing, which should have been sweet, was cloudy and I could barely see anything. I couldn't even see the ocean, which is only a couple of miles from LAX. Crazy.

Anyway, the landing was great, and our bags came out really fast. I took a taxi to the condo, like last year, but it was more expensive than last year. I took a different company (the company I took last time wasn't there). The driver kind of looked like he was part of the Italian mafia or something. Kind of scary but exciting too. Not friendly at all though.

so much happened

2009-05-31T13:57:00.002-04:00

I am going to break this weekend down into several posts. A LOT has happened and I want to tell about it in detail so I don't forget all of it! So check out the next couple of posts for my weekend adventuring.

heading out

2009-05-29T06:32:00.003-04:00

Woke up at 4am. I think I had just gotten to sleep, too, so that was sad haha. Left the house about 4.45 (perfect), got to the airport at 5.45, checked in -- they freakin' charged me to check a bag! WTF? I guess I have just avoided airlines that charge you to check ONE bag. That really made me mad. It's unfortunate that I cannot pack 3 months of life into a carry on. Screw you, United.

The security was really fun, actually. Usually it's my least favorite part (I always get searched somehow, and the people are generally in bad moods...), but today it was awesome. The people were so friendly! And considerate. Of course I got searched, or rather, my bag did, because I stuff it so full of cameras and other goodies that they can't see inside the bag. But I need all that :) Also, thank goodness by skateboard trucks got through. I was quite worried about those, honestly. Afraid they would be deemed a weapon or something...ugh. They're just my mode of transportation!

K, well, I'm going to bet O'Hare doesn't have free wireless like Indy (I love the Indianapolis Airport), so I probably won't have a real update till sometime later this afternoon, after I'm all settled back in at Karen's. I'll update my twitter via phone though, if you're interested.

indiana summer goodbye

2009-05-28T17:43:00.003-04:00

Tomorrow morning I leave my hot & humid Indiana home for the warm and dry Los Angeles-area summer. As much as I love LA and all it brings (read: ocean), there are some things I'm really going to miss about my little town in Indiana, especially during the summer. This list is in no particular order, by the way...

o Thunderstorms: And rain in general. (I spent 3 months in ES/LA last summer and didn't see a drop of rain. I am not kidding.) But summer storms are one of my favorite things ever so going without them is pretty tough on me. (Admittedly, having 70 degree sunny perfect days every day is nice for event planning...but I do like rain too.)

o Stars: I can't see the stars very well from the condo I'll be living in. Also, going down to the beach at night to try to find some stars over the ocean is kind of scary. It really shouldn't be (ES is the safest city in LA county) but it still is. Active imagination and all. But looking at stars one of my favorite things to do regardless of season.

o My car: I love my car, or maybe it's just the fact that I *have* a car that I can get places with when I want/need to. Having to rely on LA public transport, or trying to get someone to drive me somewhere on their time, is not really my cup of tea. I also just adore driving, so I'm going to miss it an awful lot.

o Walmart: I am totally not kidding, and actually that makes me kind of sad. But Walmart is so incredibly convenient and cheap, and it seems like nothing in LA is either one of those things, that it would just be nice to have around. The closest Target to me is in MB and that is too far to walk or board to (it's nowhere near the beach, which would make it sooo easy) and I don't know about the busses there.

o My family & friends: I miss them when I'm away, even if they're also away in other places.

insults

2009-05-27T17:40:00.003-04:00

If, for any reason, you wish to insult me, here are some easy topics for which to do so:

o Tell me I'm taking an easy course load: I want to see you simultaneously take the hardest class in your major, plus an intense independent study, plus a couple other courses that will be time-intensive, plus run cross country, and still be able to work two demanding campus jobs, take over a big community knitting project, see your friends, study for & take the GREs, apply to grad school, and have time to sleep. Oh, and keep up a good enough GPA to graduate (at least) magna cum laude. Because I don't call that an easy course load, even though on my transcript it's going to say I'm only taking 3.5 credits for Fall 09.

o Tell me I'm stupid: The GPA bit mentioned above kind of disproves this, but everyone knows you can be book smart yet have no common sense. I'm pretty sure I have a lot of street smarts, too. I also have a decent vocabulary, one area I tend to judge people's knowledge by, and I read a fair amount. I also don't think I know everything, which I think is the first step to being able to learn.

o Tell me I don't appreciate what you're doing for me: Trust me, I do. I might not be able to verbalize it very well, but I do. I think about the sorts of things people have done for me all the time and feel very lucky to have those people in my life.

o Tell me I don't love you if I say I love you: I only say I love you if I actually mean it. This goes for any sense of the phrase, romantic or friend.

o Tell me I don't mean something I say: To elaborate on the above, I am one of those people who says what I mean and mean what I say -- or at least I try very hard to be like that. Actually, I find that a lot of the time this sort of thinking gets me in big trouble.

o Call me some derogatory word (and mean it): Sometimes, I get it, these words are said jokingly. But sometimes they are not. I guarantee that I do not think of myself as anything like this so I sure hope you don't either.

o Insult my friends, family, or interests: I choose my friends carefully, so this one will really hurt me. I didn't choose my family but they are very important to me, and I love them very much, so this will also hurt me. I also choose my interests and try to build myself up with them, so please don't call me lame for liking something. (I guess I get this most with "geeky" hobbies.)

packing

2009-05-26T17:21:00.002-04:00

I leave Friday morning (7am) to go back to El Segundo, CA (by Los Angeles) for the summer. I am interning again at The Aerospace Corporation.

So today I decided to pack. Last year I packed like 2 weeks in advance...that was kind of silly. So this time around I am only packing 2 days in advance.

Packing is very easy for me. I make a list of everything I need, then go find the items on the list and put them in the suitcase. Very simple. I am also very good at packing light and mostly only bring what I really need. My downfall is always in the electronics area - I insist on having my computer, my external hard drive, my nice camera, my not-as-nice camera, and my video camera. That makes for a heavy carry-on bag!

because I feel like it?

2009-05-25T00:06:00.002-04:00

I love taking surveys. So, here is a lot of information you probably didn't want to know about me, all in one place! I will probably do one or two of these a week - awesome conversation topics, you know. Plus, Facebook notes contain a wealth of them, so I should never run out of questions to answer. : )

LAYER 1: ON THE OUTSIDE.
Name: Maria Ilyusha Schwartzman
Birth Date: 28 November 1987
Current Location: Columbus, IN
Hair Color: Brown, with some blond
Righty/Lefty: Bothy. I write right-handed and do almost everything else left-handed. I'm also both footed (soccer).

LAYER 2: ON THE INSIDE.
Your fear: I have a big fear of being alone forever, and/or losing the people I love.
Your dream of the perfect date: This is actually pretty hard. I like being able to talk a lot, so probably going to a coffee shop or something. Or taking a walk somewhere. The beach is always good, as are parks and woods, etc. I like outdoors-related things.
Your best friend: I have several, and I think they know who they are.

LAYER 3: YESTERDAY, TODAY, TOMORROW.
Your thoughts first waking up: I looked at my watch and wished it wasn't so late
Your best physical feature: I really don't know, but I like my eyes because they change color.
Your bed time: During the school year I go to bed around 10.30. In the summer during down time it could be whenever, usually closer to 1. During work it's 9.30. I get up super early then, 5.30.
Your most missed memory: There are quite a few. : )

LAYER 4: YOUR PICK.
Pepsi or Coke: I don't drink soda
McDonald's or Burger King: I don't usually eat fast food, but if I had to I'd pick McDonald's
Single or Group Dates: I think I prefer single dates, but groups are fun too
Adidas or Nike: Well, neither fit me.
Chocolate or Vanilla: Chocolate hands down.
Cappuccino or Coffee: Neither.

LAYER 5: DO YOU.
Smoke: No
Cuss: Yes
Take showers: Yes
Have a crush: Yes lol...there is almost never a time when I don't have a crush : )
Like(d) school: I adore school
Believe in yourself: Sure
Believe what goes around comes around: Usually. Karma has its ways of working out
Believe everything happens for a reason: Yeah
Think you're a health freak: Not a freak per se, but I love running and soccer and I generally eat very well.

LAYER 6: IN THE PAST MONTH.
Gone to the mall: Yes
Been on stage: Unfortunately no
Eaten sushi: Wait, no! I will this week though
Been hurt: Yes
Dyed your hair: No

LAYER 7: HAVE YOU EVER.
Played a stripping game: I might have
Got beaten up: No
Changed who you were to fit in: A little bit, I think, but it was what I wanted

LAYER 8: GETTING OLD.
Age you're hoping to be married by: I'd like to be married between 25-27.
Number of kids you're planning on having: I don't really want kids but everyone tells me I'll change my mind. We'll see. I think it depends a lot on who I'm with and what's going on in my life. There's a lot I want to do that kids are not condusive to.

LAYER 9: IN A GIRL/GUY.
Best eye color: I'm a sucker for blue and green, but I like all colors
Best hair color: I'm a sucker for black, but very honestly it doesn't matter. I also really like blond.
Short or long hair: It depends on the person. I usually like short hair, but sometimes I dig the shaggy look too
Fat or fit: Fit. My favorites are skinny guys.
Looks or personality: Personality is very important, but I should also be physically attracted to the person.
Fun or serious: Fun, but should know when to be serious.

LAYER 10: WHAT WERE YOU DOING.
1 MINUTE AGO: Filling out this survey, talking on AIM, checking Twitter, etc.
1 HOUR AGO: Deciding to stop cleaning the basement
1 WEEK AGO: I think I was sleeping
1 YEAR AGO: Being incredibly excited to be leaving for California in a couple days.

LAYER 11: FINISH THE SENTENCE.
I FEEL: Hopeful
I HATE: Leaving when good things might be happening
I HIDE: A lot of thoughts from people
I NEED: To be wanted
I LOVE: My friends

What is a food that you'd hate to be allergic to?: Chocolate and Asian foods.

What color was the last towel you used?: I think it was green.

Would you prefer to date someone taller, shorter, or the same height as you? Taller or the same height.

When was the last time your nose bled? It bleeds randomly in the winter sometimes.

How old are you turning this year?: 22. Holy.

What is your favorite thing to snack on while watching a movie?: I am quite fond of Kettle corn

Swimming pool or hot tub?: Depends on a lot of things. I do really like hot tubs.

Can you swim well?: I have been told I have an excellent breast stroke, but I am terrible at the other strokes. But my breast stroke gets me by pretty well

What body part do you wash first in the shower?: Hair always goes first, then stomach.

Who would you allow to read your thoughts for one day?: I suppose whoever wanted to. They might be pretty shocked though lol

What kind of first impression do you think you make? It depends on the person and my mood. I vary from fading into the background to talking a lot.

Name your last reason for using a camera? I never need a reason to use a camera! But the last picture I took was of Mary and me at the airport.

Where was the last place you fell asleep other than your bed? At Nathan's, in the basement, on my air mattress.

What are you excited about? Seeing good friends tomorrow

Seven days from now, will you be in a relationship? That would be kind of awesome, but is highly improbable

Are you a happy person? Generally yes

When was the last time you laughed really hard & why? I don't remember. That's probably bad. It was probably at Nathan's though, with everyone. Or at school before the year ended.

What are you wearing? Jeans and a tank top

What do you want? Happiness is usually a good answer here : )

Did you enjoy your weekend? Yes

Do you regret anything you've done recently? No

Is there anybody you wish you could see? Yes, so many people

Have you ever kissed anyone with a name that starts with J or M? Haha, yes.

How many people of the opposite sex do you fully trust? 7.

Do you think you’ll be married in 10 years? I really hope so.

What makes you mad most about girls? About girls? They are complicated. Guys are more open I think.

Have you ever been given roses? Yes, several times actually

Do you even like getting flowers? I love getting flowers

What's your favorite flowers? Roses, carnations, tulips, lillies, lavendar, and the list goes on. I like all flowers really.

Will you be in a relationship 4 months from now?: I hope so. That would be a nice change lol.

Does it bother you when your friends bring up your past mistakes? Yes. I already felt bad about it once, what more do you want me to do?

Could you go out in public looking like you do now? Yes but I wouldn't be happy about it

Can you be your complete self around the person you like? I would hope so

Whose the first person you texted today? Uh...I think it was Andrew

Would you move to another state to be with the person you loved? It depends

Do you ever get a text saying good morning? Not usually

Last movie you watched and who did you watch it with? The Gamers with Nathan, Mary, D

What are you doing tomorrow? Seeing Amanda and Dan and probably hanging with my family since it's a holidy

How's the weather today? It was cloudy but not bad

Where is the person you need most right now? I don't know. I might not know them yet.

What color are your eyes? Green, but they change depending on my mood.

Do you like poptarts? The Smores kind, yes. But only if I am in a hurry and don't have time for a real breakfast, like waffles or pancakes.

Where will you be 12 hours from now? Probably in Bloomington

Is it easy for others to make you feel intimidated? Sometimes

Do you know what you are going to wear tomorrow? Jeans and a nice shirt

Where's your girlfriend/boyfriend at? I don't have a boyfriend.

Are you on a desktop or laptop? Laptop

Does anyone hate you for no reason? I hope not

Can you make yourself cry? Yeah, especially right now

Play an instrument? Yes

Would you go back in time if you were given the chance? Maybe

What are your favorite colors? I love black. And blue and green.

Where did you get the underwear you are wearing right now? From the store lol

Have you ever kissed someone whose name starts with an R? No

Have you ever passed out? Yep

Are you easily confused? Not really

Do you think you would make a good wife/husband? I would make an awesome wife

What's your favorite kind of ice cream? Edy's double chocolate fudge. I also like their Colts ice cream.

Do you like coffee? No

Do you like summer? Yes

Is your current hair color mostly your natural hair color? Mostly

What color are your socks? I rarely wear socks in the summer unless I'm running

Where were you at 8am this morning? Sleeping

Do you fall for people easily? For sure, easily and hard

Have you ever dated someone more than once? No, but I've considered it

Last thing you got in the mail? Keys to my condo this summer

What is your current crave? Nothing

What color nail polish is on your toes? I have French tips

Do you find members of the preferred sex confusing? Yes

What are you listening to right now? Nothing

How has the week been so far? Up and down

Is there something you wish you could tell someone but can't? Of course

What are your biggest turn offs? Not being social, not being able to spell, smoking, several more but there are really too many to list

Favorite shirt to wear? I like this black tank top that's cute

Favorite drink? Water and chocolate soy milk

Last person to say 'I love you' to you? My mom and dad

Would you kiss the last person you kissed again? No

What's your favorite color gummy bear? I like them all

What is the nicest part of the opposite sex's body? Eyes, smile, abs, calves

Have you ever run into a dishwasher? Yes. It's on the corner of the kitchen counter thing

Ever had a song sung about/for you? Yes. I've had a song written specifically for me, actually.

Is there a baby in the room with you right now? No thank god

Do you know how to dance? Sure

Where do you sing the most, in the car, the shower or other? Anytime there is music on and I know the words I am singing

What is your favorite thing that is green? Trees

What did your last text message say? One that I received -- "On Ihthef if huyoo". Yeah, the person who sent it was not sober.

What is the way to your heart? Be yourself. Care about what I'm saying and listen. Do the little things because they matter a lot.

What do you smell like? Probably like my soap or shampoo.

What's in your pocket? My phone, my pocketknife, and a bunch of bobby pins

Anything in your mouth? Nope

Ever hurt yourself playing Wii? Haha, no

Do you have freckles? A couple come out in the sun

How many languages can you say "Hello" in? At least 6, but probably more.

What's the last movie you saw in the theater? STAR TREK <3

Ever jumped/fallen/been pushed in a pool with your clothes on? No, but I really want to be thrown in a pool sometime. When I don't have anything in my pockets, of course.

Are you wearing any clothes that you wore yesterday? Yes, the jeans

Name a song that you know all the words to: October 16 by Faulter. I know all the words to hundreds and hundreds of songs; this is just the one that's on my mind right now.

What's the last thing you watched on TV? The Cleveland/Orlando NBA game

What's the last video game you played? I can't remember. Likely DDR or Smash Bros.

Can you do the alphabet in sign language? Yes

Do you wear glasses? Yes, unfortunately.

Did you feel better or worse or the same yesterday? Better

What was your favorite childhood show? I loved the Jetsons. Showing my geek side early.

Are you close to your siblings? Yes

Do you bite your nails? Yes

Do you like your feet? Sure

Do you sleep well at night? It depends

haircut!

2009-05-20T18:07:00.003-04:00

I got a haircut today. I just got a haircut a couple months ago but it grew back very quickly. For the past couple of years I have been cutting my own hair, but recently I have felt like getting it cut. We have had some good coupons so I don't feel so bad :)

Before the haircut:

After the haircut:

Let me know what you think! It probably won't be straight that often. She blowdryed it, which makes it pretty straight, and combed it an awful lot. I usually let it air dry so it curls :)

lists

2009-05-20T10:22:00.003-04:00

I make lists for everything. My homework gets organized via list, my bucket list is obviously a list, I write down to-dos in lists like nobody's business. So why not make a list of everything I want to do in LA this summer? I used Slashlists (developed by Kelly Sutton of HackCollege while he's in Berlin...how did he have enough time?) and you can find my list here. I'll probably be making more lists over the course of the next few days, and adding things to this list.

Observation about my California list: it revolves very much around traveling, experiences, and food.

If you have anything I should add to this list let me know! I did many things last summer that I didn't include in order to give me some more time to experience new things :)

Boxes

2009-05-19T16:14:00.002-04:00

My life is currently living in 12+ boxes, even more bags, and all are strewn about my room. I don't know what to do with it all. I can't get rid of very much because I need it for next year and beyond. Suggestions?

class of 2009

2009-05-17T18:51:00.002-04:00

Some of the my best friends in the entire world graduated from college today.

This is me getting all dressed up for their ceremony.

Our president (Brian Casey) at the beginning of the ceremony.

I don't want to think about how that'll be me in the cap & gown in just one year.