Snow?!

Are you KIDDING me?! First three days of torrential downpour and now snow?! This must be payback for having temperatures in the high 70's over spring break last week. :) Just in time for my parents to visit. :) :) And for my birthday. :) :) :)

In other news...my head is about to explode. But next Friday and Saturday is the graduate student symposium for which I am one of the co-chairs, and after that I'll be able to breathe again.

Breathe and write three 10-12 pages papers in the next two weeks.

Ah life. :)

Sometimes I take cool pictures.

I'm really enjoying this one right now.


P.S. That's San Diego in January. I only wish I lived there.

For the birds. Or something.

I got a fun visit from these folks - hoorah for family events that bring my friends into my state!!

We went to the zoo...

...and maybe had a little too much fun...


Did I mention I cut my hair and got glasses? Yup.

Mouse count

= 4

Unless that first one that Dan and I accidentally let go in the driveway got back in and got caught again. In which case:

Mouse count = 3

Which is still pretty yucky.

Apparently he says stuff like this all the time. Whatever that means.

Actual conversation, as reported to me by Dan:

Chaz: I didn't expect to see you so clothed!

Dan: What does that even mean?! I'm going to have to think about that for a few days.

Chaz: Oh, you know, it's always a great day for a toga!

The Good, the Bad, and the Really, Really Yucky.

The good:
I got a 100% on my midterm for my Islam class. :) I told one of my classmates, who is also in my Arabic class, that it's been a while since I got 100% on anything, and he said, "What about in Arabic class?" Um, yeah. About that.

The bad:
I AGAIN fought with the phone tree system of a certain wireless company to try to tell them that I DON'T actually owe them $184.68 in early termination fees, since I canceled the contract in less than 30 days. And NOT ONLY do I not owe them that money, but the nice employee that I talked to the last time I fought with their phone system told me he had cleared the charges, so something is messed up, since I am STILL getting threatening letters about how they're going to send me to a collections agency if I don't pay up. AND!!! NOT ONLY should those charges have already been cleared by the last guy I talked to, but even getting to talk to a person is a royal pain!! They sent me THREE different customer service numbers, ALL of which required me to enter my 10-digit phone number to continue. When I entered it, the system said, "That is a not a valid number with our company" and kicked me out. I KNOW it's not a valid number! I'm no longer with your company! The letter that you sent me, WHICH TOLD ME TO CALL THIS NUMBER, acknowledged that I'm no longer with your company! And yet there is no number I can call to get through the system.

Erg.

Obviously I eventually got through. I entered my phone number as 10 0's. Twice. :) And then I selected the menu option about activating a prepaid phone that I (supposedly) purchased at a store. THEN I got a human, who listened to me rant and then told me very nicely that she was with the prepaid department and would be happy to transfer me to the contracts dept. :) But hey - at least she didn't kick me entirely out of the system.

Anyway, moving on.

The Really, Really, Yucky:
It is confirmed that we have a mouse in our house. My roommate told me a few days ago that she suspected it, and I confirmed it. WITH MY OWN TWO EYES. That's right, I saw the nasty little bugger. It was eating one of my potatoes in the pantry. And yes, I jumped backwards and screamed like a girl, which, in fact, I am.

So now we get to put all our food in hard sided containers and set traps and maybe borrow Dan's cat and throw her in the pantry and shut the door and see what happens.

Good times, internets, good times.

Today...

...a colleague and I have a grant application due. It's pretty much getting to be almost done.

...I have an Arabic essay due. It's about half done and due in one hour.

...is the last full day before Dan gets back!!

Plus, this whole new Google Buzz thing...I'm not sure how I feel about it. I mean, I've participated in the narcissistic practice of blogging for a while now (holy crap it's been four years - !!), and we know I use my gChat status bar, but somehow imposing a one-line status on the world, knowing that it's going to show up as "new" Buzz and someone's going to feel obligated to read it, if for no other reason than to get their "unread Buzz" back to zero...feels even more narcissistic. I'm not sure I can handle it. (And is it considered meta-narcissistic if I post on my blog about it??)

Happy Monday! :)

These are not the droids you're looking for.

So my boy is out of town for the weekend :( :( which leaves me with lots of, um, "free" (?) time. You know, all that time every day that I usually spend with him (after my school work for the day is done, of course!) that now I don't get to spend with him because he's several states away. :( So this weekend I get to fill that time with, um, more school work, or late Arabic homework, or house work, or laundry, or late Arabic homework, or my visiting teaching (eep), or even, you guessed it, late Arabic homework. (Ooooh - or grocery shopping!!)

His flight left last night at 7pm. So what, you ask, did I do with all that available evening time???

Yes, that's right. I did.

I went to bed at 7:30pm.

Happy New Year?

"This year needs to be over--I'm so done being hit by cars."

- Elise, who was hit by a car 3 times in 2009

Yeah, I guess we all like to stop traffic...

From the kitchen of Dan

And I quote:

Worcestershire sauce makes meat more beautiful. It's like make-up for women. ... Except not really, because make-up tastes horrible.

Welcome back to school.

I'm starting to get sick. Do we think I could fend it off with a haircut?

I <3 my sister Amy

We just had the following gChat conversation, after I sent a relatively incoherent and babbling email to the family in response to a suggestion about future Christmases, admitting in the email that the incoherence was due to the fact that I was saving all coherent thought for the paper that's due in 7 hrs:

2:46 PM Amy: You know, that email actually made a lot of sense. Does this mean I should be worried about the coherency of that paper-?

2:47 PM

me: i don't think you should be worried about the coherence of the paper, but if you wanted to just WRITE it, that would be terrif.

2:49 PM Amy: Oh, shore!

(That was not "sure," that was, "running for the shore, ain't writin' no more papers this month")

Bwah hahahaha! And her funny...ness is not the only reason I love her, but it shore helps! Um, as in...uh...she lives near the shore...and I'd shore, eh, sure jump in and drown if she wasn't my sis...

Yeah, about that paper.

P.S. And she responded as follows to the family email: "I think we should agree to not decide until AFTER Christmas day, when everything's a little more sensible. Just so Margaret's head doesn't explode before she regurgitates its contents into her papers."

Regurgitating its contents...yes, that would be why this paper is making me feel like I want to BARF.

/distraction

Evidence

If you're going to crawl around like a crazy woman on playground equipment at an amusement park with your friends' kids, I supposed you'd better be prepared to have it documented.

(Yes, I'm supposed to be writing a paper right now; yes, it's due Monday. What do you want from me?!)

December-itis

So it's finals time again, which means that I'm escaping reality (2 papers and 2 finals next week) by blogging - YAY for procrastination?

Except that that's pretty much all I have to say. It snowed here the other day, really snowed, so now we think winter is here to stay. I heard it's gonna be 11 degrees at some point this week. Have I put long johns on my Christmas wish list yet? and boots? I already have an electric blanket, which I turn on high as I'm getting ready for bed so my bed is toasty warm when I get in. Unfortunately, I sometimes (often) forget to turn in down before I fall asleep, so I have crazy dreams and wake up ROASTING in my bed at 2am and THEN turn it down. Good times, good times.

My grandmother passed away a week ago last Sunday, and the funeral was in the west last Thursday, and I couldn't go. I keep hearing about family members who did get to go, and it makes me sad that I missed the chance to see them and to celebrate my grandma's life with them. She was a wonderful lady, and I miss her, but I am glad that she has been released from mortality and can move on. I love her.

I substitute-taught early morning seminary on Friday and Monday, and it was a good reminder of how I want to be in the scriptures more. There is so much peace to be found in the Spirit that is in the scriptures.

So I have begun, sort of, the countdown for tests and paper due dates and my departure for the holidays, and I'm trying to quell the panic and just WORK. Wish me luck! :)

He was totally touching my homework papers with his shoe ON PURPOSE, even though he knew it was bugging me.

Me: Daniel. Seriously. Why are you taunting me?

Dan: Why are you tauntable?

The things you find laying around the English department...

I study language stuff, and this is really funny to me.

heehee

Quick summary of my week

Monday: research proposal application due to the IRB. This is so that data that I gather for a class project this semester can be used for conference presentations or publications.
Also Monday: Arabic essay due. Not written yet. eep. So obviously I'm using my time well by blogging instead of writing it. :P
Tuesday: Meeting in the evening with the finance committee of the student gov't. We will have to 'defend' our request for funding for the symposium that is slotted to be next April, but for which we don't have any funding yet. eep! This meeting REALLY needs to go well!
Thursday: Midterm for my Middle Eastern Studies class.
Also Thursday: Leave after my midterm for a conference in a neighboring state! Two of my colleagues and I are presenting some of our research there. :) :) Unfortunately, we aren't QUITE ready to present yet, tho we are getting closer, and there is a lot of work to fit in this week to get ready for that.
Friday: Arabic test, that I'll miss because I'm at the conference, but will have to take on Monday.
The weekend: Halloween, which is HUGE in the town where I live, AND Stake conference, at which we'll be getting a new stake presidency. I'll still be out of town. :(

Oh, and I almost forgot to add that I still have just the regular homework and reading to do - 3 chapters by Tuesday, 5 articles by Wednesday, and I don't even know what I have to read for Thursday!

Um, wish me luck?? :)

Spelling counts.

I was part of a group presentation in my Arabic discussion section the other day, and I didn't freeze up and die, which was a BIG DEAL to me.

I did, however, make a typo on one of my slides. With one letter I changed the full name of the city of Mecca from "Beloved city" to "Hated city."

Yes, I am just. that. awesome.

So there's this guy... :) :)

His name's Dan, he's 27, from this town where I live now, plays rugby, and can fix anything that could possibly go wrong on a car. He's also punctual (gasp! I didn't know those people even EXISTED!!) and thinks I'm funny and likes to hear my thoughts about stuff and tell me his. :) He loves the temple and honors the priesthood, and amazes me with his insights into the scriptures and his understanding of the Atonement. We've been best friends for about 6 months and dating for a week and a half now, and I'm ridiculously happy about it. :)

Just thought you might want to know... ;)

I go back and forth...

...between being excited for classes and for what I'm going to learn this semester and TOTALLY tired of school. I know this will be a good, growing, stretching, learning, enlightening year, I just hope I have the energy to make it happen. :)

Time with family and friends the last 3 weeks was good...but never enough. I didn't get to see everyone I wanted to - blame it partly on the fact that I was DEATHLY ILL for almost HALF of my vacation time! Ok, fine, not DEATHLY ill, but ill enough that I wanted to die. :) Green stuff coming out my eyeballs, horrible sinus pressure, no voice...yeah, it was pretty awesome. :)

So I came back to school pretty excited to be back, but then not enough time to get settled into the new apartment, or life, again before school started. And I've been messing with my class schedule, so I still feel pretty unsettled. I think I decided today what classes I'm actually going to take, so that is a nice feeling, but I also feel like I'm already behind in Arabic, and I'm gonna have to bust my tail to not get behind in my other classes. The second day and already I'm worried about being behind? That ain't good, people. Maybe I worry too much, ya think? :)

On the other hand, it IS really fun to be back with my friends in this town, and to start to get my head back into this field that I enjoy and have enjoyed so much, and to start to get settled into my cute new house.

And as I flip back and forth between excitement and something close to panic I am reminded of that quote by President Hinckley where he talks about life being like an old-time railway journey - twists and turns, and only occasionally beautiful views and thrilling bursts of speed. The trick, he says, (and this is what I need to remind myself when I feel down,) (this plus "go eat something," :P ) is to thank the Lord for letting you have the ride.