Monday, December 31, 2007

Into the Night




Just testing out how this iMeem thing works :D

Holidays...like woosh

Geez, these holidays went SOOO QUICK! Insanity. I got all of my Christmas shopping done...not really in the happiest mood though, it seemed like all of my initial ideas got SHOT DOWN. and so I had to go to like multiple stores to find what I wanted, and I didn't seem to get one day at home before Christmas, so I was sorta Grinchy. Christmas came though, and I got a BEAUTIFUL blanket from my aunt (handmade) and some warm fuzzy socks, lots of jackets and slug-wear :D some cool calenders and a greys anatomy board game which I can place with my friends or at home WHOOT! :D

Just got back from southern California. We went to Knotts Berry Farm and Universal Studios. I hadn't been to Knotts since I was 4 maybe, definitely too small to ride most of the rides. But it's been a few years and I've grown a few feet LoL, and we went on ALL of the huge fast rides. They have some pretty good rides they, but they aren't, as my sister would say "Disney efficient." So some of the lines took quite a while. :( But still it wasn't that crowded at all, and my legs weren't completely dead after. That night we ate at Mrs. Knotts famous fried chicken restaurant. The fried chicken was good and moist, but it wasn't like extra crispy fried chicken, just like flour, not really battered. I definitely had my fill of boysenberry though :D. Boysenberry funnel cake, boysenberry punch and of course boysenberry pie :D. It was great. :)

Then we went to Universal Studios, which was again a lot more crowded than I remember. But then again, it was a saturday this year. We went on the 29th this year and last year we went on the 27th. But last year it was practically empty! They had pretty long lines at universal, but they moved pretty quickly which seems a whole lot better than if you're in a "short" line that takes forever to move! But they had already taken out back to the future :( sad. They're going to build some Simpsons ride...which I think is a bit weird, but oookay.

Besides sharing a bed with my sister, it was a totally awesome trip :)

I got a LOT of stuff done...considering how not productive I've been lately LoL. I went to the bank to cash a check that I've had since the beginning of december, I finally opened an letter which I got around dec. 12th LoL, I went to exchange a gift, I emailed a lot of people I needed to, I bought a late christmas gift I'm going to give someone at school...I just did a lot YAY! Ooh and I got word back from ISV, although I'm trying to change my host country...we'll see how that goes. I hope I don't have to call them, but I just might. Uhm...and walked a dog for a bit. lots of stuff :) yay!

Tomorrow I'm going to revert back to vegetating.

Sunday, December 09, 2007

Gracias, Merci, Danke, Grazie, Thank You.

Es ist gut. Finals aren't every very fun, but what makes them better? The same thing that makes everything better, COOKIES! more specifically, BUTTERCOOKIES! Everything is better with butter! :D So I wasn't planning on checking my mail box, but I carry this silly hope of mail, so I like to check it every few days or so, and usually it's empty, but yesterday, it contained MAIL!!!!!! WHOOT!

I got a Christmas card from my mom, :D :D Which I was uber excited about in itself, and it also contained the little slip that says I have something large enough it won't fit in our boxes! WHOOT! The little paper said "over sized envelope" so I was like...uh maybe someone sent pictures? or something from EAP or something, but as the guy fished out through the packages, he brought out this big envelope with what looked like some sort of square box inside. So I get back to the apartment and open it up and it's a BOX FULL OF BUTTER COOKIES! Home made from my Auntie Karen.

I feel soooooo good right now. I don't know if good is the way to put it, probably not...but then again I'm a marine bio major, not a lit one. LoL I just feel so special and lucky that I have such great family members. My aunt who mails cookies to me during finals :D and my aunt who sends me back to Santa Cruz with a cacti garden, that day and tons of awesome food to remind me of home and my mom who sends me greeting cards for Thanksgiving and Christmas and just because, just so I have some mail to pick up. :D

That's definitely a huge part of my life, but also my college life is awesome. I'm going through the motions of classes, and that's the "work" hard part of it, but the "play" hard of it is so good. Before I moved here, I knew it would be a change and everything, but I didn't expect it to be this good, and now that I'm here, I know what a unique experience it is and will be.

I am just really appreciative of all aspects and people in my life right now. and I am DEFINITELY not taking it for granted, I'm taking and holding on for all it's worth. :D

Thursday, December 06, 2007

Brush that dirt off your shoulder

DAMN I've been slacking. Brush that dust off the blog...A convenient time for me to finally post in. When I'm supposed to be studying for the first of my "finals" LoL oops. It's really still a quiz, we have three quizzes throughout the year, and no "final" each quiz is %25 of our grade. I"m not too worried, hence my blog entry LoL, Monday I'm more freaked out 60% of my genetics grade rides on monday. I hate that feeling. and I don't really feel like I've learned anything. it's a weird feeling. I'm just freaking out about that class and my coping mechanism is to suppress it. not the best, but eh. I have all day tomorrow (after 10:40am) and then there's a study group from 4-7pm and then on saturday another review session. Just thank god I have no papers. I hate papers....they scare me.

I finally got my EAP application in. Mucho drama at the end there. Long story short, I had issues contacting my instructor and so after a month of going back and forth, she forgot to write it for me, and I had to turn in my application 3 days after they started accepting applications. Which I thought wasn't too bad, because when I went to a drop in office hour, the adviser told me that "it didn't fill up in the first day, but it does by the end" ....but yeah. So it took a while for the letter to get to me, and then I emailed the adviser how many spots were left (because it's essentially first come first served for qualified applicants) and so I got the email that said she had received 4 apps for 5 spots. I had turned in my application first thing that morning...so I really hope I was the fifth app. I don't what I'll do if I'm not :( I sent her an email asking about it, but she's out of the office from wed-fri, so I won't get a response no earlier than monday. :( I'm slightly stressed out about that, but then I've done what I can now, so there's nothing else I have control over.

Things at school have been going well otherwise. Normal day to day stuff, with lots of naps in between ;D I went home two weeks in a row, and BOY did I hear it from the housemates. Even though I had reasons, first week was Thanksgiving of course and second weekend was I went home because we bought and decorated our Christmas tree! YAY! looks pretty awesome. So yeah got a lot of slack for that LoL...but it's better than them wanting to kick me out ;)

Had a good breakfast for lunch today with Susan and Caroline :D went to the owl's nest before they stopped serving breakfast, that place is CRACKIN' at least at around 9:45-10:20am....which is the time I was there waiting in line and waiting for my food. Met up with Suze and Caroline at 11 ish, Caroline treated for drinks and I brought french toast and muffins ;D TASTY!!!!

Lots of little things in between. uhm....I have a new love for imeem, it went lost on me for so long LoL.

Okay study break over, back to studying for Earth Catastrophes! :D...yay? remember folks, Oil and Otters don't mix :(


I should do this more often really.

By the way, tonight is the first rain since sometime in october, FINALLY I love the rain here, it's so misty and ethereal :D *sigh* and so cleansing, plus it makes the tree smell like 5000x more, it's like putting in a new pine tree air freshener outside :D AWESOME!