I know, I know, I suck at blogging…

Lots has happened in my since my last post, but most importantly I am now a PhD!!! My parents came in for the weekend, and they came to my thesis defense even though I’m sure there wasn’t much except for the background that they understood. My boss had a small little shindig for me at work with some bubbly, a cake, and some other little snacks. I didn’t really eat much because I wasn’t all that hungry, and I felt a little out of it. I’m glad that we decided to not really do a celebratory dinner that night because all I wanted to do was go home and throw on some jeans to be comfortable for the rest of the night.

We did go out to dinner at Baba Yagas, which was wonderful as always, and we all had a nice glass of wine to toast the evening. Then I went out with friends at a local bar with another friend who also defended her thesis on Friday. I didn’t have to buy a single drink that night, and I luckily restrained myself from crying when my friends presented me with card and a picture of the gift they bought me: a leather messenger bag. Well, at least I don’t think I cried. I don’t remember a lot of specific details about the night, but I remember that I had a great time, and my friends are awesome!

On Saturday I met up with my parents just before noon, and we grabbed some sandwiches and ate them in the park since it was actually very nice weather outside (although my mother thought it was a little cool). Then we headed over to the zoo, which was a lot of fun. Dad let me experiment with his new digital camera, which was a blast, and I seemed to keep it more than he did. A couple of months I had asked what mom and dad’s budget was for a graduation gift because I had a couple of ideas but one was outrageously expensive: a DSLR. I knew that it was far too much, so instead I asked for an ipod touch.

Well, Saturday night mom wanted me to pick a restaurant that I would never go to on my own to celebrate, so we went to Ouisie’s Table. The food was excellent, the waiter was nice, and the wine quite tasty. Mom and dad gave me my present, which was a lot larger than I expected. I cried. Go me. It was just enough that I could throw in some extra cash and buy the same digital camera that dad had, but with the standard lens it comes with. I was extremely happy.

Sunday morning we went to breakfast at Le Peep (we drove by the Hobbit Cafe, but it certainly didn’t look open). It was very good, and then I dropped them off at there car so that they could drive home. Right before they left mom gave me a couple more envelopes and told me not to open it until I got home.

I get home and open mom’s letter to me, and it gushes about how I’m the best daughter a mother could ask for and she’s so proud. I cried. Again. Then I opened dad’s letter. There was another check with his note with enough to cover a huge chunk of the same lens that dad has for his camera. I cried. Even more. I have been truly blessed this weekend, and can not express how much I love my friends and my family.

Two minute summary of Boston trip:

Sat on tarmac for an hour. Good weather in Boston. Indian food delivery. Purchase of blueberry beer. Yum. Realized miscommunication led to lack of present for Pat. Horrible christmas movies. Cheese loaf preparation and devouring. Sleep on nice new cot. Christmas morning, yay! Stockings, candy and oranges. More cheese loaf. Presents galore. Top Gear is awesome! Ribs, potatoes and broccoli. Lots of cookies. Harpoon brewery closed. Boo. Movie watching. Sherlock Holmes was good, Blind Side was better. (Pulled a Nikki.) Saw a bump it in use (have to love public transit). Visit to the Tap for lunch and beer. Shopping with the sister-in-law. Yummy food galore. Visit to a brew pub. Realization that barley wine before a flight is not a good idea.

In conclusion: awesome trip.

ET has left the planet…

Ok, not really, but he has gone to live at the shelter now that he weighs enough to get vaccinated. I’ll miss him, but he needs to get socialized with other cats. When I left him in Kittenpoluza (the kitten room) he was hissing at all the other kittens (or trying two, but since he was so small he was mostly just breathing heavily).

Not a whole lot has been going on. We had a pub crawl on Saturday, which was a lot of fun. I told Salise about it, and she suggested that we steal the idea and do one as a fund raiser for friends for life. I think that’s a great idea!

Friday I went out with the first years, which was a lot of fun. Sara(h)? and Caitlyn got peircings, which made me consider getting another piercing on the spot or start thinking about a tattoo again. I wanted my nose pierced, but if I’m going to foster cats again allergies and nose piercings don’t really go together. So, I’m reconsidering a small tattoo on my wrist. Something that will mostly be covered by my watch. Probably and Celtic knotwork of a triquertra that I have in one of my books. Pat is going to send me the website of a place in Boston, and we might have a family trip to the tattoo parlor over christmas. Who needs Canada when there are tattoos? Although Patrick probably won’t get one.

I have a committee meeting tomorrow, and I hope they tell me to stop wasting my time on this stupid project. We’ll see. Fingers crossed…

It’s been both a good and bad weekend.

So there was a light day of work on Friday, so I’ve been making up for it this weekend. Not so exciting, and I really hate SNPs right now. I was going to go buy the Hot Fuzz soundtrack at a local music store, but I waited until right before I had to be somewhere, so I ran to target to see if they had it. Of course target’s cd collection is pretty much nonexistent, and so I figured that’s what I got for attempting to not support local businesses. Oh no, my punishment was in the parking lot. Apparently the person in the car next to me didn’t like my car. I have a dent in my driver’s side door about a foot tall. I even partially popped it out just opening the handle. I’ve already had to deal with something like this on the other side a few years ago, and it was just expensive. This time I’m not messing with it. I’ll just deal with the dent. It matches all the other tiny dings. People suck. At least with this dent I can still roll down my window unlike last time.

And I was going to now post about the good part of the weekend in which Mark and I went to see 9, which was pretty good although the end was kind of dumb. Then we went to the saucer and had dinner and some beers. I had a really good time. However, today I found out that he lied to me about his age. I found him on facebook, and his date of birth was September 5, 1972. So that makes him 37. His profile on match said he was 31. I texted him to ask about it, and he said his friend made his profile on match, he’s actually 36, and he should have changed it a long time ago and he wasn’t trying to lie and blah blah blah. I would have been fine with that if it were true. I double checked my math, and he was in fact 37. So I ask him again and he admitted to me that he was in fact 37. So this time he knowingly lied to me (if you believe him about his other crap) and it was about one whole year. Why even bother. So, that’s the end of Mark. I’m thinking I should start chronicling my dating adventures from match.

Argh!

Yesterday was a fairly non-productive day. I went in to work around 8am, and then we went to lunch to celebrate a woman who works in the lab getting married. I got back to the med school building and went to participate in a blood drive they were having. Apparently they were in need of my blood type because they asked me to give double RBCs. It’s the first time I’ve had it done, and it was a rather odd experience. You’re hooked up to a machine and the plasma and RBCs are separated and you get saline solution and an anticoagulant pumped back in. The saline is room temp though, so you get really cold once that starts pumping through your veins. After that, I finished around 3:30 and I wasn’t felling very well (even after the juice and snack they provided), so I went home and took a nap.

Kim and I went to dinner and then to the bar. I got annoyed with Kim on the way home. She always finds a way to talk that implies she and her family are above everyone else. (Not to mention when she flat out states loudly in the bar that she’s a “living, breathing ten”. This of course happens fairly often.) So last night she was talking about how people always drive around a bend near her parents house and often drive off the road and into the tree there. She then proceeded to brag that her dad never goes down to the accidents to see if he can help. (He’s a doctor.) When I said something about that being odd, she started back tracking (maybe she realized she sounded like a bitch). She implied that they were never serious, but the sentence before she talked about the time life flight came out. Then she said they were being stupid, to which I responded “so they deserve to die?!” Of course, this is when she told me to stop jumping down her throat. Apparently I’m not allowed to have an opinion. Or maybe just not one that contradicts her.

I can’t wait until January when I can move…

District 9

So Mark and I wanted to go see 9 tonight, but there was something wrong with their copy of the movie, and the audio cut out for 15 minutes of the movie. Luckily they told us that up front, so we went to see District 9 instead.

It was very gory, but it was really good. A very interesting critique of our society and human nature in general. It wasn’t what I was expecting from the tv ads, but really good. Lots and lots of gore. However, every trailer before the movie also looked awesome. I’m very excited about Legion!

I give up on me…

So I had another first date through match on Sunday. I got compared to Darlene from the Rosanne show. I also have gotten no response to my email that I sent today even though I know he’s read it. I think this makes me officially undateable…

Good night, bad morning.

I had a good night last night. Kim and I finally went grocery shopping, and I cooked dinner last night. I tried to explore some of the spice mixes Kim owns (about 4). I started with a lemon herb mix that I was going to put on some chicken, but it didn’t smell so good. I instead went with a garlic herb mix which was really good. I just cooked the chicken in a frying pan in their own juices. Very good and not dry. I also made some zucchini and yellow squash slices with garlic powder, onion powder salt and pepper (these were too spicy for Kim). I also just whipped up some mashed potatoes with the skins on.

We went to the bar, and three of the regulars came in, two Texans trainers and a woman from their ticket sales office. Perch was talking about two stepping and he was at a country western bar and no one was dancing. I piped in that I couldn’t two step whatsoever, and so Perch set out to teach me. It was fun, but I’m not very good at it. Perch said I was good at following, but I don’t believe them.

I had a weird dream about buying a condo that needed a lot of work. For some reason Jeremy had been talking to the guy and kind of taking care of the place (just making sure it wasn’t robbed or anything), but it was a mess, and he had ferrets too. He was a dentist and had a dental chair in the spare room, but I was disappointed to find the chair didn’t come with the place. Apparently I was going to gut it and fix everything. I don’t know.

This morning is horrible. I woke up kind of early for me and found Nancy Drew dead (one of the kittens I’m fostering). Her upper body was in a fold of a towel I had in their cage, so I don’t know if she suffocated or what. I have a call into Salise, the director of the shelter, but now I just wait. I have no idea what I’m supposed to do.

So I’ve made Kim mad…

I went to volunteer at the shelter today, and two kittens that are only a few weeks old were brought in. Salise couldn’t let them stay at the shelter because there are a lot of sick cats there as well as at her home and at the other woman’s house who typically cares for new kittens. I of course was a sucker and brought them home. They are small enough that they are in a cage and don’t really make much noise. They are still young enough that they need to be stimulated to go to the bathroom, and they aren’t even sure that they can see much yet, although their eyes are open.

It’s one female, Drew, and a male, ET (I did not name them). I brought them home, and Kim is pissed of at me. She is allergic to cats, and was complaining that they were already starting to bother her (she said this with one of the cats in her hand…). I’ve been reading around online, and it says that cats don’t start producing dander until 6 months, but who knows how accurate that is. Besides, Kim has been sneezing at home all the time due to regular allergies.

Now Kim’s bitching to me that we are “in breach of our lease, and it’s putting her in danger of loosing her home”. Kim is a worrier, but damn that’s ridiculous! Someone from the complex has not been in our apartment for months! And even if a maintenance guy came but to replace a filter or something, he has no idea if we are supposed to have animals or not.

She’s telling me that I need to consider how important this is to me because we’ll have to consider not renewing the lease. I really do miss fostering, and Kim is a lot to handle. I’ve felt rather stifled here. I guess it’s my own fault, but Kim is very 1) judgmental, 2) complaint happy, and 3) worries about everything. Maybe it’s just time to move on. Now, I’m wanting to just be done.

Kim came in here and said she wants the cats gone in three days. That’s not very reasonable, or maybe it’s me. I don’t think that it will be a huge problem, but she is making it one. It reminds me if you poke her lightly in the side, she yells “ow”. Everything is huge and a problem. I understand that she has to live here too, but the world does not revolve around Kim. It should not be a problem for her allergies for a while. I don’t understand why she can’t be more understanding.

ARGH!

What’s going on in my life?

Not much is going on in my life right now as per usual. I had my committee meeting, and they want me out by December, so I’m working on my thesis. Sort of. It’s not going so well. I’m writing my background, and I’m only able to write about half a page a night. As it stands, I need some major inspiration soon.

I’ve started some cell work tying to see if my SNPs have any functional impact, but I’m still not sure if my construct is right. So, I’m just playing with cells now.

As I mentioned earlier, I’m trying out match.com again, and it seems that on average my conversations with guys last about 18 hours before they fall apart. Go me!

I have two orchids in bloom, although no pictures because I don’t have a digital camera. (I’m starting a fund for graduation presents for a dSLR, hint hint.) Maybe I can steal Kim’s camera for a picture or two, although she claims to have no idea how to get them onto her computer. I’ll have to look into it.

I bought some shoes from endless.com, but they were too small, so I’m going to return them for now. I am looking for some nice looking sneakers, but I guess I’m going to save my money and just wear my running shoes around for now. I’ve been trying to save money lately, so I guess this will just contribute to my non-spending.

I’ve been sleeping horribly lately, and so my workouts are nonexistent. Life is stressful as usual, but I’m not quite as stressed now that I feel like I have more of a direction. The doctor has me on sleeping pills, but I still need to get to a therapist to talk some things out.