birthday celebrations continued...

I have added new pictures to my photobucket album, which you can find using the link to the right. There are pictures from Mother's Day and from my birthday (both hot air ballooning and the zoo).


So on Sunday, after sleeping forever, the day was actually rather nice.

Rehersal was okay... Leonardo SUCKS, but the rest of the concert promises to be decent. I am really hoping at this point that we have off for the summer. I will be busy with Project and school and work and all the things I usually do... except I will get to SLEEP IN! YAY!


Dinner was yummy yum yummmmmmm... as always, I got the salmone alla farfallete. It is just incredible how good it is. My brother could not join us for dinner because of a bike he had to get, but the company was still good.

After that, we came home and I opened my cards and presents. My mom got me some things from Lands End that I needed (a bathing suit bottom, sandles to replace the ones I have which are totally ghetto, a black button down cardigan to replace one that I inherited from my aunt) and Jon, even after all the awesome stuff he did on Sat, got me some presents too. I am now the proud owner of a real pic-a-nic basket, though I have a sneaking suspicion that was an "us" gift, not a "me" gift. Regardless, I like it, and he did well. He also got me a little massager thingy and these really cool clips that help you squeeze all the gunk out of a tube of whatever. (Descriptive, I know, it is just a little gift I have for words. :P )


Once that was all said and done, Jon invited Tim and Laura and Dave and Lauren over to my house, which made me feel rather smug on the inside considering how often I have been yelled at for inviting people to other peoples houses. :) But I did not say anything... I am sure Jon will read this later and his eyes will get all big and he will say "Hey!" and then try to say that I had said it was okay to have people at my house even though I didn't. Then he will remind me that I invited people to his house today. Which I sort of did.

So TODAY, the 6 of us plus Josh are going to end up at Jons house for some grilling and general hanging out. Les might come too, later, after work and after other things. :) She actually is obligated to, because I have a big box for her to pack with. :)

Jenn & Aaron were invited, but I think they are going to Jenns house and then probably to Aarons to hang out with Kate and Jamie.





But the whole weekend brings me around again to my need for more female friends that I see on a regular basis. Gotta get working on that.

Birthday Weekend!

Overall, my birthday has been pretty darned good.


On Thursday night, Jon and I went to Leslies, where we watched 3 espisodes of Scrubs Season 5. I got it for Les for her birthday, and it had come just in time! We had wrapped up season 4 last week, so it really was perfect timing, especially given that the season is over and now there are only re-runs on Thursday nights. So yeah, it was goooood. :)

She also gave me my birthday present then - star shaped and super sticky post it notes (okay, I am a little OCD about post-its.... in fact, I have a hard time using them because I like them so much and I want to "save" them... for what, who knows?) and she also got me the 2 disc dvd of Pan's Labyrinth. YAY! Definitely a great gift.

On Friday I took off from work because I could, and I spent most of the day driving around looking at apts. I saw two in P-ville and one in Lionville.

It may be needless to say this, but the two in P-ville were pretty ghetto. At the same time, I could see myself living in the second one, if I could get furniture up three flights of steep stairs. The thought makes me count my blessings that when I move, I will have Josh, Jon, Lauren, Dave, and anyone else I might have forgotten that I have helped move before!

All the same, I am not quite ready to move out, I am realizing, so I will just keep looking and keep viewing Craigslist for some rare gem.

I met Jon for lunch and we got some yummy organic stuff by the natural pharmacy. We ate at the picnic table at his work and enjoyed the nice weather.

After that, I went to look at the apt in Lionville, which I totally loved. It was 800/month plus electric and gas heat. Excuse me, electrical.

I really really really liked the apt, but it would be much better to live there WITH someone, unfortunately. I could afford it, but by the skin of my teeth, I think... he also wanted someone to move in June 1st or 15th. That is way too soon, so I have declined it. UGH I liked it! It was huge. I liked it almost as much as the one on Byers, though the one there was like a bajillion times more adorable. The one in Lionville was huge and I would get a covered front porch! Hello awesome!

Alas, it just is not the time I guess.

That night Chris and I went out and got some chinese food. I love steamed dumplings... MAN they are good.

Later that night I went over to Jons and Josh came and surprised me with Leslie. Les and Jon watched more Scrubs while Josh helped me with my arrangement.... He helped me make it musically correct, which I appreciated so much. I wrote everything out fairly well, but it just looked wrong... so Josh helped me tremendously with that... and as a result, no diggity / wonderwall is going to be AWESOME. I am really thrilled with how it is coming out and I am excited to finish it off and teach it this summer! WOOT!

Due to the arranging, I did not get home and get to sleep until about midnight.... I still had no idea at this point what I was doing on Sat except that I had to get up really early.

And I mean really early.

My alarm went off at 5, Jon showed up at about 5:15 (early! so proud!) and he surprised me with an hour long hot air balloon flight!!!!!!


It was awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I will be posting pictures from that later on my photobucket site if you feel like checking them out.


It was a great great great present, and I was just so pleased that he planned something for me, and went to such great lengths to keep it a secret. :)


After that, he surprised me by meeting up with Jenn and Josh and Nick to go to the zoo for the day. We had a good time. A gorilla attacked Jenn and then we watched another one masturbate. (Don't ask!)

Jenn also gave me a cool birthday present - she reserved Harry Potter for me at B&N and got me a gift certificate there. She also got me the DVDs of PlanetEarth, which is SWEET, because those shows are absolutely awesome, and I will definitely use them for teaching later on. YAY my friends know me! :)

Oh, I should also mention that Josh ALSO got me Pan's Labyrinth (hehe) so he is going to take it back and get me something else, and he has til about August to do that, since it took him that long last year to get me a birthday present. Its cool though, I like having my birthday extended out!

We got home from the zoo at about 6. Jon and I were exhausted. He had gotten even less sleep than I did on Friday night. We dragged out butts out to Winners Circle where I used a gift certificate Chris got me forever ago to get dinner. After that, we came back and fell asleep on my bed. We were going to watch a movie, but then we laid down... yeah. I kicked him out around 9, then got a bit of a second wind, so I checked email and things like that. I had a bit of a hard time sleeping after that... but once I was out, I was out.

I slept 12 hours.


Today I am eating breakfast with the fam, then we have rehersal most of the afternoon. After THAT my family and Jon and I are going out to dinner in wc and then I get to open presents! :)


Its been a great birthday weekend... and as I said to Jon, probably one of the best birthdays I have ever had.


Thanks to the people who wished me a happy one and my bestest friends for making it extra special. :)

more student responses

I had my kids explain the 4 steps to making urine... then at the end of the lesson, I had them tell me something interesting that they learned today. (Can you tell it is sort of a trend with me to do that?)

Anyway, here are some of the responses:


I guess it was interesting how the urinary system worked, because I didn't really know the details of it. I actually didn't really want to know, I didnt find it interesting. But this time, when i payed attention, i found it rather interesting.


I personally liked learning the functions of the kidney. All honesty, some of the things I read today, I never heard of in my life.



I didnt know the reason why we didnt leak when we had to go to the bathroom.


One interesting this I learned today would be how urin is made. It is something I never though I would learn about. I didn't even know anyone knew how it worked. I though it was just one of thoes things that you just gotta do.


Today I learned that my ferrets bite really hard. (ed: what in the world does this have to do with pee? no idea)


I didn't know that there were four step to the creation of urine. I thought the liquid went down your throat and into your stomach and then to your bladder and came out.







:)

arrrr

Arranging music has been my most recent quest. I am trying to arrange a mix of No Diggity and Wonderwall for Project this summer... it is coming along nicely, especially since now at school I have NOTHING TO DO.


Okay, so that is not strictly true, but my days are a lot more free as we have hit the last 3 weeks of school. I cannot believe how fast the schoolyear has flown by. So much is different now than it was when I started, thankfully. I feel like I have grown a lot, and although not all of it has been pleasant, all of it has been necessary.


I feel like this schoolyear has brought a lot of change into my life... I am turning 26 on Sat, but I do not quite feel that old yet. Maybe it is better to not feel your age. As I see everyone around me though, I feel even younger still.

I guess I am just saying I still have a long ways to go.





I slept pretty poorly last night and somehow managed to kink up my back. I tossed and turned from about 3 am until I actually got up at 5:30... so i am sleepy today, and kind of in pain... but other than that, i am actually feeling GOOD.

I am trying to not be too optimistic about this whole nutritionalist thing... I mean, herbal remedies make sense and what not.... even the whole vibrational energy frequency seems like it could be valid... but I do not want to trust just yet that this stuff is working for me.

I do though... my body feels good.... it feels.... blank. Which I guess is not good, but I am not feeling the tension and the aching I am usually feeling. I feel a distinct LACK of those things, which is just sort of foreign to me. Keep up your prayers that I continue to heal!



Two more hours left at work.... its soooooo long. I guess I will go arrange, again, which will take up my time nicely.

working

Last night, J, L, N, and I went to the Dogwood festival. It was fairly ghetto, the only one who won anything was N... but we had a fun time. I saw a high schooler who was so pregnant she looked like she could blow at any moment. Pretty sad.

After the festival, we all slept over L's house. J and I did not sleep all that well, with him getting up every 5 minutes to blow his nose. But I was so sleepy that I was barely aware of it (and his snoring) so despite everything, I guess I did get a good amount. Its always nice to have sleepovers. :)

We all got up around 9:30 ish. L began making a cake for a graduation party... I made salsa for the party. I have never made salsa before, and it was kinda fun... I gotta try that for myself some time. J was kind enough to go get us all breakfast while we watched the special features on the Scrubs season 4 dvd.... I got a croissant with sausage. mmmmm....

I went home, showered, then drove out to the hospital to meet G for some funnel cake that I did not end up having. N and I split a funnel cake last night and I decided to spare my arteries. Anyway, we hung out for an hour til I went to work... which is where I am now.



Currently, my mom and Nan and Bud are downstairs in the ER. Bud has been a bit "blocked up" over the past few weeks, and apparently he has finally reached full blockage status. He is in a lot of pain, so my mom brought him in. I guess they are going to do some chemistries and then give him a massive enema.

Speaking from experience here... that is just soooooo not fun.

So they will probably be here for quite a few hours. I just spoke to mom and she said that shes thinking 9 or 10 at least. I offered to ditch work (I know, so altruistic) if needed and drive Nan home later tonight.



I think it is hard to be that old. Bud is 91, Nan is 86. They have been married for 65 years. That is incredibly long. It must be difficult to see each other breaking down and actually getting that old. I do want that though, someone to grow old with. As much as Nan and Bud drive each other crazy sometimes, they really do love each other so much, and they have been through a lot.

G and I were talking today about quality vs quantity of time... In the end, I suppose it is both... When you know someone for so long, or youve been with them for so long... maybe you did not have a lot of quality, but quantity can make up for that in way.

Just the same, there are sometimes people that you have known forever, but you do not know all that well... you need the quality in there too.

I guess sheer quantity of time spent with someone, however, really DOES matter. I feel like you get to know someone pretty well in the moments when neither of you are paying attention. For example, me and K and J at college... we spent soooo much time together, there was no way we could not get to know each other really well, whether that time was of quality or not.

So maybe, when you want to make new friends or you want to meet new people, or get to know people better, you should aim for more time spent together, more conversations, more movies, or getting dinner, or just hanging out. It does not necessarily have to be this uber intense get to know you session... it just has to be time.



Any takers??

Since L is moving in 2 weeks... I have a few vacancies I need to fill. Yeah, thats right, she counted as more than one friend cuz shes so awesome. :)

there is hope

(This is the last question in an assignment talking about the different senses!)






Tell me three interesting things you learned today

I thought it's interesting how hearing has to do with balance. Once when I couldn't hear properly on one ear, I noticed I coudn't walk stright. I thought it was really weird, but I didn't know what was causing it. Now I do.

1. One good interesting thing that I can say i have learned is the dimensions of the ear, I had never known anything about the ear and the eardrum.
2. One other thing that I have learned is that I the Definition of Perception O_o
3. I would say the last thing I learned was that I'm pretty good at Biology aren't I? hehehe ^_^


I didn't know that when the light of an image reaches the retina it is upside down, that was pretty neat. I also didn't know the difference between sensation and perception, they were pretty much the same thing to me until I read differently. The whole hearing thing was interesting, I didn't really know it was so complicated, I just thought the ear drum did most of the stuff, guess I was way off!

The three most interesting things I learned are how we see and hear, also how we smell and can taste things. When I was five I put a q-tip in my ear and broke my eardrum, I had my eardrum repaired, but I still lost 20% of hearing in that ear. I had a great-aunt who had her sinuses removed and the only thing she could taste or smell was bananas.

Tell me three interesting things you learned today. One interesting thing I've learned today is the way you hear. I had absolutly no idea there was fluid in your ear that need to stay equal in both sides to keep your body in balance. Another thing i've learned is the way you see things and how images are actually sent to your brain. The last interesting thing that i've learned is the different types of sensory receptors. Ones that actually tell you something hurts. Some people don't have them and actually can't feel pain. WEIRD!!!!

1 - optical illusions... very cool
2 - why I shouldn't listen to music too loud... I'll definitely keep that it mind.
3 - How the eye works... I've explored that a little before but not in this much detail! yay!

I never knew that we had 3,000 taste buds on our tounge. Also i never knew eyes had so much processes to see one image. Lastly i never knew that when you feel pain it is because you tissues are in danger.

Three interesting things that I learned are: 1. How sensation and preception work, sensations are when you are unsure and the sound, image, etc. is unclear, and preceptions are when you are. 2. How complex things in my interior works just for me to see something. 3. How complex my interior is just to hear something. It's amazing how this body works!

a. its cool to learn how we hear, its cool to learn different ways we can see, and i had fun learning about this.

-Never knew that hearing and seeing was such a complicated task and that your body is working hard for you to be able to do both

- I learned that there are three parts to an ear

- That there is jelly stuff in your eye ball








I THINK that they might just be learning some stuff! :)

insurence is awesome. or not.

How incredibly frustrating!

I mean, I am glad to have insurence and all, but what freakin good does it do?


I started to see a nutritionist for my endometriosis... is that covered? no.

I went and got my teeth cleaned two weeks ago, but does my dental insurence send me a check like they should? no.

I just bought car insurence from progressive and all I asked them to do was to fax me the paperwork, but could they do that? Apparently too difficult.




I also got my car inspected today (2 months past due, thanks Graham) and although it passed... my breaks didn't. Phenomenal. So $140 for the inspection, and I will need to buy new breaks over the next few months to the tune of about $300.

I swear, it is no wonder that I cannot move out of this house, life continues to suck the money right out of my wallet and into things I would seriously rather not spend my money on!!!



Okay, that is a lie... I really do want to go see the nutritionist and I am excited about how things will turn out with him. I am hoping that he can help me. At this point, I honestly could care less WHAT he does and suggests as long as it helps.

Bleh... today has been uber frustrating between calling insurence companies and the portal at school moving at a turtle's pace.



On the up side of things... China is looking more promising... the dates are Sept 26th to Oct 28th... plus a week for the science nerds like me. As I have been so let down with Autralia, I am trynig to not get my hopes up about it... plus, ya know, it makes me insanely nervous to go overseas for 5 weeks! So much can happen! I dont know, we shall see.


Tonight is also my last grad class... at least for this semester. School starts back up again in two or three weeks for the first summer session. It never ends. :P

a day in the park

no australia

So officially I am not going to Australia.


I got an email last Thursday from our area coordinator saying sorry, another person dropped out, and you are now not going.


Aside from being really upset, I am pretty angry that she told me in an EMAIL... literally two months before departure. I have spent many months getting ready for this... spent one sunday a month going to stupid meetings over an hour away.... I am just darned frustrated! She could have at least called.

So now I am apparently on this list in case someone drops out... then I would get to travel... but the chances of someone dropping out at this late a date is slim to none. So I am supposed to keep 2.5 weeks open in the middle of summer just in case someone breaks their ankle or thei cat passes away or something like that.

Obviously, I am upset.


I was really excited to go, and who knows if I will ever get the chance to go to Australia again.



I am trying to be positive... there are lots of good things that will be happening during that time. I will probably get to go to Maine with J.... There are maybe plans for the 4th of July.... Also maybe I will get to go to the premier of Transformers. ;) I get to finish out my marking period at WCU.... JH brought up some promising day plans. :)


I dunno, I am just kinda blah... a lot of plans have fallen through in the past week or two. at least I am still going to Montana and Glacier Nat'l Park. That should be awesome.


Blah.

whats up

Things have been okay.

I still have not talked to my dad...

I got some rate quotes on car insurance, and I should be purchasing a new policy today.

Within the week, i will have the title transferred over on my car into my name officially.

I was supposed to go see a cute apartment yesterday but totally forgot... and I guess it will work out in the end, because I think I am actually going to attempt to buy a condo or townhouse. Crazy. Sheer madness. I need help.



Last night was good.... the crew went to quizzo and it felt like old times. I got there late due to class, but it was so great to see everyone and to be together. P & B both look fantastic as they have gotten over the early "we are exhausted bc we are new parents" look... it is still crazy to think that they have her!

L is going to get married and have babies before me so that P has someone to talk to about it. Go right ahead. :)

J is flying to Indiana soon to go on an interview, which is awesome, much excitement there... meanwhile L has an interview on Sat in Ithica.

Practically the only friends that J & I will have left are L & D.... our "married" friends... and do not get me wrong, they are awesome and doing so well too, having moved into L's grandfather's house and renovating the colored rooms....


But geez people, I need all the friends I can get!


It is somewhat sad to me that everyone is moving away and moving on, though I trust that all will still keep in touch. I guess it will be what it will be.



In the meantime, I still need to make some new friends. Not get rid of the old, but conjure up some new ones to share my excitement over the next few months.




So far, I am still going to Australia. To be honest, I was getting a little excited to stay home.... J's sister is due around that time, they are having a family reunion, Project will be going strong.... there are just things I would like to be here for.

But then on Sunday I went to a meeting and we started talking about packing and my stomach got all aflutter thinking about going all the way to freakin AUSTRALIA. What an opportunity!!!

I had some laughs with the students too on Sunday as we were talking about common Aussie phrases.... I think I will enjoy chaperoning them. I just have to keep reminding myself that this is a job, not just a super cool free vacation for me. I found out that I will get to go sea kayaking too! eek!



I have not gotten any new information about the China trip next year.... again, just thinking about it makes me excited/nervous. Living in China for a whole month!!!
I think it would be amazing to really experience life there. To get used to having noodles for breakfast. To make friends. To work there. To walk. To ride a bike in the crazy traffic. To be able to bargain because i know more of the language! It just seems so cool.

Of course I have my reservations, especially with my health... but who knows, perhaps it would be good for me??? Lots of fresh veggies and fruits and fish and rice. It might just be what I need. Plus we are going in October, when the smog is low and its not quite so sweltering hot.



Next week I have my first visit to a nutritionist... we will see how that goes...


I will have to write more later...