It's true: I haven't posted in over a month. Typical me. But life keeps rolling along.
I went to Scotland. I went to Ireland. I came back to Michigan. I went to orientation. I did some lab work. Juggles and I got a kitten. I started school. I played a tournament. I went to more school. I did some homework. That's about it.
Not like all of those things don't have some excitement in their midst, like the surprising goodness of the gooey part of a chocolate eclair. Yum.
Unfortunately, I still don't have pictures from my Scotland/Ireland trip up on the internet so I can't really share them with you yet. So I'll give a brief rundown of the vacay.
In Scotland, I visited a friend I've known since high school, Miss Samantha Johnson, originally of Victoria, MN. She's a student at the University of Glasgow, so she shared her accommodation with me and showed me around the area. She was a fantastic hostess. We wandered the streets of Glasgow and Edinburgh. We climbed a mountain without a trail. We ate good food and drank good drinks. And I almost got to try deep fried pizza.
In Ireland, I stayed in Dublin the entire week. I was mainly at a conference for the International Society of Environmental Epidemiologists, where I presented a poster. But I found time to wander the city, see the Museum of Modern Arts and the Kilmainham Jail and St. Patrick's Cathedral and some other great places. I drank Guinness in the Guinness Storehouse, as well as at bars down the street. I schmoozed with some conference-goers, met a cool girl from Canada, and spent time with some of my fellow U of M friends.
It was amazing, and I almost didn't want to come home.
A week after I got home, Juggles and I stopped in at the humane society to see what cute kittens were in stock. Turns out, they had a darling little black kitten who soon became our own. We welcome Annabelle Cat, now sister of Charlie Cat, into our little family. She's insane, but completely sweet. She loves cuddling, purring, playing with plastic bags, and chasing fake mice and Charlie's tail. Charlie is still getting used to her, and doesn't quite appreciate being chased over the apartment all day.
School started and I'm supposedly some big shot PhD student. I have a place in the Kardia lab now, and am sort of winding down and not able to spend as much time up in Rick's lab on 7th floor. (insert pouty face here.) I'm taking just three classes, but they are a ton of work. And I don't really enjoy two of them, which makes them twice the work -- first I have to spend time motivating myself to start homework, then I have to do the work. I do like my Cardiovascular Epid course so far, however. It's fairly straightforward and discusses some interesting issues.
Moving along, now... Hybrid went to sectionals in Versailles, OH last weekend and took second to BOI. We're heading to regionals in a couple of weeks. We'll see how that goes. I know I'll be swamped with work so even though I really want us to make it to Day 2 of regionals play, I'm okay if we can go home after the first day so I can get work done!
I've really started to enjoy playing with some of the Hybrid folks, like High School and Pug, who I rarely get to play with. I'm a De line player, and a bunch of my favorites are O line players, so I had a good time over the weekend when I was thrown in on points with Stewy, Juggles, Craig, and some others I rarely play with.
That's a pretty quick summary of life over the past month. The seasons are changing and a cold front set in today to make it feel like fall finally. It's a little depressing when I have to pull my sweaters out before I ever really got my shorts and skirts fully integrated into my fashion.
Next time, hopefully I'll have some pictures to share of Europe and Annabelle and life.
