On my Easter Sunday, I made myself a big brunch of perfect French toast with real maple syrup and fresh strawberries. And I called my parents and boyfriend (who is on his way back here anyhow) to feel like I had family around while I was eating. I got chased around by the cats. I watched an episode of the Simpsons. I opened the windows to enjoy the spring breeze. And I plan on playing some frisbee in a couple of hours.

It's not such a bad Easter, just not a typical one from my youth. There's no ham dinner or seeing cousins or dying eggs and hunting for them. But that's what growing up does... It makes me realize how much I appreciate my loved ones every day of the year. I may not see my family frequently or even on normal holidays, but there's never a doubt that they're always in my heart.

Happy Easter.

Still Life with Fruit and Blood.

And some of that blood is no longer blood, but just little double helices of pyrimidines and purines floating in buffer. The rest is frozen in time.

A photo of the IDS Tower that I took was included in something called "Schmap," which, to my understanding, is basically a city map with pictures of landmarks.

You can see it here.

Neat.

I take everything from the inside and throw it all out

J and I went to this new Chinese place in Ypsi for lunch today. On Sundays, they apparently do dim sum until they open the buffet at 3. I can get behind some dim sum. Or so I thought.

I've always taken issue with meat served at most Chinese places. It's usually served either fried and greasy, or otherwise just doesn't seem to be very high grade meat. And, well, I have enough issue with eating meat in general, being a former vegetarian and a public health student simultaneously (I try to avoid factory-farmed meat, served predominantly corn meal and antibiotics).

So, the way this place worked is that you sit down and servers walk around with carts with different dishes on it. They stop and, if they spoke any English, they'd tell you what was on their cart and you could choose to have it or not (if they didn't speak English, you'd have to guess as to what was on their cart -- fried balls of some sort of seafood? Maybe!). This is not ideal for a picky eater like me, but I figure I'll eventually find something I can get behind.

J gets some pork-something-something. I don't eat pork. He then gets some lobster balls of some sort. Meh. Some guy comes around with these mini egg pie things, so I grab some. They're much sweeter than I'm expecting, but I eat some just because I'm unsure if I'll find anything else I'll actually eat.

A guy comes around with some chicken-rice-mushroom thing wrapped in a huge leaf of some sort. I decide to just go for it. It's chicken, right? It can't be so bad!

It's... fine... for the first few bites. Fine. Chicken mashed with rice and mushrooms. Ok.

Then I notice it.

WTF is this thing? It looks like the end of a hot dog, complete with some sort of sheath around it. I eyeball it and immediately begin feeling nauseous.

J removes it from my plate and then notices that he has one too. By this time I'm nearly gagging as I'm considering what this might be. Chicken intestines? Gizzards? What organs otherwise resemble the end of a hot dog? I'm so not down with this.

We start to joke about what anatomical part of a chicken these are. The only logical thing is chicken penis, of course. This humor does not help me regain my appetite.

Lesson of the day: don't loosen your morals just for a cheap meal. Blech. BLECH!

Nothing can catch her, nothing can touch my 409

I love seeing pictures of my parents when they were young. My mom was a fox and my dad was a handsome devil. Recently, my mom forwarded me an email from her brother that had a couple pictures of her at 18. Of course I have to share one, because she's gorgeous! And so is that little red car....

I found that amusing. That is all.

Oh Kitty, My Darling, remember that the doom will be mine if I stay

Kitties in the sink!



I peaked out of the shower when I heard some commotion. Seems Annabelle was playing with one of her toys in the sink, while Charlie sat idly by, slightly peeved. I had to run and grab the camera to capture it, though this pic doesn't quite do them justice. Now, they're running around the apartment while I attempt to get some epi reading done. Crazy kitties!


I'll leave you with a picture of Charlie that I took on my phone. He's hanging out with his best friends, Lauren the Bear and Leslie the Lesbian Sock Monkey.

Last week I wanted just to disappear / my life was dust / but now it just may be a happy new year

Goodbye those 365 days that we called 2009. And, welcome to 2010!

The last few weeks of 2009 flew by way too quickly. I spent a weekend in Grand Rapids to celebrate the holidays with Juggles's siblings and father, then followed it up with two final exams. I was done with finals on Dec 15 and then spent a short week in Minnesota with family and friends to celebrate the holidays (and my best friend's 30th birthday!). I returned to Ann Arbor on the 23rd, and left for Grand Rapids the next day to do Christmas with Juggles's mom's side of the family. I spent time in lab this week, and also caring for Juggles as he came down with a nasty fever on Tuesday. I also started to clean and organize the apartment a little better.

For Christmas, my parents got me a new phone. I opted for T-Mobile's Google phone and I do love it so far, partly because it's burgundy, but also because of the addicting games I downloaded to it. I'm obsessed with WordPops and JewelsMania as of late. I also enjoy having weather, Wikipedia, and Pandora right at my fingertips.

Another amazing Christmas present included this wonderful piece of art that my mom found at a show at the University of Minnesota. They're shipping it to me so I can get it framed here. I already have the perfect place in my apartment picked out for it. They also gave me silk prayer flags that they picked up when they were in China. They're already hung in my apartment to add color and spirit to the living room. Juggles got me silly things like a giant plush Herpes (because it looks like a sunshine so I've always loved it), and a couple of BPA-free water bottles to replace my cancer-causing water bottles I've got sitting around, etc. Sandy got me an electric tea kettle which we've been putting to great use this week.

I really enjoyed giving Juggles his presents. I was really happy with the presentation of the gifts, as well as how well they represented him. I got him some new work clothes because he doesn't have many options on days when he has to impress the bigwigs, as well as a Threadless tee that suits him. I got him a computer game he wanted, as well as an XBox game that his friend recommended. To top it off, I got him some fingerless gloves to keep his hands warm while he's on the computer. He's been wearing them NONSTOP. I also got him a graphic novel written by Terry Pratchett because I thought it sounded pretty cool, and I've enjoyed stuff by Pratchett (with his shadows of Native American culture all over his writings). I got him a couple other little things too.

I did some fun baking this week when I had time. I made some delicious enchiladas one night. Then I made pumpkin chocolate chip cookies the other day, followed by a batch of pumpkin pancakes for breakfast this morning in order to use the rest of the pumpkin puree. All turned out nicely. We have dozens of cookies left to eat if anyone wants to come over!



The cats are starting to get along better. Charlie was laying on the ottoman this morning and I saw Annabelle cuddle up behind him and spoon him. They stayed like that for a good 15 minutes or so until Annabelle got restless and started chasing things. Charlie's more cuddly lately, and sweeter in general, I think.

I did get to see Diana over break very randomly. That was phenomenal. I do miss her dearly now that she's away in PA for med school, but I'm also very proud of her for being her awesome future-doctor self. Hopefully I'll get to see her again soon.

School starts soon, I think. I'm not exactly sure when. I should check into that so I can figure out what I'm actually going to take.

I've been doing some online shopping over the last couple of days. So far I've managed not to buy too much. I ordered a new backpack the other day because I couldn't NOT -- it was a Burton bag for about 1/3 it's original price including shipping. And it was cool fabric.

Other things I'm looking at buying over the next few months include: a new lightweight comforter, dinnerware, glassware, and a wine rack. I'm slowly making this cookie-cutter apartment feel more like home. The prayer flags in the living room definitely help a lot, as do the Yeti stockings hung above the fake fireplace. Maybe next summer I'll even try to plant a few herbs and things.

2010 is filled with a few good resolutions and hopefully many good revelations. Of course there's the typical "eat better" and "study harder" stuff, but I've also got some more personal soul-growth resolutions that I'm putting together.

Happy New Year. May you be true to yourself, and may your year be filled with peace and bliss.

Today I take my last final of my firs semester as a PhD student. Then, I'm going to walk to Main Street and get Juggles one last Christmas present, go home, head to the last night of late fall league and play some disc. I'll go home, shower, go to The Arena, mourn the departure of Finn as he leaves for his home of South Africa, eat some nachos, go home, and go to bed.

This is exciting for you readers, I'm sure...

I think what it boils down to is... I'm heading to Minnesota tomorrow!

You'd be surprised at the number of things there are to do when it's time to study for finals. From putting laundry away to making sure the cats get enough cuddle time, there's always something more important than studying.

I'm climbing up on the railing, trying my best not to look down. I'm going to do my best swan dive into shark infested waters.

We live in an apartment complex that has, what some may call, nice landscaping. We have ponds and playgrounds and trees and flowers. There are even tomato plants somehow growing through the rock landscaping stuff that's outside our computer room window.

Well, last May, I returned home from school to find fake plastic swans floating in the pond. We hypothesized that they were there to keep the geese away or something. If this was the case, it was highly unsuccessful because we had many families of geese grow up around the ponds outside our apartment door.

I digress...

The fake plastic swans floating in the ponds were named Phyllis and Martin, and they had a love affair much like Romeo and Juliet... Phyllis was on one side of the pond and Martin the other, strapped down and not allowed to move.

Well, sometime over the past week or two, Phyllis and Martin became real. I kid you not. Those things somehow transformed because we now have two swans that circle the pond together.

Birds don't like me. This is a-whole-nother story for another day, but they don't like me.

Thus, when taking out the trash today, I shouldn't have been surprised to be greeted unamicably by Phyllis and Martin as they charged me, hissing. I wasn't even in their business at all. No, they just charged. So I, of course, screamed, and ran the long way around the building to get back to my apartment. I walked in crying and laughing at the same time, and Juggles just couldn't quite figure out what to do with me.

So, I looked out the window and noticed Phyllis and Martin swimming around the pond closest to our apartment and decided to take a few pictures.

Phyllis and Martin look lovely swimming around the pond together.


Why are they getting out of the water?


No, really... why?


They really are coming after me! They're on the patio. (view from inside my screen door... which they pecked at...)


Annabelle will get 'em!




Charlie lays down the smack!



And don't come back!





Phyllis and Martin are assholes. I liked them better when they were plastic.

Threw some chords together -- the combination D-E-F -- is who I am, is what I do, and I was gonna lay it down for you

The start of a list of "things I want to do when I'm not stuck in a gazillion classes":
(to be updated, at least mentally)

• Go to Austin to visit Emily and hang out at SXSW.
  
• Work for Rick AND Sharon and not feel pressed for time in either lab.
  
• Head up my own research project... on top of working for Rick and Sharon.
  
• Read the pile of Science magazine that's piling up on my floor.
  
• Travel, duh!
  
• Frequent happy hour.
  
• Find all the Fairy Doors in A2.
  
• Hang out with Kristin more frequently...
  
• And Lisa and Sachi and Kraig and Ali and ...
  
• Visit Minnesota more often then one weekend every 6 months.
  
• Visit Melissa in Cleveland because I miss her.
  
• Play the piano a lot.
  
• Play the sax even more.
  

But first, I'll make it through this year... And then plan a trip somewhere awesome next May. :-)

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams of the beautiful Annabelle Lee

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.

I am reaching out won't you take my hand, I'm coming home Ireland

I'm headed to Scotland tomorrow (later today, technically). How'd it get to be August already?

I spent last week crazy busy in lab trying to finish up some labwork, while simultaneously getting my poster done for the ISEE conference. I took off for Milwaukee on Friday afternoon for a weekend of frisbee at Cooler with my Hybrid teammates. The wonderful thing about Cooler is the number of Minnesota teams that represent. This means, I was blessed to see my lovely exbf360, Louie, as well as a number of other awesome Minnesota friends, like all of Kablammo, as well as folks like Jeff, Justine, and Ben Hesse.

We got back pretty late last night (Sunday), and showered and passed out. That almost meant that I got to worry about preparing to leave the country today. But not quite. I had to a) do a ton of laundry, b) attend some meetings, and c) do a bit of labwork. Then I had to run around Ann Arbor like a madwoman searching for a 42" poster tube for my poster.

Well... turns out that they don't have 42" poster tubes anywhere, it seems. But, apparently, that's ok, because when I was unrolling my poster, I noticed they screwed up the printing anyway. So I had to email them and my fingers are crossed that they'll reprint it tomorrow morning before I leave.

So, I came home around 5 and started getting my stuff ready to go. I was going to try to take my medium-sized suitcase, but that just doesn't seem like it's going to work. Turns out, since I'm bumming around in the Glasgow rain and mud for a week before going to Dublin where I need to look professional and pretty, I need a lot of clothes.

So, basically, what it comes down to, is that it's 1:30 am, the day that I'm leaving for Europe for a couple of weeks, and I'm not packed yet.

That's ok. I also don't have a place to stay the last night I'm there either. So it goes.

On an unrelated note, this chair is flippin' sweet:

Summertime, and the livin' is easy...

I realize it's been a couple of months since I've written anything. I'm not sure if anyone notices, aside from Jared, so my conscience due to lack of blogging is mostly directed toward him.

Summer is already drawing to a close. I've been working for Rick doing some epigenetics stuff in lab again this summer, and spending my freetime playing ultimate. Juggles and I are captaining a league team together on Tuesday nights, and I signed up to play the Thursday night league with my fellow Minnesotan and lab buddy, Lisa. On top of that, I'm playing for a coed team called Hybrid.

Due to frisbee, I've gotten to do some traveling. I started the summer with a trip to Gender Blender in Ontario with a bunch of Ann Arborites. Blender is a pretty crazy tournament, marked by a night of partying in costumes, where each team is required to provide games and shots for everyone else. It's basically a huge carnival for 21+ ultimate players in various costumes.


Geoff and I partying at Blender


Ann Arborites after Gender Blender

A few weeks later, Juggles and I took off for Grand Rapids to visit his family and celebrate Father's Day on the boat on Lake Michigan, then followed that up with a trip to South Bend to play a tournament with Hybrid called Down with the Clown. We came in 2nd, after a loss to Abusement Park on universe point.


Hybrid after playing Down with the Clown

A few days after South Bend, Juggles and I took off for Seattle to play one of the biggest tournaments ever, Potlatch, with a bunch of my Minnesota buddies. Adro was a superstar to throw that all together. It started off with flight issues. After standing in line at the airport for over an hour waiting to check in, they closed the flight and gave our seats away 3 minutes before we arrived at the kiosk to check in. We managed to run to the gate and get on the flight in the exit row right before they closed the door to the plane. Of course, this meant that we didn't have our luggage upon arrival in Seattle, so we took off for Pike's Place and had some amazing salmon, mini-donuts, and dried strawberries, and did some shopping before returning to the airport to get our luggage.

It was a super hot weekend in Seattle, far more hot and humid than usual in Seattle. The tournament is a 3-day tournament, and highs were around 90 with an insane humidity level. And, of course, we were wearing black jerseys. But, we found ways to keep cool that included, but are not limited to: getting our jerseys wet in the water fountains before games, and playing underwear points.



Seattle through a Sculpture


Alicia and Juggles, sweaty during tournament play


Little Girl in Sumo Suit (because she was cute)


After playing Potlatch, we took off for San Francisco, where we rented a car to drive to San Luis Obispo to visit on of Juggles's closest friends (and former roommates), Bill, and his girlfriend Tamera. They moved from Ann Arbor last summer because Tamera wanted to be closer to her family. The climate in SLO is perfect -- about 80 and sunny every day of the year. At night, the fog filters in from the ocean through the mountains (there's a range of 7 old volcanoes that funnel the fog into SLO). We did some hiking up Bishop's Peak and some wine tasting at the local vineyards. Of course we ate at In-N-Out Burger and it was very delicious. Even I, the pseudo-vegetarian, had a big meaty cheeseburger. It was a phenomenal vacation, and very necessary to break up the summer a bit. Unfortunately, I managed to catch a cold from one of the flights and was pretty full of snot for the entire time we were at Bill's. But, we took it easy and relaxed in California style, so it was still a great vacation.



They make their fries from potatoes right in front of your eyes!


Juggles enjoying his burger


Climbing to the top of Bishop's Peak


I'm the queen of the world


Bill and Juggles at one of the vineyards


Bill and Juggles sauntering back to the car


The day we arrived back from our vacation, my favorite birthday buddy, Melissa, was in town to take her nursing boards. (She passed with flying colors!) This meant a night of debauchery in her honor, and a weekend of low key hanging out after that (she stays on our couch when she's in town, so it's like having another roommate, especially because she now has a key and her own bathroom). We started out Friday night at Dominick's and moved to Habana when they closed. Somehow Habana turned pretty insane -- people were buying rounds of shots for everyone (there were 15 of us or so?), so I probably managed to have about 5 shots and 2 beers in the couple hours we were there. I woke up Saturday morning hangover-free though. That's why I love shots and having a high metabolism! Saturday was a lazy day filled with breakfast with Jugs, Melissa, and Eric, then the start of the Harry Potter marathon, and culminated with a trip to Olive Garden with Grant and Zeke.



Will, Dana, Josh, Geoff, and Melissa at Habana


Grant and Melissa


Juggles and Alicia


The next weekend, we headed to Chicago to play Sandblast, a really fun tournament on the beach of Lake Michigan. My favorite Cuspian Twin (she was born 12 hours before me, and we're both on the Taurus/Gemini cusp), Kriss, came to visit us on the beach and take some pictures. We played on a team lead by a guy named Jon who was known as Juggles's twin when he was in A2 because, without his beard, he has the same build and really does look similar enough that people used to get them confused. A few other Hybrid buddies, including Sherri, Jules, and Scooter, played on this team, as well as some Toledo folks and a few other randoms. It was fun, but I ended up with a migraine on Saturday and had to miss the party because of it. On a positive note, Kablammo, Adro's Minnesota team, was there sporting white briefs and button down shirts, ala Tom Cruise in his dance scene from Risky Business. It was pretty hot.



Throwing discs


Carrying around his 6'4" frame


Kablammo in their Risky Business attire


The weekend after Sandblast was a local tournament called Motown Throwdown in Hartland, MI, about 30 mins north of A2. Hybrid decided to split into two teams, offensive and defensive lines, for the tournament to practice some new stuff, and also since their wasn't heavy competition. I played on the defensive line, and had some okay scores and such. We worked our clam de a bit, and played around to adjust our zone better. It was great fun, but an entirely exhausting weekend since we didn't have as many people on our teams.

The Thursday following MoThrow was Juggles's birthday. Of course, we have frisbee on Thursday nights, so I arranged a nice, quiet evening at The Arena with him and about 40 of our friends for karaoke, nachos, beer, and the destruction of Juggles via alcohol. Sparing too many details, Juggles had an amazing night -- shots, an AMAZING rendition of "Loveshack" that he performed with Amish, more shots, and... well, too many shots. Poor kid had a pretty rough night and a horribly rough Friday.

This brings us to August, and our last tournament, The Rock, in Rockford, IL. Stew and Vic picked us up on Friday at 530. Juggles slept the entire way to Rockford (6 hrs!). Saturday morning, he shook off his hangover, and played some amazing ultimate. Hybrid played okay on Saturday. I think we went 2-2, but there was one game we definitely could have had if we would have made better decisions. Sunday was a little more rough, and very frustrating for most. This tournament made me realize that our team has incredible potential, but may never realize it because we just do stupid things. If we can clean up our game, we have a definite shot at making it pretty far in the club series this fall. But we've got a ways to go. I won't go into specifics, but I'm just going to say that I was pretty much forgotten about during our last game, which is highly amusing because when I was on the line, I never once let the girl I guarded score on me even if she was the fastest girl on the team and had an iso called on her in the endzone. Let me say, my car had a few words to say on our journey home, based on line calling, strategy, and decision-making. It was a trip. We got home at 2 am and were worn out.

That brings us to this weekend... We had Hybrid practice in Detroit this morning in the pouring rain and it was great fun. Tomorrow we have practice again. Then, next weekend we're headed to Milwaukee for Cooler Classic. That's been my summer thus far!