Watch out, Tuscon, here we come!

We left Roswell before 8 and headed to White Sands. I went here when I was young, but I don't remember it too much except I was excited that Boys II Men had filmed a video ("Water Runs Dry") there.  In fact, I had that song stuck in my head like the entire time we were there.  It's basically an area of NM that had pure white (Gypsum) sand dunes - random!  Some of the dunes have plants, but a lot of them don't, making them look like big snowy hills in the middle of a desert - except the snow is actually sand...so it's just a big white desert :)  Then we headed to Tucson and got there fairly early.  We went to Saguaro National Park (West) to see the giant cacti.  I have wanted to see these for a long time - particularly because I remember Spike, Snoopy's cousin, being friends with them and living in one.  Weird, I know.  But it definitely did not disappoint.  There were also lots of different animals and plants there, too.  We went to a local "mexican" (would say Tex-Mex except not Tex!) restaurant for dinner and it was kind of weird, but really good.  Who would have guessed green beans went with fajitas? 

I guess I should mention what we're doing to entertain ourselves in the car. Afterall, driving through the desert for 3 days gets old pretty quickly.  We listened to Simple Genius by David Baldacci - It's the 3rd book in a series about these 2 detectives and I have to say I am totally addicted to them.  Esp. when we moved on to a different book (shall remain nameless!) that is terrible! 

Animals seen on this day:

Lizards

Coyote (dead)

more birds

On the road again!

After a night of partying with my OT friends and saying goodbye :(, we woke up at 6 to take care of some last minute things before we hit the road. I'll just say this: hangover + 9 hour drive = bad decisions were made. After all was said and done, though, we left Dallas around 9 and made it to Roswell by 4:45. Luckily, we ran over to the "Area 51" museum thing and since it was almost closing time, the guy let us in for free. We got to take some cheesy pictures of aliens, which is all I really wanted to do in Roswell. Lots of the city had alien stuff, but there were some other cool things like the Bitters Wildlife Refuge. If we hadn't been so tired, we might have stayed until dark to check out the stars - since there aren't many lights you probably could see a lot more out there than in the city. We also learned a lesson here about not blindly following the GPS - it ended up leading us into a field and a dirt road (road is a bit generous...).  Live and learn! :)  I'm really happy I got to see Roswell - even if it is dorky I can still say I've been there!  I have to say I have the best husband ever :)

Animals seen this day:
Prairie dogs (very exciting!!)
Roadrunner (?) - some kind of bird with plummage
lots of birds

Aliens
Jackrabbit

All my bags are packed, I'm ready to go...

It's Monday night, and we're just about ready to hit the road. Tomorrow Nick is helping Mark move my furniture to Jenn's house, so after that I just have to get through exams and it'll be time to go! The plan right now is to leave Dallas Thursday morning, go to Roswell, NM, Friday head to Phoenix, and Saturday in LA. Sunday we'll arrive in San Jose! I think all of our hotels have internet access, so hopefully I can update from those places. Stay Tuned... :)

2 weeks of epic fails!

First, we have midterms - I studied like crazy for my lab, and still didn't know anything so I just guessed on everything(I guess they call that clinical reasoning?). I didn't really study for lecture because I was burned out, and man...that was a trainwreck, but luckily mutually agreed by the rest of the class. Actually, There were 2 parts: 1 for medical lecture (85 questions) and 1 for the rest of lecture (100) questions. I'm not a test giving expert, but 185 questions for one test (on top of 100 for lab!!!) is NOT A GOOD TEST! Niether is making every question have answers like: A) A B) B C) C D) A & C E) All of the above. By question 27 I was thinking, "FML, I give up." Also, in true fashion, there were typos in nearly every question (no, seriously). Some of our favorites:
Which of the following are true EXCEPT:
answer choice: X compared with... (there was nothing to compare it with)
a. something
b. something
c. A&B
d. all of the above ...

Last but never least, we had Management...Ok, so Wednesday night I tried to study but again was so traumatized from that last midterm that I couldn't. Tried to study Thursday AM but we were getting our FW II placements so I was really nervous. I didn't excpect the exam to go that way...it was funny how much our class didn't know. Anyway, we haven't gotten any of our grades back yet which is just as well since I don't want my last spring break ever ruined!

That was week 1 of fail... week 2: Spring Break!
Sometimes I think school makes me dumber - or maybe it's all the alcohol I have to drink to get through it...but anyway, I tried some new recipes with hot mess results. First, I made pretzels - well, I followed the recipe exactly, but they were waaaaay too sticky, and then they wouldn't make pretzel shapes, and then they weren't cooked all the way - but they did taste pretty good when all was said and done. Ha!
This is what my kitchen looked like afterwards.
and the pretzels...

Ugh! Later that evening I tried to make greenbean fries - I did pretty well EXCEPT I added a bunch of flour to the mix, which I was supposed to keep separate. Darn it! They weren't terrible, but they definitely weren't great.
So maybe I should have quit while I was ahead! I need to bake something tasty and good to get my self esteem back up! Of course going back to school isn't going to help that...

Rats on the Roof?

After a few nights of wondering if I was going insane because I was hearing people walking around above me (I live on the top floor) and in the walls, I finally figured out - it's an animal! There must be some kind of animal that lives in my wall. It's most likely a rat or a squirrel, and I had a bunch of dreams that they ate a hole in the wall (which is apparently fairly likely) and a giant rat burst out... so I guess I'll report it to my apartment complex and see if they can do anything about it before they come tumbling out of my wall.

I can't remember all the times I tried to tell myself to hold onto these moments as they pass

It's the eve of the first day of my last semester of classes in grad school. I have mixed emotions about this - on the plus side, it's good to get it started b/c once it does, it will surely fly by, and once it does, I'll be ready for my big SF adventure, and then FW II. I am excited to see my friends, too. I can't believe how fast it has all happened - I still remember sitting in the auditorium praying that I made the right decision. I'm sad, because of course after spending time here in Big D, there are people I love here. I love hanging out with Lindsey on weeknights, drinking wine and bitching about whatever - watching movies and making snarky comments (ok, maybe just Twilight)and playing with her pets. I also love having my dad at trivia, and just being able to run to my parents house for a few hours. Of course my sister made the terrible mistake of buying a house in Dallas (who told her to do that?! ;) ) so I won't get to see her as much, either.
I think my Dallas friends just need to move to Austin - that would solve lots of my mixed emotions!

This last semester - bleh - who knows what to expect? At least at this point I know I'll survive. I think.

2010: return of the blog?

Ok, so I am sad I lost interest in my blog less than 6 months in, but the New Year is a clean slate, so I thought I'd try again. I realized my blog was sort of therapeutic for me, but after awhile I didn't neet the "therapy", and I think that's why it trailed off.

2009 ended in a good but interesting way. I spent it with some of my favorite people, including Jenn.
We went to Clare and Anthony's, ate too much food, drank way too much alcohol, and had a good time.

The next day we woke up late watched "I didn't know I was Pregnant", and then went over to Ben's to watch the Rose Bowl. It was fun, but by the time it was 4th quarter I was so sleepy! We went home and took a nap, and then decided to take Jenn to Common Interest. Duffy met up with us, and by the time we had had a few drinks and felt prepared to sing, the wait was really long. There's a "game room" that has pool tables, and we also discovered a private karaoke machine, so we got to sing some songs by ourselves. Finally it was our turn, and Jenn and I sang "Sweet Caroline". The audience loved it and they all sang along - it was definitely one of my best karaoke moments ever!

So far a good start to the year...let's see what else happens.