Emuzines

I was a tad depressed and nervous today for school and work to start up again–I told my officemate Carolyn that I felt like a 2nd grader on her first day of school.  I had a meeting scheduled with Sally today to discuss the work I did for our chapter over break, and to talk about how we’re going to use part of it in our next grant proposal.  She was THRILLED with the work I got done, saying over and over how much it was and how good it was!  I found out, also that she wrote me into the Autism Speaks grant she is applying for.  I, along with one of her postdocs, are going to be the main people on this…and I am so excited!  I hope we get the grant.  It’s a really exciting new project!

I headed over to class after my wonderful meeting with wonderful Sally.  Of course, I was two hours early, and got a parking spot right away.  It was great to see Kyle, David, Abby, and Natalie again.  The class seemed great and the professor is a young, smart- and laid-back-seeming type of guy.  It’s behavioral genetics.  I’m actually pretty excited to start some of this reading.

After class I chatted with my friends, and then we went home, not sure what to do because we’re used to getting out of class late at night!  It is now the most perfect type of drizzly, cup of tea day, and I’m sitting at my brand new laptop, sipping on Coffee Bean Winter Dream tea, watching Jo watch the dryer steam fog outside the window.

I’m in LA!  Yay!  It was a difficult and slightly painful drive down.   I took the 80 to the 680 to the 101, because of the snow problem on the 5.  I had never driven the 101 all the way down, and I actually really enjoyed it.  It was really pretty, a very neat drive.  I thought it was funny that the scenery completely reminded me of Disney’s California Adventure, rather than the other way around.  With the trees hugging the highway, the tin agricultural buildings with “Asparagus” painted on the sides, the fields, the mountains covered in snow.  It was very pretty.  I was amazed at the great time I was making, and most of the time there was very few cars anywhere to be seen.  Then I hit Santa Barbara.  It took me two hours just to get through SB (rush hour), and from then on it was tough.  The valley and the 405 were horrible.  Even the radio DJ was late to his shift because of the 101/405 area traffic.

Anyway, I made it!  My mom had a yummy Greek dinner waiting for me.  Logan cried like a big baby and has been following me around and cuddling any chance he gets.  I went to bed pretty early to prepare myself for yesterday, which was our Christmas!  Mandi and I started the day with some shopping, and I wrapped and wrapped, and cooked (well, I mashed some sweet potatoes) all day until Christmas time!  Then gifts, fun, food, and a nice drive along the beach with Logan.

It’s nice to be home, and nice to know it’s for 2/3 weeks and not for 2/3 days!  I can’t wait to see everybody.  Let’s get together!!!

Today is my first official day of winter break!  Ok…maybe yesterday was my first OFFICIAL day, but I worked all day…so today is really it!

We sure celebrated on Thursday after our last day of classes.  Here we are at Bistro 33.

We had a pretty good, but uneventful, last two classes (April and I gave a great puberty-related presentation, and David was a champion wrapping up Piaget in an exact hour)…and then headed out to Bistro 33.  We had some mojito pitchers and sweet potato fries, and had an exciting White Elephant gift exchange.  It went so fast and we were all so polite about (not) stealing gifts that we invented a new, Forced-Trade Gift Game after we were done, to up the competition and laughter.  It was a great time, and we moved inside (thank you, my Southern California, flip-flopped in 39 degrees toes said) for shots…yes, shots…  It was tough to get up for work yesterday, but it was completely worth it.

I made it through yesterday without a zombie-day, which I’ve had 2 or 3 times since starting school, and even just 1 caffeine.  Sally and I worked for a solid few hours on our chapter, which was great.  After work, I lounged around, watched a movie and lots of TV–totally lazy. 

I slept in very, very late today.  So did Nik and JoJo.  None of us had any idea it had already hit the PM.  Nik and I did some Christmas shopping, went out to lunch, and grocery shopping.  It’s so nice not to have to read all weekend, not having enough time to lift my head for a drink of water.  I do have some work on my chapter to do this weekend, or Monday, but I enjoy it and am super-excited about it, so it doesn’t count.

Anyway, yay to winter break!  I’m relaxed already.

I tend to refrain from updating until I have huge stretches of time in which to do a post justice…and that doesn’t happen.  So here is a list of recent happenings.  Time may soon permit me to expand on some of these…

1.  Nik and I had a wonderful, relaxing, food-consuming, amazing, beautiful, great-company time in Amesbury.  Nik is working on a post about it, but Happening #3 got in the way.

2.  It took us 3 days to fly home.  Our plane almost crashed.  It was traumatizing.  We also had broken planes, delayed flights, cancelled flights, bad weather, poorly rated pilots, etc.  We were stranded, after our trauma which made me sick to my stomach (fear, not bounciness), in Phoenix for a night, then we were stranded in Las Vegas for a night.  We thought we deserved a treat, so we stayed in a penthouse suite on the strip.  The shower, to say the least, was incredible.

3.  Nik is sick.  He’s been in bed for 2 days.  He gets to win the “No JoJo on the bed game” (or rather, “Yes JoJo on the bed game”), so they are both quite pleased.  She’s exhausted from Happening #4, so it’s suiting her well.

4.  JoJo had a great time at Wag Hotel.  She has a reputation there, and when we called during the trip, they said, “Oh, JOJO…” and when we picked her up, the workers all emerged from their offices to talk about her.  She’s in the “High Energy Group.”

5.  I am off to my last day of class for the quarter!  After class, my friends and I are going out to have a gift exchange and celebrate our survival!  YAY!