Thursday

March 31, 2011

Tomorrow we are celebrating the boss's birthday, and I was in charge of getting some flowers. During lunch, I went to Kroger and bought some yellow, red, and pink carnations and a vase, and they look beautiful and smell awesome.

I'm also going to Austin this weekend!! I can't wait to stay with Vanessa at her new place!!!! I'm also excited about the drive together with Amy!

On another note, I got accepted to the pcmi program at Pitt :)

Wednesday

March 30, 2011

The best thing that happened to me yesterday was unexpectedly getting an email from Sarah, giving me a $25 gift card to donorschoose.org that she had gotten by taking a survey. Sarah blogs/facebooks about the projects she donates to, and it always seemed super cool but I hadn't taken the initiative to really delve into it.

Well thanks, Sarah, because I DID AND IT'S AWESOME. I picked a science project from my hometown, and considering I really got my start in college in a grasshopper lab, this really seemed to be perfect. So far I'm the only donor, so you should donate, too :)

Insect Inspectors


The best parts of today:
- There are some pretty sweet coupons in the weekly junk mail.
- Amy/Adam/Ashley and I finalized our plans to go to the Longhorn Awakening Reunion Picnic this weekend.
- Caroline came back from Taiwan (with bangs) and I missed her so I am happy.
- I was feeling lonely so I called my mom, who at the end of our call said, "I am so happy you called, sometimes I get to feeling lonely." I didn't tell her that's why I called, so yay it made both of us feel good!

Monday

March 28, 2011

I REALLY liked Pitt. A LOT. My trip was fast and furious, but I liked the school, the city, the department, the people... it was great. Just really really cold. I was blessed with safe travels and everything was awesome. Way too much to say about that, so I just won't.

Today:
1. A new girl joined our lab. She is from France and she's very very cool and I want to be her friend.
2. It was cool out, and I went for a nice jog after work. Since it was the first time I'd been out to the trail to run in awhile, it felt wonderful.
3. The leaves on the trees in the courtyard where I like to eat lunch are the most beautiful shade of green. I love spring!!
4. I bought Americone Dream ice cream (the one I saw on Colbert) AND IT TASTES AMAZING.

Thursday

March 23, 2011

At volleyball, some promoter of Sun Drop were out and about, so I drank a diet Sun Drop for free. Apparently:

Emily + Diet Sun Drop = gigglefest for an hour straight.

I seriously could NOT stop laughing. My entire volleyball team thinks I'm insane.

Also, I'm going to Pittsburgh tomorrow and I'm very excited!

Tuesday

March 22, 2011

I found out today that I am a finalist of the PCMI program at Pitt! I set up an interview for Friday!

PCMI = Peace Corps Master's International
= 1st year of MPH + 27 months Peace Corps + 2nd year of MPH

HOLLA! I hope they like me :)

Monday

March 21, 2011

Why today was awesome:

1. I downloaded some ecoupons onto my Kroger card, and along with coupons I clipped from a few weekends ago, I saved $8 at the store. Granted, I bought a lot of things that I didn't need right then (but there were lots of coupons for shampoo and feminine products... and shoot, we gotta use all that sooner or later), so that was fun! yay saving a little money!

2. I'm cooking dinner for Travis tomorrow night, so now my kitchen/room/bathroom are clean, papers are organized (for the most part), etc. Not that boys notice for the most part, but I'm hoping to make a good impression, and I feel that my apartment is now good-impression-worthy.

3. I got really sunburned at the pool yesterday, but thanks to aloe vera, the wonder plant, I am just a little pink today. I think I may avoid peeling altogether!

4. I AM SO EXCITED ABOUT VISITING THE UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH ON THURSDAY. I have a really really good feeling about this place before I even get there. Maybe I'm just excited to have these visits done so I can make a decision? Either way, I'm looking forward to a new adventure :)

5. As I just wrote that, Evangeline just sent a message to me and some of her Pitt friends asking them to adopt me and be my friend for the trip. YAY!!! I am so excited!! Seriously, Evangeline, you are phenomenal, and I hope we end up in Pittsburgh together :)

Sunday

March 20, 2011

THIS WEEKEND WAS SO SO SO SO SO SO SO SO GREAT.

Lisa and Rebekkah, 2 of my old roommates/BFFs from college came to Dallas to hang out for the weekend :) I LOVE THEM. We had so much fun! It isn't so much what we did, it was just being together that was fun!

Friday: We went out to a bar in uptown after unsuccessfully trying to meet up with some other friends + brother, but we landed a nice patio table at the MAT, and Elizabeth joined us after her party dispersed for the night. Afterward, we went to Pluckers, and BK got wings and Lisa let me pick off her chips and salsa.

Saturday: I woke up a few hours before the other girls, so I sat out on my balcony to enjoy the beautiful morning and read Memoirs of a Geisha, which is so good I can hardly put it down! After they got up, we ate and went to this part of town my cousin, Karen, told me about called the Bishop Arts District, which is an old historic part of town that got into a lot of trouble with drugs and crime and what not, so they are trying to rebuild and gentrify it. It has some really cool shops, like this homemade/crazy chocolate store (one of their most popular is dark chocolate + blue cheese + sea salt... SO GOOD), homemade soaps/stuff boutique, and this super cool place called The Soda Gallery, where they basically have every soda imaginable, plus places to sit and Chinese checkers. Then we went to our first softball game of the spring, and we DESTROYED the other team. The lady umpire had a huge stick up her butt, and it was fun to watch people on our team talk back to her and piss her off. C Bass brought the boom box and played silly walk up songs, and everyone was happy and having a good time. Kate joined us, and we all went back, showered, and went to dinner at Kate's fave place in Dallas, Veracruz. At the end of dinner, this sprinker by a tree behind Kate and BK went off and soaked them and their stuff... and it was hilarious. We ended up just sitting around my apartment, talking and joking for the rest of the night, and it was AWESOME. And playing Bananagrams. AWESOME.

Sunday: We went to the botanical gardens in Fort Worth to walk around and see the pretty flowers. Not everything was in full bloom yet, but there were some beautiful poppies, pansies, a few roses, flowering dogwoods and my new favorite, chinese wisteria. We went into the Japanese garden there, which was amazingly beautiful. They left, I went and laid out by the pool, and some random guy brought me a beer and invited me to come lay by him and all these girls, so I did and it was awkward since they didn't talk to me and I didn't talked to them. I talked to Diana on the phone, drank my beer, and left, and nobody noticed. Funny?

Friday

March 18, 2011

LISA AND REBEKKAH ARE ON THEIR WAY AND I AM SO HAPPY!

Wednesday

March 16, 2011

Why today was awesome:

1. I finished Grimm's Fairy Tales today :)

2. I can't remember exactly what he said, but Chris made some joke and I almost spit coke out all over the break room.

3. We won 2 of our 3 volleyball games today! The wind was ridiculous, and whoever was on one side of the net ALWAYS won or went ahead when we switched sides. GO US!

4. Last week, there was the funniest episode of The Colbert Report I've ever seen. Maybe I blogged about this already? I can't remember. If I didn't, Jimmy Fallon came onto the show and they argued about who had the better Ben & Jerry's ice cream flavor. SO SO SO SO FUNNY! I wanted to save it and watch it again, but I accidentally erased it from my DVR. There was a re-run of this episode last night and my DVR picked it up, so I just got to watch it again :)

PLEASE WATCH THIS CLIP. You won't be sorry :)

And then this clip to follow :)

Tuesday

March 15, 2011

BEWARE THE IDES OF MARCH!
I always think of Rebekkah when March 15th rolls around, because when we were roommates, somehow the ides of march became a big deal (not sure how). We're so silly!

To start the morning off, some people from the office at my apt complex were giving out free donuts at the gate. They gave me a pink sprinkly one, and I was happy :)

At work:
(Important backgroud: Asha just had a baby)
Asha: My legs hurt.
Me: Why?
Asha: I've gotten fat.

I wish I could convey the hilarity of the way Asha said this. It was sooooo funny. Poor Asha.

I was delirious from spending all day in the mouse room, so at the end of the day I was saying some crazy crazy things, like making up a song with Chris about the PLZ dosage test we were doing to the tune of Bohemian Rhapsody.

Dinner at Alicia's with her and E, along with E's two new yorkies. Mix them with Alicia's yorkie and you get hyper lovable dogs everywhere :) If puppies don't make you smile, I don't know what will :)

Monday

March 14, 2011

PI DAY!

This weekend was fun! I chaperoned a church retreat for the high schoolers that I taught that one time, along with Allison, Amy, Adam, Ashley, and Preston, who were a few of my friends from church back in college. The retreat was fun, well-run, and pretty organized, but the best parts were hanging out with them, as well as spending a little bit of time with the girls on my side of the cabin. They were so silly and fun, and I really hope they go far in life :) It was a beautiful weekend of sunshine, prayer, and good food!

Since little sleep happened, I took a 3 (ish) hour nap Sunday afternoon when I got home, and part of my dream involved eating gummi peaches... and I woke up drooling all over myself. Pretty attractive, right? Scott cooked us some BBQ ribs, and I made a salad :) Due to the nap, I couldn't sleep, so I filled out the FAFSA and felt productive.

Today was good because I used some of my credit card rewards points on Kiva to lend some money to a lady in Bolivia who is trying to raise money to send her daughters to school. You lend $25 to help a person/group with their small business, and they pay you back in small installments. YAY microlending! Here's who I just made my first loan to:

Mrs. Felicia Quispe, 36, has two daughters in her care. She’s a single mother who was abandoned by her husband. She and her daughters live alone in Quillacollo. She sells clothes at wholesale and retail. The clothing is both new and used that she brings sometimes from Santa Cruz Department.

Felicia buys the clothes by the dozen directly from manufacturers and resells sometimes at higher prices. If she sells by the piece she earns more profits. During market she goes to Santa Cruz to sell her merchandise and returns with other merchandise to sell. This is how she’s always seeking ways to obtain more profits and better income for her family.

Felicia, in her zeal to find better possibilities to improve income, came by in person to request a loan to have working capital. An evaluation was conducted and it’s clear that she is a woman who works very hard for her family’s wellbeing. Felicia wants to use this loan to finish paying school costs for her daughters so that they will become hard working, upstanding citizens.

Yay! I feel happy.

Thursday

March 10, 2011

Why today was awesome:

1. Alejandra mailed me a huge padded envelope FILLED WITH CHOCOLATE BARS FROM SCOTLAND AND A POSTCARD OF A PLACE WHERE THEY FILMED THE HARRY POTTER TRAIN omg omg omg. I love my mini-roommate!!

2. Robson is staying with me tonight!! Jaime and Alicia both joined us for spaghetti tonight at my place! Mmmmm I love those guys!! Watching HIMYM and talking about college days... nothing beats it!

3. Greg is letting me borrow his sleeping bad for this retreat this weekend. When I went to pick it up, he made silly jokes about how he sweated/peed in it/left bugs in it, and I enjoyed them immensely!

4. Kayla randomly texted me about how she enjoyed my hug line song, and Yajaira and Serena randomly sent me messages on FB! Seriously? I am too lucky.

Wednesday

March 9, 2011

Today was a good day because:

1. Everyone at work asked about how my trips went, and it was nice to feel cared about!! :)
2. At lunch, Asha let me try some of her food which included bitter gourd, and it tasted so gross and bitter and nasty, which is why she wanted me to try it. We bonded, I think...
3. I like Ash Wednesday because I am still excited about whatever I'm giving up for Lent, and I still feel like I CAN DO IT! I'm giving up going out to eat, which should be pretty interesting... it's something I enjoy, so it's a sacrifice, but it will hopefully take the burden off my wallet for a little bit :)
4. Our Texas Exes volleyball team started playing again today, and it was fun to hit the sand with the same people I played with in the fall. We played really well, surprisingly, although we lost 2/3. Next week we will be great!
5. Since it's cold at night right now, our feet get really cold in the sand, so half of us played in socks. Socks + sand is a really silly situation :)

Tuesday

March 8, 2011

DANG. The past 6 days of my life have been out of control. Here are some super fast highlights:

Thursday: Flew to Seattle! Figured out my way around the light rail and the Harborview medical center (in the rain), had meetings with Dr. Scott McClelland and Dr. Stephen Hawes (WHO IS SO AWESOME) about their research, etc, wandered around UW's super awesome campus (in the rain) then had a dinner with other prospective students/current students in the Epi department. SUPER EXCITING DAY! I'll try to elaborate later :)

Friday: Nice walk to campus (not raining), breakfast, info session, meeting with Dr. Rachel Winer, heard talks from professors, including Dr. Hawes from yesterday, and I paraphrase:

Dr. Hawes (whose research is mostly in STIs and HPV, which is what I want to do... I think): One girl I met with yesterday, I won't say her name so I won't embarrass her, loves chlamydia and is really excited about research it. Well Dr. so and so does this..... lakjs;gla

So it turns out I am STILL the chlamydia girl, years after my internship. LOVE IT.

Then later I met with Dr. Alyson Littman, and then my FAVE part of the day was spending a few hours wandering around downtown Seattle, the Pike Place Fish Market, and Capitol Hill. Met the group for happy hour, then met a friend, Kate, for chocolate, dinner, drinks, and good times with her friends. We really had a lot of fun, and it was so nice of her to take me under her wing! Wild salmon pot pie for dinner. YEAH. We went to their regular Friday bar and hilarity ensued. The end.

Saturday: Kate showed me some other cool places downtown, Space Needle area, etc, and then I flew back to Dallas, read a good chunk of Pride and Prejudice, beat Plants vs. Zombies on the plan, and then hung out iwth my bro and Alicia for awhile, then fell asleep.

Sunday: Drove to Houston, hung with my mom and played wii together. AND SHE BOUGHT ME A NEW CAR!!!!!!!!!!!!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2007 Saturn Ion. It's so awesome. I am SO HAPPY.

Monday: Visited UT SPH. It was way cooler than I thought it would be. Meeting with Dr. Christine Markham and Dr. Ross Shegog, both WAY freaking cool. Two super cool students showed me around. It was a really nice trip. then went back to my dad's and ate sushi and watched Denzel movies with my dad :)

Today: Drove back to Dallas, regrouped and got life back to normal.

GREAT DAYS! ADVENTURE! I could type for days about the good things about the trip, but I hope that catches the main ideas :)

Wednesday

March 2, 2011

Today is Texas Independence Day!! YAY TEXAS!

My weekend was great. So, my life is insane right now and I LOVE IT. I'm flying to Seattle tomorrow to check out UW! Also, the cool kids call it U-Dub, so really this adventure should be labeled:

E-Dub goes to U-Dub. I really like that a lot.