Yay! All that stands between me and Spring Break is one physics problem set and three classes tomorrow! Today was great because I had two classes this morning and then didn't have ANYTHING to do all afternoon. I went out for sushi for lunch, came home, burned a cd, vacuumed my room, put away my laundry, did my taxes, took a nap, AND reorganized my cds. I can't believe how productive I can be doing little chores when I actually have the time to do them! Not to mention that I've never been more thrilled to vacuum before; it just felt so good to not feel like I was putting something important off :) So, I'll spend some time on my physics set tonight and then it's just getting through the day tomorrow. I think we might hit up Scorekeeper's tomorrow night, so definitely give me a call if you're interested.

Also, I'm going with Sheila to get my eyebrows threaded tomorrow morning. Threading is a method of hair-removal practiced in South and Southeast Asia and involves the threader holding a very, very taut string and using it to skillfully lassoe individual hairs and remove them. It's rare to find a place that does it in this country (that makes it sound so sketchy!), but it's the primary hair-removal technique in India and is much more effective and accurate than waxing, in my opinion. Sheila goes to an Indian-run salon here and I've been there once before with her - it's pretty fun. I've been getting my eyebrows waxed for about 8 years now and threading certainly allows the person shaping my eyebrows to be more exact and meticulous. Sheila thinks it hurts like hell, but a seasoned veteran like myself could sit back and probably read a book while I'm getting it done :) *kidding*

Also, I just want to congratulate Josh on his successful USAC event today called "Don't Get Burned at Break." In attempts to raise awareness about the risk of skin cancer (and other general "risky" behavior characteristic of college spring breaks), he and some volunteers passed little spring break kits with free sunscreen, condoms, and information about blood-alcohol content and skin cancer in them. He also passed out Hawaiian leis and everything seemed to go smoothly, so congratulations, Josh, on a job well-done :)

I'll probably post again tonight since I'm going to try to hook up the scanner I got for Christmas that has been sitting in its box under my bed. Maybe I'll scan in some cute pics *wink, wink* Check back with me later!

Oh boy. Wasted waaaaay too much time already tonight. I finished my physics reading, but am just now starting the book of which I was supposed "to read as much as humanly possible" tonight because I have the feeling I'll get a quiz over it in discussion tomorrow. Not to mention I'm supposed to write a reaction paper for tomorrow, albeit short, about something that struck me about the novel. *yikes!* I have to concentrate now...it's so hard with thoughts of Mexico creeping in to my head every few seconds. Not to mention that after tomorrow, the rest of my week kind of slows way down, so I guess I'm trying to start relaxing a little too early.

Anyhow, not much else is new. I went to the dollar store today and convinced myself that I needed new pocket tissues and gallon-sized freezer bags. What can I say? Also, Sheila's car got stuck right in the middle of our bootleg parking lot in a big, bad way this afternoon because there's this huge pothole that PMSI refuses to fix, covered with about 3-inch thick ice. I tried to help her push it out and even tried stuffing cereal boxes from the recycling bin under her tires for added traction, but it was futile. Finally, the maintenance guy had to come, and in typical PMSI fashion, he nonchalantly mentioned that someone else this morning had actually gotten stuck, too. Hello?! Maybe it's time to fix it! Seriously, in the words of my dad referring to my landlady, they're just a bunch of nincompoops over there.

Okay, well...I should probably peace out. I left my glasses at home on accident this weekend and have had to wear my contacts 24/7 so far this week. Hopefully my aching eyes won't adversely affect my marthon-o-reading tonight. See ya later, alligators.

I'm back in effect in Ann Arbor and had a great weekend with my cousin in town from Baltimore. First and foremost, here's a little belated HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY! . I've done this post in pink to honor the holiday of looooove, so enjoy :)

It was so nice to get to see my cousin this weekend - she's currently doing her residency at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, so it's rare that she gets a weekend (or any time, for that matter) off to hang out with us. She came in Friday afternoon and we had a great dinner a la Mom. Then as planned per Dork Fest 2004, we saw Lord of the Rings and I was shocked that the show as practically sold out even 2 months after its release! The three of us had to split up in the theatre! It was pretty serious. But we hung out that night and then, after a hearty breakfast, hit the slopes of Bittersweet in Otsego for a day of skiing and snowboarding. My cousin is a snowboarder and Josh actually gave it a shot too. Despite a valiant effort, he switched to skis half-way through the day at the behest of his aching, not-completely-healed-from-ninth-grade broken wrist. We had a great time and I was pleased to be decent on skis after not having gone in a few years. Yesterday, Tanya and my cousin came back to A-squared with me in the early afternoon to hang out a little. Unfortunately, however, I grossly underestimated the work required for the 2 loooooong lab reports I had due today and ended up just having dinner with them and not being able to go out for drinks. They stayed here for the night, but I went to sleep well past 3 and was up by 7 to finish my work this morning. *yawn* Anyhow, it was a fun weekend and I love seeing my cousin, so I'm so glad she came :)

Also, only 4 days left until spring break! I am seriously geeked and after tomorrow, my week sort of denouements and I'm looking forward to doing fun and relaxing pre-trip stuff like burning cds and painting my toe nails. Also, I hope to go out a few times before I leave, so call my cellie if you're not busy. Hell, call even if you are busy and I'll convince you to come out with me :) Anyhow...I really should read for my Contemporary Novel exam tomorrow. I'll chat a little more about the details of my trip later this week. Let me just say that I'll be visiting Graceland for the first time and I'm bringing lots of film (and tissues! I love Elvis!) with me. Oh yeah...I'm going to Mexico, too. Yay! Three cheers for warm weather and *hopefully* practicing my spanish. Have a great night.

YAY for getting comments! :D Thanks Christin, Emily, and AJ!

So I'm sitting here in Angell Hall trying to work in my physics problem set. I just got out of my British Empire Lit exam and it went pretty well. I studied enough and felt that my essays were strong. I did miss one identification, though - damn those Tory and Whigg parties! I always mix them up :(

Anyhow, it feels good to be done for the week because it means that fun things are getting closer:

- skiing with my cousin is 1 day away
- Valentine's Day is 2 days away
- Spring break is 7 days away

...and on a larger scale...

- graduation is 2.5 months away! Hooray! :D

Tonight, Wanton and I are going to a benefit comedy show for USAC, University Students Against Cancer (insert obvious joke here regarding whether anyone is actually for cancer). Josh is on the board for USAC and comedy shows are always fun, so it'll be a little pre-Valentine's Day date since I'll be hitting the slopes on the 14th. I'm looking forward to it. It'll be nice to just relax - I've been seriously busy this past week. Then, I'm heading home to GR early tomorrow morning to hang out with my mom and pick up my cousin from the airport. Yay! Because we're not skiing until Saturday, we tried to brainstorm about what to do Friday night and came up with 3 ideas, all of which we're excited for. After going over our list, however, we realized that we were planning Dork Fest 2004. Here's what we came up with:

- see "LOTR" III (second time for Tanya and I, first for my cuz)
- play Cranium
- find out about the Friendster craze
- go to the bar (but this idea got thrown out early on b/c it's not dork-friendly)

Mind you, my cousin is 27 years old and in charge of people's lives...these were mostly her ideas. *sigh* I guess it just runs in my blood :) Have a great weekend!

Aw. Here's a cute article about a new baby whale at Sea World! I'm so excited for aquatic animals :) Maybe I'll see some dolphins on my cruise. Here's hoping! Have a great day.

Today has been the longest day. Ever. I woke up at 7am so that I could finish my Contemporary Lit paper, worked on that straight until noon, had class from noon to 4 straight, met with a teacher who's writing a letter of rec for me at 4:15, went straight to Angell and worked on a physics problem set until 7:30, came home and ate dinner, and now I'm studying for my British Empire Lit exam on Thursday. Whew! I'm exhausted and I just want to go to bed...or on my cruise :) Oh well, I'm happy now just thinking about the clear waters of Meh-heeee-co (in the style of Mary Money).

So...I'm meeting with the head of the Tissue Core tomorrow at the U of M Cancer Center for my new research position and I have to (gasp) take the bus to the hospital! YIKES! I haven't ridden the U of M buses since I was an "engineer" my first year of college! I'm so nervous - but AJ offered to meet me half way and walk me to the Cancer Center. Maybe she can tie my shoes for me and make me a PB&J, too. Nah, I wouldn't want that - she makes them wrong ;)

Well...let me quickly wipe away a little tear from my cheek because no one (besides AJ - and that was only at my behest) has used the new commenting ability on my weblog yet. *tear* I thought maybe a prompt would help, if anything just so I can test it out, so here goes: what IS the correct way to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich? I KNOW this is highly personal, so spill it. Pretty please?

Alright, time to motivate myself to finsh strong before spring break. It's certainly not easy, but I must have strength. In the timeless words of Dr. Seuss: "Today was good. Today was fun. Tomorrow is another one." Sweet dreams.

BIG NEWS! I think I figured out how to get commenting ability on my weblog! (see bottom of post). That means YOU , my loyal fans, get to comment on my daily ponderings!

*However, just a slight caveat - we all know that I'm a little technology illiterate (even though I'm so proud of myself right now, I might pee my pants). This is experimental and I might need to tweek a few things before it's fully up and running, but I need your help. You have to comment so I can see if it works or not! Hehe. Bear with me while I figure things out. And be excited for my ever-improving weblog! :D <- - - me at the moment.

p.s. ~ Just a quick note about my serious envy of Carrie right now. Her latest email from Cape Town, South Africa told us about her adventures in the city and surrouding areas before classes start. She's been to the beach (85 degrees and sunny, naturally), seen zebras and baboons...in the wild, and saw a beach FULL of African penguins lounging around. I LOVE penguins and my envy sky-rocketed through the roof after I read that line of her email. Do you think Customs would catch on to a penguin-shaped backpack on her return flight?

Sheesh. Still rockin' that wicked writer's block from earlier this weekend, but my deadline at 2:30 tomorrow has given me no choice about putting off this paper any longer. I'm a few lines into my 6th page and the assignment is 6-8 pages, so I'm not in a bad spot, but I've never really had to count pages before. Not to mention content-wise this has to be one of the weakest papers I've written in years and my language is unusally flimsy. *sigh* Oh well. I'm just in a writing funk right now. At least I can still write in my weblog, you lucky dogs, you :)

On a sunnier note, two tid-bits of good news today:

1.) We got our cruise tickets in the mail today! I keep thinking that in exactly 2 weeks from this moment, I'll be on the Gulf of Mexico. Ahhhh. I can't wait!

2.) I *think* I got this research position I interviewed for at the dental school working with oral cancer. This is a HUGE opportunity for me and a great foot-in-the-door for full-time employment during my year off, so I'm stoked. I still have to meet with some other supervisor and work out the details of employment, so I can't say anything definite with confidence, but I'm certainly excited.

Hooray! Well, back to the paper. The plan is to finish the rough draft in the next half hour, finish some miscellaneous reading for my lit classes tomorrow, then wake up early to edit. I don't have class until noon, so that's not really a problem. I just want to get this despicable creation out of my hands soon! Have a good night.

Okay, writer's block what? I'm going crazy over here. I've been sitting here in Angell Hall for an hour now and haven't even finished the first paragraph of this stinking paper! It's not that I don't know what to write or that I haven't done the reading, it's simply that I can't spit it out today, which is arguably one of the most frustrating feelings for an english major. I don't have time to just sit here and pour over each individual word. Maybe I'll just skip to the body of my paper and see if I can get that rolling at a faster-than-snail-like pace. Grrrrr. At least in GOOD news, the Pistons trade rumors about getting rid of Corliss to Chicago aren't true and I can rest a little easier that my boy will still be in town for a while. *phew!* I don't know what I would have done if the trade had gone through!

Okay, now it's serious paper time. I will be done with the rough draft tonight. Perhaps some peanut M&M's would help if a pal brought them for me? I'm at Angell Hall working on the PCs and sitting against the far back wall. Hehe. :)

Wow. I was very productive today. AND I even got up before Sheila this morning :) I beat her by about 20 minutes and was already eating my cereal by the time she came out of her room at 9. Hehe.

So, I stayed at Angell Hall for 8 hours today working on and FINISHING my formal lab report that's due on Monday, which is a pretty big accomplishment, if I do say so myself. However, even though I woke up at 9, I didn't get started until a little after noon because of a pretty embarassing health emergency I had this morning. Basically, I'm addicted to cleaning out my ears with Q-tips - I know, I know...you're not supposed to put anything smaller than your elbow in your ear - it's just that I clean my ears out with soap and water every day in the shower and then have to stick Q-tips in my ears to dry them out. Not to mention I like the weird little tickle you get when cleaning out your ear canal deeply, which I know is very dangerous and another no-no. BUT, anyone else who is an ear-cleaner will tell you that once you start doing it, you can NOT stop. I've been cleaning out my ears for years now and have never considered quitting. Anyway, this morning after my shower, I stuck the Q-tip in, twirled it around a little and pulled it out, but not without noticing that a significant amount of the cotton was gone. I mean anywhere between 65 and 80% of the Q-tip had vanished. Of course I panicked and spent about 5 minutes trying to see inside my own ear in the mirror (impossible, by the way). Okay...I'll be the first to admit that I was using cheap Q-tips that I got at the dollar store, which is also a no-no, but I've never had a problem with them! Anyways, I searched the ground for the missing cotton and finally decided it had to be in my ear canal - and I mean DEEP within my ear canal. Neither of my roommates were home, so I called Josh to come over and look in my ear with a flash light. He took his sweet time coming over; meanwhile, I'm imagining a dozen painful scenarios including rupturing my eardrum and/or a painful cotton-extraction ear canal surgery (I made that one up to scare myself). So...Josh finally looks in my ear, doesn't see anything, then wants to poke a pair of tweezers around. Absolutely not. Anyway, after much whining, deliberation, and calling my mom, I decided to go to UHS and let them have a look-see. By this point, I'd convinced myself that I could indeed feel increased pressure on the right side of my head. Of course this is all to my pure embarassment and I knew I'd get lectures from both the check-in person and the nurse at UHS. Anyhow, I told the woman at the front desk that I had "reason to believe there was the greater portion of a Q-tip in my ear canal", she sent me directly to the nurse's station (not without a lecture first). The nurse then preceded to look in to my ear, told me there was nothing there, reprimanded me as well, and made it very clear by the tone of her voice that I had wasted her time. I guess in itself, it wasn't thaaaat bad, but what makes the entire situation worse is that the same, exact thing happened to my sister 3 years ago! Even though her situation was worse because she actually HAD the cotton in her ear and had to have it extracted at the ER and missed a flight out of town because of it, Josh was shocked and dismayed that this could happen TWICE in one family. Oops. Hehe.

Anyhow, besides that drama this morning, I got a lot of work done this afternoon. After that, Josh and I stopped by the U of M Astrological Society's Observatory Open House on the top of Angell Hall. Unfortunately, it was really cloudy tonight so they didn't open up the observatory, but we got to go up on the roof and see the telescope and hear a little about the sky-mapping computer software they use to direct it into the night sky. *sigh* More than anything I want to be an astronaut. Hopefully the sky will clear up soon so we can go and actually see the stars and planets (and nebulae, too!). Luckily, they have this open house every few weeks, so I'll drop a note before the next time so you all can join me :) Right now, I'm going to go watch the rest of the Piston's game vs. New Orleans and then do some reading. Tomorrow is the Michigan Caucus, in which I'll be voting, so I'm excited. :D Have a good night!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, EMILY!

Ahhh. My physics exam is over and I think it went okay. I am sensing the early signs of a migraine, however, so I'm going to hit the hay before anything serious develops. I can't believe I'll be going to bed before 2 tonight. Yay!

Tomorrow the plan is to be up early and at Angell Hizzle before you can say "Formal Lab Report". Sheila doesn't think I'll be able to get up before her tomorrow morning like I said I would and she's getting up at 9 - little does she know that I don't like to sleep more than 7-7.5 hours because I get headaches - muhuwahahahahaha! I get to eat her Cheerios for breakfast tomorrow if I DO manage to get up before her; even though I probably would have had some anyways, a friendly wager never hurt anybody :)

Anyhoo, Shadi came over for an informal visit tonight so it was nice to see her and continue on with our first official Friend Marathon sans Carrie, who's flying in to South Africa from Germany right about now. Her email updates have been cute and entertaining - I'm already missing her a lot - but it's good to hear from her.

Okay...time to brush my teeth, wash the ol' face, and put on my 'kerchief for a long winter's nap (in case you didn't recognize it, that last part is from the Night Before Christmas). Sweet dreams.

Here we go: physics exam #1 tonight at 8pm. Surprisingly, I'm not too stressed out about this one, even though I didn't get the chance to study as much as I would have liked to. I feel pretty confident that I know the material and did well on the practice exams, so I'm just sitting pretty right now. I might treat myself to some sushi before my exam, though - something that's not too processed to go easy on my nervous test stomach if it pops up later.

I have soooo much work to do this weekend, I just might come home and do some tonight after my exam. Usually, I bum around hardcore on Thursdays or go out to the bar, but I'm still not feeling 100% health-wise and I don't know if my guilty conscience would let me get away with not doing work tonight at all. We'll see, I guess. I'll probably end up calling Shads and see what she's doing.

Besides my exam tonight, nothing new is up, I just thought I'd update. Wish me luck tonight on my test. Hopefully I'll come back with one of of these tonight - - -> :)

Well...here I am, sitting in the Grad, taking a quick break from studying physics. The last 5 days have flown by and my first physics exam is coming up on Thursday night. Well, considering I was practically dead all weekend, I'm still making pretty good progress. No joke, I was sick as a dog from Friday until yesterday morning; luckily, I have my voice back and I'm doing better - a little congested, but better. Just imagine - me, Sonya, without a voice! Most of you wouldn't believe it even if you had seen (heard?) it :)

Anyhow, these next few weeks in general should fly by. I have a TON of work due next week: an 8-page paper, a formal lab report, an exam on Thursday, and a novel to finish by Tuesday. Then it's skiing and Valentine's Day next weekend, a few straggling exams the following week, then sunny sunny Mexico. I have, of course, been checking the weather in Cozumel every day. Needless to say, it's looking like a nice, long stretch of 85 degrees and sunny; just the way I like it.

Finally, the groundhog saw his shadow yesterday, which means a longer stinkin' winter. In a moment of brilliance on my part, the following conservation ensued with Josh yesterday:

Me: There isn't really a groundhog, is there?
Josh: Of course there is.
Me: Nuh-uh. How does he know it's February 2nd, then?
Josh: He doesn't know, he just comes out every day. We just watch him on the 2nd.
Me: Oh.

Oh well. Hehe. Have a great night :)