Wow, a meme! WTF. Feel free to play too if you haven't already.

( Read more... )

Now that your eyes are bleeding, here are some pics from when my friend Kathy from waaaay back in the college days, who is now married with two kids and living in Ohio, came to visit me and our mutual friend Kim a couple weekends ago:

Kathy and I took the train to Chicago and walked together to Andy's Jazz Club where Kathy could see some live jazz while eating her dinner (one of her requests while in Chi-town). We didn't realize that the ABC studios would be on our route and that they would be filming at the time, so we took a dorky touristy picture which totally didn't turn out, heh.


And the live jazz. The bassist is 13 years old. (not really)

Well, I think that's enough blabbing for one night. Have a Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Yesterday I went to my cousin Michelle's for a b-day party for my Aunt Rita and my second cousin Erin. Lots of food and drink were had. This morning Yancy and I went out to breakfast and I had tiramisu French toast (four slices of French toast with espresso-flavored mascarpone, powdered sugar, and chocolate syrup), plus a bite of his eggs, hash browns, and some bacon, and then this afternoon I went to a Tastefully Simple party at my mom's. I imagine I will resume eating sometime next week.

Yancy showed me this video this morning and it might be one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. I can't watch it without tissue nearby. Please watch (that is if you haven't seen it before. It seems like I'm always the last to know about something). Oh, and if the last song used sounds familiar to you but you can't put your finger on it, it's a string cover of Metallica's "Nothing Else Matters."


Basically that was my sole purpose for posting an entry. Have a good week.

So I'm at home on this lovely Friday night because I'm *supposed* to be grading papers so they'll be out of the way for the rest of the weekend, and resting up from a very busy week (three days in a row of teaching all day and then working until close at B&N, then a trip to the city to a private David Gray "Live From Studio X" show on my day off, then teaching all day today). Tomorrow I get up early to work at B&N again (I'm dressing up as a girlie referee and staying dressed up all day, including tomorrow night when I head into the city with Yancy for a Dragonette, et al concert). But instead of finishing schoolwork and then hitting the hay early, I'm dicking around on the computer. Go me. The quizzes and tests await. I'll get to them, I guess.

I wanted to post one more time in October so that anyone still reading wouldn't think I died. But there's not much new to report. Recreational reading is going by slooooooooooowwww like molasses. I'm *still* slogging through Michelle Malkin's Culture of Corruption. Basically, you can kind of tell that she's really digging deep to find fault with Obama and his camp, while not comparing their misdeeds much to the misdeeds of others, but at the same time she backs up everything she's saying with plenty of facts and references, and basically I'm just left feeling that there's no one left in government *or* Wall Street who isn't corrupt. It kind of sucks. Oh and also, so far I haven't once read the words "homosexual agenda" or "Christian values" or "birth certificate" or "liberal media elite" or any other far right-wing conservative catch phrases that drive me up a damn wall, so I have to give her points for that, although you can definitely tell that she is conservative and very suspicious toward anyone that might be considered "anti-business" or trying to pull the "race card."

Teaching is just going. I can't say much more about it. I'm feeling uninspired and maybe I just need to attend some workshops or sit in on other classes or something to get some new ideas about how to shake things up in my classes or something. I'm also thinking I need a challenge, like maybe I should go for another degree, like a statistics/actuarial degree, or maybe even use my free tuition benefit to take some law classes, which I've always been interested in. I just feel like my life needs some type of change. I don't know though; I'm pretty happy overall.

Oh, I found some professionally taken pictures of the Fall Colors 5K, so yippee:

And at the 3-mile mark, bringing up the rear is Fuggzie McGee! Oh, how I LOVE running pictures. NOT! LOL

And here is half of me at the finish line:

Out of all the walkers/runners, I came in 540th out of 1,564 entrants. The race was a total clusterfuck, LOL. You could barely move at the beginning. But it's a good time and I'll probably keep doing it, and I'm hoping Carrie does it again too. Although, since then I really haven't run much and I'm slowly turning into a blob. Fantastic.

Here's a pic from the David Gray show yesterday (we couldn't use a flash so it's a bit blurry):


He played six songs, most of them from his new album, although he played "Babylon" too. In the middle of his set, he talked to the DJ about the making of "Draw the Line" (his new album). He was very funny and warm and effusive, so that was cool as I honestly had no clue what to expect there. Funniest was when he talked about Annie Lennox in the studio and how creative and open she was, and how much of an energetic presence she was when making the music video for the song she sings on. He sort of imitated her on stage and it was hilarious.

Well, I'm gonna take off since I really should get some school stuff done and get ready for bed so that tomorrow night doesn't consist of me falling asleep standing up at a concert. HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

P.S. I just joined a new community that was pimped on the main LJ page. Who does that?! Oh, that's right. Me. It's strictly for the purpose of posting and commenting on pictures of food, so obviously I couldn't pass that up. picturing_food

First thing's first: not one but two of my LJ friends (although who knows if they're still reading) are having b-days today: Mal (cryptic_lor) and Mary Kirk (kirkland24), so happy b-day to you both! Hope you've been having a great weekend celebrating, :-).

So last night Yancy and I saw Inglorious Basterds, and it was pretty great; I don't want to give anything away in case people reading this still want to see it, but if you're thinking about seeing it, do yourself a favor and go.

I forgot to mention a while back that I read Kathy Griffin's new book, Official Book Club Selection. Now, I don't follow the tabloids and I don't even get Bravo!, so I don't really watch "My Life on the D-List," but I do like Kathy Griffin's somewhat subversive take on Hollywood, and I really enjoyed her book. Some of the elements in the book were surprisingly serious and had a depth I wasn't expecting, like when she talked about her older brother Kenny, who was almost certainly a pedophile and possibly a sexual predator, and her now ex-husband, who turned out to be a compulsive liar and a thief, which was really sad. I also found her platonic relationship with Steve Wosniak to be an entertaining surprise. If you are at all a fan of Kathy Griffin (not sure if anyone reading this is), you should definitely check out this book.

I'm currently reading Michelle Malkin's Culture of Corruption, out of morbid curiosity. I'm not far in at all, but it's well-written thus far, although I haven't read anything terribly shocking yet that has stoked much outrage on my part. Like I said, it's early.

Ok, on to the 5K: this morning was Morton Arboretum's Fall Colors 5K, and I was nervous since it's been cold and I was afraid my knee would bother me again, like it did last year (my time last year was 31:48). Also, I had been pretty lazy about working out up to race time (I ran the Thursday before the race, and it had been over a week since I had run before that). I did bike 25 miles on Saturday 9/25 for Ride Like an Egyptian, but it had been over a month before that date since I'd been on a bicycle, so it's not like I was super conditioned. Nonetheless, the race went ok because I finished it in 29:29.7, so I beat my time from last year's Fall Colors 5K by over two minutes (although I did not have a personal record; that still goes to the Unlimited Performance 5K from earlier this summer). A BIG bonus was winning a free family membership to the Arboretum for the year--which meant that I got my mom and dad into the park free today when they came to meet up with me to explore the park and partake in the free wine-tasting! And I won a free tote bag on top of that. Sweet deal! Also, this year was nice because I actually had people to hang with before and after the race: Carrie, a math grad student, decided to do her first 5K this year, and her husband Dave came to cheer her on, along with Alex, another math grad student, who was there cheering on his wife, Stephanie. So we all pumped each other up pre-race and congratulated each other post-race, which was nice compared to last year when I didn't know a single soul!

Ok, I need to unpack, do some cleaning, and otherwise get ready for the week. Hope everyone had a nice weekend and enjoys their first full week of October, :).

Ok, first thing's first: I think I found who can play Stevie Nicks in a biopic: Ladies and gents, this is not Stevie during the Fleetwood Mac white album/Rumours era, this is Ladyhawke (aka Phillipa Brown, of New Zealand):


(photos are from chromewaves.net)

Until I saw her up on stage, I had no clue what an uncanny resemblance she bore, because I had only seen sketches of her, never actual photographs. But when she came out on stage and started playing/singing, my jaw pretty much dropped.

( Sharing is nice. )

Ok, I really hope you did yourself a favor and checked her out. That is, if you hadn't already heard of her. I tend to be late to the party on these things since I don't really go to music sites like last.fm and I don't even own an mp3 player; Yancy had to tell me that they're already using one of her songs in a car commercial. I had no idea.

Now on to our lovely night earlier this week, where we saw Andrew Bird play a solo set at the modern wing of the Art Institute of Chicago:





( More on that here. )

And I've been trying to read more lately, so in the past few weeks I've read several books: The Help, a novel by Kathryn Stoddard about civil rights-era Jackson, Mississippi, and African-American cleaning ladies and the white women they serve, was really touching and hopeful without glossing over the atrocities of that time. If you're looking for some good fiction, I recommend it.

Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell, was a fantastic book. It changed the way I think about genius and about amazing people who experience great success. I think everyone should read this book. It should be required reading for all humans. Loved it.

I'm currently reading The Time Traveler's Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger. I like it, but I don't love it yet. Henry and Clare are the main characters, star-crossed lovers impeded by Henry's penchant for involuntary time-travel. The novel is clearly a love-letter to Chicago and coastal Michigan (Niffenegger lives in Chicago and works at Columbia College, and it sounds like she's got some ties to South Haven as well--yo, B&N people, isn't that where Morgan's going to college?), and I think it's kind of cool in that regard because she name-drops so many places that are familiar to me, but what's funny is that some of the places are not my favorite. Like the Aragon Ballroom, which has some interesting history and architecture, but pretty bad acoustics. Yancy and I avoid seeing shows there like the plague. And Berlin, a night club that I've been to once and hated. On top of that, Henry and Clare both have these somewhat idyllic-on-the-surface lives (moneyed, cultured, etc.) that are actually beset with impossible tragedy/conflict (I don't want to give any of that away in case anyone wants to read the book). But it reminds me of the 90210 characters (poor little rich kids), or the Kennedy's. Hard for me to relate. I suspect I like Henry and Clare a little less than I'm supposed to. They're a little too hip, cultured, sophisticated, and sexy for me. I know my above experiences probably would make someone think, "what the hell, it sounds like that's right up your alley, Miss sipping-Chardonnay-at-the-Art-Institute-while-enjoying-a-private-Andrew-Bird-concert," but trust me, that's kind of a once-in-a-lifetime thing for me. I did not grow up like that. And I always feel like kind of an impostor at those things, like my clothes aren't good enough, I don't know enough about the art, etc. So when I get to go to stuff like that I have to try not to think too hard about that and just enjoy the moment. Henry and Clare remind me that there are actually people who do seem to enjoy that stuff as their birthright. Don't get me wrong. I don't necessarily think there's anything wrong with that; I don't think they're bad people (not their fault). I just can't really relate.

Well, I think that's enough rambling for one day! I should definitely get going. I need to run by the university to drop off some exams, and I work a B&N shift later tonight, so time's a-wastin'. Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Last night Yancy and I went to one of Yancy's Chicago Pinball Mafia league nights. Yes it's geeky, and yes it's fun, so haters to the left. Vince and Angela were hosting this time around, and they have a bunch of fun pin games (including The Shadow--the one w/ Alec Baldwin's mug on the back glass, and one of my personal faves, Creature from the Black Lagoon). What we didn't know until we got there was that in addition to the usual 18-22 attendees, there would be a camera crew. A couple of guys from "Chicago Revealed" were coming by to interview Vince about the pinball club (since it's hard to find pinball around anymore; it's kind of a dying art/hobby), and to film us playing some pinball. I'm not officially in the league and was just there because I already know everyone, and it was a usual date night for Yancy and me. I still ended up being filmed while playing a spectacularly bad game of Fun House though. I'm like, "no! Don't film this! This is terrible!" But the guy just laughed and filmed away anyway. Who knows how much of it will actually end up on the show though, lol. I think he just thought the game looked fun, because later on during the night he had put his camera equipment down and was playing the game himself. Turns out he was missing pinball one night and wondered where one could actually find games to play, so he googled "Chicago Pinball" and the league came up, so he contacted Vince and arranged the TV interview. I have a feeling he might be back one of these days, sans camera crew.

Ohhh, school. Overall I suppose it's going fine. I could post some stuff, but eh. ( Well, ok, abbreviated versions of some longer stories )

And the best for last:

Some of the students in my math 201 classes are making me feel like Will-Farrell-as-Alex-Trebek on SNL spoofs of Celebrity Jeopardy. On the most recent quiz, I asked them a question. Here's the question:
Between prisms and pyramids, one of these types of polyhedrons always has the same number of faces as it has vertices. Which type of polyhedron has this property, prisms or pyramids? (If unsure, perhaps sketch some examples.)
Now, if you're not certain what the right answer is, like if you don't know exactly what prisms are or what pyramids are, that's one thing. But upon reading that question, you should at least figure out that you have two choices: prisms or pyramids. You've got a 50/50 shot, right? And you're not even in my math 201 class, but by virtue of your ability to read and to rub a couple of your brain cells together, you probably figured that out, no? By all means, please tell me if my wording was not clear.

So why then, did more than one student answer with a word or phrase that was neither "prisms" nor "pyramids?" Some students answered incorrectly (prisms is wrong but at least it was one of the choices), and a couple of students answered too specifically, like they said "pentagonal pyramid" when the answer is really that ALL PYRAMIDS have this property. But CONES?! Really?! WTF, people. C'mon. Sooo...I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that this might be a long semester. Wish me luck.

Also, congrats to Tina Fey for winning a "Creative Emmy" (mmmkay, as opposed to a regular Emmy) for her role as Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live! Yaaaaaaaaaay!

I think we've reached the point where not enough people in this country can think logically enough or read well enough to discuss issues intelligently or with enough civility. And this frightens me. If it gets much uglier, I might start trying really hard to learn a foreign language so that I can pack up and get out of here. Maybe they need math teachers in Spain. I wish I could export our water pressure though; that's the one thing I would miss...not for the toilets, just the showers.

Ok, I'm gonna try to make this my last post about Spain since it's probably getting to be overkill! On day 5 of my trip we took a day trip to Cadaqués (another Mediterranean coastal city, further north than Sitges, on La Costa Brava "the wild coast") to tour the former house/museum of Salvador Dalí. Things pretty much stayed surreal after that.


This gender-bending painting is a true original that sits in Dalí's studio in the house.

A LOT more pics and more words to go with 'em ( under the cut. )

And as long as I'm posting a ton of pics, I just won this awesome sampling of Burt's Bees goodies from the website I pimped here a few weeks back, Live Well, Spend Well!

Thanks so much, ladies! I loooooooove the smell and feel of the lip balm w/ pomegranate oil, and I'm definitely a sucker for hand cream with honey in it. Can't wait to try the lemon butter cuticle oil too! And just a reminder to anyone who hasn't visited the site or entered into one of their drawings yet, if you leave a comment on a giveaway post and mention that Lisa G. sent you, we both get bonus entries, :).

Also, my new furniture came today! OMG real furniture wtf?!

I'm gonna go ahead and admit that the new couch has a definite odor. It's kinda like new car smell, in that the only thing that makes it pleasant is the fact that it reminds you that you have something new. Otherwise it's kind of an icky smell and I'm looking forward to it going away.

And might as well post a pic of the new car since I'm thinking it's feeling left out at this point:


Ok, this is getting a little sickening so I'm gonna take off. A new semester has started, so it's time to put the nose to the proverbial grindstone. Hang on to your hats, because my life is about to get hella boring. Hope everyone has a great week!

On Friday morning, Rachel (our cousin) and our Aunt Candy (her mom) arrived at BCN Airport, and Mark took their stuff home and spent the day on work stuff while David, Candy, Rachel and I explored Barcelona. We spent time primarily in the Barri Gòtic, which is where you can see a lot of Gothic works by artists like Antoni Gaudí, and we also wandered along Las Ramblas, which is insanely crowded and had a huge market at one end the likes of which I had never seen before. And of course we did a little shopping (I was with Candy, Rachel, and David after all).



( See more. )

( Bumming in Sitges, hiking and sleeping in the Pyrenees, and eating way too many baguettes and way too much cheese in France )

I think I may be exceeding the length limit soon, so I'll stop there. Next up: the following afternoon--visiting Montserrat!

...I'm back from Spain! And I will be updating with an unheard-of-before-tonight number of pictures. In fact, I'll probably end up splitting the entry up a bit because I feel like I have so much to talk about. For the most part, the trip was totally amazing!

( Ok, this got a bit long. )

The Andrew Bird show was last night, and it was pretty surreal being in that place and watching/hearing him sing and play violin, etc. I only recognized a handful of songs, but I didn't care because I was just there to be in the moment and hear whatever he put out. It was a great show, but I'll just leave it at that and link to a review from The Onion's A/V club (scroll down for a YouTube video too). Yancy and I were pretty lucky to be able to go, as you can probably tell if you read the article. I'm still wishing I could also see Fleet Foxes live, but aside from the show being sold out, Saturday night is probably the worst possible night for me to be in the city within the next few days, due to my schedule of other activities and trying to get ready for the Spain trip. So even if I were going, it would have been totally crazy and kind of a logistical nightmare. :\

So, I've finally started driving my new car! It's so weird to think it's mine. It doesn't feel like mine yet. It feels different. It's slightly bigger, and I sit higher up, for one thing. It's nice, but also weird when trying to park, like it feels unwieldy because I'm so used to having an even tinier car. I feel like I'm driving a boat, even though the Corolla is still a pretty small car! I love it though. Meanwhile, the Prizm's doing pretty well. I just got its last oil change before I find a new owner for it, and I also had some freon put into the air conditioner so it actually works again. The mechanic also identified some potential repairs that will be needed soon, so I can fully disclose everything and feel guilt-free about selling the car to someone. I'm not worried about it still fetching $1500 or close to that, which is about three times what the car dealership told me they would give me for it, but still less than what car dealerships are charging for it or a comparable car. Feels good to cut out the middle man! I still need to type up a bill of sale and have my dad sign it because he is a co-lien holder with me (on the old car, not the new one). I'm pretty sure I'll just wait until getting back from Spain to handle all of that.

The summer semester is officially over, and I think all of my students will be pretty satisfied with their grades. I was glad that I really did not feel too conflicted about anyone's grades this semester, in terms of people being borderline, etc. I've already gotten one ecstatic e-mail, which was nice.

So tomorrow is the volleyball tournament, which I'm pretty excited about, although I may suck. I'll be really happy to spend Saturday night at home with Juneau though, because it'll be my last night home in a while. I'm spending Sunday at Yancy's since he lives so close to O'Hare, and he'll be driving me to the airport late in the morning on Monday.

Things I still need to do:
-pack, which includes figuring out what I'm taking in my carry-on and what I'm checking, the prerequisite for which is actually figuring out what-all I'm taking, period. For the plane, I might not even take any music (I own no mp3 player, and I have a discman but I'm not sure if I have sufficient batteries for it, and I don't have headphones). I'll probably just take a few books, including a collection of cryptograms. Fun!
-put some sort of distinguishing feature on the bag I'm checking, so that no one else mistakes it for their bag (and put my name on it and in it).
-attempt to buy Euros before getting to the airport, but if I fail in this mission, I'll be able to buy Euros at the airport. I'm just worried about higher fees at the airport, so any way to avoid that is much desired.
-bake chocolate chip cookies and/or butterscotch blondies to leave for the kind souls who are coming to my condo in shifts throughout the week to bring in my mail and avoid being killed by Juneau look after Juneau.
-go see my friend Jen do improv with her class at iO on Sunday night-my last night out w/ Yancy before leaving the continent!

Truth be told, I'm a little nervous. This will be my first time at an airport/on a plane in nearly ten years! Any time I hear news of a plane crash, or a story of an airline losing someone's luggage, I freak out a little inside. But I am mostly just really excited! ♥ Well, this might be my last post before I leave, so enjoy the next couple of weeks, everyone! I will try to update about my trip and bring back plenty of pics and stuff, but it'll be kind of crazy because school is starting shortly after I get back. And if you never hear from me again, just assume I went down in a blaze of glory. Over and out.

That seems to be the running theme in my life right now, but fortunately most of the stuff I'm trying to do is good/fun stuff, so at least there's that.

In teaching news, the last week of the semester is next week. I've got a lot to cram into the last few days, so I'm having to really streamline the lessons, but I think today went well at the very least, and I've got a basic handle on what I want to accomplish for the remaining three days that I'll actually be teaching new material (the rest of the class time will be spent taking Exam 3, class evaluations, and the final exam). I'm done writing/copying all of the assessments and review materials for the rest of the semester, because one student's last day is this Thursday, and he's getting everything done before he leaves (yay not having to deal with an incomplete!). It's nice having all of that out of the way.

There's a lot of fun stuff coming up in the city in the days before I leave for Spain, and I want to do as much of it as possible without going broke and/or killing myself. ( Read more... )Send good thoughts that I can keep my head on straight between now and the trip, LOL.

This past weekend was fun. Yancy and I had some tapas Friday evening, then saw The Hangover (had me not necessarily dying laughing, but kept me chuckling mildly throughout; I thought it was basically cute), then we hit up Ollie's, a local favorite, for some custard (cashew & caramel sundae for me, cake batter cone for him). On Saturday morning I had to get up for a morning shift at B&N, while Yancy slept in a bit and then left for a charity poker game followed by pinball league night. Since I had Saturday afternoon/evening free, I hit up a really cute, eclectic vintage store called ( Moxie ) in downtown DeKalb after my B&N shift ended, and I ended up buying a really cute just-above-the-knee skirt for just under $11.00, which I'll be wearing with some shoes I already owned. ( (Pics under cut.) )

After Moxie, I went home and chilled for a bit, then headed out to Four Lakes in Lisle to meet up w/ my cousin Kim, her husband Eric, and a few other various-and-sundries for some sand volleyball! FINALLY!!! Sand volleyball is back on! Yaaaaaaaaay. We had fun even though there weren't too many people and we mostly had to play three-on-three, very casual, no great form or technique. I think I still managed to hold my own, and I also secured a place in an all-day beer-in-hand tournament in Wauconda coming up on August 8th. I'm excited. Haha, even though an all day beer-in-hand sand volleyball tournament sounds sooooo classicly frat-boy and douche-baggy. Hee hee. I'm thinking about going to Lollapalooza on the Friday right before then (quite a few bands/artists on the roster, the ones of interest to me being Kings of Leon, Depeche Mode, Fleet Foxes, Peter Bjorn & John, and Andrew Bird) but at this point I'm not exactly sure about the logistics. Especially since that's the weekend before I leave for Spain. We shall see.

This morning, kinda last minute, I decided to go ahead and participate in a bike ride called Biking with Beanzie to benefit the local Kiwanis Club (the proceeds will help them maintain trails and do other community service projects). I biked 23.9 miles in a little under two hours, including stopping for about ten minutes at the halfway point to pee and eat/drink a bit--I'm a pretty casual biker and got passed quite a bit, but it wasn't a race so I didn't really care. I ride a wussy hybrid bike anyway; it doesn't even look like a racer type bike, lol. I did pass a few people though. I figured this was good practice for when I do Ride Like an Egyptian again in September (which is also not a race, so when I say "practice" I mean just being used to riding that long, endurance-wise).

I'm officially stoked about the trip to Spain, mainly because my cousin David just Facebook messaged me with a tentative itinerary that sounds AMAZING. The beach in Sitges, day trip to Montserrat, site-seeing at La Sagrada Familia, Gaudi and Dali houses/museums, shopping, restaurants, and even a jaunt to the south of France!!! I'm dyin' here!

Ok, I need to get going (I have another B&N shift soon--gotta love that second job; it helps fund many of the above activities, LOL). But I will leave you with a picture of my new buddy, Tracy and Anthony's new maltese puppy Ozzie, named after former Sox player and current Sox manager Ozzie Guillen. He is the best little guy ever!!! Here he is playing fetch with his squeaky ferret toy, who is almost as big as he is!


Have a great week, everybody.

I know I don't exactly have a vast readership, but I thought I would direct everyone's attention to a cool new blog co-created and co-run by an old friend of mine, Samantha, from back in our Junction Bookstore days. The blog is called "Live Well, Spend Well," and features noteworthy health, beauty, and home products for under $15 (and the occasional splurge-worthy item that goes above $15). So far they have featured some great suggestions, like how to prepare your own WAY HEALTHIER AND CHEAPER microwave popcorn instead of buying it pre-packaged, and some great products, like the eco-friendly and versatile flip-and-tumble bag. I suggest you run, not walk over there and check it out! Live Well, Spend Well Leave a comment in any entry labeled "review and giveaway" and we will both (yes you and I) be entered in a drawing to win that entry's featured item (just tell them Lisa G. sent you from http://lalittlecricket.livejournal.com/)! Woo!

In other news, Yancy is no longer staring down the barrel of unemployment: he was offered another position at AT&T today! Thanks to everyone for all your positive thoughts and well wishes! Phew.

Today is my mom's 61st b-day. I know she doesn't read this, but Happy Birthday, Mom! We went swimming yesterday together before I went over to my sister's salon to get my hair did, and it was entirely pleasant so I guess the moral of the story is to be grateful for the little things. After visiting with Tracy at the salon, I once again met up with my fellow "So You Think You Can Dance" junkie, Sarah, to drink wine, eat cupcakes, and indulge in our favorite summer show, after which I swung over to Tracy and Anthony's to hang out with them and, more importantly, visit Ozzie (their Maltese puppy), whose adorableness I still can't get over. Can I just say that I fucking love summer? When a typical Wednesday involves working for about four hours and then having the rest of the day to do whatever you please, what's not to love?

Aaaannnd...books: Working on a book called Sunnyside by Glen David Gold (who is married to Alice Sebold), which was recommended to me by my endearingly grumpy with-a-heart-of-gold bookstore boss, Don. It's cleverly written and intriguing and is ostensibly about America in the time of Charlie Chaplin, thus far. I'm not that far in so that's all I'll say. Waiting for me at the library is The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho.

Since I griped in my last entry about not biking to work, I'll just mention that this week I finally biked to work 2 days in a row, so I'm gonna try to maintain the trend from this day forward of biking to campus at least half of the remaining days of the semester. I still weigh more than I did five years ago, despite my best workout efforts (hello homicidal maniac Jillian Michaels). I think I may just have to accept that I'm no longer 18 and that's just the way it is. *sigh* I'll live, I suppose.

Over and out.

I have definitely slacked thus far this summer in the biking to school department. I haven't done it once. There are several reasons, but the main one is that as opposed to last summer when my class started at 9:30 a.m., my class this summer starts at 8:00 a.m. which means leaving my house at 7:00 a.m. or earlier to ensure that I get to work on time. Also, the weather has been a little wonky lately and I don't like to cycle in the rain, nor do I love the idea of cycling in extreme heat. Beyond that, I have absolutely no excuse and would like to get my ass in gear, hopefully tomorrow, but we'll see if the weather cooperates. I've also slacked in running due to the fear that I'm prone to ankle and knee issues, but I still want to try to resume that, as well as working out more. I guess it just takes more motivation than I currently have, but I'll try to turn that around.

Yancy has an interview for a senior analyst position tomorrow at his current place of employment (his team was basically disbanded, but there are other areas of the company that are growing and that he is pretty well qualified for). It's a senior analyst position, when he is currently just a plain ol' analyst (he tests the company's software, and more recently has been involved in the planning/design of the testing of the software), but I think he has a good shot. He had an interview for a position downtown a couple weeks ago (also with the same company), and he nailed it and the interviewer was extremely complimentary and almost tried to hint that they wished they had more than one position open and would think of him if they did, but then the interviewer stopped himself since it's no use getting one's hopes up about job availability with the current state of the economy. Ultimately he did not get that job and it most likely went to someone who was already a senior analyst or something like that. But we're still thinking positive and I'm hoping this interview tomorrow goes well. In addition, not to jinx Yancy or anything, but he has been playing a lot of charity poker games on the side and has been making decent cash to put aside in case of emergency (in short, this month he made about as much playing poker during his free time as he did at his real job), so things are not as bad as they could be. Anyway, I'm thinking good thoughts.

My sister and I were talking on the phone the other day about our mom. Lately she has been in the habit of repeating the stories she tells, forgetting that she has already told them to us. It's been happening with more and more frequency, and she also likes to fixate on certain things that bug her and complain about them tirelessly to anyone who will listen (I really don't want to get into specifics here). We partly suspect that this is just because Mom hasn't had a job, even a part-time one, in a long time since she has been battling cancer. She goes for weekly chemo treatments and even before she got sick she just worked retail part-time and was a former beautician/hair stylist who let her license expire after years of child-rearing. So she doesn't have a lot of marketable skills or self-confidence about getting back into the workforce, and she therefore finds herself with a lot of time on her hands with which to obsess about things (especially since she's alone a lot since Dad still works). That's the only possibility we can think of for why she has been so insufferable lately, other than a scarier possibility, which is dementia. :( We're wondering if the years of chemo have been affecting her brain. I'm not saying this in a derogatory way; we're both genuinely concerned. She's just...different lately. I think maybe I've already said too much. I'm gonna get going and just hope for the best, and try not to fuel any fires whenever my mom and I get to talking about, well, anything.

Wow, that was quite an uplifting post. Sorry.

p.s. This, my friends, is how strawberry shortcake is done in my house.

Just got back from the 5K, and I thought they were going to give us running chips but they didn't! I guess they just started timing everyone at the start of the gun. According to that and the clock at the finish line, I came in at 28 minutes and 59 seconds, I believe. That means I beat last year's time by nearly 3 minutes (31:48)! I was pretty pleasantly surprised, because it was HOT this morning and I was *not* feeling great (was kinda tingly all over, especially my face and upper body). I also actually decided to stop and walk part of it, on and off, but run harder when I actually ran, and I guess that paid off (I made sure not to start any bouts of walking until after the halfway mark). I ran the first mile in a little over 8-and-a-half minutes, the second mile in just under 9 minutes, and the third mile (where I did the most walking) in about 11 minutes. When I do the Fall Colors 5K, hopefully I will actually run the whole thing. We'll see. I also remembered something that I forgot from last year: whenever I run an actual timed race with other people, I get butterflies in my stomach for at least the first half-mile, from nerves.

Although I beat my old time and I'm really happy with how today went, these are always humbling experiences and make me admire the people around me. For example, I came in *just* behind a guy who had to be at least 65, lol. He nearly collapsed after the finish line so I accidentally passed him before they could take our tags, so I had to backtrack and usher him past me in the lane. During the race, I was also passed by a dude running while pushing his kid in a stroller. LOL Got some free junk in a goody bag, like a t-shirt, pedometer, and huge Butterfinger candy bar (mmmmm). Also enjoyed a free full-body massage after the race. Woot! These 5K's are addictive, even if you don't have anyone running with you or specifically cheering you on. Once you do one, you keep wanting to do more. And I just realized there was a ton of free food I could have taken but I totally forgot, which is sooooo unlike me. Oh well.

I put off making the butterscotch blondies last night and instead just had dinner (eggplant stuffed w/ ricotta and covered in red sauce, garlic toast, and some white wine) and watched 30 Rock DVD's while doing laundry, because that's how I roll (I'm pretty bad at doing multiple projects at one time, especially when said projects take place in a kitchen). So I've gotta shower now and then get crackin' on the blondies before I drive out to see Yancypants. Have an awesome day!

It just occurred to me that not everyone I'm friends with here is friends with me on FB, which is odd. So if you want to be FB friends with me, feel free to add me. I've been using it more frequently lately than I used to. I put up only my last initial there because initially I didn't want *everyone* (i.e. students, etc.) to be able to find me (although I finally have a profile pic so that seems silly now), so my FB name is Lisa G.

Tomorrow is my first official 5K of the summer. Wish me luck! I'll probably need it. Initially during the summer I was running a little over 3 miles about 4 times a week, but I quickly decreased that because I began to suspect I had at least one stress fracture in my right ankle. So lately I've been laying off the impactful exercise and just riding my bike to keep up the endurance (they say that's ok to do when you have a stress fracture, because they heal themselves as long as you don't stress the bones too badly; swimming and biking are ok, running isn't). I think it has been getting better, so I'm still gonna run tomorrow; then I'll lay off again. To motivate myself, I pledge to post my official time here, whether I beat last year's time or not. The pressure's on, lol.

Just survived the first week of summer school; I can't believe how much we have to cram into a short time though. The students might be a little shell-shocked after the first quiz, which was Wednesday, and end up reprioritizing in order to do well. But otherwise it's going fine.

Tomorrow evening, Yancy and I are probably going to the Taste of Randolph Street in the city, so that should be fun, weather permitting (damn it has been rainy lately!). Then on Sunday we're gathering at Tracy and Anthony's for Father's Day and Tracy's b-day, which I'm really looking forward to. It'll be awesome getting to see everyone, including Tracy's new Maltese puppy, Ozzie! He is adorable. Well, I should scram--I've gotta do a little laundry and bake some butterscotch blondies for my Grandpa Warren for Father's Day. Have a great weekend everybody!

So I just want to publicly thank Melissa (sway_paperdoll) for the black apple notebooks--they are adorable and will certainly come in handy! What a sweet surprise, :). Thank you so much! ♥

Haha, maybe I can use one of the notebooks to track the trials and tribulations of my furniture purchase. I just bought real custom furniture for the first time ever (a living room sectional from Walter E. Smithe). I can't believe how costly real furniture is. I am poor now. And a few days after I ordered it from one lady who helped me pick everything out and oversaw the sale, I got a phone call from a different lady telling me it was her job to keep me updated on my order and that she would be calling me to give me the latest on the status of my order approximately every two weeks until delivery. They called again a few days later to tell me that the wood finish I ordered for the legs was not available so I picked out a different, similar finish. I feel like I'm in the process of adopting a child from Romania. It's expensive, lengthy, and fraught with complications.

Tonight was really fun--I went out to Schaumburg w/ Laura and met up with Katie, an old friend from junior high whom I just reconnected w/ on FB, and we all saw Judah Friedlander from "30 Rock" perform a stand-up set at Chicago Improv. Laura actually bantered with him (told him she had caught a 3-foot shark before, and when he asked her what she does, she told him she's getting her PhD in math and he asked her if she wanted a trophy. He later referred to her as the girl getting her PhD in long division, LOL). After the show we got to meet him and got pictures and an autograph! He asked me what I do too, so I told him I teach math at the same place where Laura's getting the PhD, and he was like, "wow, you girls know what you're doin'." LOL On Laura's postcard (of his lovely artwork of the mermaid with Bigfoot, which made an appearance on the episode of "30 Rock" called 'Cougars'), he wrote "Tutor me."





(Mr. Friedlander also approved of my shirt.) Woohoo! Fun times!

I'm reading a really interesting book right now called The Age of the Unthinkable. It's about how our world is constantly in flux, with everything from environmental concerns to terrorism to the economy, and how to process it all and think in ways that will help us adapt. The author, Joshua Cooper Ramo, brings in lots of diverse ideas and it will be interesting to see how he ultimately ties it all together. Although I can't promise anything since I haven't finished it, it's really good so far and I highly recommend it!

Tomorrow I work a short shift at B&N, then it's off to my cuz's graduation party, and then Yancy and I are finally seeing Phoenix at their sold out show at Park West in the city! Yaaaaaay! Summer school starts up on Monday so this was a nice way to end the break. Hope all is well w/ everyone!