Recent Happenings

I've been lax in the updates with this blog. I enjoy looking through old posts sometimes, and wish I kept better tabs on things I do during my college years. Here is a dump of events from the past months or so:

-Friday Night Dinner to celebrate the Chinese New Year, lots of yummy food all around!
-Friday Night Dinner for which you had to make a dish you had never done before... I made sushi!
-First trip to IKEA and Jungle Jim's! Both were as magical as I hoped they would be
-First birdwatching attempt, with friend Jesse. You can see a list of all the cool birds we saw here. 2 bald eagles!
-First time trying both squaredance and contradance! Both were great :)
-Brunch with Teresa and her boyfriend (whom we met during our REU in Flagstaff!) Nick.
-Running into old friends who were campaigning? for Ron Paul.
-Friday Night Dinner with heritage foods... I made gnocchi for the first time!
-Fell off a horse.
-Spring break!

I'm going observing next week on Kitt Peak! :)

Picture This...

As is usually (always) the case, here comes a long, much-overdue update on things. I'm too lazy to type, so here are lots of photos for you! :)

Ok, in the most chronological order I can think of...

Infrared Cards! Our astronomy club intramural soccer team. (Not to be overshadowed by the Infrared Sox softball team...)

Chris and I played in the All-Campus Band concert! Sarah and her family came to see it :)

Went to an SPS (Society of Physics Students) zone meeting in Morehead, KY. They have 21m radio telescope!

Fiesta Friday Dinner! Me, Jenny, Chris, Alec and Brian (Elaine is taking the photo)

Graduation party for Chris, Eric and Jenny. Look at all our delicious food and YES, that's right- a CHAMPAGNE TOWER. We're that classy, folks.

My cocktail dress. But aren't we just so charming? :)

The gang. Top: Eric, Tess his girlfriend, Chris and me. Bottom: Elaine, Jenny and Charity.

The late-night party crew. Jenny, Me, Chris, Jeff, Con (astro prof) and Elaine. This photo is priceless.

The graduates. :)

Hats off!

Words later, sometime! :) 

Mamma Mia!

Again, most of you probably don't notice, but I changed the background of my blog. Poppies + blue sky = simple happiness.

Okay, so this is only, what, 3 months late, but here are some photos from our Murder Mystery Dinner. It was entitled "Pasta, Passion and Pistols". It was a loosely scripted dinner mystery and was TONS of fun. Even though we were given information about our characters, we all still took them in our own directions. It would be boring for you and tedious for me to tell you the details of the story and the various highlights of the night, but suffice to say there were plenty of awful Italian (more like French) accents all around. A night to remember! A few photos for you...

The gang! Teresa, Eric, Alec, Steven, Chris, myself, Elaine and Jenny

Dessert- "spaghetti sauce and meatballs" cake from Jenny!

Struggling to stay in character as my questionable boyfriend Bo (Eric) fights with my mom (Jenny) and brother (Alec)

Good times.

Happy Winter Holiday of Your Choice!

In a very festive blogpost, here's some Christmas topics for you. Also, I just realized blogpost is an anagram of blogspot... interesting.

A couple of weeks ago we had a Christmas Friday Dinner, complete with Ugly Sweaters (although not many partook, and Alec came in a suit just to be the best-dressed...) And we had a champagne tower that (sort of) successfully worked. Yes, we're that good.

From top, L to R: Steven, Elaine looking classy, Jenny, Eric's caramel onion, Chris with a very unhappy Nyx, and my dazzling smile.

Maybe you're wondering what that caramel-covered onion is all about? Well, you should be. A while ago, Jenny suggested we make caramel apples, but make one a caramel onion and give it to Eric. The idea was of course very well received. After putting it off until well after proper caramel apple eating season, she did the deed. To ensure that Eric took a whopping bite out of the onion, we made it a caramel apple eating contest (we affectionately, and jokingly, call Eric 'Fat Eric' even though he is very much not fat... he just eats an ungodly amount of food). As we started the contest and everyone took bites of their respective apples and onion, we realized the caramel had not quite cooked correctly and was incredibly brittle. Instead of getting the hoped for large first bite, Eric got a few very disgusting small bites. At which point expletives left his mouth and the rest of us erupted into laughter.

We are such good friends :)

I'll leave you with a photo of my once-beautiful tree that was massacred by my cat. Notice that there are NO more ornaments on it...

Some Christmas cards I hastily made, but they still turned out okay.

 HAPPY CHRISTMAS! :)

Late Thanks Giving

Friday was our Christmas Friday Dinner (more on that later). During dinner we all said what we are thankful for, since we really never had a Thanksgiving celebration (unless you count Canadian T-giving...)

As this year comes to a close, I can name many things I am thankful for. All I could come up with on Friday was snow and kitties... I am thankful for:

Friends! For new-found friends, for old friends, for renewed friendships.

My BFF Naomi and her goofy dad :)

Physics Club end of the year dinner at Yogi's

Elaine and I starring in a Christmas Slaughter

Rollercoaster shenanigans

My REU 'family' for the summer :)

Family- especially ridiculously adorable babies!

Couldn't find any good photos...

Kitties! Especially that one!

Moka is fascinated by the snow!

Snow! Who knew crystallized water could be so beautiful? (Notice kitties and snow are still on the list...)

B-Line trail this morning

Amongst many other things, but I won't get too sentimental just yet. :)

Some Things

My beautiful Autumn decorations, skillfully cut and wound by Jenny and Lauren

Last Friday Dinner was in the spirit of Autumn and Fall-themed. As a double-header, we also celebrated Halloween by wearing costumes (those of us that were cool enough to dress up). On the Autumn Menu:

-Barley with peppers from Steven's garden
-Homemade bread
-Green beans
-Sweet potato
-Soup
-Pumpkin bread
-Pumpkin pie
-Steven's homemade rhubarb sorbet
-A nice white wine
-Hot cider to top it all off

Such a happy family we make! From left: me, Alec, Jenny, (Steven taking picture), and Lauren. Eric, as always, is late.

 Let the apple bobbing begin! I can remember bobbing for apples once ever in my life and it was very long ago. I went into it thinking it would be a piece of cake. YEAH RIGHT.

Superman's first attempt. Not as easy as it looks.

Eric and I try to tag-team it by using teamwork. Another fail.

 After much eating and talking, we played piano and sang a myriad of songs late into the night. Inevitably things ended with Steven and I going through the score of Joseph & The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. All in all, a great night.

Oh, I suppose that I forgot to mention who came in costume. Jenny was Superman, Alec a cowboy, Eric dressed as Con, a professor in the astro department.
I of course portrayed Gravity, dressing up as a tree. When people asked what I was, I would drop an apple (that I carried with me all day, waiting with palpable excitement for someone to ask what I supposed to be) and say '9.8 m/s/s'.
All in a day's work for this uber-nerd.

Finally I just cheat and push the apple to the bottom, sinking my whole face in. BUT I GOT THAT APPLE. (Look at that guilty face...)

10/10

About this time last year I wrote something about all of the things I did in October. This year's edition:

-Got my first tattoo, Elaine pierced her ears and I cut her hair AND Jenny dyed her hair... all in one night.
-Went home and visited Riley Fest with family and best friend.
-Got a cat! And she is cute!! >^.^<
-Flag football with the astronomy club team 'Galactic Cannibals'... we lost all 3 games but I had so much fun! Manged to depants 2+ QB's and hit another one in the crotch.
-Brought a big cardboard box and traffic cone into the AURA.
-Canadian Thanksgiving at Jenny's house in the middle of the woods.
-Saw Rent with Eric and Jenny.
-Eric being in a 'stripper-cake' for Teresa's 21st birthday party. Don't ask.
-At least 2 happy-hour Steak 'n Shake visits.
-Studying Quantum Physics at Lake Monroe.
-One-year anniversary of the first Friday Dinner.
-Physics & Astronomy Open House, where IU physics club performed a truly astounding demo show 'Captain Planet and the Physiteers'... lighting my hands on fire and electromagnetized hair.
-Dennis James playing the organ to the silent film The Bat.
-Halloween Bowling and dressing as a hippie.
-Fall Friday Dinner dressed as 'gravity'. Good food, friends, and music.
-Took part in a haunted house. I got to scare the pants off people for 7 straight hours... pretty tiring but lots of fun!

College is great. :]

Homogeneity

I have 3 exams tomorrow and 1 Tuesday, but yet here I sit in the AURA (Astronomy Undergrad Research Area), aka, The Lab, updating my blog.

My life has been OH SO busy recently. I have only myself to blame, to be honest. Turns out trying to be VP of physics club, be in astro club, do intramural flag football, have a job, be on a newsletter committee, and take upper-level physics classes isn't as easy as it sounds. Sheesh. If I just sit around and chug out problem sets and study physics and math, though, I go a little crazy. Speaking of all these things, I have a lot of things I'd love to say, but it would be the longest post in history. So, a brief recounting of my life recently:

A couple weeks ago I went and saw California Guitar Trio at the Bishop, a bar/music place. I'd never heard of this band, but had been told they were really great. I went with two friends and it turned out to be REALLY great. It was 3 guys playing guitar (as you could have guessed, although none of them are from CA...). They were really talented, and it was a great show. Somehow after the show, myself and the 2 others ended up talking with the band for a while, helped them take the guitars/equipment to their cars, and then took them out for drinks and dinner (don't worry Mom, I didn't didn't partake in the drinks part). I have NO idea how it happened, but somehow I became a roadie for an awesome band I hadn't heard of until a few hours just before. It was really great, and the guys in the band were really cool.

Even further back than this, though, I hosted the first Friday Dinner at my apartment! The theme was based off the rainbow, and everyone brought food of a different color of the rainbow. It was pretty spectacular, and unfortunately I didn't take any photos... sorry. If I remember correctly, the foods were:

Red- red wine & red jello...

Orange- butternut squash

Yellow- lemon and chicken pasta

Green- amazing salad

Blue- blueberry muffins

Violet- eggplant and blackberry cobbler

Brown- chocolate cake

White- rice

Jumping forward in time, my first official task as physics club VP was to make liquid nitrogen ice cream for the callout meeting. I had never actually made it myself, but it was a ton of fun. Plus it was really dramatic. And delicious. My next task as VP was to organize a group to build a boat for IU's annual Cardboard Boat Regatta. The physics club has repeatedly gotten owned at this event, so this year was the time to get first place. After 'borrowing' a lot of cardboard from a recycling dumpster (hey, I'm recycling it in a way) and buying a lot of duct tape, myself and a small group of wannabe engineers put together Schroedinger's Boat, a masterful design in buoyancy. This past Friday was the day of the big race, and with our Physicists at C, we set sail against other student organizations, my coworkers, and even my bosses. Our boat performed admirably, floating much better than everyone else's (if I do say so myself), but unfortunately, physicists are not experienced rowers... After failing to row together and straight we made it across the pool far behind... Oh well! It was fun anyway! NEXT YEAR!

The day before the regatta was the astro club's first flag football game, against Chemology. Our team, the Galactic Cannibals, lost, but it was still a ton of fun. I now have war wounds from a so-called NON-contact sport... Psh, yeah, non-contact...

Oh! Last thing- after the regatta, I went to dinner with some friends, then we went to the opera to see Il Barbiere di Siviglia. I'd never seen this opera, but it was funny and entertaining. I really enjoyed it, and it actually ended happily! I generally leave operas depressed, but for once nobody committed suicide or lost their true love.

Woo. I like that all these things are out of order. Lots of things. And homework. Lather, rinse, repeat. I like to be busy, though.
And when your life is filled with stupid boys, or rather, one really stupid boy, busy-ness is nice.

Things

I am officially back in Bloomington!

The most exciting news in my life recently has been the fact that this year I am the proud tenant of my first apartment. I began the move two weeks ago but finished last week and then spent some time getting everything unpacked and set up. The (preliminary) finished product:

My bedroom!

'Hallway' view from the living room.

Bathroom (obviously)

Kitchen

Living room

I really like the new place. The landlords are really nice and helpful. I've only met a few of the other tenants but they are friendly and nice. It's a pretty good location, and is even next to an adult bookstore (which I visited the other day with some friends... a very interesting place). It was recently renovated so has new carpet, drywall, etc... It's really exciting to finally have a place of my own!

This week started classes. It was sort of weird for school to be back in session, but things are going well. My classes this semester are:
-Electricity & Magnetism 1 (yuck)
-Analytical Mechanics
-Linear Algebra
-Italian 3
-Intro to Buddhism (fulfills TWO of my general requirements... score!)

My classes all seem pretty good so far, but I have a feeling E&M and Mechanics are gonna be tough. Fortunately I know a lot of people in both classes so have some study buddies. I still have my job as a FASE mentor, and am also doing research with an astro prof. Never a dull moment. Some of the more exciting aspects of the past week have been:
-Went sailing with my friend Steven, for which we had perfect weather and wind
-Had the first Friday Dinner then watched Sabrina at Bryan Park
-Had friends over for a housewarming party
-Bike broke and I had to carry it for .5 mile... Managed to mostly fix it though
-Bathtub drain broke but my nice neighbor helped me fix it
-I'm really diggin' bullet points today it seems

I already have a ton of homework, which makes me sad, but such is life. I'm glad to see all my friends again, and hopefully this year will prove to be just as fun and exciting as the previous ones.

Ruins, Mountains, and Caves Oh My!

Alright!!! Still catching up on late blogs...

Two fridays ago, we threw a huge party to celebrate Canada Day and Eric's birthday (he is also Canadian). We grilled out and had Canadian Burgers (they just looked like burgers with Canadian bacon to me...) and lots 'o yummy veggies and corn. It was really good and we had an extreme excess of food afterwards. We played rock band and cards to finish off the night.

The next day we went to Sunset Crater and Wupatki Indian Ruins, which are about 20 miles from Flag. Sunset Crater was not what I expected, but it was still really cool. I was picturing something like Meteor Crater (which I have not seen yet), like a big hole in the ground essentially. Sunset Crater is actually a mountain that blew it's top. It's not a crater at all; it was a volcano! Such a misleading name.

Look! We're in a small crater!

Sunset crater!

Still, it was a nice and really easy hike, and there were free book guides that told you about the area. After walking around there for a bit, we drove on over to the Wupatki Ruins. It's a beautiful drive, as the Painted Desert is visible on the horizon, and the fields around the road were an interesting shade of golden wheat color with the classic forest green AZ shrubs. The ruins were really interesting and cool.

Wupatki Ruins.

There were two 'basketball courts' that Native Americans used to use. There was also something called 'The Blowhole' that was a hole where air from a low-pressure cave came whooshing up. It felt like A/C coming out of the ground! A brief relief from the desert heat... We stopped at a few side ruins on the way (including a 'Citadel' ruin). Then it was back home again! We got to drive past the scorched side of the Peaks from the infamous Schultz Fire, although you couldn't really see too much.

Playing basketball in The Ballcourt... :)

The view from The Citadel... Painted Desert in the distance.

Sunday was, of course July the 4th, Independence Day. To celebrate our country's birthday, a few of us including myself set out to hike to the top of Mt. Humphreys, the highest point in Arizona. The view was fantastic!!! It is a grand total of 12,637 ft above sea level. For comparison, the average elevation of the state of Indiana is 700 feet... The view was a bit hazy because of the smoke from the fire still, but it was nonetheless quite impressive. It was incredibly cold and windy on the hike up, but the most surprising part was that it was warm on the top of the mountain. I would have guessed that it would windier and colder since there are no formations to block the wind, but apparently I don't know my climatology very well? It was a fun hike and took us about 7 hours to hike 8 miles (and we lollygagged like nobody's business). It was a nice change to hike the Snow Bowl trail without having to run from a fire!!

Independence day on Mt. Humphreys. From left: Nick, Eric, and Christine. And yes, that flag was actually there!

The view from the top...

Once we made it back to the apartments and showered it was off to Prescott, AZ to enjoy some 4th fireworks. Flagstaff wasn't showing any fireworks because of the fire danger, so we traveled south. After a dinner stop at In 'n Out, coffee stop at Starbucks, and wandering around Prescott looking for the fireworks, we settled down for the show. The fireworks were admittedly a bit puny, but better than none. Afterwards we stayed to enjoy the clear skies for a bit, doing some stargazing before heading back to Flag.

The next day I had off work, so I finally got to sleep in! In the afternoon, we went to a lava river cave, or as I prefer to call them, lava tubes! At first I thought it was going to be a bit lame. I was just picturing a circular tube in the ground that was really small. Luckily, they turned out to be much cooler and actually very fascinating. The cave was about a mile long at which point it becomes to small to walk through. You can find info about lava tubes here, but the basic gist is lava erupted from a vent and as it flowed across the surface of the ground, the top layer solidified. The underlying layers, however, continued to flow as a hollow tube was formed from the path of the flowing lava.

The only picture I have from the caves... our dorky group at its best. :) From left: Teresa, Christine, Nick, Eric 1, Eric 2, and Sarah.

The cave looked like a huge subway tunnel because the bottom was flat and the ceiling was rounded into a half-circle shape. It was much larger than I expected, sometimes 30 feet high. There was a small section where we had to crawl on our hands and feet as well. It was quite cold in the cave! It usually gets down in the 40's inside. Even as we were entering it, you could notice a drastic change in temperature. There was ice at the mouth of the cave!

The following Wednesday Teresa and I went to Dancing on the Square, a weekly event on Heritage Square in downtown Flagstaff. Every week they teach a different style of dance then have a couple hours of music and dancing. We learned salsa! It was a lot of fun, and before we knew it, it was time to leave. Unfortunately we couldn't get any of the other REU students to join us, but have high hopes for the future!

Also this week, a few of us headed downtown on Thursday to see the Burnett family play some good ol' bluegrass/folk music. The music was great and it was a beautiful day.

Some good ol' hometown music.

Lots o' photos in this blog. Next up... The most epic camping trip ever!