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.

Silly Moka, Trix Are For HUMAN Kids

I am watching my cat right now and she is sticking her paw into the water bowl then licking her paw... No wonder she spills her water EVERY day.

The list of people foods Moka will eat:
-peanut butter
-jalapeno salsa
-white wine

Such a silly cat! Much muuuuch more to come later, when I get a spare moment to breathe in the past 5 weeks I've been at school. On the list- AAS, Seattle, classes, ice climbing, internships, and The Future of Jo Taylor.

Let The Good Times Roll

Classes officially resume again on Monday, but I am taking a stand against education and deciding to skip the first week of school to play hooky and watch TV and eat potato chips all day.

Not really, of course. I'm going to Seattle for the AAS (American Astronomical Society) annual meeting. It's a 5-day long conference during which astronomers from all over the US get together to present research, exchange ideas, and in general get to know others. I'm presenting a poster about my research I did this summer at Lowell. And it's in Seattle! Woohoo! The conference technically lasts until Thursday, but I'm going to be staying until the following Sunday, spending the last few days around Seattle and the area. See some sights, visit some friends, have a last hurrah for winter break.

Speaking of winter break. This break has been so busy! I began and finished my poster (WAY more work than it might have been due to having to re-do a large portion of my summer work...), helped my sister fix up her new house (not much because I'm lazy), put a lot of miles on my car, lost and consequently got a new debit card, took my cat to get spayed and vaccines (poor Moka....), visited with lots of friends and family, and started looking at internships for this summer! Woo!
Who needs to relax?! I'm the kind of person who thrives on busy-ness, but I will be the first to admit sometimes you just need a break. I feel this break wasn't really a "break" at all, but it was fun!

Tomorrow it's off back to Dear Old Bloomington for a pitstop before heading to Seattle on Sunday! Never a dull moment! :)

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! :)

Ubughuuu Blargehnguhhh

3 hours of sleep in preparation for my 10:15 final... I'll let you know how it goes (at least the reason I was up late was studying for said final).

Can you OD on coffee?