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?

I Need A Caffeine IV

My apartment is a war zone littered with the remnants of my Christmas tree, brutally slaughtered by the vicious mercenary Moka.

On an unrelated note, I will be happy when finals week is finally over. Sleep- what is this you speak of? I have a potentially brutal final in less than 8 hours. Sometime between studying and waking up I hope I sleep. Did that make sense?

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. :)