Sports are ruining my f***ing life ... and other angst

Before really getting to the root of this post ... I just wanted to comment on the word "angst" ... i looked it up on Wikipeida to make sure the spelling was correct and I just learned that angst is a German, Danish, Norwegian and Dutch word for fear and anxiety ... words are so cool :)

On another note ... sports are ruining my life ... or maybe just the fact that everyone I know is obsessed with sports and I just really DONT CARE. I get extremely frustrated that every single conversation I have with my friends here seems to turn towards sports (and depending on who is around ... the conversation might actually stay on sports until I get fed up and leave). Oh and when I say the conversation is almost always about sports ... I don't mean that people talk about the game they watched last night or this really upsetting play that happened recently ... I mean people start talking about baseball players and football players like they are friends ... and they talk about football stats (as if this knowledge is somehow useful to me) and they name drop like nobodies business ... and don't even get me started with fantasy football.

I realize that I didn't grow up in a "sports enthusiasts" house hold (to be honest I am not sure my dad even knows the difference between baseball and football) so maybe I just wasn't trained at an early age to love these sports ... however I do enjoy going to football games and baseball games (however this might be because I really just love sporting event food ... hotdogs, ice cream, cotton candy, lemonade). What I want to know is when did it become "exciting" or even "interesting" to spend your time talking about blah blah blah player on this team that you don't even like (or wont even end up playing against your favorite team because they are in different leagues). Truthfully ... if the only think you seem to be able to talk about is sports ... then I think you must be a extremely boring person. Now I must admit that most of my friends are extremely interesting people ... and they tend to talk about a myriad of things ... however at the moment it is playoff season in baseball ... and football season is up and running, so it seems all that anyone has time to talk about is freaking stupid sports.

So back to why I think sports is ruining my life ... it turns out if you want to be social and actually have conversation throughout the day ... you have to either learn how to talk sports, or at least learn how to turn your brain off when the conversation inevitably turns towards famous people you have never heard of. I have been trying to be more proactive with these sports conversations (by at least trying to turn the conversations toward Rockies baseball, since I kinda sorta know about the Rockies) ... however now that the Rockies suck and they are out of the playoffs ... I will probably not be able to attend events such as "coffee hour" unless I want to spend an hour of my day talking about sports.

This post is getting long and rambly (notice a trend??) ... so on to "other angst" ... I just realized that it is October 13 AND I am never going to finish my prospectus or my qualifying exams ... and I am starting to feel a bit panicky. anxious

ALSO ... it decided to be winter (we freaking skipped Fall) ... and I already feel depressed and about the fact that its going to be cold/wet/windy until March ... ahhhhh

ALSO ALSO (instead of PPS) ... I applied for this meeting in Costa Rica (which is going to be held in both english and spanish) ... so I have to start re-learning spanish (so that I can speak/understand) ... and I want to get something like Rosetta Stone etc ... however this software is CRAZY expensive, and stupid, and doesnt work on my Mac or blah blah blah other issues

haha, ok well back to the grind I guess (I am going to get some coffee!!!)

sunday ... sunday

To start ... I am rather hungover today ... Amy's wedding was fun, but the open bar was more fun/dangerous.  I managed to drink a TON of water throughout the night, but my stomach just does not appreciate alcohol anymore :( ... I am starting to wonder of my inability to feel OK after drinking has something to do with out much coffee i drink throughout the day (who knows, I just thought of this this morning as I drank three cups of coffee at The Red Table)

I decided to try out this new cafe today (well new to me, not new to FC) ... Its called "The Red Table" and I had been there once before ... but I don't remember it being soo cool!  Lost of light, good coffee and an avocado burrito!  The only downside is that it closes at 1 on Sundays (maybe every day???) Anyway, it had an amazing (non pretentious) atmosphere AND they were playing some of my favorite music ... for instance "Those to Come"  by the Shins was playing when I first got there ... and well its one of my favorite songs :)

Well anyway ... the amazing lighting and good vibe was much much more conducive to working than lets say the funny smelling dark bean cycle (where I am currently sitting and not-enjoying a rather perfumey iced tea :( )

I've been struck lately with a complete lack of motivation for accomplishing anything other than working out and reading Harry Potter (I am on the 5th book right now, and I can't seem to put it down!) ... this is of course problematic because well ... I have to take my prelims and not fail out of gradschool (hmm ...)

Ok well this post is getting rambling ... and I can't remember why I started it in the first place ..?? who knows!

Hope all of you who are reading this have had a good weekend!!

couple-ish things

Can anyone explain to me why you would ever have a joint email account with your spouse/significant other?  

Things I need to do ...

Drink more water ...

I've started a new "work out regime" ... or whatever ... and now I am sore all the time, which is one indication that I need to drink more water.

Why is it so hard to remember to drink more water ... I am always thirsty ... but somehow I can't be bothered to drink water??? WTF?

My favorite things...

So last weekend (or well two weekends ago) ... I kinda sorta had a panic attack at 8:30 am Saturday morning and started crying in my shower because I hate my life and I hate gradschool ... So I made a whole plan for quitting gradschool ... how I was going to tell my advisor (and make him feel real bad about it) and find a job sell my car to live my life etc. ... but then well I went down to denver to see my friend Mimi and I realized that this was stupid and what I really wanted to do was study something in Africa ... and well my research/school life is a whole lot better :)

Ok ... but the point of this post is really this ... when I realized how completely and utterly unhappy I am here I started to think about what makes me "happy" ... and while none of the things I thought of will really help me figure out what I want to do with my life ... I have realized that there are a few things out there that I really do enjoy

1) I get super happy/excited when I am driving in my car when the following are on the radio

a) This American Life

b) Car Talk

c) Wait Wait Don't tell Me

Last night I was heading home from Denver and This American Life came on ... I was so excited that I got to spend an hour in my car listening :)

2) I love reading for fun ... Its been a very very long time since I actively read books just for fun, but this year I've been reading a ton ... my new favorite things are to

a) read a book in the bath tub

b) read a book in a coffee shop in a comfy chair while drinking coffee

c) read a book on my new balcony :)

3) So this one is probably not super healthy ... but I love buying new things ... especially clothes which make me feel good/cute/hot/amazing. There is nothing like buying a new shirt/pair of pants and feeling like a million dollars...I recently bought this jacket and I feel great every time I wear it :)

4) I love it when I randomly start talking to someone ... and they dont look at me like I am a crazy person ... I swear I am just nice and chatty ... and some people really respond well to my complete and total weirdness ... I do not feel happy when people act all uncomfortable when I try to talk to them ... case in point that stupid lady in Israel to who totally fed me to the dogs at the airport she was a BITCH

5) I have started working out in the mornings ... and while I hate waking up early ... I really love the fact that I now have time to cook/eat/clean when I get home in the evenings, having free time in the evening is AMAZING :)

6) I also love to daydream about traveling ... more on that later!

funny emails

So today I got this email at work

From: Bill Jack

Sales,

I am Bill Jack, I am mailing you to order some of your products and I will want it shipped to our place as follows :


Shipping Address:
341-45, Dangni-dong,
Saha-gu, Busan 604-831
Republic of Korea


So i hope to hear from you soon regarding my inquiry and to know where i can view your products you have presently in stock and if there is any special pricing i need to know about. Lastly

regarding payment i will be sending you my credit card to charge for my order to avoid delays but can you let me know the type of credit cards you accept?

I hope to hear from you as soon as possible.
Regards.

NOTE IN TERMS OF SHIPPING THAT CAN BE ARRANGED WITH THE RIGHT SHIPPING COMPANY AND PAPER WORK

Since I clearly don't have anything better to do ... i looked up the address and it turns out to be a real place ... at a university. So I can't figure out what the scam is ... they are going to send me their credit card info ... so that I can send them "supplies"???

What is going on???

The home stretch

I am *almost* done with my paper.

I have officially spent approximately 12-15 hrs a day in my office for the past two weeks ... not only is it a disaster but I think it is starting to smell funny (that probably means that I am starting to smell funny).

Last week, while frantically trying to remember how to write a coherent sentence, I also gave a few lectures at a week long summer course we offer for local K-12 teachers ... the class is called "Weather and Climate for Teachers" ... so you know we teach them about weather and climate. This is my third year working with the summer course ... and for the first time ever I was not nervous to talk in front of a room full of 40 wide eyed teachers. Maybe I am finally getting the hang of this whole teaching thing!!

After my lectures, one of the teachers came up to me and told me that I am a "natural" and that I should really consider going into teaching ... this comment pretty much made my day :)

Back to the home stretch ... I am turning in my paper and my responses to the reviewers tomorrow ... then I am going to get stinking drunk with Michelle :)

Tuesday starts the Gradstudent colloquium ... where I have to give a talk about my "current research" ... I am thinking about showing some pictures of the new purse I want to buy from this site ... http://www.1154lill.com/home/ ... because this is the only interesting research I have been doing lately :)

Life lessons from When Harry Met Sally ...

I was watching When Harry Met Sally last night ... and in the book store scene when Harry and Sally meet for the third time I noticed that on the table of "self help books" that Sally is looking at there is one titled "Making Life Right When it Feels All Wrong". 

The first thing I thought was ... I wonder if the first sentence of that book is "If you are in graduate school, quit!  Your quality of like will improve dramatically."

Soon my paper will be done and i will get to sleep again.  I can't wait!

Life list #4

Ride my bike from Fort Collins To Estes Park :)

Life list #3

Learn to scuba dive and dive in the great barrier reef.

Life list #2

Backpack California's Lost Coast

life list #1

Climb Kilimanjaro before I turn 30. 

see previous post for title

So I haven't posted in a while ... I guess that I haven't had anything positive to say so I figured ... why say anything at all...????

the blah blah blahs

Coming back from vacation is never easy.

Coming back to work having to deal with horrible paper revisions does not make the transition any better.

Maybe when this paper is finally published and all of this stress and hard work is behind me I will remember why I am in gradschool, for now I am kicking myself and feeling doubtful that I will ever finish.

Exciting things to come!

I am leaving for Australia in 45 hours!

I still have a TON of things that I need to do before I live ... fun things like going to Target to buy face lotion and hair clips, figuring out which books I am going to bring with me, and packing (ugh I hate packing).

I've decided to travel as light as humanly possible ... so I am only going to bring my backpacking backpack with me ... hopefully I remember to bring enough underwear :)

Other exciting things ... I may actually have a couple of dates when I get back ... internet dating is going a whole heck of a lot better this time than last time around, and I am hopefully going to get coffee with a couple of the people I am talking with ... hopefully they are not completely insane :)

If you want a postcard ... send me an email/facebook message/post here to give me you addresses :)

Palm Readings and Soul Mates

I had my palm read last week by one of my students.  Nothing of consequnce really came up other than I have a pretty crappy love line and an pretty long life line (or maybe it was the other way around) ... and maybe I am going to have 3 children (well i better get started I guess).  On my non-dominant hand, I am missing one of the key lines (again, I can't remember if it was my love line or my life line), but the girl who did the palm reading told me that it didn't matter because it is the wrong hand.  

This palm reading experience reminded me of something I had forgotten...

In college I dated a boy who had a freckle on his hand in exactly the same spot that I do.  The girl told me that freckles don't mean anything when it comes to palm reading, but I remember thinking that that freckle mean that this boy and I were soul mates and we were destined to be together ... sometimes I still think that is still true, even though I haven't talked do this boy in a number of years...I miss those days 

Something about internet dating #2

Well internet dating this time around is turning out to be a bit more interesting ...

I still can't figure out what is with boys in Fort Collins ... they tend to be fairly passive and the dont "just go for it" ... but after sending a number of messages out, I have finally gotten some ok responses  back and I have even started up a dialogue with a couple of guys.  Maybe I am not the horrible ugly creepy person that I thought ...

Everything is good for now, and I have yet another internet activity to keep me distracted throughout the day.  I think that I get even more excited when I have a new "internet dating email" than I do when I get a new facebook post (who know something could be more exciting that facebook?).

The real question is ... at what point do I start becoming an internet dating slut?  How many guys am I allowed to talk to at once?  And how am I supposed to keep them all straight?

Also, do I ever actually have to meet these guys ... or does chatting online count as some sort of male contact/dating??

AHH soo many tough questions :)

Why I suck at internet dating #1

Internet dating is good for people who worry about what to say to people and how to say it.  

Internet dating is good for people who like to edit and then re-edit themselves.

Internet dating is for people who are willing to "market" themselves.

I am not good at any of these things, I like to say what is on my mind without giving it a second thought.  Although sometimes I do wish that I would just shut my mouth, I have never been good at editing myself.  And I have no idea how to "market" myself ... I tend to just go with the conversation.  But in "internet dating world" there is no freaking conversation, you are just putting info out there and hoping for the best.  

crazy? I say yes

I might start base jumping ... if only for the outfits 

http://www.highinfatuation.com/blog/land-of-the-free/

Ok, so no I will never base jump, but how freaking cool are those outfits???

changing

I seriously need to lose some weight this summer ... no joke

changing

I am going to try something new tomorrow.

I am going to try and be positive about what ever happens tomorrow, and take everything in stride.  Whatever happens happens, whatever I cannot accomplish, I will not worry!

The lunch line

This is the conversation I had while standing in line to get lunch today:

Crazy old lady: "I really like your hair, it looks really cute"

Me: "Thanks, I really like it too"

Crazy old lady: "I especially like how it goes up in the back"

Me: "Thanks!"

Crazy old lady: "you know, like a witch. I've never seen witch hair before"

Me: standing their with my mouth open not quite sure how to react...

Do I have witch hair?  What does this even mean?

Swine Flu ...

So just for the record, I dont think that I actually have swine flu, but I do have a horrible cough and I've had a headache for 5 days (ugh ugh)

So I spent the weekend "recovering" which pretty much consisted of spending Saturday watching a marathon of "The Real Housewives of New York" and spending today watching episodes of Felicity on surfthechannel.

For those of you out there who love Felicity ... DAMN that girl is annoying.  I love the show ... but if i were Ben I would have been really FREAKED out  by her.

Tomorrow starts another teaching day, and I am extremely TIRED.

pretty much awesome

I am currently sitting on the couch in my PJs, watching the Notebook (yes its horrible, but nothing else is on TV), eating popcorn and M&Ms and playing scrabble with Michelle on facebook ... does it really get any better than this?

Adventures

I leave for Australia in three weeks!

Where I will be "scanned" for swine flu.

Hopefully I am done with this sickness (swine flue, hopefully not) by then :)

I am so happy that I decided to go on vacation after this teaching thing ... I am going to need it!

ho hum

I think I have swine flu.   Great!

To make myself feel better I plan to continue drinking massive amounts of coffee and not sleep for the next two-three days :)

Never realized

I never realized how arbitrary grading was until now.  I hope people in this class don't come and nit pick about points .. because I am really just kinda going with my gut feeling.  Maybe i am more of a Schubert than I thought, hahaha!

Relaxation

When you spend all week working your ass off 12+ hours a day.  You really learn to appreciate "down time".  This weekend I had to drive back up to Fort Collins from Colorado Springs to pick up my car.  I am fairly positive my insurance company is going to drop me from my plan and it is stressing me out, but I am trying not to let it get to me too too much.  Anyway I came up Friday night and I had a nice relaxing dinner with Anna and Chris.  Yummy grilled chicken and veggies.  Then saturday I slept in pretty late (and boy did I need that), picked up my car from the body shop, and spent most of the afternoon reading/grading at cafe ardour.  Grading is definitely one of the most challenging parts of teaching here ... I hope that it gets easier/better with time!  Then I went over to Sarah's house to watch Milk, eat popcorn and gossip.  Milk was pretty good, I have no idea why my dad hated it so much.  Today (sunday) I slept in again, then I walked to a nearby coffee shop did some reading for class and had breakfast.  I hope that this summer I'll walk over to this coffee shop more often, It was really nice!  I have to say that the one of the worst parts of teaching down in CC is that its so incredibly lonely.  In some ways it is nice that I don't really have any distractions, but at the same time I don't really have anyone to talk to :(.  I always feel better about myself when I am working hard and getting a lot done ... but I have a tendency to let work control my life.  Working alone in CC, I am definitely allowing work to control my life :(.

On a completely different note, I am making plans (big plans) to stop driving my car in Fort Collins this summer.  Of course there will be instances when I have to drive my car, but as far as work, softball and drinking go, I am done with Sally (my car's name).  I am going to head over to a local bike shop (not sure which one yet) and get a rack for the back of my bike so that I can strap my backpack to my bike, and then I am done with cars!! Woohoo.

Frustration.

I find the most frustrating part of teaching this class, trying to interpret how my co-teacher/mentor wants me to grade the assignments.  He is quite subjective when it comes to grading and he seems to change his mind a lot.  This means I spend hours grading an assignment that probably should have taken me one hour.  This means that I am not really sleeping and i am fairly grumpy today :( 

Time Management

No matter how hard I try, it always takes me 2-3 times longer to accomplish something than I think it should.  I find this to be very frustrating.

Adventures in Teaching #1

So I am heading down to Colorado Springs tomorrow to start teaching a 3.5 week course in Global Climate Change.  First of all I am extremely nervous and I really have no idea what to expect.  Second of all I feel completely unprepared, I guess I am going to have to learn how to be ok with "winging it".  Third of all (haha, is that even right??) I am trying to relax as much as I can right now, because I am 99% positive I won't have any time to relax while I am down there.

I am also hoping that my car is fixed by Friday and I am trying to decide if I should move in with this girl I met ... 

Ugh stress

1) I got into a car accident this week.  I would rather not talk about it other than this has been one huge hassle/annoyance that I don't have time for AND I want to give up driving all together. 

2) It is going to snow/is snowing today/tonight/tomorrow/Saturday????  I am driving a rental car in the snow, fun!  Also, if tomorrow is a "snow day" I probably won't find out about it until its too late (meaning I'll be here for my 8am class).  Michelle and I made plans to go out Friday night ... probably not going to happen now :(

3) I am heading down to CC to teach a 3.5 week long class about climate change (anna just finished, lucky her :)) ... the person I am teaching with is awesome, but it is very hard to coordinate things from afar and I feel a bit lost/worried about how things are going to work out.

4) I am trying to find a new place to live because I can no longer afford my life (see #1 for one reason why ... insurance sucks) ... finding a new place to live is stressful ...  

i-dating + random things

So it turns out that this whole "internet" dating thing is not as exciting or fun as you might thing it would be.

I spent a whole lot of time stressing/worrying/fretting about how to fill out my profile etc. And week(s) later I finally get things set up ... and well I must have done something wrong ...

Within the first oh 30 seconds of setting up my profile, I got an offer to "play dirty games" ... an offer I refused (BTW).

Then I spent a bit of time looking at my "matches" none of whom really stood out to me as being particularly awesome ... so I finally decided to message a couple of people who seemed OK, but were maybe a bit too old for me and/or lived in Boulder.

These people have yet to respond.

Then I got a couple of messages from people who were not particularly interesting ... but one guy did decided to send me about 12 messages ... none of which I have responded to, so he seems to have gotten a clue.

Maybe I am a bitch ...maybe not, but this internet dating thing is a whole lot less "glamorous" than people make it out to be, thats for sure (then again maybe I just live in Fort Collins, where the boys are freaking lazy and everyone seems to be "happy" being single and lame, or they are married)  From this whole (week long) experience, I waver between feeling utterly lame and utterly apathetic ... I saw this post on "postsecret.com" last week which said "Internet dating made me realize that I would rather be alone" ... anyway random person, i totally understand.

Besides my lame stupid adventures in internet dating ... I've just been working on preparing for the class I am teaching at CC and I've been dreading getting ready to teach the next (oh and last) IDL course.  I think I am going to take a page from Kate's book and just be super brief, do a couple of examples and call it a day.  I don't have time to obsess about this crap anymore!!

also ...

As hard as applying for jobs/gradschool/grants is ... applying for "dating" is 10,000 time worse/scarier/crazier.

I know that I am a good applicant for jobs/career stuff.

Writing about myself and why I would want to date me and who I would want to date is freaking crazy weird/hard/stressful.  It kinda really makes you hate yourself.

I am officially "internet dating"

How freaking scary is that?  So far I feel super super vulnerable and scared of seeing what is out there in this place we call Fort Collins.  My main goals are just to meet some cool people and go on a couple of dates.  I really don't expect to find my "soul mate"  I would maybe like to find dating to be a little less scary and a little more fun ... and I would also like to not get my hopes up every time I go on a date.

Expect more funny weird antics over the next few weeks.

snowy wet springy snow

This is the "wettest" snow I have ever experienced.  Spring in Fort Collins is so freaking crazy ... 60 degrees during the day, lots of snow in the evening/overnight.  Now I just wish that I had a fire place, a bottle of wine and someone special to cuddle with.

On another note ... does anyone know why blogger does not automatically send me a message when someone posts on my blog???

whiney

I promised myself that I am not going to use my facebook status message as an avenue to vent my frustrations about life etc.  so I am going to use my much less popular blog to bitch for a second.

IDL completely sucks, colors in IDL really really suck in particular, explaining how these things work to people when it depends on if you are plotting to the screen or to a postscript is also freaking annoying.  The fact that I can't just "do a bad job" and be lazy is also incredibly crappy and frustrating.  And I just banged my toe into my bed frame and i want to cry because it hurts really freaking bad.

Ok i feel a bit better.

I will not be teaching people how to use IDL again ... this is a one time only thing ... 

apartment

My apartment is clean ... other than a few dishes in the kitchen left over from last night ... it feels amazing!!

whole new life..

In the never ending somewhat pathetic saga that has become my life which i fondly refer to as "Rachel can't seem to find a guy to date in Fort Collins who she thinks is cute, smart, funny and nice, and who is also willing to think the same things of her" ... I have officially been rejected via text messaging.  While most people seem to view cell phones, facebook, text-messaging, and always being able to be reached via email as an amazing advance of technology ... I personally think that modern technology is ruining my life and making me more and more miserable.  I really don't think that I am built for our new technologically advanced world ... where is my horse and buggy??? where is my old school tape answering machine??? thats what I want to know.

I take rejection fairly hard, which might be one reason why i a) never really date and b) when i do date, I become someone not quite myself as I just to try and prevent the inevitable"rejection".  (Case in point ... after every break up I have ever had, I always think "wow, it's really nice to just be myself again" )... I am hoping that one day I will find someone I can just be myself with ... but as of yet that hasn't happened.

Ok so i've gotten a bit off track with this blog ... the point of this blog is to say, I hit an all time low this week and feel sad and lame.  But I think maybe it has finally kick started me back into being the cool person that I know I can be.  When I first moved to Fort Collins (before dating JD, and before the hell of writing my masters thesis) ... I used to be cool and active.  I took yoga, volunteered at 10,000 villages, joined a book club, went rock climbing, took a woodshop class etc etc.   Somehow after "becoming JDs girlfriend" and "living eating breathing my masters thesis and being miserable and insane" I forgot that I like to try new things and I like to have hobbies other than watching TV and complaining about my life.

So in the past three days I've made some major (and some not so major) decisions/changes about my life and they go something like this ....

1) I am going to apply for this fellowship in DC for the fall ... hopefully I get it and I can try something new for a few months

2) I am going to *hopefully* start volunteering at the raptor rescue project in Fort Collins ... and learn how to handle raptors!!!

3) I joined the local Sierra Club chapter ... and I want to start getting outdoors more often

4) I am going to take a pottery class this summer!!!

5) I've been super chatty with people at coffee shops this weekend and I've hopefully made a new climbing friend and also found a gradstudent who studies bio-fuels who might come talk to my class at CC!!!!

6) I'm going to start inviting people over to my house for "dinner and a movie" night ... since  I can't actually get a date, I might as well start hanging out with my friends (aka people who I actually like and people who actually like me back) ... so well if you want to hang out ... let me know, my schedule is pretty open :)

7) I am going to start internet dating ... ugh ahh why am I admitting this to the blog world ...this is kinda scary and I am worried about who/what is out there in this small little "town" .. so we'll see how this goes ... at the very least i'll probably have some funny stories to share? (in lieu of this, I am probably going to change the address on my blog so that I am not as easily "found" online ... i'll let all two of you who read my blog know when that happens)

So yeah, on the constant road to "improved happy rachelness" I am working on making things better!!

random

Going out and being sober is never quite as fun as going out and being drunk ... while I am 99% positive that I am far more annoying while drunk ... I am significantly less aware of how I must be annoying other people ... when I am sober and everyone else is drinking ... I always think that people hate me and that I am being annoying ... I am clearly insane 

Impossibilities

I wonder if I were more organized and cleaner, if I had a cute apartment that was creatively decorated, and if I wore cuter outfits and did my hair and wore more makeup ... would I actually be happier??  I always think that these are the things that would make me happier in life. maybe I should just try to be happier being the disorganize, disheveled, mussed up mess that I am on a day  to day basis??? ... who knows

Things that make working difficult

1) Loud banging and screwing noises on the roof of the Atmos building ... very very distracting

2) Horrible chemical glue smells seeping down from the roof ... cause headaches and pain

3) Power outages

4) Cute boys at coffee shops who you are trying to get to talk to you ... but who are not being cooperative

5) Trying to plan an IDL class ... BORING 

All of these factors are making it more difficult for me to actually get work done ... but they are very very supportive of my internet shopping addiction and my expensive coffee consumption :)

Motivation

Or maybe I should title it "Motivation, or lack there of"

I know that productivity comes in waves and that in graduate school especially there are times where you are super productive and inspired to do work ... and then there are other times where a whole lot of nothing gets done ... but for the past month (or well probably the past three months, but i traveled a lot for two of those months, so i didn't feel guilty about being unproductive) I've been following this downward spiral of nothingness and the deeper I fall the harder it is to find my way out ... in other words I don't really have anything to work on ... and I need to figure something out ASAP otherwise I am never going to get anywhere ...

Anyway to accomplish "figuring out what to do with my academic/social life" I have decided to do a bit of spring cleaning ... 

In the next 24 hrs I plan to:

1) Clean my office (I am almost done there)

2) Clean my car (including washing and vacuuming the inside)

3) Clean my house (including scrubbing the bathroom and kitchen floors, vacuuming the carpets and laundry)

4) Get my hair cut (10 am tomorrow morning)

5) Meeting with my advisor to work on some sort of "figure out Rachel's PhD topic" plan ... ugh

Anyway, maybe tomorrow if i start the day out with a clean house, clean car, and clean office AND I have clean clothes and a new haircut ... i'll actually be productive ... but no matter what I am sure that i will fell less Blah :)

a whole new level

Today I have reached a whole new level of pathetic ...

I am currently drinking half a bottle of coke that has been sitting on my desk since yesterday ... I left said bottle of coke open all night/day and just now I thought "it sure is a good idea for me to drink this gross coke" ... and you know what ... it tastes pretty darn good and its not even flat!!!

What has graduate school done to me that I think its ok to drink the random things left open on my desk ... days after they have first been opened???

also

If you are looking for some good newish (and by newish i mean less than 10 years old, haha) music I suggest you check out "Sun Kil Moon" .... AMAZING.  That is what I am listening to right now, and I am somewhat in love :)

Changes

I have decided that I hate this blog, and I hate blogging and I suck at it ... so from this point forward i am going to try and keep a written journal that is for my eyes only I guess and I will probably be posting here even less than I already do ... everyone of you who read my blog are also my facebook friends ... so on occasion I might post something here rather than on facebook ... but as you already know, I am obsessed with facebook ... maybe i'll just delete this blog soon.

Anyway, if you really want to know/care/are interested in what's going on in my life, I am more than willing to share ... why not send me an email or an IM sometime or even more amazingly, why don't you give me a call and invite me to get coffee with you or go to the movies.  This blog is a poor substitute for real friendship ... and, well I suck at maintaining it

  

I no longer want to be part of why you never get any work done ... and I would rather have real conversations with all of you who read this silly thing  

That being said ... i love reading all of your blogs (laura, amy, anna etc ...) and I love that I get to know you better in your blogs ... If i was better about posting about my life ... or if i didn't feel pathetic about posting what i really want to talk about (things like my desire to loose weight, or to find a boyfriend) than maybe my blog would be more interesting/honest/good ... but instead I post stupid things and I never really talk about my life and i just feel lame for a) having this thing at all and b) never every posting anything of substance

I guess what I am trying to say is that I am much much much more interesting in person than I am in this blog ... and I am sick of trying to be something that I am not ... aka someone who is organized enough to keep up a coherent blog and is a good enough writer to not feel worried that one of you is out there judging me for my crappy writing/grammar skills.

wow .... what a rant ... :)  

Anyway, its been fun i guess :)

PS don't be surprised if I take this post down in a few days and start blogging again ... maybe one day i'll actually figure out this crap. 

Rachel Needs

So I am a little obsessed with these facebook chain letter things that have been going around ... but i am sick of posting them on facebook ... especially since I learned that facebook now OWNS everything we post on facebook ... even if we delete our accounts. So here goes another chain ... 

The Instructions:

Do a Google search for "YourName needs" -- including the quotes.  In my case, I searched for "Rachel needs".  Then list the first ten

Rachel needs to refer to Web sites, manuals, and a variety of documentation.

Rachel needs 2 get over herself and she needs 2 do it Now

Rachel needs guidance and normal supervision 

Rachel needs your Help

Rachel needs to have blush that is very bright and colorful

Rachel needs bearded dudes

Rachel needs bigger car seats

Rachel needs help when she enters Manhattan's meat-packing district to help three transvestites

RACHEL NEEDS US

Rachel needs to join the Original Jyter's Group

Israel in a nutshell ...

I had a crazy January ... this post might be a little long/incoherent, but here is my trip to NYC and Israel in brief :)

Monday 1/5 - Fly to NYC, drink beer with college friends, eat cheap falafel (yum!)

Tuesday 1/6 - CMMAP team meeting, dinner at Grand Sichuan Chinese, drink beer with CMMAP gradstudents, find this amazing piece of"art" on the wall of Peculier Pub that only truly dorky atmospheric scientists can really love :) 

Wednesday 1/7 - CMMAP team meeting, teaching Climate Change course impromptu meeting, visit the NY Public Library, dinner at Otto with gradstudents, followed by

 what might be considered a poor life decision :)

Thursday 1/8 - CMMAP team meeting, visit Natural History Museum, Visit the Studio Museum in Harlem (i've been wanting to go there for years), eat at Katz Deli (yum!)

Friday 1/9 - run around NYC like a crazy person looking for a converter for a 3-prong Grounding Adapter (because my electrical converter only works with a two prong plug, and my laptop only has a three prong plug), Kate decides very last minute to leave the meetin

g early (this occurs during a somewhat awkward lunch with Kate) , I spend the next 3-4hrs on the phone trying to figure out what I am going to do (To travel around Israel alone or not???) ugh, get on a plane and fly to Frankfurt ... meet cool Peruvian guy who is studying in Germany.

Saturday 1/10 - Land super early in Frankfurt, freak out about my credit card that stopped working (ugh), go through extra special security for Israel, fly to Israel (where I sleep on the plane ... wonderful!) Land in Israel,  meet up with some students from the meeting and take the shuttle to Jeruslaem, too tired to understand what the Shabbat elevator means (oops), eat cheap Schuarma (or kebab), PASS OUT. 

Sunday 1/11 - Tour Old City of Jerusalem with Kate ... see some amazing stuff (check out my pictures here), dinner with people from the meeting (amazing and vegetarian and can i just say amazing), have a horrible nights sleep and feel super super crappy ... note - don't take naps when you are jet lagged ... you will screw yourself over :(

Monday 1/12 - Wake up at 2 am with horrible headache ... ugh, worry a whole lot about traveling after the meeting, but decide to suck it up and be brave and stay in Israel (the best decision ever), feel like a zombie through the entire first day of the meeting (and kinda wishing i was dead), meet some totally awesome students/people, reception after the meeting, take sleeping pills and CRASH

Tuesday 1/13 - cloud day at the meeting (aka, rachel actually knows whats going on :)), pretty boring poster session, work on summary of d. hartmann's talk for the next day (finally not jet lagged)

Wednesday 1/14 - Half day at the meeting, take horrible weird tour of Ein Kerem with the worst tour guide ever, beers at the hotel bar (which appears to also be a dating spot for religious jews in Jerusalem, cute!)

    

Thursday 1/15 - Full day at the meeting, send 

post cards to friends/family after lunch (where I am totally ripped off by the post office ... weird), visit the old city at night with the Germans :), amazing dinner with people from the meeting, actually get to talk to K. Emanuel 

Friday 1/16 - Full day at the meeting, tour Jerusalem with Diana and get to see some pretty cool things, visit the Western Wall at the start of Schabbat (which is amazing and powerful, but also kinda weird), dinner at a pretty good restaurant, beers at a local bar, walk home:)

Saturday 1/17 - Visit the Dead Sea and Masada with the Germans and Zan ... rather crappy tour guide, but pretty awesome places to see :)

Sunday 1/18 - Head to the old city with Tasmanians, visit the Temple Mount, then tour the City of David in the afternoon. 

Monday 1/19 - Head home starting at 2am ... sit at the airport and watch security go though all of my luggage (dirty underwear and all) by hand for two hours ... finally get on the plane.  When I land in denver, find out that my building has been sold and that my new landlord does not think that I paid my rent (UGH), thankfully Anna picked me up from the airport ... and I worked everything out with my landlord

So pretty much that was my January in a nutshell ... this post is probably more for me, than for you, but I thought that I would share :)

2009 and more

I've been inspired by Anna's most recent blog post ... I too have about a million things that I want to accomplish this year.  Before moving to Colorado, I always thought that it was silly that people made "bucket lists" or "everything I want to do before I die" lists, but now that I have been living here for a few years, and hanging out with all the crazy people i've met in CO ... I have about a million different lists.  Some things are of course completely impractical ... others are maybe things that I could actually get done this year if I put my mind to it ... the real problem that I face is that there are too many things in the world that I want to do and not enough time or money ... argh

So here is a list of things that I want to accomplish this year ... they are subdivided into work and play 

Work

1.  Figure out my PhD research ... hopefully i'll find something that I am passionate about again :)

2. Finish my prelims ... and pass :)

3. Become more involved with local climate change issues 

4. Stay involved in drought issues even if I stop studying drought academically ... 

5. Teach a 4 week course on climate change at Colorado College

6. Teach a 4 week course on IDL ... can someone say BORING???

7. Make and maintain academic relationships outside of CSU ... to help in the act of getting a real job one day :)

Play

1. Run a half marathon

2. Start enjoying yoga, again

3. Visit Laura in Australia and do something crazy while I am there ... :)

4. Visit Marie in Denmark!

5. Take spanish language classes and stop being scared of speaking to people in spanish

6. Go on a real date ... with someone I actually like ... who is not unhealthy for me

7. Start actually backpacking with Michelle :) (or whoever wants to go with me)

8. Finally hike up Longs Peak

9. Be able to ski blues comfortably, and blacks with only a little bit of fear :)

Ok so thats probably enough ... other things that I would like to do in the not so distant future include ...

1. Climb Kilimanjaro

2. Be able to climb 5.10 outside ... and not be freaked out by leading

3. Go to Peru 

4. Move to a developing country and work with kids ... teaching etc.  

Things I should be doing

First of all I would like to say that I am extremely tired ... despite getting a whole lot of sleep.

List of things I should be accomplishing at the moment:

1) Planning for the IDL course I am teaching in a few weeks

2) Planning for the climate change course that I am teaching in a couple of months

3) Figuring out what my PhD research is going to be about

4) Preparing for meeting with Jonathan Overpeck on Thursday

5) Planning for my trip to Australia!!!

6) Blogging about my trip to Israel so that I actually remember it someday ... 

List of things that I am actually doing at the moment

1) Obsessing about cute boys

2) Facebook stalking

3) Buying used books online

4) Spending obscene amounts of money on material goods 

5) Blogging about stupid things like this

6) looking up recipes

and the list could go on.

I hate when I am incapable of  being productive, but I come to work anyway and sit here wasting away the day ... I would probably be better of at home reading a good book and going for a run or something, but instead I waste my life procrastinating on the internet ... ugh :(

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