"Is one of us supposed to be a DOG in this scenario?"

Muzic

2010-04-01T10:59:00.000-07:00

I've really been in need of some new music in my life ... a few months ago I joined lala ... and was fairly happy with the setup ... ONLY sometimes you just want to listen to an album more than once ... so today (with some encouragement from a fellow gradstudent) I joined Rhapsody. So far so good I've been able to listen to my favorite Noah and the Whale songs over and over again :) haha.

Anyway, if any of you have any good suggestions of some upbeat music I can listen to at work (I swear my music is such a debby downer) please let me know!

Dreaming

2010-03-25T15:06:00.001-07:00

I've been day dreaming (and I mean actively day dreaming) about rocky cliffs, the ocean, salty clean cold air, coffee and Hemingway.

I am craving a trip to Cambria or something similar.

I wish that I could interpret my life in the same simple black and white way that Hemingway writes. There is no ambiguity.

To satisfy this craving I am reading A Farewell to Arms and looking at the pictures of the ocean I took over winter break.

Balancing Act ...

2010-03-20T15:57:00.000-07:00

So I've never really been one to be good at finding balance in my life. Typically one thing or another (typically work or my social life) just takes over for a while until the things I've been avoiding or putting off push themselves to the top of the list. You know like when suddenly you decide you really just want to finish your Masters Thesis so you spend 6 months working 12 hrs a day and drinking lots of coffee and not spending any time relaxing or really enjoying your friends.

Lately ... and it makes me smile to think about this ... work has been somewhat on the bottom of my list and friends, relaxation and fun have been at the top of the list!!!! This is somewhat of a new concept for me ... learning out to actually enjoy my life and not just being a workaholic ... but seriously it has been a great ride the past few months. OK ... so right I did have to do my prelims somewhere in there, but seriously I think I put those off for as long as humanly possible and I probably could have worked a whole lot harder than I did, but whatever I passed and it no longer matters!!

Dating someone new is (as would be expected) adding an additional piece to my juggling act. Because now ... not only do I have to figure out a time to do some work (eek ... I really need to learn to be a bit more productive) AND make sure that I have time for my friends (who lets face it are really more like my family and my support here) AND find some time for myself, BUT I also want to make sure I have time to enjoy hanging out with the new guy!

The major crux to this problem is that most of the time it seems like most girls (and maybe most guys?) tend to forget about their friends when they first start dating someone new. And nothing and I mean NOTHING is worse than feeling like you are losing your best friend to some lame guy. We have all been here ... your best girl friend falls for someone and suddenly you are on the "reserve" list for when the boyfriend can't hang out or is out of town. And really ... no one likes to feel like they are second best. I know that evenutally things start to even themselves out ... but sometimes, if you are not careful, you can end up losing a friend in the process :(

Anyway, I promised myself when I first started internet dating that I would not ditch my friends for whatever guy I find ... really I would rather just give up sleeping and cleaning my house and eating healthy food than stop hanging out with my friends ... but sometimes it is just hard to know if you are really doing enough. So I guess ... for all 3 of you who read this blog ... if it ever seems like I am neglecting you (assuming that I actually end up dating this guy anyway ... who knows how he is going to handle my crazy-ness) please please please please let me know! I'm a big fan of working things out ... talking things out ... and I don't want you to end up hating me just because I am a stupid girl :(

Ok ... well I guess thats enough of a rant for today (and woo hoo for me .... posting two times in like three days!)

Finally ... I know ;)

2010-03-18T13:00:00.000-07:00

So as many of you know I am not very good at posting to this blog ... I don't know why I guess it just takes too much energy to try and organize my thoughts into something someone else could follow. I've pretty much been in an amazingly good mood since I passed my prelims on Feb 3rd. Turns out I am not a failure, and maybe ... just maybe I could actually be a decent atmospheric scientist.

During that whole crazy process I started internet dating again in order to try and keep my mind off the impending doom of the potential failure that could have been (but fortunately didn't come to fruition). Anyway, through this internet dating process ... I practiced learning how to say "no" and how to actually decide what I want for myself :) After a number of extremely awkward experiences (some good awkward, some bad awkward ... one which resulted in me having to buy some guy dinner ... ugh)... I think that maybe I have met someone who I want to get get know better. Those of you know me know that I tend to over analyze things to the point of ruining any good experience, but I am trying to find my counselors advice and just "live this experience"

So yeah ... I am happy and dating and its probably extremely annoying to half the people in my life, but oh well. I am just hoping that after all the "work" i've done the past few months trying to figure out what I want and figure out who I am ... when things start to go south again I can actually handle the situation better and things won't get as bad as they were before!

Lets see ... I've also been TAing an introduction to climate change course ... its been going OK ... lots and lots of work, but I guess that eventually I do want to teach so this is a good experience :)

I also just bought this necklace :) ... hopefully it turns out to be cute! If you don't know about Etsy.com you should!!!!!

And finally, I am really enjoying listening to Noah and the Whale today ... check them out :)

Almost to the finish line!

2010-02-02T20:44:00.000-08:00

I take my oral exam tomorrow at 10am ... eek! I really didn't study ... which is starting to freak me out now, however really I can't do anything about it. All I want to do is make it through without crying!

I have also started internet dating again ... I feel like this time around I have a much better attitude. I am trying not to take things too seriously and just "live in the moment" and enjoy myself.

Thats about all ... can't wait for tomorrow to be OVER!

T - 36 hrs

2010-01-18T18:37:00.000-08:00

Well ... I am going to start the written portion of my prelim exam on Wednesday at 9 am. At the moment I am doing anything humanly possible to not freak out ... which means I am trying really hard to stop thinking about the fact that I really didn't study ... AT ALL ... crap. I think that the really hard part will happen after the written ... when I have a week and a half to make up for how much I sucked at the written and prepare for my oral exam :(.

On a completely different note ... I went shopping today to try and find a dress for my friends wedding (which is next weekend) ... I did find something, but I am hoping that when I go shopping at home I can find something that I really really love (instead of this dress, which I just kinda sorta like). Whatever I end up wearing .. I'll make sure to post a pic later :)

updates

2010-01-16T16:26:00.000-08:00

2009 in a nutshell

In 2009 I:

1) Traveled A LOT: NYC, Israel, Moab, Colorado Springs, Australia, CA (3 times), RMNP, Lander Wyoming.

2) Taught a climate course (3.5 weeks) at Colorado College.

3) Had two respiratory illnesses (which seem to have left me with Asthmatic symptoms :( )

4) Considered (seriously) quitting grad-school ... but decided to study the West African Monsoon instead and stuck with it.

5) Started going to geeks who drink ... which is pretty awesome.

6) Started going to counseling (group and individual) ... it has been life changing, but I am somewhat concerned I am just going back to my old ways :(

7) Cried in my advisors office 3 times ... not my proudest moments, but I think we are finally communicating.

8) Had my first paper accepted to the Journal of Climate called "Great Plains Drought in Simulations of the Twentieth Century"

9) Wrote my prospectus for the PhD program (the rest of this will happen 2010)

10) Had a TON of visitors ... Erika, Ellen, Dana and Justin, Mike and Mackenzie :)

11) Went on an EPIC backpacking trip to RMNP with Nick, Michelle and Matt B. ... and by EPIC I mean EPIC.

12) Moved.

13) Was in a car accident :(

14) Started (and then stopped) internet dating ...

15) Finally developed a fondness for Fort Collins :)

2010 ... who knows what will happen?

I have no idea what to expect from 2010. I am surprisingly not stressed about taking my written and oral exams for the PhD program over the next couple of weeks. I am surprisingly excited to be TAing a 100 level introductory climate course with Scott D. and Nick. I know that I am going to get a new faster prettier and more amazing computer at work. I am helping to plan world water day activites on campus :)

I am sad because good friends will be leaving Fort Collins (some I know about, and some I am sure will be a big surprise). I am trying to decide if I should move (again) ... maybe I'll finally find a place I actually like.

I want to start listening to music more ... and attending more shows. I want to try and take a woodworking class or a pottery class and I want to start volunteering (maybe the raptor rescue place, maybe the food bank). I want to try and see more movies at the Lyric. I also plan on trying to internet date again ... who knows maybe it will be better this time.

Overall ... I hope to be more content with my life, happier with how things are, and excited about my research and my life. I am planning a trip to Europe (which will hopefully be amazing) and I want to visit Erika in NH :)

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

2009-10-07T11:58:00.000-07:00

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

2009-09-06T12:31:00.000-07:00

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

2009-09-03T22:27:00.000-07:00

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

Things I need to do ...

2009-09-02T11:31:00.000-07:00

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...

2009-08-31T12:57:00.001-07:00

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

2009-08-18T13:02:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-19T18:05:00.001-07:00

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 ...

2009-07-12T00:45:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-08T12:54:00.001-07:00

Ride my bike from Fort Collins To Estes Park :)

Life list #3

2009-07-07T11:17:00.001-07:00

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

Life list #2

2009-07-06T18:50:00.000-07:00

Backpack California's Lost Coast

life list #1

2009-07-06T13:33:00.000-07:00

Climb Kilimanjaro before I turn 30.

see previous post for title

2009-06-26T23:19:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-05T11:18:00.000-07:00

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!

2009-05-18T16:36:00.003-07:00

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

2009-05-14T23:09:00.001-07:00

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

2009-05-14T22:59:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-12T23:00:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-10T22:34:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-09T09:25:00.001-07:00

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

changing

2009-05-08T23:31:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-07T11:36:00.000-07:00

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 ...

2009-05-03T22:30:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-01T19:51:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-29T22:33:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-28T15:29:00.001-07:00

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

2009-04-27T18:04:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-26T12:12:00.000-07:00

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.

2009-04-24T07:05:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-21T18:57:00.001-07:00

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

2009-04-18T19:19:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-16T15:56:00.001-07:00

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

2009-04-09T19:29:00.001-07:00

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 ...

2009-04-05T11:01:00.000-07:00

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"

2009-04-05T10:54:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-03T23:05:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-31T10:25:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-30T08:18:00.001-07:00

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

whole new life..

2009-03-29T11:01:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-06T22:20:00.000-08:00

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

2009-03-05T20:39:00.000-08:00

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

2009-03-03T10:37:00.000-08:00

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

2009-02-25T14:46:00.001-08:00

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

2009-02-24T12:44:00.001-08:00

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

2009-02-22T22:20:00.000-08:00

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

2009-02-22T22:10:00.000-08:00

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

2009-02-16T16:22:00.000-08:00

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 ...

2009-02-06T09:44:00.000-08:00

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 St u dio Museu m 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-pr ong 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 keb ab), 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

2009-02-04T14:28:00.000-08:00

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

2009-02-03T11:19:00.001-08:00

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 :(

As per usual

2008-12-13T21:12:00.000-08:00

I am leaving for AGU (in SF) tomorrow ... and as per usual, rather than spending the day cleaning and packing, I chose to go Christmas shopping and get coffee with a friend. So now that it is 10pm I have a whole lot of things to get done before I leave in the morning, but rather than actually accomplish anything productive I am watching Law and Order SVU and drinking a beer (Winter Warlock Oatmeal Stout from Colorado Springs ... thanks Chris)!!! All of my clothes are currently spread out on the floor of my living room, and I know that everything will not fit in my suit case ... but to be honest I am just not in the mood to care. I should be excited about this meeting and about going home for the holidays, but I am feeling lazy and tired and bored (yes all at the same time). I have yet to actually figure out which sessions I plan on attending at AGU and all I can really think about is going to the Monks Kettle on Thursday with a friend from High School. Why am I such a mess all the time???

Lately I've been having trouble motivating myself. Maybe I am still burnt out from working so hard this summer?? Maybe not. I think that I am pretty much just sick and tired of my research and I need to move onto a different topic ... It has been hard for me to get myself excited about anything lately. Skiing last weekend was fun, but when I got tired I thought it was more fun to drink beer than actually ski. I did have a really good time going to see the Sounds with Matt ... but I didn't really want to leave my house that night and if I hadn't already bought my ticket I know that I would have just put on my PJ's and watched a sappy movie.

I keep telling myself that next year will be different and that I will be more productive, and settle on a a decent (normal 9-5) schedule.

On a completely different note, a friend of mine brought to my attention today that I probably have trouble getting dates here in FC, because I put absolutely no effort into looking good or putting myself out there. She also mentioned that maybe I should stop complaining about being single, and actually do something about it. I guess that I have become super lazy lately ... I mean I go to work wearing jeans and a workout t-shirt every day, I almost never brush my hair, and makeup is well ... something I have kinda just forgotten about. I think maybe my New Years resolution this year will be to actively try and make myself look a little better and try to be a little more confident about myself. Its about time.

Anyway, I am going to finish packing and try to figure out what I am going to do at AGU. This might be the only time I go to such a huge meeting (unless by some miracle I am invited to give a talk in the future)

Help!

2008-12-04T18:30:00.000-08:00

Does anyone out there in blog world want to help me figure out how to make my blog page cooler/fancier looking? I deal with computers everyday, and I can code all sorts of crazy physics stuff up ... but when it comes to dealing with software and learning how to use it ... I kinda just freak out and give up easily. I also have no idea how to attach pictures to my page ... I realize that this should be fairly easy ... like a monkey could probably do it, but I am lazy.

My phobia of electronic things is also why I don't know how to do anything cool with my phone, or chat with people on skype without accidentally calling them first. Why am I such a dork??

Oh and by blog world, I probably mean Anna or Laura ... the only people who actually read my blog :) (hint hint)

Totally Random

2008-12-02T17:50:00.001-08:00

So I was walking to the gym this afternoon and I passed a guy who was wearing one of those home arrest ankle bracelet things ... I don't know how they work exactly ... maybe he can go to and from school? But all and all I thought it was pretty funny thing to see and I thought I would share

Book Chain letter thing

2008-11-29T19:28:00.000-08:00

So Laura tagged me in this blog chain letter thing. I normally think these things are lame, but this one sounded fun, so I am passing it along.

Go to your nearest bookshelf. On the top shelf (or highest shelf with books) what book is fifth from the right and why did you love it? Now go to the bottom shelf (or lowest shelf with books). Tell us about the fifth book from the left. Then tag five of your blog buddies - link please! - do the same. Be sure to link the person who tagged you too.

Top shelf fifth from the Right -

This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

So I read this book when I was 13 and volunteering at the library during the summer and I remember really liking it. This was the start of my "I wish I was a prep school boy" phase and I was reading a lot of 1920s/30s literature (Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Elliot ...) and fantasizing about getting up early and rowing crew on a lake in New England, wearing preppy sweaters and dicking around. I realize that it is probably a little strange for a girl to dream about being a prep school boy ... but its not that I ever wanted to actually be a boy. I just wanted to live the carefree life of wealthily playboy in the 1920s. Of course if I had actually paid any attention to the the books I was reading I would have realized that life was not really what I wanted at all ... oh well. What can I say, I was a little too obsessed with the Dead Poet Society. I should probably re-read This Side of Paradise again and see what I think about it now!

Bottom shelf, fifth from the left - (this one is funny)

The Dieter's Guide to Weight Loss During Sex by Richard Smith.

So before you start getting any crazy ideas in your head ... my roommate in college my freshmen year gave me this book for my birthday. It was a pretty hilarious gift ... unfortunately for me this book is not really all that useful right now, given my current state of spinsterhood, but maybe one day (hopefully soon) I can start my new exercise regime??? To give you taste of what this book is all about I will now open to a random page and share ...

Page 85

Consequence of Premature Ejaculation for Male (I swear this is the first page I opened up to)

Activity.................................... Calories Burned

Cursing...............................................10

Apologizing........................................3

Sniveling.............................................5

Pleading for mercy............................8

Begging for another chance .............15

Haha, this book is filled with other wonderful gems ... and now when someone searched "premature ejaculation" on the internet, my blog will probably show up ...

I dont really have all that many blog friends ... so Anna and Pete you are it.

freezing freaking cold

2008-11-23T20:07:00.000-08:00

So last week I accidentally left my oven on broil for 13 hrs ... I woke up to an 80 degree sauna in my apartment and it felt great. I am a little scared to see my next electrical bill ... but i am 99% positive I will never do that again.

I have been avoiding turning on my heat this year ... but tonight when I came home it was only 57 degrees so I finally caved in and turned it on ... unfortunately other than making my apartment smell funny for 10-15 min ... nothing happened ... the heating vents did not warm up or send any heat into my apartment and it is still 57 degrees. It is hard to type/work because my hands keep getting too cold.

To make myself feel better I made stuffed bell peppers, home made mac and cheese and a salad for dinner ... no wonder I gain weight during winter :)

I am getting excited about spending thanksgiving in a yurt with everyone ... look for some pictures later this week!

I'm Back!!

2008-11-18T19:21:00.000-08:00

So a whole lot has happened since I last posted in August. I don't really have the time or want to go over it all right now, but I have decided that its about time I start blogging again ... to recap the past 3 months.

1. I finally defended my Masters on September 9th. Everything went amazingly smoothly, and I am almost (finally) starting to be proud of my work.

2. My new apartment has finally stopped smelling funny. My bathtub was leaking into the apartment below me, which was a problem since I have started taking baths 2-3 times a week.

3. I turned 25 on Nov. 2. I have decided that this is going to be the best year of my life as of yet, and I am going to work hard to make it come true.

4. My cousin got married (my cousin i have talked to exactly three times in my life). He works for AIG, AIG collapsed (or whatever happened to AIG) the day he left for his honeymoon.

5. I visited Laura in SF and had the most amazing time. I can't wait to go back in December

6. I have a hectic winter season coming up:

AGU in SF Dec 14-20

HOME in LA Dec 20-30

FC for New Years Dec 30-Jan 3

NY for CMMAP Jan 3-10

Israel for meeting Jan 11-19

7. I am going to be teaching a climate course at Colorado College in the Spring .. YAY

8. I am just starting to get out of my post masters depression funk ... now its time to find a date!

Thats all for now, will post something more exciting later

Ohh also, I got into a yelling/screaming fight with someone about climate change at the trailhead last week ... it was quite a scene i've heard :)

why today ROCKED!

2008-08-04T23:15:00.000-07:00

1) Anna defended today and did an amazing job, I am totally proud of her

2) I submitted my abstract to a drought conference today ... hopefully I get funding to go!

3) We went to the Rustic Oven for Anna's defense and somehow Dave ended up paying for my dinner... who knows how that happened

4) I had Sangria, a Rio Marg, and a Martini

5) Anna Defended today :)

6) Atmos friends ROCK!

7) I am kinda drunk, eating potstickers and posting on my blog

... need i say more???

Its been a while

2008-07-19T14:07:00.000-07:00

With the ever increasing stress and chaos involved with finishing my masters thesis, I've forgotten or avoided posting on my blog, but I think that its finally time to start up again. Lately the only things on my mind have been "must finish masters", "must not fail", "must not burn out" but now that I finally have a date set i feel like I can finally take a step back and breath a little ... even though I still have half of my thesis to write and i am still not sure what the whole point of my thesis even was.

Getting in touch with old friends from college has its plusses and minuses ... on the plus side you get to see what crazy things your friends are up to now and you get to reminisce about good times ... on the minus side you start to realize how potentially boring your life is compared to your friends from college and you remember all the bad/awkward things that happened in the past. I can't decide if the plusses out weigh the minuses yet ... well see!

Explosions in the Sky

2008-05-16T11:27:00.000-07:00

I sometimes miss living in a big city ... I miss being able to get lost in a crowd and feel pleasantly or secretly alone even though you are surrounded by hundreds of other people.

This week in brief.

2008-03-29T20:57:00.000-07:00

Work has been stressful. I spend most of my time "writing my thesis" but so far I am very unsatisfied with the product I have produced. I want to give Dave my climatology chapter sometime early this week, so I have been working my ass off, but I am still pretty nervous about what he is going to say.

On Tuesday our softball team "the snoweaters" won our first game of the Spring season. We beat the other team 17-0 ... go us!!!

I took Thursday off to go skiing with my friend Jamie at Copper. It was a blast ... I think that I am right where I was when the ski season ended net year. Next year I am going to get a pass and ski a lot more :)

Today Anna and I swam for 2 hours straight. I swam a total of 4400 yards (exactly 2.5 miles!) and Anna swam 5500 yards (3.125 miles). After swimming we had breakfast at Luciles ... it was amazing. We had beignets, breakfast burritos, coffee and amazing buttery biscuts. I love working out and then getting to pig out!

After swimming I came home and wrote a little before heading over to Katies house for a softball bbq. All and all it was a good time and we came up with names for the backs of each of our team t-shirts. We thought it was too boring to use our actual names so we came up with some pretty dorky nick names ... here are some examples:

Rachel (me) - "rmac", like bigmac i guess??

Jim - "Lord Kelvin"

Katie - "Perfect 2" - she is #2

Michelle - "Michilicious"

Kazuyo - "choo choo" - something funny that came up when playing train dominos

Nick - "sequesterer" - as in carbon sequestration!

I know this makes us pretty dorky ... but I think we are freaking awesome!

Tomorrow I am going to spend the whole day working... trying to finish up this chapter so that I can finally move on and do some more analysis!!

@ The Bean Cycle

2008-03-20T08:30:00.000-07:00

The Bean Cycle is a local coffee shop here in fort collins connected with your everyday anarchist used bookstore. I discovered it on a random date I went on the first week I lived here in CO ... and well lets just say it was the best thing that came out of that date. I've spent many a morning/afternoon/night working there, drinking coffee and hanging out with friends. All and all I love it. It is owned by two sisters and their brother ... I think (don't hold me to that) and everyone there is into riding bikes and hanging out and spending time outside. It has a good vibe. But as always, there are two things that really freaking piss me off about the Bean Cycle ... and I just need to vent.

1) Sometimes their service just sucks. They don't really seem to have any policy on how much time people are allowed to spend randomly talking to people rather than making my coffee. There have been many occasions where I have stood in line for over 10 min ... while they make one persons smoothie and I have just left because I don't think that they will ever get to me. Not so good for business if you ask me. They need to make a list and write down people's names and then call them up to the counter when their drinks are done ... I HATE WATING IN LINE!!!! There is also this one girl who works there who drives me nuts ... mostly because she is very slow and she always tries to have these weird/random conversations with every single person who she makes coffee for. Whatever ... maybe I am just a bitch.

2) I am worried that I might die from drinking the water there. Their tap water tastes like their bathroom smells... which I realize is totally gross, but it is also true, and I am not the only one who feels that way. I always make sure to bring a big bottle of water with me when I go to the Bean Cycle ... because well I can't drink the plain water they provide. It has a metallic, moldy dingy gross taste and I am pretty sure its because the building is over 100 years old and the pipes have never been changed. If I had children .. I wouldn't allow them to drink things made with the water from the bean cycle for fear of lead poisoning. Funny how I don't really notice this taste when I drink the coffee there ... good thing :)

But after all my moaning and bitching ... I still end up at the bean cycle at least once a week ... if not more. It's awesome :) Fair Trade coffee makes me happy!

weekend recap

2008-03-09T14:48:00.000-07:00

So I just posted a blog 2 min ago, but it left me feeling unsatisfied. It didn't say all that I wanted it to say and I am only leaving it up, because I think that this post will probably also miss out on a few points that I possibly made in the previous post.

I have mixed feelings about this weekend. It started out pretty good when I went to Melissa's birthday party on Friday night and had a good time! Then Saturday morning I woke up and went to my yoga class. I've been going to this class since the semester started, and I love it. Going to yoga regularly has been amazing. I am really starting to get back into the swig of things and this class energizes me for the weekend. I am starting to remember why I used to love going to yoga and it is helping me to focus on the more spiritual aspects of my life. Sometimes, not really being a particularly religious person, I feel like I don't really know how express my more creative side, but going to yoga really opens up a whole new/more interesting part of my life. I also love how the instructor really emphasizes "honoring your practice" and "honoring yourself". It helps remind me to value the good parts of my life, and to appreciate the person that I am.

After yoga I went home and made the most amazing chicken salad sandwich ever ... I am obsessed with chicken salad especially when I put grapes and cashews in it :). After that I headed over to the bean cycle to get some work done, and I was amazingly productive. At this point of my weekend, I thought ... nothing could really go wrong and I was going to have the best weekend ever, ... but then I went to softball practice.

Practice was really not the greatest, and it reminded me of why I quit playing at the age of 13 (when I had only started playing when i was 12). To start, I was trying to break in my new glove ... and I couldn't catch the ball if my life depended on it. Then about 15 min into the practice I got hit with a line drive right on my kneecap. I really really had to fight the urge to cry and throw up, lay down on the ground and give up immediately, but I "manned up" and finished out the practice. And let me tell you ... I felt like crap. I couldn't catch anything, and Jim (the nice guy he is) kept trying to give me pointers/help me out, but mostly I just felt really really bad every time a ball went past me and I just wanted to go home and cry ... which is exactly what I did. After biking home, I walked into the door, walked up to my roommates room and FELL APART. So of course to make myself feel better ... I went to McDonalds.... a not so good move when you are trying to loose a little bit of weight :).

Fortunately, Saturday night ended up being pretty good and it turned my weekend back around. I went over to Katie's house for a "girls night" of laughing and drinking. We talked about the most random things like porn, climbing, crushes...and a few girls even dressed up in hot denim one-piece outfits that I will post as soon as I get my camera back.

And this morning I woke up a little beaten and brused, but emotionally in a pretty good mood. I made another chicken salad sandwhich and headed to a coffee shop to do work. And to finish out this somewat weird weekend I plan on going to a relaxation yoga class that Anna has been trying to get me to go to for a while. My knee is pretty sore so I might just end up doing "child's pose" for half the class, but hopefully It will be restorative and I'll be ready to tackle yet another hectic week :)

random observations

2008-03-09T14:28:00.000-07:00

I have finally started getting to know some of the people in the classes below me in the Atmos department at CSU and I have to say ... they rock!

Going to a friends birthday party on a Friday night, drinking some good beer and talking with friends is probably one of my top ten ways to spend an evening out.

Waking up on a Saturday morning at 8:30am and heading to an amazing yoga class at 9:30 is the best way to start out the weekend.

Breakfast has become my favorite meal of the day. I wish that I lived in Boulder so that I could go to Burnt Toast or Sunflower every single weekend. I love going out to breakfast, ordering a huge cup of coffee, eating an amazing European style breakfast and reading the paper. I wish that there was a good crepe place in Fort Collins ... or a place where I could get a breakfast quiche and a salad :)

I tend to be very loud when I am in a group of people and sometimes I feel like I monopolize the conversation. The sad part is that I really don't want to monopolize the conversation, because most people have significantly cooler/more exciting things to say that I do ... I just like to talk and I get over enthusiastic. I have been trying to work on this ... but so far I have pretty much failed.

I don't think that I could survive grad-school (and I know that I wouldn't have survived undergrad) without coffee shops. Its one of my favorite ways to spent time working on the weekend.

People watching is awesome. I sometimes wonder if people ever get tired "trying" too look a certain way ... don't they feel like they are constantly playing the part of a hippy or punk rocker etc. I don't think that I really have any specific style...I don't think that dressing a certain way actually defines my identity ... talking and laughing defines who I am :)

Girls like to gossip.

A few of us got together last night to drink, play games and gossip. Lets just say that drinking and gossiping won out ... although we did play catch-phrase for about 15 min.

Climbing people really only talk about climbing and they really only have friends who climb or they try to get their non climbing friends to start climbing. I will never "fit in" to the climbing community ... but I really do enjoy doing it. I am trying to figure out a way where I can climb, have fun, and not be horribly intimidated by other climbers.

I should climb outside more this summer. I should also climb more peaks :).

It's almost summer in Fort Collins. I can't wait!

I put up with Fort Collins in the winter, because I know how amazing it is to live here in the summer.

tuesday night embarrassment

2008-03-04T20:33:00.000-08:00

For the past year or so I have been playing poker at a local bar every Tuesday night. At first I was really bad ... because I had no idea how to play poker. I would joke around with everyone at the table, and they would give me pointers and help me figure out how I should have played my hand. It was nice ... no expectations for being good allowed me to really just enjoy playing poker and hanging out. Then randomly, after a little experience I started playing pretty well...I would make it to the final table and a lot of the guys were "impressed". But recently ... I don't know what happened, but I have started to play like crap. I am super unconfident about my playing, I over analyze every move and even when I get cards I don't play them strong enough so I end up losing on the River. To be honest ... I don't even know if I like playing poker at this bar anymore, yet for some reason I keep going week after week.

What I really want to do is get a weekly (or maybe a twice monthly) game going with some friends. It would be fun to just drink, hangout, and possibly win some money :) ... I think I will more actively recruit people to play poker and hopefully sometime soon I will get my game back and start to enjoy playing again.

3rd person commentary

2008-03-02T19:57:00.000-08:00

So I spend too much time on facebook. I spend so much time on facebook, that I now can only think it terms of status messages:

Rachel is pretty sure that Gilmore Girls gives her a false sense of how the world works. She is pretty sure that she will not fall in love with a Diner owner from a small town or marry into a rich family so she should probably start working on her thesis so that she can support herself. She is also pretty sure that no one is quite that honest or witty ... ever.

Rachel is grumpy today because it was cold and windy. She also had to work on a project for her writing class, which went surprisingly well.

Rachel is a perfectionist and is annoyed when other people are not.

Rachel maybe isn't as happy with her life right now as she would like to be.

Rachel has doubts about grad-school.

Rachel is thinking it might be a good idea to delete her facebook account so that she might get back to being a normal person.

Rachel loves neutral milk hotel and joanna newsom.

Rachel wishes that she spent more time doing the things she likes to do only she can't really remember what it is that she likes to do so it is kinda a catch 22

Rachel really didn't like reading catch 22.

Rachel really wants a beer and to be skinner, but the former really doesn't help the latter.

Rachel should be cleaning the kitchen, but she would much rather blog.

Rachel is wishing that the piles of crap in her room, her office, her car (ie her life) would just clean themselves up because she doesn't have the energy to deal with them.

Rachel is worried that she identifies with the Tegan and Sara song "You Wouldnt like me" a little to much lately

Rachel is wondering where her self-esteem went lately and wants to know how she can get it back.

Rachel hopes that she will go to Europe this summer or fall

Rachel plans way to much of her life and wants to be more spontaneous, can you help her with that?

Rachel hopes that at work tomorrow she will be productive and not go on facebook, randomly talk to people in the hallway for hours and feel happy when she goes climbing.

Rachel regrets eating an entire box of mac and cheese yesterday ... and today

Rachel thinks that if she had worked out today she might have been in a better mood

Rachel overall is a happy person, she is just experiencing some turbulence today.

Ok the third person thing has finally gotten to be a little annoying, maybe I am done thinking that way...

Caffeine is my friend and I am darn proud of it!

2008-02-29T11:02:00.001-08:00

So today has already been a pretty freaking awesome day and its only noon!!!!

I think my day actually started last night when I decided that I was no longer going to be sick and I was going to stop being super lazy and get my ass to the gym to go swimming in the morning. So I woke up 6a.m., which under normal circumstances would have been a super pain in the ass, but for some reason it was really easy for me to get up today. Since waking up was a breeze I also got to eat some breakfast, make a salad for lunch and get to the gym to meet Anna a few min early (something that almost never ever happens!) I thought my swim today was going to be complete crap because I had slacked off all week, but it turned out to be pretty good and I even swam 1200 yards, 200 of which were pretty fast/hard intervals. After my swim I was feeling pretty jolly (haha jolly!) so I decided to do a few handstands and front/back flips in the water which totally took me back to my summer camp days at Young Set Club, man I miss being 10 sometimes.

Anna and I finished swimming pretty early which was good because I had to take my car into the shop to get the oil changed and get my brakes checked out and I wanted to stop and get some food on the way. Excitingly, the shop I went to today is right next to Panera Bread and so I got to eat a cinnamon crunch bagel and drink a huge cup of coffee which I "accidentally" put half and half in ... so it was an extra wonderfully good cup of coffee. The shop told me it was going to take about an hour to check out my car, so I spent that hour at Panera Bread "writing my thesis" which really does need to have quotes around it because I don't even really know what it means to "write a thesis" i just kinda aimlessly wrote down some stuff about precipitation and call it "work". Unfortunately (but well actually fortunately), when I got to the shop they had "forgotten" to even look at my car ... at first i was pissed because I had to sit there for an extra 45 min waiting for them to check out my car, but then they told me that they were not going to charge me for the work ... so for an extra 45 min I got a free oil change and let me tell you ... it was worth it (I don't make 35 dollars an hour!!!) so to celebrate I took my car to the car wash to have a shower ... which i realize is not so environmentally friendly, but then again I am pretty darn lazy :(

So now I am at work, blogging instead of "writing my thesis" and soon I am going to leave work to check out the new Mountain Shop which is opening next week. My friend Seth is going to give me the grad tour before it even opens!!! Also it's something like 55 degrees outside today, and it's possibly going to be in the 70s tomorrow so it really does seem like spring is almost here!!!!

Bridget Jones anyone?

2008-02-28T20:39:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking about this quote from Bridget Jones' Diary lately...

"At times like this, continuing with one's life seems impossible ... and eating the entire contents of one's fridge seems inevitable. I have two choices: to give up and accept permanent state of spinsterhood and eventually be eaten by wild dogs... or not, and this time i choose not. I will not be defeated by a bad man and an American stick insect! Instead, i choose vodka. And Chaka Khan."

Only in my case it reads:

"At times like this, continuing with one's life seems impossible ... and eating the entire contents of one's fridge seems inevitable. I have two choices: to give up and accept permanent state of poor graduate studentness and eventually be eaten by wild dogs... or not, and this time i choose not. I will not be defeated by my advisor and an awful thesis topic! Instead, i choose vodka. And Andrew Bird."

Ok so maybe that is a little extreme, but lately I have been feeling like eating the entire contents of my fridge ... only I really don't have any food. And I really would rather be drinking than thinking about drought over the Great Plains, but probably I would choose a good stout or porter. And my love life is pretty much nonexistent, unless you count cuddling with my roommates cat and having a 2 hour allergy attack. So, Bridget Jones, I totally understand you!!!