Dreaming

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 ...

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 ;)

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!

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

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

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

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!!!)