I did spend most of my time hanging out at home helping out where I was needed. My father had major surgery just recently; he had emergency surgery to sew up his perforated stomach and intestine. He had been having awful stomach problems since last June and every time he went to the doctors they couldn’t figure it out. Well they did now. His intestines were so twisted up that it wouldn’t let anything through so his system basically ruptured.

But now his back and feeling better each day that passes. It’s a big relief. I worry my parents push themselves too hard and sometimes neglect their own health. At least this time, it wasn’t his fault. In fact, I have somehow convinced my family that we should join a gym together and help each other exercise for our future. Next week I’ll be back on a track/treadmill and it’ll feel great! I really do miss exercising on a normal basis. Ever since I took a conditioning class I have been having weird dreams where I run around the block and after I build up a sweat I feel great. I should be doing that now and I really have no excuse. So therefore I am putting myself back into the game. Except this time I will be looking at all the fun classes and programs they offer at the YMCA! Also I can feel better because I can help my mother get the help she needs! It’s a wonderful opportunity!

I also have been having dreams about music. I’m back in my high school band and I create music with everyone once more. Another thing I miss dearly. Maybe I should get my oboe out one of these days. Just for a little satisfaction. I know that my real passion is playing together with everyone to make music.

Another crazy thing that’s been happening is my crazy allergies. Now, those who talk to me on a regular basis know that I cannot staaaaaand to go into a hospital. I hate the environment and it brings so many bad memories that I panic and freak out. BUT I have been getting better. I did make it to the hospital to see my mother last year without freaking out (however the time before that I nearly fainted in the hallway; thank goodness for the nurse who saw me and caught me) and I did well when I visited my father just a while ago after his surgery. However it is still difficult for me to focus when my terrifying memories keep resurfacing. So when I woke up last Monday with a splitting headache all throughout my head, pain behind my eyes, clogged ears, and a stuffed up + painfully clogged nose I could not take it any longer and went to see a doctor. And all of those awful symptoms were AFTER I took zrytex and loratadine the night before.
So I went and got my new nasal spray (flonase) and within one day I felt no more headaches or pain behind my eyes. And after 2.5 days my nose was clear and I could breathe properly again. Wonderful! However I still have clogged ears so I still take zrytex to lower that symptom down. None-the-less I couldn’t be more pleased. I have had slight allergy problems since I was a small kid during the spring and fall but nothing as serious as this. In fact it only worsened to an unbearable point this spring. I think it’s the increasing winter mold but I could be wrong. If I had the patience I would see an allergist specialist and they would figure it out.

Well let’s see what else has been going on… I went to see Alice in Wonderland in IMAX 3D with Andre and Jill. I liked it; it was worth the $9 experience. Of course Andre wasn’t impressed (as he is usually not) but I still liked it. I am excited to see How to Train Your Dragon when it comes out later this month.

I have been thinking about what I should do for my birthday and I still don’t know. I think I need ideas. Does anyone have any? It would be most appreciated! My birthday is in May so I still have time to think of something.

My Japanese film class has been, so far, the best class this semester. I like watching these Samurai movies, it’s great! However I am not the greatest at interpreting scenes and what not. I do my best but some things are hard for me. It’s not like Genetics lab (which I miss extremely!!!!) It’s a different kind of fun.

It seems that Anung and Dan are doing just fine. I think Anung is thinking about things waaaaay too much. Seriously. She’s very concerned about the aftermath of graduating and where they will go in graduate school. But right now, I think she should focus on the here and now and worry about the future when it comes. Otherwise you’re wasting the present. I can’t tell if she genuinely feels that she must analyze everything and doesn’t want to be pushy or if she just isn’t used to being selfish. But either way I think she needs to stop thinking and just enjoy. She sometimes can be too considerate of others. It’s one of her good qualities but sometimes it can be too much. But I believe they will figure it all out and they will be very happy.

On another note, my friend Diane and I are becoming closer and closer friends. We seem to like hanging out at TGIF; have a beer, food, and good stories always was a good combination. I haven’t really heard from some of my other friends in a while. I partly blame myself; I am not the best when it comes to keeping in touch. Bad me.

However the last few days (if you sent me anything) were not my fault! My phone decided it was time to fail me. I had to go into a store and complain (which I hate being the bitchy customer but this needed to be fixed). I had a maintenance warranty which meant I could get a replacement but (of course) they did not have one in stock. So they ordered it on Friday. Which meant I couldn’t do anything (including making/receiving phone calls, text messages or any other form of communication). Oh man. That was a very sad weekend (Ahahaha, I need my social activity damnit!) So I spent most of my time on facebook. On Tuesday evening I received my replacement and now I’m back in business! And actually this phone has a slightly different system on it so it’s even better! Yay! My battery even lasts longer! My older phone could barely last an entire day without dying but now (even though it’s the same battery but in a different phone) it lasts a long time!

It seems that Lane Bryant is losing another manager and they are looking for a replacement. I guess a couple of the managers suggested me to take the place but while I am still in school full-time until the 15th of May I don’t know if I will get any further than just a suggestion. I know that my performance and value at the store are out-standing and I have been working there for 3 years but that still does not qualify me at the moment. I need my availability to open before I can even consider being a manager. But man… that would be sweet! Who knows what will happen. Perhaps that position will be given to someone else but whatever the decision I will accept it. I like working there. There are times where I want to leave out of frustration (due to other coworkers) but the benefits far out-weigh the problems.

I find my mood is unstable at the moment and it’s making me concerned. I mean it’s not extreme or anything but I find I can’t be just happy. And I am not too sure why that is but I will find out. Don’t worry, I use meditation to calm myself and listen to good music to relax my body. It definitely helps but alas it is only temporary.

I miss everyone. I hope you miss me too.

Anung has come back from Laos and Thailand! I think she seemed to have an okay time only because it was with her family. She is too much of a loner when it comes to traveling. However the time apart (2+ weeks) from Dan seemed to have strengthened their bond. The love birds continue to sing!

I tried to cut the nails of my two birds today………. That was interesting. They were scared and Rowan tried every chance to peck my hand which didn’t work since I had gloves on. But none-the-less their nails were clipped down and they are fine. They are definitely weary of me now. It’s alright though since I am the one that gives them treats and what not.

Just before spring semester started up my brother and I have been playing Borderlands like crazy. The game is addicting in a very bad way in which I want to do nothing but play it. >__<
In fact… I'm going to right now!

A new year has begun! What challenges and new adventures lay ahead! This winter break has been more hectic than others with some many things going on. I still go to my genetics lab in order to continue my project on the SPY suppressor gene. So far so good. Hopefully my results will be conclusive! I am also working 40hrs/week at Lane Bryant at the MOA where construction has begun. The construction has certainly slowed traffic into the store. But the new store will be beautiful!

All is well with my family: my father hasn’t had any stomach pains since October and my mother seems to be hanging in. She definitely needs to motivate herself into exercising on a daily basis. My brother is bored as usual but he still is jubilant about finishing his undergraduate career! He graduated with a Bachelors of Science with an emphasis on food management and agricultural business. He is currently looking for a job. My puppies are happy and my cat is ever-so-affectionate. My new birds are content and I have discovered that they LOVE celery leaves. It’s rather cute! Here is a couple of pictures of the puppies usually resting spot during the week day nights.

The New Years party was fun! Lots of people came, in fact more people than I thought! Andre and Brian were already on their way to being drunk by the time I arrived. Brian insisted all night that I drink with him. In which I responded that I could not since I was driving home in order to get a decent night’s sleep in order to be functional at work the following day. We socialized most of the night and played a few games. Telo-pictionary was great! I also gave Andre his belated xmas gifts! I drew and colored two Bleach pictures for him: one was Grimmjow and the other was Grimmjow and Ichigo. I thought they turned out great! Of course while I was coloring them I re-realized why I hated coloring: I can never get the skin tone right. Here are a couple of pictures from that night!

It’s been a while hasn’t it? Well today is the last day of the year and so far my reflection of this year has been very positive. Many of my friends are dating and are very happy. I am continuing to get closer and closer to my dream job of working in a genetics lab. Lane Bryant continues to value me as an employee and I have made so many good friends. I have made it my plan to go to Japan in August.
Of course there have been bumps in the road along with the good of this year. In fact many of these bumps have made me a better person. I feel that I have become a more reliable friend and a competent daughter. I managed to pass my classes and learned many new things.

I bought and received many things; I bought 3 new orchids which are content and growing new shoots, leaves, and roots! I bought some awesome clothes from Lane Bryant and bought some great gifts for xmas. I received heart-warming gifts for xmas as well. For example I have received 2 Society Finches in which I named Rowan and Adrian. Ronan is the finch with very little white on his head and a short tail, while Adrian is the finch with a lot of white on his head and a long black tail.

Right now is my winter break until Spring semester begins around January 17th. I’m taking way more credits than I probably should but 6 of the 19 credits are for a minor. They should not be too difficult, probably just time consuming. Right now my winter break is being used to work full time and hang out with friends. Eric came back one week and that was constant get togethers. Eric’s tire ended up getting holes and that was interesting as I have never been in a car with a flat tire. We had to go back to his house to drive another car and when we finally got out we could smell burning rubber. That was not good. We made it to Khan’s and had a great number of people show up. We had around 12-15 people show up and it was great. And another time we went to Cyndi’s party over at Holiday Inn. We saw The Princess and the Frog which was the first original Disney Movie in a long time and I was impressed. Elyse is excited for How to Train Your Dragon and I definitely can’t wait either! It’s gonna be great!
Well it’s time for the New Years Party to begin and I can’t wait!

Okay, what’s been going on? Let’s see…
I went with Andre down to Gustavus to visit Brian and get away for a bit. That was fun. We ended up going to the Anime club and I proceeded to get annoyed by one of the guys that showed up. He would not shut up about how he hated the romance in Bleach and kept asking “What? When did that happen? This doesn’t make sense!” Which was ridiculous since he kept talking during all the explanation scenes. But otherwise it was fun getting away from Bloomington and to hang out with Brian and Andre. They also explained Magic the Gathering card game to me. Sounds interesting but I’m pretty sure I want to save my money for Japan!

It had been decided that my coworker, Shay and I will be going to Japan next year in August. Time to save all my money for the most amazing trip I will have ever experienced! I’m so excited! I might even visit a friend in Korea!

All of my classes are coming to an end and next semester’s classes have been registered. The end of my undergraduate career is in sight. Thank goodness! I’m ready for a break and yet at the same time I have a small sadness. It’s fun learning so many things about life. I will definitely miss my genetics lab course. It was so much fun and I met many interesting people. We had a major project that dubbed “Drosophilia Unknown” in which we analyze Drosophilia flies and identify mutant phenotypes. We then made multiple crosses to identify the nature and location of each mutation. It was awesome! We had white-eyed mutants and figured out that the white-eye phenotype was the result of polygenic behavior. Polygenic means that the white-eyes will only appear if two genes are present; in our case the presence of plum eyes and bright eyes created white eyes.

Okay, well I need to eat lunch and get going for a couple of essays! I will write more when I get more time!

Ecology with Lab (3cr)
General Microbiology with Lab (4cr)
Endocrinology (3cr)
Directed Research working with Arabidopsis thaliana and identifying possible suppressor genes (3cr)
Japanese Theater (3cr)
Samurai Slashers: A Look at Japanese Period Film (3cr)

The last two are for my Asian Languages and Literature minor. I thought that there would be something more exciting to take relating to Japanese but alas this semester sucks for classes. I’m sure I will do fine in those classes. I just have to make sure I check with my adviser to ensure that I GET my minor. Otherwise there will be a verrrrrry pissed azn.
I definitely expect to be unbelievably busy, stressed, and insane next semester. I mean… I’m taking 3 science courses, with directed research (in which I write a 10-14 page paper, of course in the format of a scientific article) and two extra cultural classes! I’m definitely insane. Definitely. My life rocks.

In other random news, there is apparently massive drama going on at my work at Lane Bryant. I was asked to hang out and listen to my coworkers after work on Sunday night and was even treated to some nachos by my friend Liz. We all generally complained about certain arrogant attitudes expressed by certain people and other screwed up things. I expressed my worries about the store being reduced in size this coming spring and who would be laid off. While we were discussing all this we had to listen to awful karaoke (apparently Canteena now has karaoke Sunday nights). AND we kept having these weird guys going by staring at us with a “wtf are you doing in here?” look on their faces. It was disturbing the girls and I just laughed. We also had a crappy waitress. It was awful. She took our order, messed it up, didn’t deliver the food and didn’t give us silverware. So here we were staring at our food without any utensils. Thank god nachos only requires hands, but the others couldn’t really use their hands nor wanted to. She had an attitude too; the epitome of awful customer service. We left a $1 tip per bill.

So Halloween was great! I threw a party where Andre very graciously allowed me to have it over at his place. My parents would go crazy if I had over at my place! Besides his place is much bigger and cooler. So Friday (10/30) Jill, Andre, and I worked together to get all the lovely decorations up. It was pretty sweet looking. We had streamers, red and purple lights, random party accessories, balloons with permanent marker art on them, and more. We were watching random haunting shows and Andre pretty much died from how awful they were. Hahahaha! Jill loved her balloon art.

Halloween day, Anung came over early that afternoon. I unfortunately realized that I had a Japanese essay due Monday and would not have time other than Saturday afternoon. So I was working on that for a good 30-60 minutes when she came. I didn’t want to do that since we barely get time together any more but i had to (except I found out Monday that I was mistaken about the due date and finished the essay one week ahead of time. Freaking lame!).
After that we got some more groceries and headed for the mall. I am sooooo poor after buying everything for the party that I really couldn’t afford anything. Anung bought me lunch, thank god! We went to MOA and hooooooooly cow it was packed! Lots of little kids dressed up, most of them looking annoyed or humiliated in some sort of way. We picked my friend Liz up who awesomely bought all the booze for the night!
We headed to Andre afterwords and got dressed and started cooking. I had apple cider which was very much liked all around. Andre and I were vampires, Liz was a dead Alice from Wonderland, Anung a necromancer, Jill and Ryan were zombies, Mike was a graveyard ghost, Dan was a something undead, etc. It was great. I should have gotten a big group picture. Damn.
We watched re-animator which ended up being like a MST3000 (Mystery Science Theater 3000) event. Good times with a weird old horror movie classic. Then we had dancing and social time. Totally forgot about the bobbing for apples and mummy wrap/TPing.
Overall it was good. I think everyone liked it (hopefully). It was a lot of fun and I’m glad I put it together.

As a random side note, I absolutely love genetics and how amazingly interesting it is. I cannot help but get giddy with all the unique mechanisms and how crazy our bodies are at preserving life. I definitely love learning stuff from my Developmental Biology and Genetics Lab. It’s really fun working with Drosophlia. They are creepy when you’re using a dissecting microscope and they kinda twitch and squirm. Also it’s disgusting when you accidentally behead one of them.

In other news I have started my new “internship” with Dr. Neil and Kerry. I was supposed to work with double mutants based on Dr. Lynn’s notes but they ended up being too confusing and riddled so I was given another small project for the time being. I am working with cytokinins and how they affect SPINDLY (also called spy agent which affects gibberillin activity). I basically have gotten an overview of my project and start planting Friday. Yay! I still need to research some stuff about this project so things are still a little muddled.
I definitely appreciate Dr. Neil and Kerry’s patience when it comes to explaining everything about Spy agent and how it works. It’s definitely interesting.

That’s it for now. Maybe I’ll post some pictures from the Halloween Party but most of them are posted on Facebook. Leave a side comment if you want me to post some pictures.

I have a few things lately that have been a rather puzzlement in my tiny little head.
(1) Why is it hard for me to accept my limitations and realize that I am no longer nor was really important? I seem to have this idea engraved into my head that I am right and should be the center of attention. I really need to cease this. I am not a person that others should bend over backwards to be by my side and I (likewise) should not let others walk over me. I feel that the real root of this problem can be accomplished with personal contemplation but sometimes I need to write things out in order to understand.
(2) When the HELL did I start thinking that everyone is a complete bitch/bastard towards me? Or maybe the individuals that I have interacted with just… coincidentally were upset and responded in a slightly negative way? I don’t know, but either way I am sick of people talking to me like I am the biggest idiot that roamed the Earth. I ask simple questions… give me NICE simple answers.
(3) In what direction am I going and when did I start moving? I feel like this semester has been a blur of motion. Mostly college related activities and studying but I still manage to have a couple hours of freedom every now and then. The few times that I am free I usually prefer to spend it writing in my blog. I have had moments where I go shopping or meeting friends but I just feel like I haven’t had a quiet, empty, moment of complete nothing-ness. (I feel that my brain deserves one).

Well those are just some of the confusing things that are happening to me right now. I just found out that I am now officially an intern in Dr. Neil’s lab. I’m going to have my own project working with double mutants. I am to meet with him tomorrow for more details. This week is crazy (similarly to other weeks) but I am particularly excited for Saturday. I just need to make sure I finish immediate homework by Friday since I will probably do nothing this weekend.

I’m having a Halloween party! Woooo! Would anyone care to join? I set up a facebook event too so please check to see if you got an invite and please respond! I would like to get a head count of how many people approximately will be able to make it so please let me know! ♥

So far this week has been awesome and some unexpected pleasantries have happened! Well I hope they don’t turn on me since I do enjoy pleasantness! I am hoping to carve my pumpkins this weekend! Woo hoo! My mom wanted me to do a couple dog etches (cause she’s ridiculous and wants Halloween to be cute) and I have my very own pumpkin so that I can carve whatever I want.

Just a short post today! Hopefully I’ll have some time later to write something of much more substantial value!