And the pictures begin

Here are the long awaited photos.  They are ridiculously out of order because of my camera restarting the time and date all the time, but whatever.

Me at graduation.  I have a diploma!

Most of the family at my graduation.  Nikki was home with the girls, and she was missed!

My friend Amy and me.  We danced together for a couple of years.

The physics department.  Well, actually most of us.  A few students missed the photo.

Here's me hugging Yuki.  I nannied for her family for about six months.  She's adorable and extremely smart.

Here's Sarah and Yuki and I.  Such a loving family!

This is quite a bit older.  This is my 21st birthday in the Netherlands.  We were at a bar and saw a leopard print hat hanging on the wall.  The bartender let me wear it the rest of the night.  Eric and I are acting like typical American cowboys.

This is Simon.  He was Eric's supervisor.  We were on our work retreat.  He's driving one of the three boats we used to go around the rivers.

And here's my supervisor, Martin.  He's a lot more outgoing, if you can't tell.

And here's a great picture of my boss.  He's also a little crazy.

Here's a lot of people from my work.  We were playing a trivia game.

And here's Eric and Martin on a two person swing.

We were playing Farmer's golf.

Here's my two bosses in a very animated conversation.

Here are Alex's friends from Apeldoorn.  They were really nice, and kind of excited to have to use their English.

Not sure how to get this right side up.  But this is Halloween.  Eric happened to me making an extremely attractive face. haha

And here's Martin in his favorite pink chair getting ready to watch the Blair Witch Project on Halloween.

My boss and her kids carved pumpkins!

Here's the room I stayed in when I took the GRE in Brussels.  It was kind of nice

And here is the school I took the test at.  It's so pretty.

This was a random piece of artwork in Brussels.  Not sure what it is though.

And a clock with the 12 Disciples.

This is one of the Zwarte Pete that helps Sinta Klauss.

Me with Alex's family.  A little weird to put that up now, but they're cute.

A huge Zwarte Pete.  Note it's about a story tall.

Sinta Klauss's white horse.

The Musee d Orsey.  I don't think I spelled that right.  Deana and I were visiting Susannah.

The Eiffiel tower sparkles every hour.

Notre Dame

And here starts Rome, and less captions.

Now, we've gotten to playing with the girls last Christmas?

My old roommate Carol and I all dressed up for the president's ball.

Melissa and I dressed up for a funny party.

And now the road trip!
This is Maitland  

Pistachio near the Sinclair Dino. lol

The graduation party at the end of the road trip.

And the pretty dogs!

Vegas.  With the fake effiel tower.

Me with Miss Atomic Bomb

Basically a slide rule, but for radiation.

More of the graduation party.  This is my fave pic of KaeLee.

The best picture of my parents.  On our road trip in AZ.

New Apartment, New school, New lifestyle

I know it's been forever since my last post, and I truely was going to put up pictures this time.  I just downloaded all of the pictures on my camera and organized them.  There were upwards of 2000 pics and I've been working on this for almost an hour.  So, you will just have to wait.  But in the meantime....

I love almost every aspect of being in AZ.  It's warm, sunny.  The people are great.  My classes are super interesting and I have a good mix of easy and challenging classes.  Pistachio is happier than ever.  I just really hate my apartment.  I did not realize how much of a rip off this place is until I got here.  My friend pays less than have of what I do for a two bedroom triplex.  I'm in a dinky little studio apartment.  I'm so sick of my bedroom, kitchen, living room and dining room being the same room!  Another one of my friends has a two bedroom house, that is gorgeous for slightly more than what I pay.  Let's just say I will be happy when this lease is over.  Also, I make about $25 less a month than my rent is.  Thank goodness I get an extra $3000 a term as a stipend, and I have some savings.  Needless to say.  I'm finally living the poor college student life.  It's a good experience though.  It forces me to budget and really look at where I am spending my money.

On an entirely different note, I know that mom and grandma Loretta will ask about boys.  So, I suppose I can indulge the two of you.  The boy I met on the first day I was here who gave me a tour around campus is still in the boyfriend running.  He's very sweet, and we are good an entirely different things.  We compliment each other really nicely that way.  If we never date, he will still be a really great friend.  He's one of those friends that you never really want to lose.  It may seem weird that I can tell that already, but it just fits.

I went on a trip to Prescott last weekend and represented the U of A at a fair celebrating AZ's centennial.  Shelby (one of my new friends) and I had some people really excited about girls in science and telling us how proud they are of us.  It was pretty cool.  We were one of the few science groups with girls, and we were the PhD students in our groups and all of the boys were undergraduates.  It was pretty funny to have a group where the smartest people in it were the ladies.  It was a nice change to be respected over a man in science.

As for classes, I really like my math class this term.  It's taught a lot differently than what I am used to.  Usually the professor will lecture for the entire period and take questions, but this is totally different.  We watch the lectures online and do our homework before each class.  The homework is never turned in, but instead we discuss it in class.  Then we do challenge problems and have a mini quiz at the end of each class.  I really think I learn better this way.

I still haven't found a research group yet.  So far, I have talked with five groups and three of them will not work out.  But only a handful of my class has actually found a group yet, and most those that have did their undergraduate here and already knew which professor they wanted to work with.  Fear not.  I will find a group as soon as I can.  I have to tutor until I do.  It's super boring.  I'm pretty sure they do this as motivation to find a group. haha.

Wow, I have been awake for an hour and a half, and I have yet to start homework.  As I have my first midterm on Tuesday, I'm going to cut this shorter than planned.  Look forward to pictures, hopefully this weekend I will get most of them up.

Happy Birthday Mom!

It is my mother's birthday.  I hope you have a lovely day mom.  As for things going on here I have a virus :(  I've been coughing with a fever and just gross for a few days now.  Hopefully it gets better soon.  The doctor thinks I should still go to class "if I can."  What does that even mean?  I am physically capable of walking to class.  Definitely not capable of keeping a train of thought going for too long. My brain has checked out.  Let's just say thank goodness for spell check becauses checked was definitely "ckeck ed" just a second ago.

In case you haven't heard, (which I don't think I told anyone at home anyway), I got honors!  I'm not sure which level yet.  I won't know until the end of the month.  But I will be graduating with honors. Oh that reminds me, that kinda-date-maybe-thing I went on Wednesday was apparently a date.  He's really sweet, and do not fear, there was at least a foot between us the whole time. He is a total gentlmen.  Not really sure where this is goin, but it's nice to have  aguy express interest in you in such a repectable fashion.  Pistachio's good too.  He's just chillin in his aquarium right now trying to walk through glass like he always does.  Well, I think I'm going to go get some breakfast.  I'm feeling applesauce right now.  Then I'll try to study for my chem quiz, and we'll see if I get to class.

Wow. It's been a while.

Since it's been so long, I'll just go with the highlights.  (Not that all of them are great, but you get what I mean.)  If you don't already know, Alex and I broke up while he was visiting in February.  That's a lot of the reason why I haven't been on here in a while.  I just needed to get my life back together.  Basically, the long distance just wasn't healthy for either of us.  Unfortunately, I was the only one who thought this was a good enough reason to end things, but we will both move on and remember each other fondly.  Last term ended well, I got about what I expected in grades, not great, but certainly not shabby either.  Spring break was fun, but tooooo short.  Driving took up so much time, but it was worth it to have something to haul everything back in.  That reminds me, I have officially decided to go the College of Optical Sciences at the University of Arizona.  It's in Tuscon, and will be so much warmer than here.  (It is currently overcast with a very large chance of rain.)

This term has been a bit hectic.  I'm taking classes that I don't really have the background for.  So, I'm having to learn a lot of things on my own.  I absolutely adore my Shakespeare class.  The professor is understanding, laid back, engaging, and really knowledgable about Shakespeare and others interpretations of him.  My Chemistry class is a piece of work though.  I tested into the class below this one, but it conflicted with my schedule and I got an exception.  I currently have an A- or B+ in it though.  So fear not, my grades are not suffering.  I also turned in my honors thesis last Monday.  I'm defending it this Thursday.  Keep your fingers crossed.  Also, just fyi, I did not pass my Japanese exit exam.  It was quite ridiculous.  I have an A- average in all of my Japanese classes, but our test was to give a formal presentation, which we've never done before.  And he made me teach physics in Japanese.  Do you have any idea how difficult that is?  They teach it in English in Japan most of the time!  Also "what do you find interesting about velocity?" is not a fair question.  I have a nasty suspiction that he's trying to get back at me for dropping his class.  Oh well, as my advisor said, I don't need that minor, and no grad school will care if I didn't pass one stupid little test.  Besides, I may get to work for a research group in Arizona that builds lasers for Tokyo!!

On a more fun note.  We had All Greek formal on Friday.  I went with my friend Sarah.  It was quite lovely.  Unfortunately, that afternoon I fell down an entire flight of stairs and landed on my left hand.  It is quite bruised and swollen.  I went to the nurse, and she thought my wrist was sprained.  My wrist isn't even swollen.  I'm pretty sure I'm going to go the clinic if it keeps bothering me as much as it is, and get a more educated opinion.  Also, yesterday was our Gamelan concert.  For those of you that don't know what that is, I am in an Indoseian band called Gamelan Cahayan Asri.  It's a traditional Balinese band, that is basically a lot of different gong-like and xylophone-like instruments.  I play the Jublag, Penechya and Cantilan.  At least, I'm pretty sure that's how you spell them.

As on the boy front, (because I know my father at least will ask) there is really nothing terribly exciting going on.  I may have a date on Wednesday, but I'm actually not all that certain if it is a date or just two friends going out to dinner.  I guess we will just have to see.  I doubt anything serious will actually come of it.  He is a really great guy, but not really my type.  Oh well.  Plenty of fish in the sea... or should I say Arizona?   Just kidding.  I'm not on a man hunt at grad school.  I'm there to work, learn how to live on my own, and grow into whatever person the lord decides I should be.