the past two weeks.

school finished up nicely with an A in micro and little hassle in submitting final grades for my lab section.
now i'm back at it with a psychology class. i'm not a big fan, so i decided that getting it over with in three weeks would be the way to go. :]

during my week off of school, i got in a lot of hours at work. i won't be working again until late june or july because of summer school and hawaii. now that i'm away from the lab, i'm realizing that it wasn't as bad as i was thinking. ha.

i celebrated mother's day with my mom. actually, she enjoyed a day of golf with my dad, and we had dinner together in the evening. i was happy to find these vibrant flowers and a fun card to give her.[excuse the bad photo. my point and shoot is failing me, and i still haven't uncovered the d80 in spite of hours of searching.]
seriously... i love how my mom is my biggest cheerleader. she always supports and encourages me in all of my endeavors and helps me out however she can. lately, i've been appreciating her expert advice on some sewing projects. [i have nothing to show of my attempts yet.] she is also always willing to listen to me talk about whatever i may need to discuss and offer advice when i ask for it. i've been enjoying that our relationship has grown to the point where she can talk to me about all sorts of things now too. it's nice to have someone who unconditionally understands. :]

last week, a bunch of us celebrated mike's birthday. we had a crowd of over 20 people for dinner. afterwards, the biochem portion of the group encouraged mike to go the chocolate bar to prolong the celebration with fondue. i think it was his first time at the chocolate bar... hopefully we can convince him to come out again. i was happy that we got this photo of the some of the biochem girls together.
our friend katie [to the right of me] decided to take an extra year to graduate so she could get a minor, so we missed her during our last year of biochem... it was nice to catch up with her again. she's off to med school in the fall with kira and deepa and mike... and the list goes on and on. one thing i've realized lately is that i will have no shortage of medical professionals to turn to in the coming years. ha.

last week was also the first art journal club meeting. jeanne organized the group, and i'm really thankful that i'm part of it. i've never made an art journal from scratch, so i'm excited. i've been having fun in my spare time [there hasn't been much lately] looking for vintage-type items. i was really tempted to buy this game because i thought it might contain cards with images similar to the images on the box. i opened it up and found no such cards, so i left it behind. now i'm almost wondering if i should have brought it home just for the cute box. ha.
i found some old dress patterns at the thrift store too. some of them will be cut up and used for art journal collage, but there are a few that i totally adore. i'm going to try to find a way to display them as i get my studio more and more put together.

on saturday, i got to see miss victoria for about an hour before she went back to vegas. despite my best attempts with my iphone, she wasn't in the mood for a photo.
she and amanda were visiting because amanda's brother graduated from unr. they had to leave after the unr graduation because amanda's med school graduation was on sunday. my parents went down to vegas for her graduation and have stayed through the week to help them move into their new home, which they closed on earlier this week. my dad also had the honor of hooding amanda at the ceremony. that entailed a great adventure of buying a suit before my parents left for vegas. so funny listening to my mom talk about it. my dad is not much of a clothing shopper... let alone the process of buying a suit. ha.

on tuesday, james and i went out for a tnmn to see star trek. we loved it. i always watched it on tv when i was a little one with my dad. james was never a big fan of the tv show, but said that the movie made star trek seem so cool. i inquired about why it wasn't cool before, and he told me that he had never wanted to be one of the characters in the tv show, but with the movie, he definitely wanted to be one of them. i asked him if that was his criterion for "being cool", and he said that's pretty much what it takes. i thought it was pretty hilarious. my criteria are totally different. i don't have to want to be the character for it to "be cool" in my opinion.

after class yesterday, i had lunch with one of my students from last semester, emil. we ate at the rubicon deli, which never disappoints. i have to give them credit for having a sandwich on the menu that i can order. usually i do the create-your-own option because i am so picky. ha. lunch was great and we spent about an hour talking about all kinds of things.
then i met up with radhika to see ghosts of girlfriends past. we both really liked it. it's a movie that i will probably watch again sometime when i am home alone one night and wanting to watch a movie. or maybe a night at home with some girl friends. i don't think james would really be into it, but i thought it was cute.

otherwise, i've been stocking up on books lately, but not getting anywhere with my summer reading attempts. my psychology text is getting in the way of that. if i try to read for fun, i just feel guilty. grr. at least it's pretty easy reading. it's funny, as an actual undergrad, i very rarely read the texts, but now i'm finding classes are pretty darn easy when i do the reading. granted, these classes are far easier than most of the classes i took as an undergrad, but if i could go back in time with this knowledge... i bet i could erase a few blemishes on my transcript. ha. oh well. i'm thinking maybe this weekend i will head up to the beach and make an attempt at some fun reading. we'll see.

as i mentioned briefly in my last post, i've started working out. it feels completely terrible during the process, but pretty amazing afterward. not being able to walk normally or go downstairs is a bit bothersome, but the soreness is just a reminder that i must have gotten a good workout, right?
as deepa told me, i just need to keep my eye on the prize. :]
i also mentioned that i went out to celebrate graduation. here's deepa, roxana, and me that night. it's the only good photo i have from the whole night. i only took four photos though, so one in four is not too bad. ha.

i think that's about all for now. i'm sure i've forgotten some details of the past two weeks, but the highlights are there. :]