much better.

after styling my hair on my own yesterday and today, i like the cut much better.

still not sure about the bangs. for now, i enjoy pinning them to the side. we'll see if i grow to love them or not.

i'll be back later with another post about the weekend, but for now i need to make a powerpoint for a talk i have to give in micro tomorrow. have i mentioned how much i hate group projects? especially when i'm the only one who cares? ah well. the semester is allllllllmost over. :]

chopped.

my hair today.

before:

after:


i don't know what happened. i've been debating about bangs lately, but last night i decided that i wasn't going to go for it. i haven't had bangs since i was a wee little one, all i remember was what a pain it was to grow them out. so i thought i would hold off.
then when i was in the chair, i just sort of agreed that it might be cute. ha.

i'm not in love with it yet, but when i style it on my own i'm sure i will like how quickly it is to flat iron. for now, the jury is out. but i can tell you that looking at the "before" picture is kind of making me miss my longer hair.
ah well.

tonight, erin is coming to reno and we're going to have an adventure. she's staying the night here so she doesn't have to drive home, and we're planning breakfast at peg's in the morning. i'm so excited!

i hope everyone is enjoying the weekend. :]

stressedddd.

i'm feeling stressed to the max today.
i've been putting off grading lab reports in favor of knitting, and now suddenly i need to have them all done tomorrow. so far, i've only graded the intros! ack.
i was thinking that i could leave work early today to work on them, but that didn't pan out. in fact, work was super stressful today too. after a few weeks of getting barely any samples, today we got at least 40. and they all need multiple tests. totally insane.
and i have micro lab tonight, so i arrived early thinking i could get done early, but the ta's aren't here. grr. so i'm just blogging about my frustrations from the good old iphone. :/

p.s. happy earth day. :]

this week was crazy.

my mom spent the night in the hospital on tuesday.
she was experiencing many of the classic warning signs of a heart attack, so my dad took her in to the hospital on tuesday morning. her blood tests showed that she was right at the borderline for having had a minor heart attack.
she is doing fine now though, so that makes me happy. but it's always scary to have a situation like that happen. even though my dad didn't call me until he knew she was ok [that's just what my parents tend to do], it still shook me up quite a bit.

it was a busy week for school too. i had my fourth microbiology exam on thursday, which was hard to study for because my mind was obviously on other things. somehow i managed a 95%. i was expecting a low B based on the amount of time i spent studying... so i'm pretty happy about that outcome. i didn't manage to get 100% on a test, which was my little goal for this class. oh well. 96, 95, 93, and 95 are pretty good. now i just have a few more labs, a presentation, and the final.
we did unknowns in lab this past week, which was stressful for me. i always second guess myself when it comes to unknowns. i did the same thing in organic chem lab. plus, i haven't perfected the decolorization step of the gram stain, which is the first and key step to the micro unknowns. so on two of my three organisms, i was really questioning my gram stain result. i finished up the final tests this morning, so i have theoretically identified each of the unknowns, but i just have that gut feeling that one of them will inevitably be wrong. i guess i'll just have to wait and see.

ok. well. that's my brief update. i'm really looking forward to catching up on sleep tomorrow. i just feel like i've been running on empty this whole week. i'm so glad that i have the trip to hawaii to think about... you know... sort of like a light at the end of the tunnel. but i guess you would say a beach at the end of the semester.
or something like that. :]

bad blogger.

i've been so busy lately that it seems i've become a bad blogger.
so i figured why not put off writing my research article summary that's due tomorrow by doing a little update post, so here we go...

-i booked a flight to hawaii tonight. i smile every time i think about it. so now i'm hunting for a new swimsuit and cute dresses. i've made one dress purchase so far from j. crew. i actually bought it this weekend in anticipation of booking my flight. but now that it's official, i am really going to be on the hunt for cute hawaii wardrobe options. :]

-i seriously need to workout. if booking a flight to hawaii doesn't get me motivated, then i don't know what will.

-i got a new car this weekend. i can't really drive it right now because it has a manual transmission. i've been out to drive it a few times in the neighborhood, and i'm just having a hard time getting the whole clutch thing under control. i tend to let it out too fast or something. so hopefully with a little practice i will learn to love it. i'm excited about it because i never thought i would have a black car, and it's seriously so pretty. james is excited because it's 418 horsepower. :]

-i'm almost done with my first eleventh hour scarf. thanks to some expert help from jeanne, i figured out what i was doing wrong. i'm in love with it already... even if it is a ridiculously warm and bulky scarf, and it's almost summer. :]

-i'm still in love with london fog. i'm basically addicted to it. i had two of them today. this has to stop so that i can get in shape for the beach!

-i really really really want to go to this. anyone else want to go? from the looks of past events, they seem pretty intense, but i think it would be really fun. i mean... all of that handmade goodness in one place... how cool. :]

i guess that's all for now. i need to get to work on this paper so that i can get some sleep before i have to go to work in the morning. ugh. work. lame.

busy. busy. busy.

seriously. life has gotten so busy with the new job. by friday night, i was completely exhausted and so ready for the weekend.

the position is in the inorganic lab. my job deals with testing turbidity, conductivity, pH, ammonia, ferrous iron, tds, tss, etc. for water and occasionally soil samples. it's all somewhat tedious and just a tiny bit boring. luckily, the people i work with are nice and easygoing.

today i went to see monsters vs. aliens with radhika. this was the first digital 3D movie that i have seen, and it was pretty fun. radhika and i were both a little concerned that we might get a headache or something from the glasses, but didn't have any problems. i got a kick out of seeing who forgot to take their glasses off when the movie was over and we were exiting the theater. :]

i also went on a little adventure to the yarn store today. a little expensive, but i'm excited about my purchases. i'm testing out a potential gift idea. the problem is that i'll probably want to keep it for myself when i finish. heee. :]

i stopped at target and came home with all kinds of stuff except the two things that were on my list. oops. that seems to happen to me more often than not. ah well. the freezer is stocked, and i'm excited about having the best lemonade in the world in the fridge once again. i had no idea they sold it at target. i usually get mine at whole foods, but as you may know, i don't go grocery shopping all that often, so we've been out of lemonade for about a week now. i've never paid much attention to the freezer section in target, and today i realized that i've been missing out. they have some good stuff.

speaking of favorite drinks. i'm in love with london fog right now. i was hesitant about trying it... but it's my new favorite drink from starbucks. i crave one everyday. and about an hour after i finish one, i'm already wanting another. it's amazing. if you like earl grey, i highly recommend it.

james played tennis with his brother and some friends today, so i haven't seen much of him. he asked me if i wanted to go play with them, but i thought that it was way too cold. it was around 50, but still. too cold for me.

i'm happy to report that i've been making some progress on studio cleaning/organizing. i broke down and ordered the mm desktop carousel from twopeas. it arrived on thursday, but i was dead tired from staying up late writing a micro paper then going to work early followed by school and teaching. usually when a package arrives for me, i open is as soon as possible, but on thursday night i just walked by the box and went to bed. finally last night, i got it out and set it up. so far, i really love it. it holds more than i expected, which is nice.
i ended up spending a good part of the evening in there finally tackling some of the piles and clearing off my desk. i've decided that i have a bit of an aversion to the plastic iris containers that i switched over to for my paper storage. i just don't like the look of plastic. plus, they all sit on top of my expedit shelves, which isn't working for me. i don't flip through my paper with them up there, so i'm not reminded of what i have. instead, i have to think of a paper i want to use, and then go to the container and retrieve it. so yeah. i really want to switch my paper storage so that hopefully i will see it more often and use it. still looking for the perfect solution, but last night was a good reminder that i am just so over the look of those plastic containers.

alright, i'm seriously falling asleep here. time to get up and clean or call it a night. tomorrow i am going to make a trip to the bookstore and try to get ahead on some school stuff.
i hope you are enjoying the weekend!

tonight.

i came home from a night of studying in the library to a house that smelled [and still does] like delicious bulgogi. woot! i was so excited.
except that james ate all the bulgogi. there is not even one bite left for me.

which led to this:

james: babe! i want a hug!
me: and i want some bulgogi.
james: well we don't always get what we want. except for me.

this week = SOPs and GLPs.

i got the job. :]
so it looks like i'll be spending this week going over tons of SOPs and GLPs. fun stuff. for example, my new boss warned me that there is a 24 page manual on how to take a pH. sounds pretty joyous. heee.
but i'm excited. the job is really flexible, which is nice since i kind of have a crazy schedule between class and teaching. right now, they just really need someone for 8 weeks because one of their workers is going home to japan for a while. once the 8 weeks are over, we can see how things look for the future. it's really perfect for both of us because i don't know how my summer will pan out with summer school and whatnot.
so yeah. i'm excited. like i said, it's been a while since i've done much analytical chem stuff. i had james give me a little refresher on hplc and gc/ms. have i ever mentioned how nice it is to date someone in the same field!? :]

james and i considered seeing monsters vs aliens in 3D tonight. we've both really been wanting to see something in 3D, so it almost doesn't even matter what movie it is. but with a late breakfast [he didn't wake up until i was home from my interview] and an early dinner, i told him that there was no way that i could eat popcorn tonight. he was a little puzzled, and i explained that the last several movies i've been to have been popcorn-free because i've been too full from dinner. at least half the reason i enjoy movies is for the movie theater popcorn, so i told him i'd rather wait for another night when i will be hungry for popcorn. ha. i am ridiculous. i know.

i guess it's time to study now. ack.