Sooo, Liz and I have moved out of our apartment, and will be living in our friend Patty's spare bedroom for the next month, until our new lease starts. Sound like fun? Didn't think so.

Now for the story...

Last week, we had a new woman try to move in with us -- think short, stout, black, early 30s. She'd had the key for all of 12 hours when she started berating Liz and me about, well, basically everything, but mostly about the fact that we were filthy (there was one piece of carrot in the sink and a few crumbs on the stove). She screamed at us for 30 minutes ("How dare you call yourselves grown women?! You have more character flaws than anyone I've ever met!" etc etc etc) and literally wouldn't let us get a word in edgewise. We were stunned and angry, since we'd done absolutely NOTHING to cause this (we'd known her for 12 hours!) and so we went to the landlord, told him the story, and begged him to move her out, which he agreed to do (he likes us).

We stayed with friends until Sunday night, and then, when we went back to the apartment, we discovered that she had vandalized the place before she left -- stole our brand-new printer, broke a wineglass and left the shards around on the floor (including under our bedroom doors so we'd step on them), dumped detergent all over all the clothes in the laundry room, smeared jelly on the counters, left nasty notes everywhere ("Thank you for showing me that black women aren't the dirty ones or the only ones who come from single-parent homes. I know where my daddy is -- what about you, Liz?"), dumped Miracle-Gro all over, scrubbed bars of soap over the couches, took a framed collage of pictures down off the wall and tore through Liz's face (then reframed and rehung it), put toothpaste on my doorknob, clogged up the sink drain, left the doors open (front and balcony) so anyone could have waltzed right in, and, best of all, turned the refrigerator down to the lowest setting so that all the food spoiled.

We called the police and filed a report, just to cover our bases, and the landlord changed the locks right away, so she can't get in even if she did make a secret copy of the key. They're also reimbursing us for the printer, all the food, and for the hotel where they put us up before we found another place to live; they're also letting us out of our leases (and reimbursing us for most of the month of April), so it's all working out okay. It's just incredibly frustrating to have to deal with all this on top of the usual end-of-semester stuff. Grrrr.

Well, it's Friday the 13th, so hopefully that's not a bad omen... if this woman shows up again today wielding a machete, don't say I didn't warn you... ;)

I forgot to mention that I signed up for a half Ironman triathlon in September. I wasn't exactly planning to do one this year, but I couldn't resist - it's in Raleigh (only 25 minutes away) and it's six months off, so I've got time to prepare. For those who don't know, a half Ironman is a 1.2-mile swim, a 56-mile bike, and a 13.1-mile run (which is a half marathon). One of my biggest goals in life is to do a full Ironman (and get the souvenir tattoo, haha), but I'm working my way up in stages - an Olympic-distance triathlon (last October), a half marathon (two months ago), a half Ironman (swim, bike, and then run a half marathon), a full marathon, and then a full Ironman (swim, bike, and then run a marathon). The Olympic-distance triathlon last October went great, so I'm kicking it up a notch. Liz and I are moving to a new apartment in two months which has a fitness center on-site, so I'll be able to work out a lot more easily than I currently can, and I got my bike tire fixed (along with a couple of other things) over break, so I can start biking to class again too.
Call me crazy, but now that I'm over the 'oh-my-god-what-did-I-get-myself-into' phase, I think it's going to be really, really fun.

So I saw Josh Groban in concert last night -- which merits a post, even though I haven't written in forever. He was amazing! I was sitting 8th-row center, and -- except for the end-show antics of the embarrassingly starstruck woman in front of me -- had a great view. I didn't know whether cameras were going to be allowed in, so I hid mine in the side pocket of my purse, and I guess no ushers saw me with it the entire time, because I took over 100 pictures, plus four mini-videos. I'm still sorting through them to see which ones are the best, but email me if you're interested in seeing any of them and I'll try to hook you up. :)

Anyway, he started out with You Are Loved (Don't Give Up) -- which started with the curtain down; then the curtain went up and he rose up out from beneath the stage -- then went straight into Mai. Awake was included in the set list -- hurray! -- whereas apparently it's been an encore at other venues, and our encores were Canto Alla Vita and You Raise Me Up (exactly what I was hoping for!). The only song I really missed was my favorite, Oceano... but oh well, maybe next time. The stage had raised platforms at either end to get him closer to the audience in the risers, and there was an orchestra behind him, at the back of the stage. The band was incredible, especially Tariqh (big muscular black guitar player with a big diamond earring) and the violinist, Lucia. She really captivated the whole audience in a way I can't explain -- she was barefoot, wearing a plain black dress with a slit up the side, with her hair hanging loose -- but was so 'into' her music it was visible on her face that she was somewhere else the entire time she was playing. I've never seen a musician look like that. Her whole body moved with the bow, totally focused on producing the sound, and when she did her solo -- Kashmir by Def Leppard -- she was so into it that she broke what seemed like half the strings on her bow. She was incredible.

Anyway, while Lucia did her solo, Josh disappeared, then appeared again, singing, up in the risers behind me on my left. He walked down the stairs, shaking people's hands and such, then came down through the floor seats, on my side of the aisle! I had two empty seats next to me, and just two people beyond that, so I was able to stand up and shove down there and get my hand out into the aisle. The security guards were hurrying him along, forming a cordon in front of and behind him, but he kept stopping, making the guards wait for him and giving everyone a little more time with him up close. I was able to brush my hand along his, which made me happy. He went back up on stage from there and continued with the rest of the concert, stopping between songs for commentary, jokes, and the like. He's a really funny guy... took a drink of water and stage-whispered, "This isn't water!", stepped onto the piano bench and rode it up like an elevator as the piano rose out of the floor, hugged a lady in the audience who had a sign with 'My Husband Says It's OK For You To Hug Me' (he said, "That's the first time I've ever had permission!") and even brought some young girls up to stand around him as he sat on the edge of the stage (one even got to sit next to him!) while he sang "Not While I'm Around" (a song from Sweeney Todd). He finished by coming out in a Carolina Hurricanes jersey and singing "You Raise Me Up", inserting 'Raleigh' into the end of the song.

Afterwards, I met up with Liz (who'd been sitting in the cheap seats with some friends) and we found the bathroom, bought her a T-shirt, and walked around the stadium until we found the area where the buses were parked. There were about 70 people waiting for Josh to come out, even though one of the bodyguards had already said "He's not coming out anymore" -- we all knew that was just to clear out the gullible ones. Another bodyguard walked around a few minutes later, stopped in front of us, and said in a low voice, "If he comes out -- IF he comes out --" and held up one finger, "ONE thing to sign. No posing for pictures, none of that. You can take pictures of him, but ONE thing to sign, and no posing." Well, we all knew that meant he was definitely coming out, and sure enough, his bus pulled up past us like it was going to leave, but then it stopped and -- even though we were on the wrong side of the bus, we could tell by the screaming -- he got off!

He started with the people on the far side, but he worked around to us pretty quickly. Some girls next to me started singing, "When You Say You Love Me", and we all joined in. He went along the line, and when he got to me, he signed my Awake album cover (with the traditional curly-haired smiley face), and looked right at me and smiled. What a great smile! Liz and I asked if we could have a hug, and he said, "Oh, double hug, double hug," and hugged us both together. Liz whispered, "You're beautiful," and he said, "You are too, thank you!" I said, "Thank you so much for everything, Josh!" and he said, "You're welcome!"

The two of us walked away, repeating, "Did that just happen?" "Are you kidding me?" "We just ******* hugged Josh Groban!" Both of us got on the phone to call everyone we knew, and ended up walking in a full circle around the arena before we found the car, because we were so dazed. I was so impressed that after putting on such a great show, he would just come out and put himself down on our level, in the middle of us all like that, hugging and smiling and making conversation like we were his 70 best friends in the world. He's got a 'genuineness' about him, a humility that few celebrities possess... hope he can hang onto that as his star rises.

Yeah... it was a good night! :)

Yes, yes, long time no see and all of that. But this semester is treating me pretty well so far. I'll hit the high spots:

Historical Linguistics isn't the most scintillating of classes, but it makes sense and it doesn't require much reading - I've yet to crack my book. Not that we're not supposed to be reading, but I feel like the class lectures cover everything of importance that the book chapters do, and Jenna, who does do the reading, says that's essentially true. Our entire grade comes from the midterm (33%) and the final (67%), which is a little scary, but so far I think I'm doing okay. We'll see how the midterm goes.

Language Acquisition is really interesting. I've had classes along this line before, which is part of the reason I'm not doing any of the assigned readings for this course, either. Which means I occasionally get into a sticky spot when she calls on me to answer a question about the reading, but once again, the lectures seem to cover everything that the readings do, and she makes up .pdf files of notes for us that cover essentially everything she says during lecture (I just add little notes of my own to them), so this is yet another class where I can cut corners on the reading. That may come back to bite me later, or it may not. We'll see.

Phonology requires a ton of work, but since I'm skimping everywhere else, I don't mind it so much. We've got problem sets or discussion exercises for pretty much every class, and the readings are dry and boring - but I must admit, I do feel like I'm learning. I'm not enjoying it in the least - the prevailing thought in my mind is WHO CARES, since I doubt I'm really going to be using this degree for anything - but I am learning.

EMT class is awesome. So far, it's been a lot of legal stuff (what constitutes neglect, abandonment, etc.), human anatomy (wanna know the 13 stages of blood flow through the heart?), lifting and moving (knees, not back), how to immobilize and transport a potential spinal injury (the answer to every question these days is "C-spine!"), how to safely extricate people from car wrecks (I got maneuvered out, strapped to a backboard, and loaded into an ambulance), and, most recently, oxygen usage and how to insert an oro- or nasopharyngeal airway. (Not intubation - that's outside the EMT-B's scope of duty, although we are going to learn how to do it. This is sort of similar, but doesn't involve going down the throat.) Anyway, it's really, really interesting, and I got a 98 on the first test (after the bonus questions). Hopefully I'll be able to take the state exam sometime at the beginning of the summer and do this to earn a little money.

Summer is filling up fast. I'm staying here in Chapel Hill for most of it, but am most likely going to swim Key West again on June 16th (a friend from UF wants to do it too, hurrah!), plus head over to Europe around the end of July for a little traveling before (and after) the Channel relay swim. Liz also wants me to come to Pennsylvania with her for a week in June to visit her dad and her grandparents, which sounds awesome. And somewhere in all this hubbub, I need to make a little money. LOL. *crosses fingers for an EMT position*

My birthday was pretty good. I ended up having to get up and babysit, then go to phonology, so the first seven hours were just like any other Tuesday, but then when I came home I found that Liz had decorated my room and bought me two dozen yellow roses. She also got me new pajamas (American Eagle), a book (The Secret Life of Bees), a cute cereal bowl and spoon (because my pouring my cereal wakes her up every morning) and a photo album. Then she took me to dinner at 411 West (an Italian place on Franklin Street) and produced a cake from the back of our refrigerator (how did I not know that was there?). Anyway, I felt special - and I am now officially 23 years old. Sounds like a good age... but I don't think I want to get any older than that... can I stop now?

One more big thing that's been on my mind for the past month is the possibility of my going to PA (Physician's Assistant) school after I get done with the linguistics degree. For anyone who's not familiar with the profession: PAs do most of the same things as 'real' doctors - and they work in all areas, including pediatrics, obstetrics, and surgery - when I go see my doctor in Jacksonville, I actually see a PA - but they work under the supervision of an MD. The program is two (full) years long. Granted, this could just be the 'honeymoon period' for the EMT class, and I could get sick of it and change my mind, but at the moment, this sounds like a really good option for me. I played with the idea of a Ph.D, but - and this may make me sound lazy - I just don't think I have it in me to sign on for even more school, not to mention the fact that I can't think of anything I'm sufficiently interested in to want to study it for 5-6 years and write a dissertation on it. I'm already dreading having to scrounge up a thesis topic for my master's. For PA school, I'd need at least six months to a year of field experience (which the EMT work would provide), plus I'd have to take a year of prerequisite courses somewhere (anatomy, physiology, microbiology, chemistry, and statistics) as a non-degree-seeking student. Then, if I'm accepted, I'd enter the two-year program, of which the first year would be all classes and the second year all clinical rotations. Competition is pretty stiff, and I'd certainly be at a disadvantage under those with a bachelor's degree in something science-related, but there are other factors which would place me at an advantage - my age, my undergrad GPA, my GRE scores, the 2-3 years' EMS experience I'd have by that point, and the fact that I'd already hold one master's degree (proving I can 'go the distance' in a graduate program). There are fewer schools with PA programs than you might think, but the three I'd apply to would be Duke, UF, and Wake Forest, of which the latter would hopefully take me even if the other two don't. Anyway, this is all just talk, and I've obviously got to finish my current degree before I get too far into another one - but the idea has got me excited, and that's more than I can say for linguistics right now.

Miscellaneous: Liz and I are looking up apartments (we want to move to a two-bedroom this summer), it has snowed twice (though school never got canceled, darn UNC), I'm beginning to develop a shin splint in my right leg (so: more swimming, biking, and elliptical for the next couple weeks), I went on a shopping spree at Banana Republic and got, among other things, a black button-down shirt which looks really good on me (yes, I'm modest), and Wiggles peed in my laundry basket (why? You have a litter box!) so I'm currently doing laundry again.

Guess that's all for now...

So I got so wrapped up in stripping the Christmas tree this morning (what portions of it the cat hadn't already shredded, that is) that I missed my bus. During the 40-minute walk to class, I started thinking - something I haven't had a lot of time to do since classes started up again - and the topic was Persian. In case this hasn't already come through perfectly clearly on this blog: I don't like Persian. At all. I've liked the vast majority of the languages I've studied, with the sole exception of Wolof, so I assumed I'd like Persian okay too - so I enrolled, to try to make myself a more attractive candidate for NSA. Now, however, the NSA's Language Enhancement Program (which I was going to apply to) has been abolished, meaning linguists without fluency in a security-sensitive language just got their options MAJORLY limited. The website is now recruiting only those with proficiency. I can, and might, still apply for a Cryptanalysis position, but the option I'd been aiming for since junior year, the option where I would have gotten the majority of my training through the agency itself, is now gone. That means, in all likelihood, that a second semester of Persian wouldn't have any effect whatsoever on my chances of being taken onboard, because it wouldn't put me a whole heck of a lot closer to being a native speaker. They'd still have to spend a ton of time and money on training me. And even if by some wild chance a second semester did work in my favor, and it did get me in the door, and they did somehow agree to train me further, well, then what would that mean? That I'd be using Persian every day of my career for the next 40 years. And I don't like it. One thing I've learned through my years of college is that I don't actually like every language out there. I used to think 'one code is the same as another', in a manner of speaking, meaning any language could be 'cracked' equally, and with an equal amount of pleasure on my part. Well, that's not the case, as I learned when I took that Wolof course. I loved Dutch, we all know that. I enjoyed Spanish a lot too. Latin was awesome, and even French held my interest. German would have been fun, also. But Wolof? And Persian? I just don't like it.

So I think I'm going to drop the class. It just feels like the right thing to do, like a relief from a burden I didn't know I was carrying. I pushed through last semester, just to see how it would go, but there's virtually no reason for me to be in it anymore, career- or education-wise. And since I don't have the internal drive to learn it the way I did with some of the languages I studied in the past, I don't see why I should bother to stick with it. Dropping it is something of a sign that I need to do some reexamining as to where I'm going when I finish this program, but if that's the case, then so be it. I was already becoming aware that I'm less and less interested in a government position with every passing day. What I am interested in, I can't quite say, at least not yet. Some of the options that have crossed my mind recently are Ph.Ds in various fields (English lit, Sociolinguistics, Creative Writing...), but a Ph.D would essentially require that I spend the rest of my life in academia, and I want to wait and see how the TAship goes next year - whether I enjoy teaching or not - before I make that call. PA school has also crossed my mind - a way to do medicine without going through a thousand years of school - but that decision too will have to wait, until the end of the EMT course. Other, goofier options, like an administrative position at a summer camp, are floating around up there too, but those are just misty, half-formed thoughts at this point.

We'll see. That's really all I can say at this point.

In the meantime? I want to focus on Phonology, Historical Linguistics, and Language Acquisition. I want to read my 1300-page EMT book and get a feel for that field. I want to swim with the club team three nights a week. I want to start the process for becoming a linguistics TA next year, and study until I feel like I have a confident grasp on the field again. I want to run three days a week. I want to start lifting weights again. I want to play loud music, eat junk food, spend weekends at the beach with Liz, go out dancing, watch movies, have a little fun. And I want to casually explore new areas, new courses, new schools, new ideas - without feeling pressured to pick one and have a new Life Road Map as quickly as possible.

I mean, really - I'm 22. I'm not supposed to have every detail of my life planned out through retirement, am I? Liz and I have had multiple conversations about how graduate school is supposed to be like this, supposed to kick our asses, supposed to make us reevaluate ourselves and what we want out of life - so I actually don't feel too panicked, although that usually is my initial response to life throwing curve balls at me that deviate from my 'best-laid plans'. I will find what I'm supposed to be doing. Someone with my smarts, my varied interest areas, and my passion for life isn't going to just 'settle' for something I'm less than ecstatic about. I have to believe that there is something out there that will hook me, that I'll love doing, that will get me excited to wake up every morning and go out into the world. I will find it. It just may take a little longer than I'd hoped.

((Oh yeah, the half marathon. It was awesome - Monique and I both RAN the ENTIRE race, no walking, and all I had afterwards was a little muscle tightness and general fatigue, none of this can't-walk-for-a-week crap that happened after the River Run. There were bands, photographers, and costumed characters lining the course, drivers and spectators shouting encouragement, and cool gimmicks like 'speaker tunnels' where one could pick a chute to run through depending on what kind of music s/he wanted to hear for those two minutes or so. I finished in 3 hours exactly. Very very very cool race, and yes, I'm quite proud of myself. Wonder how long it'll be before I get up the guts to try a full marathon? LOL.)

I almost forgot to do this. I try to write ten 'accomplished' goals and ten 'pending' goals at the turn of every year. They don't always match up - I only achieved five of the ten goals I wrote down on 12/31/05, for those who care to check the archives - but there are always ten things to write in a year, even if they weren't the ten I was originally aiming for. So here's the 2006/2007 list:

2006 Accomplishments:

1) Went skydiving
2) Completed the 15k River Run
3) Got accepted to graduate school
4) Graduated from UF
5) Made the switch to a Mac laptop
6) Visited 7 new states (CN, DE, MA, NH, NJ, NY, ME)
7) Completed the 8-mile Boston Light swim
8) Learned to kneeboard
9) Started studying a new language (Farsi)
10) Completed my first Olympic-distance triathlon

2007 Aspirations:

1) Complete the Disney half marathon (13mi)
2) Complete the 15k River Run (again)
3) See Josh Groban in concert
4) Earn my EMT certification
5) Complete the 12.5-mile Swim Around Key West (again)
6) Complete a successful English Channel relay crossing
7) Visit France (again) and Italy
8) Pass the linguistics comprehensive exams for my M.A.
9) Complete another Olympic-distance triathlon
10) Go skiing

I apologize for the lack of posts... and for the lack of real information in the posts I have written. Here is the catch-up post:

12/15 - I pack the car, take my last final exam, and head to Jacksonville. I get there at 11pm.

12/16 - My cousin's wedding day. The four of us pile into the car around 8am, and arrive in Birmingham at 3:30. For reasons unknown, I have been feeling steadily sicker since 10am, and, after getting all dolled up and ready to leave for the (evening) wedding, nearly pass out in the hotel room. Some food and water gets me back to the low side of 'okay', and we head out to the wedding (which was very nice, very 'efficient', a 20-minute church ceremony followed by a food-, drink-, and dancing-filled reception at a historic house). My cousin is married. Ack!

12/17 - We pile back into the car and arrive back in Jacksonville around 7pm. I have now spent 24 of the past 72 hours in a car.

12/18 - Mom and I go shopping. I am now the proud owner of a black Fossil belt, as well as six, count 'em, six new bras - red, pink, purple, brown, beige, and black. Can you tell we hit a sale?

12/19 - I run in the morning, followed by my first swim practice in about eight weeks. My muscles burn at times in the water, but I'm not as slow as I thought I'd be.

12/20 - I go to Gainesville with Dad for the Gator basketball game versus Stetson, score a free dinner, and manage to sneak down into the Rowdy Reptiles section - 'mah peeps'! - which is definitely the place to be.

12/21 - Again, a morning run followed in the evening by my second swim practice in eight weeks. A vast improvement over Tuesday. I feel awesome.

12/22 - I meet up with Elise, one of my best friends from high school, and we work out together in the tiny gym at her church. It's a little awkward, since we haven't seen each other in so long, and we can't talk freely because her little sister has come along. Oh, well.

12/23 - I go to Gainesville again, and this time scam a free (swanky) lunch off the CBS crew, who have come to cover the game, since it's against Ohio State. Anna, one of my best friends from UF, meets up with me and scams her own food; then we hang out and check out basically every vantage point in the entire arena before we climb up to the ceiling and sit on the cement stairs (to avoid getting in the way of the paying members of the sold-out crowd) and proceed to talk for the next hour and a half. It's a good time.

12/24 - Jags vs. Patriots. Elise and Faith (another high school friend) go with me - we get great end zone seats, huge boxes of chili fries, and very little rain. Unfortunately, the Jags lose. Sigh.

12/25 - Merry Christmas! I come away with a red 8 GB iPod nano, a couple of books and DVDs, a new fleece jacket, a pair of gorgeous dangly silver earrings, and various other odds and ends, including a packet of chocolate-covered sunflower seeds. Yum!

12/26 - Swim practice #3 ... feels really good. It's coming back.

12/27 - I go for what's supposed to be a 3-mile run, and end up feeling so great that I do almost 7 miles (and could have done more). The only problem? I rub all the skin off the inside of my thigh with my cheapo running shorts. Time to invest in some new ones.

12/28 - Mom and I shop together (and I get new running shorts). New, pretty underwear is also in the mix. Swim practice at 6:30.

12/29 - My roomie Liz arrives, hooray! We give her her Christmas presents (a calendar, a journal, and an external hard drive) and I take her on a Jville tour.

12/30 - Liz and I visit my grandparents. I become convinced that not only my parents, but my grandfather would also like to trade me in and adopt Liz. He gives her the grand tour of his orchards, regales her with stories, and sends her home with 25 pounds of satsumas. (I wish I were kidding.) We hit the beach for a little while, then have dinner with Mom and Catie at Olive Garden.

12/31 - New Year's Eve means party time! We head out to the beaches to hang out with some old high school friends. I try to break a $50 bill at a liquor store, only to be told it's counterfeit. (The bank would later dispute this claim. We're trusting the bank.) Alcohol, fireworks, the infamous Dick Clark (that man is never going to die. At the end of the world, all that will be left are cockroaches and Dick Clark. And possibly Cher.) ... What more could a girl want? (Well, maybe a phone call from Elise telling me she's standing in Times Square 'reeeeally far away from the ball!')

1/1 - Happy New Year. Seeing as nothing else is open, I take Liz to ride the skyway and walk on the Riverwalk. We grab dinner at Panera; then Catie, Liz, and I curl up on the Aerobed and watch Renaissance Man.

1/2 - Mom, Catie, Liz, and I go to the borrowed-from-the-British-Museum exhibit of Egyptian artifacts exhibit at the Cummer - which is wicked cool - then eat an early dinner at Trent's (an incredible, hole-in-the-wall seafood restaurant). Liz watches my swim practice, then Dad gives her (and me, again, by default) a tour of the stadium, during which we steal frozen yogurt (and get busted). Then we visit my other grandmother, and end up hanging out and reviewing family photos until almost 11pm.

1/3 - Liz left this morning, and I went back to bed for a while, then did laundry, went for a run (last one before the race!), did some errands, and packed up all my stuff for the long haul back home.

Tomorrow: new license plate, eye doctor appointment, trip to Orlando, dinner with Kelsey, and sleeping at my aunt's with Monique (whom I haven't seen since graduation and am really eager to catch up with).

Friday: Monique and I are going to MGM - rock on!

Saturday: The day I've been counting down to since summer... the half marathon! Trust me, a post will follow.

So... I'm home. The snowflakes are on the windows, the lights are on the house, the tree is erected and decorated, and we have less than 48 hours to go before the big day. It hasn't exactly been a typical Christmas - Mom has been stressed out about my grandparents, Dad has been working three jobs (Comcast, Jaguars football, and Gator basketball), and Catie has been racking up hours at Starbucks to try to earn some Christmas cash - so the tree decoration was something of a three-day work in progress, and the first night we had to all sit down together as a family and eat dinner and watch a movie (A Christmas Story) was last night. But hey, whatever. I've finished all my shopping (just have a little work still left to do on Dad's present), gotten my car serviced, gotten my hair cut, picked back up with my Jacksonville swim team, gotten back to running, and seen my first Gator basketball game (Wednesday night), which was awesome.

Dad and I are actually headed to Gainesville again momentarily, because they play Ohio State at 4pm today. It should be a great game, plus my friend Anna is going to be in town, and I'm really excited to see her. I reconnected with my high school friend Elise yesterday, but it was just weird and awkward - we had nothing to say to each other, which is a real shame after being such good friends for so long - seven or eight years. I hope we can get past that.

I'll write more later, but at the moment, I'm about to make Dad late, and since I'm the 'fifth wheel' in this little party, that's the last thing I want to do.

Hope everyone's having a great break and holiday!

OK, click the photo link on the right sidebar and 12 of the makeover photos should be there. There are 36 photos in total, but Flickr has been revamped since I used it last, and meshed with Yahoo, and I can't upload as much per month as I used to be able to. I'll do the rest next month.

Drumroll, please... because tonight, for what very possibly may be the first time in my life, I completely cleaned an entire bathroom. Scrubbed the tub, swept the floor, cleaned the mirror, sink, and all horizontal surfaces - even hung a new shower curtain. The whole room gleams, and especially the sink just sparkles. I didn't realize how bad it all was until I actually started cleaning. After I'd finished, I got into the shower I'd just cleaned, and as I was washing my hair, I started thinking, "I'm glad I did that. I'd hate coming home after break to a dirty bathroom." Upon which I burst out laughing, because... I have become my mother!

In other news, I'm done with everything for phonetics (paper and final) and Mayan (paper), so all that's left is the paper for syntax (due Wednesday) and the written portion of the Persian final (Friday). I am sooo ready to be done.

The Extreme Makeover Home Edition thing was cool - I got there around 5:30am (half an hour late due to MapQuest's idiocy - it told me a particular street was 0.5 miles away from the interstate when in reality it was closer to 5 miles - good thing I'm a tiny bit familiar with Raleigh, thanks to Liz) but was still the first one on site. I was there until 3pm, but it didn't feel as long as it actually was, even though I was freezing for the majority of it. I met some nice people, including a 65-year-old diehard fan of the show, a disabled man from up the street, and the young mothers of two little girls about 5 and 8 years old, so I wasn't lonely. People had really interesting things to say about the design team - Ty apparently has an ego and a half (but that wasn't hard to guess), and Paige (who wasn't there for this particular site) is said to be really stuck-up too. And there were things to watch all the time, too - volunteers, TV personnel, and people in our own crowd. (Some people had a great sign that said, "We skipped school to MOVE THAT BUS!") They rehearsed everything ten thousand times, from the crowd cheering to the limo coming up the street to the "Bus driver, MOVE THAT BUS!" signal; they made them do that three times before the bus actually moved. So when you see all that stuff on TV, it doesn't go anywhere NEAR as quickly as it seems! The best moment was when Ty was rehearsing how he was going to welcome the family home by opening the door of the limo, and the door turned out to be locked. Hilarious! I got autographs from Paul and Ed, plus a picture with Ed (although we both look like total goofs in it) and a high five from Ty. I also got some amazing pictures - I need to upload them to Flickr so you guys can see them. I'll post a link once I've done it. And I was in the very front row, with cameras in my face for a good portion of the time, so with any luck I'll actually be in the episode for half a second, too. It airs on January 21st - let me know if you see me on TV!

We had a really fun girls' night out on Saturday, too - Liz's friends Kelsey (who is awesome) and Rose (whom I don't know that well) joined us for dinner at California Pizza Kitchen, and another friend, Melissa, met up with us all afterwards for the movie. We saw The Holiday, which was actually very cute despite lukewarm reviews. (It was the first time I've ever liked a character played by Cameron Diaz.) I still think Kate Winslet and Jack Black look a little funny as a couple - but Jude Law... is amazing. I was never all that into him, but he is truly gorgeous in this movie. Oh yeah, and Dustin Hoffman has a quick little random cameo too, which is absolutely hilarious. There was this guy in the theater with us, down near the front, who had the loudest and funniest laugh I'd ever heard in my life - something on screen would be kinda funny, and he'd burst out laughing, and then the whole theater would go from chuckles to roaring with laughter, just because he sounded so funny. It was great.

Anyway, it's 2am and I should be in bed... so... off I go. I'll post that link to the photos ASAP, because some of them are really good.

Goodnight, all!