I spent the weekend at my aunt's in Fort Mill, SC, which was a nice break from the routine. She had brought my bike and a bunch of other stuff from Jacksonville (she visited there last week) so I now have new car insurance cards, a DVD of Johnny Depp's Letterman appearance (thanks, Dad), the sixth Harry Potter book, a pencil cup, and all manner of other things. I also have my old Nokia phone back, so bye-bye, Samsung display problems! For dinner, she made 'shrimp & grits', which is apparently a recipe from a restaurant in Chapel Hill. You might not think those things would go together, shrimp and grits, but trust me, they do - along with cheese, bacon, mushrooms, and other garnishes. Yum, yum.
The major accomplishment of the weekend was buying clothes for my cousin's wedding in December. I cannot be entirely trusted to pick out my own clothes - I won't show up in a paper bag, but I guess I don't always have a very good sense of what's appropriate for a given occasion - so we spent the day at the mall, trying on all manner of different things in all manner of different places: Ann Taylor, Nordstrom's, Dillards... I finally found a black dress at Belk which is a lot like the halter one I already have that I wore for graduation - same fabric - but comes down a little longer, with a deep V-neck and gathered (long) sleeves as well as a little gather/bow on one side. It's comfortable, although I may need a little double-sided tape to keep the V-neck from going places it shouldn't (it's one of those two-piece necks). The neck actually caused some problems at first - because of the two pieces of fabric, I couldn't get the dress on properly, not by stepping into it OR pulling it over my head. I was going in front of some layer that I should have gone behind, or something... anyway, it wouldn't center properly, and my aunt and I ended up laughing hysterically in the dressing room, with me stuck inside a cocoon of black fabric. But once we got it figured out, it looked good. We also found some Givenchy jewelry to go with it, a necklace-earring set, 'aged'-looking silver with red stones - which was a little expensive, but so pretty. The saleslady kept gushing about how pretty I was going to look. ("Such beautiful skin!")
I also bought a big candle from Bath & Body Works - it was sort of expensive, but it's the Pumpkin scent (which you wouldn't think would smell good, but which really, really does), which is seasonal and so can't be gotten at other times of the year. I have it burning right now, and boy, does my room smell good. It's making me hungry.
Oh, speaking of which - we also had lunch at California Pizza Kitchen on Saturday. WHY don't we have one of those in Chapel Hill?! (Or Jacksonville, for that matter?) It was really great. They have every kind of pizza you can possibly imagine - we had the Greek one, with grilled chicken, cucumbers, onions, tomatoes, and tzatziki atop a cheesy crust - and the pizzas are small - big enough for two to potentially split, but still small enough for one hungry person. We also had an appetizer of some really awesome hummus. I think I may have a new favorite restaurant!
(Update: I just searched the site and there actually is one in Durham. Filing that away for future reference, maybe when my parents visit...? There are also three in Orlando, but unfortunately none in Jacksonville.)
Anyway, so when I was driving back to Chapel Hill (and getting gas for $2.27, woohoo!), I got a phone call (on my new-old cell phone) from a 407 area code. Hmm, Orlando - who could that be? It turned out to be my cousin Allison (not a blood relation, but someone I've sort of grown up with, whose parents I've always called 'aunt' and 'uncle'), saying that she was in Raleigh visiting her boyfriend and what was I up to? So once I got back in town, they drove over and we went to Panera and had iced coffees and pastries and caught up a little. So I missed swimming, which I made up for by going running after they left. The five-mile route isn't much of a challenge anymore, but my feet are starting to complain, especially that poor old right heel. Hopefully it'll hang in there until after the triathlon on the 7th, and then I can take a couple of weeks off running before I have to start my half marathon training.
The downside to this great weekend is that I didn't get any work done. So here I sit, at just after 2 in the morning, trying to finish up. We have a (partners) phonetics assignment due tomorrow, and it has been absolute hell - we've been working on it for over a week, and just can't seem to get it all straight in our heads. We've both got more or less 'final' versions done now, but I have to wait for Jenna to get up tomorrow morning (at 6am, poor thing - she's already a TA) and double-check mine to make sure my answers match hers before I print it. I also had Persian to do (we know almost the whole alphabet now) as well as some news from my Mayan class - that there is no class tomorrow, because the professor's toddler son has the flu (apparently pretty badly; they went to the emergency room today). This would be good news if not for the facts that (a) I need a photocopy from him of a source I need for an essay that's due Friday, and (b) he assigned us three more articles to read, along with a few questions to answer - which wouldn't be so bad except that we have our first essay due Friday (complete with PowerPoint presentation and handouts for our classmates) and these assignment are due Wednesday and Friday. You'd think he'd want to give us a day without any other work to do so that we could put the proper amount of work into our essays, but I guess not. Grr, why did I sign up for this class?!
Speaking of classes, the spring course catalog is online, and my schedule is going to look like this: Persian 102, Phonology II (not the same as Phonetics - phonology is better), Historical Linguistics, and Language Acquisition. Three classes on MWF, one on TR - same as right now, except nothing before noon (!!!). Not bad. Now I just have to see if my babysitting client's schedule is going to work out in a way that we can continue our current arrangement.
On tap for this week: grad student study group tomorrow (to work on our syntax homework, which is not as bad as phonetics, but close), four swim practices, one five-mile run, two trips to the weight room, Jaguars vs. Steelers on Monday Night Football, two mornings of babysitting, the Gray's Anatomy premiere, and that ultrasound on my arm on Friday. Which is going to suck, because the lump has now shrunk again (it's hormonal, I'm telling you) and I have a sneaking suspicion that they will brand me a hypochondriac, declare not to see anything, and send me home, upon which the lump will return in all its glory after another week or two and I won't know what to do. Sigh. It's been six months... I just want to know what it IS already.
Okay, time to go to bed now. (My insomnia has, knock on wood, mysteriously vanished, which is why I'm not worried about still being awake at 2:15am. Also, since I don't have my 11am class tomorrow, I can sleep in an extra hour. Woohoo!)
The major accomplishment of the weekend was buying clothes for my cousin's wedding in December. I cannot be entirely trusted to pick out my own clothes - I won't show up in a paper bag, but I guess I don't always have a very good sense of what's appropriate for a given occasion - so we spent the day at the mall, trying on all manner of different things in all manner of different places: Ann Taylor, Nordstrom's, Dillards... I finally found a black dress at Belk which is a lot like the halter one I already have that I wore for graduation - same fabric - but comes down a little longer, with a deep V-neck and gathered (long) sleeves as well as a little gather/bow on one side. It's comfortable, although I may need a little double-sided tape to keep the V-neck from going places it shouldn't (it's one of those two-piece necks). The neck actually caused some problems at first - because of the two pieces of fabric, I couldn't get the dress on properly, not by stepping into it OR pulling it over my head. I was going in front of some layer that I should have gone behind, or something... anyway, it wouldn't center properly, and my aunt and I ended up laughing hysterically in the dressing room, with me stuck inside a cocoon of black fabric. But once we got it figured out, it looked good. We also found some Givenchy jewelry to go with it, a necklace-earring set, 'aged'-looking silver with red stones - which was a little expensive, but so pretty. The saleslady kept gushing about how pretty I was going to look. ("Such beautiful skin!")
I also bought a big candle from Bath & Body Works - it was sort of expensive, but it's the Pumpkin scent (which you wouldn't think would smell good, but which really, really does), which is seasonal and so can't be gotten at other times of the year. I have it burning right now, and boy, does my room smell good. It's making me hungry.
Oh, speaking of which - we also had lunch at California Pizza Kitchen on Saturday. WHY don't we have one of those in Chapel Hill?! (Or Jacksonville, for that matter?) It was really great. They have every kind of pizza you can possibly imagine - we had the Greek one, with grilled chicken, cucumbers, onions, tomatoes, and tzatziki atop a cheesy crust - and the pizzas are small - big enough for two to potentially split, but still small enough for one hungry person. We also had an appetizer of some really awesome hummus. I think I may have a new favorite restaurant!
(Update: I just searched the site and there actually is one in Durham. Filing that away for future reference, maybe when my parents visit...? There are also three in Orlando, but unfortunately none in Jacksonville.)
Anyway, so when I was driving back to Chapel Hill (and getting gas for $2.27, woohoo!), I got a phone call (on my new-old cell phone) from a 407 area code. Hmm, Orlando - who could that be? It turned out to be my cousin Allison (not a blood relation, but someone I've sort of grown up with, whose parents I've always called 'aunt' and 'uncle'), saying that she was in Raleigh visiting her boyfriend and what was I up to? So once I got back in town, they drove over and we went to Panera and had iced coffees and pastries and caught up a little. So I missed swimming, which I made up for by going running after they left. The five-mile route isn't much of a challenge anymore, but my feet are starting to complain, especially that poor old right heel. Hopefully it'll hang in there until after the triathlon on the 7th, and then I can take a couple of weeks off running before I have to start my half marathon training.
The downside to this great weekend is that I didn't get any work done. So here I sit, at just after 2 in the morning, trying to finish up. We have a (partners) phonetics assignment due tomorrow, and it has been absolute hell - we've been working on it for over a week, and just can't seem to get it all straight in our heads. We've both got more or less 'final' versions done now, but I have to wait for Jenna to get up tomorrow morning (at 6am, poor thing - she's already a TA) and double-check mine to make sure my answers match hers before I print it. I also had Persian to do (we know almost the whole alphabet now) as well as some news from my Mayan class - that there is no class tomorrow, because the professor's toddler son has the flu (apparently pretty badly; they went to the emergency room today). This would be good news if not for the facts that (a) I need a photocopy from him of a source I need for an essay that's due Friday, and (b) he assigned us three more articles to read, along with a few questions to answer - which wouldn't be so bad except that we have our first essay due Friday (complete with PowerPoint presentation and handouts for our classmates) and these assignment are due Wednesday and Friday. You'd think he'd want to give us a day without any other work to do so that we could put the proper amount of work into our essays, but I guess not. Grr, why did I sign up for this class?!
Speaking of classes, the spring course catalog is online, and my schedule is going to look like this: Persian 102, Phonology II (not the same as Phonetics - phonology is better), Historical Linguistics, and Language Acquisition. Three classes on MWF, one on TR - same as right now, except nothing before noon (!!!). Not bad. Now I just have to see if my babysitting client's schedule is going to work out in a way that we can continue our current arrangement.
On tap for this week: grad student study group tomorrow (to work on our syntax homework, which is not as bad as phonetics, but close), four swim practices, one five-mile run, two trips to the weight room, Jaguars vs. Steelers on Monday Night Football, two mornings of babysitting, the Gray's Anatomy premiere, and that ultrasound on my arm on Friday. Which is going to suck, because the lump has now shrunk again (it's hormonal, I'm telling you) and I have a sneaking suspicion that they will brand me a hypochondriac, declare not to see anything, and send me home, upon which the lump will return in all its glory after another week or two and I won't know what to do. Sigh. It's been six months... I just want to know what it IS already.
Okay, time to go to bed now. (My insomnia has, knock on wood, mysteriously vanished, which is why I'm not worried about still being awake at 2:15am. Also, since I don't have my 11am class tomorrow, I can sleep in an extra hour. Woohoo!)
stormed at 02:16
0 Comments:
Een reactie posten
<< Home