First week of school!

Classes started Monday! I managed to get my books bought on time. My art class seems cool, despite our first assignment to create a three-foot-tall cardboard sculpture representing our personalities. It should be a challenge, to say the least. I am in two other classes, both of which are anthropology. In one class on the first day, we watched Indiana Jones. I thought that was pretty funny.

On Monday morning, I woke up with a funny feeling in my nose and yesterday it turned in to a full-blown runny nose. Today my sinuses, ears, and lymph nodes were hurting so bad that I went to see a doctor at the school clinic. He gave me a strep test, which came back negative, and otherwise was really dismissive. I am convinced I need antibiotics for my lymph node infection, since that's what they gave me last time, but he refused to listen to me about that. So, I am hoping the pain and the rest of the stupid cold symptoms will go away in the next few days. It is so just my luck to get sick on the first day of school! If this entry seems lackluster, the sinus headache I'm experiencing is probably to blame.

My job is going well. I really love the kids I'm taking care of. The older one is really intelligent and I love talking to him, and the younger one is just plain adorable.

I don't have class until noon tomorrow so I could stay up late tonight if I wanted to, but I think I'm going to hit the hay nice and early to try to get this cold taken care of!

Back to School

School starts on Monday! I keep going back and forth about wether or not I'm happy about it, because it means the end of my break but it also means I'm slowly getting closer to graduating (FINALLY). I haven't bought my books yet so I'll have to get that sorted out sometime during the week.

And in the AWESOME NEWS department, I have a job! I found a really cool woman who is going to employ me as a nanny-type-person to take care of two of her three boys after school. They are in 2nd and 4th grade and I'll be spending an hour and a half with them on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday, and two and a half hours on Wednesday, with Fridays off. Just enough hours to make my situation in Eugene more comfortable, money-wise, but not so much that I'm going to be bogged down trying to juggle school and work.

I went to a concert in someone's basement last night, which was really funny. I always like watching my friends' band, The Blast Majesty, and they were awesome last night.

I have two new roommates! Katy and Logan are both moved out, and now the only roommate from last year is Hannah. The two new girls are Marta and Anya. Marta is a friend who we've known for a while, and Anya is someone we found online. They are both really fun and I'm looking forward to spending the next year living with them.

A few days ago Chris and I did the chore of getting his passport application sent in. Getting the pictures was difficult, since they have such specific regulations about size, but we managed to get one that works. His mom left me in charge of his birth certificiate because she doesn't trust him not to lose it, ha ha. I'm just crossing my fingers that they will send it back in one piece! His passport should be getting here in the mail in a couple of weeks, and I'm excited about it because it means we're one step closer to our Qatar trip! We are both really happy and excited about the trip. Chris has been fantasizing about eating at random Pakistani and Iranian restaurants, and I'm just excited to see the sun again. Since getting back to Eugene it's been pretty gray and rainy, which sucks, but that's what I get for living in Oregon I guess!

Well, that's all I have for now, but I'm sure I'll be updating again soon with news about my new classes! Love to everyone.

Another update :)

So, I talked to Kim today and I guess I let it go too long without updating!! Here's an update, haha.

The weather has been INSANE here. This weekend, it was upwards of 90 degrees! We've been waiting for spring, and suddenly we get a heat wave out of nowhere. Of course, yesterday it went back to normal and started raining and it's yucky and cold today, but hopefully the heat will come back. Since the weather was so nice, we've been having BBQs and going to the park. Here I am in the grass in the park on Sunday evening with Chris. Chris looks furious in the picture of us because he had a stomachache and I made him go to the park with me... he was not happy about it.

And here I am with Clutch, the rat, who likes to go to the park with me. He eats clovers. (Check out my sweet double chin!)
Also, I've been getting into a type of photography called "Through The Viewfinder" where you use a digital camera to take a picture through the viewfinder of another camera. To photo nerds like me, it's kind of a big deal, because you can make a digital photo look a lot like an old-fashioned photo. Here's a picture of me, rocking my deliciously white-trash cut-off flannel at a BBQ. Oh, and I don't know if you can really tell from these pictures too well but I've been using Sun-In in my hair and it's getting a little lighter! Today I learned how to tie flies... you know, for fishing. Chris is in to fly fishing and had a kit to learn so we both spent the entire day tying them following instructions from this book. It was actually really fun... well, fun for me cause it's kind of crafty since you get to make something, and fun for Chris because he's really terrible and slow at it but I'm good so now he doesn't have to spend money buying flies at the store.

Well, that's all I have for today! Hugs and kisses.

Some pictures

At Kim's request, I'm making a post of pictures "of me and not dogs". Haha!

For Chris's 23rd birthday, his roommates threw him an (incredibly politically incorrect) "Cowboys and Indians" party. There I am in my Indian costume with my goofy cowboy boyfriend.


Here are Talya and I playing Scrabble with Chris and our step-brother Dylan at our cabin in Troy. We went there during winter term and played a ton of board games.
During Spring break I got to go to Chris's family cabin in Tygh Valley, which is about 1/2 an hour from The Dalles on the Columbia River. We go to shoot guns, which was super fun. Here I am with a .22 hand gun. Turns out I'm a pretty good shot! The big guns were scary, but I liked this little one.
Here I am doing yoga in my back yard on our porch. I really love our back yard, and now that it's warming up we're outside constantly!
And here I am studying in the Knight Library on campus. It's the biggest library I've ever been in and I love it! There are so many books and I like to just wander around and pull random books from the shelves until I find one I like.
And I'm going to be self-indulgent and include a picture where I think I look pretty :D I'm in Chris's bedroom in this picture--his walls are painted lime green and pink! Apparently a little girl lived there last. Haha!
I'll keep updating with pictures, since Chris has a really nice digital camera that I love using.

First Entry

Hi!
Since Kim has been writing in the family blog, I decided to start one on this site as well so I can write and keep in touch this way.

Last night I went to a really good concert. My roommate Logan's best friend is the singer in the band Eskimo and Sons. (Click to see their MySpace and hear some of their songs!) They are a band from Portland but the campus radio station, KWVA, had their 15th birthday party last night and Eskimo and Sons came to Eugene to play at it. There were quite a few other bands, including one that my friends are in called Blast Majesty. They have played in our garage so it was very cool to see them play on a real stage! There were three other bands which were also pretty good.

Today Chris and I took his dog Grendel to the dog park. Since I don't have a dog, it is nice to be able to "borrow" his sometimes. I really miss Lucy since we had to put her to sleep and I can't wait until I am stable enough on my own to be a dog owner again, but until then Grendel is a nice substitute. She is an English Pointer and is really sweet.

Here is a recent picture of Grendel:



I am waiting to be called by Hollywood Video about my second "panel" interview with them. I did well at my first interview, which was very informal. I am hoping they will choose to employ me, since I have worked at Hollywood before which means I wouldn't have to be trained which would save them time and money.

This weekend was my German Retreat. It was a one credit pass/fail class (I passed!) that entailed spending a night in a lodge and speaking ZERO ENGLISH. It was really hard since I'm only a first year student, but the higher level students helped me figure out what I was trying to say most of the time. We learned some traditional German dances and songs, and had a potluck with German food. I held real conversations in German and even played cards in German! It was really fun! It makes me want to go to Germany. Chris has a good friend who lives there and he said it would be really fun to go visit him, and I agree. I am planning on taking German 105 this summer and then I'll be able to take the 200 level courses next year since I didn't get in to a class this term. The class in the summer would only go from July 23rd to August 13th and would be a fast-paced intensive, but I think it will be fun. The teacher would be a native German speaker, which would be neat!

I am also taking a History class and a Linguistics class this term. My History class is a basic one covering the 17th and 18th centuries, but my Linguistics class is really interesting. It is called "Language, Gender, and Power" and is about how the dialects of females and males differ. It gives me a lot of insight on why males and females often have trouble communicating.

I'm having a lot of fun this term! I'll be trying to update this blog weekly, to keep you guys posted on what I've been up to. Miss and love you all!