happy making babies day!!

tonight the dining hall served lobster. and not just like.. lobster soup, or fake lobster in a salad. no. these were entire maine lobsters, cooked fresh in the res hall kitchen. with bibs. and crackers. one of my bosses described it as being 'a bonus to your paycheck' and what a bonus it was! mmmm in the midst of a crazy wednesday, it was a welcome break.

i finally bought my gym membership today. :D so tomorrow starts the early morning yoga/workouts. it's the only time i can go, and my body is begging me for more exercise. also, they take $26 from my paycheck every month, so i have to make it worth it!

oh, and, my aunt has a blog for her bookstore now. so you should go check it out!

happy labor day everyone! and happy september! and look! it's only been two weeks since my last post! not shabby..

so this weekend.. was amazing. i came down to miami to spend time with my mild mannered meteorologist. got to hang out with glo for a couple hours friday night, and then spent most of the rest of the weekend just hanging out.. we didn't do much. watched movies (perfume: the story of a murderer, and the lives of others - both excellent, in their own ways), ate good food (turkey saturday and salmon sunday), and did lots and lots of cuddling. today we went snorkeling for an hour up by fort lauderdale, before i had to get to the airport. having the airport right near the beach is just very convenient.

saw lots of good stuff while snorkeling! a conch that was bigger than my head, a pretty purple jellyfish, and a nurse shark. also this weird worm thing that we had no idea what it was. yay! all within an hour :) snorkeling is so cool. i got my first jellyfish sting. which i am not disappointed about at all. i feel it's on that list of life experiences to have someday. so hooray for checking off another one of those.

time to board the plane. hooray for fort lauderdale airport having free internet :) baibai!

wow. we made it. move-in was yesterday, and i made it through the day with only one angry parent yelling from 6 inches in front of my face. he was horrifying. i've never seen someone be so rude to another person, and to know that he did it to my maintenance staff too makes me ill. gonna take some time to shake that off. but i made it. returning students move in today. which is pretty much a day off for me. i was going to try to go for a bike ride, but it is going to be raining all day, so... maybe a movie instead, and a run in the rain in the evening. sounds good to me :)

..i dont really have anything brilliant to say. next week is pretty busy yet, until wednesday when the students start class. my brain isn't really functioning any higher than 'get through this, get through this...' which is why i haven't written in a while. it's neat to have the energy of students coursing through the building, but i think it's going to take me a couple days to funnel that into anything productive for myself. i'll let y'all know. ;)

until then, it's a relaxing, lazy sunday afternoon for me.

oh goodness, what a horrible blogger i have been! here i went, sending out a link to this goofy thing to a ton of people, and i haven't even put anything up yet.

u of i is fantastic. i have a bunch of coworkers that rock my socks, and a building that is going to be very interesting. i'm excited about all the trees on this campus, as well as the juggling opportunities :) also, my apartment is gorgeous:









so there you go. a post. YAY!
we're heading into RA training next week, so my life will be even more hectic (if you can even imagine that..) but i'll try to be better about this.

oh! and CONGRATULATIONS Freddy and Mai on your marriage!! i so much wish i could have been there, but alas, i dont think my bosses would have let me skip training my RAs to be hauling around japan for a couple of weeks. much love and best wishes to you! ^-^

so. i got a job!!
i was going to wait and post pictures from Shenandoah and do a nice big pretty post, but i figure....i dont want to yet. heh.
so, here's the deal. i am moving to illinois next week, to work at the U. of Ill. at urbana-champaign. i'll be in an all-women's hall, supervising RA's, etc.. U of I *is* playing the Badgers this year, so if people want a place to crash to go to the game.. let me know!
and now, back to your regularly scheduled work day.

because i feel that this insanity needs to be shared... this is the story of my travel experiences for my on-campus interview at U of I this week.

on my way to the airport, i got to navigate clumps of sod that had been dropped on the freeway by some goofy truck driver. it was quite entertaining to see all the cars suddenly swerving around on the 836. not a big deal though, no accidents, just amusement. i got to the airport and parked my car, and had no trouble getting to the gate. some guy commented on my bare feet going through the metal detector, but.. that attempt at flirting fell rather flat. which is not to say i have flat feet. my feet, like certain other members of my family's, are perfect.

the first plane, from miami to chicago, had no air conditioning. two and a half hours with no air. the second plane had no functioning bathroom on board. thankfully that was a short flight, but sheesh!

the interview on tuesday went really well, i think.. it was a long day, but i answered some questions exactly how i wanted to, and got a really good vibe from the staff. i also got to have pizza and beer with one of my juggling buddies, so that was enjoyable as well :) i'll be hearing back about the job next week sometime. keep those fingers crossed!

on wednesday, i got up at 7 CST for breakfast, got picked up at 7:45, and was at the airport, by the gate, by 8:10. first flight left at 9:10, right on time, w/o a hitch. it had functioning bathrooms. excellent. however, the gate we pulled in at was on the complete opposite side of the airport from where i was leaving, so i didn't have much time to work my way through the crowds to get to my gate before its scheduled boarding time. turned out that didn't matter, b/c we had to wait 20 minutes for the flight attendants to show up. and then once we got on the plane, it took another 20 minutes to get the baggage loaded and take off (why weren't they loading while the flight attendants were coming??). at this point i'm like.. ok. we're running a little late, but this airplane has air conditioning, and the guy next to me smells pretty good, so it should be a nice flight.

flight was fine. pleasant, even. i read harry potter the whole way :) but after we landed, the jet bridge we were supposed to use to get off the plane was broken. so they started unloading the baggage while we waited for someone to come fix it. they tried, and failed, so we were told we'd have to switch gates. it took 20 minutes to reload the baggage and then get to a new gate, and finally deplane... by this point we'd been sitting on the plane *on the ground* for an hour and fifteen minutes. i got off the plane almost exactly 2 hours after i was supposed to. many people were disgruntled.

but the story, my friends, does not stop there. because of the delays, i now had to drive home in rush hour traffic. but this was no ordinary rush hour traffic! no! this was rush hour traffic in a magnificent thunderstorm, with driving rain and hail! by this point, i was actually glad for the storm. it cracked me up. i called my mild mannered meteorologist to report the hail, and just enjoyed the clear panic in the other drivers' movements. the amusement of that storm made me just tired, as opposed to tired and crabby. by the time i got home, it was 6pm, and i hadn't eaten in 10 hours. i passed out, and didn't really wake up until dinner was done. sometimes it's really nice to live with someone :)

anyhow, that's my story of disgruntled travel.. it was quite the adventure. not really one i want to repeat, but an adventure nonetheless.

today we are starting our journey up to spend a week in VA. i'm excited to see another new part of the country :) camping, canoe'ing, driving... it should be good!