Hot Hot Hot

Today in Long Beach the (actual) high was 111 degrees Farenheit - tying the record for highest temperature EVER recorded! (That's 44 degrees Celcius, by the way...) In downtown LA, it reached 113F, breaking their previous record! The normal high for this time of year, by the way, is 82F. It's 75 degrees out right now, at 11:20 pm.

Did I mention that I don't have a fan yet? I was going to get one after some hot days in summer, but then it cooled way down and I decided to not "waste money"...dumb! So I spent my afternoon today driving around looking for a fan, only to find they're "seasonal" items and no longer in stock. I bought one online, it should be here next week. I'm sure it'll be cooler then, but hey, I'm sure it'll be hot next summer even if it isn't this winter. Plus I can focus it on my bed and cuddle under my nice warm covers at night and pretend it's Christmas.

So it was SO hot today that when I walked into my bathroom tonight to go shower, I saw THIS:


My immediate thought: "Oh no! The Exorcist demon is in my shower!" But it wasn't - what actually happened was my (very expensive) Lush therapy solid massage bar AND my buffy solid body butter had completely melted and oozed down my shower. I've gotten the worst of it cleaned up, but it's still depressing.



Oh, and speaking of pictures, here's the second pan-fried steak I made:

Mmm...making me hungry!

This heat is so nuts - I couldn't sleep til about 5 am this morning (it was cool from about 5 am til 7 am and sunrise) so I was soo tired in class today - and I took my codeine last night!!
Okay, I have an early class tomorrow and I'm showered, so I'm going to bed, and praying I can sleep.

Sweet dreams!

Where did it go??

So...it's Sunday already! The rest of my week was a lot of work, but I managed to get some fun in there. On Thursday I met up with Crystal and Jake after class - we were all going to go to a lecture together, but Kori and Jake both bailed, so Crystal and I grabbed some food at The Nugget (the on-campus pub). She was good and had a salad, I was evil and had a cheeseburger and fries. She drove us out to Cal State Fullerton (I'm so glad SHE was driving, we hit some awful traffic) and we listened to a lecture on "The Archaeology of Colonialism in California: New Perspectives" by Dr. Kent G. Lightfoot of Berkeley.
It was a totally fascinating lecture, and I was glad to be there - took a ton of notes, guess I might type them up sometime - and we even managed to get home at 9:15 so I only missed 15 minutes of Project Runway!

Friday I finally went jeans shopping, and found two really nice pairs and eventually decided on the darker pair, so that I can dress them up. Then I was faced with a moral dilemma - should I go to the lecture that I'd said I'd go to, or go to my friend's party? The party was from 3-8 at a restaurant, the lecture was from 5-7 on campus...I finally emailed Julia and said I couldn't make it and then went to the party. I feel a little bad...but I had a really great time hanging out with my friends, so only a little bad.
Plus, next time someone wants to give a lecture, I'm going to vote for it to be any day BUT Friday. Seriously, who wants to go to a lecture on Friday night???

The party at the restaurant was good, but my tab was way higher than it should've been - it was only when I got home that I realized it should've been at least $5-$6 less than it was, so I need to ask the people I was with if they got anything on my tab, and if the answer is yes, always, ALWAYS pay cash hereafter.

After the restaurant Jake, Kori and I went to a house party and it was nice, but I was tired and left at 1 am. I got home and was so hungry I made my emergency box of Trader Joe's mac n cheese and ATE THE WHOLE BOX. Plus I found out you're not supposed to work out when you've got bronchitis or you'll be sick longer...sigh.

Saturday was pretty quiet, I stayed in all day reading and spent an hour or so hanging by the pool with the guys. One of my neighbors is starting to get on my nerves - constantly suggesting I drive drunk regularly (because he does), saying my football teams are all going to lose (because he thinks it's funny), and pushing me to date one of our other neighbors (I have no idea why). He needs to back off, so I'm trying to think of a nice, polite and neighborly way to say, "Stop being a jerk, please." Suggestions?

Then one of the other guys came and watched one of the games at my place, but I got a headache at the end of the game and he saw I was uncomfortable and left. I took my codeine and passed out - turns out if you take enough (bottle says 1-2 teaspoons, I had been taking 1, but last night I took 2) you can sleep through 3 parties in your complex, a phone call, and a text message. I think I'm going to keep taking 2 teaspoons a night.

Today I watched football and went grocery shopping - I got a TON of stuff today and it was practically all on sale, so I'm very proud of myself. I decided that I really really want burritos and hang the calories, so at Ralph's I got tortillas, mixed beans, sour cream and a whole chicken. I'm roasting the chicken right now, and the dark meat will be reheat meals for hard days and lunches, and the light meat will be burrito stuffing. I think carving the chicken is one of my favorite parts of roasting it, because I get ALL the tidbits...muahaha!
I also save the cooked onion and use it in omelets and hashes, because it's got all that chicken and bayleaf fragrance in it, and tastes really good when fried up - I even save the livers, roast them in the chicken, then keep them to fry in omelets too.
I saw whole turkeys in the frozen aisle today and it made me think of Thanksgiving...I absolutely can't do a whole turkey (no pan big enough), but I am going to do at least one thigh, maybe two (nothing like leftover turkey and stuffing sandwiches with a side of mashed potatoes and gravy...mmm), and they sometimes sell packages of turkey necks so if they do I'll make gravy out of that and roast the thighs on top of a pan full of stuffing. I saw someone do that on tv once, "for the singles' Thanksgiving". That's right, we single people are so awesome we get our OWN Thanksgiving menu!!

Chicken is out of the oven now, "settling". I should really put some rice on for my midnight snack - oh yeah, burrito at midnight.

I love food. Imagine how boring life would be if we didn't have delicious foods to cook and experiment with and eat every day!

It's only Wednesday...

So this week has been a hot mess. Monday I went to class and it was a good class, but I stupidly left my laptop case there - I'd put it on the desk behind me and just walked out without it.

I went to the Student Health Care Center and found they only had one appointment left in the day - 4:30 pm, which I couldn't make, so they told me to call early Tuesday morning.
I walked home, made lunch, and started rewriting a paper and finishing up some class readings for that evening. My paper was printed out and I was washing the dishes when I remembered my laptop case. I threw together everything I needed and rushed back to campus, walked into my classroom five hours after I left it...and my laptop case WAS STILL THERE!! EXACTLY where I left it! I was so impressed - and thankful, that case cost $20 and I had to order it online.

I then walked across campus to the Anthropology Graduate Student Association meeting, which was pretty fun. I volunteered to be one of two "ambassadors" to the CLASC meetings (College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Committee) which is where reps of every club in our college meets once a week and networks - do leadership building activities, advertise what we're doing, ask for feedback, fight for money, all that sort of thing.

In Florida, whenever you do a fundraiser you buy a bunch of candy and sell it to people at a higher price. Here in California, we were brainstorming for fundraisers (I suggested a pub crawl) and one girl pipes up, "We could do vegetable boxes!" Turns out you can buy a huge box of vegetables from a local organic farm and sell them on campus at a slightly marked up price. Everyone jumped on it saying how it was such a great idea, and I was suffocating trying not to laugh at the contrast between a veggie stand and selling candy.

Dr. Schindler wound up the meeting with a little talk about AGSA, and how it's a fledgling organization (this is its third year) and this is a really good year for us to make it a BIG deal. Dr. Schindler is really nice, he's in charge of the ethnological film department - and he really wants to do an archaeology video, but everyone is too busy. I would LOVE for some good archaeology documentary to get out there so people can see what we REALLY do. I must brainstorm on this.

Then I had Theory at 7 (right after the meeting, we planned the meetings that way) which was more fun than usual because Kori and Jake led the class discussion and it was very animated because we (in the class) represent all four of the classical branches of anthropology (culture, linguistics, biological/physical, and archaeology) and some of us represent budding new ones - so we have some serious disagreements about theory and history and which school of thought is best. In theory, I love the idea of roundtable discussions, and am adamantly opposed to anthropology to being segmented into the subfields with each having its own department...but sometimes in practice you get a roundtable with people who love hearing their own voice waaay too much.
We ended class early and I went home and passed out.

Tuesday I woke up at 8 a.m. on the dot. Unfortunately, on Tuesdays and Thursdays my classes BEGIN at 8 a.m...my alarm hadn't gone off! I threw on some clothes, brushed my teeth, ran a comb through my hair, threw some books into my bag and rushed the half mile to class angry and upset. I was only half an hour late, but it was still hard to settle down to geology knowing it was the ONE class I really couldn't afford to miss.

After class I went to the student healthcare center again - I'd called and made my appointment as I speedwalked to class - and waited around for an hour before my name was called. The doctor examined me and told me it was bronchitis and she would give me cough syrup with codeine (about TIME!), some cough capsules for the day, and an outside prescription for an inhaler. Oh, and bronchitis "lasts eight weeks" and there's nothing, outside of sleep, that I can do about it. ...five more weeks of THIS?? I left pretty depressed - and annoyed, the pharmacy is closed from like noon till two every day which is SO inconvenient.

I went home and made an omelet, took a short nap to restore my equilibrium then set off back to campus to get some errands run. I went to the pharmacy first of all and it was STILL closed so I sat and waited for a quarter of an hour, and then I got in line behind the other people who had waited longer before I could finally get my meds and get out of there.

Then I went to the Foundation building and got the paperwork for my keys for the NAGPRA lab, and when asked where the key issue office was, the lady pointed to a section of the map and said vaguely, it's somewhere around here. It wasn't precisely encouraging, but I said thanks and set off, hoping there would be a large sign somewhere saying Key Issue This Way. I finally found it after walking into half a dozen buildings and asking for directions, and another girl was getting keys so I sat on a bench and waited. Finally it was my turn and the woman at this counter asks who signed the paperwork. I couldn't read it and neither could she, so she tells me I have to get it signed by one of two men, and she can't give me the keys until I do that.

So I walked back to the Foundation building, go back to the first woman, who takes it to one of the men. Apparently he's the OLD key release person, and the NEW key release person is who signed my papers the first time - I heard the old guy say, "I thought we got this settled!" Oh, bureaucracy!
New signature in hand I walked BACK to the Key Issue office, she examines it and says, "Well you're supposed to have two signatures, but you've been through enough, I won't make you go get that one too." I thank her and stand waiting while she goes to the computer and guess what? Not ONE of the key numbers they wrote down was correct!! So she gets on the phone with the woman at the foundation building, and after a lengthy conversation they find out the right numbers, I get the keys (all six of them!) and finally made my way to the anthropology office so I could do some scanning.

Suprise! The office closes at four, and it was four-thirty when I finally got there. I'm going to do the scanning today. I hope.
So I went home, called Mom and Dad, and then sat around watching Law and Order reruns after I got some studying done.

Now it's Wednesday and I leave for class soon...I just wonder what's going to get thrown at me next...

Guh 2.0

Busy weekend...so tired. Still working on a paper.

I spent today watching football, grocery shopping, cooking, and then working on class stuff in between all that. One paper down. Still working on another. I'm glad I get to sleep late tomorrow - well, until 9:30 if I'm really tired.

I meant to have a funny update about how I spent all weekend cooking and cleaning - made another pan-fried steak yesterday and it was MUCH better this time - but I really have to finish this paper.

Goodnight all!

My quiet night of the week

Since I have no class on Friday I've started keeping Thursday as my quiet night in. Plus, there's Project Runway at 9 pm which I love watching.

Today was such a long day...got up at 6:45 am, dragged my butt out of bed and went into the kitchen to make a brown bag lunch, since one of my profs wanted a bunch of us to get together, have lunch, and discuss anthropological theory. I found that the roll I'd been saving for today was moldy so I tossed it and decided to just get fast food instead.

I made it to class ten minutes early and proceeded to put my feet up and read the paper. There are two papers published on campus - The Daily 49er (CSULB was established in 1949) and The Union. The Union is CRAZY...last week the headline on the front page was: "Get Laid - A Girls' Guide for Guys" Practically the whole thing was about sexcapades! What kind of crazy bacchanalian school am I going to??
But yeah...I read The Daily 49er...much less scary...

Class was a struggle because I was so sleepy - I had nightmares about having a stalker last night and kept checking the lock on the door - but I did learn one thing: a sinuous river has no clay and continually alters its own track and sandbeds, while a meandering river's track is determined by the lay of the land around it because there is a lot of clay bedding. Yay!

After the lectures were over the whole class ran up to the IIRMES lab (http://www.iirmes.org/) and Dr. Behl ran one of the scanning electron microscopes so we could examine some diatomite we'd picked up on our field trip. It was SO cool - we found some beautiful whole diatoms and it was so rad seeing how the SEM worked...I was itching to play with it! (The guys were too - as we left three of them were conferring on the possibilities of shooting some blood samples with gold and examining it...and fingernails...and hair...and teeth...boys!)

We got out at 11 am so I curled up under a tree with a textbook, but the day was so pretty I didn't get much studying done. I grabbed some fast food at 11:40, and I was pretty unhappy because a) I had to use my credit card since they charged a full dollar to use a debit card (???) and b) it was expensive and HUGE. I got home and looked up the calories and the sandwich and fries were 710 calories EACH!! And I was so proud this morning when I weighed myself and discovered I'd lost 6 pounds since moving here!!
So when I go to Sam's Club this weekend I'm buying salad stuff and having salad for lunch on campus. No more expensive fatty foods!

The group discussion was interesting - there were only four of us, and my exhaustion hit pretty hard, so I had trouble focusing during parts, but Dr. Lipo is a good lecturer. He wants the archaeology students to get together again so we can discuss more.

After the discussion Dr. Lipo took me to the NAGPRA lab I'll be working in and showed me what I need to do...basically inventory five storerooms' worth of boxes of Native American artifacts ranging from potsherds, to stone tools to the bones from burials. I'm going to have to get in touch with the National Park Service (since they run NAGPRA compliance) and figure out EXACTLY what the latest requirements are (they seem to change regularly) so I can write the inventories and summaries correctly. This stuff MUST be done by December (dear God, help me!) so I need to do it right the first time.
Also I have to be very careful to follow protocol so I won't upset any of the tribal members. The door to the hallway must be closed at all times (so people can't curiously peer at the deceased), I must keep the burnt sage where they left it, and there's probably some other stuff I've forgotten.
It's really intense, and I hope I don't offend anyone.

After that it was 3 pm and I came home and passed out. I think I'll send out my emails tomorrow and I need to hop on over to campus to scan this book for myself and Jake (another 1st year archaeology student). He's got a book to scan for both of us too...we're going to send them to Dr. Lipo and he'll send PDF copies to us. So that's two MORE books required reading this semester. When Project Runway is over I need to settle down and read some more. I have 8 chapters I MUST read by Monday night, a paper due Monday morning (although I haven't gotten Dr. Behl's comments yet so I'm not revising it till then), and now 7 books of "background" reading to do ASAP, plus a paper for my Theory class Monday night. Oh, and a laboratory exam on Thursday that I have to have memorized the geological time scale for.

It's going to be a long weekend.

Every morning

I've started going to bed significantly earlier than I'm used to - 11 pm instead of 1 am - which has led to me waking up at 8 am. And by waking up at 8 am I mean actually getting up and ready for the day instead of turning off my alarm and hiding under the covers for an hour or so extra.

Today I woke up at 7:45 (15 minutes before my alarm went off) and decided to chill in bed until it was actually time to get up. I have now read all the email accounts I check daily, the comics, and Dear Abby and now I have France24 streaming on my computer. Why is that France24 and BBC and Reuters are just so much better than the crap news shows here in America?? The only good news in America is broadcast on NPR :(

Speaking of, the EU is going to discipline France over the Roma expulsions? Wow, when was the last time that happened??
But seeing France on the news is hard. I miss Europe, and wish I knew French or Portuguese so that I could spend a few years over there, in a magical land where socialism isn't evil and people drink good beer. I need to study my German...in all of my free time :(

I have 14 books to read by the end of the semester, not to mention online readings and assignments. Plus when you're studying sometimes you have to read chapters more than once...or twice...or three times...

I got my contract yesterday and it seems I will get 20 hours a week, but I really need to meet with my professor and get everything hammered out - because I have to work on that project for the Society of American Archaeologists (SAA) that I'll have a poster for at the meeting in spring. That'll take up a lot of time too. I need to get keys for the labs too, I'll probably end up jingling like a janitor!!

Guh.

Last night one of my friends kindly asked, "Are you sure you should be doing this conference at all? No one in my department would ever ask a student to carry a full courseload, have a job and amass enough data for a presentation in less than a year."
If it weren't for sleeping pills, I never would've gotten any sleep last night after hearing that.

If I had said no to presenting a poster I would've felt like I wasn't trying hard enough. But after hearing that now I'm wondering if I just set my ass up for failure.

What is it going to be? California? Or bust?

Tired...of everything.

Yeah, I'm pretty exhausted and crabby. I emailed a prof asking for feedback on an abstract on Friday and he hasn't replied and the deadline is 9 am tomorrow morning. I want to turn it in NOW. But I can't. So I'm going to wake up at 8 am tomorrow (grrr) and if he still hasn't replied then I'm just going to submit it. So. Annoyed. I KNOW that it's the natural order of things that professors can tell a student to do some work on Friday due early Monday morning but students can't expect a professor to do the same. But it's still incredibly annoying, and that's the truth.

Field trip was much nicer today - we spent most of the day on the coast where it's about 10-20 degrees cooler and breezy so we drank much less water.
I started out the day with a minor incident: I bought a waterbottle yesterday so I could increase my water supply, and when I arrived at the parking lot today I realized my backpack was dripping...the new water bottle leaked everywhere. Luckily my backpack is a hiking backpack and marginally waterproof so there was only minor damage to my notebook, and none to my phone and camera. The worst damage was to my packet of gum that turned into some white sticks surrounded by blue cardboard goop.

We went to Laguna Beach which is a very VERY rich ritzy neighborhood, and were absolutely awestruck by some of the houses there. There was a couple on the beach while we were there getting their engagement photos taken (they were obviously rich too, they had THREE photographers with them!) and the girl fell off the rock her fiance carried her to into the sea and we all burst out laughing at her screech. We felt a little bad...but since most of us are poor students, we didn't feel too bad.

We had lunch at a nice national park station that had absolutely lovely bathrooms, and a beautiful shaded deck that faced mountains. We sat on the deck and ate, talking about classes and life, and it was so nice to actually relax and talk to people my own age again, I felt almost at home.

After lunch we hiked up an awful, steep, rocky trail to examine some rock formations and we were all huffing, puffing, and inwardly cursing our prof when he turned around and called out gaily, "Come on now, it's not a real geological expedition if you don't do some real hiking!" The guy next to me, who I think had headache problems since I saw him closing his eyes and touching his forehead a lot muttered, "No, no it could be [legitimate without hiking]."

We hit up a few more beaches and the funniest moment of the trip came when I was examining a huge shale boulder in the middle of the beach with one of the students who was trying to explain the formation to me (he's more advanced than I am) and everyone else was right at the water's edge with Dr. Behl. Suddenly they all screamed and Chris and I looked up to see a huge wave splashing them and coming right towards us, so we rushed out of the way as the others ran up the beach. Only a couple people got splashed badly, and most of them were good sports about it. I was very glad I avoided the wave, because my camera was in my back pocket.

Then we drove home and in the parking lot we had to draw slips of paper out of a hat to determine which rock formation we get to write a page-long abstract about. Naturally, I drew the one formation (out of five) that I knew the least about.

Then I came home, sent some emails, and crawled into bed, only to wake up at 7:20 when a friend called, talked for twenty minutes, then dragged myself out of bed and started typing up my notes. It's now 10:20 and my eleven pages of notes (front and back equaling 22 pages) are typed up and more emails are sent.

I'm exhausted. I wanted to watch all of the VMAs, but they only started broadcasting them at 9 pm here, even though they were filmed HERE at 6 pm - stupid MTV, why can't you just air it at 6 and again at 9?? I'll just have to catch a rerun.

I'll post pictures eventually. Honestly, I don't think I'll get to them tomorrow, I have two classes plus laundry and grocery shopping and reading to do, but I will get to them this week.

Goodnight!

So, so tired.

Today was part one of my geology field trip. I have no idea how I'm going to exist through part two. I'm SO tired.

I got up at 6:30 am after going to bed at 1 am (phone call from a friend that kept me up - we were talking about our careers and how crazy it is that they're really STARTING now) and threw together my sandwiches while I shoveled waffles into my face and rushed around trying to pack everything I needed.

I left my apartment fully equipped at 7:17 am and made my way to the Foundation building parking lot, arriving there at about 7:40. I was the only one there and was freaking out a little bit until Carlos arrived three minutes later and assured me everyone was incredibly late for these things. The dew made the tables all wet, so we sat on the curb waiting for everyone else to turn up.

Everyone got there by 8, and after a rather boring ten minute lecture we packed ourselves into the two geology vans and drove off.

Stop one was a really beautiful mountain trail (in Bedford Canyon) that we had to schlepp up for a hundred yards or so and examine the Jurassic sediments - sandstone and shale. The place was covered with poison oak, and there was an extremely noisy motorcycle gang down the mountain, but I managed to block most of it out and focus on what Dr. Behl was dictating as well as taking some notes of my own.
For the record: breaking rocks with my super awesome Estwing rock hammer is SO much fun!

After that we went back down the mountain a ways and parked in this sketch driveway so we could walk UP the road (a small, winding mountain road that huge redneck trucks and motorcycle gangs were rumbling up and down) to stand on a 3-inch shoulder so we could examine the unusual rock formations. It was argillite, and so much of it you couldn't see the sandstone till you examined it carefully.

Then we did another roadside stop (we were all getting annoyed, these road stops were both scary and unplanned and we girls did not like having to get out of the car and inch along the roadside praying we didn't end up as strawberry jam) and examined a particularly boring gravel conglomerate outcropping. Fun thing though: it had a kind of rock known as gray wache, that is pronounced as "gray wacky". It makes me giggle every time I say (or think) it.

Next stop was the Tribuco Formation (Dr. Behl doesn't spell anything unless we specifically ask ten times, and he talks so fast we don't often have time to ask such inconsequential things as spelling when we can be asking if our deductions about the rocks are correct) which is the oldest and lowest formation of Californian late Cretaceous sediment. I collected a couple of samples, one is a piece of sandstone with sparkly bits, and the other is argillite and has some really pretty conchoidal fractures.

Then we went to another conglomerate from another canyon, found some really cute little fossil shells in the rocks, which proved that that area had been underwater sometime several million years before.

After that we FINALLY got to stop for lunch and went to this nice little community center that had a BATHROOM with toilet paper AND soap AND paper towels! It was lovely. We ate our bag lunches at picnic tables under some big shade trees, and then swung on the swings for awhile. At least a few of us girls did, and at one point one of the girls and I were having a swinging contest and I was laughing so hard I could barely swing. It was so much fun!
I drank a whole water bottle with lunch, I was so thirsty! I was comfortable in my conviction that I wouldn't finish my second water bottle or the two juice boxes I had packed as well...bad idea...I finished all of them and was totally dying of thirst before the last couple of stops.

After a lovely lunch we packed up again and headed to a dried up riverbed that had a shale hillside on one side and a flat floodplain, perfect farmland, on the other. I and one of the guys immediately tried to scale the shale hill, he got halfway up and got distracted digging a hole looking for fossils and I got a quarter of the way up and gave up because my super-expensive hiking boots weren't getting traction and my toes were KILLING me because I hadn't worn them since I was in Ethiopia. I found some seriously cute little fossils and collected three: two fossilized clam shells in hunks of mudstone, and a beautiful clamshell cast. I found a second clamshell cast, but gave it to one of my classmates since she hadn't found any nice fossils.

The next stop was further down the riverbed and we had to precipitate ourselves seven feet down from the edge of the dried up bed to the bottom, and had to scramble down the rocks, which really hurt my feet even more. The strange thing was that there was this thick blond matting on the rocks. We realized that it was algae! There was so much of it that when the river dried up the chlorophyll disappeared and left a soft, tough mat that hid the gravel track and was home to dozens of little black ants.

At this site was a really rare kind of rock - a pisolite - that only forms under extraordinarily hot and humid conditions. It was interesting to see a rock that's rare, but it looked pretty boring (no sparkles) and I was getting seriously dehydrated and burnt despite my hat, sunglasses and sunscreen. My shoulders are pretty bad, I'm going to have to wear a t-shirt tomorrow. We found another rare formation - mud-brown-red shale that's some sort of fluvial (made by water) deposit. I believe it's miocene, but I don't really remember. I should type up my notes, they're pretty messy.

The second to last site of the day we didn't actually get to go to - we had to park outside the fence of this national park and look from a distance at these huge red and white sandstone formations. They were pretty, but the best part about that stop was we got to stand in the shade during the lecture.

The last site was "in civilization" as we called it - we parked in a hoity toity subdivision and walked up to a gate where the road cut through a hill. The rocks were very pink and very crumbly, with lots of little green crystals everywhere. We went to look at the other side of the road and found a lava pipe, which was pretty cool. I was sitting on a hunk of sandstone and noticed some patches and veins of reddish crystals, and tried to hammer off a chunk of sandstone. To my surprise I found that the crystals came off in a mat - the sandstone didn't chip at all. I managed to get two decent patches of it (about 2 cm in diameter) and showed it to Dr. Behl. He stopped and stared and said that he had absolutely no idea what it was, but it was totally cool and I had to bring it in to lab on Tuesday so we can figure out what it is. So that was pretty awesome.

But the most awesome part was piling in the car and going home. We got back to campus just before 5 and I walked in my front door at 5:30. After taking off my shoes and chugging some water I walked to CVS and bought an aluminum water bottle and a freeze brick for $2 (I LOVE their clearance rack), then to a nearby restaurant and got a beef bowl for takeout. The L&L has the yummiest food - this bowl had beef, rice, green onion, veggies, and this amazing Asian glaze sauce and I practically inhaled it. And just $5!

After dinner I called Mom and Dad, did the dishes, and now I'm cuddled up in my armchair watching football and poking my sunburn to see it go from white to pink. I'm still pretty lonely here - I've met a bunch of people but none I'm very close with (so many of my classmates are a little older and I'm shy about approaching them to hang out) yet, so it's still an all-by-myself act right now. It was easier as an undergrad...I was going to parties my first week there. But that's UF, the party school of the nation. This is CSULB, the chill university of the nation.

I think it's time for some potato chips - I didn't make it to the anthropology barbecue (it was 3 pm - 7 pm today, and I just couldn't bring myself to drive out there after the long, exhausting day I had) and I'm not going to that concert I won tickets to (didn't want to drive to LA, watch a whole show, drive back, and then get up at 6:30 am) so I figure I can reward myself with cheez doodles.

P.S. Pictures will be posted later.

P.P.S. Much later. Like, on Monday. :)

My week in pictures:

I started out with a power outage.


I spent a lot of money trying to get enough light to read by.


Reading didn't quite work out...


I got sick of being sick and went to the doctor.


I ordered my textbooks


I think this might be my favorite academic tool ever...ever!


I got a lunchbox for my geology field trip.


And I got a lot of fruit.

I sent off my last emails - I had to scan some papers in order to get my contract sent to me. I don't know if I mentioned it - I got an assistantship working in one of my professor's labs with Native American ceramics and other artifacts. I'm praying I get 20 hours a week of work, because a) that's the perfect way for me to get experience and b) I'd get enough to pay my rent with a lot left over for savings and "fun".

Happy weekend!

Busy Day

With my new schedule my only day "off" is Friday - three day weekend for the win! - and after getting up at 6:45 on Thursday I luxuriated in bed until 10:30 today. When I finally got up and had breakfast I made my to-do list and was mildly appalled at how much I had to do today.

My email provided the first shock of the day because I found that I'd won tickets to a local show (it's the kind of show you can't buy tickets for, you can only win them) for tomorrow night. I wasn't sure if I was going or not so I emailed my two LA friends and asked them about the venue.

Just before I left, there was a knock on my door and it was a Fed Ex lady with one of my textbooks. I opened it eagerly, hoping my hand lens had somehow been shoved into the package, but it had not. I ordered the hand lens on Tuesday along with my books, but ordered the lens separately and paid $15 to get it here by today so I could take it along on my geology field trip this weekend.

I started off my errands by a quick trip to Big Lots (it's rapidly becoming my favorite discount store, since the Wal-Mart here is SO sketchy) and found a great aluminum water bottle for $4 and a pretty insulated lunch bag for $5 - I needed them for the field trip. I took some time over the lunch bag because the options were: pink with gray handles, black-and-white cow pattern with pink handles, and green, pink, orange and blue stripes with gray handles. I eventually picked the stripes, but it was a very difficult decision.

After Big Lots I went to Albertsons, wanting to get my weekly grocery shopping done now since I have a field trip on Saturday and another one on Sunday, both from 8 am to about 5 pm. Albertsons had a lot of lovely sales on, and it was pretty amazing I escaped with a tab of $29.88, although I really should've gotten a candy bar or something since they're doing that sticker promotion again. For every $10 you spend you get a sticker, and when you collect enough stickers you can get a pot or pan of your choice for free or a dollar or something. I decided I might as well collect the stickers in case I earn enough for a large pot and then I wouldn't have to buy one.

After Albertsons I went home and found two huge Amazon.com boxes outside my front door. I dumped the groceries and ripped open the boxes to find every single book I ordered with free shipping AND my rock hammer, but no hand lens. When I realized the lens wasn't there I knew I had to either laugh or cry and decided to laugh. Oh, the irony...the expensive, expensive irony.

I unpacked my groceries, and had the mega brainwave of having a cheese and onion sandwich for lunch. Now, I NEVER buy bread. I gave it up years ago and only eat it on very special occasions - mostly at Mom and Dad's house. But since I'm going on the field trip I thought sandwiches were the best way to go, so I bought a bag of Albertsons rolls. There were a lot more than I'll need for the weekend so I used the last of my cheese and some freshly cut onion and had an absolutely fantastic lunch. I'm still deciding how to make the sandwiches, but I'm leaning towards one barbecue chicken and bacon sandwich, and another sandwich involving goat cheese and onions. Then I can decide how I want to make my sandwiches for Sunday...yum!

After the groceries I went out again, first to Bank of America to make a withdrawal, then to the cheapest gas station in town, which is conveniently located down the road from me ($2.79, as opposed to $2.99 everywhere else - and it was $3.17 everywhere else two weeks ago, the gas prices in this town seem to have a serious case of schizophrenia), and then finally went to a farmers' market downtown that I've never been to before. I like it, and it's so easy to get to I think I might go every week, especially since it's on Fridays. The prices weren't as good as the Cerritos farmers' markets in some respects (berries were the same price as grocery stores) but the parsley is 50 cents instead of 89 cents, and the cut flowers are nice, and they do have some nicely priced squash and veggies. The best deal there (and the only thing I bought) was EIGHT POUNDS of pink grapefruit for $2.25. Yes, two dollars and twenty-five cents. So...guess what I'm having for dessert tonight?!

Then I came home again and I made a cardboard sheath for the steak knife I broke earlier this week and duct taped it up and tossed it out, washed the dishes, set the grapefruit out in bowls (I had to use BOTH of my big plastic bowls!) and sent off some emails.
Now I have to go send off a couple more and then I can finally settle down to a quiet evening...I hope!

Power Outage

2 a.m. Monday morning my power went out and was not restored til 11:30 p.m. It was bad. I ate fast food because I couldn't open my fridge or freezer, and spent nearly $15 of my precious money on candles. I was miserable.

I got up at 6:45 a.m. today and had a hot shower (couldn't shower on Monday because I have an electric water heater, and I object to hypothermia) then walked to CVS to buy more cough drops, then went to geology class. The prof was worried that I've never taken any geology classes before, but I assured him that I was willing to put in extra work to get up to speed.
He's lent me a textbook to study until I can buy one of my own, and I'll go through that, preferably before Saturday because we have field trips on Saturday and Sunday and I need to know as much as I can before then.

After class I went to the Student Health Care Center, because I've been sick for over a week now and I couldn't take it anymore. I managed to get an immediate appointment and the doctor evaluated me and decided to give me antibiotics because she thinks I'd be at risk for pneumonia if I didn't take something. I waited around for 10 minutes for the pharmacy to reopen, went through their system pretty quickly then walked home, took my first pills, had a quick lunch of microwave biryani and then passed out.

After I woke up I called Mom and Dad and then I started to order my textbooks and geology paraphernalia from Amazon, but then my power shut off AGAIN. I called my electricity company and left a message, and did the same with my landlord before leaving for Target to get some necessities. I got home and the electricity company had left a voicemail with directions on troubleshooting, which thankfully worked. Turns out my "master switch" (downstairs in the alcove with all the apartments' meters) randomly flipped by itself (or some asshole flipped it for fun) and I just had to flip it back, come upstairs, and flip back the little switches (I'd done that before I left) and lo and behold my electricity came back on!

I then had another mini heart attack trying to get my cable and tv working, then finally that worked out, and put some food in the oven. I think it's ready now, so I'll end here.

Pan-fried steak

I was grocery shopping today and found that Ralph's was selling all of its steaks for 50% off! Naturally, I invested in three rather lovely t-bone steaks for $15, and while I virtuously froze two of them for other special occasions, decided to cook one for today. Sundays deserve an extra-good dinner, right?

I emailed my mom's friend Joe, who lives here and teaches a cooking class to see if he had any tips. He told me to "heat the oil in the pan until quite hot. Pat the steaks dry with paper towels--if they're wet they won't brown well. Now put them in the pan and hope for a good sear. Salt and pepper as you turn them, cook the other side, and let them rest at least 5 minutes--they'll be much juicier after the rest.

Meanwhile, throw some minced onions or garlic in the pan and add some wine to dissolve all the wonderful brown gunk stuck to the pan. Boil it down, and you have now made your first deglazing sauce. Sprinkle it over the steaks and serve."

I did this with a slight variation - I first finely sliced some onion and fried it in butter (evil, I know, but I just can't resist a good excuse to fry onions in butter...yumm) and put it aside to top the steak after it was cooked.
Frying the steak was an experience, and I think it'll take some practice to get the texture just right. I've been totally spoiled with Dad's t-bones, he's really good at getting the "melts like butter" texture.

Anyway. It was absolutely delicious!! I was very good and ate it with peas and patty pan squash, no starches. Although, once the veggies soaked in the drippings they tasted like heaven too! I couldn't finish it all, so the leftovers are waiting patiently in the fridge, and I think I'll bake a potato tonight and have it with the reheated steak. Does that sound fabulous or what??

First Football Saturday

I woke up at 8:30 am coughing up a lung, I'm clearly not over the flu yet. I removed myself to my armchair accompanied by pillows and duvet and breakfasted on potato chips while watching the first Gator game of the season.

To be frank, it stunk. Our defense was really good - especially considering all the time they spent on the field - but our offense...the less said about it the better. I sincerely hope the offensive staff figures out what they're doing pronto. And the team does fumble drills until they can hold a greased football in their sleep.

We did win, 34-12, but we only did that "well" due to several serious issues on the part of Miami (OH) and one of our touchdowns was entirely good luck and not good management.

But we won. It's a W. I must keep reminding myself of this fact, and hope we stomp USF next weekend to get some confidence going into the Tennessee game. I don't know if Dooley Jr is anything like Dooley Sr, but if he is, we need to crush him without mercy.

Watched a bunch of other games too, really liked the UNC-LSU game, really wish UNC had pulled out the win, but they did a fantastic job considering they were without nearly all of their starters.

I feel so tired. Been feeling sick on and off all day, had a serious stomach cramp at 4 pm, and had to take Tylenol before I could sit or stand without being nauseated. Let's hope tomorrow is a better day.

Sniffles

Well I'm still sick - my coughs are still guard dog-esque - but I'm definitely feeling better and I think the fever is going down, but I can't really tell because I don't have a thermometer.

I got the mail today and had a lovely surprise because I found my check had finally come! Also the coupons (bundles of coupons appear on top of the mailboxes once a week or so) were there, so I grabbed my letters and a coupon pack and went back upstairs to cuddle in my armchair.

I immediately endorsed the check and put it in my purse, then settled down to peruse the coupons. I found one to a local sushi restaurant that is supposed to be absolutely top-notch - 20% off my ENTIRE check! I think I definitely need to go there at some point. The other one I really liked was $2 off adult admission to the Long Beach Harvest Festival, which looks like lots of fun, and I've already marked it on my calendar. I saved another sushi one, and one for an Italian restaurant because it was $10 off any purchase larger than $20.

I tossed all the others. What really shocked me the first time I got a Californian valpak was that they have plastic surgery coupons! Imagine, if you have the "right" physical profile you can get a breast augmentation for only $3,500! Or, your first underarm laser hair removal treatment for $75! I'm actually seriously tempted by the underarm laser hair removal. Imagine waking up every day for the rest of your life and NOT having to think, "Do I have to shave my underarms today?" How glorious! I have eczema which means my skin gets irritated really easily, and shaving gets unpleasant frequently. It's one of those dreams I'll save up for when I'm really a grown-up.

I went to Target because they were selling a dozen eggs for $0.99 with a coupon, and also grabbed some sponges to clean my stove with and some candles, because frankly, after four days of sickness and closed windows, my apartment smells. I've left one window open all day, and burnt a Cucumber-Mint tealight, so hopefully it smells less gross now.

I spent the rest of my day at home, sending emails and taking naps. I seem to have my class schedule pretty much sorted out: right now I'm signed up for Cultural Resource Management, Current Trends in Anthropological Theory, and Stratigraphy Sedimentology. I'll go to Dr. Wechsler's GIS class tomorrow, and if someone drops her class, I'll add it and drop Sedimentology. Honestly, it doesn't matter much as Wechsler's class is offered every semester, and as a grad student I get an early sign-up date. But I'm so so so relieved that things are worked out well now.

And a special geophysics class will be offered for us archaeology grad students next semester so we're all happy about that. I guess being vocal can really make things happen!

Okay it's time to curl up in bed and watch the football game. And probably pass out :)

Influenza

I'm sorry I haven't written in so long. Sunday I developed a cough that turned into a fever by nightfall, and when I woke on Monday morning I was definitely the victim of the flu. I dragged myself out of bed and went to my pre-class meeting with Dr. Lipo (one of my professors) only to find that one of the classes I was registered for would be "no good" for me which immediately made me feel ten times worse. I went to my first class and managed to pay attention pretty well despite going through half a dozen cough lozenges and desperately trying not to sneeze all over my mini netbook.

After it ended I simply had to go home, and when I got inside I dropped my backpack and keys on the floor, flung off my jacket, untied my shoes and collapsed on my bed, only awaking several hours later feeling marginally better. I skipped the "unnecessary" class since I felt so bad, but managed to get to my last class although I nearly passed out.
Walking the half-mile home at 10 pm was miserable because I was only wearing my Donna Karen sportswear sweater, and the wind was cutting right through it. Note to self: when going to late class on Monday always bring Gators hoodie or H&M black trench.
I think that when I get my last check it might be a good idea to get a CSULB hoodie, since I'm obviously going to use it a lot (I have never worn a sweater on the first day of September since I lived in New Jersey) and it's the last check I'll get for awhile, since we don't know who got the GA position yet, and I don't want to get another job before I hear about that one because that's a REALLY nice job.

Tuesday I spent gravitating between my bed and my armchair. I began emailing people trying to work out classes and then fell asleep. I woke up to an email saying there was a class I might go to at 2 pm, but it was 1 pm and I was sick and miserable and unshowered so I didn't go. I'm still trying to contact the guy though, because that class does sound cool. I might go this Tuesday (I had BETTER be better by then!) and see if I can take it. Luckily, the drop-add period ends September 13th here, which is a such a blessing and relief.

Today I woke up feeling much better, but after 20 minutes of being up I felt awful again, and even a long hot shower only helped a little. I went to my one class dutifully, tried to catch a professor at his office (and failed), talked to one of my classmates about some of the work I can do in the IIRMES lab, and gratefully headed home and to bed. I let myself lie down for twenty minutes before I got up and sent some emails, and then curled up for a lovely nap. The gist of today is that if I can't find a decent class (the ones I want to take have been canceled because not enough people signed up for them) then I'll have to take a directed research or reading course which is something I do NOT want to do in my first semester, but if I have to I will.

I still have a couple emails to send, but I'll get to that in the morning since no one in their right mind is awake right now.
I really hope the fever is gone in the morning. It keeps coming and going and I just want to be BETTER. Why couldn't I have gotten sick when I had no classes to bother with and could've stayed in bed all day for a week straight??