Time flies

Where has the week gone??

Sophia's wedding was BEAUTIFUL. It was a perfect day, and she looked beautiful and Josh looked happy and the reception was lovely and you may color me 100% impressed. I took lots of pictures, some may find their way on here eventually.

I landed last Sunday at 1 pm, and was on the road by 2. I went straight to Sam's Club from the airport, then Ralph's, and only then did I go home, put away my groceries, and take a wonderful, long, hot shower!

Monday was a hellhole of class, meetings, and frenzied work. Tuesday was a mess where I didn't get half the things done that I needed to. Wednesday I forcibly sat myself at my desk and grimly trudged through my annotated bibliography. Thursday I went to Fullerton and photocopied forms for my job for hours on end before rushing home and frantically finishing the bibliography.

Thursday night I came home, made myself some microwave mac-n-cheese (don't judge me) and then sat zombie-style in front of the tv with facebook open on my laptop.

Yesterday I got up late, went to the bank for laundry quarters, then went to campus to work on lab 3 for my 451 class. I got there before noon and I left after five. Then I went to CVS and found out between my health insurance and Murphy's Law I was going to have to pay $75 for my meds instead of my usual $25 so I hopped up and down in fury, and called Mom who (thank goodness!) agreed to split it with me. BCBS had better get my stuff here soon, I'm officially mad at them.

Today I got up on time, had breakfast, tidied up my apartment (even though I started doing it last night - I stopped to watch The Expendables, which Netflix mailed to me nearly two weeks ago) and left for a lunch date.

I thought the date went well, but he just said goodbye after we walked out of the restaurant and walked off, so I thought that was confusing. Most guys walk you to your car...or maybe that's just what boys on the east coast do. I honestly still feel like a foreigner here...things are SO different.

I spent the afternoon shopping: I got a mug with the top ten reasons to be a CSULB 49'er on it (#1 is that our football team is undefeated since 1991, although that's only because we haven't fielded a football team since 1991), and then I went to IKEA. I got more of those great little tealight holders I love ($2 for 10), a blue hand towel (to replace the disgusting formerly-white one I've had since I was a freshman), a pack four glass picture frames for $0.99 (now hung with two pictures from my rockstar photography days, and a picture of each of my cats), a reusable IKEA bag and a 36 pack of their lovely apple tealites. It all came to less than $10 - I LOVE IKEA!! I might go back tomorrow and get more. Maybe.

Then I came home and unpacked and now I'm watching Sex and the City and thinking about vacuuming and scrubbing. You know I'm feeling broody when I think about scrubbing - I've never ever hated anything like I hate scrubbing floors. And yet, sometimes I do it, just because I want that perfect house and that perfect life that is perfectly clean and ordered and exactly what I always dreamt about as a little girl.

This apartment and this degree and this life here in California are as close to what I always wanted as you're ever allowed to get in real life. And yet, now that I have it, all I can think about is the next step...and the step after that...and the step after that...life is what happens when you're busy making other plans, right?

Sundown

What a Thursday! And it's not even close to over yet.

I stayed in bed a little late this morning, but I slept restlessly most of the night and only got into a deep REM cycle around 7:30 am, so when my alarm went off I was just much too warm and comfy to get up for another hour.

I spent most of the morning tidying and organizing, trying to make lists and clean and get myself sorted. I finally got to Target and they were OUT of kindle covers - apparently they sold out Monday for last-minute Valentines' Day presents. I swear, V-Day always manages to get me where it hurts. Every time!
They were also out of those wonderful $1 portfolios, so I bought the blank cd cases (the paper kind) I needed and fumed all the way to the post office where I dropped off my wrong-generation kindle cover and bought a new book of stamps, because my brand-new book mysteriously disappeared since I last used it a week ago, and I needed to mail off my bills.

I went home, dropped off my Target bag, picked up my Garmin, and went to SteinMart where I found a Kindle cover (rather plain, but it was $15 instead of $60, I'm not complaining) and snooped around for a bit but nobly restrained myself from buying any jewelry.
I did run over to the Farmers' Harvest store in the same plaza, but they had no annonas, which was very disappointing.

I came home, microwaved some lunch (yes, I know I'm getting appallingly lazy) and started to work on my assignments again. My GEOG400 assignment is done, and so is a lot of my NAGPRA stuff, and part of my Essay 4. Tonight and tomorrow I need to finish my NAGPRA stuff and drop it off at the office to be mailed off to Fullerton, finish Essay 4, and finish my Lab 1 write-up for ANTH561. Once that's done I can go to Florida with an easy conscience. Who knows, I may even find time Sunday evening to do some of my rewrite assignments? Or, I might just pass out.

Now I'm taking a break before I continue with the reading for ANTH510 which I leave for in half an hour. It's very convenient to have BBC World News finish two minutes before I have to leave. I hope it stays in this timeslot for the rest of the semester at least.

My kindle is AWESOME by the way. I'm very disappointed though, because last night I read Anne of Avonlea (which I've memorized) and it was missing some lines of dialogue! Hopefully that's only because it's a free e-book. There had better not be any lines missing from books I actually buy. But I've downloaded 60 free books already (hehe) so it'll take me awhile to work my way through those.

Okay, time to get back to the books!

Valentine's Day (Massacre)

It's Wednesday night, my feet are up, and I'm taking a break before putting my poor little nose back against the big fat CSULB grindstone.

Monday was a crazy whirl, I didn't stop working all day, and only got home after ten (which is fairly usual) and then I had to work some more before going to bed. I don't remember going to bed, but I know I did.

Tuesday was a right bloody pain: I tried to work on NAGPRA all morning (waiting for my valentines day present for myself to arrive) and missed my first "group meeting" for a lab that was due today. I went to the second one (at four) and was way far behind the others, and left around six pm.
By the way, the package I was waiting for (Amazon always delivers my packages between 9 and 11 am) arrived at 4pm, 30 minutes after I left for campus.

I went straight to CVS to get chocolate after I left the meeting (I was really really upset), and as I was walking out, I tried to open the bag of hersheys' kisses and it exploded all over the sidewalk. I thought about picking them up, realized that would epitomize the absolute misery and horror of the day, picked one up as a token, and walked home. I assume the homeless guys that sleep next to the CVS had a nice dessert after that.

I walked to Jack in the Box (fast food) for dinner and ate all 1,200 calories of it when I got home. Yes, I was that miserable.

I spent the rest of the night being grumpy and finishing my lab.

This morning I checked my lab, printed it out, stapled it, and left for class, leaving the UPS sticker with my signature saying "Yes, leave my package here".

Artifact analysis was ok, then I had to run to lab and try and find this one box (which I couldn't find) which left me with 30 minutes to run to Panda Express, stand in line for 10 minutes (I'm not exaggerating), and then run back to the lab and eat before class started up again.

Of course, the lecture lasted until 10 minutes before I had to leave for geography so I couldn't do any flintknapping. One thing was really funny: I've flintknapped before, so I was trying to give my classmates advice as they started experimenting. I was watching Jake and every time he hit his raw stone I said, "Wrong angle" (and it WAS, I was trying to be helpful!) and finally he just looked at me and we all burst out laughing. I got him a new hammerstone and that helped. Of course, in his defense, his chunk of raw obsidian was probably about five pounds. Try holding that with one hand and whacking it with your other hand holding a hammerstone!

Geography was tough, we started SPSS today and it was craaaaaaazy. I need to practice that bigtime. I'm so glad we get three weeks to do that one!

I left class a little early, rushed back to lab to turn in my lab (yes, we'd forgotten all that time), then dropped some stuff off at my lab (the NAGPRA one) before walking home.

My kindle was there (hip hip hooray!) but of course, it couldn't be that easy. I ordered the latest generation kindle and a second generation cover, never realizing the latest generation kindle is the THIRD generation kindle. So it didn't fit and I got to call Amazon's helpline and they emailed me a label to print out and put on the box so I could mail it back to them and they'll refund me when they get it.

So. I was going to Target tomorrow anyway, I'll drop the box off at the post office next door and get a Kindle cover at Target.

Now I still have a bunch of work to do, but if I work hard tonight and tomorrow and get it all done, then I can relax this weekend and enjoy Sophia's wedding.

Friday morning

Technically, it's Friday afternoon. But my brain is still in the confused whirl of "What just hit me?"-itis, so I'm calling it morning.

Late last night (read: 11 pm) I was enjoying some Rugrats on Netflix (gotta get my money's worth out of it) I got an email from my boss. In my innocence, I opened it and found out he wanted a completed packet to hand over to the liaison by the "end of the day" today. Needless to say my night was significantly less pleasant after that, but I went to bed eventually.

This morning I was stubbornly determined to stay in bed till noon. I was NOT going to get up earlier - this was my personal anti-regime protest. Of course, today is the day my neighbors decided to dance around on the balcony that's right outside my door, sing Happy Birthday and an unholy volume and basically be so sodding noisy I had no choice but to get up, cursing them for choosing today of all days to be so damn noisy.

Of course the minute I got up and had breakfast they all shut up and/or disappeared. Murphy's Law, right?

So I slogged away at the packet and I just mailed off something I hope that is at least passable. Unfortunately my plague with maps has continued, but it's really not my fault this time, so I can salve my conscience with that much.

I'm waiting for a return email, but until then I do believe it is lunchtime. For dinner tonight I'm going to pamper myself with a lobster tail (they were on sale, it's that unholy holiday this Monday, so I'm going to treat myself right even if no one else is interested) and on Saturday night I'm going out for a girls' night with Judy and some other people. I think Sunday night is going to be the Cornish game hen...I'm pretty excited about it.

And then that evil scourge...Valentine's Day...I'm going to buy MYSELF a present (ha! I may be single but I still get presents! Take that, Hallmark!) in the form of a KINDLE! Hip hip, hooray!

Mundaze on Ice

This week has been anything but normal and it's just gone noon on Tuesday.

Sunday was a frantic bustle of grocery shopping, finding the laundry room full (I miss having a washer and dryer in-unit!), and writing a lab and an essay. No, I did NOT watch the Superbowl. I knew what was going to happen, knew it the second Pouncey went down.

Yesterday was Mundaze on Ice, and not in a good way. Oh sure, I got up in plenty of time, edited and printed my essay, made it to class on time, went home for lunch and then arrived for my afternoon on campus. I had geography from 2-4:20 pm, and then I got dinner at Panda Express (I really have to learn to ask for single servings and not expect the server lady to intuitively know) before heading to the first AGSA meeting of the year.

We spent the meeting going over a lot of business - I'm going to take this fiscal training session so next year I will be either President or Treasurer. That should make my CV happy, and this way I can work in more archaeology. AGSA can stand for Archaeology Graduate Student Association right? (Just kidding!)
We also voted for the films for the Margaret Mead Film Festival that we hold every year, and the top two were the top two I voted for. We also voted in a third film in case we can get it discounted and actually afford a third film - they cost $300 each.

After the meeting I went straight to computer class. The lecture in the beginning was so technical and I was so exhausted that I nearly passed out in the middle of class! Thankfully we started working on How To Use Excel after that and having something to do kept me awake. But I was SO glad when 9:45 came! It really was an awfully long day.

I came home, put my feet up, and watched Seinfeld while eating a bag of chips and talking on Skype. It was a nice, quiet evening even if I stayed up way too late reading. (I really needed a dose of In The High Valley. Call it my mental health prescription?)

Today I got up late and I am now doing laundry and trying to knock some errands out of the way at the same time. I went down to check the mail earlier and there wasn't anything in my mailbox, but there was a package for me sitting on top of the mailboxes! I was shocked, because I wasn't expecting anything, but when I opened it in my apartment I realized it was one of my textbooks. I need to go over my order list and see if there's anything else I'm missing.
You can tell how busy this semester is - I've been too busy working to notice one of my books hadn't arrived yet!!

That's all for now, I have to get back to work. I have a HUGE lab due tomorrow, ugh!

What a week...

I'm so tired, and it's just the beginning of the semester.

For geography, I'm mostly done, I just have to type up a final version of the work I've been doing all week, print everything out nicely and "autograph" it all.
For proseminar I have to do some reading...I'm not sure what else, I think I might have to start an annotated bibliography, but that might be the week after.
For artifact analysis I have done all the measurements for the lab, so I just have to write it up and make it all pretty...I also have reading to do and an essay to write.
For computers I think I just need to do reading, I'm pretty sure I can do the lab next week.

I need to email Dr. Lipo about starting the actual work for my SAA project...and for my job, I have to find some specific forms and fill them out and make an information packet for this man named Troy (he does the liasing with the Native American tribes) to distribute around the county for any tribes that might have a claim on this first site I'm writing up. I'm not quite sure where to find them, but the internet is amazing, and if not, one of my former profs did a lot of CRM, I'm sure he can point me in the right direction.

I'm also going to do laundry this weekend...and I really ought to vacuum and scrub, but we'll see about that. Keeping Up Appearances just ended, and I can only imagine Hyacinth's look of horror if she knew the only thing I clean regularly in my house (besides myself) is my laundry and my kitchen countertop.

I decided to break open a bottle of Two Buck Chuck tonight, but I have a great excuse: last weekend's grocery shopping yielded two Cornish game hens, and I found a five-star recipe on food.com that requires white wine. Since an open bottle has to be drunk fairly quickly, I decided to open it tonight and drink it over the weekend, finishing it with cooking with it Sunday night. Of course, it means I have to buy rosemary and butter this Sunday when I go grocery shopping...I've been trying to avoid butter but this recipe looks REALLY good. And I really want to try this recipe, it looks great. If I can find some baby red potatoes I'll cook those too, they're supposed to be lovely baked in the juices.

I think I'll get a box of beer when I go to Costco this weekend though, it's a lot easier to just have one beer than it is to open a bottle of wine and not feel guilty about drinking one glass and worrying about it going bad. Of course Two Buck Chuck is hardly an exquisite, ancient vintage, but I feel bad wasting things. Especially after seeing the slums of South Africa and the teeny villages Ethiopia...lots of people there would love a glass of wine, I'm sure.

I'm watching the first episode of As Time Goes By...it's so funny! The adult humor never meant anything to me as a child, but I love it now. Of course, it's also depressing, because I never seem to run into anyone half so interesting as Lionel (although I have met a few who are more polite...) these days. The other day I was in a grocery store and some man was hitting on me and I asked his age and he was 35! I had to laugh...of course he had no idea I was 23 and was shocked when I told him so (people will tell me I look 26)...but it was so ludicrous.

That's enough for now. I think now is the time to curl up and really pay attention to the britcoms. Somehow, watching the shows I watched (and never quite understood) as a child brings me that little bit closer to my family, even though they're 2,500 miles away from me.

Semester Two

This semester is going to be one for the record books. I'm taking four classes - Artifact Analysis, Computers in Anthropology, Proseminar, and a geography class that is basically How Academics Use Statistics.
I am also still working my job in the NAGPRA lab twenty hours a week. And on top of all that, I'm working on a project for the SAA (Society of American Archaeology) conference this March-April.

Oh, and I plan on sleeping, eating, and bathing regularly too.

Artifact Analysis is going to be tough, lots of outside time is going to be required. And it's a LOT of computers. Oh, computers. I'm also kind of mad that we won't be working in IIRMES. That's the whole reason I CAME to CSULB...I plz can haz IIRMES???

Computers in Anthropology is also going to be tough, but last night I managed to follow Dr. Lipo's instructions so well that I not only did everything right, he saw my screen and said, "Good job!"
I'm hoping that that's an omen for the rest of the semester!

Proseminar is basically a class on how to write a really good thesis/project proposal, which is why I'm taking it now - it's only offered in the spring so it wouldn't be much use next semester. Dr. Quintiliani is really nice, so I'm hoping this class will be easier than it otherwise would.

My geography class is mostly computer-based too which is driving me nuts - that's THREE classes that have a computer focus! I'd better be a genius by the end of the semester, that's all I have to say. Dr. Rodrigue is nice, funny AND she knows how to explain things, so I like her.

I guess I should I get back to work. The more I get done today, the less I have to do this weekend.