Posts Tagged ‘school’

There really hasn’t been too much of interest over here. Pregnancy is going well. I’ve had two appointments since my last update, both of which are fairly uneventful. My strep test came back negative, thankfully. Nothing’s really “happening” yet. We hired our Bradley instructor as our doula. She’s on call for us exclusively since last Friday until Baby is born. The doctor didn’t seem thrilled about our plans, but she doesn’t work for him. Plus, she’ll be spending time with us at home from the time that I start labor, if I like, until a few hours after Baby has arrived. It will be nice for Matt to have some extra support, to have another person “on our side”, and to have someone with us before we head down to Santa Barbara. I’m feeling more confident about the whole experience and am now just getting a little anxious! I don’t mind being late, I just don’t want my doctor to start pressuring us into induction or for things to run too late that getting all our PCS paperwork finished in time becomes too stressful.

The ladies from our Bible study are planning a second baby shower for us, though it will be after Baby is born. I thought it would be nice to plan around when my mom is visiting, but that is so up in the air it would be impossible to plan around. I set it for March 2nd, the weekend that Matt’s parents are visiting, so that will be really nice to attend with his mom. We’re going to do a dedication at the church also, so I picked February 24th (I sure do hope Baby is here by then!) and maybe my mom will be out for that! She sent us some really cute knitted and crocheted christening outfits a little while ago (I’m not sure if she wore them as a baby or if we did) that would be perfect for the occasion.

We had plans last break (Mon-Wed) to visit with our friends Denna and Adam in Ventura then head down to LA to spend some time with Jen. Well, Matt’s monthly training came up on Tuesday, so we weren’t able to make it down to LA on Monday. We did go hang out with Denna, Adam and their son Tyler during the day for chatting, shopping, and dinner before heading back home Monday evening. Then after Matt’s morning training on Tuesday we made the drive down to LA. The weather has been really rainy and crummy out here, so driving 3 hours in the pouring rain was sort of a bummer. Jen’s been out here for a while, but whenever we get together she usually wants to escape the city and visit with us, so we had never been down to see her place! We relaxed at her apartment, ate cookies, met her roommates, and watched some movies. It was nice to just veg and chat with her. Wednesday morning we went to the Apple store to pick up an FM transmitter for our iPod for listening in the car and had lunch at the farmer’s market. I wish we could have spent more time, and this will probably be our last opportunity to go down there, but it was really great to spend some time with Jen. The drive back wasn’t so terrible at first. It was still raining like crazy, but traffic wasn’t bad and we were making really good time until we got just north of Santa Barbara, almost home. We were then sitting at a stand-still for over 2 hours over an accident. Matt took a nap and we watched some Invasion on the iPod and got progressively grumpier. It was a long drive home and we didn’t make it to our Bradley class (Barbara said it’s the most important one, too!). We have our 12th, final class this Wednesday so we should be able to catch up a little. It was a long trip home, but we were safe, just tired.

I’ve been working on school, trying to get as much finished as possible before all my time is taken up with Baby and moving stuff. The term goes until the middle of April, but I don’t expect to get too much finished in March. We have 3 times that relatives will be visiting, will have to take care of all the paperwork for Matt to get his orders and Baby to travel with us, and will be dealing with packing and moving issues on top of recovering and getting used to Baby. I’m really looking forward to it, but I know schoolwork will be the least of my concerns. It’s going kind of slowly, though. I’m doing a big critical thinking paper on obesity in the U.S. and have a handful of calculus papers that I’m thinking about working on. I am just not so motivated right now and it’s not exactly fun stuff for me. My mentor wants me to knock the 3 classes I’m taking out early so I can pick up another before the term is over, but that just isn’t realistic. Once we’re in Japan I’m hoping I can burn through them more quickly, but right now it’s just not going to happen.

Phew!! I just saw that my final assignments for this term have been graded and everything passed! I had two papers for a math class I was a little worried about (one of them came back needing revisions last week), but I got perfect scores on both. Then the last task of my communications class was a videotaped presentation. It was so silly because it’s a camcorder and Matt, not a room full of strangers, but I was so nervous! I messed up quite a bit and anyone could tell I was really nervous, but I got a perfect score on that, too! Sometimes my graders are unreasonable, and sometimes they are so easy. So the first term of my degree to become a math teacher is complete! Now term 2 starts up the 1st of December …

So I’m emailing this post to my blog and hopefully it posts it correctly. Of
course, plenty has happened since last October. The problem is that I’ve
gone back to pen-and-paper journaling, so I’ve had little desire to blog.
We had Thanksgiving at home, Christmas in New York with Matt’s family, new
Year’s in California with my mom and Ron, Matt turned 24, I started school
in January, we started attending a new marriage-related Bible study, I
dropped all my classes in February, Matt’s sister (Jen) moved out to LA and
she and Matt’s dad came up for a few days to visit, Matt started a new
3-on-3-off 12-hour work schedule, my father came to visit at the beginning
of March, I’m doing web design work for a creation science traveling
home school science course, I turned 24, I’ve been doing temp work as a
coupon printer installer/retrofitter technician at grocery stores, and
that’s pretty much the gist of what’s been going on in our lives. More on
some of that a bit later.

It always goes this way — I’m never loyal to my journals. I’m just so lazy.

I’m sitting in the school parking lot, wiping sour cream off my Taco Bell order, and waiting for my computer science class to start. School is going pretty well. Next week I have my first exams in math and physics. Physics is pretty tough, but Mr. Jorstad says it gets much easier from here. Math is extremely boring. I took this class (particularly) with spastic Mr. King before dropping last semester. Now Dr. Mesri very slowly over explains everything. It’s better than being too difficult, I guess. My programming class is just an introduction to C and it’s not too tough. some of my days are long (M/W: 9a-7p; T: 830a-3p; R: 830a-930p), but I never have classes on Fridays.

I met a girl at work named Danielle who recently moved to Lompoc (the same street as us.) We’re going to the gym together Mondays-Thursdays before class/work. She picks me up at 4:40 and we do weight training or spinning until Matt picks me up on his way to work. Danielle used to be a Marine and loves to work out, so she is the perfect motivator. This is only our second week into it, but I feel fantastic all day long! I’m very sore and hopefully soon I’ll start toning up. I’ve put on entirely too much weight over the past year.

We also started going back to church after about three months. We were going to a small group at Jim’s on Thursday nights, studying Acts, but we hadn’t been able to attend since school started up. He found a group for us on Friday nights at Wayne & Rena’s, studying marriage. They live right across the street from us and are so great! All of the other four couples in the group have children older than us, so it is interesting to hear about their experiences.

Last weekend Answers in Genesis, a group that teaches creation backed by science, came to Calvary for a two-day conference. We took in a few lectures about apologetics, astronomy, and our foundations. Matt had heard Ken Ham, the founder of AiG, speak many years ago. He believes in intelligent design, a six day creation, that we are the center of the universe, that there was a worldwide flood, and that dinosaurs lived at the same time as man, to name a few. Some of it still sounds pretty out there to me, but some of their evidence was pretty convincing. And science aside, there’s a lot said in the Bible that I never knew about. We picked up some DVDs and a book to research these ideas further.

Andrea sent me a really cute new journal the other day, which I suppose inspired me to pick up the pen again. I’m not letting myself start new journals without finishing the old ones anymore.

Last month we decided what we’re going to do when Matt leaves the Air Force. The plan was: I’d move out to Colorado over Christmas ’07 and go to CSU in the spring. At the beginning of March he’d follow and find a job around Fort Collins. I have two years left in my physics degree and we would try to buy a house. The last time I went to work I learned that many people in my shop will be leaving, another squadron is moving out with us, many full-time positions will be opening up, and they want to promote at least one SrA. The full-time job will be a GS-11 position and we’re getting new equipment that someone needs to learn and teach to everyone else. It’s extremely tempting to stick around for another two years after signing on full-time

Wow, it's been a while. Well here's the scoop … Matt's parent's were out last weekend from New York. They flew in to San Diego to hang out with Matt's uncle for a day then took the train up to meet us in Santa Barbara Friday night. We went out for Hawaiian BBQ at L&L for dinner then headed home. We pretty much just sat up and chatted before crashing. Saturday we split up: Matt and Dad went golfing while Mom and I toured around Solvang. She and I had lunch at the Solvang Restaurant, of course (I had to introduce her to the delicious Aebleskiver!) We stopped by my favorite local yarn shop, hung out in a windmill, and took plenty of photos (on her camera … they'll be posted as soon as I receive them.) Saturday evening I cooked my "famous" chicken parmesan and we played Star Wars monopoly. Sunday morning was church. It's about time we attended. A mixture of my TDY, Matt's wacky weekend work schedules, and super-laziness have kept us away from church for months. Although we can still only attend every other Sunday, it's still very nice to be back. After church made the winding drive out to Jalama Beach to bottle some sand, wade in the frigid water, have a terrific hamburger lunch, and pick up a really cute coconut windchime. We made sloppy joe turnovers again to enjoy over a game of Mad Gab. Over the weekend we watched a few movies (our #1 must-share, The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra, provided us with much shrieking laughter) and spent a lot of time just relaxing and chatting. Matt and Jason both had to go to work early Monday morning, but we stopped by Matt's work for a picnic lunch before heading down to Santa Barbara. I dropped them off after getting lost around the town so they could enjoy a few days of 25th anniversary celebration. It was a great visit! Other than that … nothing else terribly interesting has happened. Matt's on his Panama schedule now, so he works all of this week (but had Wednesday-Thursday as a "weekend"), but has all of next week (minus Wednesday-Thursday) to hang out at home. It's a little wacky, but once we get used to it I think we're really going to like this new schedule. Matt's computer has been on the fritz lately. We've taken it in to get checked out twice now and they can't find anything wrong with it. It reboots after 5-10 minutes consistently when it's at home. Gaming is impossible. Whenever it tries to boot, there's a very high chance it won't POST and will just beep every three seconds. Of course, Best Buy can't reproduce this and has run through all their stress tests and it's been behaving excellently all week. It must be our room. It's been a nice break from gaming, though. We spend more time doing crafts, reading, and, well, sitting in front of the screen still I guess. Matt's been cross stitching this cool wolf scene (only his second attempt at the craft) and it's really coming together. He still has a lot to do, but it's a big project. Here's what he has finished so far (about two weeks of on-and-off work):

Math is going all right. I have a test next week and, of course, we've all ready started into new material that won't be covered on the upcoming exam. I hate doing learning and doing homework for new material when I want to focus all my attention on studying old material. We still haven't gotten our first exams graded and returned, but I hope we will on Monday. My teacher is always so excitable about problems that we do. He'll write a problem up on the board and tell us to take five minutes to do it. He will get so antsy that he can't contain his excitement and will just do it for us within the first two minutes, telling us all the time how we will be think it's so cool. I like math. I'm pretty good at math. I've just never felt really excited about it or found anything to be particularly beautiful. Until last Wednesday. I had checked out a book from the library last week about cool tricks and neat things in math. It had introduced Euler's formula, e^it = cos(t) + isin(t), which is really neat, as well as the awesome relationship between five fundamentals of math: e^i(pi) + 1 = 0. I thought this was all very cool, but the book didn't say too much about them. I was psyched on Wednesday, though, because we ran into these while discussing homogeneous linear differential equations and got to prove them! It suppose part of the excitement came from not being mostly lost in class and that I actually recognized something that we hadn't yet talked about. I'm sure non-math people can look at the two equations and not care at all, but really, they are very beautiful and amazing. I think it was the first time I really appreciated an equation as elegant and realized what a genius Euler was.

Not too much of interest has happened since my last blog. Jason's still here and workin'. Matt just got off an exercise, during which he had to work the 11pm – 7am shift. Today was his first day back working a normal schedule, thankfully. I had my first math exam last Monday which, after 7 hours of straight studying prior to the test, I think went pretty well. Really, for not being in class for half the material I think it went all right. It's a good thing there are 4 more exams this semester, though. I finally had my investigation interview for my clearance (after completing the paperwork over a year ago!) Matt, Jason and I went to a BBQ at my friend Brian's last Saturday. Brian was in my math and physics classes for the last couple of semesters, but is moving to San Diego this week. We had a blast playing a few crazy games of croquet and hanging out with friends. We're getting ready for Matt's parents to come out a week from Friday. We'll head down to Santa Barbara to pick them up on Friday evening, then they're leaving us on Monday morning, so there's not a lot of time. I'm really looking forward to it, though! Matt and I gave up our WoW addiction last month for a new one: Guild Wars. I'm enjoying it more, though. Our main characters are level 19 (out of 20) right now and got up there pretty quickly, but there's still so much more to the game, not just leveling. He has a ritualist/necromancer, I have a monk/mesmer. We also have rangers which we haven't been playing as much. I'm having a blast and it's always nice to run around with Matt. Melissa came over last night and we made dinner and baked cookies. We tried these awesome sloppy joe turnover things (just sloppy joe filling scooped into a rolled out biscuit, then folded over and baked) that everyone gobbled up and she made peanut butter cookies. While I was working on the sloppy joe meat, I saw her pouring salt into a 1/4 cup. Wondering what she was doing, I checked the recipe and saw that it only called for 3/4 teaspoon both salt and baking powder. I missed the part where she added 3/4 cup baking powder, and she was almost finished with the salt! We tried to salvage it, but it just wasn't happening. It was a good laugh, though. We'll never forgot to pay attention to measurements. :-p I've really just been hanging out with Matt during his off-time while this exercise was going on, so I haven't spent too much time by myself. That's started back up again, so I filled today with chores and crocheting. I collected a lot of cheap practice yarn when I first taught myself how to crochet, but didn't use it all up. Now I have baskets full of yarn I never really want to use. I gathered up eight skeins to make an afghan for charity with or something. I've done a few rows on it now and it's grown a lot on me. I've been wondering what on earth to get my brother's girlfriend for Christmas and haven't really come up with anything. I'm sure it gets pretty cold in New Jersey, and an extra afghan can't hurt. That is, unless Matt really wants to keep it (I think he likes it more than I do!) I also finished my Stitch My Square trades. Unfortunately, it's not going on this month, so I don't have any squares to stitch. Here is my community post with photos of all my squares, sent and received. Well, Matt should be home from work soon, so I'm off to figure out dinner!

Yes, it certainly is. Matt was a sweetheart and picked me up at the airport last Wednesday looking all handsome in his nice suit, and greeting me with chocolate and a rose. It's been a nice, relaxing week for me to adjust to being back home. It's cool hanging out with Jason and having him around. We play a lot of games together and whatnot. It's also nice having a third seat at dinner; we don't have leftovers that will never truly be eaten. Last night the three of us went over to my buddy Brian's house (joined by my other school pals Missy and Evin) for some food and Office Space and [if we had not been tired and stayed a little longer] Halo 2. It was a good time and it's nice to introduce Jason to some new people. We went to a new church that Jason picked out last Sunday and stayed later for a great potluck. It was a good time and a nice, small church and it suits Jason really well. Matt and I are going to return to Calvary, though. There is a lot about that particular church that we like, we just have to find a way to be more socially comfortable. That's up to us, though, and not really any fault of Calvary's. We also went to Jalama Beach last weekend, which is a very pretty, tucked-away beach right in our backyard.

We had a good time walking up and down the beach and sunbathing. The water was nearly freezing, but Matt and Jason jumped in anyway. They got a tad sunburned and Matt has been suffering all week, but we plan on going back hopefully every weekend. Good times. I also finally got a chance to upload the photos I took while TDY. I have an album up of visiting with Andrea. I said earlier that we did some origami and crocheting while I was there, here are a few of our finished products.

I also got a chance to do a bit of crocheting while I was hanging out by myself in the hotel room. I started working on a baby afghan and worked on a bunch of squares for Mama's afghan. These are the squares I completed:

So there's that. Jason and I played a bunch of pool today. I never really learned how to play, so today was sort of instructional. Of course, I've played plenty of games before, but I learned today that I've been doing everything incorrectly. We practiced for almost two hours and had a grand ol' time. I got an email from Andy yesterday saying that he had been sailing from San Diego to Santa Barbara as part of some crew, proving his seaworthiness in order to be part of some large Mexico –> New Zealand trip. I was so excited to hear he was in Santa Barbara and sent off an email immediately making plans for today. Alas, he called today from Colorado as soon as he received my message. I was a little bummed that he was in California and didn't even think to get together. He's a world-traveler now and I'm not sure when our paths will cross again. I'm sure they will. I think sometimes I just get nostalgic for times in my past. College in Colorado was fun most of the time and I do miss the friends I had then. Being that they're all males, I often feel it's inappropriate to keep in touch or be as close as I'd like to. They're good guys and I think of them often. It's always good to see someone or get an email hearing about all the great adventures. Matt and I are planning a quick trip next month. Neil Gaiman will be up near San Francisco, about 4 hours away from us, for a book signing. He's cutting back a lot on his appearances and I don't want to miss an opportunity. I've never been to a signing before, but I think it sounds like a good time. And of all the famous people I know of, I think he is the one I'd like to meet the most. Matt will take a day or two of leave and we'll probably stay the night up in the bay area. We had only been once, for a Switchfoot concert, and didn't get to explore the city at all. So maybe we'll make a big event of it. Anyhow, I'm excited to pick up Neil's Fragile Things and get to say hello. Wednesday was my first day of math class. I was really nervous about the whole thing and ready to drop the class that day. I received a text message from Erick earlier reporting that they just started chapter 5. I had just finished chapter 2 and started freaking out about how I'd never catch up. It really bummed me out a bit because I've been struggling on my own with the coursework. Then I received another text informing me that they had skipped chapters 3 and 4, renewing my confidence. I went to class and found I wasn't really that far behind. I just have to do some super-studying for our first exam two weeks from now. I'm not working (though I am researching some exciting jobs) and this is the only class I'm taking, so I shouldn't have any excuses not to do well enough. I went to the dentist today for a first exam and cleaning. It went well enough at first and I really like my dentist. Before going to Georgia I had toothaches and learned I needed a root canal due to decay around some poorly installed Air Force filling. Bummed about that, got over it though. I still need to get a crown on my tooth-stub. Today they found another filling that had improperly bonded and didn't do it's job. So I have some deep decay in that tooth as well and will go in to look at it again next week and see if we can avoid another root canal. And another Air Force filling cracked and will need to be redone. And my gums are receding around the implant I got when I was sixteen, exposing the metal. It could get worse and become a bad thing, so I need to go to someone else to see about some bone grafting. Fun … and cheap, I'm sure. Ughh. So it was somewhat of a disheartening day at the dentist, but that's life I guess. I'm just wondering how our wallet is going to take to all this work. Well, that's my overly wordy update for the week. Jason starts work on Tuesday, then I'll be home alone during the week. I have class at night on Mondays and Wednesdays, but during the day I'll be alone … studying, crocheting, and most likely blogging. So ta ta 'til then.

I go back to California one week from tomorrow. Hooray! Our class tested out of Block III last night and I aced the test. My first test screwed up any hope for Distinguished Grad, but that’s okay. We started Block IV, which is all troubleshooting. Only two or three people can be in the lab on the equipment at a time, so the other two or three have to hang out in the break room and watch movies or play cards. It will be a long week, since there’s so much waiting around. I think it’s a positive thing, though, since I have tons of math homework to do.

Yup, I started my Linear Algebra / Differential Equations class last week. I’m on my own with it, but the book seems pretty good and it’s not troublesome yet. My instructor is good about sending me information and being there if I need any help. And I get to attend the actual class in another week and a half, so it can’t be too bad before then.

The weekend was really, really boring. Saturday morning Lance, Rick, Jesse and I went horseback riding on post, which was fun. We didn’t have to use a trail guide (because “we’re experienced horseback riders”), which is nice. I was a tad uncertain, seeing as I’ve only ever been near a horse once before. They’re pretty trained, though, and are used to just following each other around, so it wasn’t really a problem. Anytime I wanted the horse (“Ruby”) to do anything though, she wouldn’t listen to me. We were supposed to be out there for 2 hours, but they guys were bored of it after 1. We didn’t have any plans for the rest of the day, so I got dropped off at the mall to pick up a dress for next weekend (clubbing in Atlanta + Six Flags). I treated myself to a pedicure and a haircut and did some clothes shopping. The guys were all exhausted from little sleep the night before (to what was I not invited?) so they slept all Saturday. Jesse, Rick and I went out to see The Descent Saturday night. It’s the bloodiest movie I think I’ve ever seen. It wasn’t really all that scary, just startling and gory. It was nice to not be sitting around in the hotel room. Sunday we were supposed to go the Y (Rick was supposed to call …) I got a call Sunday afternoon from Lance while they were all ready at the Y (“oh, I figured you wouldn’t want to come …”) Hrmph. We got some dinner afterward at a sports bar and studied for the next day’s test. That was pretty much everything that happened this past weekend.

I’ve been downloading a lot of music, since I’ve gotten bored with the small selection I brought. I’ve been a slave to Last.fm‘s charts and forums lately. I’ve been enjoying some Medeski, Marin and Wood and Matisyahu for the first time this week. I’ve also been talked into the Loose Change hype. I know it’s old news, but I talk to many people who are adament about the whole 9/11 conspiracy. So I’m in the process of watching the Loose Change video, as well as the counter-arguments Screw Loose Change. So far so interesting …

Anyhow, now it’s time to get ready for school. More later.

So I've passed my half-way mark here in Georgia. Class is going all right. I'm in Block 3 of 4 and will test out on Monday. It's a little boring and way more information than I'll really need to know, but I'm getting paid to sit in class for a few hours a night. My days aren't terribly exciting. During the week I sleep in, go to lunch with the guys, run some errands, go to the Y, then to school. It's almost like clockwork. The first weekend here we hung out in Augusta. We ate at the Bees's Knees (one of my all-time favorite restaurants) and then hung out at the Soul Bar on "Disco Hell" night. I'm not much of a clubber, but it was a decent time (although I learned that Whiskey Sours and I are highly disagreeable.) The second weekend we drove to Charleston and back on Saturday. We found a really nice rooftop bar where we had some snacks and drinks while listening to two guys with guitars. Sublime and Grateful Dead covers. It was good. We found a touristy hot-spot called Wet Willy's, a daiquiri bar, and had a good time drinking and dancing. Needless to say, much of Sunday was spent in bed. This past weekend was a three-day weekend. Lance had planned to take the rental car up to D.C. to visit friends from when he lived there, and I got to tag along and get dropped off near Langley AFB to visit with Andrea. I slipped in silently at 5:00 Friday morning, was greeted by the cats, and crashed on the couch. Friday Andrea gave me the LAFB tour and then we headed over to Poquoson, our childhood hometown. We drove around and saw all our friends' old houses, passed by our elementary school, saw our church, and the old house. Some things have changed, but not too much. We attempted to explore the old woods in which we used to play (the parts that weren't replaced with homes), but they were so overgrown and overrun with massive spider webs, we didn't get very far. We had a half-off dinner at Chili's, where Michael works. We watched a bunch of movies (Howl's Moving Castle, Mirror Mask, The Jacket, Kiss the Girls, Along Came a Spider, Snake Eyes) throughout the weekend. The three of us played some Trivial Pursuit and Scrabble. Andrea and I hung out at Virginia Beach, soaked up the sun, had some frozen custard, and visited the haunted house. It was a blast! I brought hooks and taught her to crochet. She did quite well for just three days of instruction! Michael is apparently very good at origami and has taught her quite a bit, so she passed some knowledge along to me. We made Chinese dragons and cubes out of dollar bills, as well as cute patterned pigs and cranes. I have tons of great photos of the weekend, but for some reason I cannot get the card reader to work for me. It's been so long since Andrea and I have really spent time together, so the weekend was really nice to just be around her and gab. It was definitely worth the long drive. Phew! I finished my art class, though not as successfully as I had planned. I can be quite the slacker. I'm starting up my math class now, which isn't designed to be a distance learning class, but I'm communicating with my prof through the end of the month and will try to do it on my own. It's not so bad … so far. I was on a crocheting kick, trying to get a significant amount done on Mama's afghan. The past week has been sort of crochet-lazy, though. I still have to make two squares to mail out for my square trade. I received three squares since I've been gone, I just wish I were there to open them! That's sort of a long-winded overview of what's been going on out here in Georgia. It's not the most exciting, I know. The active duty pay will be nice and while I'm out here, the government pays me to eat out (and the Augusta restaurant selection dwarfs that of Lompoc!) I miss Matt terribly and cannot wait to see him. We chat every day, though haven't really been playing much Diablo II together. He has Jason and the cats and seems to be doing well enough. I'll be home on the 30th … I'm sure I'll have more to blabber about before then, though.

Well, I guess it's time for my monthly update! ;p Finals went pretty well. My semester grades were acceptable. School continues into the summer. I just finished a 15-day online physical anthropology course. I'm so glad it's over! A semester's worth of material from two books was pretty demanding for two weeks. I passed, though not happily. Too much work? … or I'm too lazy. I started an 8-week art appreciation course online as well. It seems more interesting and should be considerably more comfortable than my anthro class. Matt met a guy at ALS in April, a cop named Jason. They play World of Warcraft together and apparently get along pretty well. Jason has a long-term girlfriend, Becky, who just moved out here. The four of us went out for an Italian dinner last Saturday and had a blast! I love meeting new couples, since we're so antisocial and have no one to hang out with! The evening was a jumble of the boys talking together about video games and work while the girls talking about other random things and getting to know each other. We invited them over for dinner at our place on Thursday, which occurred last night. What a great time! I spent all day in the kitchen preparing almost-from-scratch spaghetti sauce and meatballs (the awesome recipe can be found at spaghetti sauce and meatballs .com !) Everyone enjoyed the food — the dinner was definitely worth all the effort! We played guys versus girls Scrabble, in which the girls BEAT the guys by a whopping two points! They stuck around for almost five hours chatting, eating cake, and trying to encourage the cats into being more sociable. We'll definitely have to do it again soon! Matt and I celebrated our first anniversary last Sunday, June 11! It has been such a wonderful year! We spent the day in Santa Barbara, visiting the zoo (I had to observe primates in action for an anthropology paper), having lunch, and going to a concert. Concerts "near" us are generally in L.A. or San Francisco, neither of which we like to frequent. We saw that there was a show in Santa Barbara, which is so convenient for us, and snagged a couple tickets. It was a radio station thinga-ma-jig with four big bands and two openers. The only ones we were interested in was Franz Ferdinand and (slightly) The Strokes, and hadn't heard of any of the others. No worries, it was cheap and bound to be a good time! We got there at 3 to discover that the concert goes for 7 hours. Well, we hadn't been anticipating that (though we should have realized it, considering there are six bands playing). We sat through the first two acts, Hard-Fi and She Wants Revenge, which were so-so. The show was at the beautiful Santa Barbara Bowl, an outdoor amphitheater overlooking the ocean. It's almost five thirty by now and we're getting a little overwhelmed by wild and crazy obnoxious girls. I think in general we're okay with groups of people, but crowds of pushy, high, noisy people get to us a bit. We watched Panic! At the Disco perform, which we had never heard of before but were pretty amused by. They drove all the crazy girls around us wild and we listened to a bunch of screaming and singing, but that's okay. What I liked about the band was their sort of skit performances. As the band played, they had a wildly costumed troop of dancer/actors perform along with the song. We didn't have amazing seats, so some of it was a little hard to see, but a lot of it seemed pretty neat. Panic! did perform a Smashing Pumpkins song, Tonight, Tonight, which I thought they did a great job with. And they had their dancers dressed similarly to those in the Tonight, Tonight video waving large fans. I was really waiting for Franz Ferdinand, but they wouldn't go on until five hours into the show, and we were both a little grumpy at the audience and the length of time we were sitting on stone benches, so we decided we'd be better off leaving anyway. We've yet to sit through an entire concert together! I think this one bummed us out a little bit because they aren't bands we really care too much (or know anything about) anyway. So we went to Borders and blew some money on Neil Gaiman and R.A. Salvatore novels! Overall, it was a nice anniversary celebration! Anyhow, I've written this blog four times today because of recurring power outages. What's going on out there?! And Matt just got home, so we're going to play some WoW (our level 10 mage & priest, woohoo!) then hopefully go out to see The Lake House tonight. Ta ta!