So? What was it?

That sounded like the beginning of an awesome story. Don't just stop there!

Random Occurrences

So yesterday a FedEx trucks pulls up to my house. Drops off a package and leaves. I go to the door, see it says "Roche" and a sign that says "Refrigerate Upon Arrival." I'm thinking, "Great. A bio-sample somehow went to the wrong place and ended up on my front doorstep."

First Snow

it snowed for the first time since I came here. The temperature wasn't that cold, but i was surprsied that it snowed enough that we could build a snowman. here are some pictures my friends took. The first picture is me and my friend, Naveen. He moved from India so it was his first time seeing snow. The second picture is Tappi (The german guy on the left) and Nick (He's from OHio). The third picture is the snowmen that we made...it's kind of deformed but I think you can still see it. The last picture is the view out from our polymer building :)

Reminds me

So I see this thing on Marie Digby because I'm quite taken with her cover of Rhianna's Umbrella song. Much better than the original in my opinion, but probably because I like acoustic. Although, I am a Rhianna fan.... Hm....

http://youtube.com/watch?v=IGVgLZ--R5o&feature=user

This girl reminds me of Mel a little. She sings, song writes and is half Japanese half Irish-American. Okay, so maybe it's just the latter part that reminds me of Mel.

Highlights of recent:
1) Got Darkhorse (the Sin City publisher) to come to a program I coordinated for the library.
2) Planning trips
3) Cracked open that BP project AGAIN. I think I'm obsessed.

Thanks A Lot

So if my reading skills are still intact, it would appear that the last time I updated the blog it was October and I was ranting about my phone. I'll spare you the phone rants (although I still have them), and I'll do my best to dig up something a little more interesting than that.

Top 5 Things Going On In MeL's Life

5. As always, I may be getting old(er) but man I still love those concerts. Last one I saw was Jimmy Eat World (often referred to as JEW, but not the Anna Jew), next one will be Hunter Revenge.

4. Sad as it may be, I'm in love... with a plastic guitar and color fret buttons. AKA Guitar Hero III

3. With the oil spill that happened in the bay, concern for our friends of the sea have peaked. I haven't been up to Pt. Reyes to do any sampling, but I hear the oil has made it's way up there.

2. Trying my best to catch up with everyone, whether it be through email/phone/food/casually running into them. Oddly enough, I find that the latter works pretty well.

1. As always, my little ball of pride and joy comes first.

As usual, I hope that you are all doing well with your respective ongoings. If I don't update before then, I wish you all a very happy Thanksgiving holiday. Eat it up!

-MeL

and the weekend begins.

You guys are all slacking with the updating. I really doubt that I'm the only person who can update on the weekend.

This week was kind of boring to me. I wasn't feeling well the whole week, so getting work done was kind of pain. The advisor selection is also coming up, and the professor I want to work for is the most competitive choice. There's 6 of us fighting for 2 spots right now. I really hope I get it though.

Today, I'm going to go watch "Wild Party", a musical hosted by our school with my friend. I guess after that, our plan is to play monopoly with some people. I've had this urge to play monopoly for the last couple of days, so it will be fun. Tomorrow, there's a big party going on at my friends' place....so, that should be fun.

I hope everyone else is doing great. keep me updated :)

Grapple

The future is here, but I'm not. My sister comes home and tells me that she's tried something totally delicious and she wants us to go buy it. What is it?

Louise: it's an apple, that tastes like a grape
Me: what do you mean?
Louise: on the outside, it's like an apple, and on the inside it's like a grape
Me: you're probably confusing it with a plum
Louise: no it's called a Grapple [Grae'ple]
Me: wtf?

So I looked it up and officially it's a fuji apple that is dipped in artificial grape flavor. I cannot grapple (the verb) with the idea of a Grapple (the fruity noun).

below freezing.

For the last few days, everyday has been below freezing. It is getting pretty cold here.

So here's my update on my life:
-I have a presentation today on Raman Spectroscopy. Wish me luck.
-We just finished all the midterms last week, and we got two of them back. I did bad on one of them and okay on the other. I'm expecting worse on the last one since it was a synthesis class.
-We are deciding on our advisor soon, and I really hope I get the one that I want.
-Thanksgiving is coming up and I will be stuck here. Consequently, I will be cooking turkey with my good friend Nick, and will be eating them with the Germans.
-This weekend will be exciting because I'm going to a tailgate party for a football game (I know, it's not like Berkeley, but apparently, they are not that bad), and then I will be going to my friend's recital for his Indian dance group.

I think that's about it. I also need to clean my room and do my laundry. It's a mess.

On a deeper note, I've been thinking about how our lives will be in the next 10 years or so. We should have made something like a time capsule to encapture the moment of our college years!

stay black

...that's my favorite line from snakes on a plane.

well now it is the 5th of november, do you remember :)

i'm sorry friends that i have yet to post for so many months! i'm not too good at the blog thing. i tend to either write nothing or write my whole life story with embellished details. then when the ending seems anti-climatic, as a wise friend taught me, i end it with "then i fell down the stairs and found $20". its good to read through october and hear bits and pieces though of your lives. i will try to be better at it.

so i'm still at the same job that i started 2 days after graduation. oh vacation where are you!? but its been overall a really good learning experience. i'm working in a social worker type role with low-income families of preschoolers enrolled in the headstart program in oakland. what am i learning that i should have already known before? (1) i have soooo much more to learn about people, myself, organizations, etc. etc. (2) people can be poor/have a lack of resources for a lot of different reasons and life ain't fair. (3) i see people with very little who are very content with it and less obessessed with economic advancement than a lot of people with a lot more. (4) kids are adorable. and they soak everyyything up and spit it back in their own way. (5) 4 year olds act surprisingly like big people. (6) big people act surpisingly like 4 years olds.

...well none of that is any great revelation, but i guess its different to experience it first hand than just hearing it from others.

future wise i'm tryin to figure out next year, and when to apply for law school. my hope i think is to go abroad again for perhaps a year, then law school. but we'll see. i need to start makin some decisions and see where they lead, so i'll let you know when something exciting happens (or when all my plans fall through, and have to start over hehe).

on the side of work, i go to bible study, tutor a guatemalan family in english, pretend to write my personal statement, wash dishes...you know. this week, when i went to tutor, the family had gone to ranch that morning. and they used to have a ranch. so it was perfectly normal for them to have a sheep head and four sheep legs in the sink, shaving the hair off. and a pot to the side with the rest of the sheep. wow. there were chickens out front too, still alive, but i think not for long. before i left i tried lamb for the first time in prolly over a decade. fresh....

over and out friends.
love, anna

Remember Remember the 5th of November

Well, we're not quite there yet. But I like that phrase.

Since Liang updated me with her halloween night, I guess I'm going to as well.
Yesterday was part 3 of my midterms, but it started at 5pm, ended at 6pm.
It sucked because we didn't get home until like 7pm to get dressed for the halloween.
I was an evil cupid this year, wearing all black and holding a bow and arrow. It worked
out okay except I think my makeup might have been too scary :P

As for the party, it went alright. A bunch of people were just getting drunk and high...
you know, the usual. My friend Brent got REALLY drunk and ran into a parked car and
cut his forehead. That was probably the highlight of the night. I got home safe, but I had
to study for my quiz today, so didn't get too much sleep.

The funniest thing is that I completely fell on my face today and now I have scrached and
bruises on my hands and legs. I haven't fell like that in the last 3 or 4 years or so. At least
I had friends who laughed with me when I fell. it wasn't so much embarassing...just painful.
We were just talking about going ice-skating this weekend, so I don't think that's going to
happen....seeing my history and all ;)

I discovered this week that I am actually second to shortest girl (and by default, second to shortest person) in the entire class. I really don't think I'm that short, so my guess is that people who study polymers are just tall ? O_o


Alright, i'll update again when theres more exciting stuff going on.