Beans.

Okay...so a couple of things have happened since I last wrote. There have been some beans. I'm not sure if they are baked beans or green beans, but they are beans nonetheless.

It happened...I turned 30. It turns out that it's not so bad and that I got myself all worked up for nothing. In the end, you turn 30 and then you move on. You can't turn back the clock, you can't take it back. It is what it is. I got to get all dressed up and go to a nice restaurant and have some cocktails with my friends which is all I really wanted.


I think we all look fabulous and my dress was just the right level of obnoxious. We went to Zelo for dinner, which came complete with a good-looking, incredibly charming waiter. Yay. He offered his arm to lead me to the restroom...enough said. After dinner the crew walked a couple of blocks (brrr) to The Local for some drinks. Karoline luckily spotted a booth and that's where we stayed. I knew that I wanted a shot of Patron so Brett and I had one. By the end of the night...he had had FOUR shots!! Yikes Brett...yikes. We had a short visit from The Williamsons, owners of Flat Earth Brewing Co. Drink Flat Earth people!! I really had a great time. Kristy couldn't be there because she's kind of big deal at 3M and had to get back to TX to give reviews of her minions. Hope you were harsh, but fair Kristy! My sister wasn't able to join us because she ended up having to get her wisdom teeth out. On. My. Birthday. Whatever Liz. However, she and my brother-in-law redeemed themselves the night before by taking me out to dinner at Fogo de Chao. Holy crap, that was some good meat! Vegetarians beware, this is a place for meat-eaters only. They do have a fantastic salad bar, but for the price it's the meat that it's all about. Yum. After we had tapped out on the meat we needed to decide what to get for dessert. A guy seated next to us had ordered this massive piece of cheesecake which he proceeded to take down in about 2 minutes. We all ate this one together. Happy Birthday to me!!



Ok. So the other news is that I GOT IN!! I was accepted into the U of MN Master's program for Epidemiology!! In my last blog I had mentioned that I took the GRE, but what I didn't bring up is that I really wasn't happy with my scores. They weren't quite up to par in my eyes, and also according to the preferred requirements of the program. I was seriously considering re-taking the exam and was feeling very pessimistic about the whole thing. Then, I received a letter on Nov 18th stating that my application materials had been sent to the admissions committee, so I decided to just let the chips fall where they may. I've been trying for the past month not to think about it at all. I didn't want to get my hopes up because I was certain that I wouldn't get in. Well...I was wrong. Very wrong. I'm still sort of in shock. I am pretty pumped though. I get to go school shopping!! It's still too early to do much now since the actual early deadline was just on the 15th of Dec and the late deadline isn't until April. So...I just have to wait. I can't believe I'm actually going back to school!! AACK!!!

Alas, there are no beans

I have no stories to tell. I've been holed up studying for the GRE, which I took today, for the past month. The proverbial ball is in the musician's proverbial court and he's not playing...so there's that. I'm super excited to go see Avenged Sevenfold on Saturday. And...GET OUT AND VOTE!!!!! Just don't vote for Al Franken...please. I beg you. He's not the right choice. Vote Dean Barkley for MN Senate!!!!

Maybe I'll meet my tattooed dream guy at the concert...hmm. Stranger things have happened right?? We shall see.

Baby steps

All is well with the musician. According to multiple sources, my neurotic break wasn't as bad as I thought. And I attempted to explain myself to him and found that he, after only being around me 4 times, has already figured out that I make myself nuts by over-thinking things and that I'm not actually crazy. He's very cool. I wish I was that cool. I used to be, or I am...sort of. At least in other areas of my life. Just not with him. The only thing I can say is that I've been honest with him about my feelings instead of 1) Pretending that it didn't happen, or 2) Running away. I look at this as real progress. Baby steps. Past me would have thrown in the towel already. I will not give up this time. I'm sort of talking to myself here...fyi. I'm really going to make an effort not to sabotage things before they get anywhere real. I will try very hard to let him in. Let my guard down...take down my walls. Well, maybe not all of them. The thought of this freaks me out a bit...and I'm not even sure if I can actually do it. But I will try.

On another note: I bit my cheek this morning and now I keep biting it. It sucks. And I had to turn on my heat today. Boo. Hiss. At least I waited until October (barely). I had no choice, it was 64 in my house when I woke up this morning and when I got home from work it was 63. Unacceptable. So...luckily my furnace started and I made it through the funk that emanates from my vents when it turns on for the first time. It's like stale dust mixed with moldy basement. Disgustingly stifling. I felt like I wasn't getting enough oxygen. But that part is over and I'm really just feeling blessed that I don't need to shell out a grand to get a new furnace since mine is from the 60's or maybe even the 50's. It's inefficient and really doesn't have a place to put a filter, but it heats the house up in mere minutes...it'll do. I'm warm and that's all that matters.

Unstable, nervous, anxious...

Neurotic is defined, as a noun, as 'a person prone to excessive anxiety and emotional upset' or 'a person afflicted with a neurosis or tending to be emotionally unstable'. This has apparently become a good way to decribe me as a person. I've become a neurotic crazy person. I can only hope that I did not completely scare off the musician (aka my date). I've got my fingers crossed. I'm not going to go into any great detail because I really don't want to talk about it. Let's just say that I let the crazy out and I was hoping to keep it under wraps longer than this. Seriously...I may need to be medicated.

My love of statistics?

I'm not sure how it happened, but I decided to go back to school to get my Master's of Public Health in Epidemiology. Most likely with a focus on infectious disease. It's like being an investigator and you get to look for patterns and do surveys. OCD Heaven. Not that I think I have full blown OCD...just a touch. Just enough to realize that I have an actual, real and true, interest in finding patterns. I also like math (statistics) and am very interested in infectious diseases (tracking the Ebola virus...fascinating). Okay...so when I say I've decided that's what I'm going to go back for, what I'm actually saying is that I am attempting to get into a program at the U of M...not exactly a sure thing. I'm a bit nervous about that. Also, I have to take the GRE, which I will be taking on November 3rd. And so far...I have come to the realization that my vocabulary is not very...what's the word? Exactly. I have fond memories of Wordmasters (Jessica will remember that one) in 4th grade and being frickin awesome at analogies. I'm still okay at them, but they use some words that I don't know...at all. This goes double for the antonyms. How can I find the opposite of a word that I don't know? Sigh. Must study.

My brain is broken.

I can't decide what to go back to school for. I think this may indicate that I shouldn't go back at all. Shouldn't one have a solid idea before making the decision? I long for the days of undergrad where you can be 'undecided' and still apply, and be accepted, to your school of choice. Where you can take general classes in a variety of subjects until you find one that piques your interest. Ugh. I'm getting a headache, an ulcer, and getting very close to completely shutting down. I've gone from environmental science to ecology to conservation biology to microbiology to epidemiology to journalism (threw that one in for variety). I work in the medical field and now am uncertain of if I want to get out of it entirely. I like being in the know and all that, but at the same time, it's not what I intended to do in the first place so I should be okay with leaving. Also, I don't want to feel like I've wasted the past 6 years working in microbiology, and I fear that if I leave the field, I will. Talk about quarter-life crisis. Maybe I should just give it all up and become a starving artist. Oh, that's right, I have no artistic ability. Save from writing. Writing does not pay the bills. Unless you are a journalist or something, hence the thought of journalism. I've tried a couple of career quizzes online and I've been told that I would like to be in administration...does that sound like me? I think not. I took one that involved choosing colors that you like to look at and was told that my 1st occupation choice would be as a creator (non-conformist, free-spirit, creative) and that my 2nd choice would be as an organizer (conformist, blah, blah) which to me is pretty much the polar opposite of creator. Argh. I'm bi-polar. And all this time I thought I was just depressed. Ha. Ha. I may need someone to make this decision for me. Any takers?

Mmm...cheese curds

Okay, so I'm home from the fair. What a great day. Pure sunshine with only 75 degrees. Normally this would be too cold for me, but it translates to 85 degrees Fair temp so it worked out. We ate a lot of food, drank a lot of beer and generally had a wonderful time. It didn't start out that great though. We decided to use the park & ride from Northtown mall. The lot was too full so I had to park kind of far away. Annoyed. We pay our $5 and get on the bus. Waiting, hungry. The bus driver is reading a paper and waiting for more people to get on before leaving. Still hungry. An obnoxious alarm begins to sound. Brett, being hung-over from his 10 year reunion is not pleased. Still hungry. Okay, so eventually the bus driver tells us that the bus is breaking down as we sit there and we need to get off and use the bus that has pulled in behind us. Fine, we move and get on our way. A little hitch, but I give the park & ride system at Northtown mall an overall thumbs down (partly due to the ride home where the bus driver decided to take the scenic route). Either way...we made it into the fair, with its masses of Minnesotans. People-watching at its best. Overly short shorts, fanny packs galore, people pushing strollers while looking the opposite direction (Jessica's fave), 2 year-olds having been subjected to the "Fair-Do" by their mothers, mass chaos at the corn roast. We decided to use a method of community food which worked out quite well. I don't think any of us felt icky-full at any point during the day. We tried the deep fried green beans and gave it a resounding two thumbs up! The "Perfect pickle" (deep fried pickle slices) was a little disappointing, possibly because the slices were lava hot, but still tasty. The fried bacon-on-a-stick was really yummy, but that was expected...bacon=yum. We did not partake in the pickle popsicle (frozen pickle juice in a Mr. Freeze-type plastic sleeve thingy), but there's always next year. The deep fried Twinkie almost cost Brett his life as he inhaled the powered sugar before even taking a bite. Jessica got her berries and cream only to find a better berries and cream stand later on...she had both. Or rather WE had both...yummy. Un-cored strawberries with Reddi-Whip the first time and then cored strawberries with Cool Whip the second time. I say good both ways, but Jessica prefers the cored berries with Cool Whip. Kevin got cajun seasoned shrimp-on-a-stick and gave a thumbs up. Brett got deep friend oysters...he claims they were good. I'm sure they probably were, deep fried anything is good. Funny thing was both Jessica and I somehow were picturing oysters on the half shell when he said that's what he was getting. Apparently we both forgot that we were in the land of "if you can, fry it". Of course we also had the staples of fair food: pronto pups (corn dogs), corn and the cob, cheese curds (OMG...yum) and cheese-on-a-stick. We even wandered through the Grandstand building, the Progress building (filled with all things green and eco-friendly), and the Home Improvement building (found carpet made from corn!). Like I said, it was a great day at the Minnesota State Fair. I highly recommend the fried green beans. They can be found in the Food building at the O'Gara's stand. Mmm.

I may need to enter Olympic-watcher rehab...

What have I been up to lately? What have I been doing with my time? Glad you asked. No, I have not cleaned up my weed farm of a yard. No, I haven't painted my bedroom or bathroom. I've barely cleaned at all. I have spent hours on end watching these summer Olympics. I'm watching table tennis as I write this. I have no idea what has come over me. Prior to table tennis, I was watching synchronized swimming. Yep, synchronized swimming. It was mesmerizing. I couldn't stop watching. I'm amazed at all I've seen. And quite frankly, my status as couch potato has never felt more lame. Although I did walk around Lake Calhoun two times in the past week. But these Olympic athletes are just spectacular. Oh well, I'll just have to see how much food I can stuff into my body tomorrow.

That's right everybody, it's the time for the great Minnesota get-together. STATE FAIR TIME!! Anything and everything on a stick. I've heard a couple of new items this year are fried bacon on a stick and deep-fried green beans (not on a stick). I plan to bring my camera and take a pic of everything for you poor schmucks living in TX and CA. I'll give the rundown when I roll myself home tomorrow.

There's something about hail...

I walked in the door this afternoon and about 30 seconds later it started hailing. I must have some sort of force field around me that protects me from these mini ice balls falling from the sky. Sweet.

On another note...my scooter was delivered today!! Yay...sort of. It's way pinker than it looked online, but I guess that's retribution for not going to an actual dealer to purchase it. It's like Bazooka bubble gum pink...or Double Bubble. As long as the reference conjures images of large bubbles and flavor that lasts approximately 25 seconds. Also, I knew that I would have to attach the handlebar, side mirrors and front wheel, but damn. This thing came packaged to within an inch of its life. And it's from China so the user guide leaves a bit to be desired. It's translated to English...as well as you can translate Chinese directly to English. I'll give you an example in reference to checking the tires:

TYRE
check the tyre pressure regularly and adjust.
-Check after the tyre cooled
-Check if there any metal trash or gravel in thegroove of tyres
WARNING:
-If the tyre pressure dose not accord with the standard, it will possibly the traffic accident.
-It is dangerous to, use the worn tire, It will effect to the friction between tyre and road. It will possilly bring trouble tor dring or even an accident.

Seriously...that was word for word including spaces and punctuation. You should notice that they did spell tire correctly once in there. However, I'm not sure what to make of "tor dring"...I feel like tor might be for, but dring? Hmm...yikes...I fear for my safety! Although, I picture a cute little old Chinese man telling me that worn tyres will possilly bring me trouble. When I get the darn thing assembled and out of it's metal casing deal I'll post a picture of it...in all it's pink glory.

I love storms, but come on!

I don't know how, but my car escaped hail damage even though I was literally driving through a hailstorm. It's nothing short of amazing. I was on my way to California Pizza Kitchen at Arbor Lakes in Maple Grove to meet my girls for dinner and drinks before heading to the theater to see Sex & The City. As I was driving down 94 I looked to the right and saw that it looked to be raining pretty hard over the shopping area, so I rolled up my windows and closed the moon roof in preparation. Oh, was I in for a shock!! I took a right onto Hemlock Lane and drove directly into a hailstorm. OMG! I didn't know what to do. I kept driving, albeit very slowly, but I wasn't sure if it would do any good to stop. I called my friend to let her know what was going on and she said that she could barely hear me over the sound of marble sized hail slamming into my poor car. With every bang and thump I could just picture the damage that I was going to have to deal with. I kept waiting for glass to break...it was really scary. I finally made it to the parking lot by CPK and sat there wondering what I should do. Strong winds were blowing tiny trees sideways and I was told that the area was under a tornado warning. My sister called to make sure that I was okay and told me I should make run for it and get inside instead of being a sitting duck in my car. Just after she said that, it stopped. It stopped hailing and raining and the sun peaked out a little. I wasn't sure if this was the calm before the real storm or not, but I made a break for it and ran into the restaurant. I was shaken a bit, but after a couple of raspberry mojitos all was well.

And Sex & The City was SO GOOD!!! It was pretty cool being in a theater that was almost all women. There is a scene involving an amazingly fantastic closet and when Carrie opened the doors and we first saw it, all the women in the theater gasped and ah'ed. It was hilarious! I'm so glad that I got to see it with my sister and two of my close friends. I was missing Kristy though :(

And afterwards I met up with a friend from college that I haven't seen in years. It was great to see her and have a couple of cocktails. Also, her friends were very cool. One boy in particular piqued my interest. We'll see...that story may have to be continued.

Don't be fooled...

By the new template that is. I couldn't find one that is over-run with weeds. Which is what my yard looks like....again. Dandelions, creeping Charlie, thistle...you name it, we've got it. I seriously think that I'm just going to have to re-sod the front yard since there are also some patches without even weeds. Luckily, the creeping Charlie is only in the back yard, but for how long? I hardly had any last year and now it has completely overtaken a flower bed and is slowly moving into the actual yard area. I sprayed Weed-B-Gone the other day and it looks to have wilted most of the thistle (very prickly btw...beware) and dandelions, but not the damn Charlie!! I've been thinking about having a "Save Asia's Yard" weekend sometime soon. Conning my friends into helping me clean up the mess by providing beer and pizza?? Think it'll work? I feel overwhelmed by the idea of doing it alone. HELP!!!

Rejections and C-sections

Update on the job front:

I didn't get the lab manager job. They decided to go with someone with previous supervisory experience. I'm pretty sure that my interview was a concession because they called the next day to tell me that I didn't get it and since I was the last to interview, I feel like they had already made up their minds before I even came in. Whatever, I'm still out there looking. Applying for jobs that I'm not qualified for is fun! Ha. ha. ha. Argh.

Update on the baby front:

My best friend just became a new mommy on 3-19-08 at 10:30pm!! Little baby girl Kasja Elizabeth came into the world weighing in at 6lbs. 14 oz. 18.5 in.

Isn't she precious!! She decided to give her mom's ribs a break and come a little early. Yay. I'm overjoyed for my friend and her husband, they are going to be such good parents!! Lucky for you Kasja, your parents are cool.

Interview with the vampire? Not quite.

I had a job interview today. It's for a lab manager position at a small hospital that's actually very close to my house...only took about 10 minutes to get home at almost 5 pm. Anyway, there is a reason that I feel the need to discuss this. I applied for the job and got a call the next day for what the lady called "a brief phone interview". I finally got a hold of her the next day to have what I thought was going to be "a brief phone interview". Meaning to me, you tell me a little about your hospital, I tell you a little about why I applied. Oh no, not the case. She asked me four or five straight-up interview questions. You know the ones. 'Tell me about a time when...' and all that jazz. I was completely unprepared, said um every other word and, at one point, didn't speak for like 30 seconds. She thought her phone had cut out and told me that she was having a problem with the cord. I went along with it and told her I hadn't heard the question. She repeated it, but I still had no answer! At the end she told me the next step would be to come in for an interview and asked if I would be interested in doing that. My jaw dropped to the floor and I thought 'Are you interested in that? Where you on the same phone call that I just was? Because that was horrible!!' I said of course and we found a time that would work for the CEO...that's right, I said CEO. Because she's the one conducting the interviews. Aack.

Okay, so I start to panic. Since I totally bombed the phone interview, I was going to have to totally ace the sit down with the frickin CEO. I went out and bought my very first suit. It's super cute (and professional) but was $200 after a couple of discounts. Oh well, it's machine washable! Seriously. Go to the Limited. It's called the Travel Suit, it doesn't wrinkle and can be machine washed and dried (I think). I also spent many an hour perusing the interview prep articles on monster.com. Many an hour! My chihuahua Max has been feeling very neglected. I had specific examples of strengths, weaknesses, achievements, how to deal with difficult people, failures. I had a bullet point list of all the reasons why I would be good at the job and why they should hire me even though I'm not sure that I really want this specific job. So what did she ask me? The only interview-type question she asked me was "Tell me about yourself and what you're looking for in a job." That's it?! Yep. Most of the interview was spent touring the hospital and the lab I'd be in charge of. We chatted about the atmosphere that they try to create in their little community and all that good stuff. I'm telling you she never asked about my strengths, my work ethic, or my accomplishments. She did ask if I'd ever supervised anyone before, but that was really easy to answer. "Not with a title, but technically yes...blah blah." I'm really not sure what to think about this. Then she told me about the benefits and asked me how much notice I need to give to my current employer. 'There are 3 other applicants and I'm the last to interview. We're hoping to call people by the end of the week. I'll probably call you tomorrow.' Huh? No second interview? I'm confused. I guess I'll just have to wait. I haven't been on an interview in over 5 years and I pretty much knew that I was going to get the job. I obviously didn't know what to expect here. I feel like the phone interview was the real interview and the real interview was the laid-back conversational thing I expected from the phone interview!! Oh well, no point in obsessing over it. Yeah right. I'm off to the message boards of monster.com to see if anyone else has had this experience. Later.