Tonight was crazy. I don't really know what happened. All I know was, I was supposed to stay in Seattle after hanging out with Andrea and Bryan, and read or something. Just chill out. Instead, Andrea and Bryan convinced me to come to Olympia with them, and so I spent 9 fun and ridiculous hours in Olympia, hanging out with old high school friends.

Now I'm back at my house in Seattle (thanks to a ride from Matt Hall's dad), and it's 6:30 AM, so I think it's time to get some sleep. I'll be back up at 11:30 anyway.

It's been a while since I've blogged.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention the best part of last night.

On the bus ride home from Ballard at 2:15 am, we were in the back of the bus. Just seven of us, chilling out and laughing and talking. A dude came back, sat down, and asked to talk to us. We immediately quieted down to listen to him. It was apparent this guy was agitated, and either crazy or on drugs. He basically had one thing to say:

"Guys, I had some problems earlier, but it's cool now, yeah? We're not going to have any problems now, right?"

We tried to reassure him that this was the case. Lita, who was extremely intoxicated, kept talking nonsense and even tried to reach out to touch him, which he jumped at and reached for his pockets. We tried to calm him by chatting conversationally. Then the bus stopped and stayed in one place for a while. It was an awkward treading of water with the guy, as he kept asking the same question and we maintained that everything would be all right. This continued until the police showed up behind the bus a few minutes later. The guy made no violent moves and cooperated as the police escorted him off the bus. We watched him be handcuffed through the window as the bus pulled away.

We all breathed a sigh of relief, wondering what the guy had done and if he had any weapons on him. One of our group, who is a Marine, stated that he was ready to leap up and powerkick him at the first sign of aggression. He even demonstrated this, and we all laughed, relieved that it hadn't come to that.

Tonight was a good night. I had fun dancing at the Hazlewood in Ballard, a nice hole-in-the-wall place. It was the Trader Joe's anti-holiday/farewell Donny party, and it was fun hanging out with all my co-workers. Somehow, I don't feel like I'm friends with any of them. I'm getting along well with most of them (some better than others), and I had a good time tonight, but I don't think we're friends.

Also, I'm glad tonight that I usually have school. Just working makes me restless, like there's more I should be doing but somehow I don't have time for it.

I can't wait to go home on Friday and see Andrea and Sara for the first time since the end of August. I want to hang out with my family before I have to come back up here and work again, grr. And I can't wait for Jeff to come back from LA. Life is just a few weeks away from returning to happy normalcy.

Merry Christmas, everybody.

(Deutsche Kenntnisse waeren echt praktisch zum Anschauen dieses Videos.)

Yesterday was a very good day. I did lots of things in the morning because Jeff left for LA and so I got up with him at 8 to ride downtown and put him on the bus to the airport. By the time that the bus rolled out with my Jeff on it (wah!!!), it was 9:30 am and I was in the International District with no ooncrete plans. I ended up wandering west through the ID to Capitol Hill, because it was a nice day (no rain, at least) and I felt like walking. Here's all the things I saw and did:

-Went to multiple Chinese markets; was the only white person there; bought lots of good produce for about 6 dollars (peppers, basil, a pomegranate, an asian pear)

-Talked to a lady walking on the street, who was very chatty, and talked about her side job as a caterer, and how the post-holiday season is "funeral season"; asked her where the Capitol Hill Trader Joe's was, which she answered with a vague "It's on Madison" before jumping onto her bus

-Had a guy with dreadlocks call me "Rastafarian" and try to sell me one of 5 pairs of shoes, although they were all 3 sizes too small for me; at the same time, a lady asked me for food stamps

-Found the Trader Joe's and marveled at how nice the place is (much better than our ghetto store); bought oranges, bread, mango and smoked salmon. Helps to know the products well beforehand

-Went to find a bus line that would take me back to the U-District. Found one, but had a few minutes until it was due to come, so I went up the bus route to the main street. Came around the corner to see a wonderful view of the Space Needle framed by mountains. Was sad that my cell phone could not effectively capture the view.

-In trying to get an unobstructed view of the Needle, I found a side street that was closed due to a tree falling during Thursday's wind storm. The tree was completely uprooted and had fallen directly onto somebody's truck, smashing the back end pretty bad. My cell phone was able to take good pictures of that.

-Back in the U-District, I picked up my bike and rode home through campus. I saw two wedding parties and ran into an old friend from my parking job, who was working in the gatehouse, so we chatted for a bit.

-Made an omelette with the ingredients I had bought while out.

It was really nice getting back with time to kill before work. I think I shall try to get up early tomorrow and have more adventures. Today I got up at 2 pm, but with good reason: some people from Trader Joe's had a party last night, and a lot of us went after we got off work at midnight. We stayed out late and had a lot of fun dancing and joking around, and just hanging out together outside of work for once. Afterwards, Max drove us back to the U-District (the party was in Wallingford) and we hung out at his house for a bit, talking and petting his cat. Then I rode my bike the ten-odd blocks to my house, where I stayed up playing computer games and watching Arrested Development. So I was up super-late. Let's put it this way: If I hadn't slept until 2 pm today, I wouldn't have gotten 8 hours of sleep. :)

Well, I have work to be at again in 90 minutes. So I'm going to go get some stuff done, and eat lunch... Have a nice day.

DONE WITH FINALS

WHEEEEEEE

schweet.

I found out last night at the review session that my final today is at 2.30, and not at 4.30 as I thought. Good thing I went to review session... otherwise I would be a very unhappy person today at 4.30. Very, very unhappy.

Last final! Can't wait to be done!

I found out that I might be working 5 shifts next week instead of four. This makes me mad, because Lauren, while a nice person, continuously lies to me about how much I'm going to work over break. Grr.

K, I'm going to write few more things on my study sheet (I get to take it into the test with me). Wish me luck...

Note to Self:

David and the Citizens - Let's Not Fall Apart.

Good stuff.

At the library now, and surprisingly, I actually have some motivation. Like, I actually want to learn the material, and not just for the test. Although, in all actuality, it'll end up being just for the test, since I'm learning it all today, and the test is tomorrow afternoon. I think my motivation comes from not doing any studying yesterday after my physics final, and also from having a good night's rest and having a nice, relaxing brunch at IHOP this morning with my boyfriend. :)

Anyway, I'm off to the upstairs realms of the library to find a cozy corner and settle down for a few hours to study the circulatory and respiratory systems. Hopefully I won't dream too much about how much fun the rest of the week after 6.30 pm tomorrow is going to be - lots of hanging out with friends, biking around Seattle, and going to various get-togethers of the holiday variety. Then a study session at 4 with the professor, and then back to studying solo. It'll be a good, productive day.

I'll post again in 29.5 hours, when I emerge from my bio final an emancipated and victorious woman.

I didn't know that "Internet" was a country.

I didn't think switching to the new version of Blogger would make my life signficantly easier. But since I use the same log-in now for both GMail and Blogger, it's more convenient to blog - I can do it right after I check my email without logging in twice.

Okay, so it doesn't make my life easier, really. It just makes blogging easier. Am I spelling "easier" right? It looks weird.

I just took my physics final. It was hard, hard, hard. Hopefully I did alright - but somehow that class really got away from me. I thought I was doing well, and then WHAM - angular acceleration and simple harmonic motion exploded and got the better of me. It didn't help that I couldn't sleep very well last night, either. At least I know what to do better for next quarter (the most obvious being "take tutorial more seriously").

Wow, it's been a long day and it's only 11 am. I get paid today for the parking job, so I'll go pick up my paycheck and then grab some food or something. Then I'll think about taking a nap before work at 4:30... but only if I have time. I have to get some bio studying in there, too. Otherwise it'll all be postponed until tomorrow, and I have to get going on it sooner than that, since the final is on Wednesday. Hmm, aren't we all glad we know what Kyla is up to.

Want to know why I had trouble sleeping last night? I was thinking of all the things that I want to do in Seattle, but hardly ever do since I'm always bogged down with work and school. I got to thinking about this because Brad invited me last-minute to go watch live bluegrass after work. Since I had my bike and I couldn't do much more to prepare for my physics final anyway, I decided to go. Plus, Brad said they started at about 8 and would be done around 11, and we got off work at 10, so we'd missed most of it anyway. It was good music, and nice to just sit there with Brad and have a pint and listen to music for a bit. Then when I went to Jeff's later, we looked at old pictures of us on Facebook that Ronda took in Europe. The silly expressions on our faces and the sights of the different cities caused the memories to start flooding back, and I just started laughing. Uncontrollably. I laughed, and I laughed, and Jeff wondered what was wrong with me, and I kept laughing. In hindsight, I think it was a round of hysterics, because I realized that there are things that I want to include in my life, things that bring me joy, and that my life, as it stands at this moment, does not have time for many of these things. Moreover, I love doing things that require high energy levels, and I almost never have that either due to school and work.

So I couldn't sleep because I was thinking of all the things I really want to do here in Seattle: go to the symphony, feed the ducks at Greenlake, ride my bike EVERYWHERE, shop on Capitol Hill, go to the Rocky Horror Picture show, see Twisted Flicks at Jet City Improv, go to the Russian baths downtown, find perfect reading spots, see the sunset at Golden Gardens, work out at the IMA, listen to local live bands and go to more shows. There's just so much, and it all ran through my head last night.

So in short, I'm still working on finding a balance, and I want to be able to strike that balance soon. Hopefully I'll have time over Winter Break to do some of these things that I love but never have the time or energy for. And maybe I'll use some of that free time to dream up ways to find a sustainable balance.

I just went to the fridge for a refreshing glass of sparkling pink lemonade. I got the bottle out, removed the cap, and promptly poured the juice into a bowl.

I bet when I was little, when I thought about how I would be when I grew up, I never thought I'd end up to be THIS cool.

**Edit: Heavy sarcasm is hidden in that last line. See if you can find it.**

So I've finally changed over to the new blogger. Not much is different, except I have to use my gmail account to sign on. Also, I changed my template, but it hasn't shown up yet. I don't know when it will.

I have zero motivation to study for finals tonight. I wonder if I should consider physics a lost cause and just concentrate on biology.

A guy on the Ave asked me if I was a Rastafarian or an artist. I said neither. He said he liked my dreads on me anyway.

I had good Thai food for dinner on the Ave with Devin. I wanted to go to Thai Tom's, but that place is a zoo at dinnertime. I called ahead to get take-out but I basically got the equivalent of "screw-you" over the phone (by which I mean they said "It'll be an hour" and then, after I said "okay", they said "okay, bye" and hung up). Devin was already at the library anyway, so Thai 65 was closer. We decided against AppeThai.

I want bubble tea, and I don't know where my cell phone is. I think I left it in my room. Otherwise, I really have no idea where it could be. I'm tired. Man, this post is lame.

The party last night went splendidly. At least, I think it did - it's always hard to tell if people are enjoying themselves when you're the hostess, because you can always think of something that you can improve about your party to help people have a better time. But I think it was good. Lots of my friends showed up, many of them from high school, a few from work, and a few mutual friends with Ronda (aka the German exchange students). We had German mulled wine that turned out great, egg nog with rum that was also surprisingly good, a platter of Christmas cookies and copious amounts of Three Buck Chuck. People also brought their owh booze, so it turned out to be quite a pleasant party.

The mistletoe didn't work out quite as well as we were hoping. Only a few people got caught under it. Although I do have to say, there was one incident that I felt made the mistletoe worth its purchase: as Max and Carol were dancing the tango, they passed under it and I called them out on it. Since Carol is awesome and crazy, she uttered no word of protest and shoved her face up to Max's and kissed him quickly. Max's reaction was amazing: He tried to get his face into a kissing postion, but it only happened after Carol pulled her face back. Then Max looked bewildered, and said, "I just got punched in the face by your lips." I thought it was a hilarious interaction.

Other amusing things that happened last night:
1. A football player wandered into our party from off the street. He took some egg nog, talked to me briefly, and left. Everyone was slightly confused.

2. Hung hijacked the stereo system and started playing German hiphop from his iPod. All the German speakers rejoiced. Everyone else kinda went "wtf?" and stopped dancing.

3. I spilled some egg nog on the floor while Max was standing next to me, and without even barely communicating, we cleaned up the spill. It was kinda scary how fast we went into Trader Joe's clean-up mode - he stood there to protect the spill, and I went and got towels. We laughed about our TJ reflex, and it may only be funny to us. But that's how jokes go sometimes.

4. Early on, we all danced to Scissor Sister's "I Don't Wanna Dance". It took my breath away, and not only because I was dancing like a maniac on speed. It's moments like this that I live for.

5. We had our disco ball up and running! And we lit it with my bike light, which I found hilarious. I just hope those batteries still have plenty of juice. The whole thing reminded me of a middle school dance, and we even played that out a little bit, with the whole awkwardness thing - Max danced with Carol and pretended that the girl he REALLY wanted to dance with was across the room.

6. Carol carried Max over her shoulders - twice.

So it was a good, long night, and now I have to go do parking duty for 3 hours and try to earn some of that money back that I so casually spent on my party last night. And then study for finals, which is what I should have been doing all along. YAY!