A bit from a long list.

I'm laying in bed, thinking of all the things I'm grateful for:
My generous family. Wise, compassionate, entertaining, and genuine.
My friends. Smart, silly, serious, and all. They are a great comfort for me.
My education. I am incredibly lucky, and I am having all sorts of doors open up for me. I have met more people than I could have imagined, and have more opportunities than I have ever thought I would be given.
My roommate, Caroline. My friend, and absolutely perfect to live with. A good spirited person.
My boyfriend, Jacob. A smart, sweet, sexy, and fun man. I am treated right, and am ridiculously happy.
My Anthony. The world would be such an even better place if everyone had one. I do! How great is that!
The opportunity and ability to be able to sit around a big table, with my family, eating a huge feast, drinking good wine, and laughing at the most random things till my sides hurt and I spit across the table.
Fine music, good books, and new words.
The warmness of the world when it's cold outside and I see so many smiling faces.

Thank you, everyone, for making my life so wonderful.

Nothing new really. Sunday morning was really pleasant. Sitting at my desk, eating cereal, and staring out the window, watching the leaves start to rain. Gusts of wind sending clusters of pale yellow leaves into the street and sidewalks. Autumn is the best season. The bright colors of the leaves against a pale grey sky. Hot tea, cinnamon, cider, pumpkins, bike rides. Books are best read in the fall. Out on a bench or swing. Or in a cozy chair as the rain drizzles down outside.
I need to go home Saturday and get my warm clothes. The cold has come. I hope it's here to stay.

Grey Day, Golden Days

Waking up on a stormy day is different from the others. You know something is different from the way a more whitish grey light presses in through the window blinds. I spent a good time before class staring out the library windows at the endlessly grey skies.
My fall break was very eventful and full. I didn't even get to see some of the people I was looking forward to seeing though (cough-Amanda, Sarah-cough). What it did consist of though was Heather, my Daddy, and me going to the Texas Renaissance Festival. It was overwhelmingly awesome and huge. Some people were dressed in the most ridiculous looking costumes ever. I find it really hard to describe everything there, but we had a lot of fun going about all the shops and listening to all the musicians. Heather even bought me some four leaf clover earrings. I'll post the pictures of everything later in Facebook if you want to see them.
Sunday morning before I went home Troy, Anthony, and I went down to the riverfront and played around the fountains and took pictures and tried to race leaf boats down the waterfall thing but failed. Then we went and ate cheeseburgers and had milkshakes from Cheeburger Cheeburger. We read books on the floor of Barnes & Noble, all cozy in a corner, and it was perfectly and entirely pleasant. Then we went to the costume store and Troy bought a couple skeleton car hanging things. Being together again with them made me very happy, but I had to go then. Back to the house where Daddy and I fixed the problems with my car. Well, most of the problems. Back here to Monroe, which, no, it isn't home, but I live here now for the most part. And the people are good, and the food is good, most of the time, and my roommate makes me laugh. And I am comfortable here. No, this isn't a bad place at all. And these stormy grey days make it even better here. The light is softer, the rain feels better, and the wind finds a way to turn my umbrella inside out every five feet.
The AMS is having a Halloween costume party next Friday. I'm going to be........a fairy! :-] It's still so much fun to dress up.

Oatmeal, Water Bottles

Oatmeal. I used to hate it so much. Why am I so happy to eat is now? Just about every Friday my English professor cancels class and just sends an online assignment by email. So now I've gotten to sleep an extra hour and taken the time to cook some maple & brown sugar oatmeal. And I must say I'm most pleased.
But in moving on in other news, I've started running again. Which means I've started stretching again, and I am way out of shape. All my muscles are sore, but it feels good. I hate it when I'm stiff and can hardly touch my toes. While we do have an indoor track here at school, I'm finding that running outside here is much better. The ground is flat for the most part, and it's easier to not cheat. I run down to the activity center and back, which makes about a mile, so every time I head down there I know I'm going to have to make the same distance back. No stopping in the middle of the lap, like at the track. It's easier to go running at night. Caroline and I only go on the main street, which is fairly well lit, but the air is better at night, and I always look really ridiculous when I run. It's like I don't know where to put my arms. Elbows jerk and my fists beat oddly. But heck, after seeing the way I play racquetball, this is much of an improvement.

...

So, I've encountered a problem. Lining the edge of the window along my bed are several empty water bottles. See, back when I lived at home, we would buy a case of water for me to take to school, but I would just refill the bottles from our refrigerator water. That way it lasted a lot longer and I didn't feel bad because each bottle got several uses before being thrown away. Now, the bottles aren't refilled and I just don't throw them out. I can count ten sitting along the ledge here right in front of me, and I actually have some in my unused drawer. It's all rather silly, but I can't just get rid of them.
Well, now I'm back from my other class, and I've got much more to do. I'm sure I'll have more to say after this weekend. There are a few events going on, and I've got to work on my next English paper to work on. I'm supposed to write it on the movie Dogma. Now if only I could get my computer to play the movie correctly. Oh, and tomorrow's my Grandpa's birthday!

Bridges, Brakes, Balls, Cancer?

Walking across the bayou bridge on my way to lunch or dinner I always stop to look at this little turtle on one end. He lives in the shallow part of the water near the cafeteria. It makes me really happy when I notice other people doing the same thing.
These last two weeks have been very busy for me, but I've still had lots of fun things going on. Caroline and I were sitting in our room, and she declared how she really wanted to play with puppies. So, we went of to find the pet store. Unfortunately, the puppies were not available for petting at that time, but we still had a lot of fun going around the rest of the store. We met the owner of the place and talked with her for a good while as she chased about birds and sprayed down chameleons. After that we decided that s'mores were the best idea (We'd been talking about them eariler) so we drove down the street to Target. After getting "enough marshmallows to last four years" we called Ashley, from down the hall and had a good laugh as chocolate went all about our faces. Ashley never having tried s'mores before.
Thursday Caroline and I decided to try out racket ball at the activity center. As we all know, I'm not athletically inclined, but we still had a great time, cracking up at ourselves. It consisted mostly of Caroline hitting the ball and me flailing. Friday we went again. Caroline hit the ball, I hit my knee with the racket. It made the same cracking sound. Caroline hits the ball, I whack my shin. But overall, I'm getting better, and it's a really fun game. Though neither of us really knows the rules of it. I'll have to look those up soon.
But yes, other than these brief times, studies consume most of our free time. I really am enjoying my classes. We still haven't had any word back from Dr. Mills on the research worker scholarship thing, but I am loving Atms. Last night was the AMS (American Meteorological Society) game night. Lots of people, very entertaining.
With all that's been going on though, my mind keeps coming back to the lady at the pet store. When asked if she was having a good day she threw her hands up with a huge grin and said, "Honey when you survive cancer twice, every morning you wake up it's a wonderful day." And I can't stop thinking about this. This lady loved where she was. She loved the animals and reptiles and fish, and people she worked with. She had that spark in her, that energy in living. And I keep wondering if it always takes something as drastic as cancer to spark that in someone. That Wake up and live! is what seems to be missing a lot. Everyone is so caught up in life, that they don't see it. I don't know if that makes entirely clear sense. But, I just keep thinking, Yes, I want to wake and say, Here I am, everyday is a wonderful day! Because, I am terribly happy with what I'm doing and where I am, and everything about me. I wouldn't want to forget that. No, I do not want to forget that. I hope you have a wonderful day, and week, and life.

295 Dots On a Map

(So yay. I'm moving the blog here. I'll think about putting in all the old archives, but for now, it's just a clean start.)

I have two weeks to plot the exact locations of all the hail storms that have occurred in the last thirty years in three of our parishes and with that hopefully get the chance to get a scholarship to work as a Regent Scholar Research worker to do more of that and look for trends in the Northwest regions of Louisiana. Oh thank you school, I’m now entirely immersed. It has definitely begun.

My first impressions of my classes are hard to put down. And probably somewhat boring, but if I may, here are a few thoughts and events that have occurred in this last week.

First off, my roommate, Caroline, is really great. We get along well, pick up our stuff, don’t have schedules that would cause conflict to arise in getting ready in the mornings, and enjoy hanging out together. She drove me around town to show me the close main streets I’d need to know and things like where the bookstore and Wal-mart are located. I’m entirely happy that I got paired with her.

As I walked into my first class, I admit I was a bit nervous. My pulse was quick and I don’t think it was due entirely to the fact that I had halfway jogged up the staircases. (All of the staircases have an odd number of steps, which really bothers me. Eh, yeah, I know.) However, everything went smoothly and I have found that it is super pleasant around here. My tire blew out the night I moved in and when I went out to look at the damage the next morning I was overcome with people helping me out. Some girl’s father just came up and put the spare on for me. He even went and got the air compressor he keeps in his car so that the spare could be aired up. Several other people approached, bringing water and all sorts of moral support I guess you’d say. Everyone holds doors and smiles at you and changes tires around here. It really is wonderful.

…

I always find myself feeling incredibly awkward when I run into people I know and I have food with me. I don’t know why, but I get embarrassed. It could be lunch time and I’ve got a sandwich with me I and someone walks up to say hi to me, and they look at my food, I feel like I have to explain myself. Isn’t that ridiculous! I mean, everybody has to eat, but unless I’m in the cafeteria or a restaurant or something, I feel like I have to spout out some explanation for carrying food with me. I am usually able to hold it back, but the desire is still there. Hah.

Sitting here looking at all the tiny crevices in the skin of my hands while I type reminds me of when I was a young kid, playing in the mud in the back yard. Heather and I would mix up the dirt we dug up with water, squishing it with our feet. Then we’d stand in the sun until the mud dried and became cracked and flakey on our feet. Like how they depict dinosaur skin to be like. Running around made chunks of it fall off, but if felt cool. The hard mud cracked in a pattern like a close up of the back of our hands.

Ah, I’m getting sidetracked. I have more to tell later. For now, I’m off to record more hail storm coordinates. Peace and have a wonderful time. ^_^