happy leap year day!

This. I just want this to be my future. Living in a simplified manner, not needing a ton of money to get by, not having to live up to the expectations of my friends, family, lab, etc., just being by the sea and maybe working at a nature center or something. I just don't want anything permanent or "careery" right now. I want tons of little odd jobs that are all fun. Things that allow me to travel and see awesome places and take pictures and be happy.

And when people tell me this is impossible or that I'm being unrealistic, I figure that it's because they're jealous of anyone having such a life. It's the dream, to be able to have a job that makes you happy and to just be content with life. But I don't believe it's impossible.



This was a heavier post than I intended it to be, especially since I'm completely happy right now. I just got back from a fancy dinner at Log Haven where we learned how to ballroom dance and ate delicious steak and lobster. It was so much fun. Also I realized that a) today is Leap Year Day and b) that means it's the end of February and I failed at finishing the photo a day challenge. Proof that these sorts of things just completely slip my mind or I end up getting too lazy or into something else. Oh well.

One funny thing about today is that I had to do some data collection for one of my experiments, so if this paper does get published than it's going to be pretty cool that one of our data collection days doesn't exist. Like Scott said, "Try replicating our experiment NOW, suckas!"

feb 12-14 plus 17

inside your closet



blue



heart



time

Haha I'm a little bit behind on this challenge. I skipped day 15 and 16 because I don't have photos pertaining to either of those right now (phone and something new), but I had all of these handy. What with multiple tests and my depression last weekend, I haven't really bothered keeping up with it. I'm determined to take all of these photos before February ends, though!

Today I went to the Natural History Museum with my brother and tonight I'm going to party. TIME TO GET MY DRINK ON

sometimes

I should be studying biochem.

But I don't care.

peekturs from the weekend

I'm spending Mardi Gras studying biochem, ugh. Also I go back to work tomorrow. Here's hoping everything's going to be okay.

glowy

This is my life

this poor weekend

This weekend has been SO BAD. Since this has followed a particularly nasty week, it definitely did me no favors. Basically my work is stressful and I have a mental illness where I hate when anybody is mad at me ever. So that took a huge toll on me. The only fun parts have been going out to sushi on Saturday night with Raphael (and getting free sushi rolls from the sushi chefs), coloring at Nostalgia and chatting with my favorite baristo (is that the male term of barista? meh), drinking lots of sake cocktails and beers, flirting with cute boys at Whole Foods and getting delicious lemonade and lemon tarts, watching the 1980's Monster: Humanoids from the Deep and having to make up a great majority of the dialogue because we couldn't hear it over my portable heater (since it was snowing outside), buying a new Iphone case that is going to be super cute, walking around the city at night and doing drunken parkour (aka jumping on top of benches and jumping off), and watching Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid with my dad. Well now that I look at that list it seems like I had a pretty good weekend. So that's good, I guess. Not so fun parts included being woken up by a stressful phone call six hours into my slumber when I was hungover, laying on my floor and crying, getting stressful texts and emails right before getting sushi on Saturday night, discovering that insurance will NOT cover my phone and it will actually cost more money to get a new phone via insurance than it did to originally even buy my phone, finding out I might have made a mistake in my experiment, and feeling like shit for 85% of the weekend.

Ugh, DEPRESSING. I'm feeling a little bit better now because I had to pump myself up with CONFIDENCE! I am awesome at my job and it's okay that I make mistakes, because I am human and because I am perfect 95% of the time. Plus I'm personable and friendly and have a really positive attitude and am willing to do anything and everything to help the lab. So I just told myself this a lot tonight and decided to try and feel better. I'm still a little bit heartsick and anxious, but I've done what I can do. So time to tell all that stuff to LUMP OFF because I'mma have fun tomorrow.



I'm going to Sugarhouse with Natal where we're going to go run some fun errands (aka eat noodles, go to the pet store to get bird food and play with the parakeets, go to Michaels to get craft supplies, and then to Whole Foods for snacks and flirting) and then we're going to go to the park to do the Great Backyard Bird Count!. I've never participated before, even though I've done a lot of birdwatching, so I think it'll be fun (even if we see nothing because it just snowed). I'll post again tomorrow with our results!

Here's to positive thinking and kicking ass even when the world feels like it's out to get you.

meh

Today has been really frustrating. Actually, this whole week has made me want to tear my hair out. I clearly need to refill my medications. Basically work has been stressful because I've been put on a new experiment and I've had to deal with new people, new projects, feeling inadequate, feeling unloved, etc. It's just been shitty. And now it's Friday night and I have no one to go out playing with and the cute puppy I was originally going to watch this weekend is instead staying with no one else, so I don't even have something to cuddle with :(

Oh yeah, I forgot that I wasn't going to post sad, whiny posts anymore. Welp.

To distract from my awful feelings of upsettiness and inadequacy and wonderings of what's wrong with me, here's a survey!



1) Star Wars (Return of the Jedi), Indiana Jones (Raiders and Crusade), and 101 Dalmatians (haters gonna hate)



Um favorite movies combined onto a t-shirt? Need this.

2) The only drug I like is alcohol, but boy do I LOVE alcohol. My favorite alcohol is vodka. Mmmm.



Especially if it glows.

4) Fuck David Duchovny, marry Chris O'Dowd, kill Hayden Panettiere

5) Right now, my favorite quote is "Everything will be okay".



I have a lot of favorite quotes though, I store them all on my facebook (you know, under favorite quotations). Another thing I came across today really spoke to me.



In a time when I'm trying to think about my future and making decisions and so many voices around me are trying to give me their opinions and, in a way, are trying to force their ideas for my future onto me, this really makes me feel better. I am the ultimate decider.

6) Son: Fox Brendan
Daughter: Kestrel (I don't have a middle name yet, though Mojave sounds good to me. Just kidding, I would be nicer than that. I also really like the name Lucy)

7) Upper arm muscles, dark hair, awesome senses of humor, the ability to make me laugh, and adorable smiles.

8) Owl City, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Ellie Goulding, Lights, Glee Cast (I like POP k)

9) One is that I think dramatic reenactments are the best things ever because they are so unintentionally hilarious and another is that the Sonoran Desert Museum is my favorite museum I've ever been too and I can't wait to go back this spring.



10) Upper arm muscles :3

11) Right now, I really want to go to Belize. It looks like a tropical paradise with awesome ocean and jungle habitats so I can chill with the birds and the sea creatures. Plus I really want to go scuba diving in the Blue Hole.



12) Ooh this is a toughie. Well considering I've never been on a perfect date (or a good date at all, really), I would say going to dinner somewhere fun where we can get drinks and good food (like sushi or pasta or something I like) where we talk and laugh and then going somewhere to walk in the night wherever we are (beach is perfect) and being able to be with each other in nature and maybe making out a little bit and then going out to a bar or a club and drinking and dancing and making out some more and then going back to his or my place to make out some more and watch an awesome movie like Star Wars and cuddle.

13) Shapeshifting, totally. If I could shape shift, I would be some form of animal 97% of the time. That would be so sweet.

14) I usually panic when I'm at the bar and order what I see other people ordering or what the special is. Since I like vodka though, I like to get cranberry vodkas or sea breezes. I also really like gin and tonics and Long Island Iced Teas.

15) The best story I have for a drunken escapade was when I went camping with two of my best friends in the Colorado wilderness. Everything was beautiful and the day had been an amazing adventures, but it had also rained a shit ton so the firewood was damp, we couldn't start a fire, and everything we'd brought for dinner had to be cooked. So we ended up eating nothing but a bag of chips between the three of us for dinner and then drank A TON. It was my birthday the next day, so we drank a bottle of wine to celebrate that and then we went to the next campsite to ask if we could borrow some firewood or lighter fluid. They invited us over to their fire, where we drank jager and whiskey with them (they kept giving me shots because it was my birthday) and we played Catch Phrase. OH IT WAS FUN. Alice and I danced to their car radio at one point. Anyways, I stole the car keys from Alice and then proceeded to lose them in my drunken state, so we had to sleep in our clothes in one sleeping bag that the campsite next to ours let us borrow and I ended up squirming away from Alice and Girr because that's what I do in my sleep so I froze to death in the middle of the night. Luckily, we found the keys the next morning, but when I found out I had lost those keys I was the SADDEST DRUNK EVER.

God it was so funny though. Well, it's funny to look back on.

16) I hate feeling replaced.

17) I love my name. I think it's really, really awesome :D





18) Of course the answer to this is white cheddar Annie's Mac 'n Cheese


I'm going to spend the rest of tonight painting and watching Xena for cheersie-upsies :) Then tomorrow I'm having an adventure day with Raphael and then going out tomorrow night for sushi, drinks, and dancing. Then hopefully on Sunday we're having Family Home Evening with a pokemon drinking game, YESSSS!

Happy Friday!

hell on earth

Here are some pictures from my recent adventure to Jungle Jim's.

(sorry for the poor resolution, I've been using Shutterfly, which really makes the pictures look awful and grainy, ESPECIALLY if they've been taken indoors)





















Jer doesn't like having his picture taken, so a lot of them were sneak attacks



















































My ticket winnings. I had thirty tickets and when I went up to the ticket counter, I told her "GIVE ME SIX REPTILES PLEASE" and she was like "Well, there are snakes and lizards" and I was like "THREE OF EACH"

So, as I mentioned before, some of my adventures at Jungle Jim's included getting stuck in a children's roller coaster. I have great memories of Jungle Jim's being my FAVORITE place in the world when I was little. If anybody's birthday party was at Jungle Jim's, I was THERE. You better believe I was all about those rides, the cardboard pizza that was still slathered in grease, and trying to procure enough tickets to get those rare 50 TICKET PRIZES. And the roller coaster was my favorite. It would go backward when you least suspected it, which was the best part. Anyways, if you're with a kid you can ride any of the rides. Unfortunately, the bar to secure the kids into the coaster didn't move at all, so I had to maneuver myself into the seat with my autistic four year old cousin. As soon as the coaster started, he was screaming. He burrowed into my side, sobbing, while I sat awkwardly cross-legged with my camera clutched in my hands because I'd forgotten to hand it off. I was being crushed into the left side of the cart due to centrifugal force and Xander was FREAKING. OUT. I managed to get him to smile and laugh halfway through the ride, but then he was upset again once we started going backwards. I was relieved when the roller coaster finally stopped, but that's when I realized that I couldn't get out. No matter what position I put my legs in, I couldn't manage to figure out how to squeeze out from the bar. It took about ten minutes for me to finally contortion myself into a weird enough position to pop out of the cart, at which point everything fell out of my pockets, so I had to crawl under the coaster to grab it all. Then I walked really quickly past the ride operator, who was looking at me like I was an idiot, and vowed never to do something like that ever again. The rest of the party was spent eating the aforementioned cardboard pizza off poisonous styrofoam dishes, playing a lot of Air Hockey and Swamp Stomp (the best games), and wandering around taking pictures.

I just wanted to share those special stories and pictures since they were hanging out on my hard-drive.