Things I Love Thursday

• Jelly beans, specifically Starburst Tropical jelly beans.
• My primary care physician at the University's health center. He's just a really kind, rather soft-spoken, knowledgeable, caring, helpful doctor.
• My hair cutter. If you live in UrPaign and need a good haircut, go see Terra at H2O in Urbana.
• Reproducible data. It's not perfect, but it's way better than it was!
• The American Physical Society. I got my copy of the Proceedings of Shock Compression of Condensed Matter-2011 today, and it just makes me happy.
• The prospect of getting a job. Nothing set in stone, no firm offers, BUT the last email I got from my hopeful future PI said (in response to my sending him an updated CV for my fellowship package): "You're awesome. Can't wait until you're working with us." So, yeah, I'm excited.

Things I Love Thursdayish

Or Fridayish. Whatever.

• This is super gross and I apologize. While encased in a cast, my foot developed some serious dead skin. It is so disgustingly satisfying when parts of my gross chunks of skin fall and peel off. It's a little like a sunburn.
• Pie! Turns out I make good pie. The boys REALLY liked the last version. I made two tonight for the baby shower tomorrow, and I hope they both turned out.
• Chinese food. We got takeout from First Wok, and my Tai Chen chicken was delicious. The shrimp doughnuts today however were not delicious. Kinda gross.

Things I Love Thursday

• My boot. I'm in a boot! Which means that I can take it off!! It's great. The only discomfort I have with it is that my heel gets rather excessively tired and sore throughout the day, but everything else about it is great. It even has one of those sweet Reebok Pump deals. Just like the shoe, I can't REALLY tell when it's inflated, but it is super-fun doing it.
• Marathon phone calls with my big brother. I am HORRIBLE at keeping in touch with people. It's not that I don't want to, and it's not even that I don't like talking on the phone. I don't honestly know why. My brother called me a couple of weeks ago, and like the terrible little sister I am, I put off calling him until a couple of days ago. So bad am I at calling him, he was convinced that I was pregnant and that's why I was calling. Must get better at that. Anyway, we had a FABULOUS conversation, and I even got to talk to his girlfriend for a few minutes. I love my big brother!
• Mango and sticky rice. Since my favorite lunch buddy is graduating, we have decided that we should go to Basil Thai a few more times before she does. On this week's trip, we realized that in the 5 years we've been coming here, not once have either of us ever tried a dessert. They had two: Tiramisu and mango with sticky rice. Feeling that Tiramisu would not exactly be the most 'authentic' Thai dessert, we opted for the mango/sticky rice. Oh. My. Goodness. I can't believe we've never gotten it before. I like mangoes ok, but I'm not really wild about them. But these were good...they were the exact ripeness that I think they should be; soft and sweet without being mushy or cloying. And the rice! Really, I would have been happy with just the rice. It was not overcooked or in a rice pudding as we expected at all. It was just...rice...with some kind of delicious, sweet 'binder' for lack of a better term. Not quite a sauce. So. Good. And the rice was hot. For some reason that surprised us both.
• Productivity! Since returning to work, I can't say that I've been the most productive I've ever been. I have to take lots of 'sit breaks,' and a lot of things that I need have mysteriously moved over the last month and a half. A lot of what I'm trying to do now is laser diagnostics, and yes, that is exactly (or less) as exciting as it sounds. Which gives me even less motivation, and makes sit breaks all the more appealing. This morning though, I decided that I wanted to get this one thing done. And I so totally did. It was probably the most productive day I've had since I've been back. 

Things I Love Thursday

• Cornell, including: friends, faculty, steel drums, and band. Ok, I know I've already done an "I love Cornell" post. But oh, how I miss the steel drums...
• Walking. Actually, walking kinda blows right now. I'm still in a 'walking cast' and will be until Monday, when I get a walking boot. I'm REALLY looking forward to the boot. Walking in the cast isn't terribly comfortable, and it's tiring and bit painful. But today was my first day more or less NOT on crutches...which is a HUGE step for me. I'm very proud (and very, very tired and sore).
• Beating the snot out of my husband in the March Madness bracket. I'm really not a competitive person...most of the time. And to tell you the honest truth, I flipped a coin while picking my bracket...which I only did in the hopes that I would get a free appetizer from Old Chicago. Well...thank you, Mr. Lincoln. Not only did I pick VCU (but only for 2 rounds), I picked UConn to win. Which put me in...wait for it...3rd place at Old Chicago!!! I got a free pizza out of it. Tjett, on the other hand, came in 29th and got a free appetizer. Really, I just think the whole thing's funny.
• Clearly, the ellipsis. I just realized I used it 7 times already.
• Corn Chex. They're not filling enough for breakfast, but I've been SO in the mood for them for a snack lately. Oh-so-delicious.
• My giant death laser. Yep, I blew up a filter today. And I tried to launch my flyer plate...(there it is again!) but basically just blew up a bunch of glass. I'm thinking 2.5 Joules MIGHT be a bit overkill.

Things (I love and hate Thursday, Friday night edition)

Becky's latest post reminded me about Things I Love Thursday, which I can't say I often remembered to do during Blog Every Day in April (come on Katie, there were only 4 that you had to remember), but I thought oh hey, what the heck, maybe it's time for another.

But today was not a big 'love' day for me. It just wasn't. And so I present two lists.

Things I Hate, specifically right now.

• Skinny people without much luggage who sit on the outside seat on the bus. Riding on the bus is a necessity in this town. There is no way I'm paying the minimum $400 a semester to pay to park, and I'm just a little too far to walk regularly (and just not in good enough shape to bike to work, and right now it's too slippery to do so anyway). So I take the bus. Along with a million other people. A million other people who should have learned by now basic etiquette of bus riding. Our buses, like many city buses, have 8 or so rows of seats, two each on either side of the bus, with a center aisle in between. If the bus is close to empty, as my one bus often is, then feel free to splay yourself out in a full two seats. But as soon as you see that oh, there aren't any two-seaters left, YOU NEED TO PACK YOURSELF UP. I feel like this is super obvious, but apparently it isn't. On my second, busier bus today, the girl sitting in front of me was sitting on the aisle seat, making it impossible for someone else to sit down in the second seat. There are three, and only three, times when this is acceptable: 1) You are morbidly obese. It's irritating when you realize that you can't sit down because someone is taking up two seats, but it's forgivable. 2) You have just a crap-ton of stuff. I mean more than a backpack and a purse. I mean a backpack, a purse, three shopping bags, and a box of exams. This is also a forgivable offense. It happens. 3) The inside seat is wet or covered in something unsavory. I don't want to sit on that either. But any other time...get it together. Few things in life irk me more than a skinny person without too much stuff sitting in the aisle seat on a crowded bus. People have to stand. There is no excuse. Don't like crowds? Me neither. Have some serious 'personal bubble' issues? Get over it, or don't ride the bus.

• Grad School. I don't wanna talk about it. 'Nuff said.

• 'Open-minded,' 'liberals,' who bash Christians and Christianity as a whole. I just get so irritated and sad when people who supposedly are super open-minded and liberal like to say that it's impossible for Christians to be open-minded or liberal. As a liberal Christian, I can safely tell you...we do actually exist. There are Christians who will not tell you that you or anyone else will go to Hell. There are Christians who believe that two people, regardless of sex, should be able to be both legally and religiously married. Did anyone see that picture of the Christians in Egypt forming a protective 'wall' around the Muslims in Egypt to protect them while they were praying? Christians exist who believe that everyone has a right to practice their own religious practices. What got me going about this right now? Stay tuned for Things I Love, as there is a caveat...

• How I'm also expected as a liberal to smoke pot. Yeah, this is another one of those things. I've been noticing a lot lately that one of the things that liberals are supposed to find funny is pot use. All a comedian has to do is go 'so I was high' and the crowd goes nuts. I don't think it's funny. I think it smells bad, and I have other reasons for not wanting to partake. I do happen to think that it should be legalized...but not so I can go get high. More so we can tax the crap out of it, regulate it, and cut down on some of the drug wars going on. But I've never smoked it, and I have no interest in doing so, and I hate that as a liberal I feel like I have to explain that.

Ok. 'Nuff of that. 

Things I Love

• Fetch with Tia. Tia has this weird, really cute, way of playing. Sometimes it's a bit naughty; she really likes mouthing and grabbing, but my favorite are our games of fetch with her 'baby.' Her 'baby' is a blue rubber bone. She used to be kind of weird about playing with it, and she used to just carry it around. Now though, she's decided that it's the BEST TOY. Fetch with her baby is more like a combination game of fetch and tug. I throw the baby, she chases after it, brings it back, smooshes it into my legs, I grab it, we tug, she play-growls, half the time I get it, half the time I let her keep it. When she keeps it, she'll usually try to get me to tug it again. She gets up on her hind legs, she 'crawls' up me to get it (adorable in the winter, will get horrifying in the muddy spring)...I love it. 

• Two Bands: Mad Season and Tyr. Mad Season I've talked about before. It's a 'grunge supergroup,' comprised of Layne Staley and some other guys. From Pearl Jam maybe? Anyway, I got their CD from the library and have listened to it almost every day since. It. Is. Awesome. I'll do a bigger post on it another time. Tyr is a Viking Metal band that hails from the Faroe Islands. I don't have any of their albums, nor are they on iTunes, but they are on YouTube so I can listen to them at work. By far, their best songs are those that are in Faroese, but they tend to mostly be winners. My only beef with them is that they are decidedly anti-religion. Not Satanic or anything like that, but the lead singer likes to say at the end of his interviews 'and remember, religion is bullshit.' Apparently they're really upset about the Christianization of the Faroe Islands 999 years ago (or something), and quite a few of their songs involve Norse and neo-pagan mythos. Some of their music videos have them bashing crosses and stuff...supposedly it's because, you know, that's what Vikings did?...but I just wish that for once, I could find some good metal that doesn't have a problem with Christianity. Wishful thinking, I suppose.

• Tjett. He puts up with me. And he's super hotttt stuff :)

• Mushrooms. We made some chicken and mushroom marsala earlier this week. Um, delicious. It was my first time making it, and I was very proud of myself. It turned out really good, minus the sauce being very very liquidy. Is it supposed to be? I don't even know. But while making it, I had to taste the mushrooms to see if they were tender...ooooooh, mushrooms cooked in butter.....and the only thing better than mushrooms cooked in butter? Mushrooms cooked in butter THEN SOAKED IN WINE.

Things I Love Thursday

It's been a really long time since I posted anything, and I figured that a TILT post would be a good one to go with...

• Indian food: It had been awhile since I'd gotten Indian, so yesterday my friend Rachel and I went to Bombay, the local/campus Indian restaurant (the owners also have a bigger restaurant a little farther away that has a killer lunch buffet). Bombay has its food organized by price: $6.99, $7.49, $7.99, $8.99, and $9.99. Unfortunately, most of my favorite dishes are in the $7.99 category...not terribly expensive, but it makes me kind of sad. Thankfully, they have a $6.99 daily special, and usually it's some kind of chicken masala. Yesterday it was Himalaya Chicken Masala...served up with a huge piece of naan. Mmmmm....The best part? Leftovers! Hooray for lunch!!! 

• Tia: Well, of course I love her. But this morning she was SO GOOD, or at least until about 10 minutes before I left. I hope she's feeling ok...

• My rock opera: I've decided that it's my new life goal to write a rock opera. I realize that I lack really any writing or composing talent (all the 'original' tunes I think of are really just conglomerates of songs I've heard)...but it's fun to think about. I'm thinking it'll be a Faustian story, perhaps with Vikings. Mephistopheles (or whatever Devil-esque equivalent I think up) will have to 'sing' in near-death growls...like maybe not so much that you can't understand him, but growely enough. The love interest can maybe be Bjork, so someone with a really unique and intense soprano voice. (ETA: The girl from Evanescence. Definitely.) As for the hero? I'm debating. My obvious choice would be Jerry Cantrell, but I like him even more when he's harmonizing. Maybe Viking Faust could have a buddy...

Fings I like Friday

• My neighbors: As I was going to the bus stop the other day, my neighbors from down the street were out walking (the husband and the two kids). Brian (as it turns out his name was) started talking to me and asking me what I did, and if we knew the guy who lived in the house before us. Esther, the older girl (who's 3 or 4, max), gave me a pinecone. She's super cute. Well apparently, she kept asking her folks if Katie was going to come over for dinner...and so Brian and Hanna (the mom) and I'm assuming the kids stopped by our house before I got home from work to see if Tjett and I wanted to come over! They left their number and I called them later that night, and they seemed so excited! We're going over there for dinner tonight. I can't wait. I love meeting new people, especially new NICE (like super genuinely NICE) people!!

• Reaching running goals: Yesterday I finished the 'One Hour Runner' program. I ran 5 miles. My knee hurts a little today, and so does the side of one ankle...but otherwise I'm fine. The run itself wasn't the greatest...I got a stitch in my side after the first 3 miles that didn't really want to go away...but the sense of accomplishment is HUGE. New goals? Tomorrow is the Illinois Marathon in good 'ole Chambana, and I am running the 5k. My goal for that is beat 36 minutes, my previous time. Otherwise I've set up an 8-week program for myself to go from running 3 days a week, 10-11 miles (total during the week) to running 5 days a week, and 19 miles. (Why 19? If I ever feel like training for a half or even a *gasp* full marathon, training programs on Interwebs recommend being able to run that much for a month or so before starting.) Not entirely sure what I'll do afterward...I don't have enough time to train for the Mahomet Half marathon that's at the end of August, so who knows. I'll take suggestions.

• Cuddling with Tia: Tia is NOT a cuddly dog. She would rather play or eat things. However, occasionally she will sit next to me and let me cuddle and pet her. For a little while. I could cuddle her all day long, so these little times that she lets me are just priceless. 

So I guess that about does it for my first 'Blog Every Day in April.' Suffice it to say, I did not. But I blogged more than I ever have before, and I imagine I will be keeping this up, more or less. Every few days about whatever catches my attention. It may turn into a 'guess what the dog did' blog, and I'll try to keep it from being a 'work sucks' blog. And so for fun, because I'm bad at ending things, I give you:

Things That Didn't Piss Me Off This Week

It's kind of like 'Things I Love Thursday,' except that it's no longer Thursday and I've been neglecting my blog since my Dubuque adventure. Also, there is something about seeing amazing people over the weekend that makes the next week simultaneously better and worse...better because of the residual mood, but worse because you're back to the old grind. Friends weren't real life, work and school are. And it's just depressing. And so, things that didn't make me more grumpy this week:

• My grey jacket: It's kind of military-esque inspired, I think. I got it at H&M 5 years ago. I had rather forgotten how much I liked it; I was actually thinking of getting rid of it when I wore it out of necessity and thought, oh yeah, this is pretty cool...

• Seth Aaron winning Project Runway: He's pretty much been my favorite designer since Day 1 of this season. I would wear a lot of his clothes. And he's probably the first straight man to win this show...

• Getting my ORP back with a 'Pass with minor revisions': It blows that I have to make revisions (and that I only have until Wednesday to do so) but it could have been a lot worse. I will have to do a fair amount of research to address a couple of the revisions, but I don't have to totally re-do it. So I'm happy(ish).

• There's a guy who supposedly wants to hire me: I met him at my last conference. He didn't actually say that he wanted to hire me, but my boss said that he did. But I did talk to him, and he was pretty cool and I wouldn't mind working for him. He popped in the other day. Dana said, "He keeps wanting to know when you'll be done." I said, "Oh, no time soon...unless you want to let me go sooner!" And then Dana said, "Well...I wouldn't want to let a fine wine go before it's properly aged." And then he keeps talking, about how grad students reach a certain point where they get a ton of work done, and you don't want to let them go before then. And then he said, "I don't want the next business you're with to want to spit instead of swigging." TO WHICH THIS GUY (not me!!) told him, "Yeah, you should have stopped with the 'fine wine' part..." How awesome. And now he knows what I go through. Maybe if anything I'll get a pity hire.

• Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: I'm only gotten through a couple of chapters...but I love it.

Things I Love Thursday

• Chicken wings. 'Nuff said.

• Warm weather. I love winter, and I love snow...but possibly as much as I love the first snow I love the first week of warm, t-shirt and sandals weather.

• Going for walks. Especially in the warm weather, and with a friend. Or a puppy. Lately I've been taking Miss Tia out in the morning and then going on a ~mile walk with my friend Rachel during the day. It's decent exercise, and it's nice to take a little break outside.

• Tjett. He was grumpy he didn't make the cut last week, so I'm making sure to put him on. Really though, he's wonderful and amazing. And he does the dishes. And is totally hot stuff.

Things I Love Thursday

This is my first installment of Things I Love Thursdays. I had kind of a grumpy awful week, so it may seem a bit short, but I'll do my best.

• Heath Ledger: Since I forgot to post my celebrity crushes yesterday, I thought it would be fitting to start with one, despite his lack of aliveness. As I mentioned before, on Monday, instead of watching the basketball championship, I went over to my friend Emily's house, and we had vodka-cranberry juices (or cranberry vodka-juices when I've had too many) and we watched A Knight's Tale. This was the first movie I ever saw with him in it. In high school, my friends Rose and Heidi absolutely loved Heath Ledger, and convinced me to go see this movie with them. And he was beautiful. Aside from being beautiful, I also think he was a very talented actor (though admittedly a bit whiny in this movie), and had the Joker not killed him, I would have expected many more varied roles. And also that he would age exceptionally gracefully.

• Absolut Ruby Red Vodka: Along those lines, I had forgotten just how darn tasty grapefruit vodka in cranberry juice is. It's not really a 'winter' drink, but the recent warm weather got me in the mood for it. It is so refreshing! The first time I had it was actually in Meijer. They were giving out free samples of it. I'd never seen free samples of booze in a grocery store. But seriously, this is one highish-quality vodka that is definitely worth splurging on.

• Lingonberries: Another thing I bought on my trip to MN is a jar of imported-from-Sweden lingonberries. I bought them to go on the Swedish pancakes that we had for Easter brunch, but I've been putting them on slices of bread. Oh my goodness they are delicious. These were stirred with sugar and pectin (so more of a jam, really), and they're a little sweeter than I'm used to...but I just can't get enough of them. I think I want to buy some ice cream and put it on there. I just really want to eat all of it before it goes bad...if only my husband liked pancakes or waffles (I know. Eating is sad in my house) I could make breakfast for dinner tonight...

• Crocs: They are ugly as sin, and I think that in general they are kind of stupid and highly overrated. That being said, they have their uses. Tjett has a pair of Red Wing Mammoth Crocs: regular Crocs but with a fleecy lining. I discovered shortly after we got Tia that my feet would get cold and wet when I wore sandals in the morning to go pick up after her, and by the time I would get shoes on she would have already eaten her poop. So I tried his ugly Crocs on, and my feet stayed nice and warm and dry. And so, 6 or 7 months later, I finally bought my own, that are actually my size. They are black with red and black plaid lining. The other good thing about them is that in the event that I step in the poop, I can just remove the lining and hose them off. The lining on my pair doesn't come off quite as easily, so hopefully there won't be too much poop-stepping-in.