So. Tired.

Okay I am going to level with you. I have had a rough couple of days. I am in a combination of post-vacation and not-going-to-see-my-boyfriend-again-for-at-least-a-month blues, and life is not helping me out. Nothing really super horrible, so I shouldn't be letting it get to me this much but, alas, here we are. Among other various depressing world events (Batman shooting, navy testing killing hundreds of whales and dolphins and injuring more, Animal Planet's sci fi movie about how there might be mermaids being more important than the actual navy testing that's going on, really hard day at work, etc.) The main thing that's getting me down is other peoples' negativity.

I've never really thought of myself as a super positive person, what with the bouts of depression and anxiety over the years, but I've realized recently that despite all of that I am really fundamentally a positive person (although not necessarily an optimist, that's a totally different thing). And one thing that I find just incredibly draining is being around negative people.

Okay, I know this is a sweeping generalization that by no means describes all of them (my brother comes to mind as an excellent example of not this, I know they exist, but hear me out before you get all indignant, okay?): but I think that my getting just exhausted by negativity is why I get so frustrated with the majority of atheists. Most of the ones I know (or the famous ones who yell about it a lot) are just so negative, not just the "no god" part, but their whole life view. Whether they admit it or not, I find most atheist arguments to actually be anti-christian (or whatever religion they were raised as, most often) and often (not always, not hating on all atheists, want to make that clear again) dripping with disdain for any kind of belief. Which just turns me off and makes me want to go away and take a nap or something. I mean, I am a scientist, I get the whole lack of proof thing, I do. But part of being a scientist is also being open to ideas that have not been disproven. Otherwise, you are just as guilty of expectation bias as people who believe in something supernatural. Since the existence of a higher power can neither be proven nor disproven, why don't we all just calm the fuck down about it? I mean, I'm so okay with getting angry at people who use religion as an excuse for ignorance, prejudice, and harming others, and I know it's done a lot of bad things, but good things happen because of religion as well, and even more good things happen because of faith, outside of religion. Organized religion has caused a lot of pain, but that doesn't mean that anyone who believes in anything supernatural should be judged or looked down on any more than they should judge or look down on anyone who is an atheist. The negativity and the hypocrisy just bug me is all, and I know many atheists who are wonderful people and this is not directed at them (and even many of the ones who do this are wonderful in many other ways), it's just that I've seen a lot of this lately and combined with all the other things it's just reached a tipping point (plus I realized the negative/positive connection). As a note, I am not religious, I'm not an atheist, and I wouldn't even describe myself as agnostic. I don't know what I am and I'm not going into any more detail about it here.

Anyway, sorry for the rant, but I needed to put it somewhere and it's my blog, dammit! Mostly today was just a long, long day, and I've been waking up from horrible dreams that make me want to cry as soon as I wake up which is just not helping. The girl I usually work with had to help one of the other polo players today, so I was the lone groom for 6 horses and 2 players today. One of the horses we were leaving behind cut herself a couple of days ago and it's getting infected and starting to look bad, so I had to take care of that before I did anything else and I think that made us late leaving which is a huge pet peeve of my boss' husband. He is very high-strung and quick to get frustrated with any little slip-up or thing that goes wrong, and today I was the only person to blame. He didn't actually blow up at me which is frankly a miracle, but he was edgy all day and that made me edgy and I constantly had to be doing like 5 things at once and I didn't really sit down all day, except on the drives. We don't get paid for the drives (which I think is fair, because I usually end up falling asleep) but today I was the only one in the car so I was in charge of keeping my boss' husband (who is also my boss, I guess, but whatever) awake and entertained on the drive, which meant making awkward small talk with a very, very negative man for a total of five hours (two and a half hours there and two and a half back). I feel like I should be paid for that. It was awkward. And he is a professor so he talked a lot about university budget cuts and how it's getting harder and harder to get into grad schools because they don't have money to fund grad students and the government is going to cut funding which will make it even harder and it's possible that students will just get dropped mid-degree (although admittedly unlikely). Plus also, once they graduate there aren't as many jobs as there are graduates, although not as bad as with bachelor's degrees. Not helping my motivation to research programs and get myself there. He has a tendency to talk about the sad state of the world in a way that just makes me want to go home and crawl under my covers for at least a week. Once we talked global warming. Ugh.

Nothing really horrible happened today, but I was rushed and mistakes were made and passive-agressiveness was directed at me and all in all it was very tense. All day. I worked from 7am to 8pm. And it was all tense. I'm tired. And the best part is I get to get up and do it again tomorrow! Although now the girl I work with will be there, so that's good, but the game will have higher stakes and people will be even edgier. Oh god.

So now I'm recuperating. On the way home I bought chips, sweet tea, and two candy bars and I'm going to snuggle up in my bed and watch happy movies and eat comfort food and try to recover my positivity before I go to sleep. I'm sorry if the atheist stuff offended you, I just really wanted to express these things I've been realizing lately and I'd be happy to discuss it rationally but please please please do not get indignant and/or passive-aggressive or finger-pointy at me (I'm really not sure who reads this) because I cannot take that right now. Thanks.

Goodnight!

Hey, Beantown!

And so I'm back from Boston. It was a really wonderful trip. I flew in late last Monday and Alexander picked me up at the airport very sweetly and gave me my first taste of Massachusetts driving. Yikes. He had the whole week planned out and kept almost all of it a secret. Tuesday he took me to the New England Aquarium, which was awesome! They even had fairy penguins! My favorite! I haven't seen them since Australia! Adorable. And a giant sea turtle, among a lot of other amazing creatures. Then we went to an awesome consignment/thrift store type place that was HUGE and awesome. I got to spend some more time with his mom and meet his dad. I loved his mom already from the few hours we hung out in Chicago in April and they told me his dad was just an older version of Alexander but I was not prepared for how correct that was. Except he writes programs for a genomics research company which is awesome. I feel like I understand a lot more about him now, and his apparently hereditary humor. It's pretty great.

Wednesday was a mini golf crawl during which we were both terrible but out of four games I won two and we tied on a third. Awesome. I suck slightly less at mini golf! Woo! Then we went out for delicious sushi and swing dancing at MIT! It was Lindy which neither of us know but we could triple or jitterbug to it for the most part. I even got to dance with a stranger for a song so I have a little Lindy experience now. The T (the train in Boston) is actually really nice. Not always the most convenient, but usually somewhere close to where you want to go and really clean. It only freaks me out when it suddenly shuts off occasionally.

Thursday we drove out to a fancy wine and cheese place. I know I live in Wisconsin but that was some damn good cheese. I think my favorite was the Chebrie, a mixture of sheep and goat cheese. So tasty! The town with this cute little shop happened to be just down the road from Walden Pond so we stopped by. I was expecting it to be tiny, but "pond" in this case seems to mean really big lake. It was full of people swimming, not at all what I was expecting. They had a replica of the house Thoreau built and I have to say it reminded me a lot of  a dorm room. Not bad at all! I really need to get around to reading Walden. I've been meaning to for ages.

When we got back after we ate delicious cheese and bread we got dressed up and drove into the city. Alexander wouldn't tell me where we were going but it turned out he got tickets for the new Cirque du Soleil, Totem! It was so much fun. I have a pretty great guy, if that was not already clear.

Friday we went back into the city. The only real exposure I'd had to Boston growing up was the Make Way for Ducklings book which I loved and read over and over, so one of the only things I requested we do while I was there was see the statue. So we strolled around Boston Common, and over to the Public Garden. We took pictures with the statue and even rode the swan boats (which are still incredibly cheap and surprisingly fun). There were even little ducklings swimming in the water. The rest of the garden was really beautiful, too. I wasn't expecting it to be so romantic. Afterwards he took me to a fancy Swiss chocolate shop, which also helped.

After dinner with his parents at a fantastic pizza place, Alexander and I went out to a bar, which was especially exciting because it was the first time we'd been able to go together, since Alexander turned 21. We listened to the bands, one mediocre and one that I liked pretty well. We even danced a little, but I think the highlight of the night was the guy with a silver peg leg sitting behind us.

Saturday we drove out to the Plimouth Plantation. I am a big fan of historical reenactment and they did not disappoint. They had a lot of nice touches like pronouncing the k in "know". There was a wedding in the pilgrim area and we wandered around and talked to several people. Apparently the reenactors live there full time in the summer which sounds really fun but also really hard. Of course, my favorite part was the Wampanoag village. The people there were wearing varying degrees of traditional dress and most were actually of Wampanoag descent, but they didn't reenact. There was a large weetoo (I am totally guessing on how to spell that, a traditional dwelling of the people) and first an older woman, then a somewhat younger man just sat in there and told stories about how their people lived and interacted with the world, each other, and the white people when they came. It was fascinating. I probably would be in there still if I could be. I love learning about Native American culture but find it hard to do from a book, so being able to speak to people that close to the history was fantastic. The woman was my favorite, too. She was sassy and kept telling people to get out of the way of her breeze when they just stood in the door. There was one slightly awkward moment. She was asking someone about the wedding over at the settlement and when she was done I asked her what Wampanoag weddings were like. They sound really cool. They all involve the same elements (sage, tobacco, and water, I believe) but in different orders and done in different ways depending on what the medicine man (or woman? Not clear on that) sees in each specific couple when he/she meets with them. I like that a lot. Anyway, I just wanted a comparison since we had just seen a Puritan wedding, but as she was leaving she came over and asked me when Alexander and I were getting married, then when we said we weren't she gave us a look that clearly said "Well why not?!" and shook her head. It was hilarious but also quite awkward. Especially considering the number of people I know who seem to be getting engaged lately. It's weird.

On the way out we stopped in Plymouth, which is a very cute town. We saw Plymouth Rock (which they keep in a cage, a fact no one else seemed to think was as funny as I did) and the Mayflower II, which was cool, although we didn't' pay to go on it. When we got back we met up with one of Alexander's friends from high school which was very interesting. She was a lot of fun and we weirded each other out whenever we wanted to get Alexander's attention (no one at home calls him by his full name, and I'd never heard anyone refer to him by his last name before). She drove us around looking at different beautiful views of the city, talking, and eating ice cream. It was really quite lovely.

Sunday we thought about trekking all the way back out to the beach (I really wanted to swim in the ocean) but in the end it made a lot more sense to just go to the nearby lake (we got up late and it was supposed to storm in the late afternoon, although that never did happen). The lake ended up being beautiful, though. No seaweed, deep enough for a dock you could dive off of and a huge deep swimming area. I would swim there every day if I lived in Newton. I felt silly coming from MN/WI and going to a lake but it was much much nicer than any I've seen here outside of the Boundary Waters.

Monday I got to the airport early, only to find out my flight was delayed. Delayed one hour turned into longer, which turned into indefinitely, which turned into canceled. We had one of those delightful stranger bonding moments while everyone from our plane cursed United and scrambled to try and find another flight out. Since I didn't have any urgent business I let them put me on a flight the next morning, with the promise to give me meal and hotel vouchers. I wasn't expecting much but after a good two hours in line (I don't even think that's an exaggeration) I got a voucher for the nearby Embassy Suites for a very expensive room. They also gave me $30 for food in the airport, which fed me lunch on Monday and enough snacks to get me all the way home on Tuesday. Not a bad deal at all. I wasn't sure Alexander would be able to see me at all Monday night, since his mom was leaving for Japan on Tuesday, but it turned out she had plans all night so he came and hung out with me in my plush room and the free pool. It was a very good deal, even considering the extremely expensive room service and almost no other restaurant options around. Also, we discovered a show called Duck Dynasty which is essentially real life Beverly Hillbillies. It's absolutely ridiculous and we could not stop watching. I should probably be ashamed of that but it was hilarious.

I finally did get on a plane this morning, convinced the bus driver to take yesterday's ticket, and finally ended up back in Madison, only to find out it was too hot for work tonight, which is both a blessing and a curse. I can't say I'm exactly happy to be back, but I did have a lot of fun at game night tonight and very soon I have to start making arrangements for my move! That, finally FINALLY having roommates, and work should keep me busy for the next month, month and a half tops, before Alexander comes back to town.

All in all it was a really wonderful, fun, and romantic trip. Pretty much perfect. I am so so happy I got to go, both to see Alexander and also Boston, which it turns out is a pretty cool city. Mostly Cambridge, though, I guess. Anyway, spectacular week, happy Karis, ever so slightly bummed to be back in the sweltering midwest and facing an early day of work in the morning. But, you know, with horses, so I think I'll live.

Doctors and Doctorates

So, long time no update. Life has been pretty good of late. I have more friends in the area, polo is going well and taking up a lot of my time. Alexander is in Boston which is lame, but we've done the long distance summer thing before and I'm going to visit him in less than two weeks! I'm very very excited. Of course mostly to see him but I've also never been to Boston before, or Massachusetts at all (no offense, people who live there, but that is just the dumbest of the state names). Apparently he has all sorts of things planned out for us but I won't find out till I get there. Cannot wait!

The one big stressful thing in my life currently is this whole grad school deal. I finally started looking in-depth at programs and so far have a few I really like. Namely: UC Davis, UNC Chapel Hill, Bucknell (PA), and Macquarie University (Sydney). I'm not done looking yet and I'm not really sure how to find more or narrow down, all of these were picked by looking at what research the professors were doing. The real problem is that only one of them is in a city that I really want to live in, and that's Sydney. I want to live near the ocean. I just do. UC Davis is only a couple of hours away and I hear very good things about the city, but Bucknell is in a landlocked state and Chapel Hill is not even really day-trip distance from the beach. I know this may seem like a silly requirement and it isn't one really but I just feel happier when I can swim in the ocean, or at least see it. I don't know why, I'm just drawn to it and I've lived smack dab in the middle of the continent my whole life. I know I posted on my other blog about this at some point but honestly Sydney is the only city I've ever been in and thought "Yeah, I want to live here." There are a lot of other places that I like, don't get me wrong, but Sydney is the only one I've ever actually felt strongly drawn to. Which is a problem, because it is a million zillion miles away from everyone I care about. I really liked the research they were doing, I love the city, it's on the ocean, it's near the mountains, it's in Australia...but 2-6 years that far away from everyone? I have no idea how to make that kind of decision. I have always been terrible at decision making and my basic strategy is to ask everyone I know what their opinion is and then do whatever I was going to do in the first place. Getting more perspective does help, it often helps me realize what I really feel and what's important, but sometimes it makes it worse. I've only brought it up with a couple of people but so far it's only made it more confusing. Either they've said "Oh that would be so cool, you should totally do it! The loneliness will be worth it" in which case my reaction is "but but but EVERYONE I know will be so far away. For YEARS. I can't do that!" or they will say "Yeah, I mean, that sounds cool but I couldn't do it, it would be too rough and I couldn't be that far away for that long." In which case my response is "But I want to! I'm not going to chicken out just because it will be hard!" So, yeah. Not helping. I have no idea what to do to make this decision, other than look more closely at the programs, email professors, and that sort of thing, which should really be my next step anyway but is awfully scary because then it's less theoretical.

 The other big thing in my life has been doctor visits. I don't know why but since I've moved here things that have always sort of been a problem but not that medically significant (so I thought) have finally seemed worth mentioning to a doctor. For instance, I've been given a lot of shit over the years about how often I fall asleep during other things. Alexander says in the almost year and a half we've been together he can count on one hand the number of times I've stayed awake through a whole movie with him, no matter what time of day it is. I slept through classes in high school and college, even though I was taking notes, chewing gum, jiggling my foot, and drinking water I just could not force myself to stay awake. I pass out in the car, I fall asleep in public sometimes, often I have trouble getting through more than a page or two before I pass out when I just want to read...it's frustrating. In college I figured it was because I never slept enough. I don't think there was a week for those four years that I got a good 8 hours every night for 7 nights straight. And in California because we worked in the desert and it was the summer the only way we wouldn't burst into flames during our job was to start work at 2:30 or 3:00am, which meant going to sleep at 6 or 7pm which was just not happening in a house with no AC when I had west-facing windows. There was no way. So I spent the whole summer sleep deprived, too. But now I get seven or eight hours most nights and it still happens. I fall asleep during game sometimes. I fall asleep all the time, and it mostly seems funny or annoying, not like a real medical problem, except that I am a 23 year old woman, not an 80 year old man. So I mentioned it casually to my therapist who told me to talk to my doctor who gave me a little quiz and said I probably had a sleep disorder and needed to see a sleep specialist. I had that appointment today and they want to do an extensive study which would mean me staying there all night covered in electrodes and then all the next day also covered in electrodes to see what's up. Scary and expensive and maybe not worth it, but also, it would be really great if I could just watch a two hour movie with my friends without missing half of it. So. I don't know. First we're trying changing a few simple things and keeping a sleep diary. They even told me to drink coffee which I don't think a doctor has ever told me before. I hope these things work and I don't have to do ridiculous stuff (although, it would be cool if I got to see my brainwaves, and sleep science is really fascinating to me because it doesn't make any sense). It just seems like the silliest problem to have.

 So, that's pretty much my life right now. If you have any advice about grad school or living far away, I would love it. I will probably let you know how Boston goes. So excited! And now I have to get ready to go play polo! It's a hard life, you guys.

Too Much Love to Go Around

So I've figured out my problem. It's not the worst problem to have, but it is frustrating. It turns out that I love too many things. Allow me to explain. This afternoon I biked over to the zoo. I like the Vilas Zoo but it always makes me realize how spoiled I was growing up with the Minnesota zoo, and makes me miss the animals I got to know there the summer I interned, but I digress. While at the zoo I just got this tremendous feeling of excitement. Even seeing a few animals in too-small cages looking bored makes me so happy. I watched the orangutans playing and using the tools in their enclosure for almost an hour. Every exhibit made me want to just jet off to wherever that animal comes from and study it for a year. How stupid I had been, I thought, thinking I should take time off before grad school! I should be in Africa right now studying giraffes! Or lions. Or in Borneo studying orangutans. Or even in Wyoming studying bison or prairie dogs. I resolved to go home and watch Life and start seriously looking at grad school programs.

 On my way out of the zoo I checked my email on my phone, just to see if anything important had come up. I had a reply email from a very prestigious ballroom dance studio that I had recently applied to. I knew from Magpie trying to get a job there that they start out with a quick little dance lesson just to see if you're the kind of person who they want to hire and then they train you for several months and then you get a contract to teach. I got the email at 4:15 and it said I should come to the little intro lesson at 5:15. I have never biked so fast to try to get home, jumped in the shower for long enough to get the sweat off, called to make sure it was okay that I'd be late to what is essentially a job interview, and got there as fast as I could. We did two of my least favorite dances, rumba and salsa (although to be fair, I only don't like salsa because I don't know any moves in it) but it was so fun! I have missed ballroom so so badly. Everyone was great and I love learning new follows and I even lead a little bit and wasn't horrible at it! It turns out that even for the training portion they would want me five nights a week, so I have to put off applying until after polo season ends, which is too bad (although he said they're constantly hiring, so it could be a great thing in the fall!). But at one point while he was talking he mentioned "but you don't need to worry about that unless you're competing, which is 2-4 years down the road". And my heart jumped. Competitive ballroom dancing! I want to do that! Now, I'm not going to say it's impossible to be a wildlife biologist and a competitive ballroom dancer, but it is very difficult and highly unlikely.

I was lead to believe growing up that as you grow up you find that one thing that you love and just want to do forever, work hard to get into that field and be good at it, and then be happy. Not only is it not that simple, but I can't even decide what it is I truly love! I'm sure this is a common problem, and I'd much rather want to do too many things than not really want to do anything, because at least whatever I choose I will be happy. Unless I choose wrong and then am miserable forever. I know, I know, there are no right and wrong choices, there are lots of ways to be happy, you never know how things are going to turn out or why something happens the way it does but I have a hard time making myself believe that. Some people end up with life-long regrets and I don't want to be one of those people. Probably the answer to that is to be the kind of person who doesn't live in the past but makes the best of what they have and keeps moving forward until they find happiness whether or not it's what they set out for but...I don't know, I just want to do well at this whole "life" thing. The other obvious problem is that just about every animal in the zoo made me think "I need to find a program right now where I can go into the wild and study these!" which...I can't. How in the world am I ever going to find grad school programs with interests this broad? I'm most interested in mammals and birds, and I know I want to study behavior and/or hopefully contribute to conservation. How in the world am I supposed to narrow that down? I mean, a lot of people have told me that a good way to find a grad program is to find professors who are doing research you want to be a part of and see if they have space/money for you. I tried writing down all the people I would want to work with from a book that Ken lent me and found that I wrote down just about everyone who wrote an article. I don't know how to even begin to make this decision. I mean, it should be easy, right? If I love so many things I should be happy no matter what? But somehow I fear it won't work out that way. I don't know. Logic and worry have never gone together, I suppose.

One Year Later

Well it's been a year since I graduated from college. It was very very strange going to see graduation this year. I've seen my friends graduate before but this time I was continuously flashing back to what it felt like to be sweltering in those black robes and to have all the speeches be about me. I have to say, our speeches were better. Scotty B (the president) talked about how Beloit College is like turtle sex (the video is up on youtube if you don't believe me), Ben Pascoe handed out milkshakes, and I don't really remember the guest commencement speaker but I feel sure he was more uplifting than this years' who was interesting but also talked a lot about how depressing the world is right now and how it is the graduates' job to fix it. I had nearly as many people to hug and say goodbye to this year as I did last year (although it helped that two of them will be coming to live with me in a couple of months and more will at least be heading to Madison). I also got to see a couple of my professors (for all the time that I've spent in Beloit since graduation I've never gone back to the Bio floor or seen any of the professors, mostly because I worry they'll judge me for my work choices and ask me when I'm going to grad school) but it was much less stressful than I thought. Mostly because it was Yaffa and Carl/Carol, I think, and they seem much more okay with the idea of taking some time off and doing something fun and interesting than, say, John or maybe Ken. But I'm getting off topic. It's funny how the end of the school year seems to be affecting me about as much as it usually did during college (although not as much as last year, obviously). I've been visiting Beloit weekly or every two weeks and so I'm really really going to miss seeing everyone this summer (especially Alexander, although he's staying with me right now which is lovely). Also, when I visit next year I won't get nearly as many hugs or shocked and excited expressions (people ask me why I never told them I was coming down, it's because of how much fun it was to tap them on the shoulder and see them do a double take and then grin and give me a huge hug. That did not get old and now it will happen a whole lot less because I don't know many of the sophomores - who will be seniors next year but will always be sophomores to me - nearly as well as I knew the juniors - who just graduated). So, I'm feeling a little sad and nostalgic and even a little weepy as summer begins. On a brighter note, though, I survived my first year out of college! How exciting is that? I had not the slightest idea where I would be now one year ago and never in a million years would I have guessed I would be getting paid to work with polo horses. I have an awesome job, I will only be living alone for another two and a half months and then I will get two lovely roommates, my wonderful boyfriend of almost a year and a half is sleeping a few feet away and when I finish this I will wake him up so I can teach him how to ride a horse, I live in a beautiful city with friends and more friends will be flocking here soon. It's a great life but I'm starting to get a little antsy to do something else. I mean, obviously I will be in Madison for at least another year, but maybe it really is time for grad school after that. Or at least a change of scenery. I don't know. Everything was always changing in college, I would be doing something completely different every semester, always meeting new people and moving and planning for the future and so it's hard for me to wrap my head around staying in one place and doing one thing for very long. Maybe I should learn to but maybe I should not force it until that is what I want. I have no idea. I'm still very much figuring this whole thing out. But I've done a really good job of it this first year, and I think I'll continue to do that, so everything will be okay. *knock on wood*.

The Beginning of a Healthier Life

Today was a good day. I had my first therapy session in years and I'm feeling really good about this psychologist. It's nothing super major or anything but there have been some things that have been sort of gnawing away at me for a while, and I think this is going to be very good for me. I went to yoga tonight. It was a detox class, which is very intense in a very different way from other classes I've been to. I like it. I'm going to try to go much more often, or go back to dance, or something. Just riding and all the barn work that goes with it is not enough exercise, even though I am tired when I come home. The yoga studio is right above Fresh Market so I stopped there on my way home and got ingredients for dinner tonight: locally made pumpkin tortellini and spinach salad with blackberries. I'm going to study for the GREs before bed tonight (actually, I've been sort of having fun studying so far. I haven't gotten to the math part, I think that will be less fun, but I just really love words). From here on out I am going to be healthier and happier and more positive and things are going to be wonderful. Not that there won't be missteps and bad days, but I think this is the start of something very good.

Life: Going Pretty Well, Actually

So this week has been pretty amazing so far. My mom came to visit which was lovely. She brought my bike which is also lovely. She bought me new books and got to see where I work. I got to be the one who knew where to go, which is incredibly rare. Overall, I was just really happy to see her.

Work is going very well, too. Well, today was not so great. I got stepped on, nearly bucked off, and two horses ran off (back to the barn while we were riding in the field, nothing terrible, but still scary and bad, because it made my bucking horse much worse), and I almost got kicked in the face. Not a great day, but also a great day if you look at it differently, because I didn't get bucked off (actually, I was fairly safe the whole time, I'm lucky to have a really good seat, but it was still scary) or kicked in the face, and my toes are not broken, just swollen and in pain. But in general, my job is becoming slightly more about learning polo which is very exciting and fun and complicated. Mostly I am happy because this is the sort of thing people (including me, if I had the funds) would pay hundreds or thousands of dollars to do, and I am getting paid to do it! Pretty awesome.

On Monday I headed down to Beloit for a quick visit and there had been hints of some sort of surprise. On my way down I got a call from Alexander saying he had been kidnapped by Plains Walkers and I needed to save him. When I got there Stitch and Brianna were cackling evilly and said they had stolen him and I must play them in Magic to get him back. Then Alexander appeared only long enough to toss me a small package and disappeared back into his room. It was my very own deck of Magic cards. I've been playing Magic occasionally for years, since I was little and my brother needed a partner when his friends weren't around. I've never been very good at it but recently I've been playing a lot more and having a lot more fun with it. I've never had my own deck, I've always just used other people's. So who would have thought that a Magic deck would be one of the most thoughtful gifts I've ever gotten? He picked out a playing style and theme I would like (it's elephants!), picked the best and the prettiest cards, play-tested it extensively to get it just perfect, and then orchestrated this whole tournament because he knew he'd have some homework and other stuff to do before he could hang out with me Monday night. Sooo lucky. So happy. :) And for the friends who played along! It was a lot of fun!

And finally, on Tuesday Brianna called our future landlord to find out if we got the apartment and he said yes! I am so excited! We will sign the lease on Monday and then I will absolutely positively have fantastic roommates and a gorgeous place to live for a whole year, and I won't have to go apartment hunting again for at least a year! So happy!