Laura moves to Colorado Springs tomorrow. I'm kind of sad, even if it is only a 2 hour journey from here. I don't like driving to the Springs in the summer, it is an incredibly hot drive, especially the bit through Denver. I help her move and pack the rest of her boxes and then have church Sunday. I believe the family may be going up to Estes Park for Memorial Day food of some sort, dinner or lunch, I don't know.

Took some video at a shoot yesterday for an instructional video about educational playgrounds this woman designs. Brian is just not meant to be on camera when there is only one.. he moves so fast and I just know this thing is going to be so hard to edit. If I have learned one thing this year, I have learned that I do not have the intuition to be a good cameraman without training like I can with editing. So, luckily I am a good editor and very instinctual. Maybe I can make a video that passes inspection (and gets us paid) and makes sense out of a mockery of a video shoot yesterday. Also, 25 3rd graders are ridiculously hard to film and get to listen to you and not block the camera.

Saw X-Men 3 tonight with Logan and a bunch of his friends and their friends. We took up practically a whole row at the theatre. A good flick, fun and fairly good plot and CGI. A film that should definetly be seen in the theatre on the big screen, though I wouldn't take it as far as seeing it on an IMax.

The Peace Corps interview I had today is done, driving around downtown Denver was successfully accomplished, and was actually kind of fun! AND, it looks like I'll be nominated! I don't know where or what yet because I can't leave till May/June next year, and they don't have concrete details on any of the programs that leave July/August/Sept 07 yet. And I can't be nominated for the previous 3 month departure date because they don't know specific times during it, and I'm not available before mid-May. So the next step is getting my medial forms done (at the end of summer or in September so I don't have to do them again later) and double checking on the PCMI stuff at CSU.

WOO!

I also had to fill out a relationship form because of my new romance... I have some new questions to discuss with Logan... but on the whole I'm not to worried, if we last, we'll last, and if not, I can't regret anything, not dating him, not going into the PC and breaking up... etc.

SO, more laundry today, doing some I-House work, and catching up with Laura later on this afternoon.

Woo!

Kansas here I come!

I'm done with my first year of graduate school. I feel a great pressure just lifted off my life almost. Especially because I think I've made a decision about this summer too. The paper I turned in today was the longest I've ever written, I believe. Even my thesis for honors in biology wasn't 30 pages (26 or 27 excluding references). The cool thing was, I didn't write all those 30 pages in one sitting. I wrote part of it for a different paper due last week, and that paper was based on a revision of a paper I wrote last December. Today and yesterday I wrote about 15 pages.

So now, I work, I try to get my thesis going (!!!) and relax.

Tonight is the 5 month anniversary... we won't be together on our 6th, but that's not why we're getting together... more a celebration of finals and the ability to go Salsa dancing again. The anniversary just kinda made today more special. So I'm going to make some dinner and then we'll go over and (I'm going to for sure!) have some drinks and dance.

So I'm going to head to Kansas next week/weekend for graduation and to visit friends! The non-exciting part about it is that there is an outbreak of a mutated form of mumps going around at KU... it affects people who have had the shot. That is so crazy. Lol.

To finishing a full year of graduate school and surviving extremely well!

It has been a lovely weekend. Now, over because I'm preparing a presentation for class tomorrow morning. I'm hoping it won't take me too long. Then I'm sleeping!

Sam is home, and so far we've seen each other all three days she's been here. I'm so glad to have summer so close. We played some games yesterday and listened to Garrison Kielor's show... we did mainly because it's good, but also because one of the local groups that played on his show yesterday are a family (the Greenes) we know from church. And then today in senior high sunday school (which I am now helping Bill with, and next year too) Josh, the eldest Greene came in, so it was fun listening to what he had to say about performing on A Prairie Home Companion yesterday. Sam and I really wanted Garrison to talk to the family, especially because Jonah, their youngest (11 years) who plays the drums would have been hilarious.
Check out their website: http://www.freewebs.com/thegreenesband/

Then today later in the afternoon Sam and I went swimming at EPIC and enjoyed ourselves.

Ontology... an interesting word. Something I have to consider for my presentation tomorrow and subsequent paper due Thursday. Ontology: the study of being, the word about the essence of things, the word about being. Madeleine L'Engle calls a blueberry bush ontological, it doesn't have the opportunity to be prideful or selfish, a bush just is, humans on the other hand have to work to just be.

"I go to the brook because I get out of being, out of the essential. So I'm not like the bush, then. I put all my prickliness, selfishness, in-turnedness, onto my isness; we all tend to, and when we burn, this part of us is consumed. When I go past the tallest blueberry bush, where my twine is tied to one of the branches, I think that the part of us that has to be burned away is something like the deadwood on the bush; it has to go, to be burned in the terrible fire of reality, until there is nothing left but our ontological selves; what we are meant to be." pg. 7 "A Circle of Quiet"

The semester is wrapping up quickly

This week hasn't been as horrible as I was expecting it to perhaps be. I had a presentation Tuesday and got the one today changed to Monday, and then I had a paper due today for my theory class. The paper wasn't so bad, and actually was at its heart a revision of the research proposal I wrote last semester, and so I actually liked what I was writing for the first 2/3rds of the paper (till I got to the methods section and the last half of the literature review... and also cause it was 2:30am!).

Next up is a paper due Friday at noon, which is going to be the hardest one of the three I have/had to do. It's about the norm activation model proposed by Schwartz (a norm is what people percieve as what "should or ought to be" and there are personal and social norms... they can predict behavior and are activated by different concepts, of which I studied Awareness of Consequences and Ascription of Responsibility) and trying to apply it to visitor behaviors at archaeological sites in Jordan. The data was done by someone else and already in the statistics program, but I had to choose what analyses to run and now have to write a paper on it. I still don't completely understand the concepts, but, I'll wing it:)

I have a new roommate, her name is Xinhua and she's from China. So far she's quiet and keeps to herself for the most part. She is really nice, and we've had some exchanges mainly related to hooking up her tv in her room and about how the microwave sparks. But, its dead week (week before finals) and soon finals week, so we're busy. I hope we can get to know each other well.

In terms of Stanford, they do not pay for housing, so I honestly don't know if I can go and do this internship. And I kinda just want a break. I got a scholarship (!!!) which now means I have to stay as a full time student when I had been planning on only taking 6 credits and relaxing a bit. I'm going to take Spanish though, so it will be more relaxing than three full time graduate or upper level classes. And I am getting excited about the idea of maybe having come up with my own project, actually doing my own research, that I think will be incredibly beneficial and add to the literature (which is such a huge requirement) on community based ecotourism. So, we'll see if I even get offered it!

So, I'm going to see what I can do with this Friday paper tonight so I am not up again super late tomorrow.

Grwarrrrr!
I'm way to up and down, even in a single day, for my own good.