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.

well, I was called out and am a computer un-nerd. comment moderation, didn't know what that was and thanks to dear Naomi I discovered a backlog of comments! WOOHOO! So thanks to everyone for their comments. Erika, I hope you enjoy TA Barron... I started with 'The Merlin Effect" fyi. Lindsay, yup, I have a blog, and isn't it nice? I hope the vertigo hasn't come back. Naomi, you will always be far more technologically superior than I... and yeah, further away, but still a fun place to visit.

I was looking at a map last night and discovered that if I end up in Stanford I could visit the cities I was born and spend the first few months of my life in (Oakland and Walnut Creek, CA)! But then I also realized that if I want to visit San Francisco in my car, I should probably psych myself up for the massive hills.

And the best thing is, yesterday evening after I let Logan know the good news, he surprised me by coming over and congratulating me! It's good to know that he's not clingy, I guess, and that he is so supportive! Did I ever say it? I'm in love! :)

Naomi! I guess you're pretty busy... here I've got this great website you can post on now and not a word from you! (just giving you a hard time!).

So last Wednesday I mailed in my internship application to Stanford (which is in Palo Alto, CA apparently) and received this email today:

"Heather,
We were very impressed by your credentials, and we have short-listed you for the upcoming internship opportunity at CESD-Stanford. As such, I would very much like to conduct a phone interview with you sometime during the next few days.
Please let me know your availability during business hours for the following dates: Friday, April 28; Monday, May 1; and Tuesday, May 2. And, please submit a phone number where you can be reached during those times. With this information, I will arrange to speak with you for twenty minutes.
I will then notify you by Friday, May 5 as to whether or not you have beenawarded the internship position.
I look forward to talking with you soon.

Best,
Geraldine
Stanford Coordinator
Center on Ecotourism and Sustainable Development"

It's really exciting, provided that if I get it I can pay for housing this summer. A great opportunity, but really, whether I get it or not, they are impressed with my credentials, with ME! Stanford!

So, I'm beginning to wonder when I will stop coming across these really great opportunities that test my independence as a woman and committment to getting my degree.

I found out on Monday about this amazing sounding internship in Stanford at the Center on Ecotourism and Sustainable Development. It is an internship that focuses mainly on research the entire summer about community based ecotourism in Central America, AND when I emailed the lady accepting applications, she said I could use what I do during the internship for my Masters project. So.... I applied and shipped it overnight to Stanford yesterday morning. If I get this that means a temporary vacate from my apartment for the summer (so I can come back, but don't have to pay rent) finding an apartment in Stanford, carting enough of my stuff there in my very small car to make the new apartment liveable, working straight through the summer for 10 weeks, 40 hours a week (UHG, I need a break!!) doing almost nothing but reading, and probably coming back the week after school starts here, unless I miss my cousin's high school graduation in June and go out earlier to Stanford.

So, great opportunity, and I am sure I'd enjoy it, and it would be the first summer I've ever spent outside of Colorado (a good thing to experience I think) but I wouldn't get to do all these things I'd been planning on for the summer. I wanted to hike some 14ers and spend time with my sister and go on a road trip with Laura and work at LSOP and spend time with Logan. But... I hope I get it, I really really hope I do. Life would be easier, and I might actually be able to get out of the MS program in 2 years. WOW. So, right now everything is up in the air till I start hearing back from all these opportunities. But keep it in mind, I may be in Stanford this summer. :)

Did I ever say? I went to a Guster concert a few weeks ago and it was amazing. I really had a good time despite some sweaty tall drunk guys who were being jerks for about a half hour. But it was fun! I'm going to try getting to more concerts more often, because the music is just so different when you hear it live.

Happy Easter!

Had good family time this weekend, and my aunt is going to frame my diploma from KU for me, so I can't wait till I get it back and can hang it up for everyone to see. I still sometimes forget that I actually have a degree... still being in school and all that.

I will be having a new roommate move in May 1st. She's originally from China. And then sometime this summer, perhaps in August before school starts again, I'll move in with Amy L., my current co-worker (and technically boss... she's the manager, I'm the manager's assistant...) and friend once she's no longer the manager and therefore no longer entitled to the two person room with just her in it. I took her some cookies today and we had a nice chat, along with her neighbor, Chris from England, from across the hallway. I wish I could move in with her earlier, but it sounds like it is not to be. I'm looking forward to my new roommate, but am not sure how to manuver my things so that I feel like it is still my apartment, but so that she feels that she can add a personal touch to it as well.

So, I'm back to studying. I actually did quite a good job today of that, despite starting later than I should have and watching more TV than I should have. Meh.

so unless I get offered a Biology Lab TA position (which pays for my tution as well as a stipend) then I'll be working at Little Shop again next year. We'll see... I am pretty darn sure that I'm going to get the biology position with my experience, but who knows. That would make life easier, by far easier, I could work faster on paying of my car repair debt and wouldn't be adding any additional loans for next year. So the current plan is to work like there is no tomorrow to get research started and then graduate next May and go into the Peace Corps.

I'm looking forward to the summer!

I just got offered a job... or at least requested to apply to a job through the office of Service Learning and Civic Engagement as the graduate coordinator for Americorps at CSU for next year. Dilemma. It sounds like a really great opportunity, I'd be working 20 hours a week (so not all that much, meaning I can still go to school/class) and I'd be earning significantly more than I currently do... and I still don't know about that GTA biology lab TA bit (which would earn a ton more than either LSOP or the Americorps position). So, a really great sounding job, working with people in the Americorps and in a coordinator type role... something I know I would be good at, my brain just works like that. The only catch is, it's a year long position, and the second is, it starts this summer, and I've already kinda decided I'd be working LSOP this summer (really, for lack of a better job) and I had plans for a lot of travel this summer too. I don't know what to do.

On top of that, I just had an idea for an actual research project not affiliated with the Peace Corps in any way... actual research... and something I might do anyways because it would help me if I enter the PC and it's just something I think needs to be done... basically a study of a number of Latin American community-based projects (hopefully they exist... I think they do) to analyze the strategies they use and overall what they view as the difficulties and benefits of such projects. The literature seems to me missing just such a study. Oh my God... I think I finally became a graduate student.

UHG! Well, maybe I express interest, and hope to hear from the PC recruiter soon so I get more of an idea of when I might be scheduled for departure... really, I feel like maybe if I got my act together, especially this summer and next fall, I may only have to push PC back one semester, and I could graduate with my MS in the Spring next year then enter the Peace Corps?

Also, I should talk to Stu about this.

Crap...I didn't really want an opportunity or an idea like this to come my way... I know I was saying if I found a good job I might just quit graduate school and put this whole bit on hold because it's hard and I didn't know what I was doing in terms of research... but I didn't expect to get a job offered to me in the context of school and simulaneously (I mean, I thought of this idea THIS MORNING) come up with a potential research project.

Whoa.

Friday night turned out to be the best date for what I needed. I guess I get easily freaked out because my mind is always working double time in the thinking department... and unfortunately not in the school department, like I wish... and for the past few times we'd seen each other, we'd stayed in and for whatever reason hadn't talked that much. So Friday at the Cherry Blossom FAC we had time to talk, and quite a bit of it, and then his friends invited us to a movie so we went and saw Inside Man (a Spike Lee movie you should see... it's trippy... a movie hasn't confused me like that since Mission Impossible). So it was good all around... we talked, we actually went out instead of renting a movie or having tea at my place, and I got more "face-time" with some of his friends, whom I have still yet to meet most of (though I'm sure I'll recognize them cause many are from high school).

So yeah, life's back to being good. And can I say, I believe I'm finally falling incredibly hard for Logan? I think I held back a little bit because of PC off in the future but for whatever reason, I've started falling for him even more than I already had. Yikes!

In other news, I've not gotten quite used to the homework and schoolwork routine yet after my Spring Break in Panama. So that's going to mean some hard core working on school stuff tonight... meh. School has kinda stopped bothering me. I'm more ambivalent about it... perhaps it is because already, my coursework is almost over (one more semester!) and maybe it's because I'm realizing if I don't want to do this, I don't have to and I can quit. I'm going to stick it out though.
I'm also going to see Guster in concert this Saturday! WOO! I'm super excited, especially because I don't have to leave Fort Collins to see them as they're playing the Aggie Theatre. I invited Ryan up to see them with me cause he likes Guster and introduced me to them last year. SO... my second concert ever:) and it's going to be great!

panama wrapup

me gusta Panama! Such a lovely place... so green and humid and warm. We met only nice, welcoming people. Now I feel like I've got some new aunts and uncles, as well as un mas abuelita.
I'm still processing the trip. It's caused me to question much more about my future, which while frustrating will end up being a good think in the end whatever happens with Peace Corps.
I'm looking forward to seeing Logan... drat busy schedules, I can't see him till Thursday.

To bed, b/c I'm super tired... it's 2 hours later in Panama!

Woohoo! Spring Break:) I'm so glad that it is finally here... we can all use the break. I leave for the airport Sunday at 7:30am. The flight leaves at 11am and by 10pm (Pacific Time) we are in Panama City! We spend the night there and then Monday we drive across Panama following the Canal and have lunch in the outskirts of Colon. The next 6 days or so we spend half the day building a birdwatching platform for the community, and the other half we spend in cultural tourism.
I'll talk to you all after break!

Snow.... I don't know if I'm happy or not... I like snow, but I also was really enjoying our 60 degree weather. Well, maybe if it stays cold and snowy when I get down to Panama on Sunday night, the hot and humid weather will feel nice by comparison rather than stiflingly hot.

I cut my hair off yesterday. Yay! And it was free, which is always nice. I wish I knew how many inches it was... at least 5 I'd say.
Ok, I'm off to class and work... wish me luck leading discussion in recreation behavior theory today!

I'm back from a day of inspiring Girl Scout leaders to be the best they can be and from a night of watching the Oscar nominated short documentary films. If I had been less tired, the films would have been more enjoyable... but I'm glad I went. The place I went I just discovered, and it makes my heart sing! The Denver Film Society has a place in Denver that shows international and independent films and things such as the Oscar nominated short documentaries and short fiction films. WOO!
I'm super excited too that they will be showing CSA: Confederate States of America. This film I saw maybe 2 or 3 years ago in Lawrence. It was directed by Kevin Wilmott... the first film teacher I ever had. He took it to Sundance along with the co-producer (I believe) Matt Jacobson, who I took my video production class from, and it was picked up for distribution by Spike Lee.
SWEET!!!
So, whenever it starts playing, be expecting me (if you live in CO) to be dragging you to see it... it's a part of my history, and the film means a lot to me in the sense that it was made in Lawrence, by people I know and respect, and I got to see the film at the Kansas premiere... so, I want to share that part of my life with my Colorado friends!
http://denverfilm.org/scheduledetail.cfm?MOVIEID=1024775
whoa... it's playing the 10th through the 16th... so that means this will be a really soon thing...

Current mood... yuck. Current face condition, still completely sunburnt. The only good thing about this week is that is it is almost over and that I did get to go skiing.

Currently Listening
Fumbling Towards Ecstasy
By Sarah Mclachlan

this is a busy week, phew. Little Shop of Physics has the annual Open House this Saturday 10-6pm (for those of you in town...) and we have lots of prep going on for that, and I have a number of assignments coming due... as well as a new roommate who potentially will be moving in this weekend??? Maybe, that's totally a guess, but the custodial does come tomorrow to clean the apartment for her...


I love where I work, so much, so much. It makes my life so enjoyable. Why don't I just quit school and do this? Because maybe I'm meant to create something this cool somewhere else and I'm not there yet? Because I really do enjoy learning and school? Because because because...
Sometimes I try to stop trying to explain things. I can do this with God... I don't need explanations, I have faith. I try to have faith in my everyday life... faith in myself that I can do what I set for myself to do, faith in my relationships, that they are good and faith in my friends and family that they are good people... it comes and goes, that faith. I think God wants me to be more faithful in my everyday life. Is it strange that for me I much easier have faith in God than in things that surround me? Perhaps it is because things surrounding me technically should have explanations... God doesn't need any?


So, random musings for the day. I'm getting some work done, cleaning some dishes and going to a Panama Spring Break meeting. Tonight we get our packng lists. I love packing lists!