Memorial Day Road Trip

Friday was my last day of work until the middle of July, and in order to celebrate, I decided we ought to go on a road trip. However, we didn't really feel like doing much planning, so we decided to just get in the car and drive. We had a general idea of where we were going (East, and visiting the Saltan Sea at some point) but aside from that, we were really open.

Will sent an email to our parents detailing the trip, so rather than re-creating the wheel, I'll just quote the email. He included links and everything!

The trip was really fun. We ended up having Mexican food in Palm Springs, looping around the Salton Sea, staying overnight in an almost-border-town called Brawley, and then driving back through Anzo Borrego state park.

The Salton Sea area is a very strange place... there are tons of abandoned towns and houses, ruined beaches, and dead fish line the shore. Nearby Slab City is an abandoned military base inhabited by drifters, with one man's painted mountain becoming a lifelong obsession. Brawley was a tiny farm town with a surprisingly nice Best Western and a great diner in the middle of nowhere called Brownies. On our way back we drove through a surprising desert town called Borrego Springs, which is what people say Palm Springs was like 30 years ago. It was designated as California's first International Dark-Sky Community so it is really popular with astronomers. Then we ascended a pretty steep mountain that reminded us a lot of the Northern coast of CA and also driving up Haleakala volcano in Maui (so we were well prepared). We passed by picturesque Lake Henshaw on our way back to southern LA, and then we finished off the trip in Irvine at a microbrewery!

Here's a map of the trip, in case one of your Strengths is input, and you need to know more.

Some of the things we saw included:

Lots of palm trees in Palm Springs, and then palm tree nurseries in the middle of the desert as we kept going east.


Salvation Mountain, also in the middle of the desert.


A diner with some surprisingly awesome chicken fried steak.


And some pretty great views.

All in all, a really fun Memorial Day Weekend!

My Sister, JD

So this past weekend we took a quick trip back to Texas to see my AMAZING sister graduate from law school. I left Texas and moved out to LA right before she started law school, so in some ways it's weird for me to think that she's all done, since for the most part, the only real glimpses I saw of the process were via phone conversations, tweets, and facebook updates. But nonetheless she's done! Now she just gets to study for the bar, which I hear is a blast!




A hundred years ago, UT decided that their graduates should start wearing regalia, but no one invited the Law School to the meeting where they made that decision. So, in protest, the law school decided that they wouldn't wear any, and instead just wear white suits, and upon crossing the stage be pinned with a sunflower. They call this the Sunflower Ceremony. This makes my sister rather grumpy, because she wanted regalia, gosh darn it! But she didn't get any, so instead pretend like she's wearing poofy Doctoral gown and a velvet tam. And a purple hood! Sometimes, I think I should go to law school just because they get purple hoods, and my hood is just light blue. But enough about me. MY BABY SISTER IS A LAWYER!

So proud.

May the Fourth Be With You!

I'm a nerd. If you're reading this, you probably knew that, but just in case there was any doubt, here's confirmation. Totally a nerd.

One of my nerdier loves is Star Wars. I grew up watching it, and when my dad (also a nerd) got surround sound for our living room, he'd always show it off by playing the Endor speeder chase scene to anyone who came to visit. It definitely highlighted the awesomeness that was our surround sound, and increased both my sister's and my love for the trilogy.

So today, the most awesome of days, is May 4, also known as "May the fourth be with you" also known as "Star Wars Day." For the past 2 years I've hosted a May the Fourth be with you party in my apartment where we watch one of the movies and eat Star Wars themed food. Today is no exception, though I've gone significantly less elaborate with the food choices this year, since I'm on duty and can't spend a lot of time preparing. Nonetheless I'm excited - this year is Return of the Jedi which is totally my favorite (partially because it has the speeder chase scene that was a crucial part of my fanboy formation.)

For those of you who aren't able to make it to my party, but still want to celebrate, I leave you with the original trilogy in 2 1/2 minutes, with legos. It's kind of awesome.




Happy Star Wars Day!

Cleaning out our storage space, or: Carmen is a pack rat

So this weekend Will really wanted to start going through our storage space to see if we could downsize it. He brought me along because I have, like, 4+ boxes that I brought from Texas that haven't been touched. I went through it, and decided that I definitely have a packrat problem.

I found, among other things, a bunch of notes from grad school, my RA training binder from my senior year, a script from a Star Wars fanfilm that my friends in Australia made in 2002, the notebooks that Will and I got at Engaged Encounter, RA training schedules from Trinity in 2005 and 2006, forms for room changes at Texas State in 2004, unopened statements from ING (what? I track online!), and lots and lots of books.

Some of it I tossed, some of it I didn't. In the end, we decided to toss a box, sell a box, donate a bag, and take a bag home.


I'd say it was a very productive day.

My Afternoon and Evening

My afternoon consisted of going to the annual awards ceremony and see a number of totally amazing students win awards for the awesomeness that they've achieved in their one, two, three, or four years here. I nominated a few of my own students, and one of them won, which was very exciting and made me feel a bit like a proud mama.

My evening consisted of inviting the students from my Alternative Break trip over for dinner, and hanging out with them, playing some Mafia, and eating creme brulee.


(I made sixteen of them to commemorate the occasion. And to make sure I didn't run out.)

And they pay me to do this?

Sometimes, my life is pretty amazing.

Springtime

Springtime in California means:

• Very, very windy days. The past few days have been crazy, and I've been a little concerned that a palm tree branch is going to smash into a window in my building.
  
• Season finale filming. They're filming the Glee Season Finale across the street from Will's work. I am considering calling in sick one day and just going and sitting outside to see if I can spot stars. Or try to convince my boss that we should go whisper for a free cupcake at Sprinkles, and then eat it while trying to spot stars.
• Stressed students. They've got finals, they've got papers, they've got projects. For some reason, all this extra work stresses them out. Who woulda thunk?
• Graduation. All of my awesome seniors leave every year around this time, and it's always sad. I know that they're going off to bigger and better things, but part of me wants to figure out how to hack into the school system and have them fail so that they can stay for another year. (Don't worry, I don't actually do it.)
  
• Closing. Not on a house, which is what everyone thinks when I talk about closing. Closing the building and sending all the students home for the summer. I always have mixed feelings - sad that they're going, glad that the summer's coming and I get a bit of a break.

Springtime in Texas means

Bluebonnets.

I miss bluebonnets.

The LA Galaxy

If you had told me 3 years ago I would be a season ticket holder to a sporting event, I'd have thought you were crazy. Nonetheless, Will and I are now season ticket holders to the LA Galaxy.



Things change.

There had been a couple of games already in the pre-season and season that I wasn't able to make, due to work. But this past Saturday I got to go to my first game, which was against Real Salt Lake! One of my RAs is from Utah, and is a big Real fan, so he was there too, but across the stadium, in the Real supporters section.

It was actually pretty fun! Not even just pretty fun for a sporting event, but pretty fun in general. I'm not going to give a play-by-play of the game - I'll leave that to Will, but Galaxy won, and our seats, which are right by one of the corners, gave us an awesome view of some pretty good shots.

So, another thing that I can only really do while we live in LA crossed off! Living up my LA life!

March 12 of 12 (Or: I WENT TO THE FRENCH LAUNDRY!)

Since I moved out here, Will and I have worked to widen our pallet, spending way too much money on food and not regretting it at all. I've already made a post where I come off sounding all snobby and pretentious, so I won't make the mistake of doing it twice, but on March 12, Brandon, Moye, Will, and I made our way up to Yountville to eat at The French Laundry.

Getting the reservations was a bit of an adventure in and of itself. We started calling when the line opened up after their holiday break, and between the four of us called on and off throughout the morning. I finally got through at one point, and then got put on hold, and then disconnected. Arg! But Brandon finally made it through, and the only option was a lunch, Friday, March 12. So we did that, and were all lucky enough to get the day off so that we could go.

Brandon is from the area, so we stayed at his mom's house, which was awesome, since it saved us a hotel bill. We flew up on Thursday night, on a tiny plane (2x2x20) that you had to go outside to get on, and which had actually propellers where the engines usually are. It seemed especially small because we loaded right next to a China Air 747.

We got in, and crashed relatively early.

And now... my 12 of 12 (and the day!):

When we got up, it was a little rainy.

We got ready, and Will and I improvised some Heart and Soul on the piano, while Brandon and Moye went to get the rental car.

And then we were off! The trip took about an hour, and I was awake the whole time! (Though I would fall asleep on the way back, and the other times we went there that weekend, for ad hoc and just general merriment.)

When we got there, we were promptly seated, and spent a few minutes trying to decide whether or not it was okay to take the clothespins home with us.

We eventually decided that we could.

The menu was awesome, and we planned it such that when there were to options, one person from each couple had each option, so that we could try everything.

Lots of amazing courses, though we didn't take pictures of most of them, because Moye is morally opposed to that. Well, except the fois gras. Because it was pretty.

Oh, and the picture of the dinosaur salt! There were 3 different kinds of salt for the fois gras, and one of them was 40 million years old! So we called it dinosaur salt.

The only course which I didn't share/get to taste the other one was the dessert. Because I got peanut butter chocolate, and will had some citrus thing. And who trades peanut butter chocolate for citrus?!

Then we got chocolates to top it off. They were awesome.

Our waiter asked which ones were our favorites, and Brandon and I told him the peanut butter ones (peanut butter chocolate!), and Will told him the cinnamon. Moye was too full to think of a favorite. And he gave us more. (!!!!) And I tried to take an artsy picture with the macro setting on my camera.

After an amazing lunch at The French Laundry, the only really reasonable thing to do is go on Chat Roulette. Moye and I showed off Brandon's Ninja Turtles action figures to some guys from Russia who showed us snow in exchange, some guys from Toronto, and a few other people. We only saw one really offensive thing, which is probably pretty good, considering we were playing around for about an hour.


Dinner (once we were able to make room for it) was this awesome cheese spread on a bagel.

Moye updated her blog with the experience much more promptly than I did.

And what better way to end the day, than a little bit of the UK version of The Office?

Love what you do

Once again I dragged my feet to a late night meeting, very tired after a loooooong day of selecting RAs and then showing off my building to eager freshmen.

And once again, I got so wrapped up in the conversations that happened that I lost complete track of time, and left the meeting rejuvenated and excited about my students, my job, and my chosen career.

One of these days I'm going to remember that this always happens before I start griping about having a 10pm meeting on a day when I'm ready to crash around 9. But until then, I'll just continue to be pleasantly surprised when it does.

Laughter

Marci and AJ have spent the past 20 minutes video chatting each other - from the same room. I don't think I've laughed this hard in a long, long time. Jen is torn between laughing, and watching along with a bit of confusion.

Quote of the night:
Marci - Why have we never roomed together before?
AJ - Um, because we all have our own apartments.

I am so thankful for my coworkers, who I can also count among my friends.