The Great and Powerful [G]oz.

I'm trying to decide whether I want to re-join the social networking Facebook world again. The kicker is I can't remember my password for my old account and I don't want to start a new account on there. I've heard less and less chitter-chatter about Facebook around campus, which is nice. Seems like you couldn't walk down the sidewalk last year without all the students around you blathering on and on about facebook this and facebook that. I feel like it's kind of fading away though, and that makes me more happier to be a part of it again... It's quieter, somehow. I don't mind quiet websites. I have trouble with hearing about certain websites every single place that I go, whether I'm near a computer or not. I don't like the all-encompassing aspect that Facebook had for a while. I'm glad to see it struggle...  But, let's face it...Google+ isn't working for keeping up with people. The only people who ever say anything on my little website is me and Mark Hoppus. I love to hear what Hop has to say, but it's kind of silly to have nothing but two updaters for months on end. I'm still thinking on it all. I don't want to be completely gone from social networking websites, but on the other hand, they tend to be exhausting at times. Still more thinking to do before decisions are made on this front, I think.

Speaking of technology, I'm kind of a hanger-back from some things. A couple of weeks ago I had a meeting with the new retirement people that handle Mizzou's plans and things. The guy gave me an Ipad to use to sign up for something and prefaced it by saying 'You're young so I'm sure you've already used an ipad before, right?' And I looked at him and said, 'Nope.' Then he goes, 'Oh. Well you've got a smart phone, right? It's just like your Iphone.' And I go, "No, I don't have a smartphone, either. I'm an archivist. I kind of specialize in the older stuff...like real books and papers and actual photographs.' I know how to safely remove staples, un-crease papers, and how to stop the deterioration agents for paper collections, but I don't know how to use a tablet computer or a smart phone. But he showed me how to make the alphabet keyboard show up on the screen and I went to town signing up for my little retirement profile. It wasn't hard to use or anything, it's just always kind of a funny moment when people assume all young people own every single new techy invention. Those things cost a lot of money, yo! The people I've seen most with tablet computers have been older people, actually. Ones that have money to spend on those things, I think. I kind of liked the ipad, though! I wouldn't want to carry it around with me everywhere, which seems to be the point of the tablet computer. I'd hate to be connected to people every single moment of my life through apps and internet all over the place and things. But, still, I liked the idea of a smaller computer instead of my laptop computer.

The Hunger Games is out at Redbox and I'm determined to try to get my hands on a copy this weekend. I tried on Monday night to get one and it was all for naught. Maybe I can get one today?! I hope so. I've given up trying to read the books first. I'm tired of waiting and just want to see the movie now.

I've also discovered Pintester.com. She's awesome. She's attempting to actually do the things that we all obsessively pin to Pinterest and it's hilarious. She's failing, exactly like I would, at making perfect thumbprint cookies, ombre nail polish techniques, and all those hairdos (that are much more likely to be a hair-don't when you finish it). If you need a good laugh, go check out some of what she's been doing. It's too great. I think she and I would be friends if all of her baking/cooking disaster photographs are any indication. It's like when I tried to make a cake last winter that overflowed the pan all over the oven, or the cookies that made the oven spew smoke out its little burners, or the peppermint "bark" that was more like leather because I put too much peppermint oil in it and it couldn't go anywhere. I love fellow DIY failers. Anyway, this girl is great. Check her out! Especially if you have been a fan of My Drunk Kitchen...I think this girl is as funny as Harto, maybe more funny, even. Plus, she made this fantastic knock-off "Hey Girl" print for her site and I love it.

Thanks, Goz.

I learned that most of the female staff of the Research Center are all into Ryan Gosling. There was a long conversation this week about him (begun by my asking who all had seen "Lars and the Real Girl" like I mumbled about here in my previous post). I came out of that conversation believing that if we could, we'd have photos of The Goz all over the research center. We're a rather eclectic group of women, but it doesn't seem to matter what type of woman it is, the dude's just got it.

Being part of the whole thing, that's the blessing.

Beatrix has been busy this evening chasing flying bugs. First there was a wasp flying around and now I think there's a smaller flying bug like a little gnat or something? She's been leaping up/off of things and clapping her paws in mid-air all evening. It's much more entertaining now that she's after something less sting-inducing than the wasp. Earlier, I was really just hoping the wasp had enough sense to stay aloft and try to ignore the leaping feline.

I saw the movie "Lars and the Real Girl" recently. I had heard from friends that it was a good movie, and I like Ryan Gosling, but I hadn't ever gotten around to seeing it. It was adorbz. Ryan Gosling is a good actor, I don't care what people say. He made me cry over a doll. The man can act.

My legs still hurt from the 5k on Saturday. Not so much as Sunday or yesterday, but still. I had such a great time this weekend! Everything was a lot of fun. This week at work has been good so far. Yesterday at work I helped completely re-shuffle one of our newspaper storage rooms. We needed a better organizational system and I think we've got it now. At least it's more efficient than it was. I'm hoping that it proves to be a bit of a time-saver. I'm also trying to stay up on a project that I'm trying to finish at work. It's a long-term project but I really want to get a large part of it done in this calendar year. It will make life so much easier at work. Tasks will take half the time, hopefully! Three cheers for efficiency!

All the students are back on campus. Classes began yesterday and campus is buzzing with activity. I like it busy like this. I don't like it crazy-crowded, but where I'm at is less crowded than where I used to be. The sidewalks are bigger and there's much more room for people to hasten around each other without bumping or stepping on each other's heels. It's nice and relaxing to be a terminal degree-holder with a job. No exams, no assignments, no school! I'm really enjoying it all. A lot of our time at work this week has been spent directing students to the auditorium they're looking for, or trying to get them into the actual library when they stumble into our office by accident.

It's been a bit since I book-talked on here, but I've been reading an interesting book lately: The Train of Small Mercies by David Rowell. It's a novel based on the history of the funeral train trip of Bobby Kennedy. His funeral train went from NYC to Washington, D. C. I didn't know he had a funeral train. I don't know too much about him, really. I'm learning a lot but it's hard to decipher fact from the fiction in historical fiction sometimes, you know? Like, for instance, was there really a train that rushed by the funeral train and ran over spectators? It seems like there could have been because it was an awkward tid-bit to throw into the plot if it wasn't true. It kind of came out of nowhere. The book itself is really well-written. It follows several different characters and their stories. The common thread is that all are somehow connected to the funeral train. Most are just going to watch it go by. One is working on the train. I just did a quick search on the subject and it seems like the bizarre twist of a train rushing past the Kennedy train is true. Two people were killed and four were seriously injured. So, that's where I'm at right now in the book. Really sad. The overall book is good, though. Rowell doesn't write about the Kennedys. They are nothing but (important) background characters for the 4 or 5 stories he's threading together. It's pretty good. I recommend it if you're interested in historical fiction.

Enough about funerals, though: on to newborns. I have a baby shower to attend this weekend and I'm a book-buyer for baby showers. Not only because I have rediscovered my own love of picture books, but because books are such a great gift for new parents. They're always getting loads of stuff that eventually they aren't going to be able to use any longer. Books are different. Books are the baby shower gift that keeps on giving...for years and years. Anyway, the mama-to-be already knows that my present will be books. I had a great time shopping for them. I bought a couple for me in the process. Books, books, books. I've been looking at a lot of children's books lately. People seem to equate the genre of Children's Books with 'simple', 'silly', or 'unsophisticated'. They aren't. Most children's books cover some pretty heavy subjects. They can try to lighten the mood with pretty illustrations and artwork, but don't ever shrug off a book as a 'kid's book' because it has pictures in it. It might be one of the most intelligent and touching books you'll ever read! Here are some quotes I've come across recently to illustrate a bit of my point:

But, reader, there is no comfort in the word “farewell,” even if you say it in French. “Farewell” is a word that, in any language, is full of sorrow. (from The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo)

It’s funny how humans can wrap their mind around things and fit them into their version of reality.  (from The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan)

Dying’s part of the wheel, right there next to being born….Being part of the whole thing, that’s the blessing. (fromTuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt)

Don’t underestimate the value of Doing Nothing, of just going along, listening to all the things you can’t hear, and not bothering. (from Winnie The Pooh by A.A. Milne)

When you have done a great many good things, you forget to speak of them….It is those who do very little who must talk of it. (from Miracles on Maple Hill by Virginia Sorensen)

Meet Me In St. Louis!

I spent a really fun and happy weekend in St. Louis! Between my first attempt at a 5k, visits with friends and family, good food, ten-story slides, elephants, beautiful weather and lots of laughs and smiles, it was a perfect weekend!

Photos, etc!!(I tried to re-size most of them, but I might have missed one or two. Beware if you decide to click on one that it might be gigantic):

St. Louis Color Run! I hope it returns someday!

I started the race with these ladies, they were very fun! They kept things happy when people were getting restless at the back of the pack of runners. Good people!

The first wave of runners after running through their first color (pink). My dad was taking pictures around the course and got some really good ones.

Orange color! The last color of the course. It's hard to not cheer and laugh when getting color thrown on you, but then you tend to get a snoot/mouth full of color dust. It's all part of the fun!

Completed my first 5k as part of "The Happiest 5k On The Planet!"

It was kind of chilly on Saturday morning, but if I do it again, I won't wear such dark colors so I can tell that I'm getting colorized. It was hard to tell sometimes if any color was sticking. But, my arms were color-icious and I had 'color lines' instead of tan lines. All very fun!

So, that was my first 5k experience. It was a blast! I can't say that I'm a converted runner now, but I would definitely do the Color Run again in a heartbeat. It was so much fun and everyone was cheerful and smiling and laughing. I ended up being almost in the very back of the 15,000+ crowd of runners that showed up for the event. I didn't mean to get in the very back, but it just ended up that way. I never trained for this run or anything because it's not competitive and it's just for fun, but I didn't want to miss the party at the end and people were already done with their 5k before I had even begun! It was kind of a longish wait in the 'start chute' for those of us bringing up the rear. I ended up jogging about half of the 5k! I was really impressed by that, since I don't run at all and didn't train for this or anything. It was purely trying to not miss the fun color party at the end that kept me jogging through parts that I would normally have just walked if I had been able to begin the race with the earlier groups. It was fun! Everyone was in a good mood once we got started and everyone was really happy to have the dust thrown on them. If I ever do another Color Run, I'm much better prepared now for the process of the 'dust-throwing'. I'll be better ready for the lanes and stuff that I need to be in and not just run through it because you need the volunteers to really douse you with the dust to get really colorful. I ended up much less colorful than I thought I would due to learning this kind of late in the game. Still, the entire thing was fun and I'm so glad that I did it! I recommend it for everyone! There were lots of kids, infants, and even a couple of dogs that went through the race! The volunteers were trying to not get the dust right in the face of those three categories of participants, which was nice. The dust is just made up of some non-toxic dye and corn starch, but it does kind of get up your nose and in your lungs and you do kind of cough color dust for a bit. I might share a few more pictures once I get some from my dad. I think he got a really good shot of the after-race party when people threw a lot of their color dust packets all at once. But for now, these are what I've got to share! 

The entire weekend in St. Louis was a blast! The race was just the beginning. 

We went to the City Museum and wandered around for a while. If you've never been there, you should check it out! It's a lot of fun and really amazing all the stuff there is to see/do. I was busy climbing things and sliding down ten-story slides and didn't get many pictures, but here are just a couple:

The second floor looking down toward the entrance of the City Museum. 

Quasimodo-type architecture details that were salvaged from a building in St. Louis. I love it!

There were visits with family and friends and really good food to be had this weekend, as well. It was really nice! Then, this morning, we went to the zoo pretty early in the day and many of the animals were very active and happy. I saw bouncing/twirling hippos, super-lively sea lions, and (what I went to see) the elephants (including two baby elephants)!:

Two baby elephants playing in their pool. One of them is Kenzi, who was born last Fall. I didn't know there were TWO babies, but it was really fun to watch them playing and jumping in the water. It was like a tidal wave when both babies would flop into the pool and swim around. They were having a great morning!

Raja, the male Asian elephant at the Zoo. I remember when Raja was born and going to see him when he was a baby. Now he's the father of the babies that were flopping into the water. He was really bored and just pacing around. I don't know if they allow him near the babies or not. He was separated from them this morning.

Google wins again.

Curious discovery on Google Earth. Yesterday I went to see if Google had re-done any of its images of my house. I'm hoping for a new Street View shot sometime because the image of my house is really old and not at all what it looks like now. Well, Street View is (boo hoo) still outdated, but I noticed that the satellite must have gone over JC earlier this year because the main satellite view is different. I know this because my neighbor's SUV is seen on Google Earth now and they didn't move in until January of this year.

So, I scrolled in and out around my house for a bit and then (as you do) went exploring around town. I could tell that the image was taken in the Winter because the trees are all bare, around mid-day because of the shadows, and on a weekend because the government office parking lots are empty. Sunday seems likely because St. Joseph Cathedral's parking lot is kind of full. So, after deciding to go with those tidbits, I went looking for my dad's house to see what it looked like. His house is no more than 4 or 5 miles from my own and I expected it to be Winter on that side of town as well. I was deceived by Google, though! It's Summer at my dad's house!

So, then I started trying to find the dividing line in town to see where the satellite stopped taking its images this past winter and then I started laughing because it chopped the Country Club's golf course in half. And you can see part of the course with golfers on it enjoying one of the golf greens, while the neighboring hole is all dead and bleak. Ahahaha.

Good job to Google editors for making such a seamless connection between the two satellite images, though. I am impressed. And very amused.

Birthday greetings, bottle of wine.

Today is my Dad's birthday! I expect to hear a few lines of the Beatles "When I'm Sixty-Four" sung today. We're having a little get-together that includes brunch and then possibly (nom nom) cake? Oksana and Damiano are in from Minnesota this week and we're all going to celebrate together. Yay!

I don't know what sort of music most men his age play on the stereo, but he's the only one I know who blasts Joe Bonamassa, Santana, Eric Clapton, Robert Randolph or some other wailing guitar player so loudly that you can hear it when you're walking in the neighborhood. (This is one of the things I am most proud of him for doing. It's like walking into a loud, awesome concert when I go to his house.) So, here's Clapton and Bonamassa at Royal Albert Hall (he got this dvd for Father's Day this year and really likes it):



Here's to my Pop!

I don't know when this was taken, probably in the late 1970s or early 80s.
My mom and dad moved to JC and would try to fly kites at Binder Park.
I remember them taking me to fly kites a few times when I was little, too.

Dad beaming after getting his gelato fix in Italy.

Me and Dad in San Francisco in 2008.

I'm living life, do or die, what can I say.

Happy Thursday p.m.! I like Thursday evenings; it's the almost-weekend. Wrapping up the week, reviewing how the week has gone, looking forward to the weekend...all things that Thursday nights can include. This week has been kind of eventful, but mostly all in a good way so far. Monday morning I had car trouble and ended up in the auto repair shop before I went to work. It wasn't a big repair or anything and the shop didn't charge me, so it wasn't a huge deal. But, my car was having a fit about tire pressure and, despite putting air in the tires at two gas stations, the car was still unhappy.

The women's platform diving is on the primetime Olympics right now. This was the event that my friend's friend was competing in, but she didn't make it into the finals. She was in the semi-finals but after watching those dives earlier this evening, neither American diver did very well today. They had trouble entering the water correctly. Neither made it into the finals. Even the Chinese divers are struggling today. Still, major shout-out to anybody that decides to throw themselves off a 10m high platform and expects to live and tell about it.

There was an election this week. As usual, things did not go the way I would like. The thing that made me the most angry (but not surprised) was that my county elected to not support the public library. My fellow citizens don't seem to understand that some taxes are necessary to continue life as they know it. They don't want to pay any taxes, but they want to be able to go get library books and movies and audio books any time they want. Uh, where do you think those materials come from? Librarians just pull it out of the air? We're a special breed of humans, but we're not that special. I wish we were, that would be awesome.

I found out that I'm going to get to work the Halloween event at work this year. Some people are upset about being scheduled to work events, but not me. I'm excited to have a reason to come up with a costume this year and be able to hand out candy to kiddos and have fun! And this year I have Pinterest to help me decide upon a costume! Plus, three of my work buddies are going to be working the event as well, so I'm hoping that all of us dress up and have fun. It's kind of early to be thinking about Halloween, but since they sent out the schedule today, it gets me thinking about this stuff. Maybe Carmen Sandiego? Or Wenda, the less familiar female counterpart of Waldo from 'Where's Waldo?' fame? Something that would be relatively easy to put together and wear most of the day to work. Hmm, hmm, hmm?

During lunch today I heard the song "Gangsta's Paradise" by Coolio. Remember that? I had the 1996 Grammy Nominees cassette tape back in the day and that song was on it. Today I was reminded of how often I listened to that tape. I knew every word of that song and rapped along while waiting for my grilled chicken sandwich + fries. Sixteen years later, and that song is still awesome. I went and listened to several Coolio songs this evening on Youtube, and really? Coolio was awesome. Rap was good back in the mid-90s. I'm sure everyone thinks that about whatever music was from from whatever time they were growing up. Still...good songs. I forgot that GP was from the movie Dangerous Minds.



Sidenote about singing in public: While at lunch, there were several older songs that came on the radio. We had not only a Coolio sing-along, but Aerosmith's "Don't Wanna Miss A Thing" (a real sing-along song), and some other doozies as well. This particular restaurant never fails at having at least one sing-along song during your lunch break. I could hear singing coming from a couple of other tables and it made me think that if you had all women in one room and piped in music, I would guess that there's a 99.8% chance that before that song is over, you'd have women singing along. Not necessarily women who are friends with each other, either. Just women who happen to be in the same place hearing the same song. I think women tend to sing in public way more than men. If you had a room full of men and piped in really well-known songs, I don't think you'd have as solid a bet that before that song ended, men would be belting out the tune. They might be bopping their heads and tapping their feet, but men don't tend to just up and sing in public the way women do. Kind of a pity, there's something really endearing about strangers singing along together. It should happen more often.

Lament of the autoshop coward.

I think the temperature today stayed below the century mark for the first time in quite a while! It was kind of nice to see the thermometer reading just over 90 degrees this afternoon instead of just over 100.

I love the Olympics, but it's really messing with my sleep schedule. I've had a pretty lazy weekend and have caught up on sleep a little bit. I slept in until nearly 11 this morning. I can't remember the last time I did that. It was great! Speaking of the Olympics, have we all seen enough volleyball yet?! I have. Now that swimming is over, I probably won't be watching all night of the coverage, but I wish they'd show less beach volleyball and more of other things. Like badminton? I haven't seen any of that yet. Or table tennis? I haven't seen that, either.

Summer is winding down. I expect there to be a bit more bustle around campus starting this week. Parking will start to get a little tougher to find. Lines in restaurants around downtown will start to get longer. This week is a freebie week at the Rec Center for staff and faculty. I plan to check it out. I haven't truly worked out in months. I do yoga now and again at home, but no real working out has been done for a while. I don't really like trying to work out in the weight machine area at the Rec Center because it's usually filled with kind of scary looking guys that don't appear to be too happy to share the machines. But, maybe I can find a time of day when the scary guys aren't machine-stalking and I could just use one or two and then scurry back to the cross-trainer on the other side of the room? Plus, I might start using the pool a little bit, too. I think it'll be nice to have access to the center again. It's a really nice facility. A few of my co-workers use it and we might be able to motivate each other to actually go and use it once we're all members. That would be good.

I've been looking for little enrichment courses to enroll in. So far, I've seen a lot of possibilities, but have only enrolled in one through a career center in Columbia. It's a car maintenance class for women. Lord knows, I need that sort of knowledge. Did I mention how I freaked out earlier this summer when I had to get an oil change + tire rotation and tried to take it in to the mechanic? I bolted when the mechanic came out to find out what I was doing sitting in the car in the parking lot. I couldn't get the courage to walk in and face the mechanic. Or sound like an idiot when telling them what I wanted done. After discussing this situation with my friends, it was decided that this is probably the real reason women finally throw in the towel and get married: you can get your husband to do this sort of task. Over lunch at Jimmy John's, we decided that's why there are never any women in these lobbies waiting for the cars to be fixed. It's always men, which adds to the intimidation of having to be the only woman in the entire place. Or deal with the condescending 'tude when the mechanics surely find other things wrong with the car that need to be fixed. And the helpless feeling of knowing that you have no knowledge of what the dude behind the counter is telling you. It all boils down to feeling really helpless and nobody likes that. I always feel like an idiot when it comes to car things, and I always feel unprepared to deal with manipulative auto shops.

Anyway, in this case, I just sat in the parking lot, trying to gather the courage to walk in and tell the mechanic what I wanted done. I failed that day, but a few days after fleeing the scene at one mechanic shop, I dropped the car off at Sears, where I could have the mechanic do the work while I wandered around the Mall and ate Chinese food in the food court. Not having to sit in the lobby awkwardly waiting to be told how many things are wrong with my car or why my bill will be a hundred dollars more than I thought was a huge incentive in going this route. Shopping + food makes things less scary and intimidating. But, it obviously galls me how scared I was at the prospect of having to be an adult and handle the car by myself. I gave about ten seconds to the idea of calling my Dad and begging him to take my car in to an auto shop, but couldn't bring myself to do that. I don't like to chicken out on anything and was determined to somehow be an adult about this and get the job done. Clearly, I think this one-night class in Columbia is good for me. Here's to becoming less of a wussie! "Jeah!"

Track is on! I love the name Asafa, by the way. I cheer for Asafa Powell just because I think he's got the coolest first name, ever. It's fun to say. Asafa, Asafa, Asafa. He just got third place in the 100m semi-finals. Justin Gatlin from the USA won the heat. Woot! I think that Jefferson City could do a much better job in trying to cheer on the track stars we have in our midst. Lincoln University has a fantastic track team, and several of the LU track stars are in the Olympics every Summer Games racing down the track. Take tonight, for instance: Dane Hyatt is racing in the 400m semi-finals and he graduated from LU. He runs for Jamaica, which is super impressive, since Jamaica = racing Royalty. But, the track team never competes here at home. I've heard that they don't have a facility good enough to hold the type of track meet that they compete in. If that's really the case, I think JC should help them get one. I'd love to see Olympians coming to my hometown to race! How neat.

If being in my jammies at 7 pm is wrong, I don't want to be right.

I've calmed down since my last post. I also have moved things around in my house in a mostly-successful attempt to be able to get NBC on a tv upstairs. It isn't perfect and the channel sometimes freezes at inopportune times, but it's better than nothing. I still think NBC is doing a crappy job, but I'm glad I can at least unmute the tv when it's finally an actual event to watch instead of having to hear all the dumb commentary. My evenings have boiled down to dinner, pajamas, tv watching/book reading, sleeping. That's it. Olympics fever for two weeks around here. I've enjoyed what I've been able to see. The swimming has been what I'm focused on, mostly. But I did catch the US women win gold in gymnastics. Good job to them. And I saw some diving. Jumping off the platform is scary to watch. A friend of mine knows one of the American divers that dives from the highest platform and so we're all going to try to sit around and cheer for her when she's competing next week. I don't know how people who actually know an Olympian or are related to these people can stand to watch them compete. Especially the divers. I'd just have to close my eyes or turn away if a close friend or family member was jumping off a three-story tall platform into a pool. It's too much.

The week hasn't been too bad. Monday was the worst, but it was expected. After getting through that day, everything else has been really good. Monday was the fifth anniversary of the day my mom passed away and every year I have a tough time with it. I am loads better with it than I used to be, but it's still hard to get through the day. This one was especially weird because 2012 is exactly the same calendar as 2007. So, this is the first time that the anniversary of her death has landed on the same day of the week as when she died. I didn't realize that we were already back to the same calendar as five years ago. I was just figuring it would be later, but of course not. Leap years make years align differently. It was also weird because this was the first year that I couldn't take the day off of work. I always have done so in the past, because my mood tends to be really dark and gloomy. I was already heading into it on Sunday night with the Olympics frustration post, but I used to get much worse. Still, this year was different in that I have no vacation days yet so I had to work. I was gloomy and tried to stay as upbeat as possible. It wasn't easy, but my co-workers inadvertently helped me through the day. They had planned a potluck lunch for several of us that have just been made full-time employees. It was done to act as sort of a 'Welcome to Work' party. They randomly chose Monday as the day, so it was somewhat of a distraction to pig out with my fellow co-workers when the clock was running through the hardest part of the day for me. My mom died at almost exactly noon. I remember looking directly at the clock before the family walked into the ICU room after we knew she wasn't going to make it out of ICU. And it was like, 11:57 am or so. And I have that clock image stuck in my head and it pops back up every year on July 30th right around lunchtime and it makes it difficult if I'm not doing something that can pull my focus away from that image. But, my friends and co-workers were great and we discussed Olympics and pets and I listened to one of my friends discuss at length the procedure he recently had to get two wisdom teeth out and how he could only eat soft, squishy food at the potluck. It sounds kind of awful, and the description was, but it was something so random and gross that it was a good distraction from where my mind was traveling. I later told a couple of my friends how much I appreciated the  potluck and that they had helped me through a difficult day. Initially, I wasn't going to tell anybody that I was having a rough day, but in the afternoon, once I was feeling slightly better about everything, saying a little 'Thanks' didn't seem like quite enough. I really appreciated their kindness that day. I have pretty awesome co-workers.

And today, I found out I have a pretty awesome workplace. I went to New Employee Orientation and found out about all the perks I get as an MU employee. All sorts of discounts, including an extra 15% off my cell phone bill! I get pretty decent health coverage, including free money from the university to help pay for random expenses above and beyond the general health insurance. Nice! And the vacation, sick leave, and personal days are great, as well. Not to mention the discounts at the Rec Center, which I'm hoping to be able to use soon. The orientation was good. I had heard conflicting opinions about the necessity of going to this half-day session, but I'm glad I went. I don't have enough experience in the working world to yet be jaded enough to assume they won't tell me anything I don't already know. I frankly don't know squat about benefits, retirement, or life insurance policies. Actually, I guess I know slightly more than squat now, thanks to my orientation!

So, "Call Me Maybe" is STILL getting crazy amounts of airplay and dubs and things. The Harvard baseball team didn't know what they were starting when they created that little dance. I still like that one the best, but this is pretty damn awesome. Apparently this dude has tons of time on his hands and he takes Obama's speeches and dubs them over various songs by Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber. It's super impressive, I think. Here's Obama's version of "Call Me Maybe":





Aaaaaand, Batman's version of "Call Me Maybe":