Chronically Distracted

My birthday this year had quite a magical tone to it, for me, even though the day didn’t go exactly as I planned it. I’m flexible, so as long as we cooked the dinner I planned, played scrabble, found out our ages on the wii fit, and watched the second episode of Firefly, I knew I’d be happy!

( Pictures! They are out of order. Just so you know. )

Today we all went to the zoo. :D. The Oregon Zoo.
Before that we went to the rose garden and the japanese garden, where everything is serene, beautiful, and luscious, depending on where you looked.

Now I'm watching the fantastic Tony awards, Next To Normal looks amazing. :D :D What can I say, it's been a good day.

And at the rose garden we found the name of a rose, on the lists and lists of the roses names. The rose plant named Cinco de Mayo. Obviously I had to investigate:



I like it. Not sure why it's named Cinco de Mayo, but it's quite an attractive flower.
It smells beautiful at the rose garden.

Then, later at the Zoo, I saw this beautiful creature:

A barn owl up close.

These too:




Later, I shared an amazing burrito and nachos with mr. boyfriend at http://www.laughingplanetcafe.com/, and I'm extremely jealous that there isn't one where I live. Tomorrow is back home where I'll only have wistful memories of Portland to cling to until my next visit.

There's an accent missing up there in the title.

( Grad Pictures! You know you wanted to see more. )

Gonna put this under a cut, hopefully everyone enjoys! Not gonna add any commentary until the next batch ;D

( Read more )

My Water.



My Light.

Going to get an ultrasound on my leg tomorrow. Should be interesting.

A delicious vegan blueberry muffin was chosen as my last snack of the day.



Yum.

Everything needed to finish the senior project.



My school (specifically my department):


Close-up:


(first pic taken today, last two taken two weeks ago.)

Already missing portland as I head off to another part of CA.

On this trip I not only spent (most of my) time with mr. boyfriend, I also got to see the quite lovely ms. honeybear, who I have known since freshman year of high school.

She took this picture of me at http://www.laughingplanetcafe.com/ :


sofia!
Originally uploaded by ravina sniper

It was taken after we saw it become sunny outside, then start to hail, then rain, then be sunny again.
And after she took two pictures where I stuck out my tongue.

(check out our friend the Dinosaur, also taken by ms. honeybear:


Originally uploaded by ravina sniper

)

She recently sent me what is possibly the greatest creation she and I ever created, which I plan to blog about as soon as I have much time to do so.
If you have chance and want to take in some super-super awesome art check out her flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/0honeybear0/

Sleep time now!

These are what I call my pirate boots.

I would wear them (almost) everyday if I could.

With cute a-line or full black skirts, jewel tone, white, black, and comic book tops, and cute sweaters and jackets and hoodies. Maybe the hoodies and comic book tops with my other black boots, but these give two inches of height while giving me a workout while wearing them.

They were especially awesome to wear when went to see the ever entertaining Voltaire when I was in Portland (disclaimer: music not really intended for those younger than angsty teen age. Everyone else have at it :D ).

But more on that later.

Sorry for the headless Sofia, but at the time I just wanted a picture of the dress.



This is the dress I bought to wear to a very lovely event, and wore again in Portland when I went with mr. boyfriend to a formal Christmas event. It was freezing outside. It was also a few days after mr. boyfriend officially became mr. boyfriend.

It's been about a year and 4 months since we started dating. :D






And Now! Back to making notecards for Sociolinguistics. Linguistics is hard.

As you may recall I declared Friday Kitty Video Day/cute picture friday

I admit to using cuteoverload.com for these purposes.
'Specially this one: http://www.cuteoverload.com/2009/03/about-as-prosh.html

Because of this picture:


*happy*

At work we decorated paper cut out in the shape of eggs, so they looked like easter eggs.
'Course one of mine was on pink paper with two green stripes and a jolly roger flag in the middle. :D

It's a whole celebration of March and April (sans the fools day, which i hate), with grass, shamrocks, a sun, a bunch of easter eggs, and these:



Because Cesar Chavez day is coming up. More about him on the actual Cesar Chavez Day, but we decided to dedicate space to each holiday as best we could. They're silly and cute, but look good with the overall display, which hopefully I can get a picture of come Tuesday!!

There's also an egg with wings.

Essentially the pretty ones are done by my co-worker and the silly or weird ones are by me. Yeah.

I also got to run through the third floor of the library with no one else there because we were closing and I needed to find a book for someone. It was exciting! Obviously my ninja wrist brace continues to bring fun.

I think it actually looks kinda awesome, and make my imagination go off into ninja crazy awesome land, but it's just my wrist brace for my tendonitis. Hooray for inflamed tendons!! I plan to wear as much black as possible so that is just sorta blends in.



If only it were a magical wrist brace that gave me bad-ass ninja skills.

We took a Christmas Eve detour to Michael's where I bought some yarn to start on a blanket I've always wanted to make.


DSC02807
Originally uploaded by Kidney Love


18 more of these, then a whole bunch of other colors! Then sew them together! Nice and easy, just gonna take a while. But it gives me something to keep busy with :D

On on this day of festive-ness here's (most of) the song One Love, sung by people around the world:



Had to post it because it sounds beautiful.

(another song tomorrow!)

This is, for me, the only upside of having an iron deficiency:

( pic under a cut to shield veggietarians :D )
Mmmm, Yum.

In other news, Yay Day 190!!!!

I TOTALLY made it through the entire month! YES!

I really, really should be working on my paper right now, but I am immensely stuck. I also kinda wish the 365 was over already and I didn't have to do silly posts for another 198 days, but I can do it!

Thanksgiving? It was good. We had extra pie, and Mmm-ness, and I enjoyed the company of good people, and it was very good to have mr. boyfriend here so we could celebrate our anniversary.
He's in the land of the cold (no, not alaska, the other land of cold in Oregon) now, and I miss him. Thank goodness he made me a new mix CD to keep me company.

Also, I had to share my new triumph over yarn, the white and pink koala:

DSC02781
Originally uploaded by Kidney Love

I'll have to add the name of the book I got the pattern from later, but it was a b-day present for my sis, and she loved it :D (She's real into Hello Kitty. I call it the Hello Kitty Koala).
I feel as if I should write something insightful, but I have so much on my mind right now, I'm counting down the days till the next three weeks are over and I'm free for a month! And until then, I'll be trying to convince myself to get my work done and not just indulge in whine fests over medical stuff.
Thanks to all my nablopomo friends!!!
Now on to the rest of my 365!

p.s. Everyone go see Australia! It's so good!! (ms. rogue? you BETTER have seen it over the break, and if not, dude, you gotta see it soon!!!)
p.p.s. I got a twitter (http://twitter.com/SofiaDistracted) because I'm weak and couldn't help taking on one more distraction. Yes, I know, I need to focus more. *sigh*

With weather like this, mr. boyfriend will keep believing it's always sunny in CA.


Road Trip
Originally uploaded by Kidney Love

Okay, so i cheated, i took that pic a while ago, but still! It seems it's always sunny when he's here.










(but maybe it's cause I'm happy to finally see him again.)

I loves guys and dolls

Postponing my next grateful post for tomorrow, when I feel like I have the proper energy to write it.
Although I am grateful to have finished my last mid-term. I felt quite happy to not have to rush through studying anymore, and the universe rewarded my hard work with a nice evening and flowers.




The sunlight that has been shining in the afternoons and evenings has been kind of startling to me. I seem to have accustomed myself to Portland weather, because while I'm really enjoying the nice days, it just seems so weird for it to be sunny. I keep thinking, shouldn't it be cloudier and more wintery? Not necessarily because I want it to, but my instincts seem to be taking me in that direction. I have no idea how I got used to Portland weather so fast, especially because I know people who are quite annoyed and angry at the weather up there (love you r!). It just happened, I guess. Maybe I'm more adaptable than I thought. Or maybe I just knew it was going to happen, so I didn't try to struggle. Even so, I think I'll just try to enjoy whatever the weather brings, as long as it's not some sort of natural disaster! (I can never tell when I'm tempting fate, but I'm not trying to!!).

(Oh look, I finally posted about Portland again! That was the point of the 365, wasn't it? Hmm . . .)

I am a liar.
I declared that I'd post for a week about the things I'm grateful for, and I only posted 5 days. But, just like the rest of this 365 thing, I'm bending the rules and posting 7 posts all together of what I'm grateful for.

#6: Critical thinking skills/Being good at school.

There is one thing I definitely know I'm good at, and that is school. Up until now I've gotten straight As (although not so sure about my spanish class grade). This totally sounds like bragging, but honestly, I don't go out much for fun, I don't go hang out with a lot of friends just because, I am usually in my room working on a paper, studying, or reading. And even though it's difficult, frustrating, and stressful, I love it. The class I took on writing research papers was very hard and I had many late nights cursing every thing I had to do in that class, but I loved what I learned and the outcome. My overzealousness (woo! new word!) has gotten me into trouble, because I'll often begin writing an essay that is way longer than it should be. I'm trying to learn how to remedy that. I've been called an over-achiever and freak many times, and though I'm still not used to it, I know it doesn't matter.

In high school I was well on my way to having a 4.0 for most of the four years, until I got sick and had to have my kidney transplant (5 years ago!). I couldn't study as hard, I felt ill prepared to do a lot of the work that would have been annoying but easier to accomplish if I wasn't recovering from having my abdomen cut open and a tube put in my neck. In college, as I kept getting better at school, and started my A streak, I felt like I was getting what had been taken away from me, in a way, back in high school. I'm not trying to make this into a sob story, but this is one of the many things that pushes me to succeed in school.

Really, it might not be all that healthy, my semi-obsession with school. But I have learned that I can always learn from books, that there will always be a teacher when I need one, and that I can go forth and research my way through many a difficult situation. I need to learn how to take a few step backs and realize my self-worth is not linked to my GPA, but considering how ingrained my habits have become, I'm willing to give myself some time.

Right now, I gots to study for a mid-term!! :D

Didja know that the Aztecs had a ceremony called the New Fire Ceremony?
Every 52-year period kept track of the solar years, and at the end of each 52-year period there was the possibility that the world would end. They believed/knew it was at the end of a 52-year period, but they just didn't know which one. So at the end of each period they would do the New Fire Ceremony; all the lights would be put out, and everyone would gather at the main temple. Then if the sun came up, a person would be sacrificed (probably someone who volunteered to be, maybe a noble), and they'd (warning: this might be a bit graphic!) cut his chest/abdomen open, pull out his guts, and start a fire in his chest cavity. And all the lights would be lit using this fire.

Now, back to my making my study cards!