I had a wonderful day at work today and it's been a great couple of weeks. On Monday Vina and I went Mountain View Farms to pick up Sam's farm share. Vina came up with this idea of incorporating more local foods into Sam's menu as a project for school and now we're beginning to implement it. I'm super excited. We picked up four heads of lettuce, various mixed salad greens, scallions, radishes and fresh herbs. Today I used the fresh thyme to make a delicious vinaigrette dressing, cleaned the lettuce and greens and tossed them all together. Then Vina and I came up with a salad special and sampled it. It was fantastic! And my hands still smell of thyme and fresh lettuce. It's wonderful to get fresh, local vegetables again and get creative with them.

Yesterday I took a break from work to do my own grocery shopping. On the way home I stopped by Flayvor's and tried the Hadley Grass ice cream. It was surprisingly light and delicious. I also picked up fresh asparagus and strawberries. Mmmm!

This past weekend I moved into my new/old house. I moved back to Walnut St., which is where I lived last summer, just with different roommates. It's good to be back in the house. I still love it, even though it has a bit of a different feel. I'm much more comfortable here than I was in my old place, plus it's a quick walk into town so I'm driving less.

This coming weekend Jiggle, my mixed ultimate team, has a tourney in Devens, MA. I can't wait. I think we have a lot of potential and I'm really excited for tournament play again.

I honestly didn't think that my graduate school options could keep getting better, but it seems that they do. I've now gotten into all of the schools that I applied to: UCSB, SUNY Stony Brook, Duke, and Cal. State Monterey Bay. Stony Brook was the first school I heard from and I was thrilled. Shortly after they told me about the amazing financial offer as well as being able to work with the professor (Dr. Ellen Pikitch) that I wanted and I was floating. They're hosting an accepted students weekend this coming weekend and the program sounds awesome. I will meet current students, other prospective students, my advisor as well as other prominent faculty and researchers. I also just found out that the seminar on Friday will feature Dr. Carl Safina, whose work is amazing. CSUMB was the last school I heard from and I was also very excited to get in there. The school was wonderful when I visited and I've had conversations with both of the professors I would be working with. Unfortunately, the funding is not yet guaranteed, they won't hear about grants until late summer and when I told them about my offer from Stony Brook they basically said I would be stupid to refuse it. So, it all comes down to this weekend. I hope I have not placed unfair expectations on it, but I honestly don't know what I would do if I don't like it. I find it hard to imagine that I won't given all of the great things so far, but you never know...

I've really been enjoying the spring weather, especially since I am now sans bike and must walk everywhere. I've been meaning to get my camera out and take some pictures of the beautiful sunsets and luckily remembered to on the same day I got a tour of my friend's new apartment. It's a gorgeous place on the fourth floor in downtown Noho and the views are amazing.

Tomorrow Faith, best friend from Michigan, is coming for a few days and I can't wait to show her around the valley. She's never been here in the 5 years or so I've been around (has it really been that long?) so it should be fun to be a tour guide. Also I'm taking 5 days off work so it's like a mini spring break for me.

I'm also really excited to visit Stony Brook at the end of the month. I haven't made a decision yet... I've gotten into Duke and UCSB as well as Stony Brook and am still waiting on CSU Monterey Bay, but unless it seems like a terrible place I will likely end up there, given their amazing financial offer and a professor that would be fantastic to work with.

Life Update

I'll start with the big news first (just got it about 5 min. ago) - I got into graduate school! SUNY Stony Brook on Long Island is the school I just heard back from. It's a marine science program and I would hopefully be working with Dr. Ellen Pikitch on forage fish. Of all the schools, it's the only one I haven't visited, so I'll have to plan a trip soon. I have no idea what I'm going to do if I get into all the schools, but at least now I know I'll have somewhere to go in the fall. Hopefully I will hear back from the other schools (UCSB, Cal. St. Monterey Bay, Duke) soon.

On to the rest of my life, which I must warn you, is much less exciting. I'm in my new apartment, which I like a lot. My room is cozy and I finally have a mattress to go on the bed frame, so I'm sleeping a lot better. My housemates are nice and I've been spending some time with Sadie. She joined Paul and I for our weekly Heroes night. (Meg, come watch Heroes with us!) The neighborhood is nice, I guess you could kinda call it the suburbs of Northampton. But there are old houses and trees and yards. I have about a 1.5 mile bike to work, which will be fine come spring, but right now it's either been bitterly cold or super slushy. I'm not actually ready for spring yet, I think we need a couple more good snows first. We had some a couple days ago, but it promptly melted. Not that the warm days have completely done in the thick layer of crusty ice and snow that is covering everything.

Work is good, but stressful. I'm back at Sam's. Who knew managing a pizza shop would be stressful? I'm working six days a week, so that's part of it. Also, there is just a lot of disorganization there and I'm trying to get things to run more efficiently as well as deal with all the other employees (some of whom are my friends and have worked there much longer than me) who haven't had a manager before.

Then there's my calculus class, which totally confused me the first couple weeks and now just slightly confuses me. It's been 5 years since my Calc I class in high school so it's taking a while to come back, not to mention that it's a Hampshire Class so it's about learning "ideas" and not formulas... slightly different from AP calc. I think it's Mon., Wed., Fri. at 9am that's really killing me.

On a tangent, (I learned about those in Calculus, thanks Kelly) I just made the most deliciousl oven fries: slice potatoes into whatever shape your heart desires, toss with olive oil, salt, black pepper and curry powder, bake at 400 for awhile, turning once. I dipped them in plain yoghurt mixed with curry powder and salt. Curry is my new favorite spice.

That's enough of an update for now. I don't get cell phone reception at my house, but call and leave me a message and I'll get back to you when I have bars.

I'm back in Northampton and it seems like it's been beautiful and sunny since we drove in. That is, after having to stop near Rochester, NY midway through the drive b/c it was snowing so much. I got to play ultimate (indoor in Greenfield) again last night for the first time in a couple months. It was wonderful to play again, though my feet were frozen and my muscles are quite sore. I've started working at Sam's again in a rather ambiguously defined managerial position. Seems to be mostly about organizing, making things/people more efficient, and promotion. Mostly so far it has been having people tell me all the things that need to get done around the place. Just a bit overwhelming. Until I get some scheduled shifts and start class I'm also setting my own hours so everything feels kind of up in the air. I've also been looking at apartments, none of which I'm psyched about yet, but I have two more to look at on Saturday. Until I find one, my co-worker Vina has graciously let me stay in her apartment, which is right downtown. I also have grad school apps to finish yet and am having a hard time settling down to work on them while there is all this transition going on in my life. Sunday Paul and I are going down to DC for the inauguration, to see his parents, and to get some more of his stuff. I'm hoping I will find some time to work on my apps then. So much to wrap my head around. It all just makes me want to curl up in bed and never leave, but so far my sense of resposibility has prevailed. Tonight I get to see Arlen. Yay!

Time on My Hands

I completed my first grad school application. It's the school I'm least interested in, but I put a lot of work into it. Hopefully the rest will come easier. I still need to track down a couple letters of rec. that are AWOL. I was giving myself a break to do other things after the app. was done, but now I'm restless and don't know what to do with myself. I started getting some stuff together to pack for MA, but I hate packing in advance and since we're not leaving for a few days still it's hard to get everything around. It's a beautiful sunny day here in Michigan with lots of ice glistening on the ground.

Kids are Cute

It's new year's day and we have some friends of the family over with three little kids. I received a box full of truffles from a friend and they were sitting on the table. So while the kids were eating lunch I opened the box and ate one, then put the box back on the table. The youngest asks what's in the box? Knowing that he loves chocolate, I tried to outsmart him. The box was a tea box, so I read him the label: Cranberry Cove Tea. To which he replies, "I want to see." Ok, you win, I tell him to open the box and check it out. He can't open it... I am winning again. He asks me to open it and I tell him there is a secret password. He tries a few, ice cream, cheese, still not opening. I loosen it up and tell him to try another word. Bread. Apparently if you want to eat my truffles, the secret code is bread. So he gets the box open and I am expecting whining about wanting to eat the truffles. He looks in the box and says, they're rocks. We chuckle and agree, they are rocks. I win! My mom later asked if she could have one of my rocks.