Harvest

I was talking to one of our charge nurses earlier this week about how we get organs for our patients and how difficult it is to coordinate a "harvest" (that is what they call it when they take the organ out of the donor) because of all the people and all the steps involved and how you only have so many hours between taking a heart out of a donor and getting it into a recipient. She said that I should go watch one sometime, but then we talked about how hard that is to plan because you never really know when (or where) and organ is going to become available. I worked the day shift on Monday and then met up with dad and Julie (who are in town for New Years) for dinner. We were about halfway done when I got a call from our transplant fellow, Dave, asking if I wanted to come with him to harvest a heart in Reno that night! Who cares about sleep! I met him and a med student (Saba) at UCLA at 11:45pm where a limo picked us up to take us to a private jet. Apparently someone did the math and figured out it was cheaper (and more comfortable) for us to ride in a limo than an ambulance :) We then flew to Reno (about an hour) where another limo was waiting to take us to the donor hospital. We arrived around 2:00am, waited for the other surgical teams to arrive (who were coming in from all over the eastern US to harvest the other organs) and then began the surgery around 2:30am. We reversed our path and were back to LA around 6:30am. I opted out of watching the implant since I had been up for about 24 hours at this point and instead headed out to meet dad and Julie for breakfast... it was an AMAZING night!

Christmas Feast

The Thanksgiving Orphaned Feast was such a hit that we went ahead and had another one! Those of us who won't be able to make it home to our own families for the holidays (we are "orphans") got together to eat, drink and be merry... there are a couple new faces in the crowd, mostly they are people who were off for Thanksgiving (so they went home) but will be working Christmas (so now they are here):

Top Row L to R: Marissa, Kayla, Ashely, Kim, Paige

Bottom Row L to R: AP, Lilly, Duncan, Lyndsie, Lee, Omkar, Mike

The Nutcracker

Yes, we experienced the magic... but more importantly, we experienced the Rat King in the lobby afterwards.

L to R: Rat King, Paige

L to R: Jocelyn, Paige, Kris

Motorcycle Class

Kayla and I have been living in The 1606 for almost a year now which means that our lease is almost up! Over the course of this year we have discovered that while our current apartment is convenient when it comes to commuting to work, there are far cooler places to live in Los Angeles. With this in mind we are starting the apartment hunt down by the beach. The only problem is that if we do end up moving, it will mean a minimum hour-long commute to (or from) work, depending on what shift I am working. It is not like we are planning on moving that far from where we are now, it is just that LA traffic is ridiculous. Where else is traffic/congestion this bad? Europe. What do they do there? Ride scooters. Now hold on mom, I know you don't want me to get flattened like a bug so I am thoroughly researching my options (which still include my car) but just incase I decide to go the two wheel route I signed up for a Basic Rider Course at the Westside Motorcycle Academy this weekend... it is harder than I thought it would be but also about a million times more awesome than I had imagined. For anyone who is wondering, 'over the ankle shoes' were required and my knee high boots are the only shoes I own in that category (they were a hit with the other students).

Christmas Ornaments

The Frasers

Laura posted about her engagement...

This is the CTICU

I posted this video back in March right before I started officially working on the floor. I can't believe it has been eight months! I am reaching the point where I have learned enough to know just how much there is that I don't know... the studying continues :) Since starting on the unit I have joined our Spirit and Enrichment Committee. We have planned a Christmas party for tomorrow night and I volunteered to make this year's slideshow - I hope you like it! Over the course of the year we moved into a brand new (earthquake proof) hospital (the Ronald Reagan Medical Center at UCLA), that is what you are seeing at the beginning of the video - our "old" unit (in the other hospital) was called the 4 East ICU (4EICU).

Surf Class

When I started working at UCLA I joined the UCLA gym because it was my cheapest option. It turns out that my gym membership also qualifies me for all the student perks that are offered through UCLA's rec program, I finally took full advantage of this by signing up for a surf class last month which was held every Tuesday from 7:30am to 9:30am down at Venice beach. I had mom as a spectator last week and she took a couple pictures for me - lets be honest, I won't be starring in Blue Crush II but at least I got up!

Mom and Kaite

November was busy (this explains five posts in one night) and it culminated with a visit from Mom and Katie... I do not have the energy or the brain power to describe a trip that spanned visiting the Getty villa to seeing Twilight but I would like to note that in true southern California fashion I took them both to yoga:











I will admit that I had only gone twice prior to their visit (actually, I went in preparation for their visit if truth be told) but that added to the fun/pain. I went with mom the day she arrived and I went with Katie the day she left... how very symmetrical, maybe I am more of a yogi than I thought.

Update

my AOWD video works now... katie fixed it.

Orphaned Feast

Mom and Katie haven't been out to LA yet so they decided that Thanksgiving was the perfect excuse for a visit... Mom got in the Saturday before but Katie didn't actually fly in until Thanksgiving day (Thursday) so we decided to have our meal the day after Thanksgiving day (so as not to rush things like icicle light hanging and Christmas picture taking, both of which are just as central to our holiday as turkey). My friends were appropriately jealous that my mom would be visiting at such an opportune time so I decided to share the wealth and plan an 'Orphaned Feast' for anyone unable to make it home to their own family for Thanksgiving. We got together at Duncan, Ashley and Kim's new apartment (it is a tad classier/larger than the 1606), ate until we could barely move, and then played Rock Band to make room for dessert. All in all, I would say it was one of my most favorite Thanksgivings :)

L to R: Paige, Duncan, Mom, Lee, Katie, Brandon, Ashley, Jocelyn

Mr. and Mrs. JBF IV

LaHender is engaged! She will have to (and by have to I of course mean get to) change her email address to LaBacon... Jay surprised her on Thanksgiving morning with breakfast in bed (hence the pancakes and Laura's general sleepiness) I won't give you full details now because I am pretty sure Laura is working on a blog post of her own (I hear tell there is VIDEO involved!) and I wouldn't want to steal her thunder, so a couple pictures will have to suffice:
notice the KD shirt... it makes me proud

another one...

I think they are trying to make up for delaying the release until NEXT SUMMER, grrr....

AOWD

here are my pictures
PS: I still have water in my ears.

Action Shot

The daughter of one of my patients took this picture of me at work the other day on her iphone, see mom I do go to work occasionally... although apparently its not often enough if I have to concentrate this hard to hang an IV.

If You Give a Pig a Party

Ashley came to volunteer at Reading to Kids with me this past Saturday... it was 'college spirit day' so I needed some help representing the Gator Nation. We read the book 'If You Give a Pig a Party' which happened to be along the same lines of 'If You Give a Mouse a Cookie' so I was very excited. The activity for the book was making pig faces and party hats, lets just say that our arts and craft skills left something to be desired.

USC 17 Cal 3

USC is California's version of FSU...

Exhibit A: team colors are garnet and gold
Exhibit B: team mascot rides a horse
Exhibit C: team hand motion wishes it was as cool as the gator chomp (they do a 'V' for Victory, but everyone does this wimpy little wrist movement that automatically negates any cool factor)

See for yourself:

99 Balloons

The Happy Mermaid

I remember mom telling us that you have to "pick your battles" when it comes to dealing with little kids... I think that my cousin's choice of a Halloween costume this year demonstrates that point quite nicely.  See if you can guess which one I'm referring to:

Ben as Ariel, Nate as Spiderman

Marshall as a Wizard, Isabelle as a Ballerina

But I am the chosen one!

NY in October

Kayla and I were supposed to carve pumpkins today but by the time we got to the grocery store this morning they were out of everything except for the little mini's and the giant ones... good thing I got the carving out of my system last week with Dad and Julie:

Ashley's 23rd Birthday

I like this picture of everyone else... I have no explanation for why it looks like I am sitting on a toilet, but I can tell you that I look a little more haggard than the other partygoers because I was just stopping by on my way home from the airport (after the LSU game weekend) where as they are heading out to a bar.

Photo Shoot with Paige

Paige came to visit us this weekend and she did a photo shoot of us walking around... Thanks Paige!

UCLA 23 Stanford 20

It was no Gator Nation Domination but it was still nice to be at a gameday...

L to R: Paige, Brandon, Melissa, Melissa's nephew, Ashley, Kim

Halloween Horror Nights

As you know, we only work three days a week at UCLA because we work the 12 hour shifts. Many of the nurses pick up a second part-time job in their free time (I don't really know what I do, all I know is that I don't get nearly enough sleep). One of the nurses on our unit (Bert) works at Universal Studios in the first aid station (which basically means he is in charge of handing out aspirin) which gets him a TON of theme park related perks. This past Friday Ashley, Brandon, Kris, AK, Charles and I (all nurses in the CTICU) went to Halloween Horror Nights at Universal and Bert happened to be working that night. We stopped in to say hi and he ended up giving us front-of-the-line passes (so we got to skip all the huge lines - each one was at least an hour long wait)! We were having so much fun that we forgot to take pictures :(

Strutt Your Mutt

Last year I went to this with Dad and Julie, this year Julie sent me this article:My favorite part is where it says that they "raised dollars for the animal shelter"... it reminds me of this Tom Hanks line from 'A League of Their Own' (right at the beginning of the clip):

PADI Certification

I got my 'Open Water Diver' card while I was in Gainesville and this is the photo (out of the plethora of digital photos that my instructor had) that they chose to put on the back of my certification card... very professional.

LSU Domination

L to R: Patti, Elaine, Laura, Kacy, Brett, Paige, Jay

I went to Gainesville this past weekend to watch the Gators play LSU and to be reminded what it is like to hang out with people who take as many pictures as I do :) I got to see Patti, who is in her second year of law school at UF; Elaine, who took a much deserved break from investment banking and drove down for the game from North Carolina; Laura, who has finished her masters in international business, so she came up from Fort Myers (where she is catching up on sleep and family bonding until she starts a job up in North Carolina); I stayed with Kacy, who is in her last semester of the pediatric nurse practitioner program at UF; Brett, whose driving up from Fort Pierce had everything to do with seeing me and nothing to do with seeing his fiancee; and Jay, who has actually been placed in Gainesville to oversee a project by his building construction firm (which is based out of Tampa)... wow, we sound old! Don't worry though, it only took a couple rounds of beer pong for these new mature lifestyles to vanish completely from memory, and for us all to feel like we were back at school and this was just another game weekend...

Fall in NY. For Paige from Julie

Jumpin Julie On Bullet

From Julie:

I got to live out one of my "bucket list" items this week. I got to ride in a "go get um cowboy" Gynkhana horse show. I've been taking lessons for 4 months, and I was by far the least qualified person there. All the other competitors were either teen age girls or real cowboys. So, while I didn't win any big prizes, I did get an honorable mention just for finishing some of the races while my horse (Cloudy) bucked me while galloping.

My instructor renamed me "Jumpin Julie" and she renamed Cloudy "Bullet". So, everytime I got in the ring to ride I was announced as "Jumpin Julie on Bullet".

It was one of the best days of my life! I lived out a lifelong dream and my Mom came to visit us as a beautiful butterfly that stayed with me and all the Ryder girls for at least 10 minutes...just floating in between us all and sitting on each of us. Very, Very Cool.

I'm still taking lessons...and next years video should be even better.

Oktoberfest

I can't believe this festival lasts 16 days! I'm not sure I would make it out alive... Last night we drove down to Torrance for the 5th Annual Oktoberfest at Alpine Village. I put all of my Kappa Delta social experience to work and convinced Duncan to dress up with me ("everyone will be dressed up Duncan, I promise!") only to arrive and find that there were about 10 people (out of a few thousand) who had taken the flyer up on its suggestion to wear 'traditional German clothing'. However, 10 minutes, 2 giant beers and 50 photo-ops into our Oktoberfest the manager came up and asked if I would like to be a beer girl for the night. This entailed refilling the band's mugs and in return I could have all the beer I could drink and all the bratwurst I could eat - was I interested? Ummmmmm YES!!! I had to work this morning (at my real job) so we didn't get too out of hand but the manager gave us an open invitation to come back as often as possible ;)

Open Water Diver

I take it back. I take it ALL back. This Sunday we did our last day of open water diving on a boat called the Sand Dollar. This time we were scheduled to leave at 6am... unfortunately I had a birthday party to attend the night before so I didn't get in bed until around 1:30 and so, come 4:30 when my alarm went off (the dock was an hour away), I was about ready to quit the sport altogether. But I dragged my ass out of bed and rolled up around 5:45. We checked in and then they told us to go on board, claim a bunk, and meet in the galley for breakfast at 6:15 - WHAT?! A bunk?! Breakfast?! A half hour later, full of eggs and toast, I was drifting off to sleep in my BUNK and loving life. We were still heading out to Catalina it just turned out that this boat was a bit slower so the trip was going to take 2:30 to 3 hrs. I got a solid 2 hours of sleep and then woke up as we pulled into our dive site. After our first dive they fed us lunch (chili), after our second dive we got a snack (chicken wings) and after our final dive we packed up, dried off and then ate as much salad, spaghetti and garlic bread as we could handle while watching Sunday night football on a big flatscreen while we motored home. It was awesome. I am now an official open water diver and I will be working on my advanced certification so that I can sign up for a lobster diving trip on the Sand Dollar ;)

Pool Diving

     This is my second weekend of dive class. Today, Saturday, we spent the morning at the Culver City community center pool doing our last skills labs (which included maintaing neutral buoyancy, which is all the pictures of us floating cross-legged). Tony, our instructor, is wearing the yellow fins... Carolyn and Abby are there and then I am the one with 1) black fins 2) the white nike watch 3) my yellow regulator tucked up into my BCD strap 4) brown hair (Abby's is red, Carolyn's is black).
     I was having difficulty paying attention to Tony's demonstrations this morning not only because I brought my camera, but because during our dive class there was a water aerobics class going on in the shallow end of the pool and we could hear the music underwater. I was doing my very best to ignore it but when Gloria Estefan's 'Conga' came on my shoulders started shimmying of their own accord... here is a picture of the aerobics class (trust me when I say it was far more funny/mesmerizing to be watching them in action):
Tomorrow we head back out to Catalina for three more open water dives.

Sing Along Sound of Music

Ashley, Kayla, every child in L.A., every gay man in L.A. and I went to Hollywood Bowl last night for the sold out showing of the Sing Along Sound of Music! Ashley had never seen the Sound of Music (which made the costume contest beforehand quite confusing) and I don't think Kayla knew what she had agreed to come to, but by the end of the night they were belting out the songs with the rest of us... my favorite part of the show was during 'Edelweiss' when everyone pulled out their cellphones and held them up like lighters at a concert, except it was cooler than lighters because of all the different colors! Ashley had downloaded an image of a bic lighter onto her iphone which you can see right at the beginning of the video:
During the costume contest/parade before the show they had the original Liesl von Trapp come up on stage (she is the girl who is 'sixteen, going on seventeen')... only in Hollywood.

Dancing With The Stars Season 7

Season 7 starts next Monday Sept. 22nd with a three night premiere event and I admit it... I'M EXCITED! So excited in fact that Ashley, AP and I will be attending the first results show on Wednesday the 24th! I put my name on the ticket waiting list last season and this is the first time I've been emailed with a ticket offer (guess I'm no the only one watching). Get excited, and watch for me on TV ;)

for Katie

Piper Palin grooming little brother Trig
not to be outdone by Tina Fey and Amy Poehler as Palin and Clinton

Drs. Cove, Catalina Island

This past weekend and next weekend my life is being consumed by a PADI scuba certification class. Actually, before these weekends even arrived I had to spend about five hours studying a book on gear, rules and regulations and watching instructional videos. Now for these two weeks we spend Saturdays in class for the first half of the day reviewing skills and equipment (so we can pass our written exam at the end of the course) and then the second half of the day in a pool, practicing the skills and using the equipment that we have just reviewed. Sundays are the fun part, we spend both Sundays completing our open water training dives! My class started out with 5 students and two instructors. Our instructor's names are Tony (the guy with the pony tail and the tye dye shirt) and V (she won't tell us what it stands for, she is from Australia and she is training to be a divemaster). We had one male student, Sam who got kicked out as soon as we got to the pool and had to tread water for 10 minutes - he apparently didn't think swimming was an important skill for scuba diving. Of the four of us left, one lady (who had clearly been coerced into signing up by her husband) decided that scuba was "too cold and too wet" after our pool dive so she didn't show up at the boat Sunday morning. The three of us who did were me, a girl with red hair named Abby and an asian girl named Carolyn. I don't know how anyone invented scuba diving because it requires a huge amount of extremely heavy and extremely uncomfortable (at least on land) gear. After quite nearly reaching the point of total exhaustion just trying to get into my wetsuit, I was standing in line wearing my STEEL tank waiting for the divemaster to tell me it was my turn to jump in and thinking that there was at least a 50/50 chance that I would require immediate rescue as soon as I entered the water and proceeded to rocket to the bottom (somehow these thoughts hadn't occurred to me during the five hours we spent in 6-feet of pool water the day before). The next 15 minutes were a blur, one moment my shaking hands (whether shaking from nerves, or the strain of the tank cutting off all circulation I don't know) were fumbling with my fins and then my attention was completely consumed: inflate your BCD! hold your mask! hold your regulator! big step! look up! I didn't sink! this water is freezing! signal OK to the divemaster! try to pee in the suit! this water is freezing! switch to my snorkel! find my buddy! this water is freezing! try to pee in the suit! s.o.r.t.d. (signal, orient, regulator, time, descend)! equalize! descend! equalize! this water is freezing! try to pee in the suit! descend! equalize! Are you getting the picture? The next thing I know my knees are hitting the sand, we are thirty feet below the boat and everything is silent. As soon as Abby (by buddy) made it down we signaled OK to each other and waited for Tony, V and Carolyn. It turned out that Carolyn's hood was too tight so she and V went back to the boat. Abby and I followed Tony around for about half an hour during which I took about a million pictures and didn't look at my gauges once. Thank goodness Tony was in charge! It turns out that this was what they expected, that first dive was called our "exploration dive" and was meant to let us get used to the equipment and the environment and (in my case) to let us take a ridiculously large yet satisfying amount of pictures. Abby is wearing the red snorkel with the splash guard on top, my snorkel is black - unfortunately red is the first color that is filtered out as we descend so another clue is that my back-up regulator (the yellow one) is tucked up into the strap of my BCD and Abby's isn't. Tony has his big white instructor cards clipped to him. It was much more comfortable/relaxing once we got to the bottom... I didn't take my camera on the second dive because we had to do all these skills (buddy breathing, mask clearing, regulator recovery, etc) and I didn't want to get distracted. I had fun, although my favorite part of the trip was the sunset ride back (beer in hand) and I am hoping I will be a little less stressed next week :)

CT-ICU Beach Party

beach + bonfire + fireworks = pretty much the best evening of my life

ACLS

I took an Advanced Cardiac Life Support class over the past two days and one of the new developments in their protocol is called an intraosseous infusion which basically means that when there is an emergency and you need intravenous medication but we, for whatever reason, can't get an IV started we will now be doing this:
I wish our instructors cursed that much.

PBR

Kayla and I are on exact opposite schedules right now, I am working days and she is working nights which means that we pretty much never see each other, in fact I might have been convinced that I don't even have a roommate anymore until I came home from work today to find that Kayla had apparently gone grocery shopping, I'll let you guess what she got:

Gustav

I flew back to Tampa to spend Labor Day weekend with mom on Anna Maria Island. We got in late Friday night and were greeted with overcast skies and flooded streets on Saturday and Sunday care of Hurricane Gustav. This left plenty of time for sleeping, eating, biking, reading, scrabble and a jigsaw puzzle. It was nice to see some rain again (it hasn't rained yet in California since I moved!) and it helped keep the bugs at bay. Monday was beautiful so we got to the beach early and stayed as long as possible before packing up and heading home...

Brisingr

Due to be released September 20, 2008:

The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence

I used to think that I would change. I thought that once I got to college and joined a sorority I would all of the sudden like wearing make-up and dressing up and I thought that once I moved to L.A. I would all of the sudden enjoy "going out" to trendy clubs until the early morning hours. I'm not saying I haven't become more open to these things after being exposed to them more in my day-to-day life but I think I can safely say I haven't really changed - I still enjoy function over fashion when it comes to getting ready at the beginning of the day (tattooed eyeliner anyone?) and I would much rather get up at 5am than stay up until 5am (sorry Katie). Realizing this has made it all the more fun to embrace the things I enjoy doing on the more nerdy end of the social spectrum with the money I am not spending on clothes and with the extra hours in my day that don't have to be devoted to sleeping off a hang-over. Wednesday night that meant playing Drag Queen Bingo. Mark May invited me out to a fundraiser for Reading to Kids at a bar in Hollywood (yes, I went out to a bar in Hollywood!) called Hamburger Mary's that has a bingo tournament every Wednesday night in support of a local charity - drunken bingo is fun, but drunken bingo hosted by Drag Queen's with dirty mouths who call themselves the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence (which is what I will be naming my Gasparilla crew someday) is awesome.

The Getty Center

Duncan has a friend in town this week (Gareth) but since Duncan is not a nurse, he has to work all week which leaves Gareth stranded in his apartment. I didn't have to work today and I have been looking for an excuse to visit The Getty so I volunteered to take Gareth there this afternoon. I was on my way over to pick him up when I noticed advertising banners attached to the streetlights along Wilshire informing all of L.A. that the Getty is currently featuring sculptures by Bernini.... hmmm... why do I know that name? Where have I heard that before? And then it hit me, Angels and Demons! Bernini sculpted the Altars of Science for the Illuminati! I think this is Hollywood's subtle way of hyping the new Angels and Demons movie but I am not complaining one bit because we had an amazing time. Duncan and Gareth went to architecture school together at UF, so while Gareth was busy drooling over 'lines of sight' and other highly nerdy architect things, I was pretending to be Vittoria Vetra... it doesn't get much better than that.

Smoke on the Water

I signed up for a scuba class in September and the price of the class includes the gear rental (wetsuit, tank, etc.) but there are a couple items of "personal gear" that you need to own, these include: fins, booties, a mask and a snorkel. My favorite part is the fins because the model I chose is called 'Smoke on the Water'... lets be honest, I chose them because they were called that but whatever:
I would also like to point out that yes, I am trying to smile in this photo but the mask suction on my face leaves me looking permanently surprised and the mouth guard on the snorkel makes it look like I am growling, I am not wearing my booties because I didn't want to untie my shoes but you get the idea.

80's Night

Jay and Laura went to an 80's themed party this past weekend and Laura couldn't resist sending me a picture because "it was exactly like a social! Only everyone was married..." Oh how we miss Kappa Delta.

Wicked LA

Yes, its still awesome. Jeff didn't know what hit him...

Lake Chelan Vacation

From Julie:

Our Annual Summer Family Vacation was in Washington State this year. Dan (and Family) and Katie couldn't make it, and while we missed them a ton, not coming probably saved them a lot of money on ibuprofin, massages and chiropractor appointments that we now have to have because of the injuries we all incured following Paige's advice on how to really enjoy the watersports.

Marshall and Belle are cuter than ever! Most days started with Belle yelling "Faster Daddy Faster" on the boat.

And, it was a blast to be on the water everyday and in bed by about 9pm everynight.

From a Well Rested and Still Sore Julie

Dodger Game

This was during my week of being sick so you will have to excuse the fact that I look a bit scraggily but I couldn't pass up a free ticket... come to think of it, maybe it was the 32oz beer and "Dodger Dog" that healed me and not the neti pot, hmmmm...

Les Miserables

I got home last night from vacationing in Washington state (pictures soon to follow) just in time to meet up with Ashley and some other girls from the unit to see Les Miserables in concert at the Hollywood Bowl. I had an amazing time a few weeks ago at the Bowl so even though I had no idea what this play was about I was excited to get another chance to go... well I don't know if it was the vacation mindset, the day of travel or the three glasses of wine I had before the play even started but I could not follow the story line to save my life. I don't think it helped that we were in the nosebleed section again (it turns out that being able to see individual people on stage is far more important in a play than it was during the concert!) or that the only plot hint I was given before the music started was "it is about miserable people in France during the revolution" but I ended up listening to my ipod during the second half of the performance. Surprisingly enough, I found the play slightly less confusing with a John Mayer soundtrack.

New York!

Just back from visiting Katherine and Sheldon in NYC where we managed to cram as much into two days as humanly possible... Started out at Jane Street, where Katherine is doing her summer internship.
Wow.
There are no photos from there because a) I would have looked like the biggest goober and b) all that stuff flying across about 600 computer screens is proprietary information. Uh, okaaay.....
We walked a bajillion miles, ate incredible food, saw Patti LuPone starring in "Gypsy" (omg - what a VOICE!), got lost in The Strand (way cool bookstore), Sheldon channeled Elvis at Masquerade Costumes, lunched at the Starlight Diner (complete with singing wait staff), saw Times Square, went to Little Italy and Chinatown (where we purchased really nice, reasonably priced, Gucci bags from the guy behind the fake door in the sketchy shop storage room.. again, no photos. Guess he was camera shy. Weird.)
I was inordinately proud of myself for successfully negotiating public transportation to and from the airport - yes, I do realize that many, many people do this on a daily basis. Still - I take my victories where I can. I had so much fun and our Katherine is truly a New York kinda girl!

as requested by LaHender:

Here is a link to the trailer in HD, just scroll down to the teaser trailer download links and choose your size.

Neti Pot

Let me preface this with: I've been sick for the last few days and (besides the fact that being sick is absolutely no fun) I am going on vacation next week so I have been willing to try anything and everything to get better as quickly as possible.

Hollywood Bowl

Tonight I convinced a couple people to drive over to the Hollywood Bowl to see the LA Philharmonic perform Mozart Under the Stars. I know I have been going a bit overboard on the videos lately but they just give you such a better idea of what it was like to be there! I posted the picture too because if you look in the distance on the hills to the right you can see the Hollywood sign...

Ashmad Rocking Out

Last night Ashley and I went to the Key Club in Hollywood with one of the other nurses on our floor, Jen, and her roommate to see an 80's cover band called Steel Panther. Jen and her roommate had been before but Ashley and I didn't know what to expect especially after some questionable opening acts. It turns out we had nothing to worry about, when the Steel Panthers came on I felt like I was inside a Guitar Hero concert - I honestly think I knew every song they played. I also managed to bring along my camera and I would like to point out to you that as the evening progresses my filming gets considerably worse while Ashley's vocals and dance moves get considerably better... weird.

Dream Dinners

Here are the Dinner Prep links she sent me:
Dream Dinners
Super Suppers
Supper Thyme
As I said, I chose the first place simply because it had a location so close to my apartment. I was in and out, with 12 dinners (36 meals), in an hour and a half and there was only one other lady in the store with me (they said business slows down in the summer because so many people go out of town). The other customer had discovered the store when she received a gift card for a months worth of meals at her baby shower and she said she has been back every month since. She said it can get crowded, to the point where you are waiting at each station for someone to finish, but since it was just the two of us that night we leisurely prepared our meals while snacking on brownies and lemonade/tea/coffee and listening to music. Even in this utopia of dinner prep, I still managed to injure a knuckle while grating a lemon rind... some things never change.

If You Walk Without Rythm, Then You Wont Attract The Worm

For those of you who don't know me, and I know there's probably a few of you even though Paige insists her entire readership consists of family members, I'm the elusive little sister know variously as either Katie, Katherine, Kit or really, honestly, any other K name you can think of...

Paige has been on me for a long time to write a blog post, and I keep insisting that I've been planning to write them and end up getting busy/lazy etc. So to date, this is only my second entry.

In my defense, my last semester was pretty intense, and I subsisted off of a lot of Red Bull... err, healthy full meals Mom I promise... This isn't all that unusual for the girls I live with. As it turns out, everyone in the house is busy and has a similar schedule - who knew?

If you've been reading Paige's blog for a while you might know that I like to dance, and was in the musical Cabaret last summer. So this year, when some girls in the house expressed an interest in dancing for AXO's fundraiser "Lipsync" I was really excited. But, unfortunately, with all those nasty tests, labs, etc, getting in the way, we found ourselves one week before the deadline with no dance choreographed and no rehearsals under our belts. As luck would have it, all of us were pretty darn busy that week too, so seeing as the show was next Saturday things weren't looking too promising.

Fortunately, it seems the Lipsync board is used to busy schedules too, and the dress rehearsal/last day to drop out, was the Saturday of the performance (nice). Five of us were sitting in the living room, psetting together when we decided that we could give up our Saturday to do the show in true MIT fashion - by cramming all day, after all there's a reason why our motto is "Sleep is for the weak." One of the girls who was working full time and overheard us even agreed to choreograph some of it in advance!

So we six got up at 8am on Saturday, learned the whole dance, and took the stage. It will make more sense (Dad) if you've seen the Fat Boy Slim music video - Weapon of Choice and the prom dance scene from the movie She's All That. The title of the post is from a line in the first song - it's also a reference to the uber-nerdy sci-fi book "Dune," you know you're jealous.

Christopher Walkin is yours truly ...



[PS: see Paige, I told you I would do a video sometime]

July at Put

Four consecutive camp seasons at Illahee and then school last summer means it has been a few years since I have been to NY in July... so this past Wednesday I exercised my right to a three day work week and flew to Dad and Julie's for five days. Katie and Sheldon came up Saturday afternoon for a BBQ and then we visited Dan, Nancy, Ben and Nate (uncle, aunt and cousins) in Connecticut on Sunday - it was a very productive vacation! I have apparently gotten lax with my picture taking and so I managed to come away with about 50 pictures of Dad and I burning stuff and not a single group shot... instead of choosing whose picture will end up on the blog, I am just posting multiple:
at Date Night with Don and Carla
picking blueberries (for Sal) ker-plink, ker-plank, ker-plunk
in the lake with Katie