Day Eight Hundred Nine

I think this might be the first time I'm legitimately sad that fall daylight savings time is happening, because it means I'll no longer be watching the sunrise during my morning jogs. It's a struggle getting myself out the door when its not fully light out yet, but watching the sun rise and turn the sky all sorts of colors has made it much more bearable. Maybe one of these days I'll get up even earlier to catch the sunrise again (this likely won't happen any time soon, unless I miraculously adjust my sleep schedule quicker than ever before).

So I started the day with a jog, and spent the rest of the day trying my hardest not to fall asleep while in the middle of conversation. I like to think nobody noticed......but I'm pretty sure everyone did.

Day Eight Hundred Eight

Let's be real guys, this week I'm just biding my time until Sunday comes and I see my Seahawks in person up in Dallas. I cannot wait. I'll probably even wear my Seahawks hat to school on Friday, and give a look that says "bring it on" to anyone wearing Dallas Cowboys gear. And a bonus, I get to see my dad this weekend as well! We get to share our first live NFL games with each other, and I have a feeling we may both get very...spirited once the first ball is snapped.

Until then, my life has been work and exercise and more work. I recently started going on early morning jogs with a friend of mine, and I haven't yet reached the point where I don't dread getting up early. I'm doubtful I will ever reach this point, but regardless, its good for me so I guess I'll keep doing it. Work has consisted of experiments and writing reports and TAing and tutoring and more, none of which has been overly exciting.

Yesterday I went to one of the Austin public libraries for the first time ever. I don't know why I haven't been to one yet, because I love free stuff and libraries are basically buildings full of free (if you return it on time) books. That being said, this was probably the smallest library I've ever been to, and I now know how utterly spoiled we were with the beautiful public libraries in the Northwest. I'm looking at you, Timberland Regional Library.

Day Eight Hundred Four

Notable things that happened today -

1. It rained 7 inches. And it's still raining.

2. UT won their game! Though it was a home game, I was not there. Because 7 inches of rain. But seriously, where was this football team the first half of the season?

3. I got two new candles from Bath and Body Works, one of which may be my new favorite (definitely my all time favorite fall scent they've had) called Welcome. It's said to smell like a spiced wreath, and I'm obsessed with it.

Day Eight Hundred Three

You guys......a storm's a coming. Not in a poetic way, an actual bad storm with potentially severe flooding. So guess who's going to hermit in her apartment all weekend? Me! And guess who stocked up on tea in order to stay all warm and cozy this weekend? Me! I do love the rain, so as long as people don't lose their houses or their lives due to flooding, I'm just going to enjoy it.

This past week was full of it's usual busy-ness. And here I thought life would be calmer once I was done with classes. Instead it was just filled in with other things, but at least it's less stressful since I don't have to worry about my GPA anymore. I'll take it. And I had an experiment work again! So awesome. I may actually get this PhD eventually.

The highlight of this weekend was when I tutored a freshman in chemistry for the first time and she told me about an app named Venmo, which "people in her generation" use. People. In. Her. Generation. Whaaaaat? I couldn't even react, because I was just so confused. So we moved on and talked about intermolecular forces.

Here's to the start of a rainy, stormy weekend! And the Seahawks winning last night!

Day Seven Hundred Ninety Seven

After being sick last weekend and a portion of the week before, my past week has been spent playing catch-up on...well, everything. Work and household chores and grocery shopping and doctors appointments all got crammed in somewhere Monday through Friday, and this blog ended up falling to the wayside. Let's see if this upcoming week can be a bit calmer. That'd be nice.

Up until Friday night, my week was pretty mundane. Alarmingly busy, but with mostly boring things. I cleaned Moriarty's fish tank (he hated it), got new windshield wipers for my car (I can see again!), and did all my laundry (clean clothes are the best). The list goes on, but I'll spare you the rest of it and jump right to Friday (last) night. 

I saw one of my favorite singers in concert, Jon McLaughlin, and got to attend a special VIP event before the show which was amazing. I'm still not quite over it. The VIP event involved a meet-and-great, photo-op, and acoustic mini-concert. I've never stood two feet away from one of my favorite singers as he performs before, but now I have, and it was incredible. Then I had the enjoyable experience of waiting an hour and a half until the actual show started, and since I was flying solo that night, I sat at a table by myself while my awesome brother kept me company via text. And I also had the soothing sounds of Seether in the background the entire time, as they were playing live in the amphitheater attached to the indoor venue I was in. I can tell you that Seether is very loud and uses excessive amounts of strobe lights.

Jon McLaughlin, as always, was amazing. The night was wonderful, and I even tried out Lyft for the very first time to get to the concert venue! I got a female driver, to my great relief. After the concert, the Avants showed once again why they're some of my favorite people and graciously came and picked me up. Thank you, Bob and Louise! You're the absolute best.

Today I made a trip to Barnes and Noble to spend time with a friend of mine named Gail, and we perused all that the book shelves had to offer. Which means I came out with a few things, because I love books. I branched out in to a couple new genres (for me, at least), so wish me luck! Tomorrow is grocery store day while wearing my Russell Wilson jersey. Because SEAHAWKS!

Day Seven Hundred Ninety One

This weekend was a weekend of illness. It wasn't fun and it isn't going away as quickly as I'd like it to, but thankfully I'm fairly certain I'll be fine for work tomorrow. Yay?

BUT, something amazing did happen this weekend. UT football beat OU!!! After the utter disaster I witnessed last weekend at TCU, I wasn't expecting yesterday's game to go well. But we won! And we even looked like an actual good football team doing it! It would have been nice for them to have played like that a week ago, but I'll take a football win any way I can get it at this point. Speaking of football, the Seahawks lost today. And that's all we need to talk about that.

Day Seven Hundred Eighty Six

I went to Dallas this past weekend! It was my first excursion to the Dallas area since moving to Texas, and while I didn't explore the city itself (at all) it was still lots of fun. The main reason for going to Dallas was to go to the close-by city of Fort Worth to watch UT play TCU in football with my good friend Katelyn (who is a TCU grad). I wasn't expecting it to go well for UT...and it didn't. By the end of the first quarter (the first quarter) we were down 30-0. I remember sitting there in the blazing sun doing the math in my head and realizing we were on trajectory to lose 120-0. That being said, it was almost a relief when we only lost 50-7. Still horrible, but at least we didn't get beat by 120 or get shut out. Unfortunately, I'll take that. And for the record, our marching band was WAY better than TCU's at halftime.

Sitting by a TCU mascot statue on campus - they're the Horned Frogs.

A panoramic of Amon G. Carter stadium.

If you wouldn't mind, just don't look at the scoreboard.

As it so happens, we were in the Dallas area during Texas State Fair season, so the morning following the football game, we went to the fair! The Texas State Fair is just as gigantic as you might imagine, and Big Tex (photo below) is as impressive as he looks. His mouth moves as he talks, and while the movement may not match with the words he's supposedly saying, he's still pretty cool. We ate fair food and looked at fancy cars (but not at livestock, which made me sad, but we didn't want to smell like cows during our 4 our drive back to Austin) and walked around endless fair games and booths with all manner of fried foods. Fried mashed potatoes and gravy? Of course they have that, why would you think otherwise?! Fried chicken skin? Fried butter (yes, just butter)? Fried EVERYTHING at the Texas State Fair. Everything. It's a lot disgusting and a little impressive.

BIG TEX.

Where the Cotton Bowl (college football bowl game) is played.

We got back to Austin and I immediately had to return to real life - grocery shopping and prepping for the class I'm TAing to take their first exam. I got to proctor said exam from 7-9pm last night (yuck), but thankfully had the Seahawks on Monday Night Football to keep me company on mute on my laptop. Thank you Seahawks, you continue to make everything better. And my students are all very happy you won, because it means I'll be in a good mood when I grade their exams.