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first off, i'd like to express my condolences to everyone who was affected by the tragedy that occurred at virginia tech a couple of weeks ago. i myself was an engineering student and i know the pressures college life can bring, but this was an atrocity that shouldn't have happened. i'll pray that it never happens again.
and now, well, take a look at my location and take a guess xD yep, tally's over and done with. i'm back home, for good, and ready to join the ranks of the officially unemployed ^^;;; but hopefully the prospects will come soon. graduation was on saturday and it was fine-- long, boring as always, but i was really happy to just be there and that it was finally OVER! no more tests, no more projects, no more insane problem sets, no more pressure, no more stress, no more saying up until ungodly hours of the morning, no more putting homework before meals... it's done. i'm done! *does happy dance* i just can't stop saying it ^____________^
have i mentioned i loooooove flying? it is the coolest thing ever ^.^
in other news... aaahhh, the wonder that is spending five hours in hartsfield airport waiting for my connecting flight. i finally finished reading the CSI miami book "riptide" (read the very last page almost as the plane touched ground here in panama), and i have to say it was pretty good. the plot was a little, uh, out there if you catch my drift, but it was fine (where did the original costume end up, though? i never got that). donn cortez fulfilled one of my dreams by having calleigh talk about japanese swords xD you would not believe how loud i squealed when she mentioned the wakizashi ;P and well, mermen aside, the storyline was pretty good. intricate, of course; i loved how they explained all the science behind everything (bonus points for the NMR explanation! my organic professor, dr. dougherty, certainly never explained it that well. drove me up the wall when i had to figure out by myself just where the hell the peaks came from). shipping-wise it was a true treasure-- not only for my ships, but for all of them, really: i caught so much "hardy boys" stuff, some hip-hugging and even a H/cal fragment here and there. personally, i loved the ryan/calleigh interaction, they were so cute! much teasing about aliens and ice cream, and such. so sweet ;3 and it had more background on ryan than you can shake a stick at. which is wonderful, because i absolutely ADORE geeky-cute-newbie-season3!ryan =3 he's just the cutest thing. can we have a book with natalia in it now? ^-^ i'll get started on "harm for the holidays" part 1 this week, probably even tomorrow. i have to make sure i highlight the passages i marked as i was reading before i move on to the other one, though; i didn't have a highlighter on hand while i was traveling (yes, i highlight my books-- i'm weird, so sue me).
and speaking of CSIM, here's a fragment from in too deep, chapter 5. it's the second scene in the chapter, which is actually the last one i've written because i decided to start from the bottom up. but that didn't even happen either, because i wrote the very last scene and then jumped up to the second scene ^^;;; so i don't really know what i'm going to write next. what i can tell you, though, is that it's going to be one long-ass chapter. yep.
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Ryan was making his way down the hallway when Eric Delko stepped in his path. "Hey, who's helping Calleigh follow up that t-shirt? Was that you?"
"Don't know, don't care," Ryan snapped, barely throwing him a glance.
He was about to sidestep Delko in order to reach the elevator, but the other man stopped him before he could move, by grabbing his arm. "Whoa, whoa, there. You can't go around biting everyone's head off just because Calleigh has you sleeping in the doghouse, you know," he told him, with a disbelieving, eyebrows-raised kind of smile.
Ryan's jaw tensed and he abruptely snapped his arm free of Eric's hold. "Listen, you don't know what you're talking about, okay?"
"Wait, who's sleeping in who's doghouse now?" Dr. Alexx Woods had heard the commotion as she stepped out of the elevator, and walked up to the two men, holding some files in her hands.
"It's not like that," Ryan was quick to answer her, at the same time Eric said: "What, you haven't heard?"
Alexx gave them a sly look, with one eyebrow arched elegantly. "What did I miss?"
"Nothing," Ryan let out, in exasperation. He opened and closed his mouth a few times, like he couldn't come up with anything believable to say. "What are you still doing here, Alexx?" he finally managed to spout out, in a rather desperate fashion.
Alexx's other eyebrow rose to meet the first one. "Well, I'm happy you're so glad of my presence here, Ryan." He opened his mouth yet again, probably to say he hadn't meant it that way, but she interrupted with a conciliatory smile. "Don't worry, I was just here checking on my notes for that poor girl's post. I've been thinking, and something doesn't quite fit, I think."
"What do you mean?" he immediately switched gears, the case being more important than anything else, especially at almost 10 PM. Eric also seemed much more interested in what Alexx had to say.
"Well, I was looking at the cut in her thigh," she explained, as she opened the folder she was carrying and showed them a photo. "I had originally thought that it was made when she was pushed, but the edge of the skin is ragged, like she was cut with a sideways motion. Left to right."
"Natalia told me the prints found on the windows were the vic's," Eric explained, looking carefully at the pictures. "And she was left-handed. It seems like she opened the window herself."
"How do you cut yourself in the leg against the windowsill when opening a window, though?" Ryan wondered out loud, his mind flying back to Mercedes Valencia's balcony. It seemed like an awfully complicated scenario. For all they knew, it could be. No matter what college professors said, sometimes the answers really WERE complicated to figure out. He knew; he was a Chemistry major, after all.
"Maybe she was dizzy, lost her balance and was leaning against the window," Alexx suggested.
"She had just come from a bar, after all," Eric reminded them.
"Blood alcohol level was way below the legal limit for driving, though," Alexx cut in. "She was a rail alright, but I still don't think she would've been drunk when she died."
"Maybe the rush of being attacked?" Ryan tried to guess. "You did say she was pretty agitated."
"She was," Alexx almost sighed, more to herself than to the two men. One of her hands rose to cradle her cheek as she thought, her gaze lost somewhere in the photograph she'd showed the CSIs just a couple of seconds ago. Something just didn't add up to her, but she wasn't sure why. The girl was young, and the levels of epinephrine in her blood were so high... and there was no sign of a struggle almost anywhere in her room... "I'll have to think this through some more. But that'll be later on. Now, what were you saying about a doghouse?"
Ryan rolled his eyes at her, the stress coming back to tense his shoulders. "It doesn't matter. I'm going home now. Horatio said we could go."
"You really shouldn't drive in such a rage, honey," Alexx told him, closing the file and holding it under her arm as she lightly patted Ryan's shoulder.
"Yeah, you listen to her, 'honey,'" Delko joked, taking a couple of steps back as he signaled Ryan with both his hands. "I'm gonna go help Calleigh. Someone has to," he said, a bit amused still at Ryan's predicament, and turned to go to where the younger CSI had come from.
"Why don't you come and help me pack up the files I pulled out?" Alexx offered with a smile. "It'll give you some time to relax and it'll help me get out of here faster."
Ryan took a breath, and one of his hands moved from his waist, to lightly scratch his face. "Okay," he finally relented, and she led the way toward the elevator.
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