where oh where to begin
i am in tucson! holy crap.
so i have lots of updates.
the roadtrip:
i still don't feel energetic--i've been feeling kind of broken since the trip. maybe it's partly because i don't have a bed yet. (hah, i'm working on that one). i think the time change is also taking its toll on me. i was never really convinced that 'jet lag' is something that actually exists, because i've never felt it. but man, i drive across the country, and i feel like crap. i wonder if it's the way 'jet lagged' people feel.
well my aunt and cousin, who i've probably not seen in way over four years, came down from scottsdale to spend saturday with us--it was complete insanity, which i predicted! my mom and her sister together are just out of control. it was really awesome to spend time with them, and since they're not very far away, i can get to hang out with them fairly often :) i really missed my cousin sam.
today i had my first meeting with all the incoming hydrology kids and our amazingly helpful coordinator, terrie. it went really well--everything about the department seems so laid back and as i told holly, i think that if i play my cards right, i will have a relatively stress-free graduate school experience :) all the students i met (there were 10 out of 13 of us present today) were friendly and i can really see myself hanging out with them. i'm really glad i chose this place. it feels like home, even if there are a lot of people i miss. the distance won't separate us, of this i have faith.
so i have lots of updates.
the roadtrip:
- day 1: mom and i drove from home to nashville to meet devin! the ride went by pretty quickly, as we both still had plenty of energy (sponsored by dunkin donuts!) and the ride was pretty (MD-VA-TN). we checked into our hotel, then devin came to pick us up in his sweet car (i couldn't get over the fact that we were actually in the same state, let alone town, for once!), showed us around town (we saw the ol' opry), and we went out for a really fantastic dinner. he took us to see his new townhouse (completely awesome with high ceilings, crazy colours, and laundry chute!), then he and i went out on the town. we had adventures which included a mini-pub crawl, climbing aboard a beached ship, journeying to the parthenon (nashville has a huge pre-decay replica of the parthenon!), the cops, three-legged walking, and much much more! it was an amazing night :o) next time we meet will be soon, i hope.
- day 2: my mom and i, groggy and unenthusiastic about pressing on, took off early and covered the rest of TN, then AR, and half of the hell called TX. it was not much fun, i'll admit. appealing music options were waning (i never got around to making mix CDs for the trip, which was a pretty big mistake). the highlight of the day was buying a magnet with Bill Clinton's face on it for Holly (which is proudly mounted on our fridge now). we stopped in what i think was Ranger, TX for the night, but not until almost 11pm. whew.
- day 3: by this point, we have gone insane. mom is buying dumb CDs from gas stations (although she did buy Led Zep but paid about $20 for it!! crazy.), and we drive through GW and Laura Bush's hometown of Midland. seeing that godforsaken place cleared a lot of things up for me. TX lasts for forever, until we get to El Paso (which seemed pretty neat) and drive on up through a small portion of NM and on into AZ. ryan had warned me of the winds in that stretch of NM...lo and behold, my cartop carrier bag got a pretty sizeable rip in the front of it. luckily the junk in the front was secure and wouldn't fly out. mom sewed up the hole and then we sensibly applied duct tape. also we didn't have any rain at all on this trip until we got into AZ. irony. this day was mostly an antsy one, cos i just wanted to get to Tucson, but i can honestly say that driving into Tucson from the east was well worth all the boredom of, say, TX. the mountains and scenery we passed through were INCREDIBLE, and there were puddles all over some of the flats because of the recent monsoon downpours, and everything was shockingly green. (sidenote: when i flew into tucson to visit in april, i was so startled at the landscape as seen from the air, to the point where i felt a little panicked, thinking, "where is this city? there are peaks and there is desert, but where can this town possibly be? why am i going here?" ..driving into tucson was so much more intriguing and comforting.) we got to tucson in good time, around 6 or 630 pm AZ time.
i still don't feel energetic--i've been feeling kind of broken since the trip. maybe it's partly because i don't have a bed yet. (hah, i'm working on that one). i think the time change is also taking its toll on me. i was never really convinced that 'jet lag' is something that actually exists, because i've never felt it. but man, i drive across the country, and i feel like crap. i wonder if it's the way 'jet lagged' people feel.
well my aunt and cousin, who i've probably not seen in way over four years, came down from scottsdale to spend saturday with us--it was complete insanity, which i predicted! my mom and her sister together are just out of control. it was really awesome to spend time with them, and since they're not very far away, i can get to hang out with them fairly often :) i really missed my cousin sam.
today i had my first meeting with all the incoming hydrology kids and our amazingly helpful coordinator, terrie. it went really well--everything about the department seems so laid back and as i told holly, i think that if i play my cards right, i will have a relatively stress-free graduate school experience :) all the students i met (there were 10 out of 13 of us present today) were friendly and i can really see myself hanging out with them. i'm really glad i chose this place. it feels like home, even if there are a lot of people i miss. the distance won't separate us, of this i have faith.