The requisite bit of catch-up
All right, laundry is in, soup is in the microwave, and my chair isn't bathed in the fiery rays of the Burning Orb. Time for an LJ post.
Just to recap: my schedule over the past month has looked like so--
May 11th - 15th: Finals and final grades
May 21st - 26th: Washington, DC (trip one)
May 28th - 31st: Comp 1
June 4 - 7th: Comp 2
June 11 - 14th: Comp 3
June 16 - 18th: Audio project (FINISHED)(mostly)
June 18 - 22nd: Washington, DC (trip two)
June 24 - 27th: Out of state conference (presenting at!)
Which tells me where most of June has gone, heh. And that when I get back, I plan to wallow in inactivity and filth for a bit. I am a bit tired, yes I am. I can't stay there too long, 'cause I'm going to volunteer for LabPhon in town, and oh yeah, I need a job, but there will be a few days of wallowing before I get myself back to adult productivity.
I went to DC a mess.
It's a longish story, but basically I didn't sleep the night before, and not for lack of trying. Then I had to get up, finish the Audio Project, drop off the Audio Project, run errands, pack, and not miss my flight. I've slept through a flight before, and I just missed one in December, so none of that sleep stuff was gonna happen. And I made it--got everything done, got packed, got to the airport right on time--but hoo boy, sitting in the boarding area was hard. ABQ Sunport is nice enough to provide a wall of plugs with seats, so I spent some time on the 'Tubes to keep myself from passing out, but...ugh. It was rough. A short nap on the way to Denver took some of the edge off, as did a trip to Mesa Verde in the airport--
(Side note: Mesa Verde is a restaurant-cum-smoking lounge in the Denver Airport. I love it to pieces, and I go every time I'm in Denver. When I stop smoking one day, I will still go, because the staff is awesome, the food ain't bad, and they don't mind if you sit on your laptop inside. This time, the waitress introduced me to a French Dr. Pepper: Dr. Pepper, milk, and vanilla syrup. Scrumptious. Damn good way to kill time on a layover.)
--and I even had enough brain to do my 750 while waiting to board. On the flight, I did some actual in a notebook sketching out of stuff, in which I determined that I find waaaay too deep stuff in survival horror games. And then I slept a bit, enough to be refreshed to arrived in DC and meet the Laydeez.
See, the point of this trip was not just to see DC again, but to meet Pea (raynos), Mari (himawari), and Jai (jaina). Mari and Pea picked me up the first night, and were delightfully patient with my random ramblings. I'm a bit gun shy about meeting Internet folks--I don't think highly of my people skills--but this turned out all right. They were quite cool with me conking out pretty quickly in the Cute Hotel Room, which in the middle of the night became the Cold Hotel Room, and my general lacksidasical ability to get out of bed in the morning.
The Laydeez were pretty fabulous. Mari is, if possible, even more awesome in person, and she makes EVERYTHING. Pea is somehow an amalgamation of my sisters, has a fantastic accent, and is TOTES ADORABLE. They both can Read Maps. Jai is a hottie with a great smile, a well of knowledge, and is the best at getting people talking. I am lucky to have met them! I am lucky they didn't kick me in the ear the multiple times I deserved it! And I thank them for their awesome patience with the fact that my feet suck and I sit down a lot, heh. We did indeed walk our feet off, and it was good.
(Err. I hope.)
So that was DC, part two.
And other things have been going on, but I have taken up too much of your time. I do need to get pictures up (yes Elena, I know), and I will as soon as I figure out what my Photobucket hosting account was called, heh.
Oh, and I passed Comps. I still don't believe it, but my advisor just announced it to the Project group, so...I guess I did? Ho'shit, yall. Ho'shit.
Just to recap: my schedule over the past month has looked like so--
May 11th - 15th: Finals and final grades
May 21st - 26th: Washington, DC (trip one)
May 28th - 31st: Comp 1
June 4 - 7th: Comp 2
June 11 - 14th: Comp 3
June 16 - 18th: Audio project (FINISHED)(mostly)
June 18 - 22nd: Washington, DC (trip two)
June 24 - 27th: Out of state conference (presenting at!)
Which tells me where most of June has gone, heh. And that when I get back, I plan to wallow in inactivity and filth for a bit. I am a bit tired, yes I am. I can't stay there too long, 'cause I'm going to volunteer for LabPhon in town, and oh yeah, I need a job, but there will be a few days of wallowing before I get myself back to adult productivity.
I went to DC a mess.
It's a longish story, but basically I didn't sleep the night before, and not for lack of trying. Then I had to get up, finish the Audio Project, drop off the Audio Project, run errands, pack, and not miss my flight. I've slept through a flight before, and I just missed one in December, so none of that sleep stuff was gonna happen. And I made it--got everything done, got packed, got to the airport right on time--but hoo boy, sitting in the boarding area was hard. ABQ Sunport is nice enough to provide a wall of plugs with seats, so I spent some time on the 'Tubes to keep myself from passing out, but...ugh. It was rough. A short nap on the way to Denver took some of the edge off, as did a trip to Mesa Verde in the airport--
(Side note: Mesa Verde is a restaurant-cum-smoking lounge in the Denver Airport. I love it to pieces, and I go every time I'm in Denver. When I stop smoking one day, I will still go, because the staff is awesome, the food ain't bad, and they don't mind if you sit on your laptop inside. This time, the waitress introduced me to a French Dr. Pepper: Dr. Pepper, milk, and vanilla syrup. Scrumptious. Damn good way to kill time on a layover.)
--and I even had enough brain to do my 750 while waiting to board. On the flight, I did some actual in a notebook sketching out of stuff, in which I determined that I find waaaay too deep stuff in survival horror games. And then I slept a bit, enough to be refreshed to arrived in DC and meet the Laydeez.
See, the point of this trip was not just to see DC again, but to meet Pea (raynos), Mari (himawari), and Jai (jaina). Mari and Pea picked me up the first night, and were delightfully patient with my random ramblings. I'm a bit gun shy about meeting Internet folks--I don't think highly of my people skills--but this turned out all right. They were quite cool with me conking out pretty quickly in the Cute Hotel Room, which in the middle of the night became the Cold Hotel Room, and my general lacksidasical ability to get out of bed in the morning.
- Some highlights of the trip include:
- Mari's hat.
- Trees on buildings! That we couldn't get into see, because they were on the office building, but walking through that little mall thing was cool enough as it had a building inside a
building. Ooooh.
- Geeking out over the Greco-Roman-ness of the statue of Washington at George Washington University.
- Mari's driving, or rather, Mari being brave enough to drive all around Washington, DC with her little black book of directions. Salute again, Marisome!
- Jai's "Okay, what are we calling everyone?", a question you don't get much outside of fandom meet-ups.
- The Metro. Well, okay, I thought it was cool; I don't get to do much of that public transportation thing.
- Bouncing around the stairs of the Supreme Court building, and touching the DOOR OF JUSTICE.
- Walking with Jai into the sprinklers.
- The Capitol tour. Bouncing about taking pictures of all the statues! Perky and informed tour guide! SO MANY PICTURES.
- The fixation Pea and I had on CVS. This has happened both times in DC; my 'rents and I stopped in a CVS almost every day to get supplies, and I think we bemused Jai with how much we wanted to find one. But hey, water is a good thing, especially on those days in DC.
- Dinner in Oyamel with the waitress who didn't like us. We laughed, we talked fandom, we shared food and drink all communal like. We were supposed to share food communal-like, but I dunno what they thought about the shared glass of...just about everything. Also, salt foam on the margaritas.
- Walking much of the Mall to get to the Washington Monument, which led to a great conversation about comic books.
- The many penis jokes about the Washington Monument.
- The World War II Memorial at near-sunset. Also, sitting on the WWII Memorial at near sunset.
- Getting to go up in the Washington Monument around sunset, and looking out over the city as it began to light up.
- Hanging out on the benches and taking upside down pictures of things as long as my camera battery lasted.
- A random sing-a-long on the way to the Metro station.
- Doujin geek-out! "YOU HAVE TO SEE THIS FACE." :D :D :D (I actually wasn't much apart of this, but listening to it was adorable.)
- Laptop, laptop, DS, DS. :)
- Mari discovering the wonders of the Sleep Number bed.
- Dorking out in the National Air and Space Museum.
- Randomly sitting down to watch what I thought was a factual show about Breaking the Sound Barrier, and instead watching Old Timey Black n' White Highlarity. TROPETASTIC (and actually funny in spots, though no one really laughed).
- "Your conscience says to get an ice cream cone."
- "I'm just gonna go check it out"--we were trying to leave to get Jai back to the hotel in time, and each time there'd be a partial regroup, one of us would wander off to another exhibit.
- Jai's Discourse on Fandom Kinks on the way to the Metro
- Finding parking so we could visit Mr. Mason and the Jefferson Memorial
- Finding parking AGAIN so we could see the Viet Nam Memorial, the Korean War Memorial, and the Lincoln Memorial around sunset
- Eight million pictures of those memorials around sunset
- Lightning bugs!
- The lights at the Korean Memorial (for me)
- Getting Pea to play the Nyan-Nyan Service Medley while walking back to the car
- The Air and Space Annex. *____________*
- Let me repeat that: *_______________* I was so close to so many planes! And the Space Shuttle Enterprise! And and and...EEEE.
- After asking Pea if she'd seen any Transformers, finding the Transformers case at the Annex.
- The satellite mobile
- Mari and I trying to figure out what this giant, silver plane we were looking at was, coming around to the side of it...and her saying, "It's the Enola Gay!" I think I squeaked out "WHAT?"
- Announcing we had to leave...and then taking more pictures, because plaaaanes.
- Squished pennies. :D
- Pea in the gift shop trying to choose a model plane to take home.
- Taking Pea to IHOP.
- The Natural History Museum close to closing is so much less crowded. Also, bless you, Smithsonian folks, for 7:30 closing times in the summer.
- Pea and Mari helping my fannish rock hunt, and learning What Jade Actually Is.
- "Your name is Ray-F now."
- Getting Mari to the Human Origins part on time, with a random stop to see a Giant Sloth (hoo boy, they weren't kidding about that name).
- Sitting on a bench outside the museum, watching birds eat and lose and fight for seeds.
- ...and other things I'm sure I'm forgetting
The Laydeez were pretty fabulous. Mari is, if possible, even more awesome in person, and she makes EVERYTHING. Pea is somehow an amalgamation of my sisters, has a fantastic accent, and is TOTES ADORABLE. They both can Read Maps. Jai is a hottie with a great smile, a well of knowledge, and is the best at getting people talking. I am lucky to have met them! I am lucky they didn't kick me in the ear the multiple times I deserved it! And I thank them for their awesome patience with the fact that my feet suck and I sit down a lot, heh. We did indeed walk our feet off, and it was good.
(Err. I hope.)
So that was DC, part two.
And other things have been going on, but I have taken up too much of your time. I do need to get pictures up (yes Elena, I know), and I will as soon as I figure out what my Photobucket hosting account was called, heh.
Oh, and I passed Comps. I still don't believe it, but my advisor just announced it to the Project group, so...I guess I did? Ho'shit, yall. Ho'shit.