Went to Math Camp and Didn't Even Get a Free T-Shirt

I know you all have been on the edge of your seats this entire summer waiting for me to blog about math camp. Well wait no more!

Math Camp was broken up into two weeks. The first week I was at Rennsellar Polytechnic Institute in NY and the second I was at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in MA. The first week basically tries to prepare the grad students for the second week. We divided into groups and worked on either previously solved problems or problems that needed further work. The problem I worked on dealt with diffusion through the lens of the eye. We had data provided to us and we used what we learned about the chemistry and biology of the lens to create a model that would describe the data.

There were seven of us in our group which is quite large and for three days we sat in a windowless, clockless room and worked on this problem. Over those three days I learned a lot: what Bessel functions are, in England you call an eraser a board rubber, group work is incredibly tiring, and I'm still bossy.

On the last day we presented our findings, packed up and left for Worcester. We had the weekend free though so I took a side trip to Amherst and hung out with some friends there which was great as always.

At Worcester the grad students were no longer in control. These problems were "live" problems, meaning no one had solved them. Since they were live they were pretty difficult so the groups consisted of 3-4 professors and some grad students. The students role was to the grunt work like taking notes and typing them up. It was actually pretty interesting to sit in the back and watch these profs up at the board yelling at each and writing over each other to prove their points. It showed how no one's write 100% of the time.

The group I was in was working on a problem dealing with air bubbles in LCD screens. It dealt with fluid dynamics, which I know nothing about. Luckily, a professor from my university was at the camp and knew my shortcomings so every so often he would come over and get me up to speed about what the professors were yelling about. By the end of the week we had a decent amount accomplished that we were able to present to Corning.

Math camp was fun but it was tiring. After it was all done I stayed in Boston for a few days and caught up with some college friends. Those stories are way more interesting than math camp and will be relayed in the coming days.

The life and times of a nomad

I survived my first year in grad school and I did quite well if I do say so myself. Not only are my grades good but I found a nice group of friends, have an ok work study job, AND I have a season pass to Disneyland. I'm gonna pat myself on the back for that one. One of my final papers was posted by my prof on their website check it out at www.math.hmc.edu/~levy/181_web/181_finalprojects_2008.html.

The only thing I lack right now is a place to live. My lease was up at the house and my land lady was getting more passive aggressive by the day so I decided it was time to pack up all of my things and move into my own studio apartment. The only problem is that this brand new studio apartment does not become mine until August. Whoops. But have no fear, a moocher always has a plan.

Right now I am in Ohio spending some quality time with the ladies, who I haven't seen since Thanksgiving. I am enjoying taking up space on their couch, baking cookies, and playing guitar hero until my hand cramps. Sadly the fun will end this weekend when I venture to NY for (drum roll please) Math Camp! That's right. Just when you thought I had reached my pinnacle of geekdom I have managed to surpass it by signing up for a graduate math camp. The first three days I and other aspiring mathemagicians will work on problems presented to us by the faculty of RPI. After those three days we will travel to Worcester where new problems will be presented. This time the problems are from industry and the work groups are comprised of scientists, professors, and lowly grad students such as myself. We will work on our problem for five days and present our findings to the industry rep so as they can take it back and do what they please with it. Not only am I getting to do math for two weeks in the summer and working some networking opportunities, I am doing this all on their dime. The whole trip: travel, food, lodging is payed for. It's a math moochers paradise.

After the camp is over I am staying a couple of days in Boston to catch up with some college friends. Then it's back to LA where I will be doing a cycle of couch surfing that will have me alternating where I lay my head from B-digs apt/air mattress, to Susie the mom of the kid I tutor's couch. All the while working and getting a tan.

Barring Briana realizing that I mooch a little too much off of her, this couch surfing rotation should get me through to August where I will finally have my first apartment of my own. Now tell me that's not skill.

Favorite Airport Ever

Charlotte NC Airport has rocking chairs, free wireless, and customers proudly "reading" Playboy magazines while waiting for their flights.

really?

Next night, same road, same time, same freaking cat!

Am I in a Truman Show-like world? Trust me, I can take it. I am pretty convinced the world revolves around me to begin with so if you all just admit that you are characters in a reality tv show with me as the star I would believe it. I swear. All I want is the truth. I can handle the truth.

Goodnight.

Although you probably already knew I was going to go to bed at this hour didn't you? Is it scripted? I want answers!

Roadkill Etiquette

It's finals time here at CGU and as I was leaving the library tonight and driving home, someone's house cat ran into the middle of the street. I gasped and slammed on my brakes and luckily I didn't hit the cat. But my mind started to wander as I continued driving and the question arose, what would I have done if I had actually hit the cat? I mean clearly I would have felt bad, but what is the etiquette? It was midnight, do you knock on doors to let people know what happened and try to find the owner? Do you just move the cat to the sidewalk so it doesn't keep getting run over? or do you just drive away and feel bad for awhile?

These are things that go through my mind after a marathon library session....

And Another Thing About Vegas

One night we were in the casino Paris and there was a Cabaret singer performing so we sat down and watched. The woman had an awesome voice but her voice wasn't the main focal point of the event. To the right of us were three men that were Papa Fosse's age. The table to the next of them were three girls who were 21 at the oldest. The guys were talking to them and then all of the girls got up to go to the bathroom. When they returned they saw that the three men had bought them glasses of champagne with strawberries in them. Cute or weird? I can't tell. If it were a tequila shot I would go straight for the weird button. But champagne and a strawberry falls into the Shirley Temple-esque category and I construe it as three guys being nostalgic and treating these girls they way they would their grandkids. So I say cute. The girls didn't think so though because they downed the drinks and bounced as soon as they could.

Next up came the cute couple who made everyone else jealous. A song came on and suddenly on the dance floor is this petite blond woman who is in her fifties and her gorgeous fifty-something husband/boyfriend. They started dancing and it was legit dancing. I felt like I was watching a pilot for My Momma Can Dance. They were really good, he was twirling her and throwing her up in the air and they did it all with smiles on their faces. I couldn't help it though. All I could think was that soon the singer was going to drop her voice a couple of octaves and recommend Cyalis to the gentlemen in the back.

Ok, back to homework.

Spring break Part Deux

After the fun in Medieval Times was had the only way to really top it was to drive 3 hours northeast and go to my long awaited Xanadu....Vegas!! Originally the trip was going to be four of us but slowly that whittled down to me and Elise. We stayed at the Luxor, the one that looks like a pyramid. It was a pretty nice hotel. My favorite part was that the parking structure was in the shape of an Egyptian Sphynx and our hotel room had a perfect view of the Sphynx's ass.

Clearly the after a few minutes in the room we made our first batch of mixed drinks, put them in keg cups, filled up my nalgene with the rest, and filled my backpack full of beer. This was a drinking night, NOT a gambling night. Elise and I just walked through all of the casinos that are on that side of the strip: New York New York, Excalibur, MGM Grand, and I think there was another one in there but lets be honest, I had no clue where I was at any point in time...I just followed Elise (I am my mother's daughter). We walked around and at one point Elise commented that she wasn't really feeling the alcohol. I agreed. But then we came upon this computer screen in the middle of the floor. It was touch sensitive and was displaying a fish bowl. So when you stepped on the screen there was a ripple effect in the water and the fishies would swim away. Well Elise and I proceeded to dance around on the screen singing "Singing in the Rain." It goes without saying that it was a good thing we didn't place bets on us being sober.

We wound up going to a night club that night also. We were going to go to Studio 54 but there was a long line and I just refuse to stand in lines anywhere outside of NY. So we went to Taboo. The dj was awesome the people were alright. My favorite part of the night was when Elise and I were standing on the side finishing up our drinks and this guy just goes right next to Elise and puts his arm around her. She just looks at him with this "are you kidding me?" face. I chose to verbalize by just looking at him and saying "Really? Really?! No." Classic.

The next couple of days were more the same thing with some slot playing involved. We were both doing pretty good on slots, but on Monday we decided to try our luck at the tables. We started the day off at the $10 min tables in Bally's where we learned how to play roulette and blackjack. Blackjack is my new favorite game. I would throw $40 down to play and an hour later I would leave the table with over $100. It was sweet. What I really like about blackjack is that everyone is betting against the dealer so that people try to help you decided whether to hit or not. If you hit and you shouldn't have you might mess up somebody else's hand. Case in point: I was at this table and the guy to the left of me was being real friendly and helping me out remembering what to do if the dealer is showing a four and all that jazz. He kept on saying that I didn't have to take his advice if I didn't want to, it was my money. Well on one hand I decided to not take his advice and I hit. I busted and the card that busted me would have given the guy to the left of me a really good hand. He proceeded to get pissed off. He wouldn't let it go. He just kept on mumbling to himself about me not taking his advice. The dealer and everyone else at the table were getting uneasy. They could tell this guy was upset and they didn't really know how I was going to react, was I going to fly off the handle? Leave the table? No no no. The guy asked me why I didn't listen to him and I said "It's how I roll." Everyone at the table started laughing which pissed this guy off even more. At this point he started muttering to himself "It's how she rolls, It's how she rolls." The dealer just looks at the two of us and asked if we were married. I laughed and promptly cashed out my winnings and left the table.

All in all it was a great four days. Outside of Blackjack, the Price is Right slot machine at Planet Hollywood was very nice to me. Beginner's luck certainly rang true for me and Elise, we both left with more money than we came with. Enough money, in fact, that we made back what the trip cost and then some. I can't wait to go back!

The rest of my week was just spent hanging out and then on Friday I went to Disneyland for the whole day. It was awesome. A bunch more of my friends got season passes which is great. We also bought these buzz lightyear guns that are just awesome. My one friend did a rolling jump out of the store just to shoot us. Hilarious.

Now it's back to the school grind which really isn't that bad. The weather is still beautiful, I spent Easter Sunday on the beach. As far as summer plans go, they aren't really hashed out yet. All I really know for sure is I am moving at the end of May. I don't where I'm moving to, but that stuff just figures itself out, right? If all else fails, watch out I might be coming to a couch near you...

Birthday and Spring Break Festivities (Part 1)

As some of you may know the word birthday doesn't properly describe the amount of times I force people to go out and celebrate my birth. It used to be that birthmonth was a better description of my celebration but as I get older I have scaled back my celebration to a birthfortnight. The beauty of the birthfortnight is that it still encompasses St. Patrick's Day AND since I refuse to leave academia I still get a spring break that usually falls within the birthfortnight also. Being that I was in a new town planning the birthfortnight was a little tricky. I didn't know the lay of the land and I don't really party as much as I used to (because of grad school NOT maturity OR old age) so I was stumped for a bit on what to do. But then good ole kismet kicked in.

A couple of my friends and I were driving back from Disneyland (where I know have a season pass to) and we passed a billboard about Medieval Times. I thought the only MT was in Jersey but I was mistaken. Through I simple conversation I had find out that all of my Claremont friends had never been to MT. Now lets be clear, I had to go to MT two times on class trips and both times were horrendous. I hate the food and anytime a I had spend an entire day with my entire class was usually a recipe for disaster. But being a good Jersey girl I realized I had to suck it up, do my duty, and introduce these graduate students to the wondrous cheesiness that is Medieval Times!

The one detail that I didn't know about Medieval Times but that made it even better was there was beer:

The beer made the roast chicken taste better. Ha! Who am I kidding? I traded my chicken for an extra spare rib. Anyway, we were cheering for the Yellow Knight and it was fantastic. We were screaming, hooting, and hollering any chance we could get. It also turns out that my friends paid a little extra to get the birthday package. This package was high class. Not only did I get a group picture of all of us, I also got an official program, AND a dvd copy of the knight's festivities. (hahaha get it?). But wait that's not all! I also got a birthday shout out by the king himself! That's right, after they welcomed north shore high school, and wished johnny a happy thirteenth birthday, there was a shout out for a happy 25th birthday for Lyza Fosse!

Aside: Lyza wasn't actually a mispronunciation of my name. There is another friend of mine named Elise and it's been hard to distinguish between the two of us. It got to the point that we were being addressed as PhD Elise and Masters Elyse. I wasn't really cool with that. Then we were all at this part and this guy kept on calling me Lyza. No kidding it was at least the third time I had met him and everytime he's been all "Hey Lyza" and I've been all "umm it's Elyse." But Meryl has always taught me you correct somebody three times and after that it's just not worth it. So my friends caught wind that this guy was calling me Lyza and the name stuck. A new nickname. Great.

This time at Medieval Times was by far the best the experience I've had there. Don't fret though, the next part of the birthday festivities was even better...Vegas!!(Coming soon).

Why I love So Cal

It's February 9th, sunny and 76 degrees. 'Nuff said.

The American Gladiators taping was a lot of fun. We got to see Hulk Hogan stare lovingly into the giant screen as old wrestling clips of himself were shown. We got to see Layla Ali tell a contestant that they should do more pull-ups so that they don't lose so badly next time. Oh and we got to see the new gladiators.

The competition we saw was hang tough. That's the one where the contestant tries to make it across the rings before the Gladiator catches them and makes them fall. If you remember the American Gladiators from the early nineties, picture all the times they fell onto pads and replace the pads with water. The action was pretty cool but I have to say that the thing I enjoyed the most were the contestants responses to the questions they were being asked. A sampling is:
"I just tried to keep her legs as far apart as possible."
"I just wanted to avoid the wetness"
"Once her legs wrapped around me I knew I had to take a dive."

Dirty minds!

Anyway, my first semester of grad school is done. I am pretty sure that I got two B's. Not exactly what I was hoping for, but this semester was the most challenging one I have ever gone through. I spoke with the dean of the math department before I left and he helped put it all in perspective. He said that the two classes I took were among the hardest that they offered and that I struggled not because I took time off but because the classes are genuinely difficult. I am just glad that I finished and am focusing on next semester.

For now I am home in Jersey enjoying family and friends. See you in the new year!

Three Does Not Equal Four

A couple of weeks before Thanksgiving my friends from the now defunct UPS Store came out for a visit. The week was full of excitement.

First was the trip to Universal Studios. I feel like I need to put this trip into a little bit of context. Technically, it wasn't my first time at Universal Studios. The first time I was around 7 or 8 and my family was in Orlando FL. We met up with my Aunt Janet, Uncle Mark, and two cousins to experience the amazing newly opened Universal Studios. We go on the ET ride which was fun and then my mom suggested the Murder She Wrote tour. Being a seven year old I never really watched the show but I do remember that every Sunday when I went in to kiss my mom good night good ole Angela Lansbury was solving some mystery on screen. Anyway, I don't remember much about the ride until the end. Everyone was getting up to leave but the doors wouldn't open. Turns out the computers in the brand new park were still a little glitchy and one of the glitch's was that when the computers froze or shut down the doors would remained closed and locked. Great. A comedian from the audience seized his chance to make his big break and have a captive audience fall in love with him...that is until he realized that there were children in the room and his schtick probably wouldn't be appropriate. We eventually did get out, only to find that the computer glitch had shut down the whole park. Well my Aunt Janet found that unacceptable and found some manager and gave them a piece of her mind. It must have been a pretty upset piece since we were escorted out the back way. We left to the sounds of the Jetsons theme song playing and my Aunt yelling to the song to shut up.

So again, technically this wasn't my first time at Universal. The first thing we do is go to the Fear Factor live show. Well we go to the show but Charlie, Michele's husband decides to be a contestant on the show. We not only get to see Charlie in spandex but we also get to see him eat something disgusting, pull flags out of eel-infested waters, AND get shocked! To top it all off, he won the contest! This time at Universal instead of being escorted out, we got escorted to the front of every line! I got to go on all of the rides I wanted and we got an awesome picture of the us all screaming on a ride. I feel like my journey with Universal Studios has come full circle.

The next night me and Steph went to an Anaheim Ducks game. I have issues. Their chants are ridiculous and they are too nice. Let's start with the chants. Let's Go Ducks has three syllables and yet the crowd tried to fit it into the Let's Go Rangers chant. Three doesn't equal four! Chanting "Let's Go Duh-ucks" does not create an extra syllable it just makes it sound like everyone forgot who they were cheering for in the middle of the chant. Take an example from the Mets or Jets, they know they are a syllable short and thus can't use that chant. Instead they made up their own. How about "Do it Ducks?" or you can still use the Ranger chant but instead speed it up. Instead of "Let's Go Rangers" in the same amount of time say "Let's Go Ducks Let's Go Ducks." This is the method I prefer and the chant I used at the game.

Onto the niceness. The Ducks were playing the Sharks and there were some Shark fans by us who were being pretty obnoxious. At one point one of them fell into the seat in front of him. Instead of the Ducks fans getting mad and chanting "Throw him Out" they helped him up and a little while later took his picture for him. Are you kidding me?! To make matters worse, the refs made a bad call. Instead of the typical "A**hole" chant that I know I love I was stuck with "You suck Ref." Lame.
I know what you're thinking, this niceness is that thing called good sportsmanship but like the man in the parking lot said after the Ducks win, "This is hockey not figure skating."

Steph and Michele came and went and then I went on to spend Thanksgiving with my friends Rachel and Keri, who I lived with for a year when I moved back to MA after New Zealand. Thanksgiving was great and relaxing, a perfect break before the final leg of the semester. I have one more week and then I am done with my first semester. Lots of things need to get done by the time I leave for home: finals, projects, holiday parties, Disneyland, Yosemite, American Gladiator live taping....

An Oldy But Goodie

I am getting ready to go out to a Halloween party and I can't help thinking back to my last Halloween at UMass. I can't remember whose been told this story but I htink its pretty funny I think it deserves to be posted. So here it goes...

It was my senior year at UMass and I was Mary Catherine Gallagher from SNL (think hands in armpits and superstar) for Halloween. My friend Calen called me up and invited me to a Halloween party out on a farm. So I hopped in the car with my knee highs, plaid skirt, yellow polo shirt, red vest and black rimmed glasses. There was a lot of people at this party and a couple of kegs had already been picked when me and my friends went on the last haunted hay ride of the night. It had been raining for a couple of hours so I ran back to the car to get my jacket. By the time I got to the tractor my friends were up at the front so I just hopped onto the back.

We started moving and right away you can just feel that this tractor is just full, almost too full. We start plodding away into the dark muddy trail. We can hear chainsaws in the distance but we really don't see much of anything.

We start heading up this hill and the tractor stalls. Well I'm the last person on the tractor so as we stop I fall off, heals over my head, skirt up in the air, into the muddy trail. As I am trying to get up, the tractor starts rolling backwards toward me, so yet a again I fall backwards into the mud. Everyone was yelling at the driver, Molly, to stop so she did, and then she started going forward again. This is a multi-acre farm, it's dark and muddy, the last thing I need is to be left in the middle of it. Eventually Molly catches on to what is going and stops and I hop back on.

Thankfully, the only thing that was hurt was my ego, but we still had to get through the rest of the hayride. There was a 40-something man sitting next to me who reeked like a distillery. He puts his arm around me and says in a gruff MA accent "I'm not trying to hit on ya hun, we just can't have you falling off again."

We get done with the ride and I meet back up with my friends and like good friends they handed me a beer and then just laughed at me. I was a pretty sad sight. There was mud caked all over me, and it wasn't like we were leaving any time soon. It also turns out that the players of the haunted hayride were drunk and thought that the rides were over so we never actually did get haunted.

Whenever Melissa, Paul, or Calen introduce me to new people this is the story that is told about me and I'm ok with that. In the words of the 40-something man that sat next to me, "It could have been worse, it could have been cow shit."

Happy Halloween!

Yoga, Fires, and Friends, Oh My!

So Yoga is...interesting. I've gone to two classes so far and I am kind of on the fence about it. It's a lot of breathing and stretching which I knew it would be and I like. What I didn't realize is that there is a lot of chanting. And like any religion or spiritual tenet, there are some things I just don't agree with. My teacher likes to talk about using the law of attraction. For those who don't know there is a self-help book that's been out on the shelves for awhile called "The Secret." I haven't read it but I do know that it deals with the idea of the law attraction. Basically the gist from what I understand is that if you emit positive "attractive" thoughts the things you would like to happen will happen. So if I want to get my masters all I have to do is think about it and imagine the process and poof the diploma will appear, no late night studying or stressing needed. I'm sure there' more to it then my summary but I don't care, it ain't for me. So when I am relaxing during yoga and my instructor starts talking about the laws of attraction I have to bite my tongue to keep from arguing about it. Despite the law of attraction I do enjoy the yoga. I go on Wednesdays and it is a nice way to kind of break the stress of the week up.

I am sure by now everyone has heard about the fires that are ravaging the Southern California area. Luckily the fires are not very close to me. I can smell the fires in the air and there was ash on my car today but other than that I haven't been affected. From talking to other people it turns out that these have been the worst fires in awhile. The conditions are prime for them too, we haven't had substantial rain since I moved here and there has been no humidity, great for my hair, bad for fire season.

It's taken a little while but I have finally started meeting some people. I met some through a flag football get-together. We have since decided that football is overrated and happy hour is way better. Classes are keeping me pretty busy since its about mid-semester and it's nice to be able to get away and just hang with some peeps.

This weekend should prove interesting. I am going to a Halloween Party hosted by one of my co-workers and on Sunday I just might make my first trip to Disneyland which I am wicked excited about. In between all of that fun I am going to find the time to finish up my homework assignments that are due on Monday. The fabulous life of a grad student.

Math By Day, Sushi By Night

I am in the full swing of things with classes right now and boy are they challenging. One class is particularly rough and is keeping me busy. For the first assignment I worked continuously on it for ten days just to hand something in. Because of the time consuming nature of the homework I was a little anxious about this week since I would have not only this classes homework due but also the other class's hw.

Surprisingly though, it was all pretty manageable. The one problem I had was that I had to remember how to code in Matlab. And by remember I mean learn because even though I thought I had learned Matlab before I definetly hadn't. The coding I was doing was terrible. I kept on getting these infinite loops which freeze my computer and make me very upset. I was trudging away at all of this in the lounge on campus when I talked to my friend Briana. She lives about an hour away from me and she had the great idea of going to get sushi. I told her I just wanted to work on the program for a little while longer and then I would head out. I was getting pretty frustrated when suddenly I heard the magical voices of two males disputing the null hypothesis of a statistical inference. If they knew what a null hypothesis was then they probably knew a little about Matlab too. So I turned around and explained to them my problem and asked if they could help. One of them said that they knew the code and could email it to me. Sweet! I am getting homework and help and meeting more people on campus. Now that's multitasking.

I packed up my belongings and headed out to Fusion Sushi in Manhattan Beach and ate until my stomach hurt. And since Briana is a happy enabler of my need for material items we then went to ikea where I bought a really sweet chair. Then I decided that I needed a flat screen tv. Off we went to Circuit City. There was a really good one on sale but of course the Circuit City we were at was out of stock. Have no fear, Briana is on a mission. We hop in the car, find the nearest Circuit City, and buy me a new tv 2 minutes before closing. Now that's shopping.

And Another Week Down

This week was the first full week for me, I went to class and worked 20 hours. Since I have both of my classes on Monday I basically spend the rest of the week doing the homework. I am putting a lot of effort into this first homework because I want to make sure my proofs are right. This homework is kind of like my first impression on the professor. He's heard me talk about math experience and now it's time for me to show it. I know, I know, it's just one homework assignment, but this is me and this is how I roll.

My job is pretty great. For fifteen hours of the week I just get to mess around a computer looking for articles and burning picture cds whenever anybody asks. The other five I do filing and apparently I am really good at it. The other intern went up to the boss and mentioned how fast I was. Who knew that was something I could put on my resume? Really fast filer.

The only downside to the job is that I have to dress up. By dress up I mean no jeans, no plaid shorts, no t-shirts. I have come a long way from 365 in '05*.

Tomorrow I am going to the LA County Fair again. This time I am going to try fried coke (the soda not the controlled substance; no Hollywood nose bleeds for me thanks). OH and I signed up for Yoga classes. The first one is next Wednesday...I will let you know how that goes...let's just say I'll be taking bean-o to circumvent my fears.

*365 in '05 was a dream of mine for my senior year of college. I hated to doing laundry throughout my undergrad. You never knew who was peeing or puking in the machines the night before. It got to the point that I would go an entire semester without doing laundry. If I ran out of something, like socks, I would just buy more. I also have a love of free t-shirts. Part of the reason I became an RA was because I knew that I would get lots of free t-shirts. I volunteered because each new project usually meant a free t-shirt. Let me break the math down for you:

Hatred of Laundry + Love of Free T-Shirts = 365 in '05,

an idea that I would wear a different t-shirt everyday for the entire year of 2005. The stipulation was that these t-shirts had to be free or bought at a salvation army. I did manage to acquire about 100 t-shirts but then a lack of closet space and a love for certain t-shirts caused me to stop the campaign.

Things I love right now

Private Schools:
They apologized for making me wait five minutes to see a financial aid officer AND they gave me a cookie while I waited. Then I actually met with the woman and she knew my name and pointed me into the direction of where I could find a job on campus. Poof! Two days later I am employed.

I work for the Office of Communications and primary job is to search the web for stories that mention CGU or any of our professors. I also upkeep their photo database and provide the photos for the brochures and things that are made for the campus. I also get to help proof read the university magazine and apparently I might have to write for it too (yikes). The people are ok. They are a little stand-offish right now but I think what it is is that they are just low key people who don't talk a lot, boy are they in for a surprise with me. Everyone working there is a student which means they are really flexible around class schedules, always a bonus.

BBQs at Private Schools:
Yeah the burgers were burnt and the cookies were a little stale, but there was beer! and wine! As much of it that you wanted to drink for free! I also got to meet some more people on campus. Everyone seems really nice and a lot of people are in the same boat that I am in, just adjusting to moving here and trying to find our respective niches. It's always good to have a few more people know your name.

My Landlady:
She hasn't rented her house out before and you can tell. She's trying to find that line between hovering mother and responsible landlady. I didn't come home one night and she told me the next day that she decided not to worry unless I didn't come home for three days in a row. I told her I appreciate her worry and her restraint on panicking. All I can picture now is me out and about and she frantically calling Jersey saying I am lost. Oy.

She also is on every health kick published on the internet. She bought this jug of Aloe Juice. I thought it was something that you pour down clogged drains but apparently you drink it to encourage something or other in your body. I watched her drink it and let me tell you, it did not look appetizing. It looked like she just too her first tequila shot of the night. A day later she sent me an email about the bad effects of sodium benzoate which is in the lovely diet soda that I drink constantly. Fortunately, sodium benzoate is also in that aloe juice so she had a reason to throw the jug out without drinking the whole nasty substance.

TiVo:
I've always loved tivo but now I have one of my very own.

Beaches:
They are everywhere! I got to make my own work schedule and it just so happens that I get off of work by noon on Fridays. Thus Friday is my beach day. I got to the beach, sleep, tan, read, do anything I want. It's pretty glorious. The great weather everyday isn't bad either, I try to spend a couple of hours outside everyday. There's this great walking trail right by the house that I've been using that's pretty good. I don't mind exercising, as long as I am getting a tan to boot.

Oh and I guess classes:
My classes seem pretty interesting. They are def going to be challenging but I think(hope) I can do it. The profs seem really accessible so I just need to utilize them. I am taking two classes, both are stats and one has to do with using stats to predict the functions of certain molecules in the body based on their molecular composition. It sounds pretty interesting.

I guess you can say I am settling in quite nicely.

It's my turn

Meryl and Harold are back on the east coast and not sweating nearly as much as they were this past week. They picked me up at the airport on Tuesday and since then it's been a whirlwind. I will let them fill everyone in on our sightseeing adventures.

The first thing we did was go to the house where I am renting a room. I found the room for rent online and agreed to rent it sight unseen. Needless to say I was pretty anxious about finally seeing it. The move has been pretty effortless on my part so I was waiting for the downside, such as I mistakenly rented a room in a crack den and my room would be a cardboard box. Luckily this was not the case. The house is beautiful, a typical California ranch, and my room is pretty awesome. I knew it was fully furnished, one of its major selling points, but what I didn't know was that my landlady was nice enough to supply me with pillows, sheets, and a comforter,...and a tv....and satelitte connection...and a dvd player....and a walk in closet. Whoo hoo!! I was relieved.

The people I am sharing the house with are pretty cool. One is a junior and the other is a senior at undergrad. Then there's my landlady and the two dogs. It's pretty cozy. I only share a bathroom with one other person which is really nice. All in all, as of right now, I really lucked out.

My parents met my landlady, Kim, and they really liked her. When my mom got up from the couch she did her typical "Oy". Later that night Kim knocked on my door and asked me some random question then she hesitated and asked "are you Jewish?" I replied my usual way where i say it's kind of complicated and that my mom is Jewish but I was baptised and confirmed Christian but we basically still celebrate everything. She then told me that she is Jewish and that maybe that would make my mom feel better about leaving me here. ha! so cute.

I've been to orientation and have already picked classes. I am taking two classes and they are both on Monday and since this past Monday was labor day I don't have classes until next Monday, pretty sweet. Now the question is what to do with my time? I have thought about walking around with a sandwich board around my neck that reads "From New Jersey, need friends." but I decided that that is pretty tacky and ranks up there with the time my parents walked around a store up at UMass and shouted "This is our daughter, will you be her friend?" Instead I will bide my time looking for a job AND laying on the beach. We are in the middle of a heat wave right now...It hasn't been under 100 degrees since I got here so I am either in air conditioning or driving to the coast, where it is at least 20 degrees cooler, no lie.

I am still trying to work out the internet kinks at the house so my access is spotty at best but that should be figured out by the end of this week. Miss me lots!

Meryl & Harold Road Trip - What stays in Vegas

Well, some of you may have noticed it has been a couple of days (nights) since our last blog. We busted our horns driving 13 hours on Thursday so we only had a 5 hour drive on Friday to reach LAS VEGAS. And after checking in to the Excelsior (don't do it), we found there is a $13.95 charge to connect to the secure internet. Being extremely cheap, I decide you would just have to wait to read about our further adventures.

After checking in, Meryl's stomach started acting up. We decide to try a buffet in the hotel for dinner. It turned out the only thing Meryl was able to eat was Apple Pie and Vanilla Ice Cream, go figure. $15.99 for dessert (notice a pattern). We walked around the casino for a bit and decided it was like being in Disney World on Steroids.

Saturday morning Meryl is reading this Entertainment Magizine and sees that Earth, Wind & Fire are playing at the Hilton that night. She then recalls her former coworker, Darryl, was supposed to go with them as their road manager. So she finds his phone number and when he answers asked him where he was. "Vegas," he replied. "Me too," she says. Turns out he could have gotten us front row seats BUT I had already purchased 2 tickets for Penn & Teller for that night.

So what the heck, we'll meet up with him after the show. The Penn & Teller show is at the Rio, so we decide to go there for dinner so we can pick up our tickets 1 hour before the show starts at 9:00. Meryl's stomach still beibg a bit squeamish, we go to the All American Cafe at the Rio for a $9.95 Burger. While we are waiting, we go through the casino and they have a show in the middle of it. Blaring music male dancers with no shirts, female dancers in skimpy costumes, and Mardi Gras floats moving along tracks from the ceiling.

Penn & Teller put on a great show. A lot of laughs, magic tricks, and some pointed observations. And they take pictures with any and all as the audience leaves. We then go over to the Hilton and meet up with Darryl around 11:30. All the shows have ended so we go to a Deli/Diner for some desserts. Next thing we know its 1:30 am. Those of you who know Meryl know this is way past her bed time.

As we are heading up to our room, one of the guards mentions to us that Sunday morning check out at 11:00am is a mad house. And leads to a huge amount of traffic on I15 headind south to California. So with this in mind we get up aand check out by 8:00am. We get on the road, and there is some traffic but we are traveling across the Mojave at the 75MPH speed limit, which is sweet. We made it to our next and last Holiday Inn in Corona California. And here we shall stay for the rest of the week.

Oh, and by now you should have figured out that what stays in Vegas is your money. We played a couple of slots. Quarters, Nickels, and even Penny. And I won. I even have a pay-out ticket to prove that I, Harold the cheap, won 4 cents on a penny slot.

Road Trip - We're Not In Kansas Anymore

So, last night we checked into a HOLIDAY INN across the road from Arrowhead Stadium, home of the Kansas City Chiefs. Who knew it was not in Kansas but in Missouri. Anyway, Meryl and I decided we would add a couple of hours and miles to today's drive. We figured we would drive through Denver and head on down to Grand Junction Colorado.

So we hit the rode at 7AM and headed west on I70. It was 15-20 minutes we were in Kansas, and began our big trek. Seven(7) hours later we were crossing into Colorado. Kansas you may have heard is flat. That does not tell you the truth. The eastern end of the state has some rolling hills, but by the time you are mid-way you realize the only time you are climbing any type of grade, it is for an over pass. I mean it was flat!

And another thing, it seems in the middle of these farms and cattle ranchs, at every cross roads about every 10-15 miles, there is an Adult Book store. And in the field behind each of these stores there is a billboard with a Bible quote about the evils of porn. As we were driving past one of these stores, the truck driver in front of us nearly ran off the road as he read they give a special discount to truckers with a certain type of license.

Anyway, we finally crossed over into Colorado. which is just as flat as Kansas on its eastern border. it then became rolling hills, which is what it was as we drove into Denver. Meryl was driving at that point. We had decided to switch every 2 hours, which was working pretty good. Then Meryl decided to drive through Denver. I think the 75 MPH Speed Limit had something to do with this.

WELL, the western side of Denver is right into the Rocky Mountains. She did pretty godd until we came to a down grade that had warnings for the trucker to put it into their lowest gear, that the grade was 7%, and winding. And we are in a rain storm at this point. About midway down I heard Meryl saying "oh, S**t!" As if answering her prayer an exit appeared and we were off the hill. At the traffic light at the bottom of the exit she asked me which way to turn, and I replied "I don't know. I've never been here before." Lucky, my door was locked because Ithink she would have left me there if she could have.

We changed positions and I took over the driving for the rest of the trip. All I can was is that I70 from Denver to Grand Junction is possibly the most beautiful road I have driven on. The roadway hugs the sides of canyons formed by a creek, then the Eagle River and then the Colorado. Denver is known as the Mile High City at 5,340 feet above sea level. The roadway climbed to 11,300 feet where we went through a tunnel and then began decending a 6% downgrade, without the rain this time. Beautiful.

Meryl & Harold Take a Road Trip - Part Deux

Ok sooo to set the record striaight I read the stupid map...I gave Harold the name and exit to get off ONCE. Those of you that know Harold well , know that if yiou tell hi something more than once he tends to get a little testy...so I thought I was done and did go into my world.

Heres day two: We got up very early to get a jump on the day.I went to go take a shower and there was no hot water. To say the least I was not very happy and.............upon checking out voiced my concern about the lack of hot water. Moral those who complain necley don't get chrged for the night. ( Harold was vwerrrrry happy about that)

Our mission was to get to Kansas City. We left columbus around 7am ( Oh almost forgot I only had a 1/2 cup of coffee)

This part are for my two favorite ladies in Dayton Ohio. Harold said that we wouldn't be near Dayton. Guess what he was WRONG this morning we drove past Dayton. He feels very bad we would have loved to have dinner with you two. Hope all is well and that you love being home.

On with the story: Harold started driving, so,, around 10 I started whining coffee (thank goodness we needed to get gas so we stopped and again I was very Happy. I then took over driving we drove from Ohio thru West Virgina (speed Limit 75 miles an hour Yippeee, Indiana, Illionois, Missouri ONLY PROBLEM IS THE STATES KEPT CHANGING SPEED LIMITS. BUT THEY DIDN'T GET ME, I PAID ATTENTION!!! I got to drive on Route 66 how cool is that, then over the Mississippi River. It was really pretty uneventful. We are really having a good time and I can't believe we are getting the opportunity to drive cross country. We haven't even tried to drive off leaving one of us at the rest stop. So I think all in all we are getting along pretty good.

We arrived in Kansas. the hotel is right across the street from The Kansas City Chiefs football Stadium.We will be hitting the road again in the morning. I think Colorado is the next stop....but I have to check with my tour director.

Meryl,