Vote for me!

Yep, that’s right kids, forget John McCain, Barack Obama and all of them, because I am running for president!

Ok.  Not really.  Actually it’s in our ethics code that I can’t run for public office.  Who knew?  But I am running for Miss Buck and Dex.  It’s this contest for a radio show in which the winner gets some totally kickass prizes like an ipod touch, a part in a movie, a professional photo shoot, and possibly some other stuff.  I’m definitely not the prettiest girl on there, but who cares?  You should totally vote for me anyway, because I’m awesome.  The link is below.  You can either look at the pictures or just go ahead and vote for number 26. 

http://www.1041theedge.com/pages/buckndex.html?feed=114696&article=357141

Thanks and have a good day!

The good, the bad, and the UGLY

Ok.  So.  It’s true.  I have a boyfriend.  My first one.  Ever.  Yeah.

His name is Matt.  We met at a party where we were the two youngest people there.  I noticed him pretty much right away and wanted to go talk to him but I was shy (duh). Plus this weird old dude kept talking to me.  But I finally had a chance to break away, and somewhere in between doing apple pie shots, he came up to me and we started talking.  After the party when everyone else went off to “hook up” or whatever we just sat in my car and talked until 5 am.  A couple days later, he called me and asked me out for pizza.  So we had dinner and smoked a hookah with some random lesbians (who were probably like 17), and the rest is history.

So far things have been good.  He likes the outdoors.  I like his friends.  We’re both kinda dorky.  Etc.  For my half birthday, he bought me flowers and champagne, which I thought was sweet and funny, because I never actually celebrated my half birthday before.  And after I lost my purse (which was totally shitty, and which I am still dealing with – but it’s getting better now) he came over and we watched Clerks and made green chile cheese fries.

And he kills the bugs in my apartment.  It still boggles my mind that I never had bugs, and then they sprayed for bugs, and now I have bugs.  Roaches, mostly.  But they’re little.  Not humungous like the ones in Vegas.  And there are no crickets, that I can tell anyway.  So that’s something.

In between all of this, I go to work on occasion.  Field season is pretty much over so I am attempting to stay awake while working in the office all day.  Sometimes I will go to the bathroom and/or print things just to have an excuse to walk down the hall.  And I always leave the office at lunch, even if it is to go sit on the curb in the parking lot for half an hour.  I’m really trying to keep myself occupied with work things.  Today I finished two online courses that I had to take on ethics and computer security.  And then I cancelled my credit cards.  Ok not so work related but necessary nonetheless.

But tomorrow is Thursday and I want to carve my pumpkin and go to the haunted house at the mall.  Because it is supposed to be insanely scary.  But I’ll probably just go to the mvd express and get a replacement driver’s license.  Damn Mexican purse snatchers (oh come on, you know they’re Mexican).

Ohhhhh TEXAS!

This past week I went to Houston for the very first annual joint national meeting of the GSA and SSSA.  It was awesome!  I stayed with my good friends Tonia and Lauren and our friend Mandy stayed there as well.  I got there Saturday night and went to dinner, where I got confused by the cashier’s “ghetto” southern accent, or whatever it was.  Tonia thought it was funny.  Sunday we ditched the conference and went to the zoo.  Fun times and cool animals.   I can’t remember if it was that night or the night after that we played singstar and Mandy won best singstar player because she totally got into it and her dancing was hilarious.  Tonia took videos.  If she sends them to me I’ll put them on facebook or someplace. 

The meeting itself was pretty cool.  I got to see lots of people from undergrad, grad school, and work.  The first day I went to one of my undergrad professor’s talk.   He saw me and was all excited that I came.  I also had my poster presentation that day.  It went pretty well.  People asked me really easy questions and everyone said my research was really interesting.  Even Jeff Herrick, who kind of started up my study.  So that was pretty cool.  That night was the UNLV alum party, so I got to see all my friends who now work for various oil companies.  I was most excited to see Nate, because he is awesome and was probably one of my better friends at UNLV from back when I first started.

I also got to see Erica and Tim Demko and Willy and Josh and Colin and… oh yeah, and my advisor.  And lots of other people too.  A lot of the talks I went to were really interesting as well.  It was just a fabulous combination of people and ideas and research and helped to remind me why it is that I do what I do.  I really needed that.

The day I left Tonia took off work and we met Lauren for lunch at this really great sandwich place.  The bread was so good!  I wish we had one here in Albuquerque.  Afterwards, we went window shopping downtown and then went to the natural science museum, which had some of the most gorgeous minerals and a spectacular gem and jewelry collection as well.  Then we got lost on the way to the airport.  But what’s a trip without getting lost at least once?  Overall, it was really great.

On Friday I went back to work (blah) and no one was there except me, the two secretaries and our main boss (who I never even saw the whole day).  So I took a long lunch and did some other stuff and then went home.  Then a friend sent me a text message asking me if I wanted to go to the balloon fiesta (which is kind of a big deal here) so I went and saw fireworks but no balloons.  I guess because it was windy and also probably because someone had died in a balloon accident that morning.  Apparently it happens at least once every year. 

This weekend is looking to be windy and rainy, which may or may not mess up the rest of my weekend plans.  But we’ll see.  Either way, it is a long weekend and life is awesome.