i am the music queen. between my iPod (and the rockin' grand total of $175--that is not a typo--worth of iTunes gift certificates that i got for christmas) and the sirius radio that dana got me, i will be oozing commercial free musical happiness from my very pores. and that's just in the car. i can also listen to my iPod inside now, thanks to the speaker dock that my parents got me, and once i get the in-home kit for my sirius (which i ordered today and should get here by friday), i will be able to listen to *that* inside as well. which was a little more tricky, because i do not have a stereo system. also not a typo. at least, i didn't until today, because i went out and bought an inexpensive but really neat-o looking cd player with rca hookups so i can use it for the sirius. this seems to be how i always come into new electronic equipment, a la the time i bought a brand new computer because the one i had was too old to run the iPod software. so all in all, i will never be without music again. and on another music related note, if you haven't yet, check out pandora.com. you tell it a band you like, and it plays you a sampling of songs that you might like based on that. nothing to download; the player runs right off the website and it's free. you can mark songs you like as favorites, and follow links straight from the player to iTunes or Amazon to buy the music for yourself. really great way to get exposed to new artists that you might not hear about otherwise.

okay, that's all for now. i'm going to go revel in the musicfulness (new word!) of my apartment.

Happy Holidays, everybody! I'll be back after Christmas...

so it turns out that my eyes produce less than half of the moisture than they ought to for someone my age. after two and a half years of going to the eye doctor for issues with my eyes/contact lenses, i *finally* found a doc who actually did more than a brief eye/vision exam and found the problem. my corneas are scratched from the dryness, and i have special drops to use and a no-contacts order for three weeks, then i go back for a recheck. i'm just so relieved that i finally found a doctor who didn't either assume that a) i'd been wearing my contacts for too long and lying about it or b) that i must have some strange, resilient strain of pink eye. i've been walking around with scratched corneas! no friggin' wonder my eyes hurt all the time! crikey!

catie tagged me on this a while back only i'm really slow and just noticed...

10 random things about myself...

1. i can not whip egg whites into stiff peaks. i just can't do it.
2. my hair is getting ridiculously long (as ridiculously long as catie's yet? ;) )
3. my toes (with the exception of my big toe) are all almost exactly the same length.
4. i have a freckle on my upper lip.
5. i'm scared to death that i won't be able to find a job in arizona.
6. i don't know how to ski, although people always assume that i'm a skiier.
7. there are six pillows on my bed right now.
8. i generally have very bizarre dreams.
9. i am in a state of awe that my house plants are still alive.
10. i have six different types of cheese in my refrigerator.

there. that was pretty random.

april, you're it!

lean cuisine teriyaki steak bowls are not good. don't eat them. i think they might be fibbing about that whole "steak" thing. meh.

random comment: i can tell by his little kitty glare that chester really resents being called "fuzzy mcfluffypants."

oh yeah...and i changed stuff. but you probably noticed that. i'll probably be changing the main site eventually, too. this is mainly fueled by the fact that i've been stealing that turtle picture all this time; i don't know where it came from or who it belongs to, but it's not mine and i really shouldn't be using it. anywho...lemme know what you think, if you even care enough to have an opinion ;).

i got an A- in aquatic plant bio :). i didn't get my fluvial geomorphology grade yet, but i know i got an A on the paper i wrote (the only graded assignment) and i participated in discussion, so i already know i got an A in that.

*rocking on with my bad self*

okay, i'm done now :)

so...done with classes! forever and ever and always! i have taken a grand total of 16 semesters worth of classes racking up a whopping 191 credits (197 if you count the 6 credits i'll get next semester just for still being a research assistant). and i've decided that despite the fact that i still have a whole world of hurt ahead of me (read: statistical analysis of data, which means math, which means migraines; and then of course writing my thesis. oh yeah, and then presenting and defending it. yikes.), i'm going to take it a little easy until after christmas. sort of a mini-break. not that i won't be doing *any* work, but i'm not going to kill myself. i'm going to get reasonable nights of sleep, and eat breakfast, and go to the gym, and read something other than a journal article. and for four days (well, two whole days and two partial days), i'm going to do nothing but enjoy having dana here, because i don't know when i'm going to get to see him again :P.

right now, i'm going to go make myself a mug of cocoa and snuggle up on my couch and watch my show. tra la.

last. exam. EVER.

kureyon

hello, my name is krista, and i'm addicted to yarn.

it started out innocently enough. buy a few inexpensive skeins of acrylic Red Heart to practice with here and there...then it progressed to wool yarn, and there were just so many colors...*sigh*. i've got two large baskets full of skeins of yarn in my living room, plus two other decent size metal tubs. it's a disease; a disease, i tell you. i can't stop. and i don't want to. because now i've found this. noro kureyon wool yarn. i've been picking up skeins in yarn stores and putting them back down for months because at nearly $9 a skein, it's hard for me to justify buying just to play with. but i found three skeins for $20 on ebay and snapped them up, and i just started working with them tonight. i LOVE this yarn. it crochets so nicely, and the colors are beautiful (the skeins i have are color 128 on that link, but i love 088 and 147, too). unfortunately, i think the project i'm working on right now (a christmas present for someone) is going to use up all three skeins, putting me back in the original predicament.

i blame april for this.

well, now we know...

as of the end of today, i will have three aquatic plant biology presentations down, and one aquatic plant biology paper, one aquatic plant lab exam, one aquatic plant lecture final, and one advanced fluvial geomorphology paper to go until the work for this semester is done.

i just have to keep telling myself: it's almost over. it's almost over.

i hope their neighbors aren't epileptic...

yay hooray! the computer, she is fixed! after a few late nights and lots of grumbling and file transfering and blue screens of death and registry errors and drivers not wanting to load, i am finally up and running again. and i am a very happy camper. all i need now is ms office so i can write my darn papers...so i'll be spending a large chunk of my weekend in my office @ school, it looks like. oh well. the end is in sight.

in other news, i almost lit myself on fire today after trying to fix a home-made propane heater. because, you know, doing research means you have to be part electrician, part carpenter, part handyman, part landscaper, part whatever needs to be done. and today, getting the propane heater to not leak propane was what needed to be done. 'cept it was apparently still leaking propane when i was done 'fixing' it, because whoosh!, big scary flames! i am happy to report, however, that my eyebrows are still intact. thank god for small favors.

dear computer:

you suck. rot in hell.

not your friend,
krista