research

the strangest thing has happened to me recently. it has left an oddly unsettling feeling in my stomach, one that i'm not quite familiar with in the given context. i'm actually enjoying my research.

i never thought it would happen. i almost gave up this whole phd thing a year ago, but i must admit now i'm glad i didn't. and my new advisor gunnar is awesome - easy to talk to, down to earth, wicked smart. and he's had at least one stamp on the back of his hand from whatever bar(s) he patronized the previous night at each of our meetings. go gunnar. oh, and his frickin' name is "gunnar" - how cool is that?? we get along really well and actually work well together - dave swears gunnar and i are related somehow in the swedish part of my heritage. apparently gunnar's sister resembles me and gunnar resembles my little bro. i'm not sure how much credit i'm willing to give that theory.

dave and i hiked up to arapaho pass monday morning - you can check out the pics here. it was absolutely gorgeous, even if it was totally overcast. there was one part right towards the end where it looked like we were walking into a cloud. oh wait, that's because we were.

5 days til i leave for central america!!!

last day of class

i gave my kiddies their final at 9:15 this morning to kick off the final day of class for the summer. believe it or not, i'm going to miss them - i had a good bunch of kids this time around. actually, i don't think i've had a bad bunch of kids since i started teaching. damn i'm lucky!

just for fun i gave the kids a pop quiz yesterday in class. exactly zero of the questions were math related in any way, but a few of them did have numbers as answers - for instance, the ones asking "on average, how many minutes late was erin to lecture every day?" or "how many recitations did dave miss?" i got some pretty funny answers for both, like "4 minutes, or 11 minutes before i was gonna leave" and "as many as i would have liked to". well met - they get bonus points for that. the quiz put them in a good mood for studying for the final, too, which was kinda the point. i also tried to ease their pain this morning by baking cinnamon roll bread for them - hopefully it made the test a little more palatable...

in other news, we tied our outdoor soccer game last night. that may not sound like much, but considering we only had 8 players, they had around 20, and we were playing full-field 35 minute halves, i'd say it's damn impressive we managed to tie. i actually think we played a ton better being pressured like that because we were forced to play smarter. and i played defense for the first time in my life and didn't totally suck. dave kicked total ass up front, even sprinting at the end of the game when the rest of us were hard-pressed to do anything over a light jog. he paid for it later tho when he started cramping up on the drive home... poor dave...

i heart julio baptista

in the final of the copa america today, he scored a brilliant goal in the fourth minute to help brazil to a 3-nil win over argentina. perhaps arsenal *will* be better off without thierry if it means this boy gets more playing time...

4 weeks and counting

it's been a decent weekend overall. i mean, aside from tweaking my knee at our indoor soccer game friday and therefore missing my tri this morning (no worries, this one was kind of a "practice tri"), things went pretty well. i scored twice in the indoor game, which shocked the hell out of me. i over-indulged in sleep, getting a whopping 21 hours over two days. i even made it to the farmer's market saturday, only to be disappointed that all the fruit had sold out. but that's what happens when you don't show up til 1.

it's been a bit since my last arsenal rant, so here's an update on my boys in red:
arsenal won their first friendly of the pre-season, tho it was only 2-nil and the opposing side Barnet were pretty hopeless (they even had a 40-something guy pay 10,000 pounds to be named as a substitute, sit the bench, then be put in with a minute or two remaining). vp is back from injury, but the brazilian wunderkid denilson had to be stretchered off during the match, tho they're now saying the injury isn't serious. thank god, cuz we're going to need him this year. sir alex has said arsenal will be better off without henry, and i must say i agree - the boys tended to rely on him too much this last season and it became pretty apparent that thierry was starting to give under the weight of his team. 4 weeks to the opening game v. fulham! anyone who wants to come watch it at my place had better bring java porter - it's the only way we'll stay awake after the 5am kickoff...

santa monica

i found a place to live this fall! yay!

it's a studio guesthouse in santa monica at euclid and hill. 13 blocks from the beach, 6 blocks from my advisor's place, and biking distance to anything I could possibly want - suh-weet. now i just need to get a commuter bike so i don't worry about my nice one being stolen.

a year and a half later

after 18 months of i-want-that-no-you-can't-have-it-but-you-cheated-on-me-ok-fine-it's-yours between my parents, they are now officially divorced. my mom informed me of it yesterday afternoon, followed by the comment that she and her boyfriend were going to go out and celebrate/get drunk last night. yippee.

you would think that by the time you reach the ripe old age of 28, haven't lived under your parents' roof for the better part of a decade, and only come home once a year, that it wouldn't bother you if your parents split. but it does. i'm very conflicted about the whole thing - simultaneously angry, relieved, and let down.

angry: my parents had been married for 33 years when they called it quits. maybe "called it quits" isn't the right phrase. my dad cheated on my mom on national tv. no, not jerry springer style - he was shown with his girlfriend on tv during the world series in 2005 and naturally my mom heard about it. i definitely have a different opinion of my dad now instead of the hero i always thought him to be while growing up. i didn't talk to him for 6 months after that, and even now i keep the conversation at a superficial level. deep down i know i haven't forgiven him yet, but i'm trying.

relieved: i've thought my parents should get divorced since i was in middle school, so a part of me is very happy to see it finally happen. i know in the long run they will both be happier people apart than they were together. to be honest, if i didn't have this feeling, i'd be much worse off emotionally than i currently am about the whole thing.

let down: so yeah, it was middle school when i first realized they should split. of course, it wasn't until much later that i understood why. put this on the list of things you never wanted to know about your parents: at the time they split, they hadn't even kissed, let alone had sex, in over 14 years. i don't know which is worse to think about, your parents having sex or your parents never having sex. how do two people live like that?? did they even try to do something about the problem? was there anything that could even be done? is this something that happens to a lot of marriages?

there are some positives that have happened lately to help reduce how jaded i have become about relationships. my sister recently got engaged to a wonderful guy who truly loves her and her daughter. it's been good for me to be around a solid relationship and watch them work thru real problems. i also seem to have outgrown the pattern of first-dates and hook-ups that helped me get over calling off my engagement. i'm not particularly proud of what i've done, but it served its purpose and i'm ready to move on. believe it or not, i think it's helped me learn more about myself than i would have otherwise (then again, difficulty tends to do that). i'm glad it's over, primarily because it means i'm ready for a real relationship.

wow, this turned into quite a rant. i congratulate anyone who actually made it this far! ok, time to get back to the real world - as you were, soldier...

disaster!

i got home last night from a fun and relaxing weekend visiting mikey in seattle to the following email from my friend rob:


"Erin what happened to Henry? I can't believe he signed with Barcelona, he and Ronaldinho are going to be unstoppable. You must be pretty pissed about it I would guess... "


pissed doesn't even *begin* to describe my reaction. i hadn't been online or checked sky sports news all weekend so i was completely blind-sided by this information. at first i thought he was just playing a cruel joke on me, and seeing as how it's rob, i wouldn't put it past him. so i checked sky sports - sure enough, there was the headline. but there's always been speculation about henry moving and this could be more of said speculation. so i go to arsenal.com to see if they agree, because they'd be the first to deny any wayward rumors. here was the first article:

Thierry Henry transfer to Barcelona agreed

nothing could possibly describe the sinking feeling in my heart any better than agony - pure agony.

then agony turned to anger. thierry, how could you?? where's the loyalty? arsenal made you the player you are today, gave you the best years of your career, and you abandon them? for *barcelona*?? bastard.

for those of you that don't understand how this makes me feel, try this exercise:
- think of your favorite sports team
- think of your favorite player of all time for that team
- think of a team you truly despise
- imagine that player transferring to that team

yep, that's about how i feel right now. way to ruin a perfectly good weekend, thierry. i forevermore vow to root against any team you play for.

happy solstice!

happy june 21, the summer solstice! longest day of the year, so as dave put it today, it's all downhill from here...

john mayer and naked people

friday night, red rocks, john mayer. best concert i'd attended in a long, long time. fuckin' amazing. that man is so incredibly talented. wow, i mean, damn. that's really all i can say.

saturday night the weirdest thing happened. i was leaving my apartment when about 30 naked people on bikes rode by me. apparently the now defunct boulder "happy thursday"s turned into "naked saturday"s...

it's official

well, i did it - i booked my trip for august. using the best decision-making tool available (the trusty coin toss), i decided on the costa rica/panama excursion. i fly into san jose on august 14 and fly home from panama city on august 29. in between those dates i will be snorkeling, hiking, whitewater rafting, and many other things that will make you all jealous. yes! i will return tan and tired after 15 days under the latin sun - doesn't it sound wonderful?

more on travel

taking james's comment to heart (and the realization i need to pack up my apartment before moving to LA), i've been looking into the central/south america option. there are many reasons - shorter trip, no jet lag, etc. the bike tour of india patrick suggested is a definitely possibility for *next* year...

a joint costa rica/panama trip is looking pretty good at the moment, but so is guatemala/belize/honduras since i'm kind of obsessed with mayan culture. i'll have to brush up on my spanish, but having a reason to is always a good motivator!

august travel

thanks to ucla being on the quarter system, i have about 6 weeks from late july to early september with which to do as i please. so naturally i want to travel.

i am now soliciting recommendations for good places to go. already on the list of contenders is india and southeast asia (thailand, laos, malaysia, etc). additional locations as well as comments on these will be much appreciated. also let me know if and where you'll be traveling - maybe we could meet up.

(yes, yes, i know it's august. half the world will be on holiday and places like the ones mentioned will be ridiculously hot. how about limiting comments to things i *don't* know?)

new blog locale

so i've thoroughly gotten sick of the blogging afforded by myspace, hence the change of location. stay tuned for updates, at least for those of you that care in the slightest what i babble about...