Tuesday, July 25, 2006

Quote-o-the-day

"i want to appreciate the times when moments are made into memories. i want to embrace them. cherich them. and never forget they come so few and far between. i know that wherever life takes me, these moments will always follow. they remind me of what's truly important. it's not just life-but living. it's the journey, the destination and all points in between. and i must admit, i like what i see."

ps--i've been so extremely busy lately, drowning in it almost, and i apologize for not calling or writing anyone back. i will do it as soon as things calm down a bit, promise.

Monday, July 24, 2006

Nervous

This whole being homeless thing is starting to make me nervous. Having all my stuff in storage? Living out of my suitcase? Sleeping on couches? Not sounding like such a good idea anymore. I started packing up yesterday (thanks so much to Sara for the help and motivating me to start), and I think part of my problem is that I'm too attached to my belongings. Even though I haven't looked at this book or worn those shoes in forever, I don't like not being able to access it any time I want. I mean, they're just things, afterall, and I really can live without them, but I don't want to. I guess I just need to learn to live simply. All I really need are the necessities. But, having a place to come home to with all of your things is so nice. We'll see how long I can survive like this. And how long my friends will put up with me sleeping on their couches...

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Trying to Recuperate

I think I need another vacation to recuperate from my vacation! After returning from the trip Sunday evening, I've been unsuccessfully trying to play catch up on rest and sleep the past few days. Something always seems to come up, and I haven't been able to get in enough sleep, which is really wearing on me...

How about a recap of our Deathboating adventure?
Let me just emphasize again that the trip was awesome and we all had a great time. After all the incidents that happened (and everyone really is okay, a little hurt, but okay), we couldn't do much but shrug it off and laugh about or misfortune.

So, Cory and Alyssa picked me up, and with all of our gear and their jetski in tow, we departed for Lake Mead on Monday afternoon. The ride was pretty uneventful, just your typical drive towards Vegas, and we made it to Callville Bay around sunset just in time for check-in. To get the crapload of gear we had from the car down the hill and across the dock, we had to take a few wheel-barrelling trips, which was kind of fun. We loaded our stuff onto the houseboat, put up some pirate decorations (it was a pirate-themed vacation, afterall), and took a tour of the AWESOME boat. On the first deck was the living room, with two pull-out bed couches, the dining area and kitchen, two bathrooms and four bedrooms. Then up the stairs was the second floor, which was a huge sun deck complete with a jacuzzi, bar, and slide (into the lake). It was a sweet, SWEET party boat. Cory brought a pole to fly our pirate flag on, so the boys set it up at the back of the houseboat, making our pirate ship complete (see photos, it looked great.) The rest of our first night, we just drank and waited for everyone to show up--there was a total of 10 of us on the boat: Cory, Alyssa, Meg, Liam, Pat, Shelby, Cameron, Chandler, Mark, and me.

Tuesday morning, we left Callville Bay and headed deeper into Lake Mead, and docked in a little cove for a few days. It was a very muddy area, and hard to walk through--every step you took, your foot sank deep into it the soft muddy stuff. We named it Dookie Bay. Spent our time swimming and boozing, sliding and drinking while floating, and swimming and boozing some more. Good times! We took the speed boat out that day and Meg, Alyssa and Cory tried some wakeboarding. And that afternoon, we had some fun with the potato gun that Liam made and brought along for or pirating pleasure. It was a pretty rad potato gun, and it's amazing how for the potatoes can be shot with just a touch of aquanet hairspray.

Up until this point, our trip was going wonderfully. Sure, Meg hit her head a few times on things like the ceiling fan, but that's normal for her. The mishaps didn't start until Wednesday afternoon when everyone went tubing...It probably wasn't the best idea, because that's when several of our accidents occurred. (And it's probably a good thing that I didn't go. I decided that if I were to get hurt doing something, it would at least be while trying to wakeboard, so I was saving my injuries, if any were to occur, for later.) Being towed behind the speedboat at insane speeds means that when you crash, you really crash and burn and the water feels more like concrete rather than water. This is what happened to Shelby, who suffered some sort of concussion and had a headache for the rest of the trip. Chandler had the wind knocked out of him and injured his shoulder again. And then, while docking the speed boat after the tubing was finished, Liam was walking around in the dookie mud and sliced his foot on something. We're not sure what, but think it was one of the clam shells that were everywhere. Good thing Chan use to be a fireman (stopped because he had a shoulder injury. Yep, that same one that he hurt again while tubing) and dealt with first-aiding Liams foot. It was a pretty deep cut, enough where they could see his fat, and so we called park services, who told us to take him over to the nearest bay (about a 15-20 minute boat ride away). So off Liam, Meg, Cory and Alyssa went to meet the park ranger. The rest of us stayed behind and played a fun game of Cranium while waiting to see what happened. The speed boat returned to drop Cory and Alyssa back at the houseboat--apparantly, Liam needed stitches and there was nothing park services could do to help with that. So Meg had to take Liam back to Callville Bay, racing against the setting sun (being stuck out on a huge lake in the dark is not a good idea), and drive him to the ER for his stitches.

The Ferris' stayed on land for the night, and returned to the houseboat on Thursday morning. Liam was doing okay, even with the limping and stitches in his foot, although he was very bummed that he couldn't go in the water for the rest of the trip. By this point, everyone was pretty sore from being towed behind the boat and knocked around in the water. Cameron had to go back home a day early, so Meg, having been appointed Captain of the speed boat, had to take another trip back to Callville Bay to drop him off at his car. I joined them for this trip, and we made great timing out there. Right outside of the bay-we were so close we could almost reach out and touch it-the engine decides to DIE ON US! We couldn't believe it-was this really happening? Hasn't enough gone wrong? Apparantly not. Stuck in the blazing heat, we called the bay for help, and they said they would be sending someone out. After an hour of huddling under the sliver of shade the boat's canopy provided, and jumping in the water multiple times to cool off, the help finally showed up. They couldn't get the boat to start up again, so we had to be towed in. Good thing the boat renters were very nice about it, and immediately gave us a set of keys for another boat. We didn't have to linger and deal with the problems with this one, so headed off back to our vacationing. We met up with Houseboat M7 as they were finishing up at the Dookie dock, and headed out to find a new bay to dock our boat in. As we were making our way into Burro Bay, we had to stop to release the jetski and speed boat before the houseboat could be docked. It took a little too long to release the boats and the wind picked us up a little too quickly, and when we started up the engines again it was too late to avoid hitting the rocky shore. Our right propeller grinded against the rocks, and for a moment, the engine wouldn't start up again. We finally got it up and going and successfully docked the boat, but not without a damaged propeller. That afternoon, Chandler, Alyssa, Meg, Mark and I took the boat out for a round of wakeboarding. My goal for the trip was to be able to get up and stay up on the wakeboard, and I was a little nervous that it would take me try after frustrating try to do that (it took me a whole day of trying before I got the hang of waterskiing). So, I was first to go, and surprisingly popped up and started cruising during my first try--which was AWESOME. It was kind of like snowboarding, and so much fun skimming across the water at high speeds. One wrong move, however, means a faceplant and rolling across concrete-water. I wakeboarded a couple of times, and after reaching my goal and gaining a few bruises along with it, let the next person have a go at it. Everyone did a great job, especially Alyssa and Meg who impressed us with going outside and back in both wakes. Unfortunately, Chandler hurt his shoulder even more, which wasn't a good thing (his arm is in a sling right now, with possible surgery in the future.) We all headed back to the houseboat around sunset, and decided to do some swimming and sliding and picture-taking. It was one of the most beautiful sunsets I've ever seen (see picture)--just so peaceful and breathtaking to be out on an empty lake and having the sky light up with such amazing colors. This was our last night on the boat, and we were going to end it with a bang, so the drinks were flowing and the music came on for our PDDDP (Pirate Dookie Deathboat Dance Party, that is) on the sun deck. Nothing like dancing under the stars on a deserted lake with all of your friends.

Friday morning was time to head back to Callville Bay. We were supposed to be at the bay by noon so the boat could be serviced and docked, and for us to unload all of our stuff by 2pm. The problem was noone knew the exact time because there wasn't a working clock, watch, or cell phone on the boat. That, and we were a little slow-moving after a week of partying. So we finally departed Burro Bay, a little late. By 2pm, we were still on the water right outside the bay, and received an irritated call from the staff there asking where we were. Oops, just another thing gone wrong on our deathboating experience. The houseboat got in eventually and everything was serviced and checked off. The only thing was that we had to unload our stuff and wheel barrel it down the dock and up a hill on a blazing-hot-120 degree day! It was torture. And I didn't know I could sweat so much. Literally, disgustingly, dripping-from-my-neck-down-to-my-ankles kind of sweat. I was practically melting. And a breeze had never felt so glorious. ECH!!

Leaving Lake Mead, it was off to Vegas we went, for a weekend of continued partying and to celebrate Meg's 27th birthday. It was so refreshing to be able to take a shower after all that sweating, rather than having to sit in a 6-hr car ride home in your own stink. We all stayed at the Monte Carlo. Drank and danced some more at the Pub in the hotel on Friday night. Saturday, I visited Stef over at the Mirage Dolphin Habitat, where she's now working, then spent the rest of the afternoon drinking mimosas by the pool. That night, we did dinner and dancing at Rum Jungle, then watched the boys do a little gambling. I got to bed at 5am, and woke up at 9am to pack up and get ready for our long journey home. And that, kids, was the recap of my awesome Pirate Dookie Deathboat 2006 vacation. I'm so happy to have such wonderful friends, who were able to have fun despite the mishaps we had.

Monday, July 17, 2006

We Survived Deathboat 2006!

I've returned from my week-long vacation on Pirate Dookie Deathboat 2006 on Lake Mead, and what an adventure it was!
I wish I could say that our houseboating trip was smooth sailing the whole week, but unfortunately, it wasn't. Deathboat 2006 was named so only because it was the sequel to our Deathboat 2005 Booze Cruise trip, but this time it was very appropriately named. Despite the mini-disasters, it was an amazing trip, and we all had an awesome and relaxing and drunken time. We've all ended the trip with some head bumps and cuts, many bruises, soreness everywhere, a damaged propeller, a broken down speed boat, Chandler in an arm sling and Liam with stitches in his foot--but other than that we've survived and had a great time! More on the trip to come...

PS-I got the LA Zoo Education Specialist position, yeah!

Saturday, July 08, 2006

Goodbye Crazies

Wow, the three weeks from when I turned in my resignation to my very last day at work yesterday flew by so quickly. I'm not exactly sad to be leaving (actually, I'm quite thrilled that I no longer have to deal with all those crazy, verbally abusive, and uneducated people), but it just feels so-- weird-- that it's finally over. My last day went well, and one of the supervisors actually bought me a goodbye/good luck cake, which was so nice. I was surprised by how much support and encouragement I got from my co-workers, which was also very nice. So, that's it. I'm done and off to help save the environment. Goodbye crazies!

Saw Pirates of the Caribbean last night with Meg, Liam, Mark and Sebastian--and it was awesome! Johnny Depp was brilliant, and I heart Orlando Bloom. I thoroughly enjoyed all 2 1/2 hrs of it (so glad they didn't skimp on the length), even the silly slapstick parts, and can't wait for the next installment. Go see it!

It is so HOT. It is usually never this hot during the summer. And I live by the beach, I can't imagine how miserable it must be in the valley. ECH.

Thursday, July 06, 2006

On another note

I've been pretty busy lately, and still not motivated to post much. But here's a brief recap/update of what's going on.

Had an interview at the LA Zoo last week. Still waiting to hear back from them, but it's not the end of the world if I don't get the job. Keep your fingers crossed though.

Worked a 24-hr day (between two jobs) last Friday, which was exhausting. Went to my regular day job from 8-4:30, then drove straight to the Aquarium and clocked in at 5pm to work the overnight with Wendy, which went til 8am the next morning. At least I got paid to sleep, but it was still tiring.

Spent most of the 4th at Meg & Liam's BBQ/Pool party, which was so nice. The cool pool was refreshing, after dealing with this HEAT. Blagh. Stopped by my parents' house at the end of the evening, where there was a huge family gathering, like always. It was fun to see and catch up with some cousins and other family.

Saw Superman and The Devil Wears Prada, and both were good. Superman was long and a little slow-paced, but I still enjoyed it. Many parts of Prada were very different from the book, but it didn't bother me like it normally would have. The changes made the movie and storyline flow well, and I liked some of it better than the book. Meryl Streep, although not how I pictured Miranda to be, was great.

Seeing Pirates of the Carribean tomorrow, which I'm so looking forward to!

Having a BBQ at my place on Saturday for Wendy's 28th birthday, which will be fun. We can finally put our patio to use this summer, get the most out of it before moving out.

And the most exciting thing coming up is my vacation on a houseboat at Lake Mead with my friends! We leave for the houseboat Monday, and will be there through Friday, drinking and tanning and wakeboarding the whole week. Then we head to Vegas for the weekend, to celebrate Meg's birthday. WOOHOOO, can't wait for my vacation!

A happy summer to you all. Have fun and stay cool.

And the word of the month is...

CHANGE
: to make different in some particular
: to make radically different
: to give a different position, course, or direction to
: to replace with another
: to make a shift from one to another
: to undergo transformation, transition, or substitution

CHANGE will be the theme in my life these next couple of months. I am taking all the pieces of my life, throwing them up in the air, and letting them fall where they may. I should be scared and overwhelmed and stressed, but am not so much, because I have faith everything will work itself out. The last time major changes happened (around graduation time) I had freaked out and shut down, but this time everything feels very different. I'm actually excited about what I've learned over the past couple of years, and excited about the direction I'm going in.

So, it's official--I put in my resignation three weeks ago, and tomorrow is my VERY LAST day at work. Quitting was not the most financially practical thing to do, but it was very good for my emotional and mental stability. I was just not cut out to do that kind of social work, because science and the environment is where my heart is. Although I wasn't very happy at my job, I'm so thankful for the experience--of doing something different, being exposed to people and situations that I would never have normally encountered, to be financially independent, and most importantly, discovering what I really care about and what direction I want to take my career in. I had always liked the saying "Do what you love, love what you do", and now realize just how important it is to do just that--life's short, why waste time being miserable doing something you don't like?

The other major change coming up is my living situation--or should I say, my lack of a living situation. Jake has accepted a teaching job up in Sacramento, and will be moving up there to be closer to his girlfriend. So, July will be my last month in this awesome apartment (I really did love it here!), and I'm not sure what I'm going to do or where I'm going to go come August. I figure, if worst comes to worst, I'll just put my stuff in storage and crash on friends' couches for a bit. But, I can't move from couch to couch for long, so hopefully something will work out quickly.

No real job, no money, no place to live. But you know what? I have friends and family and life is still good, so no worries.