Happy Holidays!

In case I am not able to post while in Tennessee on Holiday, Merry Christmas! I hope that everyone who is traveling (or has already traveled) has a safe trip and enjoys this time with family and loved ones.

Ann Arbor has been a desolate place since all of the students have departed for their respective homes......it kinda reminds me of the summer when Ann Arbor is a peaceful, pleasant town that feels more like a great place to live rather than a crowded college town. I love Ann Arbor regardless of the state of the fluctuating population, it is just more easy-paced without the undergrads all over the place. :)

I went to the mall this afternoon to buy my sister and Josh a Christmas present and I made it in and out of that madhouse within 35 minutes! I was on a mission, weaving through the crowd, walking by all of the parents and their children in the ENDLESS line to visit with "the big guy" (not that one, the one who wears the red suit), and making split-second decisions regarding the appropriate gift to buy. I got Josh this great music-instrument set from the Discovery Channel Store. It has a drum (that duals as a container to hold all of the other musical instruments), a set of maracas, a tambourine, a recorder (as in flute-thingy), and a mini rain stick.
The guy at the counter and I had an interesting exchange:
guy at counter: kids love these [instrument set], but parents aren't too thrilled.
me: yeah, it is for my nephew and he lives with me, so I'm bringing this upon myself.
guy at counter: nice. good luck with that.

We opened all of our presents from each other and from our mom while we listened to classic Christmas music. It was nice :)

On a completely unrelated subject, thanks to Kara for introducing me to Matt Pond PA!! I downloaded their latest CD "Several Arrows Later" tonight as a gift to myself in preparation for the 9 hour car trip tomorrow. And I'm lovin' it. My favorite song so far is "It Is Safe". Once I get more money I'll download the "Emblems" CD that has "Lily Two" on it.....
Oh, I live for new, great, beautiful music.

So I leave for Tennessee in about 7 hours. Darn. I should get some sleep. You never know what grandma will throw your way, so I gotta be alert, on my toes, and prepared to field all imaginable questions and appropriately react to random comments. She's a wiley one.....which is why I love her :).

Here is a pic of our beautiful tree:

I *heart* Chris Martin

Quote:
"We're kinda musically bisexual....we like both".
-Chris Martin, lead singer of Coldplay, speaking on how the band enjoys being on the road AND in the studio (from their recent performance on Austin City Limits).

Michael Stipe of REM made a guest appearance on the show and he perfomed "Nightswimming", which has to be one of my favorite REM songs. I was fortunate to see them (REM) in concert in 1995.

Again, I must reiterate that I love creative people. Both men mentioned above definitely fall into that category.

So, on to bigger and better things. I'm done with this semester!! I went to a great girls-night dinner party Monday night after we finished our last final. Great food, fun girl convo, and cosmopolitan martinis. :)

Tuesday night I had an amazing dinner prepared quite skillfully by Kyle. He went all out and thought of everything--including desert! Then we hung out "at home" for the first time ever, really. It has always been catching a drink, having a nice dinner out, or studying. And I found out that he didn't quite LOVE "White Christmas" as much as I do---Beth, we'll have to watch it after break, OK?

I have to buy A christmas present (as in one) before Friday, which is gonna be interesting considering I'm completely broke. I actually had to cancel plans to see a movie that I really wanted to see because I have no money. Life as a student stinks sometimes.

Other interesting tidbits:
Check out these hilarious comics that my sister sent me:

The Best Birthday Week EVER

I must say that this past week, well, Thursday night on has been great. The best part of the weekend: my Birthday celebration with K and friends on Saturday night. K took me out for an incredible dinner and after-dinner drink (with a sweet little pre-dinner surprise) and then we met up with some friends at a local martini bar to enjoy some live music. I can't help but say that K made it a very enjoyable evening. :)

Thursday night was the "Erin's off of probation and Janine's bday" party. There were tons of funny and random pics taken, with a few posted below.

I went to my friend Peter's birthday party Friday night and instead of gifts he suggested that whomever was interested participate in a Music Exchange. Basically, make a mix cd. The good thing about this was that people who made cds made enough copies so that everyone participating got one. The end result: 8 new mixed cds for my listening pleasure.
I'm so excited!

Some people I know left the party before taking their required "Dance Dance Revolution" turn......(including me) :) Peter was having way too much fun with DDR for anyone else to even compare with his mad skills.

Now afer taking quite an extended nap this afternoon I'm back to studying for my LAST final tomorrow. After that it's all about the "Holiday Feast" at Beth's, work, visiting K in Detroit, last-minute Christmas stuff, then heading down to Tennessee for a crazy Christmas with the family.

The Party Girls
Beth, Me, and Damon after drinking Erin's "Invisible Kool-Aid" Punch
Hal, AJ and Me after MORE punch :)

Wax-on, wax-off

There is a point to all of this (seemingly unnecessary) work, right? Do I really need to know the derivation for the proportional hazards regression equation? Will I thank Dr. Biostats down the road when I am battling Johnny and the evil forces of SAS-gone-bad? Crane-move, my ass. (If you don't get the reference, you're too young--c'mon Sol, you should know it!!)

Ahh, studying for 12 hours straight makes me crazy.....and there's such a long way to go.

Redeeming moment in the midst of finals-hell: Christmas packages from mom arrived tonight! That means homemade breads and cookies. Mmmmmmmmm! Too bad my sedentary lifestyle over the past 4 days means that I'll have to refrain from enjoying too many of those cookies, otherwise I'll be rolling myself out of the door to head to Tennessee for Christmas. Boy do I want to go for a run.

So do I include some ghetto music on the mix cd to be distributed at Peter's bday party Friday night?.....somehow I just don't think "I wanna get to know you" by G-Unit will go over well with that crowd. It IS fun in that ghetto sorta way :).

What a happy birthday!

"THE BIG 28"
Today was a good day, nevermind the fact that I had work, class, and studying to do, it really didn't matter. What made it a good day: friends and family who wished me a happy birthday :).

So thank you to everyone who sent me birthday wishes via text message, email, phone call, blog posting, ecards, and real cards (thanks AJ and Kara!), and just by saying "Happy Birthday". Ya'll are great.

AND YOU KNOW I'LL BE CELEBRATING THURSDAY NIGHT!!

My sister brought home birthday pizza for dinner (I actually requested it) and a really tasty chocolate cake. And Josh sang Happy Birthday to me. Gotta love that.

OK, my study break for the evening is over. Back to Global Health and the health problems of the world......the only thing is that I'm listening to my ipod and I keep thinking of songs to add to Peter's birthday cd.....FOCUS!!

As I told a friend today, the longer I'm in grad school the more I think I have ADD. I just can't seem to not multitask when I have stuff to do. I guess some would call that procrastination, too. Hee.

I can see again!

I have spent the past week reading journal articles and writing papers. So much eye strain! But I finished my social epi paper this afternoon and turned it in. Now I am well versed in community-level socioeconomic status and the incidence of low birth weight in infants. It really isn't that interesting. I did have some fun, well, a lot of fun Friday night with Kyle. And today I took a little shopping break with the birthday money my mom sent me (Thanks mom! I bought a really great silky shirt for Christmas time!) and then decorated the HUGE Christmas tree my sister and Josh brought home yesterday while I was in the paper-haze. The tree is so big that we had to rearrange the livingroom furniture in order to fit it in. It takes up practically a whole corner of the room! But it smells like a Christmas tree and gives off that Christmas tree glow when all lit up. I love it.

That was probably the only break I'll get until my two finals are over on Thursday. I guess as you get older Birthdays don't really matter as much because I didn't really realize that my birthday is tomorrow until today. Besides the cards from relatives (which I appreciate) I received a really great present in the mail from my dad's girlfriend: a weekend bag. It is big and leather and just what I said I had wanted when I visited them at Thanksgiving. So now I can go away for the weekend and feel like a grown up carrying my nice new weekend bag. :)

I'll post pics of our big beautiful tree when I take some and I'll be sure to post lots of pics from this coming weekend's festivities: party Thursday night, party Friday night and then my birthday dinnner with Kyle Saturday night.

"Good things......"

Tonight my fortune cookie read: "Good things are coming to you in the due course of time". How true. While I am incredibly stressed out I've felt quite invigorated and happy over the past week. Why? Don't know. But, I'm guessing it has something to do with a subconscious feeling of accomplishment for actually getting shit done for a change. I finished my big presentation this past Monday, finished my 10 page final paper for Global Health today (it was due at 3....) and I'm finally making very promising progress on the PhD front.

I am happy to report that I've had two very successful meetings this week with MDs who are interested in working with me on my dissertation. YAY!! Both are very accomplished and incredibly intelligent, and big players at the school of public health and the UM medical school. I had very little expectation going into these meetings that I'd get much more than a "yes, well, I wish you luck in your pursuits" so you can imagine my surprise when I was met with "let me know if you want to sit down in the future and really brain storm on your dissertation ideas.....let me know if you need an internship or work study......I'm going down to this conference in March, if you attend I'll introduce you around if this is the area you want to focus on......I'd be happy to be on your dissertation committee". And that was only one of the MDs at one of the meetings. The second meeting was even more promising: "....when I looked at your CV I thought that this is someone I'd really like to sit down with........I have a project in mind that I think you'd be perfect for since our interests are in line with one another........I'm excited about the possibility of working with you as either a co-chair or chair of your dissertation committee".

So now I ask: do you ever feel like you're fooling everyone?

This was way more than I expected and nothing is decided on or set in stone by any means, but just the thought that these two very influential men were interested in working with me is enough to make me a little happy. And none of this was meant as bragging :)

It is going to be non-stop studying until December 19. I have another 10 page paper to write by this coming Monday, two finals next Thursday, and my final final on the 19th. Too bad next Tuesday is my birthday--no time to celebrate! I will be going to Detroit to hang out with Kyle this weekend, if you can call writing a paper and studying for 2 med school finals "hanging out". I'm sure we'll have fun, even if it is through me making fun of his big headphones as he watches his med school lectures.....I can be brutal ; )

OK, the Mega M&Ms I was munching on are starting to make me sleepy--the down fall of a sugar high. I'll make sure to try and squeeze in some updates on the ever exciting happenings of my life when I can. That was a joke.

Here's a pic of me being maliciously attacked by my sister. She employed the debilitating face-smush manuever. Damn her.

Beauty and the Procrastinator

Why am I procrastinator?? I guess it is because I just don't work well until there is pressure. I have a 10 page paper on a Global Health issue due day after tomorrow and I just now printed out articles to read in order to write the paper. We've known about it since the first day of class.

It isn't like I've been sitting around not doing anything. I have been pretty darn busy over the past several weeks.

Katie's visit was a successful vacation and tour of "Winterland". She loved Ann Arbor and loved meeting all of my friends, along with experiencing the snow and cold. She's a trooper. We had a little gathering of friends on Friday night and I think everyone had a good time.....I drank too much wine on an empty stomach, so I'm hoping everyone had a good time because some things are a little fuzzy. Comments or complaints are gladly accepted :)

I was sitting at the bus stop today and it was lightly snowing, the flakes falling slowly and swirling around in the air. A few would drift onto my black down jacket and for the first time in my life I noticed the beauty of a single snowflake. Usually they all huddle together and create the nice fat flakes that I love--you know, the "pretty snow". I was amazed by the intricacy and detail and at the accuracy of the typical depictions of a snowflake seen this time of year in store windows and cut out of white paper. I just thought people were getting fancy. Mother nature is truly good.

This is my snowflake. Pretty, isn't it?

Pics from the "Katie Visit":

Party People
Me and Katie
Jess, Josh, and Me
Scared Katie : )