9-25

    Friday a.m. I had my first test of grad school!, in Analytical Chemistry.  Tons of material to review and learn and I started getting prettttty anxious on Thursday afternoon.  Despite my hopes to study smart and follow a nice plan I devised on Tuesday a.m., unplanned diversions and my nerves just didn't allow me to stay calm like I would have liked to.  I was able to quiet my mind enough to sleep a few hours by tacking up stickynotes with formulas and diagrams just inches from my sleeping head.

No, those aren't inspirational quotes on my headboard.  Snapshot of a late night spent worrying studying.

After the exam I felt exhausted. Accordingly, I kicked off my weekend pretty early at 3:00 by heading over to the Rec for a jog and a flexibility-focused Power Yoga class, which was really creatively-led.  I went up and talked to the instructor, Esther, and she said she was so happy to get to share all the cool things she learned from practicing at a yoga school in Korea this past summer.  I enjoyed a deelish mango smoothie and got to catch up a bit with Stephen.  In the evening I got in some good laughs, watching Best in Show (Netflix is my bff--even though movie tix only cost $4 in this town!).

Saturday I socialed it up--a Welcome New Oceanography Grad Students backyard meet & greet in the afternoon (g0d, was it hot!!) where I got to have great chats with a bunch of prof's, play with my advisor's son in the pool, and meet my fellow students a bit more..and then an Epic Shindig bday party, attended by the same grad students (but not any prof's!).  The birthday boy turned 25, which he greeted warmly as "that great age of characters in sitcom's."  I began really practicing my Spanish with several of my new friends who are native speakers, hailing from Ecuador and Colombia.

Today I slept late and just stayed in, doing all my favorite things: reading magazines, steeping things in my french presses, listening to my fav artists on Pandora radio. I learned several new words in The New Yorker, my favorite of which is "saturnine: dark in coloring/moody and mysterious," used to describe a painting by Cezanne.  I read about and then investigated youtube for videos of the amazing StrandBeests of Theo Janson. So so cool.

I went over to the gym next door and watched re-runs of SNL--from like 1999, very funny!  And this evening I'm having a pizza &  movie night!  Probably another French film from the 1970s era, or an opposites-attract romcom.

PIZZA of the brocolli garlic caramalized onions & olive oil variety