cats!

as i mentioned in my last post, we have 3 stray cats that live in our area. i started leaving food out a while ago and now they're pretty much regulars. we've named them and managed to take pictures of all of them as well. they're fun to watch and help me not miss my own little fluff ball back home. (note: we haven't managed to get close enough to determine if any of these are male or female so they all have gender neutral names)

this is spooky.  spooky was the first to come hang out at our house and now stops by just about every afternoon when we get out of class. spooky is also the bravest of the cats. the first time he came by, i had the back door open while i was in the kitchen filling up the bowl with water and he took a few steps inside! he'll also let us sit in front of the door and watch him eat. he probably thinks we're insane. spooky is my favorite because he reminds me of my old kitty, ebony. he also has a bite out of the top of his left ear, probably from a fight, so i just want to keep the little bugger so he can have a safe home.

this is our latest addition, teenie (alternatively called tiny). we first saw him near another house down the street from us and he looked like a little kitten. now that we've gotten a closer look at him, he's definitely not as tiny as we first thought. he's not as brave as spooky is. he'll let us get close but you have to be really sneaky about it. if he does get scared and run off, he'll come back a few minutes later. we also think he may be the offspring of the next cat.

 roly-poly is the largest and the most skittish of the 3 cats. that's why this picture is so bad. this is the closest we could manage to get to him. he also only shows up to eat later at night and will run off if you use flash. he will bolt if he so much as suspects that you might be looking at him. i think he may have been a  house cat at one point but was probably abused. he likes to sleep behind the house that's next to us so you can sometimes see him when you're coming back from class if you're quiet enough.

our last visitor is not a cat. robin hood is a fox who has been by twice. apparently foxes also like to eat cat food. we haven't managed to get a picture of him yet but i'll post it as soon as we do.

this one's for heather

i feel like i should write something but there hasn't been much going on to write about. life has basically been filled with tests, tests, cats, and, oh yes, more tests. i guess i can talk about the cats. BUT FIRST i need to talk about heather.

heather is a whiney little brat my bcff which, if you recall stands for "best chemistry friend forever." she kindly informed me that there is a severe lack of mentions of her in this blog. so here it is. AN ENTIRE POST DEDICATED TO YOU. congratulations. you are the first person to have one of my blog posts dedicated to her. you even beat out my mom to that privilege.

most of you are probably wondering "who the crap is this heather person?" i will tell you.

name: heather marie (last name omitted so that anyone who sees her awesomeness will have a harder time stalking her. although you can email me if you really, really want to stalk her and i'll give you her address)

date of birth: may 31

astrological sign: gemini

chinese zodiac sign: ox

origins: utah

religion: eh, no thanks

occupation: does stuff with xrays, MRIs and other imaging stuff from doctors.

major: double major, thank you very much. biology and anthropology

guilty pleasure: katy perry

likes: coffee, me, gourmandise, trashy celeb magazines

dislikes: chemistry, rhianna, our quant analysis TA, CHEMISTRY

significant other: well, me but she's filling the gaping whole i left with some guy named jesse. whatever.

favorite color: i actually don't know. if i had to guess, i'd say green.

favorite ice cream: i got her ben & jerry's one time...i think it was the coffee heath bar crunch. i could be wrong, though.

hobbies: visiting coffee shops with me and critiquing them (based on the quality of coffee/hot chocolate, quality of other patrons, supply of trashy celeb magazines, music playing)

obviously, this is not everything there is to know about heather. just the stuff i can think of right now. so there you go. i hope your day has been brightened.

the help

The Help by Kathryn Stockett
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

i'm still not sure how i feel about this book. it was decent but it definitely was not as earth-shattering as some seem to think. it is definitely NOT on the level of "to kill a mockingbird." i feel like the author wanted to write a book about every controversial issue during the time period. what she managed to do was to touch on a lot of things but none of them very deeply. the ending felt abrupt and too convenient. i was honestly expecting this to be a tragedy that would have me crying but that definitely did not happen. i think my review of this book would have been better if i had not had such high expectations from the start. as just a work of fiction it is good enough but not as some great social commentary.

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one month later...

so much for keeping this updated while traveling. oops! i didn't realize just how tiring it is to drive across country in 3 days, especially through some of the more "different" areas of the country (ex. missouri). but now i'm here in georgia and i've been loving it! it's the weirdest feeling but i feel like i've known many of my classmates my whole life and not for just a few weeks. i feel like i just belong here. i haven't even really had a problem with being homesick except for the first day after my parents left. i've just been too busy to dwell on how much i miss home.
i feel like i should be complaining about how busy and hard school is but quite honestly, i'm not that stressed. i'm having the time of my life out here and i find the classes quite enjoyable. i'm glad that i got my bachelor's in chemistry before starting, though, and did more than the minimum requirements of prerequisite courses. it's made things a WHOLE lot easier, especially in biochem and anatomy/pathophysiology. the rest of my courses are pretty easy thanks to my experience in the field (thank you gibsons!). i'm just a little nervous that having things too easy right now will make me lazy for when things get harder in the future. but i'll deal with that when it comes.
besides school, i stay busy by getting used to the city and settling in with a new group of friends. i'm used to being fairly antisocial because i knew that i already had all my friends and i knew i could get together with them whenever i wanted. i don't have that luxury here so i have to force myself out of my comfort zone. otherwise, it will just be me dealing with myself all day every day and that is a good way to drive myself insane.
i miss and love everyone back home! i enjoy getting emails and letters, even if i don't reply with lengthy novels as my mother has come to find out. i know i don't keep in touch as much as she'd like but i figure that's a good sign because it means i'm establishing myself here and not having homesickness hold me back.
i'll try to write again later this week. no tests for the P1 students so we're partying all week! (not really, mom. don't worry. i'm not drinking or anything.) keep safe everyone!

KITTEHS!

so basically i'm completely emotionally drained after today. plus i have to be up in roughly 6 hours to drive 10-12 hours tomorrow. yaaaay. i leave you with this piece of adorableness (wow, spell check recognizes that as a word) to help ease the pain of my leaving.

i think i need a new town

one more day to go until i leave.
last night i went out to dinner with some of my close friends to say goodbye and then tonight i went to red mango with another who was in wyoming yesterday. i also said goodbye to everyone at work today.
i'm pretty proud that i managed to hold off the tears for as long as i did. but as soon as i heard natalie start sniffling when she was hugging me, i lost it. pretty much i've been crying on and off ever since. the one blessing in all of this is that i've been too busy to make myself too nervous or panicky.
i'm sure i'll have another post tomorrow night with more tears and then i'll try and take pictures and update while on the road.
one quick thing: if you look up at the top of this page, right under the banner, it has a couple links, "the posts" and "the muffin." i can add more pages to the blog but i don't know what to put there! if anyone has ideas, let me know. i know some people put lists of things they want to do during their life but honestly my list is pretty short and pathetic right now. maybe a list of books i own and need to read? or pictures of something? i don't know. i'll ponder it. maybe a calendar so my mom will know what i'm up to all the time. :p

the demon girl

Demon Girl by Penelope Fletcher

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


i'm torn on what to give this book. for starters, the concept is AMAZING and for the most part the storyline and characters are intriguing. you start off thinking it's going to be the same old love triangle with the girl whining about how hard it is to have two boys love you and blah blah blah but rae is actually a really strong character and you can see her feelings for both boys, making her seem more sincere. one of the smaller details i thought was really interesting was how fletcher mentions in passing that since humans were almost wiped out, they've had to set religions and races aside and band together, leading to one "religion" and a community where everyone has a similar skin tone with small variations. thinking about it, it's true that this would likely happen. i've never read anything like this in any other apocalyptic/dystopian novels.
okay, now for the bad stuff. as amazing as the story is, it's really frustrating to be in the middle of a good part and have to go back and re-read a sentence several times due to a grammatical/spelling error. i don't think fletcher had anyone edit this and if she did, she needs to fire them and find someone else for her next books. here are a couple of examples that really bothered me:
"There were few people wandering around who were not emancipated looking, and it was usually a sure sign the person was a Priest or related to one. Only they could afford to eat enough to be anything other than thin."
the word she means to use is EMACIATED. emancipated means a sort of freedom, no longer being constrained by custom or tradition.
"The class divided up into little clicks and Ro came over."
clicks are noises. cliques are groups of people who share common interests or personalities.
i'm not quite ready to give up on her and i'm hoping the next novel shows drastic improvements in her spelling and grammar, although the preview chapter at the end of this book doesn't seem promising.



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