Kick Ball!!!

Oh man I have joined a kickball league in Portland and it is 100% awesomeness!!! It includes a little bit of athletic ability, lots of teamwork and camaraderie, and even more BEER!!! We can even drink ON the field!!! So far we have a 2-2 record which for an almost entirely rookie team (with exception to our capitan) is not to shabby!!! If you are ever in Portland on a Thursday come check us out! This Saturday is our mid-season mixer, it is going to be awesome.....




I have also enclosed some pics from our outings at the bar!!!

It is so much fun even the pregnant girls get down!!!

The team (part of it atleast) after our first game, by this time we didn't care that we lost!!

Fruits & Veggies vs. Meat & Pies

Well as some of you may already know I have decided to do a 3 day strict fruit and veggie detox. After three days I can start implementing fish, brown rice, and oatmeal. After that I can start introducing things as I want them. I just felt that my diet wasn't what it should be and it was time to change things up and clean things out. So currently I am in day two!!! I am experiencing a few head aches which my Doctor warned me about, but also a lot of food cravings!!! Mostly I am craving sushi probably because I know I am going to go hit that up as soon as I can eat fish!!! But I was looking at my netflix movie list and read about a movie that had Kevin Bacon in it, so I started craving bacon, this morning I woke up craving a big hunk of cheese!! Don't get me wrong I am enjoying the fruits & veggies (eating a delicious pear right now) but they are not what I would consider a meal. For dinner last night I had a plum, and a bowl of edemame, and for dessert was watermelon, a delicious meal and thanks to the nalgene of water I drank with it I was full. I am hoping that the cravings will start to subside once I can eat more proteins and whole wheats. So I just have to remind myself, only one more day to go!!!

SATC

Well finally it is almost May 30th and the Sex and The City movie opens!! My sister-in-law and I have made plans to watch the movie in the afternoon on Friday and then head over to this great place in Portland to get foot massages, then it is off to dinner!!! What a great plan huh!!! I love Sex and The City, I only watched it on DVD this past year but it was wonderful. I can't wait to see what the movie has in store for us!!!!

Where has the time gone?

Well I have taken the GRE and I have that under my belt now so when I take it again I know more what to expect. I have found a couple of graduate programs that I am interested in, but I am also looking at a couple different options right now. It seems like I haven't even had a second to breath over the past six weeks, but now as I sit to write I can't think of a thing. I am beginning to think of my travel plans for '09. I am excited for the possibilities of having the time and being able to visit my friends and family all over the US and still be able to go on at least one international trip. Cairo is on my list this upcoming year, as well as Ohio, and finally my Mom and I are going to take that trip to Savannah, Georgia that we have been talking about for a couple years. I have one trip left this year, and it takes place in Northern Europe in August. I am looking forward to this trip with a combination of hesitation and excitement, believe me it is a long story.

It seems like just last month I was visiting Mckenzie in South Africa and waking up each morning making our French press coffee, and eating our GIANT bowls of cereal while trading Zoe back and forth. When I arrived there I thought 3 weeks was so long, however by the end, I felt like I had just started to get used to life there. I knew it would be at least 4 months before I saw them again, now she could be out here as early as next month! Time just seems to fly by lately. My boss (also my mom) took 6 weeks off of work which now seems like yesterday, but she is back at work today. Someone recently told me "You can do anything for two years". What I don't think that person had any idea of was how seriously I am considering joining the Peace Corp. The length of service just happens to be two years!! It is true though, think of how many of us never thought high school would end and by your senior year you were wondering where the time went. That is what happened to me, but the time only seemed to speed up in college. At the beginning of the year we would be thinking how long this year would be, and by the end we would all be surprised at how we had accomplished everything we set out to do and so much more than we ever thought possible.

Considering how quickly time flies by I have been thinking of different adventures and challenges I want to face and over come in the upcoming months, and years. First on the list I really want to climb a mountain. While I have many other ideas and goals for myself I am starting with this one!!!! So hopefully this August I will be on the South Sister in Oregon, and have my first mountain under my belt.

Time really does fly by, and remember to savor the choices that you make, and for goodness sakes sometimes you just have to JUMP!!!!!!!!!!!

Studying for the big test

Rather than just buying flash cards with vocabulary words on them, I decided to up the study time efficiency and go ahead and get flash cards with vocab AND math!!! I know it blew my mind too!! It turns out I remember nothing about math, the good news, my vocab isn't as bad as I originally thought. So as I am reading these math flash cards, I start reading about polynomials, binomials and monomials and I am hoping that whatever they are talking about isn't contagious when I realize this is all stuff I am supposed to know. I wish I had my professor from college back because I know I learned all this stuff from him and he was great. Now I am left wondering what I did with all those notes from school, I know I kept them somewhere!!!

No worries though because while I was buying the flash cards I also purchased a few books, because I can't resist. So now my one week of study/prep time will be split between reading and actually studying!! **Note to self, try and focus on one thing, multi-tasking only slows you down..
I picked up a couple books, but one of them was "The Alchemist" which I have heard of and was excited it ended up right in front of my face, so that I could remember I wanted to read that (haha).

And finally on a political note I believe I have finally figured out who I am going to vote for. Lets just hope this person makes it on the ballot. I don't know if you guys have voted in your local primaries or if they have happened yet but it is pretty big news that Oregon is even holding its primary let alone that people are actually paying attention. I regrettably will not be partaking in this event seeing as how Oregon has a closed (or open) primary which means that only registered Dem., or Rep. can vote in the primary and seeing as how I am not registered as either I am waiving my chance to vote. So I am entrusting others with this decision, because well lets face it I think I know who I like but anyone is better than what we have now!!!!!!

Ok against ALL odds I have somehow managed to post a picture!! I can hear your applause thank you, thank you!! Now in this picture you won't see ANY of the people I went to visit in South Africa or the cutest baby that I fell in love with. But you will see the lovely Kathy who is on the right sitting next to me, and Leslie sitting on the left. Kathy was nice enough to take me out on the town to NuBar where I met a TON of new people. Including the nice ladies in black sitting with us at the table. Julien who is a very attractive rugby player, sorry ladies Kathy called dibs on him. I met many many more people however I don't remember all their names. But it was a great evening and I had loads of fun!!!!

GRE

Ok so first of all I want to say I don't think that I was meant to ever post pictures on my blog. That being said I am NOT going to give up. First it was the web browser that I was using in South Africa, then it was me ALWAYS forgetting my camera cord to hook it up to my computer, now blogger says there is an error!! That sound you hear is my head hitting the desk, over and over again!!

where was I? Oh ya..........

So yesterday I did it, after two years (actually ALOT more) of talking about it and and putting it off, weighing my options, wondering what I wanted, blah blah blah, I finally bit the bullet and registered for the GRE. This is the first step in a long line of steps in order to get me on the road to my masters. I think this is just the thing I need to push past the mental block that has kept me in the waffling stages. I am most worried about my vocabulary (wait is there a math part, crap that is what I am most worried about), sometimes my vocabulary leaves me .........wanting a bit more. So if your in the mood to help or you get the urge to try and stump me, go ahead and send me an email with a word of the day. You don't even have to know what the word means. When I bought my first GRE study books (yes it was when I was living in Denver) I made up note cards and posted them around my apartment with the vocab they said I would need to know. Lets just say, I will not Abate the importance of this test even though I Abhor standardized test taking.... Ya, I didn't get past the middle of the "A's". I am sure I will be fine though. I still have a solid 3 weeks before my test.

Wish me luck....