Things I Love Thursday

Vacation - So I just got back Monday night from a lovely weekend in Los Angeles. From my own personal observations, everyone in California loves dogs, tattoos, avocados, and pot and they all dislike sunscreen. The weather was unusually cool and their was a freak hail storm Sunday afternoon but I really enjoyed my time and am grateful to Aaron for hosting me and schlepping me around all over the place (Hollywood, Santa Monica, Venice Beach, Pasadena, Alhombra). If you're a morbid freak like me, head to the Museum of Broken Relationships, it's pretty fascinating. Also, happy to meet new people and make new friends. Mostly though, just enjoyed geeking out with tons of Marvel movies and Star Wars and the Food Network. Highlights were the crazy enormous sushi feast Saturday night, the fact that I drank more wine in 72 hours than I have in the past four months, and Lindsay's killer burgers with goat cheese and caramelized red onions. 

Employment - Being jobless this year has been really hard on me, not just financially but also just mentally shaking my confidence and killing my motivation. I need a pretty set schedule and having loads of free time leaves me floundering and spending a lot of time saying I'll do it later. Thankfully, my department offered me two part-time assistantships this summer totaling 30 hours a week of work. I also got great news today because my advisor hand picked me out of the group of summer research assistants to work with. She has some great projects lined up to work together on this summer and she even wants me to work on publishing with her. So excited.

Puppies - In case you have not been following, I'm getting a new puppy. My aunt breeds English Cream Golden Retrievers and I had always planned on getting one to train as a therapy dog some day. Max (Maxwell Kermit, Seraphim of LOMAH) and I met just a week after he was born and had an instant connection. The pups couldn't see, hear, or even walk yet but he started army crawling straight for me the second I sat down. This litter was the namesake litter, named after those who are no longer with us, so Max was a no-brainer when I had to name him. Turns out some day is now. Since I decided to make the smart financial choice and stay here throughout the school year and internship, I'm in the best place to have the time to dedicate to a new dog and I'm also in the best location to be training a therapy dog. I'm sure my girls and I are in for quite an adjustment period with this giant fluffy white boy joining our ranks but I am so beyond thrilled that I get to call him mine. 

My sister - As many know from my sweeping Facebook declaration, my sister is my whole world. She is the most artistically talented person I know and every time the world throws a new obstacle at her she just punches it back in the face and keeps going anyway. Every paper topic I choose, every bit of research I do, is all chosen to help me understand her world a little better. She is the motivation under my butt to keep working toward this career goal and fighting the systemic problems that make her life more difficult in any way that I can. I've told a lot of people that lately, especially in practicum interviews when they ask me what got me here, and I think they understand that I'm not doing this for me so quitting and anything less than excellence is not an option.

Hard work paying off - So my school has the weirdest grading system consisting of F (fail), L (low pass of 75%-84%), P (pass of 84%-93%), and H (high pass of 93% or higher). Needless to say, it's really hard to get Hs in your classes and, being a crazy perfectionist, I'm not particularly happy with Ps even though they're still great grades. First semester was a terrible adjustment period for me and I didn't see a single H on my transcript which was disappointing to say the least. I have been busting my butt this semester and, out of the three grades that have been posted, I'm looking at all Hs. It's really rewarding to see that I'm actually getting somewhere when I'm working so darn hard.