Boxing+Laser Quest Don't Mix

After a week that progressively got worse and worse as the week wore on, it was nice to have one of the better weekends I've had in a while to wipe that all away. According to my horoscope I was supposed to have a 5 star day Friday, but....didn't really happen. I had to stay late at work, making up for a colleague's mistake and then due to lack of communication, had to come in Saturday morning.
But, cue in some awesome friends and lots of eating. Dim sum with two of my bestest buddies on Saturday, and then one of the most delicious dinners ever with the family at Restaurant Kevin Taylor (restaurant week rules!) and then a thoroughly satisfying game of laser quest pretty much made up for all the work suckiness.
Although, unfortunately today I'm incredibly sore. Now, I know it's pathetic to be sore after one game of laser quest, of all things, but yesterday morning I did a round of boxing on the Wii Fit. I'm pretty sure that's what messed up my arms since I haven't done it in a while, and I could already feel the soreness coming on. But with all the adrenalin during the night's activities, I couldn't feel it again until this morning. My ribcage is kinda sore too, although I'm not sure where that all fits in. Maybe running in to all those people, I dunno. So I guess the lesson of the day was to not do any boxing before laser quest. Or you will be SORE-Y. Ok, another bad pun.
Today was also a nice chill way to end a good weekend: chilling and watching the Social Network, which actually was pretty decent, and ending with Chipotle. Mmm, the only bad thing about this weekend is that is has ended. And now it's back to work again to decontaminate my work bench, which is about as fun as it sounds, and takes about as long as the word is. Bummer.

Full Circle

The weird thing about education is how many circles you go through. You start as the freshman in high school, slightly confused and looking up, seeing you've got four years to spend here before you're part of the big guys on campus. The Seniors! And once that comes around and you graduate, you're back at the beginning: Freshies again! And it's three or four or five more years till you can happily brag about being a senior and almost done with college.
Getting ready for my third turn around the circle is even weirder. There were so many differences between high school and college that everything was still new and exciting, and I didn't mind being a college freshman. It was waaay better than being a senior, if you ask me. The freedom was invigorating. And a bit too intoxicating too, sometimes. But now, the differences between college and grad school isn't much, except I'm sure this time is gonna be a huge step up in intensity. But the rest is sort of the same: the nervousness of the uncertainty of where I'm going to end up, thinking about what to pack and what to leave behind (although this time I'm sure a much larger amount of things are going to get packed up as I'm sort of sure I'm not going to be permanently living at home anymore), and where I'm gonna live for four + years.
And now I've got to sit down and fill out my FAFSA for the first time since high school to boot. Ahhh loans!!!! Noooooooooo! Lol, it is about time, I suppose. I was super lucky my parents supported me so much, paying for my undergrad and even my housing, too. But now it's time to stand on my own two wobbly legs. Which means being massively in debt, but oh well.
Sometimes, I feel I didn't enjoy college as much as I could have. I didn't go out much, and actually didn't make any lasting friends, either. It was the weirdest thing; most of the friends I made in college were people I knew from high school but didn't hang out with. But I'm definitely hoping med school will be different. Hell, I'm way different. But with any circle and journey, I'm sure that's to be expected.

Although I didn't know her well, I'm so sorry to hear that Sam Taylor has passed away in Vietnam. We met on our spring break trip to California, as camp counselors at YMCA Camp Campbell. I will always remember her as Firefly, and how sweet and full of energy she was, especially on the long drive there and back.
And on a selfish note, it's just so sad and scary. I mean, we're young. This kind of thing shouldn't happen to us, we are at the age to look forward, and celebrate our lives. Not have everything stop so abruptly. I can't believe she's gone. It's definitely an eye-opening shocker, and it couldn't have happened to a nicer person. I will miss you for sure, Sam, even if we only hung out for a week.

Romantic Interruptions

It's a good thing my boyfriend and I aren't super big on Valentine's day, because the "holiday" (as about as loose of a term as possible) definitely didn't go as planned. Nothing like parents and exes to rain on the parade.

We decided to just do something low-key so we were planning on heading to Boulder to tour the Celestial Seasonings factory, since Morgan likes tea, and neither of us had been, despite living in Boulder for all that time. So just as we get up to Boulder, literally turning onto Baseline Rd, Morgan gets a call from his parents. Their car broke down (something is has apparently been threatening to do for a month) and Morgan needed to come and get them right away. So as soon as we got up to Boulder, we had to turn right around and go back to Aurora. Cue end of Boulder trip.

Well, that's ok, we still continued with our plans, watching the movie Red. Since we obviously finished way earlier than we had originally planned, we decided to just get dinner early. So, head to the restaurant we picked, only to find it closed. Ok, fine, time to pick an alternative. After deciding on pho, we head to the one on Mississippi. And about a quarter of the way through, who should come in but the one person who would make this "romantic" dinner the most awkward possible. Yep, cue ex-boyfriend and family. Who ended up sitting diagonally from us (we were sitting in the corner along one wall, and they sat along the other wall). Very, very awkward. But the whole thing was sort of comical, even I have to admit. It's one of those laws, I think, that when things don't come along as expected, they start to snowball in that way.

But the plans weren't over. Yesterday, we had dessert while watching the Avs game. And of course, who should ruin that plan but another old flame of mine, the Calgary Flames, my old hometown team (heh heh heh dumb pun). Yep, they came here and completely trashed the poor Avs, 9-1. What a sad showing, definitely a level of Valentine's Day Massacre.

So all in all, a Valentine's Day that we just had to laugh over how things just worked out. Of all the reasons, and people and circumstances it was just one of those days were you had to nod, and sigh, "Of course. Naturally this would happen now." So it's a good thing neither of us were all uber hyped for Feb. 14, and a good lesson learned to never do so in the future, lol.

Ocean Driving

Today is one of those days where I am so completely in love with Denver weather. 60 degree weather in February is just awesome, and even more so when it's melting all the snow. During the short trip from Wal-Mart to a friend's house, I didn't plug my radio back in since the ride was so short (I've got a somewhat old car, so it's got one of those stereos with a removable faceplate since the original stereo was basically a tape deck and really bad and non working radio). Because the snow is never plowed in neighborhoods, the sun was doing its job, melting all the snow on the road, turning it into slush and water. So during the drive, i was plowing through the water and some slightly damp roads, and it was just like driving through the ocean! I could hear the calming whooshing sounds and the occasional splash, and man did I want to be at a beach right then.
Although at the beach, I probably couldn't have red velvet cupcakes :)

Snoooooowwwww

Wow has it been one crazzzy winter! First no snow and the first green Christmas we've had in a while, and now it's snow. Warm melting snow weather. Then snow again. And frigid temperatures. It hasn't been so cold since I was in Canada!
But I guess the one good thing about it has been how much I've toughened up because of the snow. I used to be the biggest wimp about going out and driving in the snow. I would stay home for weeks to prevent driving around, or beg for rides. Now that I'm working,however, it was time to man up and get used to pumping the brake, driving slowly, and sliding around.
I'm proud to say that today I learned my lesson from Friday! A lot less panicking when sliding and definitely no giving in to the sort of peer pressure from drivers behind me to drive faster. Before, if I saw someone tailing me I would feel pressured to drive faster, get them off my back. But now, I sort of don't care. Sure, if that monster truck hit me, my poor little Accord would probably get the brunt end of it, but hey, at least it wouldn't be my fault.
Last Friday was the scariest, and man do I totally believe in guardian angels, watchful ancestors, everything, because someone/people up there were totally looking out for me and I am so totally grateful. I hit black ice on my way to work, started sliding out of my left hand lane into a car in the turn lane, then at the last second started sliding the other way, spinning perpendicularly into the middle lane. Seriously, I ended up almost horizontal facing the sidewalk! But luckily, no one was around due to the previous intersection being turned into a four way stop due to a light outage (another poor, unlucky person slid into a pole that fell into the traffic light). Normally there's plenty of people on Chambers, all on their way to work. I don't think that road has ever been so empty! So yes, super uber lucky! But all in all, a good lesson to NOT panic when I hit ice and slam on the break. Which was a good thing for me to remember today, when I slid again on my way to work, but this time on snow on Colfax. I wish they'd just plow the roads.
I love snow in the winter, but man am I glad for the "super warm weather" (newspaper's words, not mine) up ahead this weekend :)

The Joys of Childhood

Yesterday afternoon the Chow family sat and watched an old video of when my sister and I were kids. I was 2, and Tiff was around 4. It was absolutely hilarious, we both sounded something like the Chipmunks, and could get away with being so high-pitched shrill because we were so little. It was almost even cute.

Yep, I'm vain enough to admit it. I was hilariously cute at the age of two and a half. I would switch dominant hands constantly, follow my big sister around repeating everything she said, and would finger paint by kneading my hands together so that paint would coat both sides of my hands, and then "paint" by rubbing my hands like a windshield wiper across the middle of the paper. And then rub my nose and cheeks for good measure, too. I was so childishly dumb, my mom had to steer me around during an easter egg hung because i couldn't find any eggs. And whenever I found one I'd go and show my dad. I liked to run around around in circles and jump around a lot. Good times, good times. I can't believe how much patience parents have towards their hyperactive children. Amazing!! And also a huge reason I could never be a parent right now.

I always found it so weird that my parents videotaped everything, but now I guess I see their reasons why: hilarious and cheap entertainment for the future :)
The reminiscing wasn't too bad either.