Good News and Bad News, + the Daily Review.

Good News: Finally took the walking class at the humane society so now I can walk dogs out on the field instead of just the tiny gated area! Today I got to meet dogs Lucy and Annie. Lucy is a cute ass black dog that is full of hyper and energy but is the sweetest thing ever. Then there's Annie, who is a female Jack Russell Terrier and very shy but sweet to anyone that approaches her.

Bad News: I just met Lucy and Annie today and they got adopted! BOTH OF THEM TODAY!! And also Patterson (see earlier post) who I was thinking about adopting actually, and Salsa, a soft and awesome beagle mix. I guess this is really a good thing, but it's sad to me because I'll never see them again. I'm really getting too attached to these shelter dogs, sigh.

So today I did that and I also went to my first ASR meeting after a long ass time. I met approximately 17 new faces! It was awkward at first because I had forgotten how the meetings go, and plus I didn't know like half the sorority! It was good to see old faces though and meet new ones.

And I also paid a long awaited visit to Mr. Gregory (the gym). Was still able to run a mile without stopping, after 2 months of not running! I'm impressed. I did however, run it 1.5 minutes slower than usual. Damnit. I need to get my mile time down again.

A plan, to rid of boredom.

Since yesterday was so useless, I've decided to come up with an actual PLAN today to remedy boredom. Today I am going to:
-go volunteer at the spca from whenever I get there to close (5pm, it's closing early today!)
-after, go to the pharmacy and turn in my recommendation letter to Al
-pick up some toilet paper while I'm there
-go eat somewhere.. wherever is open! It's not too bad today so I'm hoping businesses will be open again today.

Now all that stuff will take up my time until about 6:30 or 7pm. What shall I do all night then????

Well, my professor for his350L, biology since Darwin, finally emailed us today. He has assigned us 5 chapters to read from Darwin's Origin of the Species, which is written in old style English. So I'll get to battle that monster for a few hours tonight. Then also I can study for my communications class too, even though I don't think I have the right book.

Yay, A plAN! Let's see how far I can get with Darwin though. Eesh.

I knew this would happen sooner or later.

There's this really cute dachshund/terrier mix at the SPCA named Patterson. He's reddish brown, quiet, and very cute. I haven't had the chance to play or walk with him yet because he is color-coded a level higher than I am, so I'm not allowed to do so yet. But today I pet him through his cage and opened the door a little to pet him more. He put his paws over my hand and it was the cutest thing ever. [picture from austin human society site.]

And now I want to bring him home. Damnit... I knew this was going to happen.

There's also another cute chihuahua mix there named Lenny that's my color level so I've walked and played with him a lot. He is the sweetest thing ever and loves playing with toys. I like him a lot too but he has an awkward butt. Also he's kind of small for Tequila to play with (he seems so fragile that Tequila could break him if she pounced on him) and doesn't seem like the type to play well with other dogs. He's very sweet though - I hope he gets adopted into a good home soon. [picture from austin human society site.]

As I was heading toward the SPCA today there was ice EVERYWHERE! Yay, winter is FINALLY here. I've been waiting for cold weather for the longest time. Now I can put my cute furry boots to good use! I was worrying about it staying warm and me spending money on boots that I would never get to wear.

I think they're going to cancel classes tomorrow and I'm kind of sad about that. Call me a nerd, but I like school. And plus, cancelling classes also means they;re going to take away a day of holidays from spring break or something. So really, there's nothing to be happy about because we still have to make it up one way or another.

I'm still deciding whether or not to do undergraduate research. With it, my schedule becomes very full and I'm going to be waking up every day at 10AM (I'm NOT a morning person). Without it, I'd only have 1 class on Mondays and Wednesdays (see picture below, you can click on it to enlarge too). Every research thing is in red on the schedule below. See how uncluttered and free it would be without it? Thursdays and Saturdays times are exchangable. For example, on one week if I worked Saturday 2-7, then I wouldn't be working on Thursday 3-7. Same thing vice versa. But still...*SIGH. It sounds like a cool research project though - it has to do with FROGS! And I've never done a research project at UT even though I've wanted to for awhile, plus it would help me out with my animal behavior class. Ahh, decisions, decisions..

I also might add more volunteer hours to the schedule because I really like working at the SPCA, and 2 hours/week is the minimum.

Also today on the way to SPCA I went to Starbucks to get coffee and ran into my brother. That was the awkwardest moment I've had in awhile. It's just weird to see him back in Austin as a student. Oh well, I guess it'll be fun. Free food at the Castillian!
:)

Hands on with cute sweet dogs, awesome.

Had my one-on-one at the SPCA today. The dogs are sooo sweet and cute!! I can't wait to go back again, but Bao keeps getting allergy attacks so it prevents us from staying a long time. Poor Bao. I can just imagine how much allergies must suck - it's almost as bad as an autoimmune disease. And there's no way to really combat allergies; it is just your immune system overreacting to normal things, so the ultimate cure would just be to knock out your immune system to prevent these overreactions, but then you would have no defense against deleterious pathogens. You would have to live in a bubble or something or face the other consequence: death. So basically, that isn't even an option even though it would indefinitely stop you from having allergic reactions.

Good thing there's like 4 different types of antihistamines out on the market that Bao can try. Let's see there's allegra (fexofenadine), zyrtec, clarinex, claritin (loratidine) and I am pretty sure there are more that I just can't think of off the top of my head. One day we'll find the right one for him.

Anyway back to the dogs. It's awesome there just like I had imagined. The other volunteers are nice, some dogs cuddle with you and you leave feeling a better person.

Since we were around the area I got to try Arby's for the FIRST time. It was pretty good! I can see why the Girls Next Door (that E! show where they film the girlfriends of Hugh Hefner) like Arby's. MmmMm... I tried the market fresh sandwich and it was way better than a lot of other sandwich places out there, which is kind of sad because Arby's is a fast food joint, not a sandwich place. Oh well, good for them.

Tomorrow we're going back to Houston for 2 days to get our eyes checked, new contacts, and new glasses because I just ran out of my last contact and Bao has a tear in one of his contacts and it is driving him crazy. And by crazy I mean cranky (he even said so!). Other things I need to do while I'm in Houston are..

-finish my applications by the end of this week
-buy some sunglasses (DIOR?? :] Am I willing to throw $300 down for a pair??)
-eat some damn dimsum (We never woke up in time to eat dimsum over winter break! How sad is that?!?!)
-watch Pursuit of Happyness (Yes I STILL haven't seen it since I last listed it as a to-do item.)

But before all this I am going to go cuddle with the sweetest and most loving dog ever: Tequila.

Introducing..the newest BRATT of ASPCA!.....and some other things.

I really wanted to make Kevin's dinner party at Iron Cactus last night, which he pushed back from 6pm to 8pm just for me but I had work from 2-9pm. When I got off at 9pm I rushed home, changed, scooped Bao and was ready to leave the apartment around 9:30 and I called Kevin but he said they were about to leave. :( So me and Bao just went to eat at Bennigan's and I drank a lovely peach bellini there and he had 2 margaritas. The bellini hit me kind of strong while the 2 margarita's didn't hit Bao until later. After dinner we hit up wal-mart for some last minute cookie ingredients that I had left in Houston. Then we came home and...

I baked the best Snickerdoodles ever! Yes, they are even better than my past attempt at making them. Mmm, they were a lot fluffier and a lot less dough-ier if that makes sense. I wonder what I did differently? Maybe sifting the dry ingredients all the way through really DOES make a difference. Anyway this time I yielded a lot more because I knew how to manage/bake them better and I gave some to the guys at the pharmacy and am going to give some to birthday boy Kevin. Mm there's even soem left over for me and Bao to get even fatter on.

My snickerdoodles are getting popular. I already have a request for them from STEPHANIE! yay, that makes me feel baker -competent! Yes I will bake some for you Steph, whenever I have time to venture up to Dallas. Maybe I should ship some to you :)

Today I finally had my SPCA orientation and it was great! I really didn't want to go at first because it was at 9 in the morning, meaning I'd have to wake up at 8am just to get ready. But I dragged myself out of bed to shower and walked Tequila in the cold and now I am glad that I am. The 4 hour orientation passed by fast - it didn't even seem like 4 hours. The volunteer coordinators gave us a tour, lots of information, and a little hands-on training with 2 dogs. The only bad thing is that we can't play/walk the dogs as volunteers until we have our one-on-one, and the sheet came to me and Bao last so all the good spots were taken. We have to wait until Monday for an available spot..but I can't wait until I finish my one-on-one on Monday so I can finally REALLY volunteer. The dogs are so sweet and cute and just want to socialize there. I hope this volunteering won't make me adopt five new dogs, because Tequila would hate that.

Wow, (relatively) long time no update! eeek.

Wow it's already been 3 days since I've updated. That's kind of awkward, considering that I updated so much last month. I guess these few days have been a little more hectic. Ever since New Year's day I haven't really had time to have a meaningful update. And I really hate updating with a sorry, short, good-for-nothing type of update that just kind of wastes your time.

New Year's Day was spent preparing for our voyage back to Austin, which included running errands here and there to get last minute Houston stuff because who knows when we could find time to even go back. Then after we got back into Austin I didn't have much time before I had to sleep because I had work on Tuesday at 12 noon. Then work lasted until 9pm, and I was really tired because I had really forgotten what it felt like to work such long shifts.

Then Wednesday I had another long shift, 12-9, and was too tired when I came home again. Basically, it was just a repeat of Tuesday. And tonight is pretty much the same, except I have to wake up even earlier tomorrow so I haven't really slept yet since I got off work tonight.

Nothing big has happened and I don't have much to write about I suppose. This Saturday I'm going to start volunteering at the SPCA hopefully as a dog walker. I'm pretty excited about that, except that the orientation starts butt freaking early at 9AM. Tomorrow I have to wake up fairly early to go wait in line at the DPS to get a new license since I lost my unexpired one. I went through a lot of trouble to make sure that my license wasn't suspended, including paying off a hefty ass $457 old citation ticket. *sigh, that's a lot of money there.

Wow, my life sounds so mundane. But I really like the start of 2007 so far. Things aren't as chaotic and life is extremely comfortable. :]