why hello there!

Happy 2011 beautiful people!  I can't believe another whole year has begun again! Honestly though, being on a school schedule for the past few years makes me feel like I should celebrate the new year in May.  This past May was "D1 year is over, bring on D2 year!"  This coming May will be "let's celebrate D3 year!"  Anyway, I know that is has been two whole months (!) since my last update, and for that I apologize.  I had many loyal readers hounding me for new updates.  I promise, I heard you!  However, since blogging doesn't pay the bills (well, neither does dentistry...yet), it had to take a backseat to more important things...like school...and vacation.  So here are a few highlights from the past 2 months...

The beginning of November was the wrap up of my fall quarter here at school.  It was mostly unremarkable, with lots of projects and tests crammed into a very short time frame.  On top of all that, I was working extra hard on putting together a research presentation for the Arizona Physiological Society meeting.  I think the presentation ended up going pretty well.  It was incredibly intimidating to present to a room full of people with PhDs that know far more about physiology than I can ever learn.  And, I was the only person that was not presenting a long-term research project that was a part of on-going (2 year) thesis work.  I feel like it made me stick out a little compared to the other students presenting, because I could not go into theory and experimental changes, because we haven't spent that much time with the project yet...maybe 10 weeks tops!  However, my research advisor was pleased with my presentation; so, all in all, it was a good experience.

There was some serious paparazzi at this meeting.  They snapped photos during the entire presentation.  I don't think this is the most flattering picture, but it gives you an idea of what I did.

Less than 24 hours after finals were over, I was on a plane on my way to Puerto Rico to meet my family for a Caribbean cruise.  I simply don't have enough space on this blog to share all my wonderful photos from the trip, but the highlights are posted on facebook.  I highly suggest you go check them out.  The new photo at the top of the blog is from St. Lucia.  (I normally post Arizona scenery pictures there to go along with the blog title, but this one was too pretty to pass up.  Even though January in Arizona is pretty nice, especially when compared to Chicago, nothing beats an ocean view.  So this January, that is where I'll be dreaming I am!)

After the cruise, I spent a week back in Chicago visiting family, seeing friends, going to dentist's appointments, and wrecking my parent's Cadillac.

The winter quarter of D2 year started out with a bang.  We had exactly 3 1/2 weeks of class in between Thanksgiving and Christmas break and they crammed SO MUCH IN!  Honestly, the schedule kicked my butt a little bit, which was why there was such a long absence of posts.  I was pulling several 12 hour days each week to get my projects done.  Even though I was getting decent grades, it felt like I never had enough time to devote the proper attention to all the things that needed to get done.  Also, there were lots of holiday festivities planned, so they filled in the little free time I had.  There was the annual tacky Christmas sweater party.  The dean dressed up as Santa and 2 professors dressed up as an elf and a reindeer, and the whole lot came riding in on a golf cart.  After handing out candy to the little kids, they posed for photos with the students.  Mindi, Kim, and I took a picture, and I thought it was pretty funny.  There was all sorts of other holiday fun, such as a cookies exchange, secret santa exchange cookie decorating party, and "Christmas dinner" at Buca di Beppo.  (We sat in the Pope room!  See him on the table?)

Dr. W as Rudolph, Dr. G as Santa, and Dr. C as an elf!

I had SO MANY COOKIES after this cookie exchange.  Too much of a good thing can be bad!

This picture from the tacky sweater party makes me laugh because nobody is paying attention.  We just grabbed whichever classmate happened to be walking by and got them in the picture!

I spent one very cold week back in Illinois, where I did get to see a very white Christmas.  Luckily, all of the snow had melted with a big warm-up right before New Years (50 degrees!), so I was able to enjoy a night in the city with my friend Kathleen seeing the Zoolights in Lincoln Park Zoo.

And here I am back in Arizona, having completed one full week back in class.  In that time, I have had 2 major tests and a competency.  This weekend was pretty miserable.  It started alright...I completed my projects Friday night and got a fair amount of studying done.  Saturday morning, I got up early to attend a Zumba class with Allie and Allison.  I was a lot of fun until I pulled a muscle in my back.  By the time we finished breakfast (that we ate outside on a patio...be jealous), I hurt SO bad I could barely move.  Most of the drugs I had in my medicine cabinet did not help the pain.  However, the body has some pretty amazing healing abilities, so I am feeling much better now (also thanks to some aleve).  To top it off, I was forced to sit around and study for my big pharmacy test all weekend.  SO AWFUL.  Luckily, now that the test is over, the rest of the week shouldn't be too bad, especially since I have a fun weekend planned!  I'm going to LA!  Back in October, Southwest Airlines had a huge sale and I was able to snag a $60 roundtrip ticket to California.  I'm staying with my friend Jen, and I expect to have a very fun weekend.  That's about all for now.  I've officially been working on this post for 2 hours...so much for going to bed early!  Anyway, I'll try and be better about posting, although I am not making any promises.  If this quarter continues to go the way the first 5 weeks have, you might not see me until spring break!  Adios!