Josh is in the middle of a two-week (possibly longer) stint out of town for work. When I whined about how he was going to be gone for Valentine’s Day, his response was, “Well, I’m going now so that I can be back for your birthday.”
Right. Done complaining now.
So I’m trying to line up some fun things to do over the long weekend. I debated trying to find a cheap flight to somewhere, but nothing really looked good, and I figured that most of my friends wouldn’t want a third wheel on their dates this weekend anyway. Plus, I figured it would be a good time to finish my taxes, unpack the rest of our boxes, work on some wedding stuff, and figure out what I’m doing with my professional life. You know, easy stuff.
But back to the fun part—tonight is dinner and Guitar Hero with Glenn and Phil. Getting together with Ann and seeing a movie with Paul will land somewhere on Saturday or Sunday, I think. I might hit up the outlet mall for some new work clothes, and I’ve been itching to get out of town to do some hiking or sightseeing or something. I predict I’ll be slightly sick of flowers and veils and centerpieces by Monday morning.
Showing posts with label weekend. Show all posts
Showing posts with label weekend. Show all posts
Friday, February 13, 2009
Sunday, February 11, 2007
The prom
Last night was our company's Social Gala - too late to be called a Christmas party, but too early to really be a Spring Fling. So it's affectionately known as the company prom. Anyway, it was at the Boston Courthouse, which was really beautiful. We weren't allowed to bring cameras to the event though, so no pictures. :( A bunch of us Fellows - grad students whose research is being sponsored by the company, like me - went to the event together to take advantage of the all-you-can-eat buffet and to watch our advisors dance to Celebration by KC and the Sunshine Band and other standard wedding reception songs. We giggled a bit at the dancing, but hey, none of us looked particularly good out there, regardless of age, and we were all having a good time. It was when the kissing started during Marvin Gaye's Let's Get it On that we decided it was time to go.
Since we were all dressed up and it was only 11pm, we decided to go to Top of the Hub, which is the restaurant at the top of the Prudential Center. When we got to the Pru however, the hostess on the ground floor told us that the wait to get on the elevator was about 30-40 minutes, and the kitchen and bar close at midnight. By this time it was already almost 11:30, so we decided to skip it and just go to another bar down the street. I spent a ridiculous amount of money last night though, between the ticket and the drinks and the cab... can't do the prom every weekend.
Oh, and I was able to wear my contacts the entire night! My eyes were kind of dry by the time I went to bed, but it was hard to determine how much of that was from the contacts and how much of that was just from the fact that it was 1am...
Since we were all dressed up and it was only 11pm, we decided to go to Top of the Hub, which is the restaurant at the top of the Prudential Center. When we got to the Pru however, the hostess on the ground floor told us that the wait to get on the elevator was about 30-40 minutes, and the kitchen and bar close at midnight. By this time it was already almost 11:30, so we decided to skip it and just go to another bar down the street. I spent a ridiculous amount of money last night though, between the ticket and the drinks and the cab... can't do the prom every weekend.
Oh, and I was able to wear my contacts the entire night! My eyes were kind of dry by the time I went to bed, but it was hard to determine how much of that was from the contacts and how much of that was just from the fact that it was 1am...
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Virginia weekend
Last Friday I had another interview with a company in Virginia that I used to work for as a summer intern. It's been several years since I was back there, but it was really nice to see so many of my former coworkers. I got a lot of, "Melanie! Are you back??" "No, just interviewing..."
Any nervousness I had about the whole thing disappeared after my conversation with the second person I interviewed with. I had asked what to expect in this process after my interview today, like when I should expect to hear back from them, and what would happen if I liked both groups I was interviewing with and they both liked me. His response: "Let me just tell you now - unless you punch someone in the face this morning, you're going to get an offer from us."
I convinced the company's travel office to let me stay until Sunday morning instead of flying back on Friday afternoon, so I got to spend the rest of the weekend with Josh. On Friday, we went out to dinner with Phil and Glenn at the Boulevard Woodgrill, then stuck around the area to grab a beer and then go to a party that Josh's friend was throwing. The theme of the party was white trash, and everyone got really into it, so we drank Milwaukee's Best and ate Slim Jims and peanuts. Everyone had dressed the part too. Everyone, that is, except us. It's remarkable how out of place you can feel in normal clothes when everyone else is wearing ripped up wifebeaters, ratty sweatpants or shorts, construction boots, and enormous hoop earrings. One girl even came with a fake pregnant belly.
Saturday was a lot less interesting. I worked on my thesis, Josh worked on his homework, we ran some errands, and we watched the final episode of Band of Brothers. I haven't started the book yet, but I think I have to retract my statement about the book always being better than the movie. First of all, this series is 10 hours long, so you don't have to worry about story lines getting chopped off or cut out because they don't fit into 2.5 hours. Second, there are some scenes (mostly gruesome ones) that just couldn't be conveyed as powerfully through words. There's a significant amount of narration throughout the series, but there are many scenes, particularly the ones where Easy Company is in Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge, where narration is completely unnecessary, and in many cases would have taken away from the impact of the scene.
After a long delay at the airport the next morning, I returned to Boston to get back to my boring life: grocery shopping, unpacking, post-interview thank-you emails, and of course, watching the OC episode that I missed from Thursday. :)
Any nervousness I had about the whole thing disappeared after my conversation with the second person I interviewed with. I had asked what to expect in this process after my interview today, like when I should expect to hear back from them, and what would happen if I liked both groups I was interviewing with and they both liked me. His response: "Let me just tell you now - unless you punch someone in the face this morning, you're going to get an offer from us."
I convinced the company's travel office to let me stay until Sunday morning instead of flying back on Friday afternoon, so I got to spend the rest of the weekend with Josh. On Friday, we went out to dinner with Phil and Glenn at the Boulevard Woodgrill, then stuck around the area to grab a beer and then go to a party that Josh's friend was throwing. The theme of the party was white trash, and everyone got really into it, so we drank Milwaukee's Best and ate Slim Jims and peanuts. Everyone had dressed the part too. Everyone, that is, except us. It's remarkable how out of place you can feel in normal clothes when everyone else is wearing ripped up wifebeaters, ratty sweatpants or shorts, construction boots, and enormous hoop earrings. One girl even came with a fake pregnant belly.
Saturday was a lot less interesting. I worked on my thesis, Josh worked on his homework, we ran some errands, and we watched the final episode of Band of Brothers. I haven't started the book yet, but I think I have to retract my statement about the book always being better than the movie. First of all, this series is 10 hours long, so you don't have to worry about story lines getting chopped off or cut out because they don't fit into 2.5 hours. Second, there are some scenes (mostly gruesome ones) that just couldn't be conveyed as powerfully through words. There's a significant amount of narration throughout the series, but there are many scenes, particularly the ones where Easy Company is in Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge, where narration is completely unnecessary, and in many cases would have taken away from the impact of the scene.
After a long delay at the airport the next morning, I returned to Boston to get back to my boring life: grocery shopping, unpacking, post-interview thank-you emails, and of course, watching the OC episode that I missed from Thursday. :)
Monday, November 13, 2006
Caffeine buzz
*jitter*
Woof. Way too much coffee this afternoon. One of the big boss men stopped by our office today to let us know that one of the staff members in the Operations Research area was giving a short presentation on how to structure a thesis and how best to use Word to write it up. I went because it seemed like one of those things that I shouldn't skip, even though I'm not doing anything related to Operations Research and I'm planning to write my thesis in LaTeX, not Microsoft Word.
I picked up a couple useful things about Word, but overall the meeting was sort of a bust. Afterward, I got some coffee with another girl from the meeting that I haven't seen in a long time, and it was really nice to catch up. I haven't met many new people in grad school, but there are a couple people that I think could be really good friends if we had more time to get to know each other. I haven't been drinking coffee much lately because it dries out my eyes, so my caffeine tolerance, much like my alcohol tolerance, is at an all-time low. So now my feet and fingers are jittering like nobody's business, thanks to the medium mocha.
The good news is that things may finally be looking up in thesis-land. My advisor is out of town at a meeting this week, but I'm hoping to have a lot of good data to share with him when he gets back.
Josh came to visit this weekend, and while most of it was blissfully uneventful, we did get out to see Babel on Friday night. It's essentially this year's version of Crash, except it was a lot more depressing and featured a lot less underwear. The cinematography was really cool in parts, but it was heart-wrenching enough that I probably wouldn't watch it again.
It's hard to believe that next week is already Thanksgiving. A couple months ago I bought a plane ticket to go to D.C. for the holiday, but a few weeks ago, an unexpected opportunity popped up to visit my little sister in Spain during that week. My dad is already going, and he generously offered to help pay for my ticket if I decided that I wanted to go also. I considered it pretty seriously, because it would be a fantastic opportunity to get a personal tour of Seville, complete with bilingual tour guide :), and it would be really neat to see what Laura's life has been life for the past few months. But by the time I actually looked at tickets, they were already over $1000, which seemed excessive for a 5ish day trip. On one hand, it's an opportunity that, in all likelihood, I won't get again, and I do have the money to go (although it would eat into my savings for the potential post-graduation trip), but the idea of paying that much for such a short trip, not to mention the expense of eating out and staying in a hostel for the whole week, just seemed like too much. So Laura, if you're reading, this means you should live in Spain again sometime, preferably when I have the money, vacation time, and good sense to plan ahead. I'm still keeping my eye out for last-minute deals for next week, but it's looking unlikely.
Woof. Way too much coffee this afternoon. One of the big boss men stopped by our office today to let us know that one of the staff members in the Operations Research area was giving a short presentation on how to structure a thesis and how best to use Word to write it up. I went because it seemed like one of those things that I shouldn't skip, even though I'm not doing anything related to Operations Research and I'm planning to write my thesis in LaTeX, not Microsoft Word.
I picked up a couple useful things about Word, but overall the meeting was sort of a bust. Afterward, I got some coffee with another girl from the meeting that I haven't seen in a long time, and it was really nice to catch up. I haven't met many new people in grad school, but there are a couple people that I think could be really good friends if we had more time to get to know each other. I haven't been drinking coffee much lately because it dries out my eyes, so my caffeine tolerance, much like my alcohol tolerance, is at an all-time low. So now my feet and fingers are jittering like nobody's business, thanks to the medium mocha.
The good news is that things may finally be looking up in thesis-land. My advisor is out of town at a meeting this week, but I'm hoping to have a lot of good data to share with him when he gets back.
~~~
Josh came to visit this weekend, and while most of it was blissfully uneventful, we did get out to see Babel on Friday night. It's essentially this year's version of Crash, except it was a lot more depressing and featured a lot less underwear. The cinematography was really cool in parts, but it was heart-wrenching enough that I probably wouldn't watch it again.
It's hard to believe that next week is already Thanksgiving. A couple months ago I bought a plane ticket to go to D.C. for the holiday, but a few weeks ago, an unexpected opportunity popped up to visit my little sister in Spain during that week. My dad is already going, and he generously offered to help pay for my ticket if I decided that I wanted to go also. I considered it pretty seriously, because it would be a fantastic opportunity to get a personal tour of Seville, complete with bilingual tour guide :), and it would be really neat to see what Laura's life has been life for the past few months. But by the time I actually looked at tickets, they were already over $1000, which seemed excessive for a 5ish day trip. On one hand, it's an opportunity that, in all likelihood, I won't get again, and I do have the money to go (although it would eat into my savings for the potential post-graduation trip), but the idea of paying that much for such a short trip, not to mention the expense of eating out and staying in a hostel for the whole week, just seemed like too much. So Laura, if you're reading, this means you should live in Spain again sometime, preferably when I have the money, vacation time, and good sense to plan ahead. I'm still keeping my eye out for last-minute deals for next week, but it's looking unlikely.
Monday, August 14, 2006
Lazy
The past two days have made up the laziest weekend I've had in a long time. On Friday, I was in bed by 9:30. On Saturday, I was woken up at 10am by the maintenance crew who had come to replace my bedroom window. (On the 4th, the glass shattered when I was trying to close the window. Turns out smashing a window isn't as hard as it looks in the movies! I got away with just a few scrapes on my hands and arms, but I went through a significant number of bandaids that weekend.) Anyway, one benefit of renting an apartment is that it usually comes with a maintenance crew, and the guys for my building are, thankfully, prompt and thorough. They removed the window frame and boarded up the hole over the weekend and then came back on Saturday to replace the window.) Anyway, after that I figured that I couldn't go back to bed (sleep more than 13 hours??), so I got up to run some errands. But after I got home, I spent the rest of the day reading, watching a movie, and going to sleep early - again.
On Sunday I woke up late and read some more, then biked out to Fort Independence. The actual fort was closed by the time I got there, but it was still nice to wander around Castle Island (not an actual island at all). On the east side of the island, there's a hill that slopes down from the fort to the water, and it immediately reminded me of Gas Works Park in Seattle. Ahh, Seattle... There was also an enormous cruise ship leaving the harbor, which was pretty cool to watch, and a reminder of Galveston, the only other place I've seen cruise ships up close. I've only seen them leaving their ports though, when everyone's cheering and excited about leaving on their trip. I wonder what everyone looks and sounds like when they get back... depressed that vacation is over? Glad to get out of their tuna-can room? Seasick?
Anyway. I also saw World Trade Center last night. I was prepared for it to be sad and depressing, but I wasn't prepared for how graphic it was. Definitely not a movie for the claustrophobic. I thought the movie was done well, but to me, the more powerful "movie" to watch is HBO's 9/11 documentary. I guess I was expecting World Trade Center to seem more realistic, which now seems silly, considering that it's still a Hollywood production.
On Sunday I woke up late and read some more, then biked out to Fort Independence. The actual fort was closed by the time I got there, but it was still nice to wander around Castle Island (not an actual island at all). On the east side of the island, there's a hill that slopes down from the fort to the water, and it immediately reminded me of Gas Works Park in Seattle. Ahh, Seattle... There was also an enormous cruise ship leaving the harbor, which was pretty cool to watch, and a reminder of Galveston, the only other place I've seen cruise ships up close. I've only seen them leaving their ports though, when everyone's cheering and excited about leaving on their trip. I wonder what everyone looks and sounds like when they get back... depressed that vacation is over? Glad to get out of their tuna-can room? Seasick?
Anyway. I also saw World Trade Center last night. I was prepared for it to be sad and depressing, but I wasn't prepared for how graphic it was. Definitely not a movie for the claustrophobic. I thought the movie was done well, but to me, the more powerful "movie" to watch is HBO's 9/11 documentary. I guess I was expecting World Trade Center to seem more realistic, which now seems silly, considering that it's still a Hollywood production.
Monday, July 24, 2006
Weekend
Over the weekend, Josh came to visit. Which meant that it poured. Whenever one of us travels to see the other, we always manage to bring along rain, snow, sleet, hail, or hurricanes in our carry-on luggage. So this time it thwarted my plan to spend the weekend on the Cape.
In any case, we still managed to fit in the usual things, like eating lots of ice cream and going to the movies. We saw You, Me, and Dupree, which had some good moments, but was too long. At some point over the past few years, it was decided that movies starring Owen Wilson, Vince Vaughn, Ben Stiller, or Will Ferrell, would extend past the appropriate 90 minutes into 2+ hours of seat-squirming. Somehow they didn't get the memo that the "plot" can't really support a 2-hour movie. Lance Armstrong's cameo was pretty funny though.
I also got a new TV over the weekend, to replace the behemoth one that my roommate took with him to DC. (He also took the TV stand and the couch, so the living room is pretty ghetto these days.) Josh and I also installed my air conditioner, which, happily, will make napping that much easier.
So today it's back to work, although it feels a little like the day after final exams, because we just finished our big trade study report on Thursday. Now I should be moving on to some new stuff, but procrastinating is a whole lot easier.
In any case, we still managed to fit in the usual things, like eating lots of ice cream and going to the movies. We saw You, Me, and Dupree, which had some good moments, but was too long. At some point over the past few years, it was decided that movies starring Owen Wilson, Vince Vaughn, Ben Stiller, or Will Ferrell, would extend past the appropriate 90 minutes into 2+ hours of seat-squirming. Somehow they didn't get the memo that the "plot" can't really support a 2-hour movie. Lance Armstrong's cameo was pretty funny though.
I also got a new TV over the weekend, to replace the behemoth one that my roommate took with him to DC. (He also took the TV stand and the couch, so the living room is pretty ghetto these days.) Josh and I also installed my air conditioner, which, happily, will make napping that much easier.
So today it's back to work, although it feels a little like the day after final exams, because we just finished our big trade study report on Thursday. Now I should be moving on to some new stuff, but procrastinating is a whole lot easier.
Saturday, July 08, 2006
Houston
The best part of the last week was not the two-day work week, but the looong weekend I got to spend in Houston. I flew in on Friday night, apparently along with half of Texas. IAH was ridiculously crowded. On Saturday we met up with Sarah, Cari, and Gavin for lunch at Mely's and started drinking before 1pm. After my one margarita and a quick stop by JSC to see the shuttle launch get scrubbed though, I fell asleep for about three hours. Apparently my tolerance for alcohol has regressed to a new low. Don't even ask what happened after the bottle of champagne we drank on Saturday. But I was awake! for the delicious dinner that Josh cooked earlier that night.
Sunday was a day of errands, and on Monday we went downtown to the Museum of Natural Science to see the Body Worlds exhibit. I discovered, at the exhibit, that my queasiness of medical-related bloody body parts applied to dead stuff, in addition to alive stuff. The exhibit is pretty neat though, and it's definitely unique. I was doing fine at the beginning when all the dead body parts still looked fake, but then we got to the knee joint that's been mangled by arthritis - that's when my stomach started to churn. That was only the beginning of entire bodies cut apart to show various organs or a skinned man carrying, you guessed it, all his skin like a potato sack. And of course, no medical exhibit would be complete without a display of some lungs charred by cigarette smoke or in the advanced stages of emphysema.
After the dead people, we walked around Hermann Park a little bit and wandered through the Japanese garden. Then we went to The Chocolate Bar! Mmmmmm. They had chocolate-covered just about everything and 10-inch tall cakes, but we opted to just get ice cream. I think this place has my new favorite cookie dough ice cream. :) I had convinced Josh to go see Stick It with me at the dollar theater afterward, but we got there a little early, so we went next door to Slick Willie's to play pool and kill some time. We didn't do anything out of the ordinary that day, but it was really nice to just be able to go out on a date.
Tuesday was the 4th (hooray for Discovery!), and we met up with Laurie, Drew, John, and Anne for dinner at BJ's, and then went downtown to see Nick's new apartment. He's in a great location, and the apartment has an incredible view of the Houston skyline. There were just a few trees that obscured our view of the fireworks, so hopefully he can get those cut down before next year. ;) The fireworks were pretty cool, but I think Seattle's still got the best show that I've seen.
Josh and I both played hooky on Wednesday, lounging around until I had to go to the airport in the afternoon. The plane ride back was uneventful, but I did get to sit in the exit row seat with no seat in front of me, so I had plenty of leg room. But I spent most of the flight with my legs scrunched under me to hide the bag that I couldn't fit "under the seat in front of me" because there was no seat in front of me and I didn't want to leave my book and magazines in the overhead bin.
Anyway. Only one more trip to Houston, I think. I'll be in town again during the first weekend of August, but that'll probably be the last time for a while. It was a little weird to be back last weekend... I haven't been in Texas for a long time, and it felt somewhere between sad and happy, familiar and unfamiliar. It seems like my friendships with some people haven't changed at all, while others are completely different. It brought back a lot of memories of not fitting in, not feeling like it was the right place or the right time, and therefore happiness and some relief to be out of it, but there were twinges of regret when I saw everyone so excited about the shuttle flight. Although I'm happy with where my life is now, I'm realizing how impatient I was about everything back then. Things were bad, so I wanted to fix them immediately. My timescale was in months and semesters, but it should have been in years and projects. But maybe the line between wasting time and sitting on an okay job while you look for a better one is always blurry, no matter what your timescale.
Okay, enough philosophizing for one night. It makes me sleepy. Kind of like champagne.
Sunday was a day of errands, and on Monday we went downtown to the Museum of Natural Science to see the Body Worlds exhibit. I discovered, at the exhibit, that my queasiness of medical-related bloody body parts applied to dead stuff, in addition to alive stuff. The exhibit is pretty neat though, and it's definitely unique. I was doing fine at the beginning when all the dead body parts still looked fake, but then we got to the knee joint that's been mangled by arthritis - that's when my stomach started to churn. That was only the beginning of entire bodies cut apart to show various organs or a skinned man carrying, you guessed it, all his skin like a potato sack. And of course, no medical exhibit would be complete without a display of some lungs charred by cigarette smoke or in the advanced stages of emphysema.
After the dead people, we walked around Hermann Park a little bit and wandered through the Japanese garden. Then we went to The Chocolate Bar! Mmmmmm. They had chocolate-covered just about everything and 10-inch tall cakes, but we opted to just get ice cream. I think this place has my new favorite cookie dough ice cream. :) I had convinced Josh to go see Stick It with me at the dollar theater afterward, but we got there a little early, so we went next door to Slick Willie's to play pool and kill some time. We didn't do anything out of the ordinary that day, but it was really nice to just be able to go out on a date.
Tuesday was the 4th (hooray for Discovery!), and we met up with Laurie, Drew, John, and Anne for dinner at BJ's, and then went downtown to see Nick's new apartment. He's in a great location, and the apartment has an incredible view of the Houston skyline. There were just a few trees that obscured our view of the fireworks, so hopefully he can get those cut down before next year. ;) The fireworks were pretty cool, but I think Seattle's still got the best show that I've seen.
Josh and I both played hooky on Wednesday, lounging around until I had to go to the airport in the afternoon. The plane ride back was uneventful, but I did get to sit in the exit row seat with no seat in front of me, so I had plenty of leg room. But I spent most of the flight with my legs scrunched under me to hide the bag that I couldn't fit "under the seat in front of me" because there was no seat in front of me and I didn't want to leave my book and magazines in the overhead bin.
Anyway. Only one more trip to Houston, I think. I'll be in town again during the first weekend of August, but that'll probably be the last time for a while. It was a little weird to be back last weekend... I haven't been in Texas for a long time, and it felt somewhere between sad and happy, familiar and unfamiliar. It seems like my friendships with some people haven't changed at all, while others are completely different. It brought back a lot of memories of not fitting in, not feeling like it was the right place or the right time, and therefore happiness and some relief to be out of it, but there were twinges of regret when I saw everyone so excited about the shuttle flight. Although I'm happy with where my life is now, I'm realizing how impatient I was about everything back then. Things were bad, so I wanted to fix them immediately. My timescale was in months and semesters, but it should have been in years and projects. But maybe the line between wasting time and sitting on an okay job while you look for a better one is always blurry, no matter what your timescale.
Okay, enough philosophizing for one night. It makes me sleepy. Kind of like champagne.
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