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This week and this weekend are super busy. Even though I willlingly signed up for every item on the list, I have little time for naps or goofing off.

So far:
Monday: work then stats class until 9:30pm
Tuesday: night off
Wed: after-work info session for biz school at Berkeley - got home at 9:30
Thurs: GMAT study session - got home at 1 (afternoon nap though TG)
Fri (today): study for stats quiz after work, GMAT study session at 8pm
Sat: Saturday stats quiz 9-12, last GMAT study session 3-6
Sun: 10am, join church followed by lunch, afternoon: do stats homework for Mon night, skip book club meeting (didn’t read the book), go to bed early
Mon: GMAT exam at 8am, work from 1-5, stats class from 6-9:30
Tues: sit on the couch glassy-eyed and drooling, receive periodic cleaning from cats, spoon-fed by boyfriend

UPN had better not disappoint this year. It has gone from a “sometimes when I’m bored on a Wednesday night” to an “omigod why do all of their BEST shows have to premier during my busiest week evar!” I never thought I would include the words love and UPN in the same sentence but I can: I love Veronica Mars and America’s Next Top Model on UPN. There, I said it. These are my two fav fav favorite shows (oops, aside from BSG on SciFi) and they are both on tonight.

I won’t be getting home until late tonight because I have an MBA info session after work. Once I DO get home, all I want to do is put on my jammies, heat up some Chinese food leftovers and watch Veronica and Logan make up. Squeee!!!! *in 13-year old high-pitched fashion*

of Texas….

Sorry. That was lame, but hey! I do have a friend named Dipu and I did see him last weekend during my visit to Austin.

The trip was a lot a lot of fun. I was exhausted but it was from staying up late visiting with my family and friends. I went swimming often and imbibed many refreshing alcoholic beverages. I saw my friend Ted, his wife, and their beautiful baby girl Hazel. I swam at Barton Springs. I had tacos at Polvo’s and coffee at Mozart’s. I even went to the big new Whole Foods.

But alas, all good things must come to an end. Next summer, I’ll have to come back for at least five days and just play.

My first Statistics class was last night. Believe it or not, I’m excited about it. The people seem really nice and competent and the prof is not on any sort of ego trip. The bad thing is that it runs from 6-9:30pm on Mondays. That means it runs during my regular dinner time. Sure, I can have a snack, but name a snack that satisfies for over 3 hours and is not heavy enough to send me into a food coma if I sit down for more than 10 minutes.

Anyway…..

This is how my thought process went during the last hour of class: “that girl sitting over there looks like the wife of a friend of mine. I remember hanging out with them. One time, we went to a really good pancake place. Mmmm pannncakes…..”

This weekend was more relaxing than most (and trust me, I’ve had a few). Yesterday involved sleeping in really late and then getting up and getting ready for a 1:30 pm lunch somewhere. We ran a few errands and then ended up on the couch eating chocolate and watching TV. But something was missing. I decided that we needed to leave the house and do something.

Usually, laying around the house suits me just fine, but the weather outside was perfect - sunny and even a little cooler than usual. To celebrate my weekend of freedom from studying from the horrid gmat, we drove over to half moon bay to try to find a nice, easily accessible beach with a windchill above zero. We turned north this time and headed up to Princeton-by-the-sea. According to one of my coworkers, this is a little fishing community with some of the best fish dinner joints on the coast. Since we had gorged ourselves at our late lunch, we weren’t too hungry. We ended up stopping at Montara State Beach just after sunset. It was really nice because the beach is sheltered by a small cove. This means we didn’t need the full face masks to keep our noses from freezing off. I keed! Seriously though, it was nice.

We walked on the beach until it really started to get dark, then we drove home. After hemming and hawing about what to eat for dinner (we finally got hungry around 10), I found a cheap chinese food restaurant open past 10. We rejoiced, ordered our food, picked it up, ate half of it, and decided that it was some of the nastiest cheap chinese food we’d ever had. You live, you learn.

One of my friends in high school used to say that to A: express relief and happiness and B: to be sarcastic. Still, I think of that whenever something good happens that also provides relief. Today, that thing is getting a better GMAT score than when I took it in July.

My score can still improve a bit, but I’ve attained my minimum acceptable score so the rest is now just extra. I talked to my gmat study buddy and we’re taking it again in October. I don’t look forward to it but I’m definitely going to try again.

To celebrate, I ate lunch at a nice restaurant and then retired to my couch for an afternoon of laziness in front of the TV. Wearing pajamas and shifting kitties from asleep leg to another, I enjoyed hours of quality programming like History’s Mysteries and Kathy Griffin D-List. I feel smarter already.

Today is Daniel’s birthday. Yay! You’re old! Oh, but I will be older in a mere six weeks. I’m not as old as Danny though so it’s okay. He’s not a fossil yet but I have to remind him to keep up with young, sprightly, exhuberent me. Ummm…nevermind. I’m a couch potato.

This weekend will be spent perusing various business school applications and deciding which essays to tackle first. Next weekend, I’m off to Austin. Yeehaw.

Did I mention that this weekend was awesome? Because it was. Mike and Alba came to visit us for Labor Day. We had so. much. fun. I’m sore and exhausted from hiking but it was totally worth it. They were both able to keep up with us and, in some cases, we had to keep up with them (Alba). Here is a list of what we did (in no particular order):

Lunch at In’n Out
Drove to Half Moon Bay where Mike swore the fog would get him
Pigeon Point Lighthouse
Cameron’s pub for fish, pizza, hot cider and the third consecutive failed attempt at ordering iced tea
Hiking among the redwoods in Muir Woods before 10 am
Mt. Tamalpais
View from French Foreign Legion
Driving across the Golden Gate Bridge
Japanese Tea Garden at Golden Gate Park
Pizza at Tommaso’s
Ferry Building
Walking through the Financial District
Taking a cab back to our car at the end of a very busy day
French Toast at Bistro Vida in Menlo Park
Hunting for Brazilian beer at Beltramo’s wine shop
Seeing the “oozy” clouds pour over the top of the mountain into the valley
Sony store at the Metreon
The Castro
Back to the French Foreign Legion for a view of the city without the clouds
Driving by Japantown
Late lunch at Pancho’s in the Civic Center
Dinner at Fiesta del Mar in Mountain View

This rocks. Although I don’t play games, I am familiar with hearing a string of expletives yelled at the screen when something doesn’t go your way.

Old Grandma Hardcore

New Orleans: I just don’t know what to say. Although the damage has continued for days, I think it is finally sinking in what’s really happening there. One of the more mindblowing things to think of is that they are evacuating people to Dallas because there are A: so many people and B: nowhere to go. Dallas is at least ten hours from New Orleans. Everything from New Orleans to Houston is full - hotels, shelters, churches, even campgrounds are starting to get crowded. I just never imagined that damage in New Orleans could be so severe that they would be setting up shelters in Dallas and Austin.

I realize that one of the reasons that TX is getting most of the refugees is because the road east of New Orleans is basically destroyed. Still, this is crazy. I just read an article in the Austin American Statesman which states that the refugees coming to Austin can enroll their kids in AISD schools for the time they’re there. One of my friends teaches first grade in the Lake Travis area. I’ll have to ask her what the schools are doing to deal with this.

I’ve been reading some really interesting blogs about the destruction of New Orleans . It sounds like the streets are open sewers filled with trash and dead bodies. *sad*

I’m just glad I got to go there and enjoy the city a few times before this happened. It will never be the same again.

*I don’t mean to sound flippant about the situation, but the shock is just starting to wear off and I truly don’t know how to react.*