I haven't blogged in a little while, but last week was busy and I was knackered! First: Monday was my birthday! I turned 25 -- a quarter of a century...I am now officially old. I understand how my friends feel -- 25 is a milestone in itself and when a good chunk of your friends are engaged/married/parents...yikes...you begin to feel like the old spinster from the small town you grew up in. : ) But, I still have some hope! ; )

Anyways, Tuesday was spent reading papers, and trying to get all of my field/lab equipment rounded up. Wednesday we went out to Natural Bridge again and hiked out to some hemlock plots in the National Park and it was a decent hike (lots of stone steps...but not too far a distance). So, that was alright. Thursday was again spent reading lots of papers, running miscellaneous errands on campus to the main agricultural building and breathing a huge sigh of relief because my beat-sheets finally came in! Friday we were back out at Natural Bridge and the first hemlock stand we went to was very damp, humid and with tons and I mean TONS of poision ivy. Thankfully, no one got any! (very surprising, considering it was unavoidable)...I'm just waiting for the day (preferably after I get my student health insurance card!!). The second stand we went to, was at least a 20-30 minute hike up a very, and i mean VERY STEEP incline....oh my gosh. I was huffing and puffing away and was at least 200 meters behind everyone else. Okay, i'll admit, it might have been more like 300 meters....But hey, I finally arrived and got to work. Needless to say, remained yucky and sticky all day long.

DISCLAIMER: Weak or faint of heart skip to the next paragraph. Those who are ready to be grossed out or just weirded out, read on!

I am worried that I have a tick imbedded in my head. See, on Thursday I felt this itchy little bump on my scalp and it was hard. So I thought it was a tick, but when I looked in the mirror, the only thing I see is an angry red bump and it is oozing a little (I know this is gross, but sorry, have to write about it...have no other outlet!). So, after having a large tick in me my first time out in the wood, I was nervous assuming this must be one that imbedded itself under my skin. So I took out tweezers and tried to 'pull' something out. Ended up taking out a bunch of hair and bleeding a bit. So, I just let it go. It sometimes itches, but I wondered if maybe I had scratched myself on a stick, because part of my job on Wednesday out at the woods was to do a small woody plant census and I had to crawl through a thick and tangled rhododendron patch. We'll see: I'll keep you posted. For now, the bump is little and hard and not getting any bigger and there's a scab. So let's wait and see. Maybe it is a cut and I'm just paranoid about ticks.....

Okay...So, what's up with loud and inconsiderate neighbours!? Last weekend, a large hispanic family moved into the apartment next to mine and for Sunday and Monday nights had loud get togethers outside on their patio (which means I heard every word, etc. and it was so distracting because I could understand a big portion of the conversation) until 2 - 2:30am both nights. I was kind of mad, but since I'm new, I didn't want to complain or anything. So I let it go. Well, for the rest of the week, the apartment was empty and no sounds were heard. (Back track: my first week in my apartment, the one next door was empty and then on the weekend I heard a woman's voice and someone doing dishes). So, I haven't noticed anyone going in or out of the apartment and assumed the family broke their lease. Okay, jump to last night: I was at this singles group at the new church I'm going to and we ended up going to IHOP (the International House of Pancakes -- awesome, incredible breakfast foods, one of my favorite places when i was little living in New England). So I didn't get home until 1am. I did a few dishes and went to bed. At 1:30 AM I hear someone trying to open the latch on the gate to my patio and I freaked out a little. So I put my leg on, ran downstairs with one of my crutches in hand to make sure that my patio door was locked tight. Then I noticed that a large group of kids (i guess kids is relative, definitely younger than me) entering the apartment next door through the patio door and all the lights suddenly coming on downstairs and outside to the patio. The next thing I know I hear low music and I think, alright, well, I can deal with that. So I go to bed again. 1:45AM comes around and suddenly the music is way loud and the bass is wicked high and my floors/walls are vibrating. Seriously, vibrating. I don't have a bed, so my air mattress is vibrating with the floor. I can't sleep. I go downstairs again and hear loud voices, sounds of drunk singing to the music and loud music. So I go upstairs and put my headphones on and try to sleep again. No such luck, the music overpowers my head phones and the bass just makes my headphones vibrate. I was pissed. So I look up the office number, because I remembered while signing my lease that they had made clear certain time limits for loud parties. (I think 1am on weekends). I also remembered they said the police do not handle noise disturbances, so I call the office phone and ofcourse get the machine. I press the number for reporting noise disturbances, and it is now 2:45am. I leave a slightly loopy message (being wicked tired and mad). The machine says that someone will handle it ASAP. (Whatever that means, it's so relative a term!). So nothing happens, the music gets even louder and I get even madder. At this point it's too late to fall asleep and I can't over the music and so I sit in the floor and play Sudoku for a while. At 3:30am I call the courtesy officer again and leave a message explaining exactly how the noise is bothering me and that the people had mistakenly tried to enter my residence through the back and that I wasn't sure if they were even supposed to be there. (Again it's all a message on a machine.) Finally 4 am rolls around and the music gets turned down a bit and I hear the older person (I say older, meaning like my age to early 30's supervising the kiddies) goes to bed, slamming the doors, etc. By 4:30 am I hear a car pull up and then I hear kids going out the back and car doors slamming and driving off. So, I assume the courtesy officer showed up. I mean this is just common courtesy people: If it had been like a party from 10-12 or even 1am that would have been fine, understandable as it was a Saturday night. But to start the party at 1:30am and have it go on til 4am and beyond is just irresponsible and annoying. So at 3:30am I had also called and left a voice mail to the manager's office with a complaint. I don't mean to be a complainer, but it was ridiculous and because I live alone and do not see or know my neighbours I was very uncomfortable going over there and knocking on the door at 3 am to ask them to turn it down. Anyways, we'll see how the next few nights go, but I will make a point of touching base with the manager. It seems like someone is living there now, as there's a dog out on the patio and a babygate, but I just don't know what's up. I'm just tired and mad.

Anyways, tomorrow I go through some spiders/bugs I caught and will classify them to species if possible. I'm off to the grocery store, as I have no food! I got my first paycheck deposited into my account and for two weeks of work it was $311.70 -- almost twice that was myt gross income, but that was the net after taxes and social security were deducted. So, my budget just downsized dramatically!! I'm paid every two weeks. And those two paychecks combined aren't enough to cover my rent/utilities for a month! yikes!

Well, enough of my complaining...usually not like this: lack of sleep! I'm excitied about the new people I'm meeting and looking forward to making new friends. We'll see what happens! : ) Missing all my old friends too!

Ms. Brightside: girl, thanks so much for your posts. I am missing you a lot. I just read your email today and I think you're right: we're getting older (and that explains a lot). The PhD will take 4 years. I'll be thinking of you and what you do post Sol's, but remember: as long as your intentions are right and your actions are for the good of the people you are trying to help, then you are making a difference. Even when the field you are in is rife with corruption and cynacism. Man, Jul, I miss being able to stick my head outside my window and look up and carry on a conversation with you! Lots of memories and you're also right, I miss the place, Oxford, too -- mostly because of the people there! Kentucky is close to the middle-east of the country and sort of in between the south and the mid-West. It's below Chicago. If you do come Stateside, I'd love to host you!!! Then, I think we should go out to California and visit Saranya there and drive through Napa Valley and do some wine tasting! I had some Stella the other day and thought of you!! : ) Julia, please do take care and keep me posted on your plans. If you need anything or need me to read over any applications or essays, let me know. I'm here for whatever I can do or give you! : ) I remember us cooking dinner together so often while you were writing up! : ) Well, here's a hug for you: >--0--< (Okay, that might not have worked!) But am giving you a hug right now : ) Caitlin asks after you all the time and says hello! She's so busy in med school now, but I'm really proud of her.

I'm going to leave Panera's...I haven't been all week long and I think they might have thought something was wrong, because they were like, "You're back!!" etc. See, before this week I was in here almost every night. With work and church activities, my week is really full (which is a good thing) and I'm just too tired to come to Panera's to use the internet. They can pretty much guess what I'll get when I come in....so I realize that I might be developing an addiction to Panera's Mocha Almond drink and the cookies...my goodness those wonderful, glorious, moist, lovely, flavourful cookies!!!! Okay, Rach, enough, girl you are going to gain back your chocolate paunch and then some if you don't start rationing sweeties! : ) (I tend to talk to myself now too in my apartment, since I don't have a roomate and there are no dogs around to hang out with!!). (Caitlin says that's a sign of insanity....that remains to be seen: stay tuned!) : )

Missing everyone a lot and extending a future invitation to come and stay with me in Lexington -- i promise that eventually I will get furniture, including a real table, real chairs and a real bed maybe. : )

I'm back at Panera's! : ) It's like my new home...they know me now. It's kind of scary....they know exactly what I"ll want, although today I threw them for a loop and got this iced mocha almond drink...pretty good! : )

Anyways, today went well. Both meetings were good and I got to sound off some ideas. I think for now, a good compromise has been reached on all fronts....diplomatic me! But I will be doing even more sampling: beat sheets and shaking the tree, pitfall traps in the ground. I'll be collecting all predators, but starting to key out (taxonomy) the spiders first. I'll plan to publish (I have to have something in press by the end of the summer) the spider stuff and work on other predators. Since I'm catching insects from on/in the tree and those dwelling on the ground, I've got some long days, more like long long nights in front of the microscope and using microdissection tools to identify all these insects to species. The crazy thing is, I kind of like doing that stuff -- it's neat, and the bugs become much less scarier when you can see them up close and notice cool things about them or realize just how detailed in structure and function they are and appreciate the complexity that went into their creation. Plus, they are dead when I handle them ; )

So, tomorrow I'm going to a church service and their 20/30's single group afterwards. It should be fun, I went to a thing there on Wed and loved it. Everyone was friendly, the music was very contemporary and it kind of felt very similar to the church in Oxford I went to, which was great. I figure I need to meet people and put myself out there and get active. That's just what I've learned from striking out on my own so often the last several years of my life. Cait's hoping I'll meet my future hubby and hers while I'm in Lexington (hahaha!). Anyways, this is where Melanie goes and another girl from the department, Anna. On Monday I'm going to a 1 year birthday party for my lab mate's son. So that should be fun and there'll be lots of little babies around : )

On a note of babies, I'm loving this time of year! There're tons of fledging birds everywhere and they all seem to like coming on my patio. I've seen robins, blackbird, and there's a trio of pigeon chicks who use my patio to get fed by their parents. It's kind of cool. I really am a nature freak!

The apartment is still so very empty....so tomorrow I'm going to Goodwill and the Salvation Army to try to russle up some furniture. I'm going to be buying a futon from Melanie, so hopefully by the end of the summer, I'll be amenable to guests! It's such a part of my nature to have people over and cook for them or host events....and it's killing me that I can't. Seriously, "welcome to my apartment, don't mind the echo and watch your step I don't have lamps in that part of the apartment; oh and please find a comfortable corner on the floor and make yourselves at home....there's only one cushion, so fight amongst yourselves for it....oh, sorry there's no tv, no stereo...there's well, there's some science textbooks and my childhood random knickknacks you can go through....yep, that's pretty much it." Very warm and friendly ; ) So, that's my next game plan, while in the throughs of major fieldwork that will require me overnighting at several of the sites. I don't think I'll be camping out completely; I'm pretty sure there's a cabin at most of the sites that I can use, and my supervisor has said I won't go out to the field alone. (Which is good, some of those sites are literally along a steep hill on the side of a mountain...)

But I'm looking forward to this new chapter in my life....it should be a good one. Still feeling a bit lonely, but I think I'll be plugged into a good group of friends, and I've met more people from the department who are all friendly, so that's good. In fact, this weekend, I'm taking care of Anna's cat. Her name is Izzy and she's very cute and talkative! Anna lives in the next complex over, so I'll just walk over and feed Izzy/probably make use of Anna's tv and internet! : )

I sure do miss having a dog around though.....went on a pet adoption website today. But I can't get a pet and not have any furniture, so first thing's first.

So, here I am in Lexington, Kentucky. I'm sitting at a Panera's using the internet until, well, until they kick me out. No one around me in my apartment complex has a wireless account I can piggyback off of. It's been too long since I blogged and I'm sure S's comments sections are like books now because of my contributions. So, it's time I wrote on my own blog again ; )

So, let's recap (I don't know if anyone still reads this thing anyways):
Tuesday (15 May) I drove 9+ hours from the DC area to Kentucky and arrived at the rental office just in time to sign the lease and pick up the keys. But wait...something was amiss. The unit I was assigned, was not cleaned (ever -- they claim otherwise, but you had to have seen it). There was an old used plunger in the bathroom, green gunk all over the tube, secondly the walls had never been painted over, there were huge red stains in the carpets and they definitely were never vacuummed. The fridge hadn't been replaced as she had told me, the kitchen floor was covered in dirt and mud. And, yes, it gets even better guys. In a twist of fate, whose irony was not lost on me: There were spiders everywhere. Cobwebs, and live egg sacs everywhere, from the ceilings and walls in the bedroom, to the rugs/walls/ceilings of the main room. It was horrible. So I ran the block down the hill to try to catch someone at the office to say, there was no way I was moving in there. Thankfully, the woman who had handled most of my application was still there and at first insisted she had walked through the apartment and that it was clean and had been cleaned. I told her she must not have, because it was worse than a camping cabin out in the woods, and that there's no way it was cleaned any time soon. So we went back and forth, with me just dog tired, and almost to the point of tears, but not giving in an inch. Finally she offered to put me up in the hotel for a night, while the cleaners did a once over. I told her it needed more than a once over, it was never cleaned. She finally caught on that I was not going to budge on the matter. So after me trying to call my supervisor, the only person I knew in town and not getting through and just about to lose it, she said she did have a unit available. (In the beginning I had signed a lease for a non-updated apartment because the rent was cheaper). Well the unit I was put in had been vacated/cleaned the week before and was a partial upgrade. It was closer to the office and in a better location in terms of the neighborhood. And it was clean, my goodness was it clean. The walls had been painted and the carpet was fairly new. It made all the difference, and NO SPIDERS! So, we did a through walk through, and she offered me the unit at the original rent price per month. So I agreed. The next day we redid the lease and the rest is history as they say.

Did I mention I have no furniture? On a student budget, right now, i can't allow room for that. So I have an air bed and a folding card table/chairs. In a 2BR townhome. The second bedroom is very tiny, so I know there's no way I'll find a roomate, and as my sister pointed out, I can very well ask someone to move in when I don't have any furniture. But if you do come to visit, my bathroom is awesome (all decorated in a sea theme). There's a tiny closet bath downstairs with a sink and toilet that I've decorated in an African theme. The kitchen is good to go. So I've got the basics, except no furniture and nothing up on my walls yet. Sigh....in time.

So speed up to now (Thursday 24 May). I've been officially working since Monday. Tuesday and today I went out with Melanie (she's the lab tech and really awesome, she's been so friendly and introducing me to a lot of new friends) to various field sites where I'll be sampling. One is Natural Bridge Forest and we hiked to the top of the mountain (um..here's a good point to mention: I am way outta shape!!) and were able to clime to the top of the bridge and look out on the forest valley below. Incredible! The bridge was perfect too, an arch, reminding me of the Bridge at Hertford College in Oxford (just a lot bigger!). The second place today is a research station out in a Forest in the Western part of the state. It was almost a 3 hour drive, and was nice, not too much uphill climing like Natural Bridge. We were planting some saplings out there, but let me tell you, there is tons of poison ivy out there. Hoping I didn't get any -- I've never had a reaction before and I've contacted it many times, but they say the more you do the greater your chance of getting a bad reaction all of a sudden. So let's see. I came home with a friendly reminder that I need to be more mindful when working in the woods: (Girls and those who are weak of heart, skip to the next paragraph). I had a good sized tick stuck in me at the base of my neck on my left shoulder...I didn't notice it until I got home and was getting ready to hop in the shower. Needless to say I freaked out (since I"m alone, I can freak out for a bug -- i mean I know I'm studying them for a living, but I"m still a girl at heart!). And dumped out my makeup bag desperately looking for tweezers! I had no matches....So I pulled once and it didn't come out, but boy my skin can stretch more than I knew. After yelling, rather loudly, several choice words, I closed my eyes and yanked as hard as I could while twisting and managed to dislodge it. Thankfully it hadn't really started to feed, so it wasn't in too deep. But scary, it was a big dog tick (I think it was a dog tick, or else a wood tick). As long as it's not a deer tick, you are okay....but it's still gross, you know!?

So that was my exciting thing for the day! I met the knew PhD student in our lab too and he seems nice. He's working with hemlock trees to, but a different area. I have a feeling we'll be going out to the field together though and I'll be piggybacking off his plots. Tomorrow I meet with both my supervisor and the post-doc who'll be supervising the monoclonal antibody ELISA assay. (Ask S for an explanation on that -- still sketchy on it myself). But he's studied spiders for most of his academic career so he's pushing for a full spider study, while my supervisor wants me to look at all insect orders that may be predators of the hemlock adelgid pest. So, tomorrow's a big day. I have a protocol proposal written up, but will have to alter it to suit everyone's ideas for my summer work and make it my own.

Well, Panera's is closing in a few minutes, so I better wrap this up. I'll blog tomorrow. It feels good to be writing stuff down again!

Happy New Year!! I know it's quite late, but it is a new year for me and I'm finally catching up with my life. I accepted a position at the University of Kentucky for a PhD in Entomology! I am gonna be a Bug lady for the rest of my life, woo-hoo! ; )

This year I am resolving to getting back into touch with my friends, not get discouraged over little things, work and study hard, and just simply enjoy life.

Julia -- I am writing back to your email!! Saranya -- what is your address? It's been so tempting not to munch on your Hershey's chocolate! : ) Shreya -- I miss you! Marri -- thanks for checking in with me. Jasmine -- don't freeze in Canada!! Kim -- let's get together again soon. Miri -- thanks for letting me stay with you and 'mother' you in my own sort of way : ) Cait -- i miss my twin sis!

I'm in Virginia now visiting friends and family and researching housing in Lexington, KY. I should start in mid-May collecting spiders et al....I'll be living in horse country (yipee!!) and hopefully enjoy life in Lexington. I'd love any and all visitors!

My update: Hm...let's see. Still seemingly forever and wicked single...looking forward to my PhD and starting that new chapter in my life...no drastic changes to report: new hairstyle, and ever present chocolate paunch and that's it!

My wishlist for the year: 1. New leg : ) 2. Meet someone special 3. See long lost friends again (aka, Oxford buddies) 4. Meet the Irish Rugby team 5. Go somewhere I've never been before 6. Learn to like seafood (yes, Miri...I will try) 7. Read more books 8. See my brother's Navy ship 9. Find another American who enjoys cricket 10. Lose my severe chocolate addiction gained from living within smelling distance of the chocolate factory, where chocolates were never few and far between : )

I hope to write more meaningful and not mundane posts from now on. And keep writing my poetry, since this is my 'song.'