I've decided change is bad

Well, some change. The thing is that people are leaving the EAC and that sucks. Sunday was Raye-Jean's last overnight shift. Raye-Jean, you may recall, is the woman who trained me from my second week. She's the one that loaned me all the Mercedes Lackey books I'm reading. The one who understands what Piper's all about. The Cat Whisperer. So I'm very sad, although not for her, as she's going on to a job where she says she'll get to work less for more money, not have to deal with clients, and the only people there on the overnight will be her and another tech (who happens to be another former EAC person). But I'll miss her like crazy, and the Sunday overnights will not be the same. Of course, they wouldn't be the same anyway because one of the two vets that works them is also leaving - Dr. Ferguson, also known as Fergie. She works at several other clinics and is picking up another shift at one of them to replace her one overnight she works with us. But the vets are just as much part of the fun of Sunday overnight as the techs... :( and there's a chance Malaika's leaving us too, as she's waiting to hear back from a research company in Washington DC that she interviewed with a couple weeks ago. *cry* The people are what make the Sunday overnight worth working, and I know that the ones who will replace those who are leaving won't be the same. So yes, my conclusion is that change is bad.

In other news, Spanish started yesterday. I realized as I kept glancing at the clock last night that I must be having an authentic school experience, since I couldn't wait for it to be over. Mostly this was because we spent the first hour of class with people explaining why they were taking Spanish and some of them would not stop talking. There are 25 students, and people seem to be split into the very few (of which I am one) who have had almost no experience with Spanish, Latinos who speak Spanish but want to learn the rules and improve their writing and reading skills, people who have taken Spanish before or picked up a lot through work who want to learn it formally, and morons. I guess that last category is to be expected at El Centro in a freshman-level class. Anyway, we didn't get to much yesterday except basic pronunciation rules and the usual phrases (good morning, my name is..., etc), but I'm looking forward to diving in more on Wednesday. And figuring out how to get to class, because I'm not paying $5 to park again...it's unfortunate that class is at 5:30, so I have to travel downtown at the peak of rush hour traffic.

Oh, and the first Aggie football game is this Saturday. Matt is *so* excited :)

[I forgot to mention - the GRE went great last week and unless my essay scores come back as 1, I'm not taking it again! Yay! Happiness :) ]

Statistics

For those curious about A&M vet school admissions info, here is a link from them on the 2004-2005 Admissions Statistics. [stats]

Oh, and I was wrong about my Spanish class - it starts next Monday, not yesterday :) This is fine with me - so that I can finish the GRE first. Hopefully. I'm glad they tell you how you did roughly when you finish the test.

Hola

I've been busy. No really! This past week I began training at Cisco as the "lunch coordinator," a mini-management position Dad created after one of our assistant managers moved away. I'm going to be working three lunches a week (9-4: Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday) at Cisco until at least the first of the year. It's been very fun so far - and I've appreciated the opportunity to learn more about the restaurant business. It is, after all, the family business! And it's a great way to make some money and spend my time since the whole full-time-at-the-emergency clinic didn't work out. For the curious, my duties include: opening up the restaurant in the morning (turning on lights, A/C, counting money, etc.) going to the bank, receiving orders from vendors, paying said vendors, running errands (like going to the grocery store and Amore), answering the phone, seating people, getting drink orders and busing tables if the service assistant needs help, handling the cash drawer, getting the waiters their checks, taking responsibility for things and taking care of problems, etc...So, yes! So far I've been working with Dad and Mike Shannon, and it looks like I'll be done with my official training at the end of August.

Also keeping me busy - studying for the GRE. It's on Wednesday...I have been studying, but finding out the average math+verbal score of enrolled vet school students last year was 1160 didn't help my motivation. I will be going full-steam ahead the next few days, though.

A third drain on my time: getting Zetarg to level 60 (the highest level) in World of Warcraft. Bryan got his warlock Arla to 60...so I must. We've also been playing together as a badass team of troll warrior and priest.

Finally, an upcoming source of excitement (?) - I'm taking Spanish at El Centro for fun this fall, and it starts tomorrow night. I hope it'll be fun and keep my brain from shrivelling up between now and vet school. Plus, it'll come in very handy at Cisco and the clinic, and I hope the opportunity to hear Spanish and practice with people will make me learn it better and faster.

Oh, and I chopped all my hair off. It's off my shoulders. I like it! (even though this hastily-snapped picture of myself doesn't do it justice)

Colorado Pictures

I'll have more of a real post later, but I just wanted to let readers know that all of our Colorado pictures are now up, captioned, and organized for your viewing pleasure. :)

And I stole an idea from Leslie's blog - I now have a "currently reading" section, because I've been reading a lot recently, thanks to a load of books loaned to me by Raye-Jean.

Back in Big D

Matt and I made our marathon car ride straight from Breckenridge to Dallas late on Saturday without a hitch. We were on the road for less than 14 hours, which is pretty awesome in our opinion! First I'll fill in what went on the rest of our time in Colorado.

• After my last post (on Wednesday), Susie, Emily, Jeff, Matt, and I hiked up to the lake above our house and walked around there. No moose or fox sightings, though, unlike previous times. Then we hiked down the other side of the lake, which took us below a ski lift and spit us out on the street halfway to town. Susie headed back for the house while the four of us continued down to hunt for a lunch spot. John and Susie ended up joining us for a breakfasty lunch and then we got ice cream and caramel apples at the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory.
• Wednesday afternoon, Jeff and I got fishing licenses and headed up with Matt and John to fly fish (Matt was our fishing caddy). We had a great time fishing in the streams that ran into the big reservoir. Many fish were caught by all (I got three on my own and two with John). I also fell down a lot in the thick bushes, but they made for soft landings, too. It just meant that several times observant people would have seen thrashing bushes with a fishing pole sticking out and heard mad giggling. :) We were gone until after 7pm and returned to house to find spaghetti waiting for us.
• Wednesday night Matt decided he wanted us to climb a 14er while we were in Colorado. For those not so familiar with the term "14er," Colorado has almost 50 mountains on a list that are over 14,000 ft and qualify as a true "14er." A few are left off the list because "to be ranked, a peak must rise at least 300 feet above the saddle that connects it to the nearest 14er peak (if another exists nearby)" [for more info, check out www.14ers.com].
• So Thursday, John, Luke, Matt and I climbed to the top of Quandary Peak, the 13th highest mountain in Colorado. It wasn't that long of a hike, but the elevation gain was pretty intense (about 1,000 feet per mile). And over 2/3 of the hike was along break-your-ankle rocks. We saw lots of pika and a couple marmots, and the view was spectacular at the top. All in all it took us about 6.5 hours, which is much better time than my previous 14er experience, climbing Longs Peak with Dad. And a really cool unexpected feature of the summit - crystal clear cell phone reception, which enabled me to call Dad from the top and tell him what we'd done (it was such a last-minute decision to do the hike that no one in my family knew we were doing it). It was quite a different hike than Longs Peak...but not so surprising - on that 14ers website, it has the routes ranked by difficulty and Longs is "difficult" while Quandary is "easiest" (I would guess mostly from starting at a good elevation already and the hike being short - 6.75 miles for Quandary vs 15 for Longs). Well, anyway, the hike was fun and we felt a great sense of accomplishment.
• Thursday night we ordered in pizza and then went to a classical music concert in town. It was performed mostly by the National Repertory Orchestra, a bunch of talented young musicians, which made me think of Brittany. They performed Wagner and Mahler (the latter being much nicer than the former, although both kept us sleepy hikers awake).
• Friday was a low-keyed day. Jeff left us early that morning, heading for a wedding in Canada. John spent the morning fishing, so Susie, Emily, Luke, Matt and I were left to our own devices. We ended up going to town for lunch, where I also hunted (unsuccessfully) for a birthday present for Dad. Matt and I spent the afternoon watching DVDs and packing up while John, Susie, and Emily fished at the local lake. That night we ordered delivery (mostly Chinese) and watched Cool Hand Luke, a Roberts family classic.
• Saturday morning Matt and I rolled out of the house at 6:40am and made the trek back to Dallas. We recovered from the drive by watching almost all of our TiVo-ed shows on Saturday night and Sunday before I went to work.

There were four digital cameras in use during the trip, so acquiring all of the pictures is going to be a bit of a challenge. I'm also waiting until I get my computer back, which just had its motherboard replaced. But I'm optimistic that pictures from the trip will be up by the end of the week.

This month will be a challenging one for me. I need to get my vet school application wrapped up and take the GRE on the 24th (which might require me to study a little beforehand). Also, I have to work on employment opportunities. And Matt's work is picking up and will stay that way until mid-September. I guess that means it is finally time for me to jump back into the real world with both feet. :)