summer!

muggy chicago, full of adventures as always! i've been here for a week now, and i think i've had enough coffee to last me the whole summer. my mission for this trip has involved investigating a coffee shop every day - analyzing (riiiight) the coffee, people watching, looking for human humor. it's been a blast, but i think i need to shift my coffee drinking habits to something a little less destructive. hehe perhaps tomorrow i'll look for the best wheatgrass in chicago :-)

aah yes so summer. i'm sitting here listening to gershwin's american in paris, sipping (so as not to get a sore throat) oodles of ice water, and contemplating yet another shower. eek wasteful? today i finished a long-ish letter to annie, with the sad realization that the reason it was so long-ish being that i haven't written-written her in a YEAR! baaad friend. anywho, i've also come to the realization that i eat too many bananas in chicago. i think it has been an alternative to my usual carrot addiction, but for some strange reason carrots haven't sounded too appealing during this trip. hmm. odd.

thinking how best to sum up my visit, i remembered lima/manj's phrase from paris... "we made tourism." fitting, i feel. luckly i think i fit in alright here in chicago, in fact i was asked today if i was just coming from work. (or maybe i looked sweaty, disheveled, and tired? oooh that's just my inability to handle heat.) anywho, that was actually a funny story... i was coming homeish and the clouds were very threatening (ooh more about the clouds in a minute!)anywho the only other dude at the bus stop was an old-ish man named henry, dressed in full security man attire replete WITH gun (eek!) anywho he started talking, and obvi i wasn't going to make him feel like he was talking to himself. he told me i'd be safe in chicago because he would protect me, and that next time he saw me he'd take me out to dinner. hmm. awfuly nice of henry. he also assured me that the sky would hold until i got home. he's friends with the weather god, from what i gather... anywho, he was right. ooh ps he was the one who asked if i'd just gotten off work. right right.

so clouds... AMAZING! i lovelove storms! lots of lightning here. luckly today was cooler than yesterday's absurd 95 or whatever. not for me. i'm a polar bear at heart :-) speaking of polar bears, gravling will be here wednesday... time tbd. that should be fun hehe. i'm currently thinking up adventures... something to the extent of marching all of chicago with a little umbrella. swedish museum (obvi) and hopefully-perhaps-oh-please-oh-please turkish food with j and ivan??? that would just make my day! aaand thinking about days, time for SLEEEEEP! (hajra nyar!)

spss is ruining my life! (way to be, es lab...)

what's worse than wandering the halls of kanbar at 5:30 in the morning trying to refocus while writing a lab report that never ends? realizing there are numerous little cameras on the ceiling. :-) i think security must think i'm a verifiable nut, twirling and jumping up and down as i often do at times like this. oy vey!

11 days till chicago, and i couldn't be more excited. still a bit terrified of how things are going to get done, but i'm slowly sinking into the "it'll get done, if you can only stay awake" mode. whee!

i'm glad to say i have company in kanbar this morning - there are 4 of us, actually. and i know all of them. does that say something about who i'm friends with? hehe naw... anywho the news is that i'm alive and enjoying the rainy seattle winter ish weather as best i can, considering it's may. c'est la vie.

in other news, i'm avoiding my room because both nugget and hal are sick with something resembling the plague. eek. must stay away from that one.

11 days till i take of j's futon, abduct peanut, rediscover the glories of museums and art galleries, and cook for as many nerdy chicago kids as will let me!!! i can't wait!

(after that 5 minute mental break, visit to the futuristic utopia of daydreams... back to the lab. gah!)

it's not easy being green!

aah kermit, my good old friend. i'm so lost now about what pictures i've used in this blog that i may well have used dear kermit (i just typed kermint...that's a thought... kermit-shaped mints... hmm!) before. anywho. he's the best i could find for the occasion. i was looking for something green, more along the lines of a tree (in celebration of the recent arbor day and today's may day... yesterday's valborg, etc. anywho i found kermit) happy all of the above holidays!

it's 11:45pm on the first, and i am in need of a mental break, so i thought to write a tiny bit. this last week has been both the destination of trips in a handbasket as well as pure awesomeness. tonight, for instance, gravling and i went to sushi in portland. i thought that was pretty sweet awesomeness. i hadn't been there since papa-san and j were visiting (in fact, i can't even remember if noonie came with us. hmm...) anywho, i heart salmon sashimi... and miniscule cubes of tofu in miso soup. gravling didn't like the surf clam much (can't blame him, pretty much like chewing on an ear. though i've never done that. but it was like hypothetically chewing on an ear.) we disagree about edamame. i'm thoroughly pro-edamame. gravling was unimpressed. :-P

soo... papers are progressing (i don't exactly like the direction they've taken, but since when have i ever been happy with papers i write? hmm... thinking back to around christmas eve in budapest... 4am "WHAT IS MY THESIS???" yup... that's me.) anywho, the weather has been keeping me afloat with glorious 70 degree sunshine. today it was rainy, and the local weather man predicts nothing different for the whole week. blah. APRIL showers bring may flowers. not mediocre april weather brings may showers.

only a few weeks left in school, then off to chicago (WHEEEEEE!!!). i really need a break.

ps. before mama left for hungary i spoke to her on the telephono and upon hearing that i was tired she says, "but you have a two week break coming up, yes?" i don't know where she got that one from, but i like the concept!!!