Hello all :) It has been awhile, and it has been a busy couple of months! I finished the first semester of grad school (yayy) and had some nice holidays at home after working a hard week at the family ham store. I'm really glad I've gotten to see as many people back here in Indiana as I have. This week has been nice and lazy, and I've gotten to catch up on some reading and some quality time with the family dog ;)
I hope everyone has had a wonderful Christmas and has a wonderful and safe New Year's celebration!

It was a great weekend in NJ/NYC with my girls! We did lots of fun NYC-type things, and were within feet of Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman at their Bway show. Amazing. The show was great, they were great, and afterward was possibly the best part because they dropped their American accents for the play and explained that it was one of the designated fundraising-for-charity days and that among other things they were giving away for a set dollar-amount donation, they auctioned off their shirts and would sign them and take a photo backstage with the winner. My girls and I wished that we had enough money that $3000 would have seemed like an okay price to pay for this, but sadly we are all either broke or practical enough to know that it would not work. *sigh* so fun :)
Miss everybody already!

Isn't it weird how when you come into a new place, or a new group, or anything like that, that it takes so long to get connected and actually feel at home, feel integrated... and yet it takes so little time when you move on to feel disconnected. "Keeping in touch" is always harder than you think it will be and happens less often than you think it will, allowing us to lose track of people we thought we'd be close with forever. I guess right now maybe I'm looking more at this side, which gives me a negative perspective, but fortunately there is the blessing of making new friends... it's just very hard to achieve the level of closeness you had with the ones you left behind, and it takes a very long time to build those relationships. I am trying to look at this as a good thing or a fun opportunity.

This moderately shy new student is glad to have/have had some sort of plans [with people!] for every day of the weekend! :)

More funny/interesting North Carolina experiences:
-you can buy pepper spray at the license branch here. (Well, at the plates one, which is separate from the one you have to go to get your driver's license). Yes, I'll take my plates, and one of the pepper spray, I said. "Sure, sweetie, what color do you want?" Um, blue, I said. Score. Now I am ferocious or something.

-I went to that license branch wearing a black flip flop and a tan one and didn't realize this until I went to my bank for what was I think the 5th time in 3 days because of all the paperwork and accounts I've been doing, like I think I should be hanging out with them on the weekends or something now, and the lady was like "Ms. Jantzen, did you mean to put on two different shoes today? Is that maybe an Indiana thing?" Nope... Not even she believed that one... I had two pairs of flip flops under my desk here and just put my feet into them and never looked down.

-You can buy alcohol on Sunday. Laura-Lee and I wanted a bottle of wine with dinner and asked first at customer service, where I think they thought we were crazy. "We're from out of state," I said.

-Today one of the orientation events was an optional safety/security seminar. Since I come from a college where you could leave your door standing open and your laptop there while you wander the campus alone at 3am, I figured it wouldn't hurt to get some education. There were only probably 12 of us there, and 4 of us were BME students. What is it about us biomedical engineers that made us either more afraid or more into safety? Yes, there are a lot of us, but 4 of 12 is still disproportionately high. Not sure what this says about us but will keep my feelers out.

-The Engineering Dept. apparently puts on a happy hour with free beer from 4-6 every Friday at the cafe in the bottom of our building. What a fun idea! Beer or no beer, it's just nice that they do things to get all the engineering programs together, both students and professors. There are rumors that budget cutbacks might affect this nice service this year, and I hope that doesn't happen (what unfortunate timing on my part that would be).

I have made it to North Carolina! Last weekend Melissa & her mom & I packed up my house and then Saturday we loaded the truck with the help of several other friends. That night Carrie & Alyson & I drove down to my parents' house, where we overnighted before making the 9-hour trip to Durham. Sunday evening, we got everything moved in down here. The 3 of us lovely ladies really did it all - so we felt kinda like superheroes :-D They helped me unpack a bunch and we also got to spend a few days looking around the area. So grateful to have had all the help I had - packing, loading, moving, unloading! Don't know what I would have done without my friends for all of that. :) During this past week I got business taken care of - library & bank accounts, new license & license plate, bought my books, met with my advisor, etc.! Then my friend Laura-Lee was down from Friday night to this morning and we bought me some things I needed like a bed and some little cabinets to put around the apartment. It's coming together! :) Classes start a week from today, but orientation is this week, so there are various events here & there. I'm pretty terrified of going to some of those things by myself - that's very hard for me, but that's the way I've got to do it to make friends.

Anyway I like the area where I'm living, I like my apartment, and so far the whole area here seems nice. It's pretty hot but I guess it'll be nicer in the winter!!! :) Oh, and did I mention? I loove Southern food :-D We used to have this chain Bojangles in Louisville and slowly they all went out and my family was so sad because we used to pick up lunch there on the weekends all the time, and I loved the fried chicken & their seasoned fries & dirty rice. And when we started getting within like 100 miles of Durham there were Bojangles signs for like every exit and I was like, sa-weet, I'm so excited! I ate there with Carrie & Alyson and with Laura-Lee, and it was just as good as I remembered! Not to mention the one on the week-day lunch was *packed* so I guess I can feel secure that not all of the milion of them in a short radius from me will be going out anytime soon. Plus Carrie, Alyson, & I went to this neat place called Carolina Brewery in Chapel Hill and I had some killer shrimp & grits. I have always loved grits so people have joked that I am Southern on the inside. I guess just without the accent.

That's all for now! Just an update since everal people have been joking that I must have fallen off the face of the earth or been trapped under a dresser or something :) It's been a very busy week takin' care of business!

Should I have eaten an apple a day?
There is nothing like medical problems to make you appreciate your good health, including things you never thought you could appreciate. When I found out about my freakish skin allergies 3 yrs ago and learned that I'd probably never be able to buy mainstream shampoo at the store again, I thought that was a big deal. Like 'wow, I'm probably always going to have this. I'm going to have to deal with this forever, weird.' Haha, um, no. Not a big deal. Perspective is everything! It's kind of crazy because I'm still [technically] just 24, but yet have these random problems. How fun for both the wallet and the conversational circuit ;-) At least it's something that can be managed with medicine; hopefully that keeps me in check for a long time. :) So, it's all good, don't worry about me [although do pray for me if you do/ are inclined], just - if you're healthy, don't take it for granted :) Although as I've experienced it's almost impossible not to when it's all you know.

Now in other news I'm doing a thoroughly slowpoke job of packing up this house to move to NC. So, too bad that's happening Saturday!! I finished writing my goodbye notes to coworkers today but not without crying over a few of them. I realized yesterday that I definitely moved from the cold and unemotional stage to the hyperemotional stage of this process. And today at work didn't help what with all of the thoughtful cards, gifts, emails, etc. This is not easy. Even though the overall idea of what I'm doing is exciting, the nuts & bolts execution is not without its little bit of heartache.
*edit* I can't believe this, when I posted this that sentence read 'exiting' instead of 'exciting!' Geeze Louise! ;-) :-p

Be warned that what follows is a rant; it's selfish and whiney and you proceed at your own risk. I'm really stressed out, emotions thin at leaving a place I've been for 3 years and not getting very much sleep. So I'm not feeling very gracious today.
Yesterday and today, my bell group from the Indianapolis area traveled down to Southern Indiana & Louisville for a 3-concert tour. I'm from that area of course, and another girl who's been with the group longer also is from down there (we rang bells together in high school). We did a concert Friday night, one this afternoon, and one this evening at 6pm. First one was in Floyds Knobs, 2nd in New Albany, and 3rd was in Louisville. Playing was really fun. I enjoyed being around my group and playing my last 3 concerts with them before moving to NC. I do this because I enjoy it, but also because I'm under some delusion that our performances are entertaining for people. Let me say first off that I'm fully aware that bells are about as cool as marching band (right, Carrie?). I personally like both, but I know that not everyone does. But [and I wouldn't normally say this] we are good at what we do. This is not your grandma's church choir; the reason I drive an hour each way to rehearsal is that there aren't a lot of groups who are at this level. And we don't just play hymns or dirges or something, we played jazz tonight, popular oldies, classical, a popular vocal song. Ahem, so anyway this has been planned for months. Months ago I sent messages to people I knew in the area telling them to mark their calendars. I talked to my church pastor and the announcement was in our bulletin for 2 weeks. We made events on facebook and invited everyone we know in the area. I was excited for people down there to see what I've been doing up here. We stuffed mailers to every area church, and we had a small blurb in the 'events' page of the Louisville newspaper. And it's summer, people are on vacations and stuff, but how many people that I knew came to those concerts? Well my mom & dad came to two of them. My best friend's family (my 2nd family) came to one, and my best friend and her husband came to one. One friend came by at the last minute I think who ran into us at lunch. So basically 5 people besides my family cared enough to plan to go to this free entertainment that my group & I put on. Each according to what worked into their schedule, but it was nice having all 3 of those options! How many people from my home church came to one of these, of the people who have known me since I was born and many of whom are starting to try to ring in a chime group there? Zero is how many. Some of them don't get out at night; luckily, our concert *in* New Albany was in the afternoon. Of friends of mine who played in bell groups *with* me for years and who have known me since I was 5, or 12, or whatever, zero of them came. And I guess this is sad to me for multiple reasons. One is that no one came out to cheer me on, see what I do, or support me. The other is that no one came just because it might be *enjoyable*! Yes, I guess I did choose the wrong musical avocation, should have gone with rock & roll, because I can tell you that something else there is zero of is hot guys at or in bell concerts, haha!! Did I mention these concerts were free? I know, it's not everyone's "thing." As for the people who have played and listened to bells for years or who are getting started with it at church, yeah I don't get that, but do you really think that if one of these people's choir, or garage band, or *chess team* came from two hours away to the town where I live that I would *actually* miss it if I were in town and not on the floor throwing up or something? It would be in my calendar, and I would go, even if I was in the middle of a really gripping video game or something :-p. So if you're not going to go, just tell me you're not going to go. Don't say to me this very week "I'm going to try to go". Is your schedule that unpredictable all of a sudden?
So I guess it really is more fun to play than to listen to. My sister said I shouldn't take it personally, that if 5 people came to my birthday party or something I should be worried, but not this. And I was like you know what? I care about this more than if I had a birthday party or something. Because I spent hours preparing for this, driving to rehearsals, and working hard to get better at it. Lol I should have taken up guitar, because rockers don't have to pull teeth to get old friends to come to their concerts. They've got friends coming out of the woodwork looking for backstage passes. I do understand how dumb and selfish this is, but it's not like I thought everyone I've ever met would show up, just a few more than what did. On a positive note everyone in my group was very pleased with the overall attendance and thought that the trip was definitely worthwhile and fun. I even agree with that! I just wish that I wasn't friends with such lame-os. I guess that I should not spend so much time on bells in NC and take up a new hobby that is more cool, or else just stick to performing in retirement homes. I definitely don't feel the need to give the CD that we made as Christmas presents - I guess that isn't as special as I thought. Because while there are people who do enjoy this kind of thing, those aren't people I know.

The Snow Patrol/Coldplay concert this Friday was *awesome!!* Glad I got to go with such fun people to see 2 of my very favorite bands ever! Super duper :)

If Walt Disney World bills itself as the Happiest Place on Earth, then I think O'Hare airport is the opposite... the Least Happy / "Miserablest" Place on Earth. As you might guess, that is where I am right now, working on my 12th consecutive hour. This includes at least an hour wandering around, an hour or two waiting for my plane to board, at least 2 hours in that plane on the tarmac waiting to be cleared to take off because of weather, then returning to the terminal for more of the sitting & wandering and finally 3 or 4 hours of sleeping /slash/ laying horizontally on a cot with a thin blanket until we were herded out just before 4am local time.
I know, I know, we have all had experiences like this. Heck, I've had experiences similar to this before. This is one of those times it sucks not to live in a big hub and not wanting to spend the $ and deal with the complications and fatigue of just renting a car to come home. Looks like an extra half day of work I get to take off.
Anyway, where I was going with all of this is just that I don't think I've ever had an experience here at O'Hare that was any better than marginal. So as I'm walking past all of their '2016 Olympics candidate city' posters, I am bitterly thinking to myself that we shouldn't funnel that kind of traffic through here unless we want them to hate the U.S. more. I know, though, I guess, that if this is their final destination, they won't be sleeping in the cot city like I was.
I just think it's a really unhappy place, that's all.
*edit* good grief, even the background elevator music in the terminal is skipping!!!!

Today, in Denali NP, we saw:
Brown Bear (+ 2 yearling cubs)
Grizzly Bear (huge)
Arctic Ground Squirrels (x5-10)
Snowshoe Hare (x100 or so)
Moose (the rare pinto moose actually [this is true], with white markings, and its yearling baby with color marking)
Fox (x4)
Caribou (x6)
Dall's Sheep (x many)
lots of birds and other wildlife!!
We were in a wolf zone while hiking today, apparently, but missed out on that (thank goodness!!)
Crazy Alaska :)

Today some of the animals we saw on our boat tour of Kenai Fjords NP and driving around seward included:
Sea otters playing, Orca Whale, Humpback Whale, Fin Whales (5), Mountain Goat & kid, Dall’s Porpoise, 2 varieties of puffins (tons of them), gulls, Bald Eagles, Sea Lions (tons of them), lady-moose, and a black bear.
Alaska is a crazy cool place!
The weather has been absolutely gorgeous. We also saw several glaciers. Tomorrow we begin driving north toward Denali :)

Alaska is fabulous!! We've seen many mountains, bald eagles, great things and a craft market in Anchorage, as well as walked right up to the toe of a glacier tonight. Tonight we're also staying at a fun B&B with tons of real bear rugs courtesy of the man of the house!

More fun things to follow :)

Saturday - to Alaska!! :)

I don't know what it is, but lately I just cry at the drop of a hat! (Oh, that's so sad your hat fell on the floor)
But yeah, seriously, there hasn't been a day of this week that I haven't choked up or cried a little bit, probably a couple of times. I guess I am more anxious about this move and more conflicted about what I'm leaving behind than my conscious brain knows.

I've been rather wrapped up and self-absorbed lately, so to everyone, I apologize. And, really, I don't know who I'm kidding here with the 'lately' because I think it's rather a character trait. I'm not looking to be contradicted (so don't), just stating something that I have been observing and something that I'm working on and praying on.

I've been very down lately... I have plenty of reasons to cite for this, but I think that this is also really just an inherent issue that I need help with. Two days in a row I've heard of unexpected deaths of family friends, whom I've spent considerable time with. In neither case was it unexpected, but for me, I wasn't close enough to know that things were getting close, and so it was a very sad shock. I feel like I've gotten the one-two punch to the gut, and have had my small meltdowns here and there. This combined with talks of re-evaluating pricing on the house has not put the smile on my face.

I blanked on one of my very best friend's birthdays today... See paragraph 1... I'm so sorry, I love and cherish you.

I went to a very cool concert with Jill & Anne Marie last night (yay!) and that was very fun and helped with the cheer factor :-D I was just so excited that the very cute Australian singer who was also very musically talented busted out the digeridoo and played it. That was so cool to me, memories of Sydney Harbor!

Going out to San Diego next week... here's hoping we don't all die of swine flu :-p If Cook Medical doesn't come out with any new products in the next several many years, you'll know it's because all of their R&D engineers globally infected one another with flu in the pursuit of forming better working relationships, leaving monkeys to finish the paperwork :-p :-p I don't know whether this thing is something to legitimately worry about contracting or not? It seems to be in the grey area between ignorant hysteria and actually serious.

My community bell group recorded a CD on Saturday. That was fun :) A real recording studio with the sound engineer guy in the little room, etc. hehe. We listened to some of the playbacks during our lunch break, and it actually sounded really cool all together - usually I can only hear the stuff right around me and not the whole ensemble together, so that was neat. I can't wait to hear how it comes out... Looks like I know what all my family's getting for Christmas when I'm a poor grad student ;-)

Go go gadget house!

Let go, move on.

I do believe, I am going to Duke next year!

Tonight I watched Twilight that a coworker friend loaned me. What a fun movie! Definitely going to have to read those books :)

Coming to my senses a little bit. Next year is closer all the time and the big mid-April deadline is closer all the time! Ack!

I don't know why I am up so late when I've had trouble sleeping lately from feeling ill (yuck, everyone seems to be sick lately including me!). So, I'm going to sleep!!!

I was listening to a new CD yesterday (Adele - 19, it's fabulous, check it out), and one song really struck me as poignant. I later found out that the song was written by Bob Dylan & has been covered by other artists, and has been featured in a movie. At any rate, the words to me seem to be (for the most part) applicable not only to 'romantic' relationships, but to friendships and family relationships. The words resonate with me as far as the security that's found in unconditional love, which is something I've been thinking about lately. This one's for you.

"Make You Feel My Love"
When the rain
Is blowing in your face
And the whole world
Is on your case
I could offer you
A warm embrace
To make you feel my love

When the evening shadows
And the stars appear
And there is no one there
To dry your tears
I could hold you
For a million years
To make you feel my love

I know you
Haven't made
Your mind up yet
But I would never
Do you wrong
I've known it
From the moment
That we met
No doubt in my mind
Where you belong

I'd go hungry
I'd go black and blue
I'd go crawling
Down the avenue
No, there's nothing
That I wouldn't do
To make you feel my love

The storms are raging
On the rolling sea
And on the highway of regret
Though winds of change
Are throwing wild and free
You ain't seen nothing
Like me yet

I could make you happy
Make your dreams come true
Nothing that I wouldn't do
Go to the ends
Of the Earth for you
To make you feel my love

Well, I had a wonderful and blessed weekend. Krystal and the boys came to visit, and we had so much fun! John even surprised me by flying in (he and Krystal had been in cahoots!) :-) It was fantastic and fun. I am always so grateful to be surrounded by best friends.

On a completely random note-
So I heard this Coldplay song off a recent EP awhile back and I guess I thought it was about something totally different than what it was. I thought it was about the bombing of Nagasaki and the fact that it was the 2nd-choice target, because the primary target had 70% cloud cover. All of this was based on me not hearing the lyrics quite right. I thought, man, this is a sad song! Imagine my surprise when I looked up the lyrics and found, no, it's *actually* just about a rainy day. So below are the real lyrics, and underneath some lines, what I heard and my comments.

"Rainy Day"
Then there was rain
The sky wore a veil of gold and green
At night it was the bright of the moon with me
(I heard: At night it was the blight of Enola Gay - you see because the cloud cover messed them up. I thought I heard Enola Gay and so this is what set me up)
Time is just floating away

Then there was rain
The sound foundations are crumbling
(I heard: This town, foundations are crumbling - as opposed to the other town, that didn't get bombed)
Through the ground comes a bit of a-tumbling
(To the ground, come the buildings tumbling)
And time was just floating away
What could we say?
And we can listen

Oh rainy day, come 'round
Sometimes i just want it to slow down
(Ok, so thinking how a rainy day saved this one city, so we shouldn't all be down on the rain)
And we're separated now, i'm down
But i love it when you come over to the house
I love it when you come over to my house
(I admit, I couldn't figure out how this fit in)

Then there was rain
I spent the night with the Queen Of Spain
(I heard: Eyes bugging out of the Queen of Spain - she's shocked at this international tragedy)
My lonely little heart would have broke again
Times were vicious
Saying deeper the knife goes in I know you win
(The deeper that the knife goes in the more you win - the tragedy of the victories of war)
You win what with less than when you begin
Deeper than the knife goes in
oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh ohhhhh

...And it goes on to repeat...

Yeah, pretty ridiculous of me huh? :-p

A pretty great Wednesday night - tonight I get to see my sister, my bestest friend John, and a fun friend from college that I haven't seen since graduation! (How random it is that he has a long layover in DFW at the same time that I am here, etc.) Reunion city today ;) Not to mention I had a great productive day of work today observing procedures in the local hospital with a doc. Yay!

Heading to Tejas tomorrow for work... randomly last minute :-p But cool :)

I wonder if any of my single girl friends ever use the same rationalization strategy that I sometimes do when it comes to being single...

No matter how pronounced the deficit of nice young men in my area, I can always feel better by reminding myself, "That's okay, So & So is out there and is single." So & So would be any of a number of great guys whom I've known, and who for whatever reason I never dated (geographical, timing, my introversion). Historically, this has worked pretty well as a self-reassurance strategy, because there have been many guys in this category. However... those ranks seem to be continuously dwindling. Case & point, the cutest guy ever from home (alias Squeaky) is engaged. Tragedy of the decade.

Of course it's not really the tragedy of the decade, because we don't keep in touch, probably wouldn't be good for each other anyway, and I'm extremely glad he's happy. I guess it's only tragic in that he's not "out there ,and single" anymore. But it's times where I go off on tangents like these that I really have to put these thoughts aside and have faith. I have to have faith not just that God will bring the right guy to me, but have faith that if he doesn't, then that's the better outcome in his plan.

So I am thinking of maybe trying this again.

It has been a strange kind of day, but very productive! Got my taxes done.

I'm so confused and so struggling with the big-picture decisions, lol, 'life decisions.' Praying about it but not seeing a clear answer yet. :(