Interesting Times

Well, well, well. I must say, this past week was actually fun. In terms of work, the interns moved up from scrubbing corroded lead rectangles to making dilutions and using more equipment like calibrated pipettes, a pH meter, and a vacuum pump. We also started one set of samples and terminated another set. Also, Leslie (she's the one who's kind of the mini-manager of the lab interns, the one who's teaching us everything) seems confident enough in our abilities to leave us alone in the lab as long as someone knows we're in there. I'm not saying we're completely mistake-free yet, no one ever is. I personally feel like kind of a klutz sometimes, when I keep knocking over stuff or when I can't get the pipette to work, but it's okay. We're not paid to be perfect. They know we're still learning. The main concern is that we stay safe. I like that.

Wednesday evening I played kickball with a bunch of people from the office. It was great. I only got past 1st base once, but I had fun. A lot of people brought friends and family, so there were kids in the game and toddlers being watched by one or more of the parents on the sidelines. It was kinda funny, because it was a little humid, like maybe 10-20%, and people were complaining about it like crazy. I felt like Kevin with Houghton winters, it was hilarious. I felt fine, and all I could think about were all the summers that I marched around in 70+% humidity, so I was just grinning.

After kickball, I grabbed a few extra ingredients at the local grocery store just down the street from the field and rushed home to start making bean and corn salad for Thursday's potluck. It went well, except there was a ton of chopping, and I had to make an 11:30pm run to Walmart to get an extra huge bowl to mix everything together. Luckily it's summer, and the next holiday is July 4, which usually involves much grilling and salads and deliciousness, so big humongous bowls with patriotic stripes were on sale and in the front of the store.

Thursday we had a giant potluck since three people in our office are leaving soon. A bunch of the guys grilled up tons of meat out in the back of the building, and lots of people brought salads, or chips, or dessert, or crackers and cheese, and it was just tons of delicious food and it was awesome. I even saved half of my cheeseburger for dinner, since I ate too much delicious food between bites of the burger. Then people said some words, and some people got close to tears, because they really are pretty close here in the Carlsbad office.

Friday was less exciting but people took care of the leftovers pretty well - and all of my bean and corn salad got eaten! yay! And one woman even asked for the recipe. :)

Saturday was an outing with the interns. Me, Brittany, Cassie, Daisy, Ashley, and Penit - first 3 work in the lab, next 2 girls work at the front desk, and I don't know what Penit does - all met at the mall here in Carlsbad, piled into two cars, and drove to Roswell, about an hour away. Roswell is a lot bigger than Carlsbad, and actually has stores and banks I've heard of. There, we went to the movies and watched Toy Story 3 in 3D, which was great. Then we went to Applebee's for dinner, followed by a bit of shopping at a place called Rue 21. It didn't have the best quality stuff, but I managed to find a cute t-shirt. After shopping, we left to go back to Carlsbad. On the way there and back, Cassie told Brittany and I several stories - the rivalry between Artesia and Carlsbad, which sounds almost as bad as U-M and OSU; tales of her high school and college days; tales of her old car and new car and driving; past boyfriends, little sister troubles, etc. I occasionally told stories when it was relevant - driving to Mich Tech, driving to Carlsbad, some tidbits about Saline and my high school experience, a little bit of the history of my old car, etc.

Today was mostly my usual Sunday routine, with the exception that I wished my dad a Happy Father's Day when I called my parents. The other difference was that I drove over to the Gem and Mineral Show today - it was the last day, and I figured I'd check it out, since I like rocks. I bought a couple of nice amethyst crystals as well as a little pyrite cube. I felt like such a dork getting the pyrite cube. There's a much bigger pyrite cube in a case at Sandia with a bunch of other rocks, and I saw it and I was like "THAT'S SO COOL" cuz it's like a perfect cube and there's another smaller cube coming out of the main cube at an angle and I was like "OMG DISLOCATIONS" cuz I'm quickly growing into a materials dork lol.

As to the ongoing bug battle in my apartment - I still see ants occasionally, and there's been a couple little spiders in my bedroom, but it's really not so bad. It's not scary anymore, just annoying.

Also, a strange observation - the people who built the roads and the Walmart in Carlsbad seemed to assume that because it's the desert, it would never rain. Carlsbad is just the edge of a desert, though, so it does rain occasionally, though it certainly doesn't pour buckets like it does in the Midwest. Whenever there's a good amount of rain, however, like there was today (like maybe what we might call normal), there's tons of giant puddles everywhere, to the point where it almost might be considered flash flooding. Also, the ceiling of Walmart drips everywhere. Why? There's no drainage system. There's very few drainage things along the road, and I'm guessing Walmart's roof probably isn't sloped properly to let the rain drip off as it should. It just seems strange coming from a city where waterproof shoes are a must due to the giant puddles that form on the sidewalks despite the drainage systems.

That's it for now, folks. Now I just have to get my stuff out of the dryer and try to get some sleep. :)