20110823

Contents

Jumping on the bandwagon with some of you out in the blogosphere to spill out the goods...

Missing phone... as it was taking the photo!

My lovely purse is full of many wonderful things. My sweet Staedtler pens, 200C prelim exam notecards, pens and highlighter, Post-Its, iPad (usually in its sleeve), diabetes supplies and ibuprofen kept in a pencil case, wallet, valet key, something sweet, Chapstick, gum, and keys.

Not shown are the random receipts and miscellaneous papers than end up in my bag. This photo makes it look rather clean and organized. Not so.

...and this concludes this procrastination session.

20110820

8. Tie a Baby Quilt

Tying Daphne's quilt in March.
I was reminded that I have been involved in blanket making for Daphne! So, voila, #8 checked off!


1. Leave the country. (Canada!)
2. Go wining in Napa/Sonoma.
3. Go backpacking.
4. Walk across the Golden Gate.
5. Finish my master's degree.
6. Have a gluten-free beer tasting.
7. Buy my first diamond. (Nose stud!)
8. Crochet a baby blanket. (Or... type a baby quilt!)
9. Ride a roller coaster. (Disneyland!)
10. Take a midnight walk on the beach.
11. Make gluten-free pasta.
12. Paint.
13. Take a tap class in San Francisco. (Changed to Davis as I found a class offered here!)
14. Write my own sexual autobiography.
15. Do an entire roll of instant film using strangers as subjects.
16. Get over fear of touching raw chicken. (Rubbed raw chicken down with butter and stuffed it with garlic!)
17. Play the California lottery. (Lost!)
18. Hold a newborn baby. (Held little Daphne Kate!)
19. Create a signature cocktail.
20. Make my own goat cheese.
21. See the San Francisco Ballet. (Saw the San Francisco Symphony with Sean!)
22. Take the train to Reno.
23. Have my photo taken at 1 Infinite Loop. (Snapped by Sarah!)
24. Be a tourist in Salt Lake City. (Showed Sean around my beloved, and sometimes bizarre, hometown!)

Eleven down. Thirteen to go!

20110819

Conference Proposal!

I finished my poster proposal last night... or, well, this morning! Here is the super sexy title (thanks, Scott, for helping me chop it down!):


Yep! It turned out to be a lot of fun. I always forget how much fun I have writing and researching. Once I get past the tiny amount of anxiety, I love it. Anyway, here are some cool pie charts and one neat-o regression table.


Not surprisingly, people tend to date within their ethnic group (or multiethnic group). But still, there are differences in those rates. Also interesting, about 25% of the teens who were dating in my sample were in cross-ethnic relationships.


And my delightful regression table. Quick and dirty how-to-read regression table for my readers! The numbers in the table are slopes. So, for instance, for every one unit increase in peer interracial climate (good!), is associated on average with a 0.41 decrease in reported partner hostility. Isn't that spiffy? If you want to know what's going on with those interactions (exactly same-ethnicity times peer interracial climate -- simple, eh?), I can share. It's surprising!

One last thing, even though being in a cross-ethnic relationship was associated with a decrease in partner warmth, it wasn't associated with a decrease in happiness (not shown) or satisfaction. So while behavior within the relationship is different, teens in cross-ethnic relationships are just as happy and satisfied. Interesting, right?

In the end, better peer interracial climate is associated with less hostility in romantic relationship during late adolescence, regardless of the ethnic make-up of the couple. COOL.

So that's my proposal. This one was much easier to write than the one for SRCD. Practice makes better, I suppose. Well, now it's just me and prelims. If you have fingers to cross, please do so!

20110817

24 Before 24 Update!

It seems the blogosphere (or at least my mom, haha) wants to know where I am in completely my golden birthday to do list! Voila.

1. Leave the country. (Canada!)
2. Go wining in Napa/Sonoma.
3. Go backpacking.
4. Walk across the Golden Gate.
5. Finish my master's degree.
6. Have a gluten-free beer tasting.
7. Buy my first diamond. (Nose stud!)
8. Crochet a baby blanket.
9. Ride a roller coaster. (Disneyland!)
10. Take a midnight walk on the beach.
11. Make gluten-free pasta.
12. Paint.
13. Take a tap class in San Francisco. (Changed to Davis as I found a class offered here!)
14. Write my own sexual autobiography.
15. Do an entire roll of instant film using strangers as subjects.
16. Get over fear of touching raw chicken. (Rubbed raw chicken down with butter and stuffed it with garlic!)
17. Play the California lottery. (Lost!)
18. Hold a newborn baby. (Held little Daphne Kate!)
19. Create a signature cocktail.
20. Make my own goat cheese.
21. See the San Francisco Ballet. (Saw the San Francisco Symphony with Sean!)
22. Take the train to Reno.
23. Have my photo taken at 1 Infinite Loop. (Snapped by Sarah!)
24. Be a tourist in Salt Lake City. (Showed Sean around my beloved, and sometimes bizarre, hometown!)

Ten down. Fourteen to go!
Three months and one week left!

Easy.

20110815

Little Honda

I GOT A CAR THIS WEEKEND!

Now that's out there, some mood music for this occasion...


(Just pretend it's about a car, and not a motorbike. ;-))

I woke up Friday morning prepared to face my fear of car dealers, dealerships, and all their tricks. I was determined. I was going to cow town (Vacaville). So, I rented my last ZipCar.

A 2010 Honda Civic...
I test drove the little Honda and put on my tough, serious facade, and, with the huge help of my dad, bought it!

My keys!
Of course, I had the rental car and no way to drive the car home, but they offered to follow me back to Davis. So my ZipCar Civic was followed by my Civic, and followed by another Civic. It was pretty sweet.

I drove it, oh-so-carefully home...

In its snug parking space.
Later, I took it out for its first trip! I drove out to Woodland, stopping by a cornfield to take some scenic photos.




Isn't it awesome?!?!?!?! I am pleased as punch. Here's the interior...





It's exactly what I wanted. I love the feel of the car, it gets decent gas mileage, and I'm a fan of the killer air conditioning and, let's face it, sound system. But my favorite thing is being able to go exactly where I need to go, whenever I need to, and without worrying about dropping it off anywhere at a particular time. Having a car makes life SO much easier. I've enjoyed my couple of years being a pedestrian and public transit enthusiast but I really like the whole American independent adulthood thing. Ah, cars.

If you're ever in NorCal, let me know! I might just take you for a spin! :-)

20110808

A California Kid in a Utah World

So Sean here blogging from sunny Northern California.  Natalie asked me to guest blog on here about my recent visit to Salt Lake City.  First off though, here's another to cross off the list.

#24 Be a tourist in Salt Lake City  :)


The view of Salt Lake City from the University of Utah campus
So I know this is a long awaited post considering people have been bugging me about posting this for the past week.  So sorry about that!  I just ended up getting a little bit busier than I'd like.

Anyways, I flew into Salt Lake City two Wednesdays ago and was greeted by the beautiful Natalie with a big hug and smile that stretched from cheek to cheek.  It looked a little something like this...

:)
On Thursday morning, I walked out into the front yard of Natalie's Mom's house and was greeted this view.

Mount Olympus
Later on in the day, Natalie took me to one of her favorite places in Utah...Cafe Rio!  At first, I thought it was all right, but boy did it grow on me.  I liked it so much, that we went back once more before I headed back home.

Sweet Pork Barbacoa Burrito Enchilada Style!
After munching on some Cafe Rio, we headed out to Bountiful to hang out with Daphne, Emily, and Taylor.  They're so cool and welcomed me right in.  We ended up staying there a lot longer than we expected, but it was totally worth it.

We then headed down to Temple Square to check out the Mormon Temple and temple grounds.  I was a little bit hesitant at first, but it was pretty cool.  All I can say is that it felt like I couldn't be any further away from home.  Definitely worth checking out.

What's up Moroni?!
Thursday was action packed so I was looking forward to heading back to Natalie's Mom's house to get some sleep.  The deck in their backyard is so sweet.  It's so nice to just hang out there and watch the sunset with a cool breeze.  It looked a little something like this.

Mill Creek sunset
On Friday, we headed up to Snowbird and Park City so I could let out the inner-snowboarder in me.  They were nothing like what I imagined and they were so close.  I'm used to driving an hour and a half up to North Lake Tahoe to Northstar so a half hour drive was nothing!

Later that night, I felt like driving around and snapping a few shots so we headed to the Capitol.  I really like how it's positioned on a hill that overlooks downtown Salt Lake City.  It's so picturesque.  I took so many shots, but here's one just for the Utahns.

State of Utah
On Saturday, we visited Ali over at Silver Bean Coffee.  She is by far the smartest, most educated barista to ever brew a pot of coffee.  She was greeting customers left and right and wowing them with her barista skills.

I guess she likes to smile while making coffee.
We ended Saturday hanging out with Natalie's family in the backyard and watched Ben as he grazed around the lawn.  Here's a picture of my favorite tunnel digger...I'm talking about Ben, not Natalie :)

A girl and her bunny
I had a lot of fun in Salt Lake City and can't wait to go back and visit.  I'm definitely looking forward to seeing Salt Lake during the winter to hit the slopes and of course to see everyone again!

So here we are back in California and enjoying the California sun.  Hope all is well with everyone, and I bet you guys can't wait until the next Sean guest blog appearance! ;)  Later!

Until next time Utah!

Dress Shopping!

I've spent the past hour taking a little break from studying to do some online dress shopping! I'm so excited to find something to wear to Sarah's wedding in November! So I will share what I have found thus far...



The one in the bottom right would be a dark brown not taupe...

AH! I love shopping. I also want to route you, dear blog reader, to Red Oak Lines, where you can see some photos of what I was up to yesterday. I love hanging out with Sean and his family!

20110802

Back in Davis

Well, I'm settled back in Davis after my two amazing weeks in Salt Lake! The recap will come later, but for now what's happened between take off and present moment...

Lake Tahoe!

The flight home was very nice. My plane ended up being very delayed so Sean, who had about a 2 hour later flight, and I actually arrived in Sacramento at the same time! I was happy to be heading back to California and sad to be leaving Utah at the same time. That's the trouble with living somewhere you love away from family! I do miss the mountains already though. Oh, my Rockies.

But it's nice to come home to a sweet message...


Magnets rearranged (did you do that, Caitlin?!) and a little note are perfect homecoming surprises! As well was this...


This is the first time I've ever received a package from Lithuania! My blue Marimekko Unikko iPad sleeve arrived!

And the first thing to be unpacked were photos of my little Daphne Kate! Old pictures out, the best pictures ever in!

My niece is the sweetest! (And strongest, you should feel her grip!)
Since I've been back (a whole... 36 hours?), I've gotten serious about buying one of these puppies...

I want you, 2011 Honda Civic LX sedan.

Car buying isn't as fun as one would think. But somehow, someway I will be victorious!

Besides that... just a few small things. You know, the preliminary exam in about a month and a half... SRA proposal in two weeks... Greek study up and running. Yikes! Back to work!