sun sun sun

The sun has been out for a whole week now. I can still barely stand to stay inside even though I'm getting used to waking up to sunshine. Seattle is totally making up for the terrible, terrible winter/spring we had last year - where the sun did not come out until after I left for CA for the summer. I love the sun. love love love it.You may not believe me, as I'm still whiter than white - but I'm a firm believer in sunscreen and will not go outside for long without it. I learned my lesson last summer when I went biking sans sunscreen on my legs. I'm pretty sure I'll never get rid of my bike shorts tan line. ever.

 

{I've spent lots of quality time with books and napping in the park near my house lately}

{my sister and I went biking! I'm really bad at self-portraits - clearly I missed the myspace training in middle / high school.
uhh - I just noticed the guy in the background. we framed that pretty nicely...}

  
friends and tacos and sunshine - what a great cinco de mayo!}

I will admit, it feels a bit weird to be staying here all summer and not planning to take my finals early, pack up my stuff and drive (or coast, rather, in my giant buick) down to Ames for the summer. I'm kind of sad that I won't get to see all my friends in that one place - not sure when I'll actually get to see them again at all :/ I've got a bit of wanderlust in my bones now, staying in Seattle for a year might be more challenging than I'm expecting (anyone want to have me visit? I love flying places...). I do find it amazing that of the 6+ internships I applied for and dozen companies I contacted via email, only one company actually responded about an internship (they said 'thanks, but no') and one company emailed back (though the 'careers' email was answered by the CEO of the company....definitely a startup in the middle of OR...).

Right now, it's looking like I'm going to have to pay to do research for my PI this summer, so I'm hoping that my research starts picking up quickly. Making a new material is not a trivial exercise and so far research has been going slowly. It has been affirming (in some ways) that I'm finding that I'd rather be frustrated, but working in lab on research, than doing my homework, going to class, or doing my TA responsibilities - don't worry, I haven't really shirked anything, just thought about it. Frequently. This last two weeks were the busiest I've been all quarter - grading midterms for both my classes, doing my own assignment, and making an extremely detailed dress. I can't show you the dress now, but I should have great pictures after the weekend. It's going to be headed down a runway on a really tiny model (have I ever mentioned how hard it is for me to make things that will not fit me? It's really really hard - good indicator that fashion should not be my career :) ) during this event called Locavore, with the Kirkland Arts Center. If anyone who reads this is local and wants to come this Saturday, here are the details. But we did take sweet pictures last weekend, so those will pop up soon on my other blog!

On another, somewhat unrelated note, one of my best friends is back from India! She wasn't here in Seattle for long, but at least I can go visit her in CA for the next few years.

 I had really good biscuits and gravy! Oh, and the company was fantastic :D

And this is totally not related to anything except that I love cats/my cat. I went home for mother's day and this is a picture of my cat, acting weird and wrapping herself around the planter.

 

That's all, in case you were wondering where I disappeared to for the last bit of time :)