B-irthday cele-bro-tions!

it was aaron's birthday on thursday!

i had a plan.

thursday, september 20

thursday itself was pretty meh, unfortunately. aaron ended up going to a lecture with corey + gail, while i went and did my own thing at the gym. turns out, as much as i wanted to spend his birthday with him, i wasn't so much interested in a computer science lecture. apparently, i didn't miss much. i met up with them afterwards in david square and had dinner at the foundry. here, i also would not have missed much. the food itself was decent. i definitely enjoyed my wild mushroom flatbread. unfortunately, the service was mediocre at best. the waiter seemed to have forgotten about our table for awhile, he completely forgot about the appetizer that was ordered, and then seemed completely disinterested in helping us out upon realizing that we weren't there to booze it up. lamesauce.

friday, september 21

shenanigans begin! we went to work as normal. what i sneakily hid was the fact that i was going to be leaving work early to pick up aaron's birthday surprise - one andy spaghettios!!! :D this would've worked a lot better had we not then found out that someone back in madison (who shall remain nameless, but i am still quite angry at) had revealed the secret surprise to aaron a few days before hand. bull. shit. a month's worth of ninja secrecy work, down the drain. brought andy back to the house and opened the door to, "andyandyandyandyandyyy!!!". cue thumpthumpthumping of the birthday boy running to the door. it was adorable. much hugging ensued. corey came over for some pre-scheduled throwing and drills, before we all showered and headed back to cameron ave for dinner and hang out time.

did andy get shorter? | markma.

also, andy got aaron a slap chop for this birthday. first experiment? fortune cookies.

saturday, september 22

my present to the birthday boy - alpine ziplining!!!

up in the white mountains, we went and took a ziplining tour through canopies and down the mountain with the longest zipline spanning about 1600'. it was fantastic. this specific tour also had dual ziplines for you to race each other. i lost the first time to winston. i blame the fact that i got completely preoccupied with the flying part and totally forgot about the "curl up into a cannonball to fly faster" part. don't worry. i got it right the second time when i raced aaron. we flew pretty even - had i had longer arms, we could've higfived - until about halfway. cue the tiny asian cannonball. i won. and celebrated. fistpumping and all. winning!

on the way back, we stopped at the tilt'n diner again. had [too much] delicious food. had a waitress continuously give andy shit throughout the meal. ha.

andy found this cookie on the way - it was bigger than my head.

this is manny.

this is andy licking manny. 

katie zipping away!

the ktoads racing!

andy getting ready to fly. 

birthday boy coming in!!! 

here comes katieeeee!!

sunday, september 23

started the day watching moulin rouge just because, for some reason, we were all in the mood for it all weekend. we soon had to drop andy off at the airport so he could get back to madison. :(

we then went and hung out with john soh who was in town for the weekend with the cmu fifth year trip, and showed him around cambridge/mit. we got all nerdy visiting eero saarinen's mit chapel.

birthday shenanigans ended with a birthday/rosh hashanah dinner at the magic's, more cake and happy family time - a lot of which was spent watching baby phin's antics around the dining room.

i think that can be called a success. take that, "meh"!

next zipline excursion has already been planned for next march, ie. my birthday. interested? hit me up. :)

in case you need persuading, here's video i took during the longest zipline on the tour. enjoy!

since i could hold my head up high.

so it's been awhile since i last updated. mostly because, well, there hasn't been much to update. but here goes:

what's the same.
i'm still unemployed and actively job-searching. it's still eating away at my soul and will to keep doing it. i'm still playing ultimate. i still have a bunny who poops like a maniac on crazy pellet-inducing laxatives. i still want a kitty but am in no financially-sensible state to adopt one.

job searching.
economy has been messing with the job search, which makes it super unfortunate, but i'm doing as much volunteering as i can i guess. i'm volunteering coordinating winter workshops for the madison trust for historic preservation, while also building with habitat for humanity dane county/habitat young professionals every other weekend. i've also been in contact with nps lowell to discuss potentially doing some work for them remotely, but so far they're still working out their budget so see if that's even going to be a possibility. fingers crossed.

hot yoga.
i restarted doing hot yoga at the studio on willy st. there happened to be a groupon around the time i was trying to find a place to do some restorative, low-impact workout nearby so i jumped on the chance. its been great. i really love it there. the instructors are awesome. and its actually gotten me into practicing at home every morning too. unfortunately, my groupon deal is running out and, while they're offering a deal for groupon users for their first month of membership, i still can't afford it because a) i'm unemployed and can barely make rent anyway and b) the deal is only for the first month out of a three-month obligatory contract/commitment. boo. so i'm doing what i can for now and am crossing my fingers real hard that i'll find a job soon that a) i'll really like, b) will be able to support me financially and c) allow me to afford the things on my to-do list, ie. adopt a kitty, keep doing yoga and pay for my ultimate expenses.

fall league!
so since i last updated, summer league and the club season ended and fall league has both started and finished. aaron and i both played in two back-to-back leagues because we both realized that one game per night twice a week wasn't really enough, especially considering the club series had ended already. our early co-ed team, why did it have to be snakes, finished the season going 7-8 and trailing off at the end due to multiple injuries on the team, including myself. our night owl team, snake eyes, fared a little better by finished the season with a 9-9 record. we started out strong, hit a huge slump in the middle, but then locked it up and finished strong again by winning through playoffs to win the championship. :) we then went on to play the other division champions and won on universe to be big boy finals champions. and this was when we were missing toby and sarah, two significant assets to the team, and only having 3.5 women, as i was still coming off a sprained ankle and could only run at about 65%. all in all, a decent season. apparently it became snake eye's thing to only win close games. all of our playoff games went to universe. so our final plus-minus came out to a whopping +3. whoops.

visits!
aaron and i got to have a fun visit from corey + gail this past weekend. it was definitely good to see them an take them around madison. although, as we soon realized, there isn't all that much to take them around to, especially since their trip was under 48 hours long. :P turns out, the shorter the trip, the less we really want to spend  significant chunk of it sitting in a car to get places. saturday night was a lot of fun. dinner at graze with andy, jake, melissa, shultz, sarah and brando. then hanging out and wandering down state st to the chocolate shoppe. this probably wasn't the healthiest weekend, but it was a good one. :) can't wait for more visitors.

------------------------------------------------------------edit------------------------------------------------------------

so going through old posts, i realized i actually could post videos. and this one is too good to miss. the video is only really the first seconds, but i don't really have the capabilities to trim it right now.

andy decided to give aaron a ride. what would possibly go wrong?

smile and wave for the camera!

oh right. that. that's...bad...?

------------------------------------------------------------end edit------------------------------------------------------------

etc.
other than that stuff, life has pretty much been the same. hanging out with mad udderburn folks. job searching. hanging out with B. more job searching. figuring out christmas vacation. figuring out a possible trip to ny to visit jess and anna. more job searching. preparing for my first madison winter. planning for my first madison thanksgiving (weird.).

just a little extra something.

from thisisindexed.com by jessica hagy

'cause tonight's the night the world begins again.

that was absolutely, hands-down, the best four days of the semester/academic year so far.

B CAME TO TOWN!!! :)


there was much b-dorableness. and although we didn't get to do all the things we had planned/wanted to, it was still totally worth it.

so him coming to pittsburgh was completely up in the air. until i found out that i have the mileage with continental to just cash in for a free domestic round-trip ticket. then there was the matter of finding time. oh hey! mid-semester break! sounds like a plan!

B came to pittsburgh. we got to walk around campus and see all the new foodings. we got go down to the waterfront and see a good movie, whip it, and then get stranded there before finally walking part of the way back through shit weather. we got to play some ultimate, and B played with yuk again. we got to watch part of the casbah's post-practice beer pong tournament. we got to eat at eat unique and food for thought again. we got to use my pullout couch and hang out, cuddle and watch movies in my apartment. we got to play with puppy. we got to chill at home and order take out. we got to cook and enjoy gyoza.

basically, for four days, we got to go back to our old habits and just enjoy each other. for four days, i got to forget all the lousy shit that's been going on in my cmu life. for four days, we got to be happy again. with each other, in each other's arms and company. it was perfect.

B's now back in boston, 500 miles away, and i've got final deadlines coming up. but right after that...thanksgiving! i'll be back with my B, for more fun times and more hanging out and more happy and more memories. i can't wait. the next 35 days had better fly by like never before, or i'm going to slap a suckah.

having you back in my life was such a breath of fresh air. it made me so much happier, no matter how short-lived. i, unfortunately, chose not to see the crashing-back-down that would happen immediately afterwards, but hey. shit happens. things'll look back up come thanksgiving. and until then, we'll chat. and text. and videochat. and although that really doesn't even come close to the real thing. i think we'll make do. we can do this. i can't wait to be back in your arms again.

love you, B. <3

happy birthday/hannukah. :-*

35 days, baby!! :)

fireworks flying whenever we're together.

friday night fireworks from the hotel. taken with my cell phone.