Trying hard to look so pristine / Like a face in a magazine My seester is in town. Yay!
I have this problem. See, I like Houston. I mean, I don't like the traffic, or the stupid-head drivers, or the fact that only like, five restruants have sweet tea, or the fact that I'm like, 11 hours from family. But I don't really mind Houston, all in all.
My hair, on the other hand, hates Houston. With a fiery passion. Take for example, this week. Tuesday, I got my hair cut. Awesome haircut, looked great when I left the salon. Went to dinner, hair looked great. Next morning, I shower and - in an attempt to recapture the look I had leaving the salon - I blow dry and flat iron my hair. With product. That is supposed to deal well with humidity. I get it looking mostly ok (still not as good as the salon, but workable). Then I step outside. I could literally fell my hair swelling. Seriously. By the time I got to work, I looked like a country singer. From the 80's. Every time I caught my reflection, I thought of River Tan's reaction when she saw Shepherd Book with his hair undone. I'm not sure whether to laugh, or be afraid that my head will implode form the weight of the hair.
Today hasn't been much better. Maybe my hair is dry or something? Or maybe I'm not using enough product (I'm using Paul Mitchell something that's supposed to combat the frizzies)? No idea.
So currently I am in Reno, NV. Paying $11 a day for internet, in a hotel that is more like a city unto itself (Reno Hilton). There is a shopping mall, a 50-lane bowling ally, a huge arcade, a casino, like, 10 resturants, and a bunch ofother stuff I can't think of at the moment. We were planning to leave on the 12th in the morning, but it turns out that Chad's actually supposed to present his paper after we would have left, so we had to move our plane tickets to the 13th, and since it takes all day to get back and we have to change two time zones... it will be like, 4pm on Friday before we get back. To memphis.
More crazyness... We have to go through Starkville on our way to Houston, as the movers left a bunch of crap that we need to transport. So... we're looking at 11 hours in the car, plus time to finish packing the car and stop and eat and stuff (Willer Lite: I'll call you and let you know when we will be in Starkville, and we can eat then so we'll have time to see you). And they are supposed to deliver our stuff in Houston on the 14th, Chad is on the phone right now for them to bargin for a deliver time of 10am instead of 8am (!), so we know we'll actually be in Houston by then. If the movers move the bed in first, I swear we'll both just go to sleep.
And I got a call from my mother early yesterday... at 6am, while opening the Governors drive McDonalds, my brother was robbed *at gunpoint*. Some guy in a mask came into the store with a gun, put it to my brothers head, and told him to open the safe. Robbie did what he was told, and the guy left. No one was hurt, but my bother was pretty shoken up. The police came, but they probably will never catch this guy. My bother is trying desparately to find a new job.
My car may still go to the wrong city... the car mover swear it's going to Friendswood, but hte tag they put on it says Markham, TX.
I have a job interview on the 16th, Chad's first day of work. Cross your fingers... I also still have to finish my app to Rice. Today, I guess, since we paid for internet today. (it's due the 15th).
Blah. If you don't hear from me in the next couple of days it becasue I stopped paying for internet.
Bigger in Texas? So I am back, from my wild adventurous journey in to the wide world of Houston, TX. (forgive me, I've been reading Elizabeth Peters, and she always makes me want to write grand long epic sounding sentences with big words. I'l get over it, I'm sure).
Everything is supposed to be bigger in Texas, or something like that. To test this myth, since Adam and Jamie and the rest fo the Mythbusters team were unavailable, I took my own notes. And I will reproduce them here for your benifit.
Wal-Mart: Bigger. Whoa. Not only bigger, but the shelves are taller, and closer together. So, yeah, bigger and denser. Who'd have thought? And they have annoucments in spanish.
Roaches: Bigger. Way Bigger. I mean... one of these things could carry me off, no problem.
Space Centers: Not bigger. At least... not as big as Johnson should be, in my head. It's actually kinda smallish. Compared to the rest of Houston, anyway.
Overpasses: Oh yeah. Bigger, and stacked 6 high in some places.
Shopping malls: bigger, and more of them. They are everywhere.
Distance from where you are to where you want to be at any given time: Always bigger. It takes forever to get anywhere. Traffic is awful.
Headcolds: bigger, meaner, and nastier. Seriously, I htink I'll be the first person ever to die of a headcold. Chad might be the second.
ummm.... there was some other stuff, but between the cough suppressant and the mucinex and the antibiotics... I think I forgot it. If I remember, I'll post it later.
Other things learned in Texas include the fact that just because a business includes both NASA and Clear Lake in it's name, does not ean it is actually in Clear Lake or near NASA at all. Just in case you wondered.
And we did sign a lease on a house. In Friendswood. I have pictures. But I don't have the energy to post them with appropriate comments at the moment. So you'll have to wait.
Anyway. I have a to-do list that takes up a full sheet of notebook paper, and only four checkmarks made so far. If I can pry myself up off the couch... I might go take a nap before I try and tackle any more of this stuff.
Done! I'm done. I finished my last project report. As soon as my other team member gets here and we turn this stuff in, I'll have no other academic requirements to meet.
I went and picked up my cap and gown this morning. It's all weird... Master's robes are so different. It's got long hangy-down sleeves, and the weird hoodie thing. I think it's funny.
So this whole graduating thing. It's kinda scary. Like... I don't know. Everyone has been asking me for months if I'm excited to be graduating and moving to Texas. And I have been like, well, I guess... it's just something you do. You finish with what you're doing in one place, and then you move. We're done in Starkville, guess it's time to go somewhere else. But now... I guess it really hit me this week. I'm not a college student. I'm a grown-up. Or at least... I'm supposed to be? When did I get issued my grown-up card? Who exactly checked my credentials for grown-up-ness? I'm not even old enough to rent a car... who thought it was a good idea to give me a Masters degree and let me move like, a quarter of the way across the country?
I guess I've just gotten really comfortable here. I mean, Starkville has been more "home" than Huntsville for a long time now... as much as I complain about it while I'm here, it's a little scary to leave. I'll be far enough from home, that I'll have to plan way ahead to make it home for important events like Mandie's graduation... I'm sure my parents will *never* make it out to Texas (until I provide them a grandchild as incentive, anyway). It's kind of odd.
Not that I'm not looking forward to it. Living in a "real" city with malls and restraunts and museums is going to be awesome. And unlike the last time I lived in a huge metro area (St. Louis), we will not be in the ghetto. Far from it, actually. Houston has so many advantages... I'm looking forward to doing things I never get to do here while I'm in school...
I don't know. I've moved prety often all my life... so the moving thing is ok. I guess it's the not-being-here-after-I-move thing that bothers me :-)
New things: I am now in possesion of one 4gb black iPod nano. Yay for me! (Been waiting on it for like, a month).
I cut all of my hair off. Well... to be fair, not all of it, I guess. I was just tired of getting my hair stuck in doors and accidentally setting it on fire and stuff... so I cut like, 11" off it and am sending the cut-off hair to Locks Of Love. I wasn't sure how I would adjust to short hair again, or how Chad would like it, but all seems to have turned out well. :-) Yeah. New hair length: just almost to my shoulders.
The server where lydaalexander.com resides is apparently back up. ANd has been for like a week, but no one (including Chad) bothered to tell me, so I haven't done anything about it. That being said... until we get possesion of the site (read: January at the earliest), I think I'll leave it here, and just post a redirect from lydaalexander. Or maybe a mirror or something. I don't know. This webspace will be deleted in January, so I have to figure something out before then. I'll let you know.
Chad and I are like the only two people in the world not doing NaNoWriMo. But that is fine... we always have next year to jump on the bandwagon, I guess.
We still have no idea where we are going to live when we get to Houston... although we now know we will *not* be buying a house in Clearlake proper... although renting there is certainly still an option. I've interviewed for some jobs, all in like, central Houston... but no word back yet. And I decided to apply to Rice for a psychology degree... no idea if they'll accept me, or anything like that. We'll see, I guess.
Anyway... That is all I really have to say, I guess. I'm so counting the days until graduation....
Chad and I finally got our Thanksgiving planning done a couple weeks ago. Now we're trying to get the Christmas planning done... which is amazingly complicated. And made more amazingly complicated by the fact that we have to move at some point during the holidays. And we have to at least start looking for a place to live. And Chad has to be here for some finite amount of time to prepare a conference paper.
Crazy.
So the plans, thus far, look like this: For Christmas, we will be in Huntsville for a couple of days either before or after Christmas, no idea which. And we'll be in Memphis for a couple of days including Christmas day and Christmas Eve night. We'll be in Houston probably right after graduation, for like, two days. And we'll officially leave for Houston... sometime. Maybe before or after Chad's conference thingy, but I'm not (exactly) sure when that is.
We'l be in Starkville this coming weekend, and Memphis (for a ball game) the next weekend... Then Thankgiving, which I'm not even going to talk about.
I'm tired. But life is pretty good right now... guess it evens out.
So Chad's taking the job in Houston (in case there's like, anyone left who hasn't heard). We move to Houston officially in January (right after the new year). Yay! Having a job means we'll have money ... not that we're going to buy a bunch of stuff with it, in theory. it'll just be nice to know we aren't broke, and be able to actually start some kind of retirement or something. Or buy me a new Shelby Mustang. Or something like that. ;-)
So yeah. We'll have insurance, too. Yay!
Not sure what I'm going to do when we get out there. My choices look something like htis at the moment: go back to school for a PhD in CS; go back to school for a MS/PhD in Psychology; get a job teaching; get a job programming; or take up watching soap operas and eating bonbons.
We get to go out to Houston and look for a house at some point... I think in October. not sure if we're buying or renting yet... so many decisions.
Alanis is awesome. Just in case you wondered.
School is great this semester, although I have a huge amount of work to do. I htink graduating should be less work than the rest of school, but it's not. I still have to schedule my comps and stuff, so they'll give me my dimploma. *sigh*
Anyway. I might be called to go and socialize here in a few minutes... when the vampires are done vampiring. although my socializing will probably be cut short, as everyone here will be drinking, and I don't know enough people in the group to really feel like drinking. That, and I'm dead tired. one drink would put me out like a light ;-)
Hopefully, this will publish, and I'll be able to post again soon.
This is my brain..... in part, at least.
