Pollywog's Log of Life

Early morning is probably one of my favorite times of the day if not the favorite. It's fall which means it's getting cooler and we've been having fog in the mornings. I don't know what it is, but fog gives off this eerie feeling but at the same time I imagine it to be an eye cover for mother nature. She's waking up and can't just open her eyes quickly, the fog has to rise up and slowly burn off until everything is visible. I went star gazing recently and slept out on the bed of a truck. It was a great night for it because there was no moon and all the stars came out. What I liked even better was waking up shortly after the break of dawn, sunrise was 7:08am. I usually wake up at around 7:00am so time wise this wasn't too different. There's something about sleeping outside without windows to block light that just changes the experience. Most days I would love to have my bedroom window face east so I can wake up with the sun. I feel morning is a better tim

Coffee in the mornings Job searching when I can Knitting amazing projects for others Getting back in shape Reading Having fun Enjoying life Trying to stay up to date on news Not eating so much These are just some of the things I think about everyday. There are more I'm sure but every time I try to sit down and write they all flood in and I can't figure out exactly what my fingers should be typing. I like to just start writing and go from there but even doing that seems to be beyond me these days. I do feel bad I haven't been writing but this has been my dilemma recently.  Part of me has been thinking about switching the theme of my blog. Some ideas are to make it solely a project/craft blog, so only updates on my knitting or other projects I get done. The problem with this idea is that I'm already a member on  Ravelry  and thus just repeating what's already on my page there.  That's the main idea I have for changing the theme of my blog, othe

It's been so long! I've been on the go packing everything up, then driving across the country, and now that all my stuff is in one place again I can breath a little. It's nice knowing I won't be starting classes and I won't need to buy more textbooks. It's now my full time job to find  a job. There are some perks to this job, I can take breaks whenever I want. Granted I have to stay focused but there's no wardrobe requirement beyond t-shirts and shorts. So far on the job search I am trying to hone the best keywords for finding a job with my qualifications. It's helpful that John is looking for something similar because I can bounce ideas off him and him I. What I have found interesting is that I'm not sure employers know they need a statistician. I'll find postings which describe my qualifications but don't have the title of statistician, it's pretty interesting. Statistics is one of those fields that can be applied to almost anything,

I read the Zits comic yesterday, and it got me thinking about how our generation works. Here's the comic strip:  Zits July 22,2012 . It's so true too. I know it's nice to be able to text someone where you are, update them on your plans, and keep them in the know...but I would wear out quickly if I got texts like this comic all the time. I wish we behaved more like people before our generation, as in, we know our plans for the day and could tell anyone where we'll be and when, and that won't change. Obviously plans change, but not that much, and they only change if you're the one motivated to change them. I can't say that I plan out everyday to a tee, but I definitely do when I meet up with people or friends. If I make plans to see someone at 2pm at such and such a place, I'm going to be there at 2pm waiting for you. I don't understand when people make plans like this and then text each other, up until they both reach their meeting spot, things like &

I got up this morning, looked out the window, and everything was wet from rain! It's a little exciting only because it's been so warm here the past couple weeks. Remember that storm couple weeks ago that knocked people's power out? Well I was fortunate and only had to deal with it overnight. I know there are people still without power, I can't quite image how I would be dealing with it if it were me. It was fun for me because we lit some candles and had flashlights. We played a board game with our friends, went to bed, and all was well in the morning. I'm not so sure it would be that fun had it lasted longer. The point is that we also had about a week's worth of heat advisories. So try and imagine the power going out AND dealing with sweltering heat without fans or AC...not very cool. I do have some fans set up today, to get some circulation and new air into the apartment. It's cheaper than AC and I do feel like it's good to recycle the air as much as

Everyone talks about how they travel the world. Some of us do and some don't. I haven't done that much world traveling yet but I'm so glad I have friends that do. One friend is currently in Cape Town who I just Skyped with just to say hi. I haven't talked to her in a while so I just wanted to touch bases. She is so happy there, working towards helping people while enjoying parts of the world that I've only seen in movies. Hearing my friends out traveling makes me even more motivated to find a job and explore some place new. I want to get moving. I'm a pretty good person at adapting, so where ever I move will probably be awesome, but even if it isn't I hope I move quickly from there. Being "stuck" in one place because you're not willing to move is not a good excuse to stay where you are. I want to move somewhere I can have a garden to grow plants that don't just live in pots. I want a living room and  a dining room, there are few times w

My thoughts feel very scattered and emotional these days. Not necessarily all bad or all good, just a combination of a lot of thoughts going through my head. Like bumper cars, you aim for a target but you're almost  guaranteed to get hit by someone on the way which distracts you from your target and ultimately you wind up forgetting the first target and move to another. That many thoughts make me zone out a lot, I mean who hasn't felt that way at one point? What's even funnier to me, is when someone asks how I'm doing in these cases and I'll say good or fine or whatever and automatically that's somehow code for "I'm not ok". Every time I talk with friends about this feeling though, it seems to be the same: they're zoning out, trying to sort all the stuff in their head out, so a response like "good" or "fine", if anything, is code for "can't talk, trying to sort out my brain". And yes, sometimes it's good to

It's not the greatest feeling there is; trying or wanting to help someone that just doesn't want your help. It doesn't have to be help either, just the situation of someone you know you can assist in some way but stuck because they won't have any of it. Being the youngest of three I have definitely been on the "I don't want your help" side A LOT to "prove" to my siblings (and the world!..heh) that I can do something and I'm just as smart. Each year I get older, a little more mature, and am still surprised by the things I learn about myself, even if I thought I knew them already. These days while I search for a big girl job in the even larger scary world, I find myself asking those that have already been there. These people have succeeded in their careers and their goals, or are on the path to, so I know the advise they give me is worth listening to. It's a little like a group project or a research paper. In a group, most of the time,

It's Monday, a new week, and so far so good. Remember during the rainy season? Those overcast days? They give a sort of comfort; a perfectly logical reason to stay inside and be cozy. I love them since my interests exist both for outdoor and indoor activities. This is my second summer in WV and it's sort of funny that I'm still experiencing these types of days. The whole day has been overcast but it's about 80 degrees outside. It hasn't rained yet but the clouds look on the edge of dumping bucketfuls. I plan to make hot tea and do some knitting. I did some grading earlier, and if I do more work later today I'll work on other stuff. I've been a TA for two years and I'm pretty over the whole job. It wears you out if you're not looking to be a teacher as a career path. Last night talking with John and another friend who came for dinner; they asked why don't you just give everyone 10/10's and be done with it? Well it's tempting, very tempt

Sunday sunday...A day of rest, for some. I began with a G+ hangout with some family which was nice. Woke up, made coffee, and hung out with my mom and sister as if we were all actually together. After catching up each of us came back to reality of where we were again. For me, that meant eating breakfast and figuring out what to do today. First off was picking up newspapers for the sunday coupons; as a mathy/statistician person it's actually a fun game to see how much money can be saved using coupons. Remember, they just want you to think something is worth the higher price...but there are ways to get it cheaper (sometimes). Second trip of the day was to Micheal's where John and I went searching for stamp making supplies. The women we asked for help apparently didn't know the store very well. See, the rubber used in stamp making is not located in the stamping aisle, it's actually located in the artists supplies aisle, who knew right? So we found what we wanted, now

Today has been awesome. I woke up, made coffee and headed off to a morning date at the farmer's market where John and I bought some fresh veggies. Then it was back home for some breakfast. The next adventure was going for a bike ride, about 12 miles. Not very tough because it was all level, but still great to get out and breath some fresh air. We actually rode past a deer who just stared at us while we rode by. I stopped ahead of it to go back and take a picture but I didn't get a very good one. You can kind of see the rump (brown part in the center) of the deer and a little bit of its head. When I tried to get closer for a better picture the deer went running off. After the bike ride it was back home again to relax some and chill out for the rest of the day. All in all it was a pretty great day. Hopefully this summer will be filled with more adventures like today =)

I have had allergies since I was a little kid. They are the hay fever type, so many different pollens from trees, shrubbery, and other flowery plants send my body's system into attack! mode almost instantly. I grew up in California where for eighteen years it was unknown to me that a nose had any other purpose than to drive me nuts and be a bump on my face. Breath through it you say? Well if I could have I would have. I tried the over the counter stuff. I saw my regular doctor about prescribing something to help. I then went to see a doctor specializing in allergies. He prescribed me some more stuff: nose spray, daily pills, eye drops, and inhaler. There are three different nose sprays, all have a different purpose. There are different daily pills (mainly Claritin, Zyrtec, and Allegra) ALL of which I have tried at one point or another. There is of course Benadryl which I resort to only when desperately needed and at night time (if I can help it, we all know Benadryl knocks you out

Soo, John and I recently went on a drive to check out bikes. We didn't get one, just browsing, but on our way out of the parking lot we saw some canadian geese. Then, John notices some grey fluffy things in the grass and they were baby geese! They were so cute and I had my camera so I snapped some pictures. Nom nom nom on the grass  All these guys had adult supervision of course, though I'm not sure how many were moms and how many were the dads protecting. Keeping a lookout  This one above was smaller and much younger than the ones below. It was cool to see the groups together at obvious different ages =) These were the bigger babies that look more like dinosaurs  We watched them for a couple minutes and I kept seeing the babies plop down in the grass after munching. My guess is their legs aren't strong and built up yet, so they tire out more quickly than their parents.  Here's one of the geese that took notice of us. I call this picture "mama&

Well, I graduate tomorrow, should be fun although I'll wake up earlier than I have in a while. With the help of some coffee that shouldn't be an issue, coffee and a good breakfast. I feel like the biggest task in the morning will be doing my hair. I'll have to wear the silly cap every graduating student wears, but since I have longer hair I can do it so that my hair looks good even with the cap on (hopefully). On a completely separate note, I have a pretty long list of 'to-dos' and 'things to shop for', and one of them is to find a new knitting project as I've finished my most recent one. I'd really like to learn how to make socks but that will require me to get help from someone more experienced. This is entirely possible, just a matter of deciding what day to go and then actually going. Most yarn stores are run by people that know how to knit (and crochet), and the one I'm thinking of does do classes. I'm not sure this shop will offer a s

What's funny about the credit photo is that's not my camera. As you can see, I'm on my tippy toes, definitely not how a real photographer would use a tripod... In addition, the last scene has those three crosses. These were put up by the farmer who lives here. I have no idea who he is (or she) but it made for a nice shot with the pretty clouds and everything. Hope you enjoy the video and the soundtrack =P can you name the song?

I've been super crazy, and things are starting to wind down but by no means are they over. I woke up feeling maybe around 80%, my sinus's feel pretty under pressure, and otherwise ok, but I'm really hoping I feel better by the afternoon. There isn't any other really big news as I only have one homework assignment and one final between me and the end of school. I look back on the past couple weeks and I'm pretty happy I didn't stress out TOO much. Obviously I was stressed but it felt better than during undergrad when I think back and somehow it felt more rough and way more stressed. My thoughts are pretty scattered today. I need to get this homework assignment done, but I keep having moments where I think about my place in the world compared to the people I know. Then that gets me going on questions like am I happy where I am right now? (yes) Where am I going to be in the near future? (who knows) and similar questions. This seems to happen at life turning e

My final defense is Thursday morning and then...well, two more finals but I'm so not worried about those. I'm almost done! =)

I just got an update on JT's most recent blog challenge and unfortunately I missed out in participating (just too busy!) but I did skim some of the blogs, and I plan to go back and read them later. A lot of the tips I saw were about "keep writing" and "blog a lot", which I like and it's true, if you don't keep it up then it feels harder to get back into. I've gotten more comfortable in writing shorter posts just for the sake of getting something up so people don't think I've forgotten about my blog. Listen up though! I'm so close to graduating and I need to stay focused or else it could all crumble apart! I don't think that's very likely but I need to stay focused nonetheless. I had one of the best classes last night though, my once a week 3 hour long class. My professor was in a good mood and just feeling light I guess, he kept making jokes and going way off track from the material. He has good tangents, the ones you like list

It's Wednesday and I have a brief amount of time to write a post. I have a timeline going at home, with countdowns of the days until my next three biggest life events. 3.5 days until comprehensive exam (Part 1) 13 days until comprehensive exam (Part 2) 16 days until my defense for graduation These countdowns are scary and yet comforting, because they remind me exactly how much time I have. The more I know and prepare, the less scary the event will be. 17 days from today, I will have a LARGE drink of the liquor variety, because let's face it, I really will deserve it. Unlike all the other times I have a drink, those are just because I want to chill out or it's the weekend. In case you didn't count which day that first exam is, it's this Saturday. Yup, the Saturday before Easter. What's messed up is that we don't have classes on Friday (Good Friday and all), yet our professor feels he's only available to hold this exam the day between a no-classes day

My break has definitely been low key. I plan to write lots today, other than this post. My main event yesterday was going to recycling with my bf, but at least I got out of the house. Today I need to write LOTS and finish my paper for graduation. In addition I need to study for the comprehensive exams I have to pass in order to graduate. Enough of what I have to do though, it'll be this same stuff until about April 19th. Here are some pretty purple tulips that I saw in the car yesterday, this was the closest I could get without getting out of the car.    Right now I'm having my morning coffee even though it's approaching afternoon quite rapidly. I have mentioned before, besides all the work I need to get done, about Assassin's Creed. This break has been all about work and this video game. It's the first and only first person game that I don't get scared with and enjoy playing most of the time. Of course when I play it for too long, I get annoyed, but that

I just got back from the new Hunger Games movie!! It was great, I liked A LOT. It's over 2 hours long, but it flies by. I've read the books, and of course there is more detail in those, but they did a great job putting this story on the big screen. All the characters fit, and match up pretty well with what I had in my mind as I read the books.  Here's the poster which I'm sure almost everyone has seen by now. I'm incredibly excited about the next films for this trilogy. Yes, I know they say, "we're not sure if we're making the second or third yet", but let's be serious, this first one has made enough money alone to warrant the next two. It's made $155 million in North America the first weekend (that's last weekend btw) according to The New York Times and $152.5 million during the weekend according to The Hollywood Reporter . Either way, that's a ton of money, breaking records left and right the longer it's out in theaters.

Assassin's Creed. It. has. me. hooked. This is the last day of our challenge, and I must admit...it's gotten harder by the day if you guys haven't noticed already. I think I will take a few days off to gather some good material for a worthwhile post. This isn't really the best end of challenge week post, but that's how it'll have to be.

Well, I've been out and about mostly today(Saturday) which has been a nice change from recent weeks. It must be a testament to how much I haven't been doing though, because I was tired by the time we got back in the afternoon. BUT, it was a good day and I did get some pictures, but I apologize because they were taken on my phone. We were in a rush out the door that I forgot my camera. I was on a walk though, here are some of my pictures. The weather was pretty nice even though it looks dreary. It was overcast but not raining, all in all a good temperature and not too bright of sunshine.  Some of the geese were out but only a few. My conclusion is that some have headed back (or possibly never migrated this winter) from the south, but it seems most have no returned yet. I was at this lake a little bit ago with my boyfriend John, in the fall I think, and the geese were all over the shore. We had brought stale bread to feed to the geese. Needless to say, the geese got pretty c

So this morning was an early one. My labs started at 8:30am and I just finished about an hour ago. It was three different labs with some tutoring the last hour, not a three hour stat lab, that would be difficult for me even. On my way to lab I took some pictures of the flowers around campus. I took some later after I was done because it turns out we have a lot of pretty stuff planted around our campus and it's beautiful when it's blooming (aka now). The first pair of pictures I think I like the best, they're tulips, and you'll see why. At roughly 8:15am At roughly 1:00pm  It amazes me how plants change throughout the day. As you can see, these are the same flowers, just different times of the day. I don't know much about tulips (except that they're pretty) and it didn't occur to me they close up overnight until I saw them this morning. I had seen them yesterday but didn't have my camera so somehow early this morning I remembered to toss it in

well tonights post is brought to you from my phone keyboard because I'm already in bed. This has really been a tough week for me to blog everyday. im hoping my labs I teach will go quickly tomorrow. i still have homework to finish and the only good thing about that is that we turn it in electronically. so really,as long as it's before midnight..my homework's not late =) there's also something dripping from my ceiling. It started sometime this afternoon because it definitely wasn't dripping this morning. Although this is one more I have to add to the list, get excited! Because I've already come up with tomorrows post..well the general idea of it and I hope it'll be more interesting than my daily life as a grad student. If you read the PhD comics, they're true, they're all true. I thought they were just funny before but they actually make me feel better now, to know I'm not the only one. Goodnight world.

To be honest, I know this is late. I had all intentions of writing yesterday but it just slipped my mind. I was up until 1:30am, and around 12:15am was when I realized it was Thursday already. Now, you must be thinking, just write one quickly and post it asap. Well, the only problem is I have test Thursday (today) and I was just in the groove and not paying attention to the time. I also don't have internet in my apt, it's just not a necessary bill I need right now. Since I spend most of my days on campus where there is ample internet, I really don't have a need for it at home. I just make sure I have the files I need to work on and that usually does it. It helps that I use dropbox , because I'll work on a file through my dropbox folder on my laptop at home, and as long as I bring my laptop to campus (I usually do), it will sync all my folders when I get connected. Then if I ever do work on a school computer, I have all my folders updated in dropbox. It's actually

Soo I was at the store earlier today, and found a pretty sweet deal: Buy 10 energy drinks for $0.69 ea. That's $6.90 for 10 cans or you could buy 4 cans for $7.18 (or something close to that). Of course I went for it with all the major deadlines coming up and finals not too far off either. It seems the energy drink companies have got it into their heads that not everyone wants carbonated drinks at 2am or cough syrup flavors. With all this canned energy, I feel a little better about getting things done. Not that that's a good thing in any regard, these drinks are pretty bad for you, but I don't function well at night or on little sleep so these should help. Part of why energy drinks aren't good for you is because they pretty much keep your eyes open, they don't make your brain think any faster (so I'm told). It's really like playing a trick on yourself...maybe. On the one hand your brain thinks it's night time(~12:00am) and hence, bedtime. On the other ha

A module, in its simplest form, is "a self-contained component". It's a completely legitimate way to describe my Monday because if I don't treat my tasks as modules, my brain will probably explode. I have a problem with handling several tasks at once (or in a short period of time); instead of completing each thing as it comes at me, I think about ALL of them together and end up getting nothing done. SO, since this is the week before spring break I have a huge amount of work cut out for me (obvious to those who remember this week in their schooling). Each day this week will probably be terribly long, with little sleep, and a high intake of caffeine. Today in particular, I have my night class, 6:00-8:45pm, which isn't too bad but when you get home a little after 9:00 at night it makes that second wind a little tougher to engage. But, as I said, today will be split into modules. That way, I can focus on one thing at a time, get it done, and move onto the next. In a

Well, class starts in 1.5 hours. Yup, Monday nights = class til 8:45pm. I'm looking forward to it though, since I've been sitting in the same sit since about 12:30pm working on my project report. It'll be nice to have to focus on class and nothing else for a little. On a completely different note, I've found an X-men cartoon on hulu.com, X-men Evolution . They actually have all the seasons on there and I'm still on the first but I hope I can watch the other seasons. Hulu Plus isn't that much per month, but until I have some sort of setup at home that would make it plausible it's not really worth buying. I only have two channels at home right now anyway. No cable, just an antenna with an analog to digital converter. There's the Leaf Plus which seems pretty sweet but I'm still checking it out. Gotta get back to work, happy Monday =)

Sunday morning, rain is falling... What's funny is that it's not actually raining, but it is Sunday morning. Maroon 5 has some good songs, I used to listen to them a lot, in high school. Now a days I'm a Pandora-er (Pandora.com) and it's pretty great. Currently my favorite stations are "Celtic genre", "Deadmau5", or my good old "classical" station. It is true, the commercials you have to listen through can get old (because it's usually the same one), but since I'm not quite the music connoisseur it's nice to have Pandora's suggestions. Currently I'm choosing the "Silent" station brought to you by the absence of any electronic device making noise. For 9:40am it's a little early and I have my coffee to keep me company anyway. Today will be busy, there's homework to get done of course. Right now is nice though; the morning time after you've woken up but before your brain has clicked on. I'm som

Soo, I'm totally wired on caffeine right now. And I'm not talking a super high caffeine high but enough late enough at night to make me SILLY! Let me explain. I recently decided my caffeine intake was getting a little ridiculous. As a solution I bought "half-caf" coffee so I could still drink as much as before but not make my stomach angry with all that caffeine. So, tonight I had some of this amazing "half-caf" but with the result of enough caffeine to keep me up and going to do some homework, but now that it's wearing off I still feel fine but...I'm getting into one of those laughing moods where EVERYTHING is funny. That sentence was really long but that's kinda how things go when you're wired! Updates are there aren't very many from the last post. Excited about the weekend!

pos·i·tive adj .   \ ˈ pä-zə-tiv, ˈ päz-tiv\ 8.   a : having a good effect : favorable <a positive role model>         b : marked by optimism <the positive point of view>   So, of recent, positive-ness is hard to find. Not really , but that's how it feels so often these days. I make it a point to try and stay positive when those around me seem to be negative about everything they talk about. Or the people who complain a lot; I'm trying to consciously avoid vocalizing my complaints because: a) most people probably don't care to hear them, b) complaining brings the mood of the room down a notch or two and I don't want to be that person, and c) complaining won't get me anywhere soo it should probably stay in my head anyway.   Plus! I've noticed more and more than when a group of people starts complaining about something, or being negative that it's a rapidly descending spiral that gets harder and harder to get o

Ah, a new day. It's really nice that we get to sort of start over each day. For whatever reason yesterday was not the best day. The little things kept bothering me throughout the entire day. When I arrived on campus, the girl who was supposed to be working was not only late, but seems to leave within 10-15 minutes (every week) for what seems like longer than a "potty break". Now, I say she was supposed to be working; as a student funded by a department at a university, typically you have hours where you either teach, hold office hours for tutoring undergraduates, or you may grade assignments for professors. This student has office hours and, reiterating, was late and just left without concern that she was leaving a computer lab open for anyone to walk into. One of the things we are told when we begin here and if we teach/tutor, is to never leave the computer labs open if there isn't a graduate student in there. This may seem like a small thing since she was only gone

So in the last 24 hours I have somehow gone into consolidation mode. Yesterday it was because of one of the classes I'm taking. The professor doesn't have an actual textbook assigned for the class. What he does have are his "notes" which are not complete, so we get updates as the class progresses (somewhat annoying). Then, he also gave us two other books to look up which can be downloaded for free chapter by chapter (which is nice that they're free) as supplements to his notes. I also found another book online about the subject which seems to be the one I'll learn the most from. But let's count. I have four different sources to get the same information from, and should probably follow the notation used by my professor in his notes, yet the notation in the other sources is all slightly different. Hence, consolidation commences... Yesterday evening I started to combine definitions, notations, and explanations of all four sources so that I can remember which

Haha, ok, so I pretty much love the movie Easy A. It doesn't have the best plot, adultery, lying, high school girls, but it's funny. I really like Emma Stone, every movie I've seen her in I like. The funny ones and the serious ones. Ho hum, there's not much today. My birthday is coming up on Monday =) I'll write back later when I come up with something.

So I've read in articles somewhere that when people have too many choices they actually become less happy and more agitated, anxious, or upset. I am currently a victim to this feeling. I received an iTunes gift card this past Christmas which I'm pretty happy about because I don't usually have any money to spend on fun items like new dvds or music. On the other hand, I was just browsing the iTunes store trying to get an idea of what I actually wanted to spend this gift card on. Well, I gave up after about 10 minutes or so because there are just too many choices. Not to mention the fact that in the music category I'm just not up to snuff with the most recent releases or artists. I find new music through friends who play stuff they like and if I like it, then sweet! new music for me, and if not then I wait until I hear something I do like from a friend. So, this gift card will probably be spent some a movie or two, or possibly a TV show, but there really are so many to cho