Three years and counting...

What a wild month! Last week was a milestone week for us. I had my first graded assignments and my first exam, and it was also the first time Brian and I have seen each other since the move in August. We both flew to Pasadena to spend the weekend with The Gustins. It was a welcome break, and it was great to relax and have some family time. Friday we walked down Venice Beach, which is quite the experience. I thought Pearl Street was wild - but there were some outfits that even topped some of the crazies in Boulder. We continued up the coast to Santa Monica, and hung out on the pier for a while, then drove through Beverly Hills and into Hollywood. We walked the sidewalk and saw all of the stars, and then ate dinner at the Pig 'n Whistle - which was delicious! No star sightings, unfortunately. Maybe next time...

Saturday we did went back to the coast and enjoyed Marina del Ray. It is a beautiful harbor and a quaint little collection of restaurants and shops. We had some live music and a little bit of wild dancing...and some yummy mexican food. Then we took a harbor tour and got to see luxury yachts owned by the likes of John Travolta, Lucy Liu, and Nicholas Cage. The staple vessel is caled Attessa, which takes a crew of 15 to run and has a helicopter pad on top of it! About $27 million worth of incredible...

Then Sunday we slept in and had a great breakfast and wandered down Colorado Blvd near their apartment. We went to their brewpub to watch the Colts play, then headed to the airport. We were both surprised to figure out that my flight to Phoenix was actually the first leg of Brian's flight to Denver, so we got an extra couple of hours together. I got off the plane and headed home to study, and Brian returned to Bosco and Crocs.

Good news for this week: I passed my accounting exam, which is definitely positive energy I need to push on through the next round of mid-terms. And today is our third anniversary so Brian is flying in tomorrow for another weekend visit. It will be fun to show him around my new world, and introduce him to the new people I have been spending all of my time with.

Hope everything is going well wherever you are!

ThunderHi

Oh my goodness, this is a wild group of people! Not only are we scheduled up every minute of every day, but they are cazy!

Orientation started yesterday, with a mass meeting and introductions of the student leaders. Then we broke into our cohort groups with whom we are blocked into classes for the first term. There are eight groups total, which are all named after a "desert animal," but I wasn't aware that there are Broncos and Mustangs in the desert... I am a Scorpion, paired with the Tarantulas in the Arachnid group. Before they fed us pizza we had to participate in the ThunderHunt, which was trivia-based exercize that sent us all around the campus taking pictures in various locations. It would have been more fun perhaps, if I hadn't been around campus for a couple of weeks already, or it was cooler than 109 outside.

We finally finished the race after about an hour, and surprisingly we came in third! It was quite a relief to be released. My roomate Kristin is a Falcon, and she was about as tired as I was so we went home and hung out. I'm really glad I am not the only nerd who prefers my pajamas to the ThunderPub on a Saturday night! She is great and I think we will get along really well.

Everything is Thundered around here, to the point of being quite ridiculous. It's kind of witty sometimes, but all of the titles and nicknames and places amuse me. For example, you can go to the ThunderShop to get a Thundershirt to wear to the Thunderlympics on Friday, which is the warm-up for ThunderIdol. After the talent show you can go to the ThunderLab and log into your T-Bird account and do some online ThunderStalking while you are browsing resumes looking for ThunderLove. This, of course, is only a viable activity for ThunderSingles. Myself, being an espoused student, will visit the ThunderGym to work off the ThunderSlices and ThunderBurgers they fed us for dinner. Then I might go check out the ThunderKids' pee-wee soccer game on my way back to the apartment.

All in all, last week was pretty good. I made some friends with people who I will not have classes with, which I decided is a good thing because after I am sick of my classmates I will have other people to hang out with! I am comfortable with the area now, and have found a local strip of decent restauraunts that should keep us occupied for a while. I am missing my ThunderSpouse and my ThunderPet and wishing I was at home to help with all of the crazy construction and cosmetic repairs. Hope things are well in your world! Hopefully I will be posting some pictures this week.

ThunderBye!
MK

Too Hot to Samba

When I went to bed last night, the weather boy on NBC told me it would probably hit 108 Monday. So I deliberately picked out an outfit that would be business appropriate, but breathe while I walked to class, and then keep me warm in the super air-conditioned auditorium. Tougher than it sounds! I finally got my act together and made it to class on time. They had little name tents and magnetic name tags waiting for us at the table - alphabetically of course - so I get to sit on the aisle directly in front of the prof all day. He was fascinating though, he is from Australia and earned his PhD at Washington, then taught at Rice. Easy to listen to, but I could not for my life interpret his handwriting! Thank goodness for powerpoint.

I have pretty much lost my attention span. I did really well for the first three hours, and when the break came around I had not been thinking about it. Then, we had two more hours till lunch, and about a half-hour in I started thinking about food and could NOT concentrate about the amortization schedule of Home Depot's 2006 Balance Sheet. So the afternoon was fairly excruciating as well. Then the ten minute walk back to the apartment(I'm not exaggerating - it's a ten minute walk across the street and around campus to get to the lecture hall - but in 108 it feels like a half-hour!) all I could think about was a nap!

Two triumphs today: I figured out how to program the VCR, and I must have absorbed something today because I am already done with my homework! I met two girls from Boulder. One is older and only grew up there - she's been in South America and on the East coast since she graduated from Boulder High. The other one, however, moved down here from The Summit, where Jay and Angie used to live across the street from us. How random!

After the sun goes down I am planning to sneak out for a dip in the pool. It's not as warm as I remember them being, so hopefully it will be refreshing enough.

Hope all is well wherever you may be.
Love,
Merix

Many the Miles...

It was a good day for driving. Brian and I got up early Friday and hit the road, hopping on I-70 to Utah, then down through Moab to the Navajo reservation, and onto Flagstaff. I love the Rocky Mountains, and road trips through the Western Slope always grow my appreciation of the beautiful geography right outside our doors. There are so many landscapes and colors that change constantly from Boulder to Phoenix! Passing the Flatirons, majestic in the purple pre-dawn, then coming over the Continental Divide to the striking rocks in sun and shadows, and moving on to the maroon plateuas toward Grand Junction. Then all of a sudden you are in Utah, surrounded by vivid red stone and soil, with its divine fluid stability. The plateaus spread out and melt into creams and roses of the desert terrain. It amazes me to see the layers in the rocks, and watch how they have moved and changed through history. Then Arizona has its own mountains, with full, tall pines and short barby bushes. You have to get pretty close to Phoenix to find any Saguaros, but they have their own stories to tell.

We stopped in Jerome, to visit Aunt Lisa and Uncle Jack. We had pretty good timing, pulling in as they were getting closed up for the day. We had a wonderful evening with them, enjoying a bit of rain and some cool temperatures. What a nice weekend retreat from the desert!

Saturday we had a liesurely breakfast and got back in the car to drive to Phoenix. The apartment complex I am staying in was not ready for me at all. They had not prepared any paperwork, and even with two different prospective residents on the phone all week, were unaware of our situation as roomates looking for a five-month lease. It took about an hour, but I got keys. It's not bad - we'll certainly be comfortable for the term.

We unloaded the car in about 15 minutes, and then set out to get the essentials - dish soap, toilet paper, water, etc. Brian had the genius idea to raid the Dollar Tree - we spent about $60 and I was pretty set aside from stuff to go in the fridge! He spent the next few hours trying to convince me I needed to buy a futon, so we shopped for furniture. I did find a lamp and a table and a "desk" that really only fits my laptop. But with my little air mattress, my bedroom is sparse but comfy.

Sunday was hard. We got to sleep in for a bit, and then get to know the neighborhood some more. Then I had to take Brian to the airport, which was not fun. After he made it through security I set out to find a financial calculator for class, and drove around for about an hour looking for an office supply store. No dice, but I definitely have my bearings now!

Thanks for all the calls and emails! It's so nice of you to think about us. I'll let you know how class goes - Mon-Fri 8:30-5:30, phew! Hope I make it...

T minus SEVEN days!

The to-do list is growing as our date of departure looms nearer. On top of beginning to collect myself to live in Phoenix for the next four months, there is a man painting the basement, three men pouring concret in the back patio, and four men with jackhammers and saws cutting cement and re-bar in the garage. Not to mention the fact that the entire contents of the garage and basement seem to be piled around every available surface on the main floor.

But, it is time to close this chapter and move forward, and I can only giggle at the irony in the fact that we are ALMOST finished with the construction at this juncture. Trying to finish up the transition at work has been a challenge, and working on nailing down details about moving next weekend has been defeating. But Brian has been continually encouraging and is ready to check out the campus where I will be spending all of my time. Colorado has been priming us for Arizona with our recent heat wave, which is supposed to continue this weekend!

I hope to keep in touch, and appreciate your thoughts as we embark on the journey. We will be driving all day Friday, and Brian will fly home on Sunday evening. Then, it's off to Economics Bootcamp for me on Monday...

~Merix