sunshine and "A" mountain

this has been quite a weekend. last week was a bit stressful in terms of school stuff, so I was very happy to have a whole weekend and no homework hanging over my head. friday night I spent with a good friend and some good conversation and music (one of the nicest evenings I've had in a long time). saturday I went to IKEA with katie and angel to try and spend the wonderful birthday present from my friends (you guys are awesome). then we went to in-n-out for some yummy burgers.

today the sun was out and it was a beautiful day. katie, angel and I decided to hike up to the top of "A" mountain next to campus. afterwards, we had a nice lunch at gordon biersch and then they had to work on some homework. I stayed at home and watched the academy awards. I am so so happy that both of the screenplay awards went to the people and movies I thought that they should (charlie kauffman for "eternal sunshine of the spotless mind" and alexander payne for "sideways", both excellent movies). and johnny depp looked hot (too bad he didn't win). so that was good.

so here is a smattering of pictures from our little adventure today.


"A" mountain, so named for the big letter on its side, in honor of Arizona State University. go sun devils!


some cool rocks


the view of the part of campus where my office is from the mountain


me and katie on the A


some other mountains in the distance


katie, angel, and me at the top, above downtown tempe

puerto rico!

guess what? I'm going to Puerto Rico for spring break in just a few weeks! how exciting is that? one of the other grad students is from there, so we are going to stay with him and his family and everything. it should be great. I really really need a vacation (right now) and will need one even more by the time it finally comes around. I can't wait!


picture me here in just a few weeks!

happy birthday to me!

so yesterday was my birthday. I am now officially old (24). le sigh. but, actually, it's not so bad. I had a really great time last night. I invited a bunch of people out to dinner to celebrate. we went to Rula Bula, this irish pub that has great food. I, of course, got the fish and chips (soo good). we also had lots of guinness, black and tans, and some irish car bombs as well (a shot of baileys dropped into some guinness). after dinner most of us headed over to another bar down the street where we had some more drinks and lots of fun. I hope you all had as much fun as I did. thanks for a great night!


the whole gang at dinner (rula bula, an irish pub on mill avenue). adam, brian, steve, keely, mike, alec, oscar, angel, katie, me, hwi, and tedman


starting the evening off right with a few irish car bombs


katie and me being silly (how else could we be?)


katie, angel, and me


adam, with some very good desert


over at the cue club (the bar we went to after dinner)


adam and me


angel and brian


me and brian

skiing pictures!

snow outside the cabin


the cabin, amid the snowfall


a bright, cold, sunny morning


the gang at bree's hideaway


the fun drive home


more snow


and more snow

it's groundhog day!

"what if there is no tomorrow? there wasn't one today." -Groundhog Day
yeah so I love that movie. it's so hilarious. and interesting. bing! but yeah, so Phil saw his shadow and we have some winter to deal with, which for me means more days of high 60s and sunshine. wow that sucks. hehe. just kidding.

so I haven't posted in a couple of weeks and here is the reason: school is back in session. ugh. yeah, I've been crazy busy. but I did have fun the two weekends in between so far.
the first weekend after school started, I and some other of the grad students went out to Queen Creek to do some hiking and rock climbing. it was very beautiful and a perfect day for being outside. we all had a good time.
last weekend, I, Adam, Katie, Angel, Oscar, Hwi, James, and Mike went skiing up at Sunrise in the White Mountains in eastern Arizona. it was so much fun! it was my first time skiing ever so I took a lesson, which worked out pretty well. I was able to go down the green slopes by the end of the day with no problem. it was definitely easier than snowboarding (where I was on my ass every five minutes - not so fun). they had a bit of a snowstorm the day we were up there, so it was totally freezing by the time we were ready to leave the slopes and head back to the cabin, but at least Angel was able to make his first snow angel! :) I have some pictures, maybe I'll put them up tomorrow.

also, as a side note, I have just recently switched browsers to Mozilla's Firefox which I must say is excellent (the best part - it imported all my bookmarks and stuff; and I can tab now. woo hoo!). those also already using this browser will notice that I have fixed this site's html so that it now looks as it did before in explorer. look, the sidebar is actually on the side now! ahhh, and everything is as it should be. fantastic.