The holidays turned out really nice. I spent a few days before Christmas at Aaron's. I got to meet his brother and some more of his extended family over dinner. For Christmas, he gave me an emerald necklace, which was so beautiful. No guy had ever given me anything like that before. It meant a lot to me that he wanted me to meet all of his family.

I spent Christmas at my grandparents in Olean, then I went to a couple of friend's holiday parties. I went to Pittsburgh for a rheumatologist appointment and my bloodwork came back good. I was having some problems with liver functioning and blood cell counts, so it was a relief that is okay again. I've had bad arthritis lately, but its managable.

I went back on the 30th to Brockport for Aaron's 30th birthday. We had dinner with his mom, sister, and brother in law. On New Years Eve, we went to Rochester to see the "Golden Compass" and then go out for dinner at a great micro-brewery. I liked how the Golden Compass turned out, though part of the ending from the book was cut out of the movie. Later, we snuggled into bed with some ice cream and watched some tv. I wish I could have made it to the estrip party, but I couldn't imagine having a better time than I did with Aaron:).

Lately, I've been working on some research and school-related things. There's a lot of things I should do, unfortunately, I'm not a motivated person at all. I'm supposed to go back to Albany in less than two weeks. I have mixed-feelings about this. I'm looking forward to classes and seeing most of the people back there, but work hasn't been so great. Hopefully, this semester will go better than the previous semester in that respect. I'm grateful I still have a job, though.

Speaking of work, I should probably go do some...

I went to see Enchanted at the beginning of this week. I see why it came so highly recommended by many of you. It's not the type of movie I usually watch, but I found it to be funny and charming. Amy Adams has a lot of talent. Plus, Dr. Dreamy is in it. That's worth the price alone.

I had my first ever glass of champagne on weds. It was good! No wonder people like it so much. One of my profs was serving us glasses at an end of the semester party for some of the grad students and faculty. I definitely enjoyed the party and thought it was fun, but I felt somewhat self-conscious. Most people there were sophisticated and well-traveled, and obviously, I am not really either of those things. I'm just this girl from a small-town.

I met up with some of my friends on thursday night, for karaoke at a place called Pintos. It was my first time going through the lark st. neighborhood. It's neat... lark reminds me of allentown in Buffalo. Lots of bars and small businesses. My friend Matt sang some cheesy eighties songs, christmas tunes, and even a Hank Williams number. I think it made him happy that I told him that he sounded like Bob Dylan. (I didn't tell him which Bob Dylan era, heh). Seriously, though, he was good.

I'm all done with my classes. A few more days of TA stuff, then I'm headed back to WNY for the holidays. I'm looking forward to it.

Happy Hannukah to all of you who celebrate it! (Actually, (e:carolinian) is the only other person on estrip I know who does, but I'm not really sure about this).

Tonight is the first night of Hannukah. Hannukah's not one of the most important Jewish holidays, and I came from a mixed-faith background where we celebrated Christmas, too. I've felt down the past couple of days not to be able to see my mom or the rest of my family for Hannukah, though. I don't think I've ever not spent at least part of it with her.
She actually sent me this really nice package yesterday with an itunes gift certificate, socks, five dollars, and a funny card. It was a great surprise... I wasn't really expecting anything.

I'm pretty stressed out between work and school, but I'm "hanging in there." I'm looking forward to Christmas and New Years.

According to this study, Buffalo is the 3rd "least dangerously drunk" city in the country:


I'm not really sure about their methodology, but I did find it kind of interesting, to say the least.

I bought a new computer a few days ago! My last computer hadn't been working for the past few months. This new computer isn't fancy, but I really like it so far. It was only $400. It's a laptop that runs on a windows visita model, and it seems easy to use for the most part. I really miss having microsoft office. T. gave me a copy of it last year, and it worked well. He also gave me hundreds of music files whch became lost when my computer crashed. I downloaded open office, which looks promising but still is kind of confusing to me as far as knowing which programs to open up documents with.

A quick recap on what's been going on lately:

A week and a half ago, Mary (one of my best friends) came up to visit me from Jamestown. I really enjoyed having her stay with me for a few days. We ended up going to see some cool art exhibits- one on chinese silk paintings, and another on kirigami. Her dad came up the final day she was here to go to a conference, and he ended up taking us out to dinner at this great restaurant called the Macaroni Factory. I had never been to it before, but it was this fun Italian place. I loved their Eggplant Parm.

On that Friday, I went to a great party that some friends in my program were having. Good company, and equally good rum and cokes.

I spent the next couple of days working on papers for school. Then, I went back home on weds. to Jimmytown for thanksgiving. On Thursday, we went to Northwest PA to visit my grandfather, Aunt and Cousin for thanksgiving. We had dinner at this one restaurant there. I enjoyed it. My grandfather was talking about meeting Jimmy Stewart and Jack Parr during the war- it made for interesting stories.

My parents decided to give me a ride back to Albany today, and we stopped for a little while near brockport to see A. I could only see him for an hour. It's hard to be so far away from him, and not getting to see him as much as I would like... but when I do, it's worth it. Even if its only an hour- it will be the best hour I've had in a long time. Fortunately, I will get to see him again in only a few weeks:).

I'm back to the grind. There's so much work to be done to wrap the semester up over the next few weeks. Right now, I'm trying to grade the remainder of my student's term papers- but no luck. With all due respect to my student's, a lot of their papers were not very readable. It scares me a little that college students do not know that you have to cite sources in a paper, or use a bibliography. It bothers me that I'm supposed to give all of these students a B- or above, considering that. The class average was 64% for the midterm, so the paper was supposed to balance that out somehow. *shrugs*