Do I Look Like I'm 17 or Something?

Hello my loves! Y'all are having hotter weather than I am! It was 60 when I woke up this morning and it will barely push into the 80s as a high today. I'm pretty sure Madison is getting up to 97...what is going on with this weather?! Have no fear, I still get sunburned through 60 spf! By the way, I have the best news ever. Want to hear? I know you do!

Anna will be back in 125 more days!!!!

There is an ocean between our cities but not our hearts.

Love love love love this one!!

So yes, that is very exciting news. If there was a way to switch up the tectonic plate movement, I would do it. Instead of making the Atlantic bigger, I want England and North Carolina to be a mere kayak trip away. Since I have nothing better to do with my life I decided to calculate the distance from Raleigh to Shaftesbury. I am 6128.27 km (3807.93 miles) away from Anna. Madison to Shaftesbury is 6290.65 km (3908.83 miles). So after moving 956 miles, I only gained a mere 100.90 miles. BUT I am one time zone closer! Ha, trying to group skype with Anna and Kiley is quite interesting since we are in 3 time zones :) I can't wait until we are all in Madison together!

Excuse the red eye - we all have our eyes open and are smiling. That's a hard photo to come by!

And this is why I miss them soooooooooo much!! 

Halloween 2011. I was a high-class drug dealer, Ky is meth, and Anna is the school girl I sold meth to. We pretty much just wanted to wear cute dresses and be our normal selves.

So classes. If they keep up the rate they are going at - I might as well be an undergrad at Madison all over again. So I'm pretty sure there are about 5 universities that have Phytopathology as an undergrad major: UW Madison, Ohio State, and maybe one is Cali...most are Hort, Botany, Plant Sciences, Plant Biology or something that's not Phytopathology. Anyways, my point is that my graduate classes are pretty much repeats of my undergrad classes. I guess I'm pretty damn lucky to have gone to UW-Madison!! 

Too Bad Huh?

Besides extracting DNA from mycelia, going to classes, reading, running, lifting, people asking if I'm a freshman, and getting in shape for rock climbing I'm not really doing anything. Actually, that's a lie. I daydream a lot. I like to pretend I'm on The Terrace in Madison with my all my friends. If I could take the whole city of Madison and put it in place of Raleigh, that would be fantastic! I'm missing a college and pedestrian/biker friendly city!! Lakeshore Path I miss you!!!

As much of an adrenaline junkie I am, facing death every time I run is getting old. So is the honking of horns and "shout-outs" at me - there is nothing attractive about sweat-soaked clothes, blistered/callused feet, stinky shoes, hair wet with sweat that is falling out of a hair tie, red faced, sucking wind girl. Unless you want to go on a run with me (my choice of pace, distance, and route), give me a good 45 minutes to stretch, drink an equivalent of a lake, shower, eat - I can assure you I look much better afterwards. Great advice huh? Oh I'm full of great advice. Just ask and I'm guaranteed to come up with some idiotic remark. There's some quote about being "young and stupid." I can assure you I'm not as young and stupid as I used to be - BUT I am still pretty young and pretty darn stupid. Oh speaking of stupidity:

We caught Drew smiling!!

This kind of explains our friendship :)

At the graduate student orientation at NCSU, Dr. Bryce Lane from Horticultural Science gave an inspirational talk on "What Does It Take to be a Successful Graduate Student." Words of advice from a doctor: DO SOMETHING STUPID EVERY DAY.  I usually accomplish that by 9 in the morning. For example: Calling someone in Idaho because I don't know how to use my phone; getting on the wrong bus; locking myself out of the lab with my keys inside the lab; forgetting my GPS and getting lost; or forgetting to turn the oven on and wonder why my food is taking so long to cook. DO SOMETHING STUPID EVERY DAY. It's what makes life fun and interesting. Bye!!!

It doesn't even matter that half of us have our eyes closed!