Julia's Xmas gift card

Julia and Gram got Jeff and I both ebay gift cards for Christmas. I just want to show everyone how satisfied I ended up being with it. I could have waited until there was actually something I needed off ebay, but I figured its never a bad time to buy clothes. I've been pretty satisfied with my winter wardrobe (mostly thanks to my boots and cardigans), but I was interested in getting more girly tops to go under my cardigans. Plus, the ones I got should double well for going out and perhaps even dressing professional.

I didn't realize til I had them all next to each other that they were all neutral, tan and brown. I usually avoid that these days, but oh well. So maybe I spent a little more than Julia's gift card, but it was worth it. Name brands were New york and Co, Gap, Banana Republic, Charlotte Russe and Anthropologie.

I'd never heard of Anthropologie until I started the ebay searches and I couldn't help but notice that most of their stuff is exactly the kind of things I'm looking for.... Turns out the closest one is in Cincy, and it's pretty expensive new. I've become a catalog subscriber anyway (horrible idea).

I'm proud to have gone girly, and the more I reflect on old pictures of myself, the more I realize that I haven't just gone girly, I've almost gone uber-girly... it's an interesting contrast. I have multiple items with leopard prints on them now, multiple items in pink (wearing one now), and the way I narrowed my search down online was looking for polyester and silk. It's been connected to being a mom; I feel more self-conscious and want to do more to look woman-like and respectable. And at the same time, being a mom makes me want to do the most I can with my 20s, even if my options are limited.

Aspen Leadership Retreat

January 14-18 I got to go to Snowmass, Colorado with the dean of students, the VPs and Presidents of each class, and the rest of the senate leaders. When I ran for pre-clinical vice president of the senate, I didn't even know what the perks involved were, but wow do I feel lucky now. We stayed at the dean's condo in the mountains, in a big fancy complex...
There was about 2 feet of snow on the ground, but the temperatures were around 32-38 each day and it was sunny. It was really beautiful, especially with the weather being the way it was. The only snow-covered mountains like the Rockies that I've seen in my adult memory were the ones in the Alps of Switzerland. Those were obviously much much bigger and awesome, but since I got to snowboard down the ones in Snowmass, I definitely could appreciate them better. Actually, I went to the mountains in VT too- but they weren't covered in snow, so. In Aspen, the wind was mild, and we only had snow on one day. However that was a day when we hit the slopes, and that was... interesting.

Snowmass is one of those towns that was established after a ski resort called Snowmass was created there a few decades ago... so all there is is restaurants, condos, ski shops, a grocery, and coffee shops. In nearby Aspen, there was an outdoor mall full of designer stores and art galleries (I have a pic on my phone of a price tag for a sculpture: $250........thousand). I've actually been to Colorado once- Vale during the summer sometime when I was in early elementary school with the fam. My family isn't into skiing... and who can be unless your rich? It cost a fortune to do anything outside of the condo. Five of us went snowboarding as a beginner group on Saturday, and including all of the equipment, it was $170. Vomit. I think Paoli costs like $80, and I usually don't go even for that price. I didn't plan on going anymore after that first day, because the lift fee alone is $100. So I planned on getting a pedicure or something instead on Sunday. Sure enough, the cheapest massage was $140. So another day of snowboarding didn't sound that bad anymore, and I passed on the spa. We went again Monday and it cost $150, so apparently the 5-hour lesson we had Saturday was only $20. At least that was a good deal...

This hill in the picture above was one of the ones we tackled after learning how to snowboard on the bunny slopes for 5 hours. It doesn't look as bad in the picture, but crazy enough, we didn't quite feel ready once we started going down. The mountains in Aspen don't care if your a beginner snowboarder... We started making our way down the mountain, having no idea how high up we were. We were supposed to meet somebody at the bottom, but it took an hour to get there and then we had to leave. When I was in the spot in the picture above, I just remember looking out into the valley and thinking, I hope we're not actually going all the way to the bottom of this thing....

I'm interested in going to Paoli before the season ends. Not only because I actually had a fairly good time (as a beginner, its hard to have fun when your focusing so much on not busting your ass... and I've got a lot of bruises) in Snowmass, but because I want to compare the slopes. I took the picture above just to emphasize what a blue "medium-difficulty" hill looks like in Aspen. Yeah. That's freaking crazy. So just imagine the green "easy" hills were like that we ending up tackling after our uber-bunny hill during lessons. It took us forever to get down hills because all of us had trouble controlling our speeds down the slopes, so we would stop ourselves with our knees or butts around every corner. Plenty of 7 year olds passed us by.... there were actually lots of kids there, even some that looked a little older than Saia on skis... I did pretty good on the first day, but largely feel I performed equally with the other beginners in the end. Something frustrating about learning was that there would be times where I'd feel like I was getting the hang of it then I'd totally fall apart my next run down. I took a lot of really hard falls. Those falls where your butt hits the snow but your board and feet keep going with the momentum so you do a few flips down the hill. Then you just sit there laying in the snow for a few minutes (fortunately, every one else is skilled enough that its no problem going around you). Once going down the big mountain on the first day, I was going down a real narrow slope. That day I hadn't caught on that you don't want your board to being going straight downhill.... ever. The hill was narrow and I wasn't sure how I should stop myself, since you have to turn to stop. I finally made myself do it and I fell, kicked up a bunch of snow in my face as I slid, and felt myself run into a tree. I had ran off the concourse and was buried in like 2 feet of loose snow, with my board dug all into it. It was also about 10 feet or so down the shoulder of the course. I made a crying yell, mostly out of surprise and anxiousness, but I was really far ahead of everyone because I'd been the most confident at that point. I just sat there for like 10 minutes, yelling when I thought I heard people come by, because I wasn't sure of the right way to get out... I heard my group pass me and they didn't hear, so eventually I cleared up enough snow from my feet to release my shoes and pull out my board. The "low shoulder" of the course was steep enough that it took a lot of work to climb out, since the snow was so loose and deep. Once I made it back on the course and started putting the board back on, one of my companions called looking for me. I actually had my camera and thought about taking a picture down there but I was pretty wet after that and didn't want to get it more wet than necessary.I think the X games might be going on now? Well the picture above is of the half pipe going down a hill, and you can see the machine still working on making it. So I guess that's where the games are. Actually, I just now looked up at the tv and it's on ESPN. I guess this might be the place...^ Me and my crappy apparel... I didn't really care, it worked fine and it was warm enough outside that I actually got hot more often except for the big fall.

Sure enough, the trip wasn't all fun. I mean, it was a good time, but it wasn't all about being indulgent and fake-rich. lol. I slept 6 hours or less every night, because our leadership meetings were 7:30-9:30 each morning, and 8:30-11:00 or later each night. One night I stayed up til 2 mountain time working on a manuscript (which took up a lot of my real free time), which was pretty crazy for me. I actually felt really good, even with the lack of sleep, but I think I made up for it when I got home, unfortunately. The senate didn't have a lot of business to take care of, but there were a lot of general med school issues that everyone got to weigh in on whether it was a part of our roles or not. We had plenty to talk about, and I got to learn a lot of valuable information that I've already been able to take advantage of... including the next 2 years (can't freaking wait).

I really enjoyed the companionship. I already knew half of them comfortably, and made good friends with others. As you can imagine, all of us were considerably assertive. This meant a lot of people talking, planning, and collaborating all at the same time. I consider myself assertive as well, but I am pretty OK with taking a back seat if it means I could just chill and go along for the ride. That was one of the themes of the trip- evaluating our own leadership skills and thinking of ways to improve. Is it OK that I am alright with taking a backseat when the option is available? I donno. I think so, it's pretty necesary in my opinion with the leaders I work with. I choose my battles wisely, I beleive.

I have to take the hit for the snowboarding costs (no allowance for 6 weeks....bummer), but otherwise I pretty much got the trip in exchange for nothing more than reading a leadership book. I ended up picking one using UofL's library site that sounded general enough and short enough (140 pages). It actually ended up being interesting, but considerably opinionated. Jeff read it too (because he was in the mood to read something), and was fairly critical and considered the writer extremely conservative. "Extreme" is the appropriate terminology, the book was called Extreme Virtue and was largely dedicated to praising extremists of the past, many of them anarchists. I may post the book summary I had to make... although it doesn't quite do the book justice... I probably will for the heck of it.

Check out my full album of pics from Aspen at my picasa page

Good Hair Day! - Excuse the vanity...

It's been a long time since I just took some pictures of myself. I don't usually like the way I look in most pictures, but that frustrates me because I usually like what I see in the mirror. I felt especially moved to model today because my hair was being so... graceful.

I usually straighten it these days, and have for probably 3.5 years now 90% of the time. But recently I have gotten comments in those times where I haven't straightened. I think it's the winter weather- usually my hair is way too frizzy to go natural. And even when it's not too frizzy, it usually has no formed waves... so today was special. I've been intending to youtube how to strategically curl my hair one of these days.

Christine and I were planning on having a fun modeling session. We did something like it on New Years, but I didn't like how much make up I was wearing, even if I definitely did it on purpose, lol. I'd like to do a natural shoot... wearing the clothes I usually wear. I like the way these turned out especially, since the only make up I've got today is a hint of navy eye liner that is leftover from Saturday night (it usually takes a few days to completely wash out).

I know I'm not smiling in most... but it's hard to fake smiles and make them work...

Once again, excuse the vanity. I guess I want to show off a little, and this is my only medium as long as I'm anti-facebook... Did you people hear the stat that 1 in 13 people in the world is on facebook? Well, not meee.... lol do I sound regretful? Ahhh I think I'm doing well.

I've got pictures I want to post somewhere already. I'm working on a draft of my Aspen entry, and in the meantime I'm making a Picasa album. I don't know what the easiest way for people to find that is, but... check it.

RIP Beau

I left for Aspen last Friday morning. Jeff picked me up from the airport at 430 on Tuesday, and I was in a little hurry to get to school by 530 for a religion in medicine mid term. When we were about to pull into the garage at home, he told me he had sad news and asked whether I wanted to hear it before or after the mid term. I was expecting to hear that someone we knew had got some fatal or morbid diagnosis. I told him that the mid term was no big deal. "Beau died." :(. Jeff said he was in the back yard in a box, and he found him either Friday or Saturday afternoon when he woke up (my guess is Saturday). He was in his normal spot on a heat vent in our bedroom. Many times we have seen him laying there and stirred him to make sure he was OK. Jeff said he did a few things, trying to wake him- but sure enough, it had finally happened. Our 19 year old long-haired domestic had moved on.


Beau was a "92 model," as our old vet called him. When I was 4 years old, I was playing in the backyard and heard meowing. Beau was with his mom and siblings huddled in a niche of bricks we kept in the back of the house. The cats ran away after I found him to the neighbors yard, and they called the animal control. Jennifer and Mom and Dad went to the pound and picked out Beau. At home, I remember having a fit over calling him Beauty, after the character from Beauty and the Beast. I won that fight as a 4 year old, but when we found out he was a boy, we called him Beau. Best name ever for a beautiful, long haired cat like him.

Beau was feisty in his early years. He didn't care for my little-kid-ness and was Julia's and Jennifer's. He used to chase me up the stairs and bite my ankles. He used to bite a lot, and didn't let people mess with him. He tried to sneak out of the house every chance he got. Once, James got him out of the bushes by spraying them with a hose. Hilarious. He was very territorial.
We got Neko for my 15th birthday, after I'd become infatuated with him, and wanted more kitties for cuddling. By then, Beau slept with me every night, probably starting when I was 13 or 14. Even though he had been previously aggressive, he would let me hug him in bed and purr like crazy. Every once in a while, he'd still be a random punk and snap at me. He didn't like Neko at first and it took a while to let them be around each other. Fortunately for him, Neko is very reclusive and it did not take long for Beau to treat Neko as his b***h. Even though he was neutered, it was not uncommon for him to mount Neko, even up to recently. Yup.

He lived with Julia at James' for about a year I think, and Jennifer when she was in college for like a month. When I moved on Sophomore yr of undergrad, mom and dad were plenty willing to let me take him. Jeff and I together had 3 cats combined. Kasha was like Beau and territorial. They hated each other to the end. Beau had to give in a bit with his change, but even with his lack of fighting energy he was plenty happy to give Kasha crap by hissing and meowing. Once early on, Kasha took a big bite out of his back.
When Saia was born, all of the cats started to keep their distance. Especially Beau. By then, he had largely lost an ability to jump and never got on our bed or laps anymore. He was about 17 already. He was pretty reclusive and disinterested in us. He had also started getting generally annoying. His arthritis got progressively bad, and having been once a big overweight cat, he was very skinny. He would occasionally start crying in pain and pacing around, and he tended to do it at night while we slept. Sounds sad now, but it was often obnoxious in the moment. We tried some meds for the arthritis, but they were expensive and didn't seem effective enough. He also used his obnoxious meow a lot when he was hungry, he was always pretty serious about his food...
After Jeff told me, we got my stuff out of the car and I walked into the backyard first. I saw the box Beau was in, placed in the garden. I thought to myself- he may already be a little gross looking... but whatever, I've seen plenty of dead people, how bad could a dead cat be. He still looked as he had, sprawled lying in the box. Jeff came and saw me looking and exclaimed in surprise. I closed the box and let some tears come. I thought he would make it to 20-something, he had made it so long in such decent health. And cats live into their 20s plenty of times...
It rained Tuesday night, and I was worried about animals finding him, so we buried him Wednesday afternoon. The snow was coming in and it was lightly falling, under the bright white overcast sky. We have two shovels so we dug a hole in a part of the garden where there was no plants. The soil is pretty loose in our old yard, so it didn't take long except for the occasional roots we had to break up. When the box fit, we decided to go inside and find things to put with him. We put his blue food bowl that had been his for at least a decade, a couple toy mouses, a cat vest, and an old comb glove that Julia bought for him ages ago. We said a few more words and I let some tears loose and his grave is marked by the loose dirt piled on top. We will probably find a plant to put on top this spring.

Beau...
Spring 1992 - January 15, 2011

Please excuse any of my excessive corniness expressed in this post.

Pandora

Another huge discovery I've finally made thanks to Chris is Pandora. Every time I am at his place, he always has a great genre-themed playlist on with all of these good-sounding songs that I've never heard of. I'd actually brought my external hard drive over there before and demanded him to give me all of his music. He did- but I was disappointed because he only had one Regina Spektor song. Turns out all of those playlists were just Pandora.

So I've made my first 3 playlists:

Love Rhythm Radio - yes this sounds silly, but I wanted to call it something other than "dance music radio." I haven't listened to this one much yet, but I plan for it to be that playlist I want to put on every time I plan to go out dancing or partying in general. Heck yes for club music. No jokes or hates please.
Artist seeds:

• Usher
• Black eyed Peas
• Chris Brown
• Kesha
• Lady Gaga
• Trey Songs

Song seeds:

• Wiz Khalifa - Black and Yellow
• Far East Movement - Like a G6
• Rihanna - Only Girl
• Katy Perry - Teenage Dream (that was the best Glee episode ever)
• Enrique Iglesius - Tonight (I'm lovin you)
  
• Chris Brown - Yeah (x3)

So far I have liked:

• Justin Timberlake
  

Black and Reddow Radio - another silly sounding name... I got the idea from B96 when the DJ started singing Wiz Khalifa as red and black instead of black and yellow to root for the cards game that day...obviously black and reddow makes more sense. This is my cool hip hop only radio. Pandora has already tended to start playing songs that gravitate toward my other station styles (even Mercury radio, interestingly), but hopefully I'll set it straight.
Artist seeds:

• Common
• Consequence
• Danger Doom
• Ghostface Killah
• Gorillaz
• Gym Class Heroes
  
• Jay-Z
• Kanye West
• Kid Cudi
• Lil Wayne (I've given in to Lil wayne. Eminem's comeback has probably helped... he is much more worthy of my hate)
• Lupe Fiasco
• MF Doom
• Mos Def
• Talib Kweli
  
• Wiz Khalifa

Songs I've liked by people I still don't really know:

• The Foreign Exchange - Happiness
• Raekwon - Ice Cream
• Ice Cube - It was a good day
• Nas - Made you look
• M.I.A. - Paper planes
• RJD2 - Smoke & Mirrors
• Sound Providers - The field, also Who am I
• Peter Bjorn and John - Young Folks
• Malik Yusef - Magic Man
• Da Ranjahz - Aspire (listening now)
  

Mercury Radio - My station for resorting back to my white middle class educated self.
Artists seeds:

• Amy Winehouse
• Arcade Fire
• Death Cab for Cutie
• Fiona Apple
• Interpol
• Jimmy Eat World
• Joanna Newsom
• Modest Mouse
• OK Go
• Phoenix
• Pixies
• Regina Spektor
• Sufjan Stevens
• The Decemberists
• The Killers
  
• The Postal Service
• The Strokes
• The White Stripes

Songs I've liked so far by people I don't really know:

• Mazzy Star - Fade into you
• The Cure - Love song
• Gary Jules - Mad world
• Yeah yeah yeahs - Maps
• Ludovico Einaudi - Ora
• Jose Gonzalez - Storm
• Danna/Devotchka - The winner is
• Peter Bjorn and John - Young folks (this song was liked on Black and Reddow too above! I don't know how the connection got formed between these styles... but I think it gives evidence that I'm not that weird for liking hip hop and indie)

My username is l.b.cornwell. I'm only friends with Chris right now on there- if any of you are on there too, friend me so we can share stations.

Status Update

For those of you who haven't noticed, I deactivated facebook on new years day. It was fairly spontaneous- but I'm kind of hoping I can let it go until I have a really good reason to go back. In the meantime, I find myself resorting to other distractions online.

Chris has introduced me to Google reader. I now know where he gets all of his outlandish stories and ideas. Him, Mullet, and Sexton post probably around 10 articles a day combined, and they are generally pretty entertaining.

I am more likely to start going to UofLsports.com or the courier journal to read articles to pass time. This is good- I've been pretty lousy at my sports knowledge this season. And occasionally I may find my own articles to post to google reader.

I am already feeling more productive with school. Not completely sure if FB is related- but I'm feeling more optimistic, motivated, and interested than I've been in a while. Right now we're doing female genitourinary in Path and I am all over it! It's strange.

Finally, I have been drawn back to this blog just so I can send out status updates... This is probably dumb, since I don't think anyone ever reads... but maybe I can build a following of my top friends from fb. I already have a few things to blog about- and I just want to compile them. Also, I want somewhere to put pictures up, now that I'm taking more with the new camera from Xmas.

Please feel free to comment- it will be nice to every once in a while get a sense that I am not completely talking to myself.

Car shopping

A few months ago, I asked Jeff if he'd make an agreement with me. For my graduation present, I could get a newer, decent car to replace my 2001 Ford Focus. We had never even wanted the focus- Jeff bought it with his old friend and they fixed it up to resell for $4000 with ~100K miles on it. Sure enough, it never sold and when mom and dad got rid of their last taurus, dad took my escort and the focus was my new car. I had to learn how to drive a manual, but the focus drove well, had good A/C, and was 5 years newer than any car I'd had before. But, it had some previous issues already: it only had one key, it was missing a side-view mirror adjuster knob, the passenger door key lock had been damaged and was nonfunctional, there were a few dents in some fenders, and the seller Jeff bought it from failed to bring up that the passenger airbag had been stolen. While the focus sat in the backyard unsold, unused, and uninsured, a tree fell on it during the big windstorm/minor tornado and added a few dents. After I started driving it, something happened in the shifter/transmission and the 5th gear gradually went out. Later, the tumblers in the ignition got screwed up and we had to start leaving the key in the ignition so we wouldn't have to buy a new one.

SO back to a few months ago. The Sunday morning after we had this conversation about getting a newer car, Jeff was getting off the watterson at 5 in the morning onto bardstown rd on his way to paper route. A car t boned him as he went through a green light, and smashed in the back driver door. Jeff called and told me, and I couldn't help but smile a little. He was totally OK, of course. The engine hadn't been hit, but somehow, the battery had died so the focus got towed home. The cop assured Jeff that he could take care of insurance things when the police report was available, but two weeks later we found out that this person didn't have insurance. That is another annoying story for another day.

So the reason Jeff was driving the focus during paper route was because his paper route car, the Colt, had its clutch go out about a month before the focus wreck. We could hardly open the front door, but once the battery was recharged, he resumed its use. We assumed the focus was totaled because the damage extended to the frame. The only dangerous aspect about driving the focus has been that the back tire area got beat up a bit, and all of the shocks are blown or something.

Since the wreck, things have continued downhill with the quality of the car. I think it is related to the heat, but the focus has had this ongoing issue where you have to fidget with the driver door handle to get the door to come open. My best trick had been to smack the handle real hard a couple of times and try again. Well, it hasn't been good enough this summer, and to avoid crawling through my trunk any more times than I already have, I've just started leaving the back passenger door open. It's OK though, because even if someone in the ghetto across the street from where I park wants to try to steal my shitty looking car, full of newspapers and garbage, with its key in the ignition, they would have to know that the clutch ignition button is hidden in the fuse box. This button is supposed to get pushed when you put in the clutch to turn on the car, but it fell off a few weeks ago.

I'll have to take a few pictures before the car-that-tells-a-story is gone.

-----

So we have leftover tax return money and an infinite amount of loans to borrow. After looking around a bit, and now that I've applied for financial aid, our limit is $8500. I think it is fair to say we'll end up getting something worthwhile.

Our top criteria:
1) cargo space- we want a "truck" car, so we've wanted a station wagon/crossover
2) automatic door locks and windows- I'm so sick of asking passengers to lock their doors
3) under 70,000 miles
4) newer than 2001
5) manual transmission
6) good reputation

Our favorite picks that we've narrowed down our shopping to are the Toyota Matrix and Pontiac Vibe. With the price range we are looking at and after looking thoroughly around the 250 mile radius on craigslist and ebay, we should be able to find what we want- probably a 2004-2006 car with 50,000 miles.




When I stop and think for a minute though, I have on occasion felt frustrated that thats the best I can do with $8500. We have never bought a car for over $3,000, and I can't help but notice that the selection from the $3000-$6500 range stinks. It's exciting though! We are actually going to have a good car!!! We do still like the Neon- but this is going to be a "NEW" car! ahhhhhhhhhhh