a year to the date

On March 26, 2007, Luc hurt his knee playing intramural broomball and wound up on crutches for a few days. Almost couldn't dance at the Grad School Formal (a black tie optional event). He rallied back from his injury, off crutches in a few days, and managed to waltz with me at the formal.

On March 26, 2008, I hurt my ankle playing intramural volleyball and wound up on crutches for a few days. Will I be able to dance at next weeks Grad School Formal? Not sure. Ankle is still in an air cast and should be until next Thursday or Friday. At least I can go and enjoy the snacks and drinks.

Odd coincidence, don't you think? I knew that Luc had hurt himself around this time last year, but when I was looking back at the photo I took the day he got crutches (the day after he hurt himself), the date coincided with the date that I got crutches, meaning we both hurt ourselves the same night (the night before obtaining crutches). At least I can say I sprained my ankle going up for a hit and came down on someone's foot. That someone obviously put their foot over the line onto my side of the court. Luc just hurt his knee slipping and falling on the ice. No one was around him.

Intramural sports: 2, Meg and Luc, 0. Maybe next year we'll make it through with no injuries.

new mac

I have been having lots of troubles with my MacBook that I got about 1 year ago. Apple and I have a love/hate relationship. You see, I loved my computer, and yet I hated it because it kept breaking. First the speakers and logic board, 2 months after I bought it. Then the optical drive (cd/dvd drive), 5 months later. Then the battery, 1 month after that. Finally, the screen, 3 months later. That brings us to Thursday night, two days ago ...

I was using my laptop all day at work, like I usually do. It's a nice distraction. I packed it up at 5:30 pm, left lab, and took the shuttle home. I got into my apartment, got out my laptop, and turned it on. When I looked at it, the right 2/3rds of the screen was black, then started flashing colors. It was going crazy. I'm like, "what now?!?!". Or more like, "wtf!" This was ridiculous. I called Apple and they said it appears to be a hardware issue (no, really?), so I would have to ship it out or bring it to an Apple Store. I said I would bring it to an Apple Store. Good thing I got the extended warranty. I also have Apple Pro Care, which is an additional thing that gets you quicker service. I thought it would be worth it since my computer seems to always be in the shop. Later that night, I turn on my computer again, and the screen is simply working. Weird. I thought that since it randomly stopped working, maybe it would randomly start working. The story continues the following day, however.

Now it is Friday. I get into lab, happy my computer is working and I don't have to drive the 40 minutes to Bridgewater, to where the nearest Apple Store is. I boot up my laptop and the screen goes crazy again. Great. I needed to use my computer that day too, because I'm working on a publication and all the info is on my laptop. That is what I planned on doing that day at work. I determine that if I shut it down and reboot enough, the computer works. I use that time to copy my publication files that I need. Perhaps I can borrow another computer and work on them for the weekend. Since I didn't have much else to do at lab that day, since I needed to work on the paper, I made a reservation at the Apple Store for tech support that afternoon. After lunch, I hopped in my car and drove to Bridgewater. My appointment was at 3 pm. They didn't see me until 3:20 pm. I was peeved. They could see that. The tech guy tries to be nice to me and makes dumb jokes, but I am having none of it. I hate Apple. I hate my MacBook. He asks what the problem is, I tell him. We boot up the computer. He sees the issue. He goes to his computer screen and scans through my repair history. "Interesting," he says. "You've had 2 major repairs and 2 minor repairs so far. This would be your 3rd major repair." After a few more moments, he says, "This is what we're going to do, we're just going to give you a new computer. This one is obviously crap, and you've been having to get it repaired too much. We are sorry. Here is a brand new black MacBook." He then asked if I needed them to transfer my data from the old computer to the new. I didn't, since I had all my info backed up onto my time capsule using Time Machine (Apple's automatic backup utility).

Whoa. I got a new computer. Not only new, but better than my last once, since they upgraded the base version. I got 50 more GB of hard drive space, and 0.4 more GHz of processor speed. So here I am, relaxing in bed and typing away on my new MacBook. Apple, I don't hate you anymore. Now that I know you will give me a brand new product if the old one hits 3 major repairs. Good to know.

On a side note, restoring my system from Time Machine was soooo easy and great. Just booted up the new laptop, asked if I had data from another computer or hard drive to transfer over too, I picked my time capsule (external hard drive with backed up data) and let it go. When my computer booted up, I had my emails, desktop background, system settings, pictures, music, documents, calendar, everything all in order and just as I left it when my screen went wacky.

So now I am happy.

best family in the world

I am so blessed with having the absolutely best family. Why is that? Because second cousins and cousins once removed take time out of their drive from D.C. to the Albany area to say "hi" to me in Princeton. Ok, so I phrased it like they are really distance relatives (who actually talks to their "removed" cousins?), but to me, they might as well be aunt, uncle and regular cousins. That's just how my family is. We know everyone ... and see everyone fairly regularly (thanks to Aunt Ginny's yearly Christmas parties).

So, Sandra and Tom and their kids Emily and Everett were driving home and called me to ask if they could stop by and say hi. It was a great surprise. Apparently Sandra put a lot of effort into contacting me. She called her mother (my great-aunt), who didn't answer, so then she called Aunt Carolyn (my other great-aunt) to get my parent's number, who could then give her my cell phone number. So everyone knew she was coming to visit me.

While talking with my mom before they showed up, my mom told me to take a group photo. I was like ... that's so cheesy. I'm not going to ask them to pose for a photo when they visit. Well, I didn't even have to ask. Sandra hops out of the car, camera in hand, saying she needs to document their whole trip. Voila. There is a photo (I guess I am glad it happened ... only other photos I have of me and Sandra are (1) her holding me at my baptism, she's my God-mother, and (2) wedding pictures that I ruined with my scowling face because I ripped my dress and was sooo sad, I was the flower girl at Sandra and Tom's wedding. I am still really sorry about that, Sandra).

Luc got to meet some more relatives. I don't think he'll ever be done meeting my relatives. I did find out that people do, in fact, read this blog, because they knew all about how he surprised me with a trip to California for my birthday. Thanks for actually wanting to know what is going on in my life ... I mean, it seems pretty important to me. :-D

feeling positive

It's been a tough few months. I may have mentioned that one or two times before. When something consumes your life, it's all you can think/talk about. I'm feeling good now, though. Things are looking up. I'm beginning to enjoy going to lab in the morning. Have all these ideas in my head that I want to try out. Excited to learn again. My days are good now. Full of friends and life and happiness. Full of promise, excitement. Winter is almost over. Spring is coming. That is exciting to me.

My weekends are becoming jammed packed with fun things to do, places to go. Classes are really good. Learning all about the chemistry of how proteins are formed and how they interact. Finally starting to understand statistical mechanics (this is the 3rd time I've taken the class). I feel in control again. Volleyball league started up, so now I can be active again. My muscles were so sore from last week's game, and it was absolutely wonderful. I loved the pain lacing up my thigh muscles every time I walked up stairs. I hope to start up with Taekwondo again soon. I'm going to look for some schools in the area.

I put up a few pictures from this weekend. Mart came down to visit, because I got her opera tickets to see Carmen in NYC for her birthday. The show was Saturday night. On Friday night we went to a student belly-dance performance. One of my friends, Jess, is in the troupe. They put on a good show. I took a few pictures for Jess. Then Saturday we hung out in our PJs until about 2 pm, then we got ready to go to NYC. We took the train in and went to dinner at an Indian restaurant. It is called Sapphire and is near Columbus Circle, in case anyone wants to know. The only drawback to the evening was that Mart's shoes decided to slice off parts of her foot. Mean shoes. We stopped by a drugstore to buy some band-aids and performed some surgery by the Poland Springs display. Poor Mart. She still couldn't walk well, but at least more skin wasn't being sliced off. The show was really good. We could see pretty well, despite being in the last row in the topmost balcony (balcony 5 of 5 or 4 of 4 ... I forget). Mart brought binoculars, so we could see better. We caught the 12:42 am train back to Princeton and were soo happy to get into bed. Mart left around 1 pm today, so we just had breakfast together. Luc came over too. Travis called and I got to say "hi". I haven't talked to him since he left for Iraq in November. He should be coming home soon though, which is good. I know that Mart misses him.

With that, I think I'm going to go join some friends at the D-Bar ... even though it's a school night. I'm a rebel.