Blonde again!

Today was a great day, and I'm thinking that this weekend is going to be wonderful in general.

Yesterday, Sarah and I went to see Rocky Horror Picture Show performed by a group called the Queerios (good name, huh?), and it was lovely! I wish I would've seen the movie first, because it's a bit hard to understand what's going on when you have hundreds of people screaming at the movie (which, yes, I know is the point). I saw at least three women's breasts too, so that was interesting, especially since we were warned about no nudity.

Here's a picture of me and Sarah (aptly titled SarSquared) with our props before the movie started.

I also burned my neck while curling my hair (owww!) and so here's a picture of that!

My mom gave me a gift certificate to Home Interiors as a housewarming gift, and so I finally ordered something! Here's a picture of the candleholder gate-thing (I'm not sure the technical term!) that I bought. I also was able to swing a couple candles since I had $10 left!

I also got a new haircut! So here's two pictures of my new, blonde, short hair! Lovelovelove it!

This weekend is homecoming (hence the Baylor shirt I'm wearing today), so I'm going to a show with Robyn, a bonfire, and a parade! More about those after they happen! Miss you all!

Wanda Sykes is wonderful

Quick update:

Little Patches is now little Dash ("A dash of salt within a sea of pepper," or something like that), which I like much better and owe it to Scotty (who convinced mom and dad that Patches was not a good name).

One of my favorite clips I've seen in a while. Check out it! It's Wanda Sykes' thoughts on gay marriage...definitely my type of woman.

Uhhh...

Apparently, the new Lake kitty's name is Patches.

Does anybody else think that sounds like a creepy clown's name? :/

Newest Edition to the Lake Family!

I would like to introduce you to the newest edition to the Lake family:


My parents adopted a kitty! She doesn't have a name yet; I think they're debating between Lily, Pebbles (ew), and Lucy. I vote for Lucy because I helped pick out my old Resident Director's cat a year ago and her name was Lily. Of course, they don't want to name her "too soon" so they're going for a few days without a name. I think that's silly; the poor kitty won't know who she is! Anyway, there you go: meet Lucy (she's Lucy in my head 'til they pick out a name)!

Update: Now they're thinking Bailey or Shelby. I'm gonna go with Lucy or Bailey on this one.

Another update: More pictures from mom! She's cute, but not as cute as Chloe (but then again, I'm biased)! She looks so sweet though!

Come back, Mom and Dad!

So it has been a few weeks since I've posted (sorry, for all you loyal readers); life's been crazy! I had a test on Tuesday, which was one of the main reasons why I've been so busy, but now I have time to relax!

Mom and Dad came to visit last weekend (and I want them back!) and we had a good time! I picked them up at the airport on Thursday evening, and we didn't do much except drive home from the airport that night. Friday, we decided to run some errands, like going to Lowes to pick up things for Dad to fix my dripping air conditioner (still dripping; in the process of trying to fix it again) and a new light cover for my fan (since the old one fell and broke). Dad spent the majority of the day trying to put the new glass cover on (after two trips to Lowes, as we thought we had the right parts and then ended up needing more). On Saturday, it was Mom's birthday, so we went shopping for bootlets at the two Cowboy boots shops there are in Waco. Mom found a pair she liked, but she wasn't in love with the way they fit so we decided to hold off. We also went out to dinner with my neighbor Sharon, who showed me around Waco when I first moved here, at a restaurant called 1424. It was a very fancy, yummie restaurant! We had a great time talking, eating dinner, and having champagne and dessert for Mom's birthday (thanks, Sharon!). I think it's safe to say Mom had a great birthday! On Sunday, we bummed around my place until we decided to leave early to go look for boots for Mom. We overestimated the time it would take for her to pick out boots, and thus arrived in Fort Worth more than three hours before their flight! So we went out to dinner at a Mexican restaurant, and then I dropped them off at the airport. :( It's safe to say that we all had a great weekend catching up though!

Here's a picture of Dad and Chloe bonding. She usually hissed at him (which is odd, because she never hisses!) but she must've enjoyed his tummy as a place to lay.

Here is a picture of my beautiful parents and I before going out for Mom's birthday.

More details to come as more excited things start happening! Love you all!

Packages, Conferences, and Lectures!

Last weekend was a crazy one, and started with a bang: I got the most awesome package from my Aunt Heide! It was filled with love, women-in-science cards, bubble bath (with hilarious directions on the back about cleaning bathroom of all cockroaches before using!), and a potholder she made! She's attempting to get into quilting and thus practiced by making potholders, and so she referred to it as her "$600 potholder" (jokingly referring to having to buy all of the requirements to start quilting). It is probably my most expensive potholder, if I think about it...! Anyway, thanks, Aunt Heide! I love it!

On Thursday, Robyn and I drove down to Austin for the Society of Psychophysiological Research Conference and proceeded to have four days of fun! Here's a picture of the drive down; there was moderately icky traffic on the way down there but we saw the funniest bumper sticker (click on it to make it bigger).


Thursday night, Nathaniel had his poster presentation so Robyn and I went to cheer him on. Here's a picture of Nathaniel in action, giving his spiel to a random man whom I don't know.


Thursday night, we went out to 6th Street to have dinner (with Dr. Stanford) at a lovely Thai place and then after Dr. Stanford went back to his hotel room, the three of us went out to the bars on 6th. The neat thing about downtown Austin is that it's such a well-populated area during Thursday-Saturday nights (due to all of the bars), they shut down a few blocks of 6th St. and everybody bounces back and forth between bars, walking across the streets like it is no problem. We started at a bar that had relatively cheap yummie drinks, and were just kinda hanging out. Then Robyn somehow worked her womanly charm on the way to the bathroom, because when she came back, she had met a man named John (Relic, as we called him, 'cuz that's his last name) who seemingly knew everybody in downtown Austin. He ended up getting us into a bunch of clubs, and we roamed in a bunch of clubs until we ended up going to one of Robyn's favorite dance places, called Spill. We danced at Spill until last call, and then we parted ways with the boys and went to our hotel room.

Friday, we had a few lectures we listened in on, most that were way over my head (as I'm still new to the whole P300 brain wave and potentiated startle thing) but still a good experience. Then Robyn, Dr. Stanford, and I got together and decided to go to lunch and then sit and talk about where our research is going. Robyn defends her master's thesis on Friday, so he gave her a couple things to remember. Nathaniel is working on a paper with Dr. Stanford and had to check in with progress along with his master's as well. I, on the other hand, am just running participants as a control study for a woman at the Center of Disease Control (93 participants and counting!). However, I was informed by Dr. Stanford (today, in fact) that I get to write up a small overview of an aggression scale's use in a clinical population for it's 50 Year Anniversary next year, so I'm pretty excited for that. Friday night, Nathaniel and I (Robyn was visiting with a friend) went to the student social, which was purely because we got two free drinks ("cactus juice," think margarita with vodka instead of tequila). Robyn rejoined us and then we decided to go out dancing again. Three of our friends from the PsyD program drove down to hang out with us as well, so we had a great time chatting and dancing.

Saturday, Dr. Stanford wanted us to make sure not to miss a lecture in the morning towards the end of the conference, so we showed up to listen and alas--no Dr. Stanford! Apparently he went home early. Regardless, Robyn, Nathaniel and I stayed to listen to the lecture and the SPR Presidential Address (which was actually pretty interesting) and then Robyn and I went to lunch while Nathaniel stayed for SPR's business luncheon (Robyn and I didn't have tickets). We decided to lay low Saturday, going out to dinner at a really yummie restaurant called z-tejas, and going to see the movie Choke (completely weird but really interesting; I recommend it). We finished the conference at the social, where the neuroscientists have a band (that was quite good!), sing, and dance -- all while drinking! It was quite hilarious to see these scholarly men and women under the influence [I have a video but you can't quite hear the song playing in the backround; it's way too loud]. We then went back to the hotel room and watched a movie. Here's a picture of me and Robyn, and then a picture of Nathaniel, chugging his red wine (completely kidding, but it's a great picture regardless).



Sunday, we stopped at REI and the Round Rock Premium Outlets (mom, you'd be so proud of me, I didn't go into the Coach store at all!) and then drove home. I had a S.T.A.T.S. study group ("Students Traumatized After Taking Stats") and then graded some of my research methods lab's proposals. When I got home, I received a package from my parents (with a kitty leash so I can take Chloe outside--she loves it!) and the cutest card with a penguin on it. I also received a sweet card from Anne (hi, Anne!) telling me she read my blogs and just wanted to say hi! You guys are too sweet! Thanks!

On Tuesday, I had my first statistics exam, and thought I was completely prepared. When I took the test, I felt pretty confident (although I'm pretty sure I made up two answers) and was hoping for the best. When I got the exam back today, I received a B+, which was okay but I was still bummed. When we started going over the test, however, I noticed that I kept getting full points (or near full) on all the questions! I wasn't understanding how I did so poorly, when I recounted my score--Dr. Kirk accidently didn't count my last TWO (out of six) pages of my exam! Thus I scored a full 16 points higher than he originally had written on my paper! Thus I ended up getting a very high A! I'm completely excited, especially after the initial scare. I also was very happy about my answers that I made up, as I got half credit on both of the questions! Can't beat that!

Today, I went to a lecture given by Dr. Robert Sapolsky about his book, "Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers," and it was quite possibly the best lecture I've ever heard about a topic I was unfamiliar with (aka I hadn't read the book and was only marginally aware of his research). He was witty, hilarious, extremely knowledgable, and got me to reeeaaally want to read his books! I wrote down some quotes so you all could live vicariously through me! Check 'em out:

My favorite: "I don't know anything about literature so I had to resort to neurochemistry."

"If you want to really get your heartrate up, lay in bed at night, feel your heart beat slow, and think, 'You know, that heart isn't going to beat forever.'"

"So what do we do when our experiment doesn't work out? Your average scientist gives up and goes to business school!"

"Usually, as animals, we don't run 26 miles a day unless we really want to eat something or it really wants to eat us."

"The two rules you need to follow to have a good life are these: don't get born poor and don't be socially isolated."

"The problem with stress isn't that testosterone levels go down, its that penises go down."

He also did a great job faking us out, talking about how people always remember flashbulb memories really well (a memory of an important past event, like "Where were you when Kennedy was shot?") and then tricked us by saying, "Yes, we'll all remember where we were when we found out Britney Spears shaved her head." He also had a fun fact about the author of Peter Pan being a psychogenic dwarf and having so many problems due to the fact that his brother died when he was little and his mom always said, "Oh, it's just you" when he would walk into the room--hence the weird stories of Peter Pan, boys coming back as ghosts, etc. etc. etc. Basically, the lecture it was an hour and a half of pure fun and learning at the same time; something I truly admire!

And that's a quick (errr, kind of quick!) catchup of what's going on with me! Let me know how you guys are! Love and miss you all! [Please note that I did not proofread this and thus apologize for all of the annoying times I've said "so" or make a spelling error! I was getting pressure from my mother to finish this so she could live vicariously through my experiences!]