Last Bit of Updates

Thursday-Didn’t go into work….I think I mostly worked on schoolwork and walked around a bit.

Friday-Went into work and it was my last day. Just touched up things here and there and made my files better organized. Met with the programmer I’ve been working with to show him the last few things, just to make sure that I wasn’t leaving him with things unfinished (which they weren’t). Then he showed me the FINISHED version of the emotion mirror. Now the game itself didn’t react a wave of “wow cool!” just because I had seen many, many versions of it. The cool thing was that before, it was just a flash file but when he opened it up, a little icon with my drawing came up on the doc(the bar that mac’s have). It was so cool to see a drawing of mine as an icon and at the moment, I felt so proud of the work I had done this summer. This perhaps wasn’t an internship I was expecting to do and maybe perhaps not the most typical route to take(but then again, since when I have I ever done that)-but yes, I am both glad I did this internship for the summer, I did learn quite a bit and proud of the quality and amount of work I accomplished. Went to Roberto’s for lunch to “celebrate” finishing my internship. When I picked up my aunt from the Salk, she decided she wanted Chinese food, so we got that from Double Happiness, which I have commented on before. We got back home, ate our food, watched a movie. My aunt has been on a mission to show me her favorite classics, so we watched “The Way We Were” (cause anything with Barbara Streisand my aunt just loves). It thought it was a bit dull and didn’t care for the story so much.

Saturday-It was a gray, gray day here until the mid-afternoon. We went to the dog beach and had a beach day there. It was fun, I love the dog beach at Coronado! Since the sun wasn’t out though, the water was absolutely freezing! I took more pictures which was fun too, it’s a great place to take photos. We met a couple that had two Carin Terrier’s(my aunt’s dog, Lulu is a Carin Terrier, so whenever there’s others at the beach, conversation is made). We brought lunch to the beach as well-just PB sandwiches and boy were we just the most popular people at the beach. I also met perhaps one of the sweetest dogs I’ve ever met named Amigo. At night, we went out to eat/see a movie with my aunt’s friends. We went to Sammy’s Woodfire Grill which was very tasty-I was so in the mood for pizza. We saw Eat, Pray, Love…acting was good, movie was forgettable. Saw there was Ghirardelli ice cream shop across the street so we went there cause I wanted to-their chocolate ice cream is so good and they don’t have these shops yet in MN. Yummers.

Sunday-Got up early cause I had signed up for a 5k at Solana Beach (about 30 min. away). It was so foggy on the drive over, I could see the road but especially on the highway, that was all I could see. I signed up for this race because it sounded like it was going to be run on the beach and I though “wow, that’s cool and I can’t do that in MN”. Well I was mistaken. Only the aquathon and swimming events took place on the beach…the run was on this boring commercial road and we had to loop it, which I never like doing for races, to me it just makes it seem so much longer. Anyways, ran it, pleased with my time, glad it was over. For lunch, we met up with another group of my aunt’s friends for Dim Sum (Chinese brunch). For those who have never done this before (no worries if you don’t, I didn’t know this existed or what it was until this meal), basically instead of ordering the workers come out with carts of food and you just order what you want. It’s really fun with a big crew of people(which we had). The food was very, very good and it was fun. I want to try this out in MN with some friends at some point. I then took a nap. Woke up, power walked down to Old Town because I woke up wanting to walk. Got back, ate dinner with everyone/watched PBS (what the house does on Sun. nights) and then went to Gelato Vero Caffe to do some more studying/Bachelorette party planning. The tiramisu gelato was top notch.

Monday-My aunt and I were supposed to go to Catalina today and meet up with my aunt and uncle from my dad’s side. Night before we got a call from them, the ferry for the boat had broken so we couldn’t go. So instead we went to Laguna Beach b/c they have 3 art festivals going on/it’s a good place for a day trip that was ½ between San Diego and Malibu. I’ll first talk about the art festivals. They have 3 different ones: one for fine arts, one for crafts and one for in between those two. I believe they are all exclusively for Laguna Beach residents as well…this community bases part of its identity in that they support the arts big time, which is sweet. The fine arts one was very good, I grabbed a lot of business cards to check out some artists websites later. The only two were really lame. Seeing all 3 took a good couple of hours and my brain hurt from seeing so much art by the end. Okay, other part of today, seeing my uncle and aunt, Scott and Jimmy…awkwardddd. I really don’t know how to put words to it, it was just uncomfortable to be around them for the entire day and it made me glad that I had to stay with my aunt this summer instead of them. Restaurants (sorry this is choppy…). Lunch, we ate at Hotel Laguna. Food was good, view was great(right on the beach), service was super duper slow. Dinner-ate at sundried tomato where their specialty was…you guessed it, things with sundried tomatoes. It was DELICIOUS! At night, we went to this thing called Pageant of the Masters. They’ve been doing this show since 1936 and basically they recreate famous paintings or create “living paintings”. It’s actually really amazing, everything they did looked so legit like the painting or sculpture or mosaic they were trying to recreate. The theme was Eat, Drink and Be Merry…so the storyline so to speak(I use that term loosely) revolved around that. I very much enjoyed coming to this-it really just made art history come to life, they had a live orchestra playing, a witty but education dialogue about the pieces, lots of humor and it was just so well executed. It was one of the most unique theater things I’ve ever experienced. I think I easily could have just sat and watched that for 5+ hours.

Tuesday-This was a pretty chill day, I didn’t want to have a jammed pack day. No need to be tired the next day travelling and honestly, I had done pretty much everything I had wanted to before I left. Late morning, we went over to my aunt’s friend’s glass studio, because I wanted to see how they made their glass art. So I got a tour of their studio(which is pretty much their one car garage) and then got to see all the stuff they were getting ready for a craft show. Then after, they taught both my aunt and myself how to cut glass and before you know it, we are all making a few necklace pendants. It was fun though my brain was overwhelmed with all the choices I could make. Not only did I have to think about what I wanted my necklace to look like, but I also had think about color, texture and glitter. After that, went back home and packed. Then in the early evening, I met two more of my aunt’s neighbors because they wanted to meet me before I left. I was told that one of the neighbors did concept art for animation and was going to talk to me about his job, what his does ect. and if I had any questions I could ask. Got over there and as I was looking at his porfolio I begin to realize, “wait a minute….I have seen this stuff online before!” Turns out, the neighbor was no other than Gary Glover, a very well respected and well known concept artist for both gaming and films. WOW! He was such a nice guy and asked to trade e-mails so he could e-mail a few things and said to stay in contact and not hesitate to e-mail him. Such a nice guy and an amazing artist. That was really cool! After, went out to eat with my aunt at El Indio (a Mexican restaurant) and then grabbed some gelato, cause I wanted to make sure I hit up Gelato Vero Caffe before I left. A good last full day in San Diego.

Wednesday-I didn’t leave until 3pm from SD so I had the morning here. Besides just final packing-we went over to the glass studio to pick up our pendants. I’m was pleasantly surprised at how mine turned out. Had lunch at home and then had to leave. I had the best goodbye from Colleen. Her medicine was slightly changed about a week ago and she’s been pretty unresponsive and not talking much. But when I went to say goodbye, her eyes just snapped open and she lifted her head and she started smiling, laughing and talking (and I could even make some words out and understood what she was saying). Man, that was amazing and I was so touched, I know that probably took so much effort for her to do. It was cute too, my aunt was all teary-eyed after seeing that. After that, said the rest of my goodbyes(though more like see you later). Then lastly, dropped off at the airport and with that, my summer in San Diego was over. Crazy.

~Lauren

Catch Up-1st week o' August

Okay, so catch up of what I did the week in between getting back from Prague and the SF trip. That seems like forever ago already, so this will probably be a short recap. I’m so glad I wrote down on paper before I left everything I did, cause honestly….I wouldn’t remember!

Sat., Jul 31st-Okay so I flew back from MN to SD, sick of planes and airports at this point. I wrote something down about time zone differences...the extra 2 hr difference must have really thrown me off or something (actually yes it did…just when it came time to going to bed…so lovely wanting to go to bed at 9pm, but fighting that off and getting up at 5am, joyous). Went to a surprise 40th birthday party for Karen. It was fun, she was indeed surprised. Food was catered from this Iranian restaurant I believe…it was pretty good, especially the cherry rice.

Sun., Aug 1st-Only thing to note: went to listen to music in the park at La Jolla. Got really bad blisters on my pinky toes too from the shoes I was wearing, probably some of the worst blisters I’ve ever had, ouch!

Mon, Aug 2nd-Went to work and was bored out of my mind cause I was done with everything they had asked me to do. Had my last meeting with my boss, she confirmed this, so I just had a few things here and there to clean up and then I could be done. Went running, frustrated cause my leg still hurts from whatever I did to it on the 4th of July run. I haven’t really given it the chance to recover though. Sigh.

Tues, Aug 3rd-Due to lack of work, took a few half days here and there. Today was one of them. My aunt and I drove up along the coast in the northern county of SD, so went through all the beach towns and such(though now they are more commercialized beach towns). It was fun. We had desert before dinner at Pannakin, a coffeehouse. We both got a slice of pie and something to drink. I had a slice of raspberry pie which was very, very good and a chai latte (which was very watery and not that great). We then had dinner at Double Happiness and had honey walnut shrimp-yummers! Then we saw A Midsummer’s Night Dream at the La Jolla Playhouse and it was AWESOME! Especially the set design, reality was set in a Victorian style house but when they went into the forest, everything turned upside, including a grand piano and the chandelier which turned into a tree. It was very, very good. Great theater venue too!

Wed., Aug 4th-I have nothing written for this day so apparently not much happened?

Thurs. Aug 5th-Went to work for like 2 hr. and then tried out Lestat’s coffeehouse cause it looked like a pretty cool place online. The atmosphere was great, it was a perfect blend of electric, artsy and cool. There was even a guy there with a macaw on his shoulder, surfing the web which I found super amusing. My drink was not so awesome though which kinda bummed me out, but eh…it was worth the visit. At night, my aunt planned this huge event for her friends where they ate dinner at the house and then we all went to an outdoor movie theater in Mission Hills called, Cinema Under the Stars because Harold and Maude was playing. I hadn’t seen it before but definitely knew about this movie as it’s just referenced so much in film and animation. Everyone else who went loved the movie…I thought it was meh, okay. I don’t know if was the hype around it or what, but I wasn’t in love with it like everyone else. And why is it that most cult movies that they tend to have the same feel to them?

Fri Aug 6th-Just didn’t go to work today, there was no point. My aunt took the day off too. So all of us from the house went to Mission Beach because my aunt had wanted us to go out to eat at World Famous. Things were okay until we got in the car and I could just tell there was growing tension in the air. Friday is the day that Laurie and Gladys have to work with Colleen and there is some extreme disliking from both sides (I won’t get into it as to why, just that these two ladies don’t like working together). And it only got worse as the outing went on, the tension that is. We got there, were told we had to wait so we went walking down the boardwalk at Mission Beach. Got back went into the restaurant and Colleen said she didn’t want to be there, so we got back into the car and oh boy, that’s when the tension really escalated and we all were trapped in the car in it. One was blaming the other for various things and the other one wasn’t taking that verbal abuse but decided to be passive aggressive in response which just resulted in a lot of passive aggressive comments and arguing with nothing being resolved. During the middle of it, I just put on my sunglasses, just to disassociate myself from the drama and you bet I was glad to get out of that car and go straight to Starbucks to escape that for awhile. While it was not fun to be around that, the whole situation just makes me laugh a bit because there is just so much man bashing that goes on in this house between the workers and my aunt and yet, there’s all this passive aggressive drama, control issues, being overly sensitive, not taking blame issues ect. amongst the women here and yet they all still think that women are perfect compared to men. Yeah right; we both have our issues.

~Lauren

What I Did Like, 2 weeks Ago

Here's all what I did before I left for my family trip...which I may or may not write about later. We'll see. Oh and this was written before I left for the trip too, so that explains that bottom paragrah.

Wednesday-After work, my aunt took me and Anne(one of her friends)to the movie theaters to see Live from the Met, “La Boheme” cause my aunt is into opera and this is one of her favorites. It was a good way to experience opera for the first time cause there were subtitles so one could understand everything. It was also a good opera for me to see because “La Boheme” is based off the musical “Rent” which I know a great deal about. So yeah, good thing to experience. I kind of laughed too because I was the youngest person in the theater by at least a good 40 years.

Thursday-My aunt and I left a tad bit early from work so we could potentially take everyone at the house out but that didn’t happen which was alright, it was nice just to chill at home. Finally finished “The Thornbirds” miniseries-it was good but had a very heavy ending, oh tragedies. We had a very beautiful, colorful sunset this night. Then went to the Gelato Vero Café afterwards because I was itching to go out, so I just drew people there and had a gelato blended drink(Tiramisu Gelato and Espresso), because that is something I can’t get in MN, it was very tasty but probably absolutely horrible for me at the same time.

Friday-Last day of work for 2 weeks. So weird, I can’t believe it’s already time for the family vacation. This summer is just blowing by so fast, I can’t believe it! We drove into La Jolla again after work because there was a shirt I saw on Tuesday and I just kept on thinking about it everyday, so I decided to just go ahead and buy it, happy I did, it’s so cute! After dinner, my foot had finally started feeling better since the 4th of July fun run I did, so I went for a short run and it felt great! Then after I jumped in my aunt’s pool and hot tub….I tell you, there’s nothing much better then going for a run and then jumping into a nice cool pool after and then after that a hot tub. I’m so spoiled out here. Then I packed for my trip back home. Woot.

Saturday-Well had the morning before leaving for my trip back MN and I was not going to waste it. My aunt and I went to the dog beach on Coronado because it’s been one of my silly life dreams ever since I saw Marley and Me. It was AMAZING and so much fun. I love seeing dogs off-leash, running around and playing with each other and to see that plus adding an ocean they could run/swim in, oh it was so cool! I hope we go back again(and I’m sure we will). Then Laurie came back from her week trip out to New Hampshire(where she grew up) and it was her first day back to work and she was incredibly nice and brought us live lobster from her trip for us to eat. She is so nice. Anyways, I had never eaten lobster before, so that was interesting. I liked it better than I thought, I think it would taste amazing in sushi actually. Then I had to be to the airport by 1pm so I could catch my flight. So yes, had a very full morning before flying back to grand old MN. Will be in town for a few days before leaving for a family vacation to Prague. I can’t wait!

And as a side note, I was just thinking about the rest of my summer and until school starts, I realized just how much I’ll be traveling and how the longest I’ll be staying somewhere for the next month or so is while my family is in Prague. Isn’t the crazy? Cause I’ll be back in MN for 3 days, then in Prague for 8 days, then back in MN for like 1 or 2 days, In San Diego for a week(maybe less depending on how my aunt plans our San Fransisco trip), then I’ll be in San Fransisco for 5 days, in San Diego again for a week, then back in MN. Phew! And after that, I’m planning on going out to West Bend with my mom to visit family out there, if it works out for everyone. SO CRAZY! I'll be living my life out of a suitcase for the next month.

~Lauren

Day 42: A lot of has happened, so an update was needed....

Saturday: Walked up to Starbucks real early in attempt to write my paper, though I ended up more just finalizing my thoughts. In the afternoon, went on a day trip out to Rancho Sante Fe. It’s a part of San Diego, but it’s about 30 min. away. It was quite gorgeous and quiet. It was also cool because so many places in it reminded me of other parts of the US, but with a California spin on it. There was an area that reminded me of Minnesota, another that reminded me of Colorado and another that reminded me of Georgia. It was also one of those places where the landscape was just so gigantic and breath-taking, a camera could never really capture it. Anyways, it was a lot of fun. Plus the sun finally decided to come out after a week of overcast and yuckiness. On the way back, we drove down the coast and I got to see all the beach towns, the scenic route is always so much better than the highway. Paula picked up really delicious Chinese food in Del Mar (I believe it was called Double Happiness). Best Chinese food I’ve ever had, delish. At night attempted to write my paper again, absolute fail. I’ve had such a hard time with this paper purely because I have no motivation to write it, I have everything thought out and organized, it’s just writing it that’s been such an issue. Finally gave in and just complained to my mom about it. I really, really dislike complaining, especially over something so petty as a paper, but it had come to that point and sometimes I just need to complain about it and then I can get my head in the game. And it helped…a lot as much as I didn’t want to do it.

Sunday: Went to another Starbucks to get some paper writing done. And wham, wrote over half of my paper. Got home in time to watch the World Cup and yay, Spain won! After, everyone in the house went to La Jolla park b/c there was an outdoor concert going on. I was told it was a jazz concert but when we got there it was 60’s/70’s rock, which was fun. We met up with some of my aunt’s friends and we just hung out for about 2 hrs and listened to good music. Colleen really enjoyed going to it, so it looks like we’ll be doing that again, they have these concerts there every Sunday. I really wish I would have been with friends because I wanted to dance and no one else wanted to. Guess I will have to do that when I get back to good old Minneapolis. Then went out to eat with some of my aunt’s friends in Little Italy, I know the place was called Fantastico….something. It was really good…seriously the food out here is so great and so inexpensive for the quality one is getting. It’s a good thing I don’t live out here permanently cause otherwise I’d be so tempted to eat out all the time! And that was it….I had a very full and well-rounded weekend.

Monday: Woohoo, another work week. I must say, this week I wasn’t all excited to come in….I think mostly because I know that after this week I get 2 weeks off to go on a family vacation, so I’m just counting down the days I have left until I get to take a break (not that I need a break, I’m just excited about this vacation and seeing my family). It was fun though cause since Javier(one of my bosses) is from Spain, he treated the whole lab for lunch to celebrate Spain's win! Then after work, we just chilled at home. The new disk of The Thorn Birds came in, so we watched the next episode. It’s such a good mini series! Truthfully, I’m kind of sad that the next episode is the last. Guess I’ll have to read the book it’s based off of to enjoy it again! Wrote more of my paper and have one section left to write, then I just have to submit it and then take the final then DONE! Oh and the night before we bought some desserts from Little Italy. We had tiramisu....it was delicious and left me wanting more. I'm so going to try and make that when I get back in August.

Tuesday: Today I woke up and was like “ugh, don’t feel like working” and so did my aunt. We decided to take a half-day, which was a good plan cause now I’m totally ready and motivated for the last 3 days before my family vacation. We went to La Jolla because I needed to get a pair of walking sandals for the trip and my aunt needed to get some new summer clothes. It was awesome because I found a pair at the first store we looked at:
yay for new shoes that actually support one's foot
My aunt had a successful shopping trip as well. We went out to eat at Roppongi’s (La Jolla), it was really good, had some Indian Fried Bread and a delicious spinach salad. Found out I don’t like Keffir cheese….though I’m realizing I don’t like a lot of dairy products very much outside of cheese and ice cream.

Day 39: Another review

Tuesday/Wednesday: Hrm…..what did I do besides work? Haaaaaa……errrrr, I don’t remember…..must have just chilled at home after work. Yes that must have been it.

Thursday: Today I had a meeting with my boss w/ the programmer I’m working with to show her everything we have done for the past month cause apparently she hadn’t really seen too much. She loved everything we were doing and wasn’t expecting us to be so far done. What can I say, the programmer and I make a really good team. After she told me she’s really going to look into getting me a stipend for the summer because she likes my work so much. Go home and went biking. Laurie is really nice and is letting me borrow her bike while I’m here and she finally brought it. Although I am really, really happy she brought me the bike, it’s a cruiser bike so it’s really different and slowwww. I felt like I had to fight with the bike just to get it too speed up. And the brakes don’t really work that great. But hey, a bike is a bike. I bike on this Oceanside path I had seen when driving to church cause it sounded pretty. Path turned out to be a path right next to the highway and the ocean estuary, so it was funny one side was beautiful and quiet and the other side was a noisy, crazy highway. And there were a bunch of homeless people chilling by the path too. It was an interesting bike ride.

Friday: For work today I mostly did gaming research which meant I got to play video games all day. After, my aunt and I met up with Anne and Gerine because they invited us to see The Last Airbender and go out to dinner. We went to some Japanese restaurant in the mall and I got sushi….I love sushi so much. It’s so cheap out here and it’s so tasty! Unlike in MN…Then went to the movie….I’m so glad I didn’t pay my own money to see that movie, it really kinda sucked but I knew that going in so I just tried to enjoy it. The scenery, costumes, martial artist, and special effects were good…that’s about it. At heart the issue was the script, the original story idea was not lacking(as the TV series and its popularity show), they just really botched the script. Then the acting really sucked too. And may I add, I found it to be a bit racist too? Like the evil people were all Middle Eastern look and the good guys were all white or very light colored Asian people. So yeah don’t even waste your time with this movie….I wish I had the 2 hours of my life back that the movie took from me. Though it did make me interested to see the TV show.

Now I’m at a Starbucks, procrastinating writing my paper for my Genesis class. I’ve just been putting it off and off but I can’t take my final until I write the darn paper. So here I am about to write.

~Lauren

Day 34: A Lengthy Week in Review

Gah, practically another week has gone by. I need to update cause so much happened, but mostly towards the tail end of the week. Wowza, can you all believe it’s already July? And that I’ve been here for a month? Time is flying by like a rabid monster.

Tuesday-Thursday: No need to expound on what I did each day, cause these days were kinda the same. My aunt was out of town still on her trip to Ireland, so it consisted of me going to work for the most part. I got through a lot of my Genesis class, I only have one lesson left, a paper to write and the last test. Hopefully I finish this week. On Tuesday I tried out Twiggs, a coffeeshop in the Kensington neighborhood I had been eyeing. It was alright, cheap but not fantastic. Will be trying out other coffeeshops before returning to that one. On Wednesday and Thursday, I went out to Balboa Park to go hiking in these trails close to the park and then chill/draw at the dog park. I saw so many Bostons, it made me miss my Otto a lot.

Oh Mr. Otto, I miss you a lot!

Friday-This day was exciting. So on Tuesday, I talked with my good from Sharon from high school. As we got to talking we realized we were both in southern California for the summer, so she decided to come down from LA and visit for the weekend. It was SO good to see her. She is definitely one of my closest friends and I hadn’t seen her in over a year. It’s crazy, we go to school less than 10 miles away but it takes us being in CA to finally hang out. She came in at 6pm. We basically did a lot of talking that night, figured out what we wanted to do for the weekend and went out to Gelato Vero Café, a great gelato place right in Mission Hills.

Saturday-This is the day we were on our feet from 8am-8pm. We woke up real early and went hiking at Torrey Pines, cause that was something I suggested doing. It was gray and overcast, but it was still lots of fun. After we went to Roberto’s cause you can’t go to San Diego and not go to Roberto’s, especially since it’s literally right next to Torrey Pines. After, we were able to go to the San Diego Zoo. It was awesome because we were all set and ready to pay for entrance, which is like $40, but Gladys had two free tickets she wasn’t going to use so she gave them to us. We were incredibly thankful. Once we got to the zoo, we were so lucky because right as we got there, they were opening up the dirt parking lot so we got free parking right away. Such good timing. The zoo was lots of fun, especially going with such a good friend. But describing the zoo I don’t really know how to do without being wordy and boring…I’ll just say it’s a good zoo and if you’re in San Diego, go see it! It’s considered one of the best zoos in the world. After, our feet were killing us, so we decided to go back home…we started making my desert for the 4th that night. I have this personal tradition where I like trying to make a new ice cream treat, so we made the brownies for this desert which I’ll explain shortly. After, we jumped in the hot tub at my aunt’s house. After being on our feet for 12 hours, it felt heavenly. Oh and this day marked my one month mark out here.

Walking along the beach at Torrey Pines.

Sharon and I right outside of the zoo entrance. A day well spent with a great friend!

Sunday-Happy 4th of July! This day as well was jammed pack! I got up ridiculously early because I signed up to do a 2 mi. fun run at Scripps Ranch. Groggily, I got up at 5:20am thinking “I am a crazy person for doing this, but I’m excited!” Anyways, the race was fun and I’m so glad I did it. It was nice too b/c about a mile of the run was downhill, so that was nice, though between that and really pushing myself my tendentious was worse than normal but it was worth it. I forgot how much fun these organized runs are. I didn't bring a camera, but here's a link to pictures from the run online: Scripps Ranch Run Pics☺ Later that morning Sharon and I walked up to this park in the neighborhood because we saw signs that there was a parade. We got there, expecting to watch a parade but instead we were in it! Apparently what the Mission Hills neighborhood does is that the neighborhood comes together and walks together to celebrate the 4th (and everyone dresses up for the 4th). It was kinda cool to take part it. Plus it was great because Paula, Colleen, Laurie, Enrique and Lulu were all able to take part in it too. After that, Sharon and I went out for sushi cause we really wanted to do that while she was in town. We went to Itto Sushi in downtown, right across Horton plaza and it was very delicious! After, we went back to the house because Laurie wanted to do a pool party, so we jumped into the freezing pool and then mostly stayed in the hot tub (which did wonders for my leg). After that, I was tired so took a nap while Sharon figured out her busing situation. Then we had our delicious 4th of July meal-we had hot dogs(and Laurie bough be Chicken dogs since I don’t eat red meat, which was very nice of her, they were tasty!), grilled chicken, baked beans, corn-on-the-cob and a lemonade/cranberry juice drink. It was delish! Then came the moment of truth, finally trying my desert. I had no idea if it was going to be good or not. Basically it was an ice cream sandwich, but instead of using cookies I made dark chocolate brownies and in between there was chocolate chip ice cream and a layer of peanut butter. And the verdict was…..everyone thought they were delicious-even Colleen, she kept on opening her mouth like a bird because she wanted more and more of it, which was quite the compliment. While eating desert, we watched Fantastic Mr. Fox. The movie ended at the perfect time for fireworks. Because Missions Hills is well, built on a bunch of hills, you don’t need to go to a specific location to see fireworks, you just need to go to an opening somewhere in the neighborhood. It was sweet, we saw about 6 fireworks shows going on all at once across the bay(and we could hear them). There were only about 20 people where we decided to watch, so it felt like we were getting our own private showing of 4th of July fireworks. This was definitely one of the best 4th of July’s I’ve had in quite some time.

Picture from the neighborhood 4th of July parade/walk.

The brownie sandwich ice cream desert. With a strawberry on top to make it classy.

Monday-Had to drop Sharon off early this morning. I was sad that she had to go, the time went by so fast but I’m very grateful she was able to come out for the weekend. Really, words cannot describe how thankful I am for the time I was able to spend with her. She’s one of those friends that no matter how much time passes between talking, we can pick up things like we had just seen each other the day before and our friendship hasn’t changed. We just click somehow. I am hoping I can come up to LA, even if it’s for a few hours, but seeing how pretty much the rest of my summer out here is planned out, I’m not sure if it’s going to happen or not. But I’m keeping my fingers crossed! Anyways, after dropping her off, I drove to work fully prepared to work. But then I got there and the building was locked and the campus was just dead. So haha, had an unexpected day off from work(guess it was a holiday today?). My aunt decided that she wanted us to go to the Del Mar fair because she really wanted to go and today was the last day it was open. I was totally up for it cause I’m really loving fairs this year. Anyways, we had perfect timing when we got there. Just as we were going to buy tickets, these people asked if we wanted tickets and we said yes and they just gave us their two tickets cause they weren’t going to use them. This saved us like $26! Seriously, so nice of those people. And it was nice because since we went to the fair so late last time, I got to experience and do new things at the fair this time around, like see the art and place where people sell things and such. I got a little backpack that I thought would be good for hiking cause I’m really into that out here. Twas a day well spent at the fair. And I’m incredibly excited for the MN state fair. I didn’t go last year, so I think that’s why.

Phew, that’s it! But really, one of the best weekends I've had in awhile. Seriously.

~Lauren

Day 26: Another Update

Thursday-Do I even mention that I went to work? I think by now we all can just assume that Mon-Fri. I go to my internship unless mentioned otherwise….yes that sounds good. Now we have that order of business down, let’s get onto more exciting things. Got to leave work an hour early to go a little afternoon trip to Coronado. Coronado is where a lot of people from the military lived back in the day(and probably still do) and they do a lot of stuff with aviation and such. Now it’s just a great island to visit in San Diego and super easy to get to. Everyone at the house went with for the trip(including Lulu, my aunt’s dog) and we walked the boardwalk along the beach at Hotel Coronado (a very famous, old hotel). It was great because everything was so handicap accessible, it made walking with Colleen very easy. I think she enjoyed getting out of the house a lot. We also got ice cream at the hotel from a place called Mootime Creamery. It was delicious but very expensive (one scoop was $5!). Then Paula took me out to dinner afterwards cause she felt like it. We went to the Kensington neighbor, which is just east of the neighborhood I’m living in. We ate the Kensington Grill and it was very yummy (I had fish tacos!). Also spotted a cute local coffee shop called Twiggs which I eyeing to try out this week.

The boardwalk on Coronado...and look at that ship in the background!

Friday-This day was pretty uneventful but relaxing. After work, we finished the mini-series we had started called The Aristocrats by the BBC. It was a good mini-series, something I probably wouldn’t have watched if my aunt hadn’t ordered it on Netflix.

Saturday-Dropped my aunt off at the airport-she’s gone for the week for a meeting in Ireland. For the afternoon I did a lot of studying/research for my Genesis class, I’m kind of off-schedule of when I wanted to be done with it, but still keeping up at a good pace. At night I went to the Del Mar county fair. I had been told all week that it was the best fair ever which I had my doubts about(MN state fair is pretty hard to beat), but it was still lots of fun and a very good fair. The cool thing is that the fair was about ½ mile away from the ocean. I went with 2 of my aunt’s friends, Cheri and Michelle cause they invited me to go with. They were so much fun! First thing we did was go on rides and they were really nice and bought my ride tickets. I hadn’t been on fair rides in a long time and though it was fun, I remember why I don’t go on fair rides-most of them make me so sick, whether or not I have anything in my stomach. It’s weird because at amusement parks, I’m fine but fair rides, ooofff. Still they were fun. We went on a power tower ride(long drop, free-fall ride), this fast spinny ride, The Crazy Mouse(a rollercoaster) and this hang-glider ride(best one by far, felt like I was flying). After rides, we went to see the pig races. I had never done this before but Michelle was dead set on going. Though the piglets were cute, I felt really bad for them, with the crowd all yelling, microphones going off ect. Plus they had a porkchop stand right next to the pig racing track which just seemed so wrong. After that we looked through the different exhibits things, like the barns and home show. We also got food then-I got a frozen-yogurt cone dipped in chocolate and peanuts(so like a drumstick but with frozen yogurt instead, it was super delish…I love frozen yogurt!) and Michelle let me try her Australian battered potatoes. Those were very good too, but I only had two pieces and they were so greasy it made my stomach feel not so great. This is another thing I always forget at fairs, my stomach doesn’t tolerate greasy food very well unless there’s something else in there to absorb the grease. Well at fairs, I always never eat much and then try something greasy(cause it’s the fair!) and then I end up feeling sick. So when I go to the MN state fair this year, I will try my best to remember so my stomach doesn’t end up feeling sick. But still, the fair was so much fun and I’m so glad I went-it was a really great way to spend Saturday night despite feeling totally nauseous once or twice (but I suppose that’s just all part of going to the fair right?)

Entrance to the Del Mar County Fair

Video of one of the pig races

A trained swimming pig...most people I've shown this too liked this video a lot, so I'm uploading just because of that....

Sunday-Laurie was awesome and brought donut’s from The Donut Star. I usually don’t like donuts but these were seriously delicious! Went to Church. Then again studied/researched for Genesis for the afternoon. Got really sick of studying and wanted to leave the house but didn’t, instead I went for a run during the hottest part of the day…not the smartest idea but I made it. While on the run, I decided that when I got back I would jump into the pool. Laurie convinced me to do it and so I changed into my swimming suit and went swimming. The water was freezing but it felt great! I’m going to start using that pool more(plus the Jacuzzi and sauna ☺ ). I was also glad to start running again, I had to take a week off cause my tendinitis was giving me issues and my dad told me to rest it for a week. Ate dinner/watched PBS with everyone in the house for a few hours…they had a really good BBC mini-series on. Was going to take my second test(of three) for Genesis but was too tired to do so.

Monday-Woke up and took my test. I was going to wait until after work but realized I wouldn’t be able to focus at all if I waited. Glad I did it, now I just have to do 6 more lessons, write my paper(which is almost at outline stage) and take the last test. I CAN DO THIS! We had a true day of June Gloom-it was cloudy and misty all day. Bleh. Before I left for work, we heard this huge thud and sad day, a turtledove flew into huge glass window in the living room, broke its neck and died. ☹ I’m going to put up some of those bird silhouette things since Gladys told me this happens about 1-2 times a week. When I got back from work, we got skype to work for my aunt’s laptop so Colleen and I were able to talk with her all the way from Ireland. It’s amazing, we’re able to video chat half-way across the world from one another and best of all, it’s free! Then got through 2 more lessons for Genesis, so I have 4 more left. I’m on a mission to finish this class.

So there you go, another update!

~Lauren

Day 21: 3 weeks already? Man time flies by!

Saturday: This was a busy day of meeting lots of new people and also doing a whole lot of eating. Met two of my aunt’s friends at their house (which was the most interesting house I have ever been in, if we go back, I’ll definitely bring a camera. As my aunt said “you’ll never see a house like this again” and she was totally right) and then we went out for lunch at a great restaurant in Hillcrest(didn’t catch the name) and had some yummy Pho soup, oh and it had green tea I actually liked, a first, I usually can’t stand green tea. Then we went back home shortly before we went to a dinner party where I met more of my aunt’s friends. We ate good food and talked, you know, you’re basic dinner party stuff. My aunt has nice friends.

Sunday: Finally found a church out here, called Kaleo Church. Very happy to finally find a church to call home out here. Hrmmmm what else did I do? Had a tasty summer lunch on the grill and……oh yeah I went hiking with my aunt’s friend, Pina that I met at the dinner party the night before! It was so much fun! We went hiking at Torrey Pines which is this “mountain” right by the ocean with all these funky desert plants. It was beautiful! It was great to go hiking with Pina and get to know her more, she’s awesome. Plus she treated me to Roberto’s, this Mexican restaurant right by Torrey Pines. It was both delicious and incredibly inexpensive. We had this crazy burrito thing(she made me try it because it was their specialty), in that it had French fries in it. Definitely not healthy but it was good, happy we split it though! Hoping to hang out with her some more this summer, which I think will definitely happen. Here’s some pictures from the hike.

Monday: NSF refunding site visit started today for the Temporal Dynamics of Learning Center(which my lab is a part of). Basically for me that didn’t mean too much though, more for the heads at my lab. I did have to demo my animation and art I have been doing for my internship the past few weeks for this demo/poster session. Unfortunately, there were 46 of these things going on and the site visitors only had 45 min. to get through (and we had 10 site visitors from NSF come). I had about 4 people talk with me (and I believe all of them saw what I was doing). Most of the people I talked with were nice and liked my work and didn’t ask too many questions besides what I was studying. One guy from NSF I guess told the heads at my lab that if I was looking for a job to contact him (hint animation friends, if you are looking for a job, especially if you’re good at Flash, contact research labs….I’m finding a lot of them desperately want animators working for them but don’t know who to contact). There was one guy who was a total jerk though after he found out I was just the artist, tried to belittle what I do (which I was like, “whatever guy, you are obviously just too cool for me and apparently know everything*rolls eyes*”). Afterwards, my aunt wanted me to show her friend Terri(the one we saw The Lottery with a few weeks ago) my animation stuff (both for work and my youtube account). Well, this show and tell ended up with the majority of my lab watching it and them yet again getting amazed. It was good because from this, I ended up finally being introduced to everyone in the lab, so now they all know who I am. My aunt then dropped the hint that I needed a job after I graduate(she forgot about my grad school plans) and both Marni and Javier(the two heads at my lab) said they are going to look into if they have the money to pay me, but they were fairly certain they do, so it looks like I may possibly have a job working here after I graduate if I so choose(and I may be able to work part-time while I’m at school through the magic of the internet). So I have that now to contemplate….which then lead to me just contemplating about many, many things which I don’t have enough room or energy to write about(basically about my life, the future and reflecting on living out in San Diego). It was a deep night of quiet contemplation.

Tuesday-Day 2 of site visit. Listened to my aunt give her 2 speeches which included a Q&A and at the first one, things got really heated between one of the site visitors and the whole TDLC group. I was glad I was sitting next to Judy, one of the scientists who is a part of the center because she was cracking joke after joke about the NSF guy, it definitely relieved some tension for me. But seriously, things got REALLY tense. The guy pretty much disagreed with what the center was doing and considered it “one of the stupidest things I have ever heard”….no worries though, Javier totally changed this guy’s mind by today and he apologized for his comment and admitted he was wrong. By the time that was over, it was time for lunch. The nice thing about the site visit is that both breakfast and lunch were provided. After that, I went back to my lab but no one was there and I worked for a bit before giving myself a half day. I’m happy I decided to do so, I was able to get my first test for the Genesis class I’m taking Distance Ed., get through 2 more lessons, go for a long walk, and catch up with 3 or 4 people via the phone that I had been meaning to call. Poor people at my lab though, they had to pull a very late night answering questions and getting ready to prepare to talk about those answers the next morning. My aunt was a part of this, she didn’t get home until 3am.

Wednesday-Today was relatively boring compared to the past few days….I went to a normal day of work, designed and built racecars in flash for the intro video of this racing game we’re building, got through another 2 lessons for Genesis(over half way done, yay! Trying like mad to get done before the end of the month), called the last person who I had been meaning to call….yeah definitely a more low-key day than the last few have been.

That's all folks!

~Lauren

EDIT: I should probably note something about the potential job opportunity cause some people have been asking about it and I think I was confusing. I probably shouldn't have mentioned it because as of right now, they haven't officially asked me, it's just an idea thrown at them and they seemed favorable about the idea. But that's all it is right now, an idea, a possibility but not a reality as of yet.

Day 12: All I Did This Weekend

An update...with pictures!

Friday: Work. Left early cause my aunt had to be at the Salk(where she works, the guy who invented the cure for polio built it, a bunch of scientists work there). Met everyone she works with there, it was fun to see how scientists work and how they all interact together. It's cool b/c at 3:30 every day they all take a break from work and have tea together, it was fun to take part in that. After I was a test subject for my aunt to make sure this test she is making is properly working...it is. I may be helping improve the art in it though, yay. Then I babysat for the next door neighbors. All I did was watch Cheaper by the Dozen with them, put them to bed and then waited until the parents came home. Very easy job. And geez did they pay well, I can’t believe what the hourly rate is out here(well at least for the neighborhood I’m living in)!

Saturday: Went shopping (Targets out here don’t compare to the ones in MN at all). Walked to and explored Old Town, it was kinda fun but so touristy, but they do have my favorite Mexican candy there for practically nothing, so I’ll have to walk down again. My aunt had this benefit thing at night, so I just chilled at home.

Oh Old Town, you just can't help yourself, you're so touristy!

Sunday: Went to Balboa Park with everyone in the house. It was really nice, I know I’ll be spending lots of time there once I get my hands on a bike I can borrow (which should be soon). Really worked on my Distance Ed. Classes like doing the test prep., blehhhhhh. Took a nap, apparently I was tired. Got up. Had a birthday dinner for Laurie, one of the workers who is here on the weekends with Colleen. Dinner was delicious-we had grilled shrimp, couscous with kale, grilled vegetables and apple pie for desert. SO GOOD, but I was so full after. Went to the night service of The Rock church out here (apparently it’s this huge church that a lot of people from NWC have told me about), it was pretty good, though perhaps a little to big for my liking and I kind of felt like I was on one of those televangelist shows on Sunday morning, except more contemporary flavor. Liked this church better than the one I went to last week, but I am trying out another one next week I think. My aunt left for Las Vegas too, she’ll be back on Wednesday.

Part of Balboa Park...I'll upload an album or something soon of more of the park, as this doesn't even begin to capture it.

Monday: Another start to the work week. All the programmers were at work, so they are starting to do all the code work and such to make my animations work with the CERT program the scientists in my lab have created. Relieved to know I set up everything perfectly for them, they’re going to do something to fix the code so it can work with my animations better. I’m excited to see when they are done with the coding, gah that’s going to be amazing! Otherwise, just chilling at home for the night, going to really work on getting some coursework done for my DE classes… I just want to be done with them already!

I have another few thoughts floating in my head that I wanted to write about, so I’ll hopefully be getting to those sooner rather than later, because they are more enjoyable to write. I know you all want to know what I’m doing out here, but I just feel like I’m writing a big old list, which is probably kind of boring. Journaling is not really more forte.

~Lauren

Day 8: A Week In Review

Holy cow, I need to start writing about all I’m doing here before I start forgetting…I was trying to remember what I did on Saturday and was having a hard time, so then I was like “I need to write about it before I forget and everything just meshes into together in my MIND!” Anyways, crazy thing-I’ve been here for a week. It doesn’t seem like I’ve been here that long yet it seems like I was in Minnesota months ago. Ah time and trying to perceive it.

Okay but back to the point, the fun stuff I’ve been doing out here. I’ll just go day by day, giving the highlights…yes that would be best.

Saturday: My aunt was a keynote speaker at this talk at UCSD, I tagged along. She is way smart. Then when we were driving back home, we saw a street festival by the beach, decided to have lunch there. It was alright, but my aunt and I decided it wasn’t the best street festival we had been to. After that, had a relaxing movie night. Good way to end Saturday and the week.

Sunday: Tried out a new church, it was okay but I am trying a new one next week. Went to a performance of Bye, Bye, Birdie at a theater in downtown San Diego. We went b/c my aunt’s 10-year old neighbor was in it(so it was a children’s production of it), holy goodness it was AMAZING. We were blown away!

Monday: Crap, what did I even do this day? Well, first day of driving in San Diego. It was pretty easy, traffic here is comparable to the Twin Cities. At work, really started to understand Flash…otherwise…hrm what did I do this day? Apparently nothing terribly exciting…

Tuesday: Work. Then when out to dinner/movie with my aunt and her best friend from the academia world and her friend’s 16-year-old son. Dinner was good-it was at Berta’s in Old Town(I only mention the restaurant so that I remember when I look back cause it was delish). I already wrote a post about the movie, no need to comment…

Wednesday: You guessed…work! Able to design and animate a whole character in a day, really starting to get a handle on Flash, yay! Then went out to eat a fabulous restaurant (The Red Door, Mission Hills) with my aunt and some of her bff’s.

Thursday: Wow no way, I had work again. Able to design/animate a character in half the time it did Wednesday without the glitches I have had previous. Proud b/c I started off the week as a complete novice/beginner at Flash and now feel like I really have a handle on it. I am told that the heads of the lab I work for are going to see if I can get a stipend for the summer because they like the work I am doing. While on a run, one of my aunt’s neighbors stopped me, I have a babysitting job for the summer-win!

Yay, looks like I remembered most of what all went done this week!

~Lauren