To [custom-made Rice] Be True

I found this while playing with thefacebook. Check out this link. I'm sure this is barely legal (in that it isn't at all). You can make your own custom Rice shirts. I made a couple of funny ones. For example, a Thresher Alumni shirt. Though I suppose it would be less funny if you actually worked for the Thresher. I also made a Rice Lacrosse Class of 20??. Anyway, I was bored and thought that if you too were bored you could play with the site. It certainly would make a great gag gift. Jenny thought of getting someone a MOB alumni baby bib. If you had an overwhelming desire to show your allegiance to the School of Humanities or the Judo-Jiu-Jitsu club, fret no more. Everyone have fun, while I go secretly make myself a SA shirt.

FYI- I actually just laughed typing that.

A laugh a day keeps the weirdness away

So I've been bored and poor. Long story short, I've decided I should work at a temp agency. Yep, today I interviewed at a temp agency. Quite a bizarre concept in and of itself, but it doesn't seem entirely bad. They pay well (more if you have a degree) and if I wanted, I could keep "temporarily" working at a place I liked until they pretty much realized it would be cheaper just to hire me directly. The whole day today was a little taxing on my nerves, and here's why.

First they ask me why I want to temp. In nice interview jargon, I basically let them know it's to make money so I can afford a non-Ramen meal at least once at week. Oh, and so I can have furniture. The desk is the number one priority. Then the bed. Anyway, in interview jargon they tell me I'm probably overqualified. I panic a little. Have I made a mistake? Does this matter? How do I respond? I could laugh and seem arrogant, or say no and seem underconfident in my abilities. I'm told that she just says that to everyone before they test. Great. Nervous laughter. At this point I'm told they need to quantify my skills so they shove me to a computer.

Nothing better than a nice number to tell you just what you're worth. I take the typing test, and a test for PowerPoint, Excel, Word, and Access (which I had never opened before today). The tests sucked, since I couldn't use keyboard shortcuts or the right mouse button. I didn't even know where some of the damn commands were in the menu. And if you click the wrong command- BAM. You're stupid. I was told this was done to make the test universal. As if I'm going to work in an office that may not have a right mouse button. Or keyboard shortcuts. So I get an advanced in all of them, but seeing as how I never used the program I assume it's a ploy they do to make everyone feel good about themselves. Then they hand me some papers with basic math and word problems. I then wade through a list of 50 paired numbers and have to check the box if the numbers are the same. At this point I'm actually freaking out. I'm thinking to myself that I've been through a lot of school at this point and I have a degree from Rice. Yet chances are that I'm going to get one of these wrong. And chances are someone stupid will have a good day and get as many right as me. And then the world will see me as some fop with average intelligence because I had a mind-lapse and quickly checked that 5930941 was indeed the same as 5903941. A nice panicky laughter surely escaped my mouth as I gazed at the intimidating math problem 2 1/2 + 3 1/4.

Well luckily I was deemed "very placeable." So in a few days I'll start getting offers that I can accept or decline on a daily basis. Not a bad deal if you ask me. Of course, I was actually then told I was indeed overqualified for this. Commence nervous laughter. I shake hands and am about to leave when out of NOWHERE the interviewer is like you went to Jefferson? I usually deny this, but I figure that would be lying in this circumstance. Anyway, she's like I used to live in Arlington and only like 5 minutes away. I'm nodding and appearing very interested. She said she moved away after 9/11. She was worried that my high school would be a prime terrorist target since "the future of our country would be jeopardized if the best and brightest were obliterated in the blink of an eye." A little creepy, but clearly mainly just weird. I hope my stifled laugh/vomiting in my mouth wasn't apparent. I have never wanted to have someone around to scream "RANK" to so badly. But how did I respond? How else could I?

Nervous laughter.

Settling in...

Movers came yesterday morning and unloaded all my stuff. Took me all afternoon just to unpack the kitchen, still have about two thirds of my stuff to unpack. RAR. Ah well, that's how it goes.

New apartment is nice. It's about 800 sq ft, which is plenty big enough for me. Plenty of room in all the rooms, except the dining area, because I have my mother's hutch in there, so fitting the table in too was a little tight. Still trying to decide if I am happy with how the furniture is set up, or if I want to shift stuff around.

The other day, I went to go check my mail and was surprised to see a LOT of mail in there. So I pulled everything out and discovered two wedding magazines. Whoa. Apparently whoever was living here before me, (a Ms Elenor Long) was either getting married, or was obsessed about getting married. There were also, of course, some credit card offers, etc. I thought it was sort of funny though.

My cat is being rather adorable. I think she likes the new place, she is being pretty affectionate, coming to sit on my lap, etc. She is also liking all the cardboard boxes that are sitting around, you know how cats are about cardboard boxes. She likes to jump into them, hang out there for awhile, and then jump out. Silly cat.

Anyways, I am settling in fine. Here's my address, for those of you who want it:
Carley Petrie
7250 Perkins Rd, Apt # 711
Baton Rouge, LA 70808
Once I get settled in a bit more, I will take some pictures and post them somewhere so those of you who are curious can see them.

Later, everyone!
Carley

Moving Day

So I'm sitting here, waiting for the movers to get here... They said that they'd be here anytime between 8 and 10, which I hope means closer to 8 since I think I am their first house of the day.

I have to say, I am liking this professional movers thing (Thanks Shell!). I packed everything up, even though they would've done packing, but I had to figure out what I was taking anyways, so while I was sorting through everything, it was just as easy to put it all in a box. I am also surprised by the amount of stuff I have. It helps that my parents are giving me so much furniture, I won't have to buy any furniture for quite awhile, although there is all sorts of little stuff that I will need to get.

Start work on Monday in Baton Rouge. I'm excited about it, but also sort of scared and nervous. I talked to my future boss last week and they seem to be pretty happy about me coming. They seem to be prepared for me, which should be different from my summer internships with Schlumberger. I'm working in pressure systems, and there's gonna be a turnaround in July, which is when they empty all the product out of all the systems and check everything to make sure it's all up to code, so that should be exciting, I'm looking forward to it. Should be a good way to learn a lot pretty quickly.

Anyways, that's all for now. Wish me luck as I strike out on my own!

Carley

Mommy Knows Best

So this morning I was talking to my mother about going to Houston mid-July and then to San Francisco with Lenora to visit Samet late July / early August when my mother said something along these lines: "Instead of wasting money on airfare, why don't you just drive out to Houston and San Francisco and then end up in Seattle and look for a job?" After the complete shock of my mother saying something intelligent, I pondered the idea. And yes, this jobless, huddled mass will move his lazy ass to Seattle and look for a job once I get there. My life has a plan-- a sketchy plan, but still a plan. So for those of you along the way to Seattle, I will be seeing you mid-July-ish. I'll make a nice long road trip out of it... New Orleans, Houston, San Antonio, Los Angeles, San Francisco and a few places in between. That's my update. YAY!

- Phill

When are you moving? Wish I knew...

Hey all. Everyone has been asking me, when am I moving? I wish that I could tell you guys. I was originally hoping to go early but it looks like they aren't going to unload my stuff in Baton Rouge until Saturday 6/25 or Sunday 6/26- ie, two days or less before I start work. As you can imagine, I am less than thrilled with this. Shell still hasn't let me know when the moving vans are gonna be here to pack up my stuff, which makes it very difficult to plan what I'm doing.

I wanted to go over like a week early, but obviously now I don't want to spend 5 days there with no stuff. I will probably still go over like on Thursday and get internet set up, go grocery shopping, buy stuff I know I will need for the apartment. I'll have to sleep on a sleeping bag on the floor, but at least it'll make it easier for me to get stuff unpacked when it finally does arrive.

Other than that, not much has been going on. Been hanging out at home with the family, who are starting to drive me nuts, probably just because of the close proximity for an extended period of time. I am definitely looking foward to having my own place.

Hope everything is going well for everyone else! Miss you guys.

I don't plan to be 'tossed' any time soon

hey y'all.
So I'm here in Yakima. for good (if by good you mean three months).

Woke up in New Orleans this morning after a lonely Monday night to find that the hotel had no power. Thank some higher power that I woke up in time for my flight. Shaved in the dark and almost had to take the stairs down 14 flights, but they had one elevator working manually.

Overpaid for a cab ride to the airport, but Rice is paying anyway, so who cares? My first flight was just to Houston, and I slept the whole way there. It was fun to come back to good 'ol IAH for a bit, but sad to realize I was actually leaving Houston this time for real after all the false starts.

Anyway, got into Yakima in the late afternoon and got stuff moved into my basement room without trouble. Called my boss and, wonder of wonders, there was a staff dinner beginning in 30 minutes. So I threw on a polo shirt and headed to the office and then Outback Steakhouse. Met a lot of people, and most seem prety cool. Aside from the owners, who answer the phones and do all sorts of stuff and are older, almost everybody was a 20-something. So conversation was plausible if awkward.
Apparently to be drunk is to be "tossed" up here. Who knew? They also say 'pop' for soda, something Derrick will undoubtedly get used to. Anyway, they're all about the wine-tasting up here in addition to beer, so now if I say I don't drink I'm just being uncultured. Oh well, we'll all have to deal.

Anyway, it's hard to tell how friendship is going to work this summer. I'm the only staffer traveling with the team, so I could very well have split worlds where I'm friends with the players when on the road and friends with the front office staff when at home. Much like at Rice.
Came back to the basement (I guess that's what I'm going to call it, for lack of a better term) and started unpacking. I don't really have anywhere to put clothes that don't hang or things that would normally go in my desk. I've got a lot of stuff to take to the office tomorrow for my desk, but I don't really have that much room, so it might not all fit. Anyway, my room feels a bit more homey now, so as long as the dog, cat, five-year-old, and seven-year-old don't invade too much, it should be a good time. I won't be here much once the season starts anyway.

alright that's about enough from me. a reminder you can hear my broadcasts at www.yakimabears.com when the season starts June 21.

I miss everybody, especially having people around who know you really well and are just there for you. Oh well, aren't we all? y'all rock, keep blogging.

Greetings From The North Pole!

First of all, thank you Panera Bread for your fabulous free wireless internet.

Oh, and by north pole I mean Ann Arbor. And it's actually like 85 degrees outside. I guess it gets warm here in the summer like everywhere else. Anyway, I found crazy cheap plane tickets so I'm up here today through Thursday. I got in today and went over to the School of Public Health. It's so amazingly cool. Both of the buildings are just awesome, and I even got to talk to a couple of faculty members who were suprisingly awesome as well. Though if I got a virtually free source of labor to conduct my research I suppose I'd be thrilled too. Anyway, it's all good. And they're building what I can best describe as an architectural shrine to health sciences research. And the best part is that it will actually be done at some point while I'm up here. So in summary- the school rocks.

I'm going to visit the central campus tomorrow. That's pretty much the "real" campus. Just north of campus is where the medical center (where the SPH is located) is. The engineering students go to the North campus (not to be confused with just north of campus), which is like 3/4 mile away from the northern part of the medical center. Man, I take back everytime I bitched about walking to and from the stadium at Rice, that was child's play. Anyway, I'll check out this ginormous stadium tomorrow (true fact- ginormous is the number one word not in the dictionary) when I get my tour of the campus. It'll have a lot to do if I end up getting season tickets or not, though I'm like 90% sure I'm going to do it anyway. I hear the games are CRAY-Z (my little brother's new favorite IM lingo), especially v. Ohio State. Then again, I might do my own tour tomorrow. I wouldn't want to be accidentally mistaken for an undergrad. I'm practicing my disdain towards all undergrads, or at least the UM ones. I've got to get into grad student mode.

The other plan is to check out apartments so I have somewhere to live. That would be nice. For all those who don't know I am indeed going to be living with Dan Phalen, from Baker. This means very little as no one here knows him.

Anyway, from the insane amount of walking around I've been doing I have to say this city rocks. It's seriously got like the best part of every city rolled into one. It actually reminds me a lot of Austin. And man, can I say how much I appreciate cities with good public transportation? I mean it makes life so easy. Though I think I might walk more tomorrow just so I can kind of go sightseeing. As long as it doesn't start raining like it's supposed to. Like any good tacky tourist I have like a freaking itinerary superimposed on a map I printed out. I don't know if I'm going to make it. I have taken it upon myself to visit gyms, bars, apartments, like all of UM, coffee shops, stores, and malls. And anything else cool I may see in between. It's like I'm worried Ann Arbor will disappear if I don't see it ALL tomorrow. Good thing I'll be here for the next god knows how many years. As I write this, I suppose it would have made more sense to write this after seeing everything, but I'll just update it later I guess. (Expect a sentence that's like, it was all cool) So in short, I love Ann Arbor. My parents will ask what I've done and I'll probably be like- eh. You know, looked at some stuff.

I may reference this blog for irony after I'm cursing this place in a few months. As I sit in the library by myself on Thanksgiving, unable to leave because I have 14 more pages to write in a paper, tests to grade, and a car that has been covered in 6 feet of snow, I'll look back on this and laugh.

Nothing's going on with me. Except I went to a Goth party.

Yep, a Goth party. Me and Jenny decided to experience life as Goths for a night before judging these people. After all, we all know that stereotypes are bad, and that if you just give people a chance, you can come to your own conclusions about them. So we did it. And now I'm judging again. You can read about it in my own blog, as I decided it was too long to post here. Hope you guys are all doing well!

P.S. If you want to comment on my Goth experience, you'll have to do it here, 'cause I don't have a comment feature on my blog, and I'm too lazy to add one at the moment.

Boggled Out

Ok, so it took me over a half over to figure out how to post on this thing... apparently you have to sign in first... on the right screenname... cause apparently I have two... how did this happen? Anyways, here's my ultra-exciting update:

I'm in Florida. Here is a sample daily schedule:
2pm: Wake up. Eat. Shower.
5pm: Samet comes over. We play Boggle.
6pm: Samet and I go to Panera Bread to use the free wifi. We eat. We job search for me. We play Webboggle until our batteries die.
8pm: Samet and I go back to my house to play more Boggle until Jon Stewart comes on.
11pm: Jon Stewart.
11:30pm: I hunt for jobs online.
12am: I get totally frustrated and quit, then turn on MTV or VH1.
4am: Sleep.

Samet takes off June 28th. Then its me, Peter (who is taking classes so he's busy), and Louis (but I feel awkward hanging out with his pregnant wife...). I must get out. I'll keep you all posted on the job search and let you know as soon as I hear anything. Until then, please have a drink for me... cause all my high school friends are soberites... I'm allegedly hanging out with an old friend from elementary school this weekend- I hope he's an alcoholic...

-Phill

p.s. I found both "penis" and "semen" yesterday in the same round of Boggle. It was the happiest Boggle moment I've had since I found "manatees" over winter break.

Cheeseburgers in Paradise

Hey all! My mom and I got back yesterday from our week long trip to Costa Rica that was my graduation present. It was a pretty amazing trip, although I spent way too much money, including buying a cedar chest that had to be shipped to the US. It is a beautiful piece of furniture though, and I was planning on buying myself an MP3 player for graduation, so I decided to just buy that instead.

Anyways, we spent the first couple of days in Manuel Antonio, which is a beautiful beach on the Pacific coast. It really was like being in paradise. Mom and I both had cheeseburgers the last day so that we could say we had cheeseburger in paradise, like the Jimmy Buffet song?

Anyways, after that we caught a bus back to San Jose, where we spent a day exploring the sights there and seeing the museums. I was pleased, I remembered the city pretty well. San Jose doesn't exactly have tons to do, so we spent lots of time that day shopping for wooden salad bowls. My mom was determined to buy a wooden salad bowl but she had to see every one in Costa Rica before deciding which one she wanted to buy.

The hotel in San Jose was less than perfect. It was clean and safe and in a good location, which I guess is the most important thing, but it was pretty sparse. My favorite part was that there were windows in the bathroom wall and door so that you could see everything going on inside the bathroom from the bedroom. I mean, it's not like Mom hasn't seen me naked a thousand times, but nonetheless, she hasn't recently and it's nice to have some privacy when your using the bathroom!

The next day, we went out to San Ramon to see my host family. They are all doing pretty well, Anto is a dentist who is saving to start her own clinic, Carol is a partner in her father's law practice, and Esteban is married with a 2 year old daughter who is just about the cutest thing that you've ever seen in your entire life. Esteban is still studying at the university, but is living down the street about half a kilometer next door to his in laws. His parents are helping him so that he doesn't have to work while finishing school. Mami and Papi are doing well too, they dote on their new granddaughter and are very happy to see their children doing well. It was great to see them, but also very strange. I felt like I fit right back into the family dynamic, and they all seemed really happy to meet my mom.

Also, San Ramon is quite a bit different than when I was there. They built a mall out on the main highway that has maybe a dozen stores in it and a three screen movie theater. I know that doesn't sound like much, but it's a BIG deal. Carol and Papi have moved offices. The house has a big stucco wall out front where there was just a little wrought iron fence and a balcony where there used to just be a window. I almost didn't recognize the house.

So with my host family we sort of toured San Ramon and then went back to the house and watched the US- Costa Rica soccer game, which I didn't even know was going on that day until I got there and my host family told me. US won 3-0 but luckily they weren't cranky sore losers, like they were the last time I was in Costa Rica and the US beat them in soccer.

The next day we went to Arenal Volcano, which is an active volcano, and hot springs. It was sort of cloudy, so we didn't get a really good view of the volcano, although we could see where half the mountain was missing vegetation because of the activity. Then when we were coming back from the hot springs, it was dark and we stopped at the side of the road and you could see little red lights on the mountain from the lava coming down the mountain. It was pretty cool.

Last day we went back to San Ramon and my host family took us souvenir shopping at Sarchi. We ate lunch at a restaurant owned by Mami's brother, which was quite yummy, then stopped by coffee fields owned by Mami's family. It was really hard to say goodbye to all the family again, they are such good people and I really do miss them.

Anyways, yesterday we came back to the US and now we are going crazy getting ready because my uncle is coming to visit. So now I have to go help my mom, this ended up being longer than I thought it would be anyways. Hope everything is going great with all you guys!

No cavities all my life and for what?

Fucking wisdom teeth. So my oral surgeon seemed nice enough. He asked about me, what I did in college- the usual nice things people who are about to cut you open do I suppose. I told him I was SA President at Rice. He said he was student body president at his college for a year too. He told me that if that's the case I clearly must have drank. Very perceptive. He then tells me that after he starts the anesthesia that it doesn't even compare to alcohol. I'm not sure if this is a good or a bad sign.

I wake up. I suspect he was entirely lying about his college career just to make me feel better. Funny, I can't imagine feeling worse right now. It's as if my mouth has developed four tiny brains and they are all having migraines at the exact same time. And I'm bleeding. But what's this cloth like feeling in my mouth? Oh, it's gauze. Or maybe it's my incredibly dry tongue. I'm not really sure. Meanwhile, I don't want to get up since I feel hungover. My oral surgeon walks in and tells me- I bet you feel like a chipmunk now don't you?

Hold up.

That's not funny for many reasons. The primary one being I'm too tired and uncoordinated to find and throw something at him. I bet I feel like a chipmunk? Maybe you should have done something better then?! For all I know you just drilled holes in my mouth for the hell of it and left the teeth there. Secondly, my cheeks aren't actually swollen (yet at any rate, we'll see). And I highly doubt chipmunks go through their lives feeling this much pain. They have an evolutionary reason to their big cheeks. Evolution dictates a need for my wisdom teeth as well. My poor mouth has no longer been instructed to fit these third molars in, but I say it's about time for some dental reeducation in this country. In theory, natural selection and evolution increased the strength of a species. Yet I see no strength in the gallons of blood and heaps of pain that humans have collectively endured. My theory? Dentists do something to us as we're kids. Cleaning our teeth my ass. They're fucking up our genes so our wisdom teeth grow in all ass-backwards so they can reap in the money. I'd continue my rant, but I'm not sure where I was going. Needless to say, I'm in quite the drugged stupor right now. I have in front of me two options. Pudding, or bed. Seeing as it will become blood flavored pudding at this stage, I think I'll opt for bed. As uplifting as this blog was, just think of it in the appropriate context. Your day has been fantastic in comparison.

on the road again

So there's a little travel going on right now. Check out the schedule:

Sunday - Houston TX-Gainesville TX (c. 5 hours)
Monday - Gainesville TX-Denver CO (c. 12 hours) got to hang out with Della for a while
Tuesday - Denver CO-Boise ID (c. 13 hours) got to walk around downtown Boise for a while looking for a place to eat.
Wednesday - Boise ID-Yakima WA (c. 6 hours) get oriented with home for the next three months
Thursday - Yakima WA-Seattle WA-Phoenix AZ-Houston TX all day flying
Friday - Houston TX-Baton Rouge LA (thank you, Melissa) for NCAA baseball regional
Tuesday - Houston TX-Phoenix AZ-Seattle WA-Yakima WA all day flying again

the scenery today was absolutely gorgeous in part of Wyoming, northern Utah, and southern Idaho. There was also some crazy rain that made driving not fun. And Mike Pede tried to talk me out of coming to Baton Rouge the day after I plunked down $$ for plane tickets. like Hell I'm not going. So looks like I'm paying my own way there and the press box accomodations will suck. F#(* off, LSU.

In the mean time, I'm getting nervous about Yakima and all the crap that has to go down before I get settled into a routine. Which will happen eventually, I'll just be slightly out of sorts until then. Looks like I'm renting the basement of somebody's house (which has a separate entrance and its own bathroom) for $600 for the whole summer. Pretty sweet deal. But I worry there will be no high-speed internet and minimal TV. However, my office will have good internet and I will probably have minimal free time, so it should work out. I'll start meeting people tomorrow!