No Work, All Play

The pile of stuff I brought to school last September.

I'm pretty sure it's going to be at least double the size when I move out next week.

First thing first, I'd like to announce that I'm officially done with my junior year of college! Today was the very last class of the quarter, and we had a delicious potluck (I brought these) and did readings of our final pieces. I absolutely loved hearing everyone read, and it's seriously amazing to see and hear how much everyone's writing has changed and improved over the past ten weeks. I never thought I'd write for any other reason than school, and now here I am 50 pages in to what has now become a murder mystery! At risk of sounding like a cliche, the past 20 weeks of school may have changed my life. 

Moving on! The workouts.


Thursday night I passed on Zumba and instead did some running and weightlifting on my own. Today is Saturday, and it still takes me a good 45 seconds to sit down. Slowwwwwly and paaaaainfully. I can always tell when it's been a while for me. This morning I went for a quick run on the treadmill in hopes that it would help with the soreness, but I'm still at maybe an 8 out of 10. I know, I know. I stretched afterwards, but not enough. I drank water, but definitely not enough. The soreness is definitely worth it though, and I found that I enjoyed myself a lot more while I was doing walking lunges and deadlifts than I do during other workouts.

And the music? Honestly, nothing worth mentioning here! A lot of Kid Cudi and a lot of Lil Wane and a lot of B.O.B. Obviously being around all the boys at the gym has rubbed off on my musical tastes this week. I've gotta say, why wait for Jersey Shore to come back for the second season when you can just head to your local gym?

I have cookies and nail updates to share, too! I'll be back with those later.

Question for you...
What's the best (or most helpful) moving advice you've heard?

Cause and Effect

Thanks for not running for the hills after my rant yesterday!

Right after I posted, I opened the front door for my roommate and saw this:

1. 24 hours?!

2. What time did they put this sign up?!

Long story short, our water came back around noon, right about the time when we had the heaviest torrential downpour I've ever seen. Instantly everything was flooded, and I could barely see the building across from us! We still don't have much hot water, and for a while everything was brown and yucky, but at least we have water.

This whole thing, as cheesy as this sounds, really did make me realize just how lucky we are to have clean water at all. I mean, we all freaked out about the situation and I even know people who went home  because of it. We had spare 'emergency' water to use, so we weren't entirely cut off. But I know that there are a lot of people in this world that don't have any water at all or they have water that's completely undrinkable and unusable.

A few things I found in this National Geographic article,

• Of all of the freshwater on our planet, only 1% of it is usable. Everything else is trapped inside glaciers or snowfields. 
• Only 0.007 percent of the planet's water is available to be used by the 6.8 billion people that live here
• By 2025, an estimated 1.8 billion people will be plagued by water scarcity, with 2/3 of the world's population living in water-stressed regions as a result of use, growth, and climate change.

The podcast that I listened to on Monday talked a little bit about this topic too, and how urban planning can and will affect our use and availability of water.

I don't know what to think about this, really. Obviously it's a problem that needs to be fixed, but what can we do? Or rather what could I do personally? We hear about things like the global water crisis, or the oil spill in the Gulf, but a lot of times we don't hear about what we can do on a personal level to help. I know donating money is always an option, but I would like to get more involved with the cause.

Do any of you have causes that you're passionate about? What are they?

And on another, lighter note I have something to show you! 

I've been looking at pictures of nail art over the past few days, and this was one of my favorite designs I found. I decided to recreate it and here's the result...

Water, Water, Everywhere...

and not a drop to drink - literally!

(This is a semi-rant. You have been warned!)

We discovered around 10:30 last night that our apartment had no running water. All day we've had storms and downpours, and now we're water-less! Of course I was instantly thirsty, I had to pee, and I wanted to take a shower. Typical.

What I just love about the entire situation is that when we called the after-hours extension about the issue, they told us a water-main had broken. Okay, no big deal, that's not your fault. But then we learned that they weren't even going to look into fixing it (or the extent of the problem) until late this morning! Okay okay, that makes sense too...it's raining and you don't want to go traipsing around late at night in the dark.

So we wash some dishes using water from our Brita filter, I make a lot of jokes about glamping and living Little House on the Prairie style, and life is good. And then I wake up to an email saying that most of the apartments 'are without water this morning'. (What about last night?!) And then, "We are working to determine the extent of the problem and the necessary repairs.  We will send further information as soon as we have the timeline for repair. " Faaaaantastic.

Normally I wouldn't be too annoyed by this because hey, things happen. But these are the same people that took over 4 months to replace our faulty refrigerator that not only peed all over our kitchen floor mulitple times a day, but it didn't keep things cold either! And they even sent us a new 'temporary roommate' at 11:30 pm without telling us we were getting one, which led to a pretty freaked out me wondering if she was just hearing things or if people really had just walked into the apartment and into a bedroom that hadn't been lived in since December. I don't mind that she's here, I just wish they had sent an email or told our RA or something. It's been a week and still not a word from them about the situation. Thanks y'all!

(All done! Thanks!)

In other news, my morning run may need to happen later this afternoon due to the weather. That's probably a good thing because I have a 20-page revision to finish and a presentation later this evening in class. I need to get to work!

And as a reward for sticking with me even though I'm unshowered:

Misa's Dirty Sexy Money

A little bit of spring...

Even though it's almost June, I think we've gotten to 70 degrees only once so far up here in Washington! There has been lots of rain and gloom, and today's high was only 52. The rainy season has been a big struggle this winter and spring. I guess there's still a little bit of California girl left in me!

So I figured, what better way to beat the darkness than a mani/pedi? Doing my nails while watching 50 First Dates almost makes up for the 20 page paper I had to finish today. Almost.

Watermelon!

Yes, I went for the decal. Tacky? Maybe. 

Worth it? Absolutely.

Did you know I have a collection of over 200 nail polishes?

Oh yeah.

I can't tell you how excited I was when I bought my new pair of running shoes.

Finally, my pedicures survived a run!

Who knew I was wearing sneakers that were a size and a half too small?

I know it's Monday, but what are you looking forward to tomorrow?

 I've got a run planned, hopefully we'll see sunshine for more than an hour! Also it's my last Monday night class of the quarter. We're getting very very close to the end of my junior year of college!

ZUMBAAAA!

via.

I finally understand the love and devotion people have for Zumba. I was skeptical, and my previous experiences had been far from magical, but this class has allowed me to see the light.

We actually had two instructors, which I think made it a lot easier to follow along. They didn't do much vocal cue-ing, which I was a little nervous about at first, but I didn't have any problems with the steps!

Tonight was the most coordinated I've ever been in my entire life. I have noooo idea where that came from, but I loved it. The classroom was probably 90 degrees and I had to take a quick break a few times for water, but other than that it was non-stop dancing with lots of yelling and lots of booty shaking. Tons of fun, but I really really didn't enjoy the heat. That's just me though, I don't handle heat and humidity too well. I guess it adds to the atmosphere though? We were transported to Latin America via magical workout room!

So two questions remain:
1. Why did I put off going to Zumba for so long? I'll heading home in just a few weeks, and I don't think the gym near my house has anyone teaching Zumba. It's going to be a long summer.
2. Who knew they had cute Zumba clothes? Where can I buy the adorable hot pink cargo pants? (Okay, that was three questions, I lied)

Tomorrow's my longest run yet (20 consecutive minutes), and I think I may take a little field trip so I can run somewhere new and exciting. It's supposed to be 74 and sunny!

Couch to 5K - W4D2 or not.

Hey y'all. This morning's run did not happen. Not because I was sick or injured, and it definitely wasn't snowing or hailing or anything like that. It just didn't happen.

Excuses: Lack of sleep, dehydration, too much Applebees, the creative writing revision that's due by 6pm tonight.

But hey, that's life! I'll be moving day 2 to Friday, and then I'll do day 3 on either Saturday or Sunday. So it's okay. :)

Instead of heading outside this morning (46 degrees, getting warmer!) I headed to Starbucks to pick up a little something special.

Ohhh yeah. See that cup? It's resuable. See that straw? That's reusable too. I'm in love! It's a travel cup, but it LOOKS like a Starbucks cup.

Um yeah, so I'm pretty easy to please. The first time I saw this cup was last spring when Danica mentioned it on her blog. (Sidebar - her blog was the first running blog I stumbled across, and it's also what got me started!) I knew I had to have it, but apparently I was the last person in Los Angeles to find out they existed. So naturally everywhere was sold out.

But this year...I got lucky! Thanks to J, who reminded me that these exist and that I needed to get my booty into the 'bucks to get one pronto. Yeah, I called it the 'bucks. I'm cool.

So instead of running, I will be doing this:

And then I will be doing a lot of frantic revising for my 20 pages that are due tonight, a lot of reading of the ELEVEN HUNDRED page book that I need to finish very soon, and a lot of Cinco de Mayo celebrating after class tonight!

Also, Diana left a comment asking for some more deets about my C25K journey, so watch out for a post on that soon!

PSA for the day:

Don't be like me.

Don't forget to do the most important thing in the world.

Don't revert back to 1998 when you barely knew how to use a computer.

Don't forget to save your work. Seriously.

Sometimes you will do stupid things, like closing documents without clicking save. And sometimes those documents will be 20+ pages of revisions to a draft of a story you're working on for your writing class.

You will lose your work. You will lose the 8 hours you spent on your work. You will cry. You will swear. You will frantically Google.

This is not fixable. This will mean you have to start all over again.

If you're lucky, it will go faster the second time. If you're lucky, it will be even better the second time. If you're lucky.

Save. Your. Work.

That's all.

(I have no idea a) why I did everything in a new word document or b) how I managed to close it without saving but for some reason I did both of those things this morning. Sweeeet.)

Coming up with a challenge!

(This isn't running related, just an FYI.)

I've been toying around with the idea to do a 30 day challenge for fun. I've got almost 30 days left before my junior year of college is over, and at this point I'll do whatever I can to make those days go by even just a little bit faster!

Here are the ideas I have so far...

• Manicures - I have a very large collection of nail polish. And when I say large, I'm talking 200+ bottles. That's more than enough to do a manicure a day for 30 days! I could showcase them here or maybe just on Flickr.
• TED Talks - Watch, reflect and share one a day.
• Waking up early - 7 or 8 am? This could get pretty miserable when we roll around to finals. Heck, Saturday and Sunday mornings will probably be pretty rough too.
• Writing - 30 minutes every morning. This would probably be most beneficial to me right now considering the classes I'm in this quarter. Doing homework and accomplishing a goal? Sweet!
• Exercise - I run 3 days a week already, but I miss lifting weights and taking classes. This could be a great way to get everything in at once.
• Letters/Cards/Email - One of the three every day. Do I even know 30 people to send a letter to? Okay, yeah I do. I'm not sure why, but I have some kind of block surrounding this challenge. Maybe because I don't write letters or long emails very often to begin with.
• Reading - 30 minutes or an hour every day. I read so much when I was little, I miss doing that!

I'm leaning towards writing for 30 minutes every morning or sending letters/cards/emails every day. Anyone have suggestions? Have you ever done a challenge like this? I plan to start the challenge this week, most likely on Wednesday (Cinco de Mayo!).

Tomorrow begins week 4 of C25K! It's supposed to rain all of tonight and through tomorrow afternoon, so we'll see how things go. I haven't settled on a music theme yet, but I'm thinking about running to songs from Glee! I'm absolutely in love with the show. Hopefully I can get out there early enough that I won't get caught singing and dancing as I run!