Aeonian

ē-ˈō-nē-ən    adj.   lasting for an immeasurably or indefinitely long period of time.

     Okay, so it hasn't actually been an immeasurable length of time since my last post, but it has been awhile!   Like I said, I'm am just really not good at this!  Yet, here you are reading it anyways...and for that I commend you!  In all honesty, I wouldn't even have posted now except for the fact that I was reminded of it by Zeshan.  


      So my internship has ended and now I am over and I am temporarily working in the Immunization branch at the Texas DSHS.  I was approached about the possibility to working there for the summer and naturally took up that offer!  I work with the Immunization epi's and also other in the ACE (assessment, compliance, and evaluation) office.  I was even put in charge of my own survey to meet a requirement for a grant.  It's nothing big, just a customer satisfaction survey for ImmTrac really... but it's mine!  =D  


     I'm currently looking for new employment since this job is only for the summer. I've been focusing on Texas but  just recently expanded my search to include near by states.  I might even start looking farther off.  It would take some getting use to since I've lived my whole life in Texas.  There has only been two times in my life where I spent more than 3 weeks away from Texas!  I went to South Korea for a month in 2007 and China for 6 weeks in 2009.  Those were amazing trips!  Check out some of my neat memories from Korea:

My AMAZING Korean host family!  They are such a sweet family!

 If you want to see more than scroll down through my photo albums on facebook....that are 5 albums and close to 60 photos in each  (that should kill some time since you are obviously bored enough to read my blog!)  Maybe soon I will get on here and post some pictures from my trip to China as well.  For now I should get back to cleaning my apartment.  So long!

Sedulousness

ˈse-jə-ləs-'nes    n.   The quality of being constantly diligent and attentive


     Okay, so I have not be diligent in my blog.  It didn't really come as a surprise since I have had three xanga and  myspace accounts die due to lack of activity.  After starting my internship it became apparent that working with a state funded department meant everything needed to be approved before shared...so I really didn't have a reason to post.  
      However, I do wish I had kept up with my other activities while here in Austin!  I have certainly been kept very busy! I have enjoyed getting to know my co-workers at DSHS and most of the work I've been doing!  I really feel like I have learned a lot!  The city of Austin has been pretty cool, but if I can share a secret : I totally like Fort Worth better! (several Austinites I told this to didn't believe me.)  Don't get me wrong, there are some really cool and fun things to do here. I've liked walking around town taking in all of the fun areas; Guadalupe, South Congress, 6th Street, ect. What I have enjoyed the most has been the amazing views in the hills and some trips to natural springs.  Over spring break my family came in and we all went camping at Emma Long city park.  We took a day trip to West Cave Preserve and Hamilton Pool.  It was beautiful!  Maybe I will get more time to post about some of my other experiences soon. Here are some pictures from my spring break:

my sister and her boyfriend in front of the iconic "jeremiah the innocent"

Texas state capitol

a cave at west cave perserve

these cave are formed by ground water from above washing away the ground below the limestone roof, creating a cave until the limestone falls and the process begins again.

mom and dad on the long hike to the cave

Another shot from inside one of the caves

Hamilton pool is the same type of cave as the previous, but bigger and they let you walk all through it and swim.  It's all natural, very clean, but incredibly cold! part of the water was roped off due to upkeep but it's typically all open.

playing sand volleyball at Emma Long park 

our camp site at Emma Long.  dad's out fishing and on the left you can see my new tent I bought.

Apprehensive

apriˈhenSHən  adj.  Anticipating something with anxiety or fear.


     Well, it's been a long time coming but tomorrow is the orientation for my internship!  I have a new work wardrobe, a new hair cut, the address of the building, and my faithful TomTom GPS.  I should be set.  I guess that everyone feels some anxiety before starting a new job but it doesn't make me feel any better about walking into that building tomorrow.  There is something about going to a new work atmosphere that makes me anxious about my abilities.  Part of me knows that I will be just fine but the perfectionist in me pops up and starts doubting my own resolve.   
     Enough of that!  One positive thing about having the orientation pushed back was that it gave us a chance to get to know the city a bit better!  I have gotten rather comfortable driving the crazy hills out here to the west of Austin.  We have found the cutest Texas town every, Wimberley.  If you ever get a chance to head that way you must go to the wimberley pie co and get a piece of coconut pie!  It is amazing!  It's a cute town with many fun little stores and cute bed and breakfasts lining a beautiful cypress creek.  My mom and I first discovered Wimberley when we picked up my couch I got on Craigslist.  Danielle and Erika went with my for a day trip last week so I could get a hair cut by Dana, my cousin's aunt who happens to work in Wimberley!  She did a great job on my hair too.
     Tonight I went to El Chili's for happy hour (half priced appetizer's!) with Danielle, Erika, and Scott.  Then the four of us headed to The Screaming Goat for trivia night. The place was so packed we had to find four chairs and made a space for ourselves in a corner of one of the rooms...leading to our team name, Cunning Corners.  The clever name was our group's best achievement of the night.  Unfortunately our group's knowledge was either lacking on the subjects used or we were the only team not using their iphones to look up answers.  We had fun though and that is what was important.  
     I should probably get to sleep, 6 am will be here in no time!

Acclimate

AK-luh-mayt:  v.  make or become adjusted, adapted.


    Well it was been awhile since I last posted I guess.  I have completely moved into my shared apartment.  I even bought a used couch on craigslist that my mom helped my recover.  It's a fun retro kidney bean shaped couch and we covered the back with a white textured fabric and the bottom in a black fabric with tiny white dots.  The lady who sold me the couch threw in an old coffee table which I recovered with red fabric and spray painted the legs black.  In general I had a lot of fun fixing up the living room with my mom!  I'm so excited because I have never decorated a living room before!  Now I just have to finish decorating my bed room.  The couch was $120 which is more then I really had to spend on furniture for the new apartment but my parents helped me out!  Besides, the couch was really needed...before that addition to the living room all we had was my black and white floral chair and Danielle's black office chair.  In reality that would be fine until we decided to have someone come visit!  
     So I am moved in and getting familiar with where things are here in Austin.  I know how to get to the classes I am taking at UT thanks to my life saving TomTom!  I can now get to a couple of shopping areas (not that I have money to spend), two different wal-marts, several gas stations, and many firewood stands set up all along Capital of Texas Highway!  I was planning on trying my first church on Sunday but ended up running late.  
     I have been to my first two classes here at UT.  They are both broadcast classes but the professor is actually in my class for one of them.  It's a little weird to see a video of yourself up on a tv screen at the front of the class.  The nutritional epi class is very small!  Erika and I are the only students at the Austin branch! 
     I was planning on getting my new student email set up so I could finally get on blackboard but the IT people are off today since it's a holiday.  I was planning on spending the day getting ready for class this week but I guess I will just have to enjoy the lovely sunshine instead!  

Success

suhk-ses   n:  the favorable or prosperous termination of attempts or endeavors.


       Well, I'm a little late in posting this but we finally found an apartment!  We made the mistake of looking around the east and north side of Austin on our first apartment searching trip.  We had settled our minds on one only to find terrible crime and reviews.  So as I mentioned in my last post, my mother and I decided to take another trip to Austin.  This time we focused on the area very close to the school and department, as well as directly south.  Unfortunately, once we got there everything was either sleazy or very expensive.  Then we made our way to the west.  YAY!  There are some gorgeous places to the west of Austin!  That is apparently where the "hill country" starts (and man does it live up to that name!  I will need to replace my brakes before going.)   We didn't have a lot of time, but we got to see some we liked! For some bizarre reason there are a ton of nice apartments for good prices in that area!  By the end of the day we were exhausted, hadn't eaten since 9am, and still had a few places we wanted to see, so we had my dad bid on a hotel for us on priceline.  We found this awesome shopping/dining area called The Domain (I'm going to have a lot of fun there) and ate at Gloria's before buying clothes at Macy's for the next day.  I'm sure we looked pretty funny walking into the Hyatt with nothing but ourselves and a couple of Macy's bags!  It felt like a scene from a classic hollywood movie...maybe  sometime with Katharine Hepburn!  =D We had to ask the front desk for toothbrushes and toothpaste.  
       The next morning we had time to visit four more apartments before heading home to see my sister and her boyfriend.  I narrowed it down to my four top choices and presented them to Danielle through email.  We talked it out and choose one which I think will be great!  It is possibly one of the best locations that we visited!  This place has an amazing hill top view of the city and is only about 15 minutes away from the department!  I just mailed my application off this morning and we should be able to move in on the 30th!  
       So for now I am packing up my little garage apartment in Fort Worth and getting it all ready to go to Austin after Christmas.  I didn't realize how much stuff I had managed to fit into this tiny place!  I'm definitely going to miss this place though!  It's so cozy and quaint.  

Repetition

rep-i-tish-uh n   noun:  repeated utterance; reiteration. 


     Oh man! Looking for an apartment in Austin is torture! They are all over the place, but everywhere is either expensive, has high crime rates, or low reviews.....most of them have at least two! Oh, and the line for the day: "We have a sister apartment that might be closer to your price range!" We heard this at least 10 times but when we actually went to their sister apartments they were just as high or didn't have any available. It's crazy out there. So, apparently one day wasn't enough, in fact it was almost a complete bust now that we have done more research.  Danielle is getting ready to head back to Kansas for Christmas break so mom and I are going back to Austin tomorrow to look at more apartments. I hope and pray we find a wonderful deal!

Contact

kon-takt  noun: a person who is in a position to give you special assistance.


       This weekend I took an awesome road trip to Branson MO with my friend Jessi.  While we were there I had the chance to meet her friend Nathan who happened to mention that he knew an epidemiologist in Austin and would be happy to get me in contact with her.  How crazy is that?  So I have emailed her and have already gotten some tips on succeeding in the workforce.  She works for the Texas Department of State Health Services with the Immunization Branch.  We are going to meet for lunch sometime while I am there.  Yay for advice and making contacts!  
       Oh, and I guess I haven't mentioned yet that I going to be doing my internship with the department of prevention and preparedness, working on their immtrac program (immunization tracking).  I think it will be very interesting!