Monday, April 30, 2007

New Hair

I got my hair cut on Friday, and here are the results: (in both curly and straight for your viewing pleasure)

Also featuring my (semi) new glasses!




Ok so I have three exams this week, so my study breaks start to get a little more creative ... but I'll be done with undergrad two weeks from tomorrow (!!!).

Friday, April 27, 2007

What a Cutie!



I'm a lucky girl!

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Tri, Just a Little Bit Harder

In the spirit of making changes in my life (new city, new school, new work) I've decided to start working towards completing a triathlon. Crazy, I know, but it's something I'd thought about before but ruled out, mainly because the Central Texas area is really hilly and I hate biking up hills. But since I'm moving back to South Texas (read: no hills) I thought maybe I'd give it a go. We'll see.

My biggest fear is the running, mainly because running and I have never really gotten along. Swimming should be no problem, as I've already gotten back into swimming this semester, and for some reason the biking part doesn't seem so daunting. However, last week in my Evolution class we read a paper describing how humans seem to be evolutionarily adapted for long distance running (i.e. 5+ km). You can't argue with nature! So I'm giving it a go.

I found a 10 week running schedule meant to prep for a 5K or 10K race, and today was my first day! Yay! They start you off easy, the first week being a 30 min walk/jog on Wednesday and Saturday. You may have noticed that today is Wednesday... meaning that I have completed my first running workout!

Amazingly, it wasn't as bad as I had expected, I simply jogged until I felt like walking and then walked until I felt like jogging again. I did some pseudo calculations with Google Maps and it looks like I went almost 2 miles! It may not seem like much to you, but I feel pretty accomplished.

Now the real challenge is keeping it up as the workouts become more and more frequent and the mercury keeps rising. And that whole biking thing, I'm not so sure how that's going to work in downtown Houston.

And as an incentive to keep going, if I keep up with my running workouts for 3 weeks I'll reward myself with one of these and an armband for my ipod nano.



Wish me luck! And feel free to clue me in on biking workouts/how to get started.

Monday, April 23, 2007

Looking for the Future

These Pulitzer Prize winning 20 photos by Renee Byer of The Sacramento Bee document a boy and his family's struggle against neuroblastoma.

It's both powerful and heartbreaking - the reason I'm considering studying and working with pediatric cancer - but also what makes me wonder if I'm strong enough.

(found via Blog, MD)



I'll get a taste of cancer research this summer, when I'll be doing two 5-week research rotations in labs at MD Anderson, one of the top (or THE top, depending on the year and who you ask) cancer institutions in the country. I guess I'll take it from there.


In other news, I graduate and move to Houston in less than a month! Crazy!

Monday, April 02, 2007

Narcoleptic Weenie Dog!

Darla, this made me think of you and your dog a day :D