Bill had an interview with Marshfield Clinic today at 1:00. Awesome right? Well, he told his brother that he'd likely BE HOME by about 3 and told me that he would call me when he was done. I got home from class around 2:20 and started to do some homework.

Well, 3:00 rolls around and I still haven't heard from him. I started getting a little worried and was like, okay, well maybe it's a long interview (normally not 2 hours, right?). So I give him a call. His phone was off. I called his brother, Dan, to see if he'd heard from him and nothing.

Around 3:15 I called again and left a message, telling him I was getting a little worried and he should call me when he gets this.

4:00 rolls around. Now I'm very worried. I still can't get ahold of him and have no idea if he's still there, if his phone died and he's on his way home, or if he never even made it there in the first place. So I call Marshfield Clinic. It takes two tries, but eventually I got to talk to someone. They said, yes he showed up to the interview at 1. I ask them how long it usually takes. They say the interview takes about an hour. They might also make him take a test, which would take less than an hour. I asked them if 3 hours was normal.

Their response? Uhhh... not... usually.

Now I'm panicking.

So for the next 45 minutes, I'm pacing the apartment, watching for his car, and calling his cell every 5 minutes or so.

4:45. Bill calls, "Hi honey! just got done with everything!"

I break down crying and he apparently cannot comprehend why I was worried at all. Goddamnit Bill, you couldn't have taken two fucking minutes away from meeting and greeting all your potential co-workers to call me and let me know that you're not going to be home for THREE HOURS LATER THAN YOU SAID YOU WOULD???

I'm upset.

I am losing the wonder of livejournal. I am being lost to facebook at its ever-updating qualities. Even though most of the people I am friends with on facebook,I don't give two licks about, it's still "updates" and I apparently can't get enough of those.

ugh. So, while I'm not destroying my livejournal as of yet, don't expect too many posts.

While I'm here, however, I guess I'll throw some stuff out there.

Actually, all I can think to talk about is my school-work. I'm completely overwhelmed. I've got an exam on Wednesday, the first complete draft of my big semester project for wildlife 451 is also due on Wednesday, a soil and plant analysis report due on Friday (that I won't be able to start until wednesday night), and I don't even know what all is due next week. I don't think that far ahead.

On top of all of that, I am so far behind on my independent study, it's not even funny. I've got to put in about 50 hours of work in this last month to make up for how much I've been slacking. We'll see how that goes. When I'm actually working on my independent study, I'm fascinated and I have no problem continueing, it's just getting myself to start working on it.

Other big thing: Professor Todd Huspeni has agreed to be my advisor for my master's program at Point. All I need to do now is actually apply to the school, which will take some more work, including getting a CV together, finding references, selecting a piece of "writing" I've done... I don't know what to do for that one. But getting the advisor is the big hurtle towards grad school, so that's at least done.

Now all I need to do is try to find a temp job before I start in the fall and try to find an apartment for Bill and me to live in.

I had to get up this morning for class at 9. When I left the apartment at 8:30, it was warmer outside than in our fucking apartment! It's so damn cold, but if we bring the heat up on the thermostat at all, it over compensates and cranks out a ridiculous amount of heat.

The worst part about the freezing temperatures in our apartment is that Bill has been really restless lately. Which means about three or four times a night the last few nights, he's been pulling the covers off me. Of course, I wake up instantly freezing, pull the covers back, and spend the next ten mintues falling asleep again.

I am so unbelievably tired. ugh.

Good news: As I've told many people, I've changed my plans for grad school and am trying to get into Point for my masters degree... I went in and talked to Todd Huspeni, the parasitologist on campus who I've had three classes with. He pretty much said that he wants me to make sure I really want to go to Point, but if I do and funds allow it, he'd love to have me as a grad student >.<

The only reason he wants me to reconsider is because, if I were to go on to get my Ph. D, it would be slightly looked down upon that I did my undergrad and grad at the same school. I haven't decided yet if I actually want to get a Ph. D, as it wouldn't really give me that much more than a masters would... so I'm really not too worried.

Cross your fingers, I might be sticking around a bit longer.

Edit: ALSO! Bill and I went to look at a 2002 Pontiac Sunfire (one step up from my old sunbird). We both really like it, so tomorrow, we're taking it to a mechanic in Chili to make sure it's in as good of shape as they told us it is. If it is, we'll be paying them $2,600 for it and we/I will be the new owner if it.

I hope it turns out.

So: Detail time.

A better summary of the whole, irony-packed, fucked up story to start. Tanner, Bill and I were eating at Marvins... when we parted ways, Bill and I drove down Michigan, then West on 10. Tanner went down Stanley and South on Indiana... he happens to live on Indiana and 10, which is the intersection where he ran the stop sign and I hit him. My car looks pretty shitty, the cost to repair would definitely be more than the car's worth.

However, my car is on my dad's insurance, as am I. We didn't have collision insurance, but we did have liability. So we're fine, we're probably going to be getting a decent sum of money from the insurance company that will go towards a new car.

The problem is that Tanner doesn't have insurance. This means that any money we get, our insurance company is going to get straight from Tanner and I'd feel like shit if the money we get for a new car came from Tanner's pocket. So we won't be getting enough money for a new car. That's the shitty situation we're in.

We'll know tomorrow what the insurance company is going to do and in a couple of days we'll find out what we're going to get as reimbursement.

Load of Balls.

In other news: Goku is invincible.

So, evening started alright... went to Nate Detra's to play magic/card games with him, Jesse, Tanner, and Bill...

Jesse left, and Nate opted out of Marvin's.

Tanner, Bill, and I went to eat at Marvins... we left and started to head home, Tanner left and took a different way to his house... we crossed at the intersection in front of his house.

And by "crossed", I meant that he ran the stop sign and we T-boned his car... violently.

My car's totaled.


CRAZY SHIT.

More details/photos later.

This is why rats live in cages. This also what happens when said rats get out of their cage and are aloud to run rampant through the apartment all night. Honestly, we're very lucky they didn't do more damage (we have many cords around laptops/xbox/tv/harddrives... that are very chewy). That said, I'm still not happy about this ;_;... not horribly attached to these shoes, but it still means I have to get new shoes.

In other news, our Magic geekiness is being fueled even more. Aside from the (nearly) endless supply of cards from Alex, we now have our own huge box on cards that Bill's brother had sitting in a closet and forgot about because he doesn't play anymore. We've found som really cool cards and some really really rare cards ^_^. We will also never have a shortage of land ever again.

There are some other things I want to rant about,. but I'll save it for another post. maybe I'll post twice in one week!!!! O_o probably not.

Ugh, 6:45 AM on Sunday and I'm wide awake... didn't even go to bed until midnight last night. The reason: I just had the most disturbing dream I've had in a looooong time.


( Dream )

Long time, no update again. I'm in a bit of a writing mood, Alex and I talked recently about writing short stories, which I haven't done in forever and I don't even know if I still have any of my old shorts... I think some of my old fanfiction (blech) is still up on the intertubes somewhere, but I know I wrote some short original stories and one long poem about a battle commander surveying the field after a fight... thinking back on it, it's actually probably not that good, but it was one of my first finished pieces of work... which doesn't happen all that often with me.

So now I'm think about trying to write a short story, but I just finished reading a book called Thriller 2 (the second installment of thriller short stories)... not a big deal except it was pretty bad. The first story that I enjoyed reading was like the 13th or 14th in the book -_-. It got better from then on out, but now I have all of these quite bad short stories floating around in my head tainting anything I try to think up.  I dunno if I'm going to try writing it... maybe if I get bored and have some time to myself... I can never really write when anyone else is around... so maybe if Bill starts playing D&D with his friends (I tend not to go along), I'll write while I'm alone. We'll see what comes of it.

I just need a hobby. I can never get into video games to play them for hours at a time... so it ends up usually being a short activity and then I get bored, then read for a bit... but I don't have anything to put my energy into. Bill and I are too sedentary. I want to go photographing, but we generally don't get the energy to get out of the apartment, and when we do, we usually go for bike rides, which do no lend themselves well to photography (especially with an SLR). Maybe I'll convince him to go to the park after I'm done here.

In work news, I'm sunburned ^_^. Yesterday I spent abbout 4-5 hours straight walking transects in open fields with no sunscreen on (I fixed that part today)... my shoulders and arms are pretty badly burned. But seriously, I'm doing Habitat Assessment now for my "side project" for my internship... which means I walk transects in a field writing down the species and abundance of native and invasive plants, writing down how much cover and of what composition (height and species), and I'll be doing some research into what soils occur there, although that only really affects if Lupine will grow, which I can tell by seeing whether lupine is growing or not -_-... so it's all this fucking tedious tramping about in the fields on hot, humid, buggy days.... I'm really not all up in arms excited about it. I picked it as my project because I am quite interested in being useful (I'll be writing up recommendations to the DNR on how to improve their fields in order to encourage Karner populations), but this day-to-day half-meaningless work is really wearing on me.

I'm also very much not excited for distance sampling to start. When that starts happening (in a week or so), I'll be walking those transects with a pole measuring how far out from the transect we saw each individual butterfly -_-. We've got two 25 acre fields at Emmons and 2-4 fields at Sandhill that vary between 60 and 175 acres to do. That last one's going to be shit... I have to do a habitat assessment on that field as well... which is going to take me like 5 hours on its own... I don't think I can carry enough water to do it in one go.

Anyway, eugh work, but when it's all over, it'll look good on a resume and I'll never have to do it again (hopefully).

Now maybe I can go enjoy the weather for my own amusement.

Okay, so I really stopped posting for quite a while, huh? For anyone who wasn't aware, I've decided to commute between Sandhill and Point, which is fine because the most intensive field work is mostly finished, so I'm doing a lot of computer/paper work, which I can do at Point. This last week I stayed home two days and this week, so far, I only had to leave yesterday and even then, I only had to drive the half-hour to Rapids to meet my supervisor. Tomorrow I'll be heading down to Sandhill and Friday I'll be at Emmon's Creek, both days are going to suck, by the way... since it's going to be hot as Hades out. (though not as bad as yesterday).

Besides work, I just got the final part of Bill's B-day present to me. He promised me three games for the DS, two he bought for me when he got me the DS and he wanted me to pick out the last one, which I put off 'till I was mostly done with the first two. Well, I finished Final Fantasy Tactics A2 over the weekend and yesterday he bought me the Chrono Trigger. Which so far is pretty awesome, if a little unbalanced. Meaning the normal battles are very easy and the bosses are ridiculously hard. However, I'm enjoying getting away from turn-based fighting.

In other geek news, we've been playing magic recently. Ever since Alex got this huge stack of magic cards, Bill and I have both gotten back into the game. I'd only played my freshman year (cult year for anyone who remembers that) and quickly got out of it (along with DnD, although I still haven't forgiven that game for ruining a year of my life). Bill had played quite a bit before. He's helped me build my decks (although I do have to take most of the credit for the build... he just gave me suggestions), and I'm quite content with what I have. However, he's very good at making instantly amazing decks! *sigh* He's very very good at picking up games like this.

Thinking of what else has been going on... my social life has pretty much come to a stand-still, what with working 8 hours a day and trying to stay cool the rest of it. I will be going to City-band tonight with Jesse while Bill is off playing DnD with his friends. Apparently every Wednesday evening, local bands play over in the park (I just realized I forgot to ask which park... huh) and Jesse states that the last two have been quite enjoyable.

Not much else to update except: thank you Eva for letting me know what cooling pad to get. I have it right now and my laptop is no longer burning a hole in my left leg. :D I'm happy.

Off to clean the rat cage and keep myself busy until 7.

My car broke today. As in muffler pipe broke in half... dragging on the ground... catching on EVERYTHING and I had to drive 5 miles (or maybe only 2) at 15 mph on highway 173 with my flashers on... and I probably shouldn't have even done that, but I have NO signal and the radio they gave me didn't reach back to the Sandhill office. fucking awesome

The guys here have wired it up so it's not dragging, but I get to take it into Pittsville tomorrow for them to fix it. It's probably going to be around $200 (which I don't even have in my bank account), so I'll have to borrow money from Bill. I don't even know if I'll be able to do any of my work tomorrow without a car. Maybe I'll actually be able to use one of the beefy DNR trucks.

ANYWAY, Here's what I'm working with:



Pretty no? This is a male. I already know far more about this animal than anything else short of wolves. They actually are very complicated, which is probably why they're so endangered (Besides the fact that the plant it's on is a Lupine and that's the only plant that the larvae will feed on -_-). BTW: They are tiny! Like 1/5th the size of a monarch or anything like that, but luckily, they have a pretty distinctive flight pattern. And fortunately, they only occur where Lupine does, so if there's no lupine, there's no point in looking for butterflies. Makes my job a little easier.

So I've kinda just realized that I'm a very needy girlfriend. Not in the fact that I need things from him, just that I cannot stand to NOT be around him. I don't get irate because he plays DnD, I get irate because him playing DnD takes many hours and that is many hours away from me. (and by "irate" I mean more like discontent, which I used to blame simply on the fact that I don't really like the game... now I realize it's not really that).

I started realizing it when he went to Florida for a day and a half. That was unbearable. I couldn't tell people about it without getting... emotional, I guess. That was also much worse for the simple fact that he was half a country away from me, which was not cool.

I'll be alright this summer. It's less than a quarter tank to get between Point and Sandhill, so making the journey for an evening to break up the week won't be bad, but hopefully by the end of the summer I'll be able to get through five days without Bill.

ANYWAY, about the job: I had my training today for HCP (habitat conservation plan), meaning my surveys will be "certified" and tomorrow I'm on my own. I have about 50-60 sites to do in the next three weeks or so, each of them at least 20 acres, which I have to do a perimeter (walk the edge) and map out where the Lupine is on the site. Then I get to see whether Karner Blues are actually present on the site and that's a whole separate sheet I get to fill out. In other words, for the next few weeks, I'll be very busy and I'll make my own hours, so I won't be as bored/listless/lonely in the evenings.

When we were doing HCP training today, I finally got an opportunity to photograph the Karner. They're tiny, so it's really hard to photo them, but I got several that turned out well (I am never using auto focus again, even for wildlife). I'll post those tomorrow... I'm saving working on them for tomorrow night so I'll have something to do.

So not all is bad, I am/will be starting to enjoy this job a lot and I'll be listless enough in the evenings to post a lot... so if you don't want daily updates on the endangered KBB-slash- my mental status for the rest of the summer, you may want to take me off your friends page ^.^

Srsly, tho. I'm going to be just fine.

I see how this internship is going to work. During the day, I will be busy as all hell.

In the evening, I will be bored out of my mind and lonely as hell because I know no one down here and Bill isn't with me.

I'm going home tomorrow evening. I don't have to and I really shouldn't, but I can't go an entire week without him straight away like this. Just thinking about it makes me emotional. First week, I'll break it into two days and three days, then maybe 5 days next week won't be so unbearable. I'm so glad I got my internship here in Wisconsin. I would not have been able to do months away from the man I love. It would have been far to difficult.

In other, happier news, I enjoyed my first day here... although it was fairly tedious and my boss is a little scatterbrained, which will make it difficult to make sure I know everything I need to know. Today was a lot of driving to different areas I'll be working in, two of the wildlife areas (I'm not going to be doing Emmon's Creek until later in the summer). My boss is also a terrifying driver... three  year old logging roads should not be taken at 40 mph IN REVERSE O_o. But other than the gut-wrenching terror, it was fine.

Then it got really tedious, as I had to photocopy the maps from each of the areas I'll be going to.... which ended up being about 50-60 plots of land.... That was about two hours of photocopying and it was mind-numbing. My evening work was to organize those plots by location so I could do them in some semblance of a single trail, which will take several weeks to accomplish. I have absolutely no signal out here... to the point where I won't even bother taking my cell phone out in the field with me. However, my god-send is that there is wireless internet here... which I am going to take full advantage of.

My god, if I'd had to go an entire week with NO contact, I would've gone insane. That's what I was expecting, but I'm glad it's not that bad. However, the signal is bad enough that I can't do anything interesting.... I was watching Monk episodes on Hulu, but it's far too laggy to be of any use.

All I want is to talk to Bill.

That's it.

I start my job tomorrow. I have to be up at 6:30 so I can drive the hour to get there and be there and ready by 8:00AM. I'm somewhat nervous, very excited, and finally I'll have something to do.


Other side: This will be the first time since we started dating that Bill and I will go more than a day without seeing each other. Now we have to do five days at a time, every week for three months.


This is going to be difficult and I'm going to be lonely as hell. Worse still: I probably wont have internet access and I may not even get signal down there. At least I'll only be an hour away.

Don't have too much fun without me, guys.

So this week has not been a good one for the pets of the Lapp-Nadeau residence. Last friday, right before we were going to leave for Menomonie, we found our fish dead. To be honest, I'm surprised he didn't go earlier, but at least I know what got him. Only a couple of days before, we found a fungus of some sort growing on the top of his head (I thought it was ick at first, but it was much too large and fuzzy). Friday morning we found him motionless with his head wedged under one of the decorations we had in there... it must have been irritating him a lot.

As not-happy as I was about this, I'd never really been attached to the fish, so it wasn't as big of a deal. Last night, however, we found Seiko dead in her cage. We were going to feed her and found her motionless as well. I was attached to Seiko and I'm really sad about, but I think the worst part is that we have no idea what really happened to her. She seemed perfectly healthy, although she hadn't been eating for the last month and a half or so, she definitely didn't starve. I'm sad she's gone. I doubt we'll get another snake right away, but I did really like having her around, so we'll probably get another corn snake at some point in the future.

Anyway, I just wanted to post a little about her so it doesn't feel so... incomplete... I wasn't sure at first what to do with her. Throwing her away just seemed... unnatural, so I took her out and put her in the back yard. I'm just going to leave it there and just post a couple photos of her for my piece of mind.

( See the pretty )

Oh man I really need something to do. I'm been so unbelievably listless lately. I guess I just realized that I haven't done so absolutely NOTHING in a long time. Spring Break I went to North Carolina, Winter break I took a winterim course, last summer I did Basin to Beach trip and then took Parasitology, summer before that I had a TA, RAAM, and Treehaven...

It's been a LONG time since I've had a week or two to do nothing. I absolutely hate it. I am going crazy and finding nothing entertaining. I can only read so long before I get bored, I'm not interested in playing video games, and the intertubes can only keep me entertained for an hour before I get bored. To top it all off, it's shitty and raining outside. Awesome.

I'm half anticipating/ half dreading when I job starts next Monday. On one hand,  I'LL BE DOING SOMETHING! On the other hand. It's the start of 11 weeks where I sleep and live in a bunk house an hour away and only get to see Bill on the weekends. It's going to be so hard. I could barely stand when he went to Florida for a day and a half (although in my defense, HE WAS IN FLORIDA! >.<). Gonna be tough, but if it comes down to it, I could always come back for a random evening in the middle of the week. I don't have to stay down there, but commuting an hour every day seems to be irresponsible for a natural resources major *blush*.

In other news, I started contacting graduate professors to try and get a foot in the door when I start applying to grad schools. I had four choices, of which three were my top. Trent University in Ontario, Utah State University, and the University of Colorado in Boulder. I sent out emails to the most likely professors from each of those schools yesterday. I already got an email from the guy from Trent University saying that he was no longer taking graduate schools for mammology, that he was moving in a different direction... (which means his website was horribly out of date, because ALL of his so-called current graduates students were working with either wolves or elk or deer or something like that). I have yet to hear from the others, maybe because I'm too scared to check my email ;_;.

I'm nervous, but I'm allowing myself to take a bit of a break. I think I'm not going to start grad school until Fall of 2010, even though I graduate this December. Not that I'm going to laze about for that two thirds of a year... I'll try and get another temporary job like I'm doing this summer... or get an entry level position with the DNR just to see if that's something I'd want to do after I get my masters.

In completely other news, I know own the Planet Earth Series and I never have to worry about TV again... if I ever want to watch something cool, I'm very content with simply popping in one of those and eating an hour of my life away that way. I think Bill and I are going to watch one right now ^_^

BTW: In case anyone didn't notice on Facebook, I managed to get myself a summer job! I'll be working down at Sandhill Wildlife area, about an hour SouthWest of Point, right next to Babcock, WI. I'll be doing habitat management/reconstruction and population censusing for the Karner Blue Butterfly (KBB). Doesn't seem all that interesting, but it's a federally endangered species and one of the wildlife areas I'll be working is the single largest population of them anywhere.

It's something I've been getting more and more interested in; working with threatened and endangered species. I'm still most interested in canines and diseases, but having the experience of habitat restoration and simply working with a federally endangered species is going to be good for future endeavors. ^^ I'm very excited.

Plus, although I'll probably be staying the week down at Sandhill in the "barracks" there, I'll be able to come home for the weekends.

^_^ If you're interested, my facebook profile pic is the KBB, unfortunately, not a photo I've taken.

Some of the spoils from my herpetology class: thought I'd share!

  

>.< itty bitty turtle brigade!

Bill should be in Florida right now. He left at 6:30 this morning and his flight was schedule to land at 11:30 our time. He promised to call when he landed.

It's 1:00  right now and I haven't heard from him.

I don't know whether to be mad, worried, or both.

UPDATE: All is good, boy checked in with me like 5 minutes after I posted -_- Apparently he read his itinerary wrong. *sigh*

I've been sleeping like shit the last two nights... as in, I didn't fall asleep the night before last until 3, then woke up at 6 and couldn't fall back asleep. And last night I pretty much tossed and turned all night until about 5, at which I laid there and stared at the ceiling. I'm blaming a lot of things: back hurting, cramps, it being too warm, and me being dehydrated, but despite the fact that last night we went to bed around midnight and I was EXHAUSTED I still slept like shit.

I know what it is. I'm worried about Bill. He's flying next Monday to Florida to do a tour/interview with AgencyNet, a company that's thinking of hiring him. At this point, it seems more a "see what you're going to be doing next year" than a "Let's see if we really want you" trip. So it's pretty much in the bag. Although we've talked about it, it's still bothering me. I want so badly to be extremely selfish and hope that he doesn't get the job, but I know how excited he is about it and I want him to be happy.

The problem lies in the fact that I've planned my life based on what he's told me. That he can get a job anywhere and he's going to be coming with me. Now, I still don't even know what I'm doing for my summer and he might be set for life. Agencynet has two offices, one in New York and one in Florida. Bill's far more interested in Florida, but who knows if he'd get that choice? If it comes down to it, I could go get my graduate schooling in Florida, but I have to be honest with myself. There is nothing in Florida that I would want to study (except maybe Florida Panthers, but the chances of getting a study on them... little-to-zilch). So I'm given this choice: I go with Bill and study something I'm not as interested in, or I find something I'm really interested in (working with wolves, or canine diseases or something) and spend two years apart from Bill... at the least.

I can't stop thinking about it. I'm not worried at all about Bill and I. We'll be fine, I love him, and I'm not at all worried about his commitment to me, but I can't stand the idea of being a country away from each other for years.

To be completely honest, the biggest thing that's bothering me is how, in about two weeks, Bill's gone from probably working WebZack for the summer and we'd go from there to just about getting offered the best position he could hope for. While I've been trying for the last 5 months just to get a temporary summer position that slightly interests me. I've given up on trying to get a summer job in something I'm interested in. Now I'm just hoping for anything. To put it frankly, I NEED this experience. My chances of getting into grad school without ANY field experience.... slim.

I'm frustrated. I'm trying so goddamn hard and I'm getting nothing out of it. I wish I could rant and say that Everything's just falling into Bill's lap, but I know it's not true. They like him so much because of the work he's done. He's proven himself and now he's being rewarded. I wish I could say as much about myself. I've the knowledge. I just have never had the opportunity to prove myself.

I hate this. I just want this semester to be over and I want to spend the summer working and doing something interesting. Is that too fucking much to hope for?