Maybe I should quit my day job!

and make a living dog sitting!

My neighbors will be leaving for three whole weeks in June and I will be the proud responsible guardian of their sweet and slightly crazy dog, Edgar. We're going to have a blast: jogging together, chilling and watching the food network channel together, and just in general goof around!

Headbanging to the Whole Wide World

Which is a song featured on the movie Stranger than Fiction (very good - watch it if you haven't already). I'm a little nervous about putting it on my iPod because I might then be induced to take my headbanging public (on the bus, on the sidewalk to the library, pretty much anywhere I go by myself). Speaking of which, yesterday I was walking to McDonald's to get a movie (yes, a movie from McDonald's - the insiduous effect of Redbox (a dollar a night for a movie which comes out of a vending machine)) and realized that I didn't have my iPod. Now, I haven't had my iPod that long and it's surprising and extremely disturbing how it has become an extension of my body. I felt naked without it. Listen to the birds chirping? Hear my own breath and footsteps? Listen to my own thoughts a little more clearly? What?

Ahem.

Now - has last night's experience and realization changed how much I listen to it? Nope! I like my life with a constant muscial soundtrack. Especially the hour and a half I spend on the bus each day.

Plus, I think my iPod might have a secret and mysterious protection device which keeps me from harm when I listen to it. Listen: so, like I said, last night I didn't have it and was walking to McDonald's and was crossing a street when the little walking light man said I could when a man dressed in a Star Trek suit tried to run me over. Seriously. You never know the powers wrapped up in a little stick of electronicity or whatever.

And, I know what you're thinking (well, at least I'm going to presume I do), that it's dangerous because anyone could creep up on me unexpectedly while I'm walking in the dark.

A. I don't walk in the dark. Or at least not with my iPod. Or at least not with my iPod all that loud.

B. I always expect the unexpected. Or at least nearly always. Or at least when it's expected.

Library Science Here I Come!

Whelp, it's official. I've been accepted to the library information science program at DU! I've actually started taking a class now although I'm not officially in the program until next fall. The class is "Alternative Careers in Library Science" - think 'art library' or 'children's librarian.' It is all very exciting and I've found LIS students to be extremely welcoming and nice ... and misunderstood by society at large! Librarians do a lot more than just get a book off the shelf and check it out for you.

I also get to dog sit the neighbor's dog this weekend which is especially exciting because our neighbors have satellite TV and the food network.

Videoblogging...

Well, I can see if I can get it to work...

So, my parents got me a digital camera for Christmas with the idea that I would take pictures of my life here to send home ... and now, a good four weeks after I received this awesome gift, I realized I should start taking pictures - better yet, videos!

Here is the first installment - aptly titled "Katie At Home."

Thwarted! Apparently it is too big to post on blogger. Well, I'll try something else - keep posted for new developments in the soon-to-be-released "Katie At Home."

AH HA! So, here you go: click on this to get to the website where "Katie At Home" is now available for viewing!

Okay, actually, I think this will work even better:

http://www.clipshack.com/Clip.aspx?key=2697611379E98FD6

Change in Pace

I realized that, oddly enough, most of my blog postings have to do with either the weather or public transportation adventures. Reading my blog, you'd think all I do is walk to and from the bus in bizarre weather. While traveling to and from work does take up quite a bit of my time each day, it does not actually make up the meat of what I do. That is reserved for my job which I'm still enjoying. Now that school is back in session, our office has been a bustling place. Some afternoons, I literally did not have time to sit down, with all the students coming in for various things. It makes the day fly by to have so many people either calling or coming in for appointments. I also really enjoy my co-workers and the student workers who work in the office - I've had a variety of fun invitations to hang out with co-workers outside of the office: a small group, a sushi dinner (where we MADE our own sushi!), concerts, a dim sum outing (did I spell that right?). It's been fun.

We finally seem to be settling into Denver - new friends and opportunities lie in the near future (I can just feel it!).
I'm taking a ceramics class in a couple weeks.

I've cut my hair - the shortest it's been in a long while!

And, I've seemingly lost my shyness and acquired an ability to talk to pretty much anybody about even the silliest of things. For example, the last time I rode down on the bus to Colorado Springs to visit family, I ended up talking to a lady for the entire duration of the trip about basically my whole life. By the end of the hour, I think we knew more about each other than some of our friends know about us. I love those conversations - the ones that always end with, "And, I'm (insert a first name here), by the way." Luckily, my job suits just this ability to talk - one of my favorite parts of my jobs is to talk to students as they wait for their advising meeting (especially if they've been waiting for a while). Sometimes the most random things come out of my mouth. And perhaps I haven't lost all of my shyness quite yet - I still occasionally get the urge to slap my forehead with my hand, thinking, "Where'd the heck did that come from?"


That's it for now.

Confessions of a Mouth-breather

The time has arrived to come clean: I am a mouth breather. All these years I tried delude myself into thinking that there just no way. I didn't read the signs: waking up to a pool of drool resting on the pillow; being teased by my aunt that I never closed my mouth all of the way; and, of course, having trouble breathing through my nose alone.

But tonight I was walking to the store (on a quest for hot chocolate - hey, when chocolate calls it doesn't matter how cold it is outside). And boy was it cold tonight. I was halfway there when I realized that I had been putting my tongue up to my front teeth to warm them up. How silly! I thought. And yet, I was having trouble keeping my mouth shut - it took conscious effort.

So there it is. I've bravely confessed much to my own disappointment that I am, indeed, a mouth breather.


On another note, I'm also being stalked by a fox. After work I had a burst of energy and needed to do something productive so I was shoveling the front walk when a red fox ran out from behind one of our trees, looked back at me, and then trotted on down the road. AND THEN when I was walking to the store, a red fox was just ahead of me in the road and stopped for the longest time watching me approach him and then ran on and stopped again until I came too close for comfort. And whatever my roommate, Erin, may say the fox was stalking me despite the fact that he was running before me. It's all part of the fox's ploy, to run away when I approach him so that no one will believe that Red (as I've just christened the fox) is, in fact, stalking me.

At least it's not a moose. I was grateful to remember that I didn't have to worry about bumping into a moose as I was walking to the store.


And finally, a year in Kentucky really does make you forget all the glories of snow (no offense Kentucky friends). Tonight, I saw a sheet of sparkly crystalized snow smoothed perfectly out by the wind despite how fluffy it had been this morning when it was falling down out of the sky.

Blizzard Wonders and Woes

So, have you ever heard the wind in that Louis Armstrong song "Zat you Santa Claus" ? Because that is what it sounds like outside my window right now.

Today, I left for work at quarter to 6 am and there was maybe a half of an inch to an inch of snow on the ground. Now, 18 hours later, there is close to what must be three feet. There are buried lumps of cars in our back driveway. My roommates and I were all released from work this morning so we could get home without incident (besides the awful traffic). And now we also have tomorrow off and maybe a delayed Friday. It is an early Christmas treat!

Unfortunately, though, the weather has closed the airport which ended up meaning that both of my roommates' Thursday evening flights were cancelled. So they were scrambling tonight to set up different plans - which turned up to being flying home on Christmas and on the 28th. It is truly disappointing and really puts a damper on what at first seemed to be a fun way to get out of work.