Who Doesn't Like a Good Cat Video?

Its been a yucky week so far, mostly because I'm sick again and am starting to feel the crunch of the semester. I somehow got on to YouTube and ended up watching cat videos after a while. These are some of the highlights sure to bring a smile to your face. Enjoy!

Treadmill Kitty
Mea's Long Lost Cousin?
Talking Kitties (an oldie, but still funny, also see the translated version!)
Piano Playing Cat
The Funniest By Far...

And just to provide a brief update... Classes are fine, I'm quite tired though (probably just from being sick). My kids that I'm teaching this semester are pretty awesome...very smart and quick with labs which I think is VERY nice. Outside of school, nothing too exciting going on in my life...its pretty much all school all the time...school and Netflix, haha! Sad to think I'm wasting all of my "good years" in front of a computer or in a book... I'm sure grad school will be worth it in the end...

I don't think I posted anything of substance last week either, but it wasn't a very good week either. Another of my dogs, Chip-Chip, as I called him, had to be put to sleep. I was pretty sad, but he was Rook's best friend, so at least he will have company up in little doggie heaven. Its crazy for me to think that Rook died a year ago already...also crazy to think I was in Europe this time last year too...it went by so fast! Yikes! Speaking of Europe, I will try to get some pictures up eventually or a video. Maybe I'll do that over spring break when I'll have a moment or two for an actual life... Haha! Don't keep your fingers crossed, but I will do my best!

What Would Charles Darwin Think?

Hello, hello! Happy Valentine's Day all! It has been an eventful week in history! Some of you may know that it was Abe Lincoln's birthday on Thursday, but it was Charles Darwin's 200th Birthday as well!

Since the first month of 1001 (the Human Evolution course I TA for) covers nothing but evolution and natural selection, compliments of Darwin, I figured it was only appropriate to throw him a birthday party :) Linda and I teamed up to throw an across-the-hall party Thursday evening chalk-full of Darwinian fun. We named each of our apartments after an island in the Galapagos where Darwin visited (I was Daphne Major and she was Genovesa). Our food was all themed around the Galapagos or Darwin as well, including: fruit, nuts, seeds of various sizes (tied to how Darwin figured out natural selection), a birthday cake with a Darwin fish on it, and seaweed salad, which was quite good I assure you. We also had Darwin-themed games such as "Pin the Beak on Darwin's Finch" and "Darwinian Pictionary." (Click the link to see the results of the game and the cake!) It was all quite clever and dorky overall, but it was a really great time :)

In general, that was the highlight of my week. Pretty uneventful other than the party, but good overall! Here is a link so you can have some Darwinian fun yourself! DEVOLVE YOURSELF!

Winter Carnival!

As I mentioned last week, I was off to attend the Twin-Cities Winter Carnival (see previous blog entry for the link if you want more info). Instead of filling up my entire blog with photos (1. take too much time to load, 2. no one wants to scroll through an endless screen, etc.), I'm providing a public link to my Facebook photo album from the event. The photo here is just a teaser.

I will just start by saying it was so darn cold that my fingers were having a hard time moving to push the button on my camera --- that's with my two-layer pair of gloves. My nose was frozen, my eyes were on their way. Basically any part of your body not covered by something out here will start to freeze...I'm going to go on a tangent for a second because I find this amusing... It gets so cold that your eyes burn and start to water, but, the water blows into your eyelashes because of the wind where it proceeds to freeze almost instantly. Another example I laughed about while walking to the bus stop this morning was that I had a runny nose from the cold and was able to sniffle it back in where it froze hard. I could actually feel the hardened piece of sniffle INSIDE my nose, haha, its so cold its just laughable. I will still take this cold over all the snow we get in Michigan... And we're back. Right, so it was really cold and hard to keep steady for picture taking, but overall, I think they turned out quite nice considering it was night (we were told to go at night because it is better for viewing the sculptures). I think it helped that the ice and snow sculptures were well lit. Anywho, here is the link to the photos: Winter Carnival

Apparently there is a whole story to go along with it. Something about the god Vulcan coming here with someone...not sure on all the details...maybe next year I'll be able to relay them more.

Not much new to report about this week. The semester is still going well. I like my classes and the way I have everything arranged. I have a lot more free time away from campus where I can get my work done, which is quite a relief. No big plans for the weekend. Going to my friend Burt's tomorrow night for a movie night with fellow Anthropology TAs.

Next week, Linda, the girl who moved in across the hall from me and also Burt's girlfriend, and I are throwing Charles Darwin a 200th Birthday party. It will be pretty dorky with various evolution themes and references, but should be a good time.

Have a great week all!