Sunny CA here I come

I don’t post for a while and a whole bunch of stuff happens. I went home last weekend to pick up some things I need when Katie moves up to three. Dad was feeling kinda in the dumps all weekend and on Sunday decided to visit urgent care. He’s all better now, but they admitted him to the hospital for a few days because he was having a reaction to an antibiotic he was on. I’m just happy I was home so that I could help Mom out.

Monday I got an email about the internship I had applied for, and I didn’t get it. I was rather grumpy as I felt that I was deserving of it, but another classmate – also deserving – got it instead. No worries there, but I do have to find something ASAP. I decided to apply for a full time job, just to see if I’ll get it. It could make things difficult if I get it soon though, because I have about 3 weeks of time where I want to be traveling.

Thursday I got wonderful good news. I found out that I won the scholarship I had applied to. I haven’t been holding my breath because 1. it is not smart to hold your breath for that long, and 2. Only 5 people from the US (and one from outside the US) win this scholarship every year. Them’s long odds, as they say. Yesterday I got the call that I had been awarded the scholarship, and now I’m all giddy. There’s money for school of course, but there is also the opportunity to go to Anaheim, CA, for the national conference held by the American Industrial Hygiene Association. They pay for the flight, the hotel, the conference, and give me money for food. Yippee! Sunny California, here I come! I am not sure what I will be doing out there yet. I have the conference to go to, it’s a week long May 21-25, but I’m sure I’m not going to listen to every person speak about everything. I plan on going to Disneyland, since I’ve never been, and maybe doing some other sight seeing too. I’m not sure what else there is out there. I’ll have to do research.

I’ve also been meaning to visit Rachel in NZ about that time. Now I’m thinking, it would be convenient to link the two together. I could fly to Anaheim, do the conference, get to LA somehow (haven’t figured that part out yet), fly out of LA to NZ, spend a week and a half or so in NZ chillin w/ Rachel, and then fly back to LA and catch a connecting flight back to MN. That would mean being gone for 2.5 or so weeks, but that doesn’t bother me. I like to travel. I have to see if that is ok with the travel agent-y people that I get the airfare from for the scholarship. It is substantially cheaper to fly to NZ from LA than from MN though, so this works out quite well. I really do hope I can pull it off; I want to visit NZ before Rachel gets back to the states in July.

Oh, and I have some tickets to go to Hawaii between May 31 this year and the 31 May next year. I have to book them by them soon though, so I have to determine when I can go. So, the bad and the good were intermingled this week, but I think the good won out. Big time. Now all I have to do is get serious about my exercise so I don’t feel like a dunce should I wear a swimming suit a month earlier than I thought I would be, figure out what the temp is in CA this time of year, and figure out what I want to pack. Oh, and finish this semester…yeah, not to forget that.