Sillydill.com

I thought I'd shake some dust off of the ol' sillydill and give it another run.  yeah, it's been a WHILE.

So basically, last year was mostly un-awesome.  A lot of good stuff happened I am sure, but I kind of overlooked it since I was so busy worrying about crap.  To recap: I don't think I had quite recovered from moving back from Sydney, leaving my life there, and starting over and looking for a job.  Then  after some temping in Florida I finally found a neato job in Ithaca and moved up there.  Shortly afterwards, I found that my job would no longer exist and I had to again go through the starting over job searching phase.  Obviously, this is not the worst thing that can happen to a person.  I know that I have it pretty good in this life and should not be complaining.  But whatever.  It was upsetting.  I was depressed.  (Or more technically, I was diagnosed with "Displacement Disorder".  I wish it had a cooler name.  Like "Maniacal Moving-Around-too-much-ness".)  So there you go.  I wasn't really enjoying my life all that much, so I didn't feel like writing about it, and I certainly couldn't see why anyone else would want to read about it either.

Luckily, things are much better now.  (yay.)  Want to know what I do now???  I ended up finding another job at Cornell in Biomedical Engineering and Applied Physics.  I design/build hardware (and a wee bit of software) for multiphoton microscopes.  Somehow this involves playing with "lasers" and strapping tiny little electronics onto mice.  (Next step, strapping lasers onto mice. Muahahahaa.)  I am even a mouse anesthesiologist now.  My jobs keep getting weirder and weirder.  Oh, but I have been taking a machining course so at least I can continue in my favorite job task of drilling holes in things.

Life is pretty much good.  Again I say...  yay.

Six months after moving to Ithaca for my "dream" job, I find out that the boss man is moving to a different university and he is taking the lab with him.  So, my current job will cease to exist soon. 

I was given the option to move to Los Angeles with him and work there.  He even flew us all out there to see the campus (USC) and the area.  I neglected to post about this decision earlier because the advice I usually get is "It's sunny in LA.  You should move there."  (A valid point. Especially when I am currently in a place that still gets down in the 30s at night.  IN MAY.  freaking Ithaca tundra.) But anyway, there were other factors involved in my decision besides the likelyhood of getting skin cancer.

As of last week, I have officially decided and declared that I will NOT be moving to Los Angeles. (If you are curious about my reasons, please feel free to e-mail or call.  I'd just rather not have the internet judging my decision making skills.)  So hooray for me, one big decision down.  Now on to the next one..... What the hell in the world am I going to do with my life?  I seem to have to make this decision pretty regularly so it should be easy by now.  ha.

So, I'm willing to open the floor for discussion.  Find another job at Cornell?  Back to grad school?  Start another career in X doing Y in city Z?  Does anybody want to hire me?  I am basically pretty awesome.

As exciting as it is to have the whole world at your feet (or fingertips, or whatever body part(s) the world is usually located at) and have no idea where the next couple of months will take you... I HAVE NO IDEA WHERE THE NEXT COUPLE OF MONTHS WILL TAKE ME! I DON'T KNOW WHAT I'M GOING TO DO! I'm going to file this experience under "YIPES!".  Oh, it seems my YIPES! folder is overflowing from 7 months ago experiences.  But everything worked out then, so I'm sure it's all going to be swell.  (Note: that is not sarcasm.  I really do think it's going to be swell.  I would just like to skip ahead to that part.)

There is hope... I've had two interviews so far and one more next week.  Not sure if these are jobs I really want, but at least there are some opportunities out there!

Not a very exciting post I guess.  But this is basically what is on my mind constantly, and everyone in Ithaca is tired of hearing about it, so now I get to dump it on you good people. 

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OH!  I'm going to Gainesville in a couple weeks for my bro's graduation!  Yay Chris!  Yay family!  Yay graduation ceremony!  woo!  But seriously, there must be some time that I am not occupied with those things, and if any of you are still around G'ville and would like to get together let me know!
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A lot of people complain about their moms telling them what to do and constantly nagging to clean the house, do the dishes, nag nag nag.  I must be the only girl in the world who has her mom nagging her to spend more time playing on the internet blogging.  :)

So, let's bring you up to speed on the past couple months. 

Lots of snow.  Snowflakes that stick to my nose and eyelashes are not exactly my favorite things.  Actually they make me want to cry sometimes.  Oh!  So here is something I realized one day when I was waiting on the bus.  I looked down at the snow that was collecting on my jacket, and I saw actual snowflakes!  I was always under the impression that you could only see the snowflake crystals under a microscope, but these things were like 3-5mm big.  That was pretty special. 

I went skiing for the first (and second) time ever.  As I stood at the top of the bunny hill looking down, it looked to me like I was about to plummet down a steep cliff.  Instead, I just plummetted down the bunny hill.  You would think that snow would make for a soft landing, but somehow I ended up with bruised legs worse than Courtney Love from decades past.  When we got to the slightly bigger slopes, I had still not mastered the art of turning or slowing down.  So I would speed down the hill while people were yelling at me “Snowplow! Snowplow!” and then I would crash.  To make things more embarassing, some kid of about 6 or 7 would usually ski skillfully toward me, pick up all my gear, and then do a few backflip double-twisty sommersaults or something like that.

Justin and I made a snowman!  I'll put some pictures up here “soon”.

I got older.  Justin somehow organized a surprise birthday winery tour with about 15 people.  These people were pretty darn good about lying and keeping secrets.  I don't know how I feel about that.

As for the job -well, that is a story for another day.  I haven't the strength for that right now.  sigh.

happy momma?

I'll be back in Florida in a little more than TWO DAYS.  yaaay.  I just checked the weather forcasts, and it will be about 50 degrees warmer there than it is here at this very moment.  Nice.  Perhaps I will not pack a parka.

I'll be home till the crack of dawn on Jan 3rd, so if you want to hang out give me a call.  If you want to drive me to the airport at the pre-crack of dawn on the 3rd, I'm sure that could be arranged.

So, stuff is ok.  We've had a little bit of snow, and it was kind of fun to walk around when it was falling.  I might even call it magical.  Usually it is just cold and gray minus the magic.  Job is okay.   Actually, I've suddenly gotten super crazy hectic busy which is what brings me back to sillydill.  I finally can procrastinate again now that I have real work to do.  note: “real work” may either involve debugging code or making someone coffee.  Each day brings a new challenge. 

I baked snowball cookies for the staff holiday tea.  They were not like gramas at all.  But, the “tea“ at the staff get-together was actually lots of wine, so nobody seemed to notice.  I think I did some of my best work that afternoon as well.

Oh, I have found sweet potato fries here.  Life in Ithaca is almost complete. 

So, I guess that's about the last month or so in a nutshell.  nice people. crappy weather. decent job. sweet potato fries.

Hope to see many of you SOOOOOOOON when I come home to defrost for a while!

I think I like Ithaca. At first I went into shock when I realized just how small a town it is, but I think it's going to be alright. I live within walking distance to the ice cream shop. I do live a bit further - have to take a bus - from work, but I think I have my priorities straight.

I live in an older house that has been converted into apartments, and I'm right across from an elementary school. So, it is quite a different atmosphere from living at Melrose Place in g'ville. Which reminds me... Go Gators. Luckily Phil is up here, so I have someone to watch the games with. It's also nice to see a familiar face. I've met up with some friends of friends, and the friends of the friends of friends, and of course I have my habit of talking to strangers (don't tell Bre's mom), so I haven't had a chance yet to get too lonely. I do miss everyone, though. waaaah. :(

I will definitely be home for Christmas/New Years, so hopefully will get to see lots of you then. Also - I still think there needs to be super Sydney reunion sometime soon-ish. I'm just putting it out there. Talk amongst yourselves.

The job so far is pretty good. I'm still learning stuff, so not involved in much research yet. My biggest accomplishment to date was picking out a couch for the lab. The couch, of course, kicks ass. I really like the people in the lab. There was a party at my supervisor's house with an Indian theme, and we were even provided with saris to wear. And lots of good food and Indian sweets. And tequila. These are my kind of people.

When I first got here, the weather was beautiful and the leaves were all changing colors, and I took some pictures that I'll be posting soon. (I might also post some pics of a Halloween party I went to if they are not too incriminating.) Now it is just freaking cold and rainy and apparently even snowy at times. The sad thing is, they say it isn't even "cold" yet. I find that frightening. I have been dressing up like a bag lady every day, wearing my entire wardrobe at the same time but just alternating layers each day so it looks like a new outfit. And people are running around in shorts. I don't know what they make the people out of up here, but I think it involves a lot of crazy.

I am taking two weeks of vacation, and it is going to be rad.  Yeah, I said it.  RAD. 

First off, I am going to Cornell for an interview with the Neuromuscular Biomechanics Lab.  I already made it past the phone interview stage, and now they want to meet me in person.  So, I am basically freaking out, but I think that this could be exactly the job that is made for me.  I haven't really said much about it to anyone because I don't want to have to explain why I suck to people when they ask why I didn't get the job.  But, I have pretty much decided that I own this job, so it is ok to tell you about it.  The interview goes on for TWO DAYS including a dinner in there somewhere.  I can only talk about how awesome I am for so long and then I start running out of material, so not sure how this will go.  Wait, no, I do know how it is going to go.  It is going to be RAD.  Must visualize success and awesomeness.

After the interview, I am going to New York City for the IEEE Engineering in Medicine conference.  A lot of the gang from the Vision Prosthesis lab at UNSW is going to be there, so I get to see some friends from Australia.  yaaaay.  Yan will be there, and he and I are going to hang out in NY for a few days after the conference and then take some crazy chinatown bus to DC and stay there for a couple days.  There's going to be so much stuff to do, but I think that the top priorities are obviously cupcakes from the Magnolia bakery, and the something something marzipan torte from some bakery I saw on the Food Network. 

So anyhow, this is what I'll be up to over the next couple of weeks.  Yan will be coming back to Florida and staying here for two more weeks after our little adventure, so if you Floridians want to meet an Aussie, this will be your chance.  Maybe we can set up a booth where you can watch him put shrimp on a barbie.  There shall be Fosters for everyone.

Oh yeah, don't tell my boss that I have an interview somewhere else.  If you are my boss and you are reading this, it is just a joke. hahahaha.  The fake interview story gets them every time. haaa. I LOVE my job.

It's all about the Hamiltons, baby.

air conditioner broken.  florida.  thermostat above 90.  fan helps move steamy air at me faster.  can't sleep. trying to think cold thoughts.

i just remembered some lady i met when my flight was delayed at some airport.  it is hard to remember where since a flight being delayed is not exactly a distinguishing factor.  she was from somewhere in africa and never left the continent until she moved to chicago sometime in her 20s.  when she took her first step out into chicago, it was snowing - which freaked her out because she had no idea what snow was.  even worse, she was met by a gust of cold wind.  she had never felt the sensation of “cold” before in her life.  she thought that this new feeling meant that she was dying.  anyhow, she lived to tell the tale to me at some other nameless airport years later.  i just can't imagine what it would be like to not know that cold existed. 

i'm back from a long weekend in panama city with bre's family. i had a lot of fun, and it was confirmed that i am still their favorite child especially because i never put any of them through the pain of child birth.  and i chop fruit into anally consistent sized cubes which is handy when you are making sangria.  i win. 

so last night i spent way too much time playing on the internet filling out all kinds of quizzes that told me what my temperament is (because seriously, if the internet didn't tell me how i felt, i might not ever know the real me) and what hair color i should have.  it's like i was posessed by the spirit of a 17 year old girl WhO WouLD pRoBaBLy TYpE eVeRyThInG LiKe ThIs.  i guess it wasn't my proudest moment.  i know what you're thinking.  “lease, what were you doing spending your friday night playing on the internet? don't you have a life?“  well, no.  not really.  and you didn't call me with any better ideas, so there you go.  anyhow, for one of them you just give it your name and it tells you what your band name should be.  this is what it came up with...

Your Band Name is:

The Silly Pickles

I was told by someone whose name reminds one of a shopping mall that my webpage is really boring lately.  It turns out he is correct.  Since I haven't left the blessed state of Florida in about EIGHT MONTHS, I don't have any great travels to talk about.  I am also getting VERY RESTLESS.  Does anyone want to go somewhere?  Anywhere?

So, what else is going on.  I can't really complain about my family because they all read this page.  love ya mom.  I probably shouldn't write about the guy I work with who is the schmuckiest schmuck I have ever met - just in case he stumbles across this page when he is googling the word schmuck.  So, here is the other hopefully non-offensive stuff that has been going down in my world.

MySpace is the biggest time sucker ever invented by whoever it was who invented the internet.  I think it was Al Gore.  Anyway, I have spent many an hour stealing layout code that doesn't work and getting reconnected with old friends.  It's pretty cool actually.  Thanks to MySpace, I had lunch with a friend who I hadn't seen in about nine years.  I also got to see how everyone else I used to know is now married with about 24 children.  So, apparently I am a little bit behind.

Today at work, this Cuban guy came through the Tool Room doing an impression of Fidel Castro.  He declared that all women must now wear T-backs to conserve material and energy.  Heh.  As the only woman in the entire department, I probably should have been offended, but I was just glad to have the destraction from building all my widgets.  And seriously, can you believe I work in a place called the Tool Room?  The best part is that I can say “I work with a bunch of tools” and nobody gets upset.

I'm going to Ft. Lauderdale to see Merrie's baby Emma this weekend.  I can't believe Merrie is a mommy!  Breanne and I are driving down there tomorrow, and I'm really excited about getting together again.  I probably should be packing now.  I think I'm going to eat some peach cobbler instead.  Mmmm.

I was brushing my teeth the other day (I know this is very exciting, but please try to contain yourselves.  I actually brush my teeth 2-3 times every day.  Also, this story really doesn't have anything to do with me brushing my teeth so let's get on with it, shall we?), and that somehow triggered a memory from way back in middle school. 

I went to the movies with my youth group - the God Squad - to see “Alive”.  (Not exactly a typical youth group movie, I guess, but this is the same group that showed “Pretty Woman” at a lock in.  Actually, my parents were the youth group leaders, and everyone else got to watch Pretty Woman, but my brother and I weren't allowed to see it because we were “too young”.  This didn't exactly help me to “fit in” to the group.  Looking back, that probably wasn't such a tragedy because the other kids were all pretty much jerks.  Man, I HATED youth group.)  If you haven't seen this movie, then I am about to spoil everything for you.  In the movie, a plane crashes somewhere in the Andes.  If I recall correctly, you see metal shards cutting through flesh and random body parts strewn about. Since it was freaking cold, people ended up with some nasty frostbite.  I think there was a part in the movie where you watch someone cut off their black rotting toes.  And of course, the people eventually got hungry, so they had to eat the frozen deceased passengers in order to survive.  I believe they started off at the person's butt for some reason.  One of the girls in the group sat quietly through the movie, peacefully taking in every gory detail.  Towards the end, some of the passengers found the luggage that was lost in the plane wreck.  One of the guys took out a tube of toothpaste and squeezed the whole contents of the tube straight into his mouth.  At this point, our young friend became utterly disgusted.  “Oh my GOD, that is so NASTY!” she screeched in disbelief.  She just didn't understand how someone could eat toothpaste.  I, too, was in disbelief.  I couldn't believe that I was continually being forced to hang out with these people, and I especially couldn't believe that somehow I was the reject of the group. 

Epilogue:  I am sure that the youths of the God Squad have all grown up to be lovely people.  I now own the movie Pretty Woman on VHS, so I can watch it whenever I want without parental supervision.  (Assuming, of course, that there is still a VCR somewhere.)  I will continue to brush my teeth 2-3 times per day.

In the old days when I had a bad day at work, the worst I would walk out of that building with was a headache and perhaps a bad papercut.  Today I ended up with a nasty blood blister after I pinched my finger in the back of a pair of plyers.  I also got some bloody knuckles when I was bolting in some parts and my wrench slipped.  Then I got showered in fiberglass dust (which is ITCHY) when I was drilling holes in some boxes.  I also had to refrain from kicking the designer in the teeth when he changed his mind and wanted everything taken apart and done differently.  grrrrr. 

I seriously don't know why these people hired me.  They saw that I had an EE degree and thought I would make a good technician.  I can handle the soldering and wiring stuff pretty well, but I'm not exactly what we'd call “handy”.  I'm learning all kinds of crap, though.  By next week, I will probably be able to build a house or something.  I am even starting to get something on my right arm that looks kind of like a muscle.  Apparently mishandling tools is good exercise.

I had an interview on Monday for an R&D job within the same company.  I still haven't heard back from them, though.  Please PLEASE please let me have that job.

Of course, there are the conventional methods such as calling in sick or perhaps even just asking for a vacation day.  But - here is the plan I accidentally put into action this Monday, and it is probably guaranteed to get results.

Step 1: Boss asks you how you are doing.

Step 2: Reply “Fine, thank you”.

Step 3: Burst into tears.

Step 4: Day off.

Perhaps I was just overtired.  It was a really long weekend which included a corporate event, a bachelorette party, and a baby shower.  Don't worry, the bachelorette and mom-to-be are different people.  The baby shower (which was just beautiful - Merrie's friends put in so much love and effort) was in Ft. Lauderdale which was kind of a hike.  Breanne drove, though, so I probably shouldn't be complaining about being tired.  But why did Breanne drive???  Because I was in a car accident on Saturday.  An apparently blind AND deaf woman backed into my car in a parking lot.  This woman could neither see my bright red car or hear my blaring horn.  Doesn't the DMV require eyesight and hearing tests after people turn 200 years old?  I guess not.  Anyway, I am apparently an IDIOT and at the time neglected to get her license number, or get her address, or try to get a statement from one of the witnesses, or to call the police.  I also couldn't find my insurance card.  (I found a couple days later that it was in my TRUNK.  idiot.)  So, I basically spent the whole weekend worrying about how I was going to pay my ginormous deductible and all that crap since no one got sited and it was private property and something about Florida being a “no-fault” state that people have been trying to explain to me.  Happy ending: I used my day off productively and dealt with our insurance companies and in the end, hers is accepting liability and my baby gets a brand new bumper for free.  Well, free to me.  yay.

Also this weekend, a close friend of the family has been put into Hospice and it isn't looking very good.  This woman was pretty much like an adopted grandmother to me and Chris, and she is just a neat lady we have been very blessed to know.  She was also the best babysitter because she let us have soda and candy.  So, if you are praying people, please say a prayer for “Aunt” Betty and her family.  I'm sure they would appreciate it.

yay, good news.  I have a job!  Not like a real job that I want, but at least a job that provides money so that I can afford gas and a car payment so that I can go to the job.  Maybe there will be some left over for a cup of coffee, too!!

I am still looking for a biomed job (anyone out there have connections? call me! please!) but this whole being broke thing isn't all it's cracked up to be, so I went to the temp agency yesterday and took their typing tests and all that, and apparently I am awesome because I am hooked up with a job for Monday.  Or they were very desperate.  Anyhow, this gig is actually perfect for me because it's only a few weeks commitment, AND I don't have to get in until 10 or 11.  Actually, that is still very early for me, but I think I will manage it somehow.

In other news, the sherriff came to my door the other day looking for me.  I almost peed my pants.  I couldn't remember doing anything questionable, but my memory hasn't been very good lately.  It turned out that this was in regards to a car accident that I witnessed when I was in Gainesville a couple weeks ago.  My brother and I stopped to make sure that everyone was okay and give a statement of what we saw happen.  So the sherriff came to reward me for being a good citizen by giving me my very own subpoena and requiring that I go back to Gainesville for the court date.  I must herein fail not under penalty of law.  As Breanne said, no good deed goes unpunished.

OH CRAP!  I just got a phone call from the temp agency, and my job has been cancelled.  Now, that is starting to sound more like my life.   If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go eat some chocolate.

So tomorrow is my birthday. Woohoo.  In honor of this most joyous of days, I figured I would share the story of my birth – or at least the version that I have pieced together after hearing bits and pieces over the years. 

About this time many many many years ago, my mother was very very very pregnant.  I think that she was told that she would be having a 13 pound baby boy.  If I were her, that would have made me a bit nervous.  From all accounts, she referred to this bundle of joy as “The Monster”.  And she just couldn’t wait for The Monster to be born.

The Monster was apparently wanting to greet the world feet first, so it would have to be born by C-section.  The following is a transcription from this event.

Doctor: “It’s a boy!”

Father: “Christopher James Toth!”

Doctor: “Oh my GOD.  There’s another one in here!”

All: <mass hysteria>

Actually, I’m not sure if there was mass hysteria, but there probably should have been. 

Father: “Lisa Nicole Toth!”

So yes, there I was.  Surprise!  I just love that the first words my li’l ears ever heard were “oh my God.”  Anyhow, eventually my mother woke up and wanted to know how The Monster was getting along.

Mother: “So, what did we have?”

Father: “It’s a boy”

Mother: “ah”

Father: “AND a girl”

Mother: “that’s nice”

That’s nice.  So there is my story.  Chances are you have already heard me tell it 50 times before, but aren’t you lucky to make it 51 today.  From this point onward, the little neighbor girl and I worked very hard to prove that I was adopted, but we just had no evidence.  Later in life, I became known as the (self proclaimed) bastard twin.  This was due to many acts of favoritism shown towards my “older” brother.  The most persistent of these being the fact that I am usually not taken to Tia’s Mexican Cantina with the family but only allowed to eat my brother’s leftovers upon their return.  This wound still cuts deep. 

Although I always had my suspicions, it is extremely obvious that I actually do belong to this family.  Fact 1: I have my father’s eyes.  Actually, I’m told they look just like the eyes of some great great uncle.  Or maybe it was just one great.  Either way, I am told he was a good guy.  Fact 2: I undeniably have the Toth Chin.  The main characteristic of the Toth Chin is that the chin has more cleavage than any other part of the body. 

 I’m off to Gainesville to party it up with my brother.  To answer the sadly too Frequently Asked Question… No! We are not identical!  I’m blonde.  He’s not.  If you’re in G’ville and want to hang out, give me a ring!