jingle bells, batman smells

It's been a week and two days since I last walked into a classroom. Last night, I had a dream about school. Actually, I had two dreams, but I'll tell you about the school one first. I got my grade back and it was a 95%!!! God, only in my dreams. My torts professor told me to walk over and deliver some papers to an office and I had to ask three people how to get to the office- and then I woke up. What a weird dream. But I guess it's my brain's way of remembering that I will be returning to school soon enough. The dream before that was an indoor marathon where I had to run around in circles in a gymnasium until I got to 26.2 miles. What a torturous nightmare! Anyway, in my dream, I was back at my middle school in Pleasanton and all the "cool kids" were there. And I was my grown self trying to run this marathon in a gym and the coach didn't put the time chip mat so there was no way for me to know what my time was- and I couldn't run very fast (typically the case in dreams, you can't really run fast for some reason). It was frustrating.

This past week I got to go to the Jay Z and Kanye concert. It was a lot of fun! Jay Z sang a lot of his classic hits, which I especially enjoyed, and Kanye played some of his heavy favorites too. But seeing the happy look on my brother's face- that was the best part of all. He looked so happy. Here's us at the show:



Seeing the rapper that my brother and I have been listening to since we were wee little kids was pretty amazing. My brother has worshipped Jay Z since he was in elementary school, practically. When the show finally started, we saw Kanye and Jay Z on rising stages on either side, rapping and we found ourselves singing along to just about every single song. It was a great ole' time.



On another note, my brother finished his first satellite. It's amazing that he designs and builds things that go to outer space. It will launch on January 29th. I am so proud of him!



Last Friday, we finally had our CDI awards ceremony. I am so glad it's done! Actually it was a very nice event. Commissioner Jones, being his charming self, made the event very sweet and it was good to see so many Department employees being acknowledged for their hard work and helpful personalities. I got to take a few pics with one of my favorite colleagues, Will, and many others:

 

Over the weekend, I felt a cold coming on, but I kept it at bay with plenty of ibuprofen pills and liquids to ward it off. I did some additional holiday shopping with Samira and we went to WEAVE thrift shop, my favorite thrift shop. We had a blast. Of course we both spent more than we intended, and ended up shopping more for ourselves than anyone else, but I managed to find a few useful things for Paul and some other people. We had a really good time trying on things and asking for each others' opinions and totally enabling each other to buy more stuff.

Afterwards, Paul and I went to Jerry and Sylvia's annual holiday party. It was good catching up with our friends that we haven't seen in a while. Their son Wendell put on a wonderful jazz performance playing music by John Legend, Miles Davis, and our personal favorite, "Fly Me To the Moon". It was great seeing everyone there.



We then went to our neighbor Tom's holiday gathering where we met some more of our neighbors and enjoyed seeing their slide show to their African safari trip. I didn't like his wife because she was prancing around wearing lingerie instead of regular clothes and she kept flirting with Paul. I couldn't be absolutely sure until it was time for us to leave and she plants a big wet one on his cheek. Gross! Women can be so slutty.

Other than that, it was fun and we went home and slept. I needed the sleep so bad.
This morning I was able to send off eight Christmas cards in the mail to my dear friends in the bay area. I hope that they get it before Christmas. I'm pretty much done with gift shopping too, except for co-workers and my bosses. My brother thinks a card is sufficient for work folks, but I might want to get a little more. We will see. I have a few more days left so I will see if I can come up with an idea for something small yet thoughtful.



Tonight, I have happy hour with my study mates from school, and that will be fun. I haven't seen them since finals. Tomorrow, I am having happy hour with my former colleagues from Huber's office, Michelle and Tiffany. It will be good seeing them as well. And Sara comes home tomorrow! So I will see her at some point later this week.



I'm spending my break doing exactly what I wanted to do, which is resting, gift shopping, seeing old and new friends, and spending time with family. Next Wednesday, I am leaving for Honduras. It will all happen so fast! And then, BOOM school will start all over again.

I can't wait to see what 2012 will bring.

p.s. I am obsessed with Mariah's new holiday song, "When Christmas Comes". It's been stuck in my head day after day! I would sing it except I don't know all the words yet.