The mystery that is Tyler

So my friend Cat and I live in the dorms. East Owen, sixth floor. Literally, we are the only two occupants of this floor as far as we can tell. Except...Tyler.

We have never seen Tyler.

We only know his name because there is a summer school nametag on his door. It's pink and colorful - probably put up there by a bubbly girl. (not that there's anything wrong with bubbly girls...uh...)

The only reason we know Tyler is even there is that we hear the TV on. All the time. All the time. Every time we walk by. Since his room is on the way to our room, we walk by quite frequently. And the TV is always on.

Last weekend, there was NO SOUND coming from his room. We were worried. Had he left for the summer? Had he moved? Did he just go home? Was he...dead????

But no. Yesterday Cat announced, "Tyler is alive and well." TV back on, life is normal.

Maybe one day we'll see what Tyler looks like.

If we do, I'll try to take a picture. It'll be on the level of Loch Ness Monster or Abominable Snowman sightings. Internet craze. Insanity.

Stay tuned.

Life without a car

An overarching theme of my experience here at Michigan is walking. I did not have a car my first year, and I do not have a car this year either. (Last year my roommates had cars, so I could steal theirs for a few hours - awesome!) Coming from lovely SoCal, where cars rule the universe, it is an adjustment to the non-car life.

Don't get me wrong - I love walking. It is gorgeous here with all the green trees, the river running through campus, the old buildings. And when I get my bike from Abby, it is even more awesome to bike through the town, too! (My bud Abby has been kind enough to let me borrow a bike from her the last two summers. So amazing.)

Walking does have its drawbacks when you are running errands. For example, two years ago I bought a printer and carried it back to my dorm. As I lugged a huge box, a car drove by me and honked, the occupants laughing. "Don't laugh at me!" I thought. "Give me a ride!"

Or today. It's really hot right now, and it's hard for me to work when it's so hot. So I decided to buy a fan. Of course, Rite Aid didn't have cute little fans - they only had the 20 inch box fan. So, I bought it, and lugged it back to the dorm. Some random guy on a bike said, "So, you had to buy a fan, huh? It's hot today!" Right, buddy. Thanks.

I am all for green environment stuff and not polluting the earth. But man, I miss my car.

It's hot and I'm unmotivated.

That's it really. Happy 4th. At some point, I may get to see some fireworks. Not really sure how it's all going to turn out.

It's hot. 90, and 50% humidity.

Woo.

Pretty exciting, huh?

Guess I should go back to working now.

By the way, the movie "No Reservations" with Catherine Zeta-Jones was originally a German movie called "Mostly Martha." So far, it seems to be EXACTLY the same, but in German. Interesting...

Okay. Work.

Yes, I know I said that...

...okay, I'm sorry, I haven't written since Monday even though I promised I would. I do have an excuse, I promise!

This week I started taking classes at MSU. I am taking Analysis of Musical Scores, which meets Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday from 1-3. This week I also took (am taking?) a Jazz Pedagogy Class. It meets (met?) from 9am to 6pm, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. (interestingly, at UCLA they abbreviated Thursday on class schedules with an R - so Tuesday/Thursday classes were TR on the schedule. I like this. But I digress...)

Thinking that I would have to miss my analysis class, I told the professor Tuesday. But I went to jazz on Wednesday, and discovered that they had scheduled a lunch break for jazz from 12:30-3:30, so myself and another student could go to our analysis class! Oh...

So Wednesday and Thursday I had to RUN to the student union, inhale a piece of pizza, run back (on Wednesday I had to make copies of the pieces we were analyzing), run up 4 flights of stairs, and have analysis class for 2 hours. Then I get out of class, sit for half an hour, and take jazz for another 2.5 hours.

I am exhausted.

Thankfully, it's just this week that it's like this. During week 4, I have a conducting class that meets MTWR (see what I did there?), but it's only from 3:40-6:20. So that shouldn't be too bad.

In other news, studying for my comprehensive exam (henceforth referred to as "comps") is hard.

Okay.

I will try to write more this weekend.

Forgive my school-induced flakiness.

And...I'm back

In Michigan.

Two summers ago, I began this blog with the full intention of "writing something every day now that I am living in a new state and it's just so exciting!"

Then, when I got back to SoCal, I kind of kept it up.

Then all sorts of life happened.

I went back last summer, fully planning on blogging, and instead killed myself reading and writing papers.

Then, I got married. Planning a wedding is time consuming.

Now, I'm back. Last summer. In 6 weeks, I will have a masters degree. It's really quite awesome. Not to toot my own horn, but I have been working very hard, and I am exhausted.

Three new things this summer (2 neg, 1 pos):

I have a husband - who (whom?) I left home. He is not here. Although this is only my second day back, it is very difficult to be apart from each other. We are struggling. Being newlyweds, I get this. Many of my friends say, "Wow, I can't even imagine doing that." Others say, "It's only 6 weeks! No big deal!" Yeah. We'll see.

I am really burnt out. Very difficult year - possible loss of job, planning above wedding (which is joyful but stressful), various ailments (food poisoning at school - fantastic), etc, combined with a hellish grad program last summer makes for tired Liz. I love it here, but man, working? Not so excited.

One good thing - I have a suitemate! Her name is Cat, and we went to UCLA together for our undergrad. She is awesome. :) It's nice, because when I lived in this same dorm 2 years ago, I didn't know anybody. I spent a lot of time on Netflix, Hulu, and Facebook. Now, I have someone to eat meals with. Yay! :)

Okay, peeps. I know, it's a lot of complaining. I need to work on my bitterness. That's one of my summer goals. Check up on me - see how I'm doing.

I'll try to write a little every day. Bear with me.

Love to you all.

Married life

So, as of today, I've been married for one month. Wow. It actually seems longer than that. Since I am so wise in the ways of marriage, I thought I'd share some of my insights:

-I can TOTALLY understand why married couples become hermits. It's just so nice to see your husband all the time - you want to see your husband ALL THE TIME. Is this a good thing? Yes...and no. I want to see my friends too, as does Kevin. We're working on it.

-Having shows you can watch together is so fun. Too bad our favorite ones are either ending (LOST, sigh...) or probably being yanked (Flash Forward, anyone?)

-It is way fun to host dinner parties using your fine china! Hopefully we'll keep doing this for a while.

-Organizing a house can be quite stressful. Multiple fights over random things.

-Garage sales are the best! We sold all our old pots and pans, cups, dishes, etc, and made $150 - plus we got rid of everything else by taking it to the Salvation Army. AWESOME! More space, cash, and helping others, sweet!

-Kevin puts me first. All the time. I hope I can do the same for him.

-There is a lot you have to do to change your name! I haven't even changed my email address yet...

I'm sure there are more insights. But it's only been a month. :)

Random tidbits for those who can't stand it anymore

I need to post about my wedding. And about my honeymoon. And married life. I know. Somehow, everything's got away from me - even though I am WAY less stressed than before the wedding. I do not miss deciding on linen colors and paper thickness at ALL.

Some random things:

-Wedding day was great! The only problems we had were quite small, no biggies at all (example: the site coordinator saying, "Oh, honey, you look tired!" right before we did the Grand Entrance. Who says that to the bride??) We had a great time, it was a blast. It went so quickly! Sometimes I can't totally remember who was there. But yeah, it was a great time.

-Our honeymoon was perfect - completely relaxing, lots of good food. We ate lots of cheese and did lots of wine tasting. Beautiful place. Check out my facebook page for pictures.

-Being married is a lot of fun! It's also difficult. Most of the time, I just want to spend time with Kevin - all the time! But yes, there are difficulties. That doesn't mean I would go back - no way, no how. I love being married. :)

Okay, that's it for now. I'll try to write more, sometime. Concert season is coming - that means Liz goes crazy. :)

Love you all!