1 week in...

I've been in Columbia, MO for a week now. Things are slowly starting to set in but there's still a lot of work to be done before I'm all set.

I met with my adviser of Friday to talk about my plan on study for this fall. She gave me a tentative list of courses for my program but I know I'm going to have to make a small change since two of my classes conflict. She seems really nice and is very willing to help me make the best of my next two years at Mizzou.

After meeting with my adviser I went and got my student ID and then Ben and I wandered around campus for a bit. I met some people in the Biological Sciences department so maybe getting my foot in the door and actually meeting them will help in me getting a job there. Speaking of a job...I still don't have one. I finally applied for a job at the hospital. It's not the one I want mainly because it's only 16 hours a week and in a lab (which would get boring) but right now it'd be better than what I have. I also applied at a bunch of retail stores around the city. If I get a job there I'll just keep it until something better opens up at the hospital.

We decided to take Portia to a different dog park on Friday. We took her off the leash right away and she actually seemed to warm up to some of the dogs. She was still very protective of us but only got in one barking match. Many of the people there said that if we keep taking her to the dog park she'll eventually be fine. That was very encouraging because it's kind of embarrassing when your dog is the only one freaking out. Hopefully that is the case because she loves being outside and I don't want to have to keep her on a lease all the time. She loves to just run around.

Here's a few pictures of Portia just chilling around the house. She's finally starting to play with the toys we bought her which is refreshing. Didn't want to have wasted that money!

Our weird dog playing around

She's very content playing with her bone!

Portia chilling on the couch after a long day

Our dog + Many other dogs = Not good

So we decided to take Portia to the dog park today to see how she'd interact with other dogs. There were quite a few large dogs there and almost no smaller dogs. One dog came up to her and she barked a bit so almost every one of the dogs came up and decided to sniff her. This sent her into a huge frenzy of barking which just agitated the dogs further and made them start jumping on her and Ben. We were finally able to get her on the other side of the fence (although we still had to walk through the park to get her out). We finally got her out of the dog area and we just decided to walk around and get some energy off.

During our walk, we found this beagle just wandering around. We thought she was wild but he just kind of stared at us and we saw he didn't have an owner around but had tags. Ben called the number on the tags and apparently the guy lived around the corner and both his dogs got out the day before. I kind of felt bad because the dog had a lesion on his hind leg but he seemed like he was a sweet dog. Portia was really tired after we got home (mission accomplished!!) so she's just been napping. Hopefully she is better the next time we go if there are smaller dogs there. We'll see....

Moved in, kind of

So I'm here. The drive down here wasn't that bad. We stopped 3 times (twice for bathroom and once for gas) and it took us about 7.5 hours. We were able to get the Uhaul unpacked and returned on Saturday night and then we went to Flat Branch Pub and Brewery for dinner. They make their own beer and root beer (which is really good!). After dinner we all came back to the house and started unpacking my stuff and putting things together. Haven't been able to finish my dresser since one of the drawers is cracked. Called them today and a new piece is on the way. Hopefully this one isn't cracked either.

Sunday morning my mom and dad left to go back to Wisconsin. It felt kind of weird being here all by myself (well, not really by myself, but you understand). This is the farthest I've lived from home ever. All through college I was able to just drive home for a day if needed. Now, I need to make a whole weekend out of it and drive 14-16 hours round trip. Yipee!

Now, the moment you've all been waiting for (mostly just mom): on Sunday afternoon Ben and I went to the Central Missouri Humane Society and adopted a dog. Her name is Portia and she's a Pug/Terrier mix. At first she was a little shy but she's slowly warming up to us which I hope continues. Here are some pictures of her first 3 days in the apartment with us (click on them to see a larger version).

Portia just chilling on the couch	On the way home from the humane society, totally not planned picture	Sleeping after her bath. She was a tad bit cold
Hanging out on the bed while we work on our computers	Puppy dog eyes, which don't work	Passed out after our long walk around the neighborhood

During the last two days I've been getting a hang of the city. So far I've figured out where the mall is (WOOT!). Took me forever to get my car registered down here. Apparently you have to pay personal property tax on cars so I had to go to the Assessor's Office to get a waiver since I didn't need to pay them this year. Then I also needed to get a safety inspection. Found out that one of my tires was pretty much falling apart and a lens cover was cracked. $175 later, I got my approval and then went to the licensing place to get my new plates. Glad to have that over with.
The only thing I really have left to do is get my insurance set up. My renters insurance is all set up. Just waiting for them to transfer my auto insurance over. Would've had it done today but they were having some issues so they're going to call when that's all ready.

I wish all of the stuff in my room would just put itself away and a map of the city would just imprint into my head (and a job would magically fall out of the sky!!!). That would make everything so much less stressful. I just know where the mall is which isn't very much of the city. Eventually Ben is going to take my farther downtown and show me around the campus and stuff. I've only seen it once and I don't remember where anything is.

Okay. Super long blog post. Need to go put some more stuff away. I might post some pictures of the apartment when I get all my stuff organized, but I'm not sure. Later all :)

Endings and Beginnings

Today was my last day of work at the student union at UW-Madison. It's the first job I've had for any long period of time where I got really close to my coworkers. Over the past 4 years at the union I've come to know a lot of the full time staff through my various positions and it was really sad to go around today and say goodbye to them all. I'll miss everyone dearly and have promised many people to visit sometime in the future.
Tonight I'm going out with friends from work. It's probably a bad idea and I'm going to regret it tomorrow when my mom calls at 8am saying they're on their way. But, bad decisions is what college is all about. I may have graduated, but I'm still a student so let the bad decisions flow! I probably won't drink a ton tonight though. I do have to be awake enough to help my parents tomorrow and I won't be able to actually sleep sleep until Sunday night. Nursing a hangover that long is not good. So, I'm going to avoid getting one.
Tomorrow is my last day in Madison. It's going to be so weird leaving the city I've lived in for the last 4 years. At the same time it's going to be really exciting to try something new. Packing my stuff up in Madison is going to be a pain, though. My street is under construction so getting the UHaul trailer to my apartment may prove to be interesting. I guess we'll just have to cross those bridges when we get to them.
Next post will be from Missouri. Yay!