Well, lots of transitions.  Car accident late December.  Got another vehicle a week ago.  Don't know what will happen with the job situation.  Might have to suck it up, stay in the NH area to afford rent, and apply at spas or something for part-time work, and keep the office job for guaranteed, albeit minuscule, income.

Thank God I had the GAP insurance.

Need to find a place to live.

Want to live with Nellie, but not with her cats.  Is it fair to get a 2br/2ba and let her cats only in her bedroom and bathroom after they've been used to roaming in a kitchen, living/dining room, 2 bedrooms, and bathroom?  Not so much.  Is it fair for her to give them up?  Not so much.  Is it fair for me to have ridiculous allergies and asthma?  Not so much.  But it sure would be nice to split rent with a close friend.  :)

Went to Park City today.  Went into a really wonderful bookstore, bought "The Invitation" by Oriah Mountain Dreamer as well as a translation of the Hua Hu Ching.  Wanted to buy "Energy Anatomy", but they only had it on CD.  I wanted the book....  Some other time.  Very tempted to get some books on crystals and other energy balancing, but this was enough for now.

A small gift shop had a few Folkmanis puppets and I thought of Derek.  The Galapagos Tortoise was really cool.  I wonder if he's seen that puppet.

We ate at Zoom, Robert Redford's restaurant.  It was really yummy.  Mom and I each had a glass of Riesling, and then I got an angel hair pasta with tomato, basil, garlic, and fresh mozzarella as well as a side of grilled asparagus.  Mom ordered an asiago-crusted halibut sandwich that came with a homemade coleslaw and fries.  We ended up splitting the asparagus and fries.

We'll depart for southern Utah tomorrow.  Don't know where we're heading first.  I think we'll be staying in the western side of the state.  Hope to see Brian Head, Bryce Canyon, and Zion parks within Sunday-Tuesday.  Wednesday we'll stay at Cedar City's Shakespearean Festival most of the day.  Twelfth Night at 2 and King Lear at 8.  Drive back up to SLC on Thursday for my graduation, fly to Chicago on Friday.

I'm excited for graduation.  Upset that Tricia won't be there, but looking forward to the ceremony.  I guess I'm getting the awards for both perfect attendance and academic excellence.  Who knew I could get a 4.0 the entire time I was in school?!?  I'm still pretty stunned.

Went to Thanksgiving Point with Sheila yesterday.  Sam was supposed to have come with us, but she ended up getting stuck in Ogden for the weekend.  So.  It was just the two of us.  We went in a bunch of gift shops, sampled fudge, and saw people making glass in the art center.  It was awesome - I LOVE art glass, and we got to see the artists blowing the glass, shaping it, all that.  I said to Sheila "I bet they could use a lot of antebrachial work."  We could see the flexors and extensors in their forearms with every movement.  With all the turning of the rods, I imagine their pronators and supinators especially could use an ice massage by the end of the day.  I mean, we were a good 20 feet away from them, behind a glass wall, and the main artist especially had hairy arms.  To see the detailed movements of those muscles from that distance was pretty neat.  I wished I had brought some lotion to do a quick antebrachial (forearm) session on each of them.    True bodywork nerd right here.  But it really just made my vision seem that much clearer.  I really do want to work on artists.  Dancers, musicians, actors, lighting technicians, scene and prop creators, visual artists, etc. 

Then we went to Thanksgiving Point's Farm Country....  Walking there, I could smell cow manure.  And felt perfectly content.  At home.  God, I miss that smell.    We fed a donkey and some goats.  Got to pet a bunch of cows, horses (including a clydesdale), goats, and the donkey.  Saw turkeys, sheep, ducks, chickens, and the llamas.  I told Sheila about the llama llama duck song.  The little calves were so fricking cute.  I started to miss Annabelle, Buster, Fritz, and Gunther (some of the cows Nikki and Dan have had), but especially Fritz and Gunther because I got to bottle feed them.    And one of the calves just kept laying down while I petted it.  But it kept its head up.  So I was petting it, and said to Sheila "Come look at this one's nuchal ligament!  It's huge!"  (Yep, I'm an anatomy nerd.)  So she came over and felt the back of its neck, grabbed hold of the ligament, and was pretty impressed herself.  Then she had to sink her fingers in between its ribs and was like "Wow, you can really get into its intercostals, too!"  (The intercostal muscles would be the meat you eat when you eat BBQ ribs, fyi.  "Costal" means "rib", so "intercostal" obviously means "between the ribs".  And yes, it's pretty hard to justify being anything but vegetarian after being to anatomy lab and all.  I digress.)  So.  Big nerds in Farm Country.

Then we went to the Thanksgiving Point Gardens.  I got some pretty neat pictures that I put into an album.  Got to see a bee pollinating a flower right where I was posing to get a picture taken.  Amazing.    Seriously, check out the Thanksgiving Point album.  I also got some nice pictures of the waterfalls and the water lilies in the Monet garden.

Five days of class left.    Two finals this week that I'm not worried about.  Three next week that I'm pretty worried about.  Okay, so I know I'll pass all of my classes.  That's not my concern.  My concern is exactly what grade I'll get in Myokinetics, Kinesiology, and Functional Assessment.  Coming into the Master Program, I wasn't expecting to get a 4.0.  But I feel as though it might be a possibility.  And then if I screw it up right at the end, I'll be upset with myself.  I hate that I'm that way.  Also nervous to take the National Exam.  I had originally wanted to take it this weekend.  But knew I wouldn't be prepared.  So I'll be taking it hopefully by the beginning of September in WI.  Anxiety sucks.  But only a week and a half before my mom comes out!  Yay!  And less than three weeks until I'll be back in Wisconsin, smelling all the manure I can handle! 

Currently Listening When The Pawn... By Fiona Apple see related

So.  Officially half way through the Master program.  *sigh*  We had a final already, on Wednesday.  Advanced Cranial Sacral.  I kicked ass.  50 (out of 50) on the written, 100 on the hands-on.  Still need to hear how I did on my protocol (worth the last 50 points), but when I had Jeremy look at my rough draft, he said it was one of the better ones he'd seen; all I should change is bolding the technique names so he could follow it more easily, as I had presented it in paper form rather than bullets.  So, I'm not worried about that grade.  Even if I only get a 30/50, that's still 180/200, or a 90% for the course, which is an A.  And by his reaction to what I'd written, I'm sure I'll get at least a 40 or 45.  Crazy how a week and a half ago I still hadn't felt the cranial rhythm and was freaking out over the class because I felt as thought I didn't understand any of it.  And as soon as I felt the cranial rhythm, things fell into place.  What an amazing feeling it was last Thursday, feeling it for the first time - a wonderfully humbling experience.  I love those.  They're incredible. 

Still don't know what kind of environment I want to enter for massage.  Really want to work in a wellness center, a fitness center, a medical/rehabilitation clinic, maybe even a spa now that I'm in Hydrostone and really enjoying it....  Eventually private practice and arts company, but that won't be happening for maybe ten years.  I want to go to England for a year or two before I start my own practice.  Mike wants me to stick around and TA for him for a few classes, Lisa's asked me if I was staying in the area so I can come on as a permanent TA after graduation, and Kathy told me I should start teaching it right away, too.  It's really nice that Lisa (education manager) and Mike and Kathy (the two instructors for whom I TA) believe in me and how I affect the classroom.  But there's no way I can stay in SLC for more than a month.  I'm just getting so sick of the puritanism and feel offended at so many comments I hear on a daily basis.

On Wednesday, Ivan, my Czech Functional Assessment instructor, started talking about the debate on same sex marriage.  I held my breath (this man wrote our Injury Massage class and I loved it; he designed our Functional program and I'm learning a lot and think he's brilliant and a riot in the classroom), hoping I wouldn't be changing my opinion of him if he got all conservative on us all of a sudden.  (Yes, I know.  I get judgemental of judgemental people, and I'm trying to rectify that character flaw....  )  Anyway, he said "So there's a big debate going on about same sex marriage.  But you know, I think it's okay.  Because when you get married, it's the same sex anyway."  We thought that was pretty funny and someone asked him if he knew from experience and he puffed out his chest and said "Nah, you never get bored with me!"  Oh my God, I love that man. 

Sam (my fellow penguin lover) and I saw 'Surf's Up' on Wednesday night.  I loved it.  I didn't have very high expectations going into it, thinking it was just made to pacify people's newfound interest in pengies since 'Happy Feet' and that it really wouldn't be that interesting.  LOVED the mockumentary format and the older "footage" with the pinking and yellowing "film" with the crackly lines going through it.  I thought it was a really clever concept.  And was excited to talk about it with Fratto (Mike, the instructor who I TA Sports for) last night, as he'd seen it a few weeks ago.  So I told him I saw it and asked what he thought.  He said he thought it was slow-moving and that even his six-year old son found it boring!  WTF?!?    Like, did they NOT get the humor that was there from the beginning?  All the ancient water art with penguins on surfboards added?  Maybe they were expecting 90 minutes of surfing, but that would have left the story empty.  I guess the problem was they were expecting it to be really entertaining, and I had zero expectations for it.  That really does make a difference.  (Speaking of mockumentaries, does anyone else absolutely LOVE 'Best in Show'???)  Also was very excited that Chicken Joe was from Sheboygan.  Told Sam and Mike that's like  40 minutes away from my hometown.  Word.