Four

- The number of hours of sleep I have been getting on average
- The number of rainstorms I have driven through this week
- The number of primetime TV shows I have missed in order to study for exams
- The number of days until Erin Tracy will be in Columbia :)


This week has/will be a week of fours, but now that I have my two exams over with I am taking a sigh of relief...however it is short-lived. I still have a presentation, a quiz, and a paper standing in the way between me and my best friend being reunited. I am more excited than words can express! I have not seen Erin in almost 2 months, which is so hard to believe!

Speaking of fours.....Erin and I have also have our fair share of fours:

- Erin and I have been to four graduations together
- Erin and I both lived in Tucker for four years
- Erin and I together have spent 4 years in graduate school
- The distance between me (Columbia) and Erin (Raleigh) is four hours


So here is to getting through the next four days and making it out alive.

Collection of our four graduations:

Erin's Graduation from Undergrad (2007)

My Graduation from Undergrad (2009)

Erin's Graduation from Grad School (2009)

My Graduation from Grad School (2011)

...and my four favorite pictures of us :)

Go Pack!

Fountain Frollicing

Battle of the Beach

Nom Nom Nom

I’ve thought about nothing else for four years but this school, this big important school with all of its history and tradition....

Homesick and Stressed: My Two Middle Names

This last week has been hard. I feel so lonely, so out of place, and so stressed about everything that is going on. Why did I think staying is school for 8 years was a good idea? I really should have taken some time off.

All I do all the time is cry, and during this time of hysterical crying, I realize how difficult it must be to be my friend/boyfriend/family. I am nothing but a ball of stress all the time. I really think I would hate to be around myself sometimes. Yet, I have the most amazing group of people that deal with me on a regular basis in my times of crying, complaining, worrying, and stress and somehow they still want to be around me. I am sure they will all eventually form a support group: "Dealing with Ginger: The First Steps". I could not be more grateful to have them in my lives, I would not be able to make it through these times without them.

The next two weeks of school are going to be hell. I have a presentation tomorrow and an exam on Wednesday. The following week consists of an exam on Monday, presentation on Wednesday and a paper due on Thursday.  I have pretty much kissed goodbye any free time I might have, but I am looking forward to it all being over, which will be in less than two weeks.

This past week, when I was on Skype with Jared, I told him that I wanted to just drop out of school, buy a pony and run away with it. Silly I know, but it was a serious consideration for a while. A couple of days later, I find that I have a package at the front office. I am thinking to myself "What did I order?" On my way to Cassie's to study I swung by the complex and picked up the package to find that it is a stuffed pink pony.

WTF with this pony?

The next hour consisted of me calling my parents asking about the pony, looking at my bank statements making sure I did not accidentally buy the pony, texting my friends about the pony and of course calling Jared.
Jared then reminded me of our conversation about how I wanted to have a pony to run away with so now I did :)

Panic Pony

I have decided to call her Panic Pony (although I need a real name for her....suggestions?) and she is the perfect reminder of how much I am loved and thought of while I am alone down here in South Carolina. I know that it will get easier, and I am getting better day by day but going through these tough times alone make me realize how much my friends and family mean to me.

My mother and sister came down around 6:30pm last night because they knew I needed to see a friendly face.  It was so wonderful to see them, but it hurts so much at the same time.

However, in true South Carolina fashion, something went wrong when we went out to dinner. We had dinner at Red Lobster and just as we were ordering our drinks, two men from the kitchen ran outside and started attacking each other right outside our window. I mean full on attack. Next thing you know, all of the employees of the restaurant run outside to pull them off of each other. I have never seen anything like that before. The police were called and they were arrested. Needless to say it was a great way to say "look at where I live Mom, totally safe"

Now that I have wasted some time updating you on what has been happening, I need to finish my presentation for tomorrow. I am really excited about it and I hope everything goes well :)

All I could think of the minute you left was "I want my mommy." I haven't thought that since I was two!

A Lucky Seven Birthday

So its official, one of us is a year older and of course we needed to celebrate in Lucky Seven fashion.  The most epic part of all of this was that it was a surprise party....that was rescheduled three times, or more, I lost count.

Cassie turned the big 2-3, which makes me feel older by the minute.  In our not so subtle fashion we asked her questions about her favorite foods, Bath and Body Works scents and slipped money to Darcy during class for cake/flowers/card.  Luckily however, Cassie was completely surprised!!

Thanks to the suggestion of Stephen, we went to a local Italian restaurant called Pasta Fresca which was super delicious. We all met at the restaurant around 6:30pm (minus Cassie and Jade, plus wives and husbands) and sat around anxiously waiting for them to arrive. Ever notice how much longer it takes when you are waiting for something exciting, but when you have something that you are dreading (test/presentation) the weeks quickly approach making it impossible for you to be well prepared. Just me? Moving on....


Around 7pm, we got the text that "the eagle has landed". Jade and Kim schemed up a plan to get Cassie to the restaurant and thanks to their clever idea to "eat at a local restaurant to become a true Columbia-n", Jade brought Cassie to the restaurant and we all yelled "SURPRISE!" After the shocked look and a smile, Cassie sat at the head of the table and opened her present and card. After several failed attempts at ordering, we finally ordered and discussed non genetic counseling things....for most of the dinner anyway.

When dinner was complete, there was cake, chocolate and yummy!

Cassie with her cake :)

Stephen and his wife (how cute are they? they should get married)

Kim and John :)

Darcy and the Hubs

Cassie, Ginger, Jade: Now known collectively as CGJ...I will work on it

Lucky 7 plus 2 = Family :)

After the celebration, John invited us over to his house for beer are board games (a fantastic combination in my book). Stephen and his wife, Kim, Cassie and I headed over and played Apples to Apples. Stephen kicked our ass but it was awesome as always.

Then John, Kim, Cassie and I played a game called Tichu (click on the link to read all about it). It is a partner game and unfortunately there was only one John, but Kim and I held our own. After much confusion and many hypothetical situations we had a semi-successful go at it. Moral of the story: those dogs constantly haunted me.

Overall, a wonderful time had by all. Now to make some dinner and get back to the grind

Why am I being mocked on my birthday?

Laboring on Labor Day

Awesome thing about not having class on Tuesday, means that I have a four day weekend. Bad thing about having a four day weekend, it makes it really hard to do any work. Procrastination: my new middle name.

As part of my procrastination, I thought I would update about this past weekend with Jared :) I was so happy to see him, it has been about a month. He arrived on Friday night and it was just so nice having him here. After living together for a year, I just miss having him around, it was almost as if nothing had changed, we fell back into our normal routine. I miss that.  And of course Rory missed Jared too.

Snuggle Kitty

Saturday = college football, but the NCSU game and the USC game were on at 6pm so we went out to Village at Sandhill to walk around and shop. We started with lunch at Moes where they have this crazy awesome new drink machine. My classmate Cassie already told me about it but it is even better in person. It is a single dispenser drink machine that has a touch screen. You choose your base soda : Diet Coke and then it brings up all the different varieties: Lime, Raspberry, Cherry, Caffeine Free, etc. You then press dispense and your awesome drink is available. There was even a girl there to show you how to use it.

Read about it here

After lunch, we walked around including Rooms to Go (can I just tell you how much I want a house that I can decorate), World Market etc. After being there for a few hours we came back to the apartment and ordered wings and watched football. Lucky for us, the Wolfpack and the Gamecocks won :)

Yesterday was just a lazy day around the house, but we did go to Olive Garden for dinner thanks to a gift card from Randi and a coupon (I know, but remember ---> poor graduate student). All in all the weekend was wonderful, but reality hit and he had to leave this morning.

So here I am on Labor Day trying really hard to not be productive but I guess its inevitable. So back to reality, if you need me I will be curled up with my Medical Genetics textbook.


Ready to begin the journey? It's going to be one hell of a ride. Okay, let's go. Open up your workbook to page one.