one more miracle

Today I spent a lovely Sunday afternoon at the outlets with my roomies! I didn't plan on buying much (lol) but came away with this ridiculous haul:

• Shirt from Banana Republic ($11)
  
• Henley from Old Navy ($12)
  
• Deep purple peacoat from Anne Klein ($99 down from $280, oh my god)
  
• Two pairs of jeans from Aeropostale that actually FIT ($42 on a buy-one-get-one-free deal)
  
• Three bras from Bali ($45)
  
• Five bags of cookies from Pepperidge Farms ($10)

SO BASICALLY I WOULD CALL THAT A WIN. The purple peacoat in particular I am soooooo excited about - it's mid thigh length, with this beautiful tiered collar and a belt and UGH I LOVE IT. :') I was sort of idly wanting a new peacoat because mine is all tattered, but when I put this one on I just fell in love. And how can you argue with that price?

Besides being an entirely successful shopping spree, it was just a lovely day with my girls! The weather was SO BEYOND PERFECT, mid 60s with cotton ball clouds and sunshine, and I loved it to pieces. My roomies were chilly but it was just ideal for me. :) And speaking of roomies, I have two new ones! Our two public health roomies moved out, leaving me, Emily and Nichole, so we chose new roomies over the summer and I must say that once again we hit the jackpot. Alex is starting law school with the intent of working in international conflict resolution. She just finished a masters program in BRUSSELS and once spent a semester in Ireland, omg! AND SHE LOVES ALL THINGS JOSS WHEDON, I MEAN WHAT, HOW IS SHE SO PERFECT. HER FAVORITE CHARACTER IS FAITH!!!! She's beautiful and funny and smart and giggly and assertive and I might have a little girlcrush, LOL. But I really love hanging out with her. And Kortni just graduated from UM and is now working in the UM hospital as a research assistant for a neuropsych prof. She's tall and funny and a little absurdist sometimes - she spent our walk home from drinks tonight PRETENDING TO BE A PTERODACTYL, ahahahaha, Emily and I almost broke something laughing. So obviously she's super fun to have around. :D Basically it's an awesome mix of personalities again and I'm so happy! I love having a fun house of roommates, but also my own awesome room so I can retreat whenever I need to.

Hey, look at me, doing a daily update! I'm going to try to get back into the swing of this because it was SO nice to have LJ comments in my inbox again. I promise it won't be all fussball all the time. *g*

In work related news, I have been.... really stressed out and in a bad place recently. Nothing seems to work at all anymore, and I have a research plan to write from my boss and I'm having a hard time with it, and I read some things in the literature that make me seriously doubt my hypothesis, and I've been seriously doubting whether I even want to be a scientist, and etc etc etc. I honestly think that coming for my PhD was kind of the easy way out of an otherwise grueling job search, but I've never been able to envision myself as a bench scientist or a professor in the long term. I'm not sure what I DO see myself as though, is the problem. I've been looking at all kinds of alternative types of employment, but in the meantime, I've still got 4 years of research to do. I really hope I can find the heart to see me through it. I'm sure I'll feel a bit better once SOME experiments start going well again.

...that's it! I should probably go to sleep!

I joined a local indoor soccer league! And we had our first game last night! \o/

As SOME of you may have noticed, I caught a bit of the soccer bug during this here World Cup. :) It has always been far and away my favorite sport, both to play and watch, but this World Cup was a really exciting kick in the pants and revived my interest in a very real way. I played soccer in high school - varsity for four years - and it's one of my favorite parts of my childhood. I haven't played since then though (five years) and I miss it a lot. So I got the idea to join a league, and I'm so glad I did!

I was really nervous because it's co-ed and my team is mostly dudes. I also had no idea what skill level the league would be at, even though it's called "recreational". Well, as it turned out, I was on a team at a similar level as me - had played in high school but not much since then. But we were up against people who obviously play competitively on a regular basis - they were so good, holy crap. (One guy reminded me strongly of Connor from Angel - with the lanky and the haircut and the MOVING FREAKILY FAST.) So it was a pretty intense and fast-paced game, which I don't think any of us expected. We lost 8-0, haha. I still had a lot of fun though, and WOW was it good to get my foot on a soccer ball again! I even loved putting on shinguards and soccer socks and indoor soccer shoes - so many memories just came rushing back, and it was amazing feeling.

The main problem was that I am so out of shape. I'm terrible at exercising for the hell of it and have only been in shape when I participated in organized team sports. As a result, I was huffing and puffing within 10 minutes, dripping sweat and actually a little dizzy. It was not so awesome. :((( One problem was that our team had only 3 girls and the rule is that 2 girls need to be on the field at all times for fairness' sake, so we actually ended up working harder! I did get to play defense though, which is my faaaaavorite position (one of the many many reasons Philipp Lahm is my VERY FAVORITE). I didn't play as well as I would have liked, mostly because I was so out of gas and just could not go everywhere I wanted to, but I was pleased to find that I still had a pretty good instinct for the game, and a decent touch on the ball. By the end of the game I had gotten more of a sense for things and was even making good passes. My roommate Emily came to cheer me on (♥) and one guy on my team got injured so he was next to her on the bleachers; she said he was grumbling about how our team was playing, but that about me he said "She just needs to loosen up." That made me smile, because he saw potential in me! In my first game in 5 years! Yay!

One awesome thing about playing co-ed is that you get to play with hot dudes. :D Case in point: our goalie looked like IKER CASILLAS (Spain's goalie). Not as devastatingly attractive, of course, but still very cute. He even played amazingly even though he'd never played in goal before - he's the only reason the score wasn't 15-0! AND we had a midfielder who looked like ARNE FRIEDRICH, my daaaarling, so I was very charmed by that as well. They were for the most part nice dudes, if a little dismissive of the gals, but a couple of them were really sweet and I think it'll be a fun team to play on. A bunch of them already know each other so it's a little hard to break into that, but I think I might be able to. We'll see! We have one game a week for 8 weeks. Should be a good time.

OH AND WE PLAYED WITH A JABULANI! Hee! I don't think we got it up to 40 mph, so I didn't see the beach ball effect, but I was so pleased to be playing with one. :D

Another funny thing about all this is that when I went shopping for soccer gear, all I could buy was Adidas! I mean, I've always been an Adidas fan - in high school my socks, shinguards, and cleats were almost always Adidas just because I think the three stripes is such an elegant design, and they're good quality - but this time I was like "My Germany bbs looked so good in it, must have!" *facepalm foreverrr* I can't believe branding worked on me, oh my god. /o\

SPEAKING OF GERMANY CLOTHING, I bought myself a Lahm away (black) World Cup jersey!! *happy dances* Number 16 baby! I hilariously bought it as a replica from some random person in Thailand on eBay, so it was only $6 plus $21 shipping, which is kiiind of awesome. They had a lot of good reviews on similar jerseys so I'm hopeful that it'll look fantastic! I CAN'T WAIT to represent my bb captain! \o/

The worst consequence of launching back into things is that my back hurts like a MOTHERFUCKER. I permanently damaged my back in high school when I tried to dead lift a stupid amount of weight (the chiropractor x-rayed me and one of my vertebrae isn't properly in line anymore /o\) so I've had chronic lower back issues for years. Even just sitting still for an extended period of time is uncomfortable - at the movies I have to continually shift my angle because my back starts to hurt. :( So you can imagine that doing a twisty, physical activity for the first time in a long time might have done a number on my back. Aaand it did. I have felt like an old lady today. D: You know how you have to lift boxes with your knees, not your back? Well I have to lift my OWN weight with my knees now, hahahasob. It's not cool at all. The rest of me is a more pleasant ache, a lot less than I expected actually. But I might have to look into a chiropractor if I want to continue playing soccer.

There was one really nice guy named Andre that I liked a lot. He said he plays with another group and that it's NEVER this intense! I actually ran into him today at lunch because he has a class near my work, and he invited me to come to practices with his league, because they're just fun and lowkey. I think that sounds fantastic and will probably take him up on it! Good times, good times.

All in all, I'm really really glad I did it! Something about playing soccer just feels right. I hope now that I've taken the plunge, this will be something I genuinely take up as a hobby. This could very well motivate me to get in shape again, and perhaps eventually I could really play on a team again. Fingers crossed!

♥

I totally have a new favorite spot in Ann Arbor! It's this brand new coffee shop called Lab (so I'm obligated to love it, right?). It's only 6 blocks from my house. They serve INTELLIGENTSIA COFFEE! :D :D It's all light wood furniture and total hipster coffee bar, and they have this AMAZING frozen yogurt. I had the green apple flavor - delicious! - topped with fresh kiwi, mango, strawberries, and granola. Unffff. Plus a mug of delicious, delicious coffee. And I had a great chat with the very cute German barista (baristo?) who just got his Masters here at Michigan. I am deeply charmed by this place and plan to make it a regular hangout spot. I'm even getting work done! Amazing! :D

Thanks for all your super sweet comments on my latest posts. I haven't had time to reply, but I appreciate them all a lot! Today I moved into my apartment, YAY!!!!! I am really, really happy with everything. My room is big and high ceilinged and lovely. My new furniture is truly fabulous, I will share photos when I have everything unpacked and pretty. And my roommates are so lovely!!! We all hung out and went for a walk and had dinner today, and it was just so nice! There's a bit of variety in personality, but as far as overall type of person goes, we all mesh very well. (Interesting common point: none of us are in a relationship, and all seem to be a bit awkward in that way. Which is perfect!) I like everyone! Which is kind of a miracle with five random girls thrown together! I'm so pleased and giddy about it. :DDDD

Unfortunately I haven't been able to appreciate as much as I'd like, because I have a presentation to give tomorrow morning, bright and early! Bah. I've been working on it for a couple weeks but there was a big chunk I was stuck on, so I finally had to grind it out tonight. My shoulders are killing me from typing and sitting for hours, but I think it's done (well, as done as it's going to get) and I'm finally going to bed! (As soon as I get sheets on the bed...)

So that's today's kamikaze update! ♥