Great Friendly Events

This past weekend (Memorial Day Weekend) I ran a half marathon, which I will post about on a separate page, but was also able to meet up with one of my best friends, Carrie.  She was able to visit with her boyfriend, Justin.  I love both of them and am so happy that they met each other.  He is a filmmaker in New York and just put out the first trailer for his film and it looks really good.  I can't wait to watch the full film. 

I was also able to meet up with Carrie's family and they are so amazing.  They are funny and make you feel like a part of their family immediately.  Carrie's mom is one of those people who can just say whatever is on her mind (for better or worse haha) and I think she's hilarious.  Carrie's cousin, Brianna, is also awesome and we have hung out multiple times when Carrie has been in town.  And, of course, I was able to spend some time with Lily, Sam and Carrie's grandparents and Brianna's mom.  I am very thankful that her family doesn't mind me crashing their time to spend with her when she's in town.  :)

And they're all going to Budapest this summer and I can't wait to hear about all the fun times they have.  Very jealous!

Pepperdine

So . . . I applied to Pepperdine University for a doctoral program.  And I got in.  Yikes!

 I am excited to say that I will start my program this summer and will be thrust into a new education environment :)  I am definitely nervous but think that ultimately I will be very happy to have accomplished this goal.

I remember when I was going to MJC I looked into Pepperdine as a school to transfer to.  It quickly became clear to me that it was more of a pipe dream school rather than an actual school I could get into.  Therefore, it makes me still feel like this isn't a real thing that is happening since my 18-year-old self can't believe they let me in :)

In about two months I'll be freaking out about how hard it is - but right now I'm enjoying it haha.

New Books! [Again]

I started listening/reading to more books within the last few weeks and I'm so happy to announce that they have been really good and interesting books.

I listened to this one - A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald [mostly because the new Gatsby movies was coming out] and it, indeed, made me want to re-read The Great Gatsby.  It gave me a great idea of who Zelda was and how she inspired F. Scott Fitzgerald.

I also decided to check out the Redondo Beach Library and see what they had to offer - I found this Jodi Picoult book.  I don't typically read her books but this audio book was really good and a bit of a mystery.  I would recommend it to anyone.

This book, Into Thin Air, was recommended to me by my sister Lindy and her boyfriend Matt.  This is about a team that hiked to Mt. Everest and they didn't all make it down.  I'm listening to it and it's really good - a bit dry at first but it became very interesting and engaging.

My friend Carly recommended this book to me.  I just picked it up from the library yesterday and finished it tonight.  It was so good and I couldn't put it down.  So so so good.