Two busy weeks

I can't believe August is already almost upon us! This month has just flown by, thanks in part to a busy trip back to Omaha last week. Kept busy driving around town with a few follow-up meetings with the cake and flower vendors and the Marriott wedding coordinator. We still have a lot of little things to finish up but the big picture is really starting to come together :) I also went in for a hair "test drive" last Monday and was really excited with how it turned out. And after almost going crazy with trying to figure out if my dress was going to get into Omaha before I left, my mom and grandma and I were able to go to the fitting the day before I left. Glad to have checked off a lot of things on my to do list!

But thankfully the week in NE/IA wasn't all about work. I was so glad to have the chance to have some down time with the Brockmeier girls, my future mother and sisters-in-law. We spent an evening with pedicures, dinner, desserts, and wine while chatting about marriage and life. It was a great time and I am very thankful to be marrying in to such a wonderful family :)

Last Saturday was quite the busy day as well. After spending some time in the pool with my niece Sophia we headed over to my aunt Julie's house for my bridal shower. It was quite the party with both of my sisters, the bridesmaids and their moms, all my aunts, and a good number of extended family members as well! I got a lot of really nice gifts that I'll probably have to share with the groom (mostly because he'll be the one doing all the cooking!) and it was great to see so many friends and family all together.

After the bridal shower my sisters and cousin and I drove to my friend/bridesmaid Kim's house for the bachelorette party. It was good to see so many of my old Omaha friends and catch up with them before the wedding. I got some nice (and some interesting...) gifts and then we headed to a bar in Midtown for some German beers. And needless to say after over 12 hours of being at one party or another I was pretty tired!!

Now that we're only 34 days away from the wedding, we're doing our final round of wedding planning/assignments but I think we'll be in good shape come Sept 1st. I finally feel like everything is coming together and Austin has been a great helper even though he's halfway across the world. And only 3 and a half weeks until he comes back home :D

Happy 5 year dating anniversary!

Today Austin and I are both thinking about the past 5 years of being together. What a truly special time filled with so many happy memories of being young and in love :) Mr. Brockmeier is such a sweetheart that he even had some gorgeous flowers sent to me at work this week. And after 5 years of being together, he's remembered enough about me and knows that lillies are my favorite!

While it's hard being apart this summer, we have so much to look forward to come the end of the summer and so many chances for new adventures and experiences for both of us.

Here's to the past 5 years and many more to come!

Fellow adventurers

...just happened to be on their adventures one year apart! And maybe also standing on the opposite side of the building (can't tell the angle very well).

Ginkaku-ji (silver pavilion) in Kyoto, July 2011

Ginkaku-ji (silver pavilion) in Kyoto, July 2012

I guess great minds think (and travel) alike after all :)

Self-empowerment Sunday

Notice anything different about my bike? Yes, it is upside down, but that's not it. It has a NEW tube in the front tire! OK so you can't really see the tube from the outside, but still...

I've had my bike for over two years and this was the first time I'd ever changed the tube. I was a bit intimidated to try it out and always got a little nervous on long bike rides thinking about what I would do if I got a flat. When my front tire started giving me problems this weekend, I decided to learn how to take off the tire and check things out for myself instead of taking it to the shop. Thankfully it worked! The valve on the old tube was just bent so I swapped the old tube out for a new one and it's working fine now. Oh the little joys in life when you accomplish a simple task for the first time :)

And no, Austin, I did NOT even get any grease on the carpets. Amazing, I know, with my tendency of becoming somewhat of a greasy mess whenever I do stuff with my bike. 

Time to enjoy the rest of my Sunday evening. Finished the gospel of John today and will start on Acts this week. Amidst my summer of self-empowerment I'm also trying to learn more about how God's power can act in us and how He can make us better than we could ever make ourselves. But this sort of empowerment will likely take more time to understand than a Sunday afternoon tinkering around in my apartment!

A very moist June

After a very dry spring we are having a very wet summer here in Gainesville! On Sunday alone we got 9 inches of rain at the airport. Not sure of the current tally but we at least got another few inches over yesterday and today. Debby has apparently now made landfall and we are all hoping she moves on soon!

Here are some photos from our on-campus lake, Lake Alice, that I took this afternoon while we had a temporary break in the rain

This is looking toward the Baughman center. It used to be a raised area of the ground where people would stand and look at the alligators. Looks like it basically collapsed and is now all flat.

This is looking towards the area in the first photo. Usually there is a lot of room between the water and this bridge (probably at least 1.5-2 feet!)

And this bench is usually not surrounded by water!!

My lab has also been partially flooded the past two days (just a very small amount all on one side mostly) and my field work has also been postponed. So I will also be quite happy when Debby leaves! We did need this rain though, and walking around the lake area while everything was fresh and green was really nice :)

Two fast weeks

So far so good for my research stay in Japan. After an amazing week of orientation: lots of people to meet, great food to eat three times a day, wonderful host family experiences, and quite a bit of jogging, I am doing the research I came here to do.

I want to acknowledge the amazing job JSPS (Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science) has done on welcoming this group of young foreign researchers in open arms. In addition, they have taken care of living allowances so that we are constantly worried what exactly the prices of daily goods, such as the bath towel I bought for ¥1500, are in terms of our usual currencies.

To begin the rest of the story here in Japan, I plan to tell a few stories in terms of food. For a while I wanted to be part of a food blog, but I did not think my cooking was that interesting for documentation. Here in Japan, the sheer lack of language and difference in basic ingredients will make it an interesting if not exactly instructive perspective. I will try to document my meager attempts at bachelor cooking in Japan. Tonight I am making some food in the combination gas stove, microwave oven I have in my family style apartment. The buzzer just went off so the results may will come later.

Take nothing for granted. One observation I had is that changing the language settings in programs, specifically web browsers, is extremely difficult. It is a catch-22 to change the language settings: I don't understand the language so I want to change it, but since I don't understand the language I can't change it. This is also true on many websites that do not have a conveniently placed link.

Brockmeier-san

Since Austin's been busy with his JSPS orientation, I'm serving as his blog proxy for now. He made it to Narita late on Tuesday night Japan time (delays in Atlanta) and the next day went with about 100 other students from the US, the UK, France, Germany, and Canada to an orientation in the Haneda region (about an hour from Tokyo via bus). He said the weather's been nice and he had a nice view of Mt. Fuji (and I'm jealous because it was cloudy when I was there next year and I didn't get to see it!). He's enjoyed the Japanese classes so far and I think he wants to keep up practice and learning the language after orientation as well.

I know this weekend he's doing the home stay but beyond that I'm not really sure what he's been up to. I got a weird email with the subject line "Went to beach, gonna do a load of laundry." When I asked what that meant (mostly because I didn't know how he'd have time to hang out at the beach during the orientation) he said "The ocean, no beach just some rocks with local fisherman." So I really don't know what shenanigans he's been up to now...

He'll be at the orientation until Tuesday and then will go to his host institution to start working in his lab. I'll try to bug him for an update when he gets to RIKEN!