Ah ... spring in Seattle

Believe it or not, it has snowed on and off for the past 4 days! Wednesday at about 7 pm, I was driving into Seattle, when I noticed what I thought was very wet snowflakes. The car temp said 39 degrees, so I figured it was just really big raindrops. By the time I got to Seattle, it was definitely snow. It reminded me of when we drove into Bush. Thankfully, when I came out to the car about 90 minutes later, there wasn't any snow on the roads, just heavy snow on the cars and grass. Sat night, it started snowing pretty hard. Big, fat, wet snowflakes, but enough for 2-3 inches on the deck. I took the above photo around 10:30 pm. The puppies didn't seem to like it much ...


Can I go inside now?


What the @&%$?

Chloe did seem to enjoy eating as much snow as possible today on our walk, though. She was smart enough not to eat any yellow snow. :-)

I hope you're having a great time! Please call me when you get a chance. I have a few questions about potential neuroscience/psychology things for the summer to run by you. OK, while that's true, I also just want to hear how you're doing! I don't care how much the phone call costs.

Love you! Miss you tons! Can't wait to see you in a few weeks!
Mom

Kassie Update XII

HI!
I'm updating again because I had such an awesome day yesterday!
Surely not as exciting as yours, but WHATEVER.

So Efrain's dorm organized a trip to Six Flags - Discovery Kingdom. It's awesome! It's got loads of rides PLUS it's partly a zoo!!!!


It was filled with Warner Brother characters :)
Look what Efrain won me!!! :D
And I conned him into a photobooth with me ;)

Hope you enjoyed that photo post! Miss you!


♥kassie

Kassie Update XI

Saturday March 22nd - 6:00pm

I KNOW I KNOW I'M THE WORST.
I KNOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW.
APOLOGIES, my dear.

I hope everything is going well with you.
That you are alive and whatnot.
especially that you are alive.
I need someone to keep me sane this summer, and I think you're the best candidate!
haha.


AUGH! I SAID I WAS SORRY!
Now shush so I can ramble.
♥

ok.
Right now I'm alone in the dorm because it's spring break still and Liz and Amanda aren't here...although I have no idea where they are.
Liz lives about an hour drive from here so maybe she's back home? Amanda could be dead in a gutter for all I know haha. Morbid?
I could call them, but then maybe they'd come back...I'm enjoying the room to myself. A lot.

Today Katee and this-other-girl-whose-name-I-don't-know were talking about rooming together in the fall and katee was like "oh that'd be cool, wouldn't it kassie?"
and I was all evasive, "um...can you even request roomates?"
Because I really hope to get a single for fall semester. Especially since Liz and Amanda are both leaving the dorm.

I figured out how to make podcasts!!!!!!!!!!
They're...interesting. The first one is just a few songs and my introducing them. Ryan and Gunner both say I have a good DJ voice! haha awesome.
Then over break ryan came over and we made a REALLY HORRID mock of a 40's detective show. It was sooo much fun to make! We only made two minutes worth, but it took two hours. It's embarassing, we're ashamed of it, but love it too much to be rid of it. haha.
Right now I'm working on another music one, and a hip-hop one. I don't know if I want to do like a "personal journal" style one....

Wanting more about Efrain I suppose?
Well pretty much we dated, I guess, nothing serious really at all. And then spring break came and I haven't heard from him at all. And I find I'm not really bummed about it, more confused. We became really good friends, and hung out almost every day. So I don't know what is going on, and I miss him a little, but not enough to do anything about it.
all things come to pass, I guess.

Rachael finally uploaded some pics from the summer on to facebook!!!
here's one of my favs:


This chica Danielle and I have become pretty close. She's one of Katee's roomates. So that's gouda.


Sunday March 23rd - 10:45am

So came to the shocking realization today that I have basically done zero work on my midterm projects. EEK!
So once I stop freaking out about it I will take a shower, go to the art store and get started on it all. Augh.

4:40pm
OMGGGG
So I totally went and showered and then went to Rite Aid because it was on the way to the art store BUT THE ART STORE WAS CLOSED. Silly me totally forgot about Easter being a legit holiday that people actually celebrate thus stores are closed. Augh.
So part of my group of ladies planned a brunch!! So at two we had a feast of french toast, eggs, fried rice, bacon, gritz, mini-omelettes, muffins and this potato-egg-corn pattie thing. It was sooo good! And since I didn't make anything I did the dishes!

Right now there's a big group in the tv room watching Bambi. I WAS doing homework then I decided to grab my laptop and procrastinate more.

At brunch Katee told me she saw Efrain yesterday. And I was like "Yeah?" and she said "Mhm. And he was wearing that hat again." And little blip inside of me went SQUEEEE but most of me went, "Yep, he would."

HA Now we're going to watch Cinderella. Awesome.

11:58pm
And then we watched Alice in Wonderland. Then Peter Pan. Then Monsters Inc and now Cars. WOOOOO! DISNEY!

TANGENT:
so a few weeks back I was at the movie theatre with Efrain. When he went up to buy his ticket I stayed in line and this woman next to me sort of mumbled but I didn't think it was to me...but then I kinda looked her way but not at her (at the movie times) and then she looked right at me and said very quietly, "Bitch, I asked, are you together?" (indicating Efrain). I was totally shocked. I looked at her and weighed my options. Chew her out for calling me a bitch versus or ignore her completely. In this two seconds I decided on giving her a solid "No." She was just so rude, my goodness. So that was quite the event haha.

Wow the TV room totally cleared out. Went from about twelve girls to four! Dayum.

Wow I'm up and I have class at 8:30 and I'm exhausted. and I'm not doing homework. and I would LOVE to go to bed, but my DVD is playing and quite frankly I don't trust everyone to return my DVD. hmm....


Wednesday March 26th - 3:45pm
HELLO!
I would have posted this sooner, but I wanted to show you what I'm working on for Color and Design!

gotta love it!

LIKE I LOVE YOU TO PIECES!


Thursday March 27th - 9:59am
HOLY CRAP
I FINISHED IT.
Ok so the Jim picture I posted is the main aspect of my Color and Design Portrait Midterm.
First we had to bring in a few images of people and posterize them. I brought in like 5 different pictures, mostly of my sister, but my teacher liked the one of Jim best (and not just for composition reasons, I'm sure ;)). So the first image I posted was the ROUGH DRAFT, where I had to finalize my colors.
Concerning the colors, you had to choose ones opposite on the color wheel and also desaturate them, light to dark. I decided to go from yellow-yellow-orange to violet-violet-blue. With yellow being my light to my purple being the dark.
So, the final image (not mounted at all though):

Also, we had to include a "value scale" shape. Basically the black to white represented in an isolated shape. I decided to do a post-it-note! But I totally failed the grayscale bit, totally messed that up.
OH WELL.
And my colors are off from my rough draft.
TOO LATE NOW.
and I messed up his eye! I'm not sure what happened!!! :(
anyway....
I thought I'd show you that!

miss you!!!

-kassie

Cherry trees are blossoming ...

Spring is finally arriving! Although it's been colder the past week or so than the second half of February, flowers are bloomin and trees are blossoming. Daffadils and tulips are out, and the trees along NE 8th should be at their peak in a week or so. I'll try to get some pictures and post here.

Puppies are doing great! They got to visit with Lucy and her mom today (Lucy is the adorable little girl up the street), met up with Lily and Maisy (the dachsunds) across the street and an older dog from the street below (she's 15, really pretty -- black and white shiny fur). Pooka kept barking and lunging at the older dog, as if to say "back off, bitch (ya know, female dog ...), I'm the old lady of the neighborhood". :-) Then, when we got home, someone came by to give an estimate on painting the house. She gave the puppies lots of attention and said she'd bring treats next time. A new best friend. (She graduated from Interlake a few years ago -- nice girl). Emma has refrained from laying completely on top of anyone lately, but hasn't worried at all about plopping part of her walrus-like body on top of everyone at some point the past week. :-)

I finished ready The Alchemist. I really liked it. There were definitely lines to highlight. I want to buy my own copy and read again. Haven't started The House of Spirits, and still waiting for My Traitor's Heart from the library (I know -- that assignment is WAY past due. :-)

I just saw the forecast for tomorrow -- sunny with a high of 87, "low" of 77. I'm so jealous! I hope you're having a great time, and get in some good snorkeling. Don't forget to buy an underwater camera! And, remember to write in your journal!

Love you to the Galapagos Islands and back! Mom

A few more interesting brain facts ...

From the book "Welcome to Your Brain", a book that addresses a variety of myths about the human mind (sounds interesting, might have to get it and bring it with me to Peru):

• Working out feeds oxygen and glucose to your neurons and helps prevent the brain from shrinking with age (memory decline can begin as early as age 30 -- that explains a lot!).
• Drinking up to three glasses orf red wine every day (!) also lowers the risk of dementia by half.
• In adjusting to new time zones, your brain releases stress hormones that can weaken the temporal lobe, which is involved in learning. (Moral -- don't cross time zones before taking a test, attending an important meeting or class. :-)
• Willpower-strengthening exercises may actually change the brain regions involved in planning and decision making. Plus, willpower in one aspect of your life may influence another. "Practice difficult tasks such as being nice to people you don't like," the authors advise. "It might help you stick to that diet."
• (Pay attention to this one ...) When female test takers are asked to write down their gender on the first page of a math exam, their scores go down--but when they hear a lecture on famous female mathematicians beforehand, their scores go up. (Remember that for all your tests!)

And, a few more tidbits to add one to the one below about sleeping after studying:

• Even naps are beneficial after studying, according to a Harvard study in which subjects who took a 90-minute snooze after learning a task performed 50 percent better (!) over a 24-hour period than the napless group.
• According to animal studies, when you perform a task, the brain cells fire in a certain sequence. If you then fall asleep, the same cells automatically fire in an identical sequence without being distracted or disrupted by incoming visual stimuli. That, Susumu Tonegawa, Ph.D., a Nobel Prize-winning professor of biology and neuroscience at the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT, says, "solidifies the synapses, which in turn helps to strenthen the information as a memory."

Some items for you and Heather to discuss.

Love you to Ecuador and back!
Mom

Interesting brain facts ...

Hey, I saw a show called Human Body on Discovery tonight about the brain. It was really interesting. A few factoids I thought I'd pass along:

• Your brain uses 1/5 of your body's energy.
• Your brain actually processes incoming info twice as fast under stress and diress, which help explain why time seems to slow down when you're under attack or stressed.
• Your brain will take over and figure out what you need to eat to survive if it's not getting enough of some nutrient. They profiled a guy who was adrift at sea for several weeks. At first, he only had the fleshy part of fish he caught. But, then his brain took over and he started eating the skin, eyes, liver, etc that had water and vitamins he wasn't getting from the meat.
• Your brain will take over and let you “run on empty” without food, something gained through evolution (thought you might like tidbit as you head out to the Galapagos). One of the only machines that continues to function on empty.
• Your brain is as active or more when you're sleeping. It repairs itself, and will actually "take you out" by making you sleep when in danger of not getting time to repair itself. But, the hearing part of your brain is as alert, which is why you can hear an alarm clock, fire alarm, etc.
• (You already know this ...) It's better to study before getting a good night's sleep than stay up all night and study. Both because your brain will continue to process what you were studying before you fell asleep and because without sleep, you're brain shuts down the logic and reasoning area (not good when taking a test ... :-).
• (And, my personal favorite). While it is true that the pleasure part of your brain shows increased activity when kissing, that part of the brain responds MUCH more to eating chocolate.

So, eat some chocolate and get some sleep! :-)

Love you to Ecuador and back!
Mom

BIG NEWS along w/ missing you! :)

I GOT MY DRIVER'S LISCENCE!!! ok yeah that might not seem like such big news to some people but IM SO HAPPYYYYYYYYYY!!! i dont have a car yet tho :P but i'm still enjoying driving myself places :)

btw those pics ur mom posted of ur doggies r SO CUTE

i miss u! <3

Ahhh, a comfy pillow to lay on ...

Pooka looking comfy ...


And, then, Buttinsky thought Chloe was looking mighty comfortable, so she decided the same spot would be good for her, too. She moved when Mom got up to get the camera ... at first her full weight (!) was on top of Chloe, i.e., she wasn't using her twig legs to offset some of the burden of her weight (no pun intended) ...


Love you and miss you!!!
Pooka, Chloe and Emma

Check your email ...

I've sent you info about various internships and due dates. Call me when you have a chance! I hope you're feeling better, that your package arrived, that you're caught up with classes after being sick (or at least not stressed), and are having an AWESOME time! Btw, I sent another package to your homestay family before I realized we weren't supposed to. If they have to pay customs, be sure to reimburse them. Btw, the candy is for Isabel, but there is 1 each of Hershey's Cookies and Cream for you, Grace and Isabel.

Can't wait to hear from you! Love you to Ecuador and back!
Mom