vay-cay!

There are only 9 days left until I leave the country.

Soon I will be exploring the Italian and Greek country sides - learning, playing on beaches, and frolicking around with my sister for two full weeks! I get to do touristy things, take lots of pictures, and see all sorts of historical places.

It is going to be pretty much amazing. 

I can hardly even wait!

let the games begin

I have officially registered and everything for my half marathon. The papers have been mailed in and the fees paid. There is no turning back now!

August 8th here I come!

Since it is official and all, I have also officially begun my training. 

Let me give you a little background on my running experience. I have hated running my whole life - really hated it. I am slightly asthmatic and not terribly athletically inclined. Running was always hard for me and was a lot of work. One of my new year's resolutions this year was to become a runner. I started out slow, just like you are supposed to, and I have been constantly working up. 

They say the first 2 miles are the hardest to get, but after that it gets increasingly easier to add on more miles. I would have to agree.  After I got the first 2 miles down, 3 miles and even 4 miles came without too much more effort. 

I think the milestone that no one mentions anything about is 5 miles. I ran 5 miles today for the first time ever. I was expecting it to be just like the last two miles that I had added on - relatively easy and strenuous in a good way, only adding on more time. Boy was I wrong! I was panting and wheezing 2 miles in. I did finish, but it was way more hard work than I expected to be. 

Now that I have reached that milestone, hopefully the next big ones will come too. And next time, I won't be expecting it to be a simple 6 mile run! 

Luckily, I have been increasing my endurance over the last few months so I can happily report that I am not going to give up simply because I had a hard day's run. 

I will conquer!

i feel adventurous

Every weekday for the last 4 weeks I have been carpooling up to Salt Lake as part of my internship (only one more week left!). When the weather is good or at least decent, there are almost always paragliders at the point of the mountain. Every day I watch them glide from the top of the mountain to the bottom. This has inspired me to want to learn how to paraglide. I think that it would be the most amazing experience to just be floating in the air! Call me crazy, I know.

So, I have recently done some research into paragliding. Turns out that you can take lessons and have a full day of paragliding. The small problem is that it costs around $125. But, I will not let that not deter me from my paragliding dream. My brother who is WAAAAY more adventurous than I am (he is perhaps the reason that I am as adventurous as I am now...) is going to go with me, there is a good possibility that my sister will go with us too (depending on age restrictions). Sometime before the end of the summer I will go paragliding!

Another adventurous thing that I am getting myself into this summer is running a half marathon. Anyone who has known me anytime in my life has probably started laughing out loud at this point and thinking something along the lines of:

"Tiffany, a runner? What? You must be kidding me."

Well, friends, I am doing it for reals. The big event is in the middle of August. I have been doing some basic training for the last few months and I officially started my half marathon training this last week. And it is going great! I never thought that I would say this, but I honestly LOVE running! Who knew how much fun it could be?

blame the pigs

Dear Swine Flu,

As laboratory personel, I feel that it is my responsibility to let you know of the great increase of work that you have provided us. We have nearly as many influenza tests in the last few days as we did during the whole month of January - when normal flu season is is full swing. You have also caused the phone to keep ringing off the hook with all sorts of questions about testing for you; including things like how to collect samples (which I don't know-all I do is run the tests!) and how long it takes.

I would personally like to thank you for ensuring that I am not bored at work.

I would also like to thank you for the job security.

Finally, I would like to ask that you don't get any more severe and try your very hardest to avoid mutations of any kind. I'm sure that the general public would appreciate that as well.

Love,
Tiffany

i bake things

I am on this kick recently in which I bake things - lots of things on a regular basis. For example, on Monday I made Easter Eggs (which taste like Mound's Bars on steroids according to Lauren) and chocolate cookies. I did the same thing last week, and the week before I made amazing peanut better cookies topped with a Hershey's Kiss and banana chocolate chip muffins. When I get bored, I look up recipes on line to see other kinds of goodies that I can bake. I don't really know what is driving me to do this. haha.

The problem is that I only live with one other girl and we don't eat a whole lot of goodies (not to mention that she tends to bake too...). So I feed my baked goods to friends and people I know. 

Moral of the story: if you want anything baked or any sort of treat just let me know and I am more likely than not to have something for you! 

And, as a side note, this is my 6th blog of the month. I think that is a new record for me. 

the after party

After convocation on Friday, us moldy-oldies (that is what we call ourselves in the CLS program when we have made it to the point that we are in our internship) decided that we needed to have one last hurrah before we all went our separate ways into the world. Initially we thought that we wanted to go to the Cheesecake Factory (avoid the Provo graduation crowds, and who doesn't like cheesecake, really?). But when we got there to try and reserve a seat for 20 people, the wait was 3 hours long. No thank you! So instead we went to the Olive Garden across the parking lot. We all still had a fabulous time since it was the company that we were going for, not the venue.

This is what 3 cups of diet coke will do to you! Don't worry though, I was right there with Cherie on the 3 diet cokes thing. haha.

We have had so much fun, stress, laughter, anger, and shared sweat, blood, and tears among other things over the last year or so. You tend to grow pretty close to people that you spend 7 hours a day with 5 days a week.

This was our version of an after party, BYU style! (or something like that...)

We had to have one final outing. Besides, who else would talk about blood tests and Salmonella Typhi with us over dinner?

we sing, we dance, we graduate

Warning: this post may put you into picture overload.

Enter to learn; go forth to serve.

That is the motto of the university I just graduated from. Yes, you read that right, I graduated from BYU this weekend. I can't believe how fast it has gone! It really feels like just yesterday that I started college, and here I am all graduated and stuff. Weird, but also SOOOO exciting!

I decided to do a picture documentary of what transpired instead of trying to describe everything in words. (thus the possible picture overload)

Here we go:

My graduating class-specific to my major. I love these guys!

Oh Cherie. haha. We took this picture in honor of JR, who was the third member of our group in lab but was a bum and didn't walk at graduation.

I included this picture solely for the beauty of the trees. Spring is my favorite season, and these trees are a big reason.

Me with my parentals

Oh sister, I love you dearly!

Our "more bars in more places" shot

My siblings plus one. Emily basically counts as a sibling though.

Mommy :)

...and don't forget dad!

I just loved this picture. It made my whole day.

All of the students had the option of getting a stole of gratitude (the white thing around my shoulders). The tradition of the stole of gratitude is that the graduate gives it to someone who helped significantly with their education. I figured since my grandma has been a huge help financially these last 4 years that she was more than deserving.

Emily and Brittani wanted to feel like they were cool too so they stole my cap and stole of gratitude. And turns out, it makes for a fun picture!

My classmates again. This was right before we started the procession into the Marriot Center for Commencement.

Well friends, that's a wrap. I am now a graduate. Not that it really changes what I am doing right now anyways since my internship lasts until July 3rd, but I can officially say that I graduated from BYU! Who ever would have thought that day would actually come!? I am so excited that I made it through this phase of life and I can't wait to see what the next phase will bring!

Happy graduation weekend everyone!