Planet RAW!!

So one of my apartment mates is a really healthy eater and recently she’s started trying out this latest LA diet called the ‘Raw Food Diet’ where everything you eat is well raw! I like trying out new and very weird things-it’s my idea of fun :P So over my spring break me and my apartment mate dragged the rest of the apartment out to “Planet Raw” in Santa Monica, a raw food restaurant which had been pointed out to me y one of my students who said that his dad frequented the place. The food was surprisingly good! They even had raw cheesecake. It was also guilt free cos it was so healthy J Dunno whether we’ll ever get Tiff back or whether Andrew will ever darken the door :P but it was a very interesting experience :)
















Amanda, Debbie, me, Evelyn, Vivian, Tiff

Elaine in LA

I don't like macs....
















Conferring with my coworker Khendyl (alliteration)
















Dim Sum!!









































Huntington Gardens

Lunch Time Ramblings

On my lunch break in SMMS. I'm feeling a bit bored and tired so I'm going to do a blog entry. Mum was here for 2 weeks and left on Monday. I have some pictures which I hope to upload soon.
This weekend I have to go for a training day on Saturday morning at 8:30am then church is at 8:15, we also have daylight saving on Sunday evening where I hope to lose one hour of precious sleep time...next week's not looking so good...
I'm beginning to miss home a bit more-mainly people, like friends that I've known for a long time and things like that...
My eye is better though :)

Pink Eye

I have conjunctivitis - it's horrible and I feel awful. I went to a clinic yesterday and they prescribed an antibiotic-I still feel horrible, but at least I discovered a doctor I can go to without health insurance who doesn't cost the earth and my antibiotic also cost less that $20. Anyway it's no fun having conjunctivitis and I feel very sorry for myself.
Poor mother is still nursing a bad back. The two of us are like crocks but Andrew's being very patient :P

Snowing in Mammoth!

We had a really lovely weekend out of LA and in the snow. Just 2 hours from the sunny city of LA it snows. We traveled about 5 hours north of LA to Mammoth which is pretty close to Yosemite National Park. There was a fresh fall of 5 feet of snow the day before we arrived and it was like a whole world away from LA.




I snowboarded for the very first time. I tried going down the slope on my own the first time and I met a guy on the way down who was an instructor and he gave me a free lesson :) He told me that I had lots of 'athletic energy' and that it was kind of surprising that I hadn't snowboarded before cos I was already doing S's. I kept thinking he was talking to someone else :P Anyway I loved the snowboarding and I even think I may prefer it to skiing :)



















On our way back from skiing we got to enjoy the amazing scenery of this part of California. We stopped in one town called 'Lone Pine Tree'. It was like a scene out of a wild west movie. It was so nice. I could have spent a lot more time there. As we drove through the countryside I kept thinking what it must have been like for the first Californian settlers as they traveled through this wilderness in their covered wagons to set up homes and and start communities. When you live in the West of America the 'Wild West' takes on a whole new significance.




















It seems like California has everything one could want in the recreational realm-from beaches to ski slopes! Life is tough! :)

Click here for the full album

Mobile Phone

I just want to let people know that I am still using my Irish mobile phone for receiving texts. It was off for a couple of weeks after I got back because my US phone broke but now I have both phones. Please text me on my Irish phone if you want to do any texting :)
Going snow boarding at the weekend and the weather is roasting here at the moment :)

Winter in Los Angeles

Weather for Los Angeles, CA 90024

28°C
Current: Clear
Wind: W at 3 mph
Humidity: 11%

Mon

28°C | Feels like 28°C

Tue

28°C | Feels like 28°C

Wed

28°C | Feels like 28°C

http://weatherbonk.com/weather/camDetail.jsp?id=_wcbl_1122940362690

Back in LA

I got back safe and sound. Been back in work a week now. I've enjoyed it-I really love my job and get great pleasure out of my time there.
My apartment is newly carpeted and our internet is in place. I've unpacked my bags and done two laundry loads but my furniture still needs to be put back in place and my room is still up in a heap. I'm just happy to have dry floors and an absence of fans blowing!
Today Andrew and I went to Border's bookstore in Santa Monica which is closing down and had a 40% sale on everything. I got lots of bargains :) We had a seafood buffet lunch and I bought a new charger for my iPod cos I lost my old one.
We have ALMS again tomorrow so it'll be another long Sunday.
Goodnight!

This is a great way to get some vouchers and rewards...

Apartment Update

So my apartment is now like a building site. All the carpets have been ripped out and most of the skirting boards. I think they'll also be taking up all of the tiles as well. Parts of some of the partition walls have been taken down as well so I have a big hole in my bathroom wall. We have moved out of the apartment for now but most of my stuff is still in there. I just hope I don't forget anything I may need for when I'm heading home on Saturday. My laptop charger is broken and I'm trying to find a way to get it charged so that I can print out my tickets! I may have problems getting home on Saturday otherwise...
Two more days of work then time to pack....

Flooded Apartment

I woke up this morning to the sound of my apartment mates sloshing through my apartment. I crawled to the bottom of my bed to see what was going on and I saw a stream of water coming in from under the door-this was deceptive however, when I got out of bed and stepped on my carpet I discovered a pool of freezing cold water underneath. My whole bedroom was under about 2 inches of water! My Christmas presents were all on the ground! The charger for my lap top was sitting on the ground and is now broken. I can't believe that I had to come to LA to experience a flood!


My Knight in Shining Armour came down and helped out with getting things up off the ground at 6:30 in the morning! These are our wet socks and his tired face after it all:
CLICK ON PICTURES FOR LARGER IMAGES

Grotto Creek-The Rocky Mountains

We spent the day in a beautiful creek in the Rocky mountains. It was completely frozen over and we edged our way up the ice to see a frozen waterfall. It was really gorgeous and the weather was perfect for a hike!

I got my hair wet!!

It lashed rain last night and it's been raining on and off all day today. It was so strange to get my hair wet involentarily-this hasn't happened for a while...The rain here is so disgusting that it's really not nice to get wet in it. My car is filthy now!
We had a huge Thanksgiving meal in school today. Parents brought in dishes and we stuffed ourselves. I even have leftovers for dinner tonight!! :)
That's good seeing as I need to get packed for Calgary...

Cold in LA and other ramblings...

Today it is cold in LA/Santa Monica...I had to turn the heating on in my classroom. I have the AC on now though, cos it got too warm. It's a quiet week this week because it a three day week and on Wednesday we're having a big Thanksgiving feast in the school, which I'm really looking forward to. Then it's off to Calgary on Thursday morning, which apparantly is the right time to go because traffic on the Wednesday evening before Thanksgiving is always the busiest in the year...I dread trying to just get home from work...
I don't know if I have enough warm clothes for Calgary. We may go ice skating or skiing!! I have a big bruise on my knee from ice skating on Saturday which I'm rather proud of, but I should probably try to not bang my knees on the ice too much... I may need to borrow some warm clothes from my Canadian friend. We Irish people aren't too into our warm clothes despite the weather we usually have :)

Christmas Shopping in California

My Apartment

From left, clockwise: Me, Debbie, Tiff, Sarah, Yoonah, Becky

Introduction to the girls in my apartment:

Becky:
Becky is Andrew's former apartment mate, Pete's, girlfriend. Pete's in dental school now in New York so our roles have reversed from me and Andrew being long distance and she and Pete living in the same building to she and Pete being long distance to me and Andrew living in the same building-it's strange :) Becky is a part time student/part time dental assistant and is applying for dental school next year. Becky has a crazy streak and is a lot of fun :)

Debbie:
Debbie moved into the apartment just after me. She's studying linguistics in UCLA, it's her final year. Debbie is our resident chef and can be found most days in the kitchen cooking up a storm. Debbie usually has to put up with me barging into her room to talk most evenings :)

Sarah:
Sarah was the one who had to let me into the apartment regularly before I officially moved in. Sarah is a part time student while applying for nursing school. Sarah is my shopping buddy. She loves getting second hand dresses for really cheap and doing stuff to them to make them look really nice. She's a very brave shopper :)

Tiff:
Tiff is our resident Electrical Engineer (I have to have one of them nearby at all times :) ) She's doing her final few classes in UCLA this year. Tiff is great, she's always ready to help, however don't try to get her to do anything that even resembles girlyness-she'll run a mile! :) She can make a great gift tag though :P

Yoonah:
Yoonah and I have lots in common :D Well Debbie has a lot in common with us also :P Yoonah is working in a lab in UCLA and she's also applying for graduate school, she wants to be a physician's aid. Yoonah's great fun, she and Becky have the funniest interactions :)

We really get on well in our apartment. I'm really thankful for a nice bunch of girls to live with. They really make our apartment feel like home and I feel like I can talk to any of them about anything. I think this a pretty rare thing for a house of six girls :)

I was too vain to pull a funny face :)

Election Day

So today is election day. It began with rain this morning, and by this morning I mean 3am which means that when I left home at 7:30 the ground was wet from rain instead of sprinklers and the sun was out again and most of the roads were already dry and there had been road accidents already.... The queues at election points here in LA are stretching 2 hours already-there are too many people here! It's really strange for me not to be able to vote here cos I love voting usually and am usually caught up in the excitement of being able to vote and then watch the polls come in. Everyone here is shouting for Obama and 'No' on Prop 8. I dread to see reactions should either of those things go against them...
I'm looking forward to an interesting couple of days.....

Dim Sum

Andrew and I went for MSG free dimsum on Saturday with one of my colleagues and her boyfriend. The boys had great fun listening to our work talk :D

Visit to San Francisco

We visited San Francisco a couple of weekends ago to see Andrew's two sisters, brother-in-law and nephew. We really enjoyed our time. His nephew, Matthew, is really cute and really sweet and the weather was lovely-which is not always the case in San Francisco!

International Fair

We had our international fair today in school. Each of the children in my classroom had to research a country and set up a display board with artifacts. Today the parents and grandparents came around and looked at the displays and tasted the food that the children brought in. My room was very interesting. I had projects on Egypt, Denmark, France and Switzerland, Iran, Australia, Spain, Mexico, Russia and Japan. The child who was studying Iran (Persia) had his grandmother make some Persian food and also brought some delicious Persian pastries to his display. They let me take the leftovers home :) The privileges of being the class teacher :) Andrew came to have a look around the classrooms too and try out some of the food. It was really good fun, but also really exhausting!
I'm ready for bed!