overdue

Yeah, so I was right - Harry Potter WAS overdue at the library, although only by a day. So was a magazine (also one day) and 2 books (certainly more than one day). Oops. I stuck them in the book return last night.

What have I been up to in the last week? That's what I'll attempt to address in this overdue update!

Let's see...

The end of last week was a mixture of a disaster and a lot of fun. Thursday was attempt number two to start an experiment with my mice, but it failed. But that was okay, in the end, because I had to present a poster for the IDM Research Day. Not too big of a deal. As you can tell from the website, I didn't win.

Friday was the IDM Retreat. As metioned yesterday, I knit there. I also participated in the Sedentary Olympics, a set of fairly fun and easy games that didn't require much physical activity. My team, Team Gupta, tied for second place!! And we won second place in the horseshoe toss and first place in the don't-drop-the-water obstacle course (I think we were supposed to get a prize for that, but stuff got a bit confusing and that never panned out). As usual I won one of the gift baskets that are door prizes. I feel bad for always winning, but I happen to put my door prize tickets into drawings for prizes that not a whole lot of other people seem to want - thus my odds of winning increase. This year it was a basket of foot-softening agents, which I had been wanting to purchase myself anyhow. How nice.

Saturday I went to Spring Meadows, a Christian retreat facility. It's run by a couple from my church and is loacted about 45 minuts northwest of Pittsburgh in a beautiful area. The 16-acre property has a pond and some rolling hills and a big field and a small orchard and a little pine forest. It's so calm and relaxing there, and Rosa Lee serves unforgettably wonderful food and beverage! This Saturday they were hosting a listening prayer retreat where participants spend time in quiet praying over selected Scripture passages and listening to what God is saying to them through the words. I went to my first one in June and was very excited to come to this second one. I had a great time!! It's so good to get away for a day and not worry about life and craziness back at home.

After Saturday it was back to that life and craziness... The first regular youth group meeting took place on Sunday night, and it was...good. I find that I learn a lot at youth group, even though I'm a leader and am supposed to be there to help "teach," not to learn. God uses everything, however.

Monday I served as a semi-informatant at a college fair for local high schoolers. It was neat to meet some other Michigan State University alumuni and talk to people about MSU. I could actually do that for a job...it was fun!

Tuesday night I went to the Pittsburgh Opera's production of Rigoletto by Verdi. My friend Craig was in it (he's a professional opera singer), and it's always a good excuse to go to the opera. Michelle and Lori went with me, as well as my friend Su-Lin. I was reminded how nice it is to spend time with people, especially my roommates, whom I actually don't see a whole lot of most of the time.

Somewhere along the line I ended up getting sick. I now have a non-terrible but still annoying cold. There's been some bad stuff going around, and I think that lack of sleep and a bit of stress wore down my immune system just to the point where a little bit of the virus could creep in. Good thing I started taking my vitamins again! Probably helped it from not getting too bad. Hope it gets better. My plan for making it get better involves going to be early/on time tonight and hopefully Friday night and curling up with some tea on Sunday while watching the first two episodes of this season's Arrested Development, which, while rather crude, is an incredibly witty and hilarious show, IMHO.