Workin' hard for the money (oh wait, I'm not getting paid)

HI! Sorry but I have no photos to share this time around - it's been cold and rainy the past couple of days and... I started my internship!!! I love love love it! I have 3 supervisors who I flit around with from 8 to 5 Monday through Friday and they are all so great! Both today and yesterday I observed all day (about 9 clients each) and tomorrow I get to give some diagnostic tests to some clients! I was extremely nervous about what or how much they were expecting me to know/be able to do on the first day but fortunately they understood that having me observe was the best option all around :) I am not soft-spoken though so obviously I had input during every session which seemed to impress them and all 3 commented on my client interaction skills :) :) Some of their terminology is different than what I'm used to but I'm catching on and am really excited about diving in on my own soon.

Tonight after work, I went on a run but got a little turned around and when I found a runner to help get me in the right direction he made me sprint next to him until we got there. Not cool. But kinda funny because he kept trying to have a conversation with me while I was sucking air and needing to faint... Then Hannah Montana and I biked over to a brewery for a quick celebratory drink for the start of my internship :) Now I'm home and getting ready for bed... 40 hour unpaid work-week = blah. (But I'm really not complaining since I ABSOLUTELY love what I do! I'm a dork, I know.)

Miss and love y'all! Take care!

Welcome to my humble abode :)

Well my room is finally complete - and I love it! The walls are covered, the floor is covered, everything is organized (for a day at least) and somehow I've made a lovely little nest for myself :) Feel free to come visit anytime! Now that I have everything settled.... I'm leaving. Say what?! It's true, but only for the weekend. I leave tomorrow for VA and get back the day before my internship starts... why not travel some more so I can get behind on sleep again before work starts Monday at 8 a.m.?! I went to the hospital where I'll be doing my internship so I could get my lovely I.D. badge made and take a silly little quiz on hospital safety codes/colors. Safety shmafety.

After I received my badge that has my school name misspelled on it... :( I hiked to the top of Mount Jumbo! For anyone who has at least driven through Missoula and seen the two hills with a huge letter "L" and a huge letter "M" on them, I hiked the "L" and it was pretty darn strenuous but BEAUTIFUL! And that's how I was able to pleasure your senses with these lovely photos of Missoula :) The one that's close up of a neighborhood is, you guessed it, not my neighborhood. Wait, bad guessing guys, it IS my neighborhood! The house that's all run-down looking from the outside but actually wonderful on the inside is mine! YEA! (By 'mine' I mean that my roommate and I pay money monthly for this rent-controlled pad and are very lucky to have a spot in Lower Rattlesnake). Our house is the one in the middle and it's blue-grayish and two-story - we're the first floor, some anonymous chick is on the second floor but she parks and enters on the side of the house so we never see her. I also graced the page with the four corners of my room so you can see how wonderful it is :) The kitchen is quite spacious and as you can see through the doorway into the bathroom, I've had my first experience with a bathtub/jerry-rigged curtain-type shower.... it's a learning-curve thing that may take some time. I've already doused the entire cupboard area with water from a small mishap with the shower nozzle during an attempt to reach for/grab my face wash from the sink...

Last night, Hannah and I went to one of the local breweries, The Kettle House, which turned into an evening spent touring some of Missoula's finest pizzerias and dive bars. As always, the high gravities turned out to be my favorites... no good can come of that but it was a fun-filled night to say the least!

Enjoy the pictures and take care! I miss y'all!

Missoula!

I'm not quite sure what Boonies meant when they told me that Missoula is "just like" Boone, but they were incredibly misleading. To my shock and horror, I found a place in this city called Reserve Street that is jam packed with chain restaurants and stores such as Costco, Best Buy, and Target (ok I wasn't too upset about Target...). What the crap?!? How is that similar to Boonetown!? I'll tell you how - it's not. But by some miracle I have found myself living in the part of town called Lower Rattlesnake which is about 3 miles SE of Reserve St and is pretty much it's own little nook of Missoula. So yes, this part is much like Boone :) At the end of my block are trailheads leading me up into the mountains! I'm a 5 minute walk from the river that runs through town which has a dog park and a bike path right next to it. I've situated my new room and closet and actually found myself putting up my very first tapestry. HA! It's very toned down though - no dancing bears or tie dye, promise. The previous tenant moved to Alaska for the summer and left a ton of random furniture that my roommate, Hannah, and I are trying to fit together/throw out but neither of us are very good at the job so it may take a while. Hannah is great! Although she's been in and out of the house since I've gotten here - I don't think she ever just sits... but that's coming from a lady who will need several days to catch up on rest and relaxation from her five days in the car. We drove around our part of town this morning so I could get the lay of the land. For now I'm going to take a nap and then head out again for some odds and ends and then a nice, long hike :)

Okay y'all - I'm EXHAUSTED. 13 hours of driving including an amazing scenic detour through Badlands National Park and I'm about to pass out for the night in Livingston, MT. Only 3 hours from Missoula!!! I had to share some pictures though and will follow-up tomorrow with explanations :)

BTW - my new address as of tomorrow is 938 Poplar St, Missoula, MT 59801.

Days, Hours, Minutes (in my car)

My first day was a short one - only 5 hours from Boone to Lexington, Kentucky... Bella had her first hotel experience and she did as best as could be expected with tons of random people walking up and down the hallway in the morning. We woke up and hit the road through Louisville, Indianapolis, and Chicago. I obviously had to make a pit stop at the infamous Motor Speedway which, as usual for my side-trips, led me around some very random and not-so-safe looking neighborhoods... but I made it out safely and arrived in Chicago just in time for traffic and confusing blocks of one-way streets with no lane markers. Dinner at Frontera Grill (recommended by Melody as per Oprah) was delicious and I was fortunate enough to sit by a very nice, very hefty man named Bob who kept me company while we watched the chefs cook up some amazing mexican dishes. After dinner, Bella and I walked around the River Walk for a bit and had a great time seeing a small bit of the city. All in all, I totally approve of Chi-Town.

After leaving the big city, I drove to Madison, WI for the night. This morning I drove around Madison and checked out the Capital building which is BEAUTIFUL! Since then I've been driving across Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, and South Dakota. During a lovely dinner stop at Arby's in Randomville, Iowa, I found a field where I let Bella off the leash so she could get some energy out. It took about thirty seconds to realize the field was full of prairie dogs or something of that sort and Bella flipped out! She was running crazy and sticking her nose down every little animal dug out she could find. So in the midst of all of the fields and wind turbines, that was my entertainment for the day :)

Tonight I'm turning in early in Sioux Falls, South Dakota and tomorrow I'm heading over to check out the Badlands! I may or may not push it to Missoula before Sunday but seeing as how I'm still sick and coughing up my lungs... I'll most likely spend the night in Wyoming or possibly Billings, MT.