Ouf.

It's a French sound effect, that. Somewhere between ouch and oh man. I'm so tired of writing papers! So I'm writing in my blog instead!

I have two more papers to write for Monday. They really won't be so terribly bad, but it's so nice and sunny out, and I'm so tired of writing papers!!

Here is some news. We decided we're moving. Did I already mention this? I think we're going to move to El Cerrito. It's about a mile north of here, a very cute little town (hometown of John Fogerty, might I add), a little more spread out than Berkeley, and we should be able to get a perfectly nice house with a bigger yard, close enough to BART so that Roger can just walk there to go to work, for considerably cheaper. So there's really no reason for us not to move.

Especially since our neighbors here are so darned snooty! I'm not holding my breath for friendlier neighbors if we move to El Cerrito, but rents are move expensive in Berkeley for a reason. It's because all the snooty people want to be able to say they live in Berkeley or something. I dunno, but our neighbor across the street stopped Roger when he was walking the dogs this afternoon and told him he really needed to cut the grass immediately. Seriously? Who does that? And I assure you, our front "lawn" does not look that bad. (I saw "lawn" in quotes because it's like a 10'x10' patch of crappy plants anyway.) It's a little overgrown, yes, a little Urbana-ed out, if you will, but certainly no-friggin'-where near unsightly. Might I add that this woman is married to a man who watched us struggle to get our broken Jeep off a U-haul trailer from inside his house and then had the nerve to bring it up in conversation.

Did I tell you that story? So we get here with our poor broken Jeep, and we have to get it pushed up into our driveway so we can return the U-haul trailer. Thankfully two of my friends came over and helped us, but it was hard! We were all heaving and working really hard, and had no idea this douchebag was watching us from inside his house. So the next day, he sees Roger outside and casually says, "So I saw you had some trouble getting your Jeep into your driveway." What would possess someone to 1) watch us struggle from inside his house without so much as offering to help and 2) spontaneously bring it up in conversation the next day that he did so is utterly beyond my comprehension.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to moving on many levels. I really do like our house, and it's been great and honestly the best we could do for this year, but now that we have time to look, I think it's time to look for a better deal so we can get some more bang for our buck. We're making it okay, but it'd be nice to be able to save some money, and to be closer to BART so it doesn't take so dang long for Roger to get to work. He just told me this week that his company probably isn't moving until October (instead of July, as they had originally thought), so he'll still have quite a few more months of long commuting.

On the bright side, he's still loving his job. I love that he loves his job, it makes me so happy that he's in a good mood when he gets home every day. He's so funny - he came inside all flustered from talking to that snooty lady from across the street, then went out and bought a lawn mower. So now he's mowing the back yard like a cute little husband. Oh, I should also mention that our fence is completely falling apart. I know our landlords would fix it if we asked, but I kind of don't want to deal with it. They'll have to have people come and rip the whole thing out and re-dig it, probably, and I kind of just don't want to bother and just move instead.

Also, I think I'm going to try to sell the Jeep (finally) once I'm done with school next week. It'll be nice to have it out of the driveway, and whatever money we can get for it will be a little bonus.

Speaking of bonuses, I'm excited for my raise in August! Another up side of getting a Javits fellowship is that it pays more than the University of California ever possibly could. The only bad part is that I'm going to get paid one lump sum for June and July, and it comes out to less than I normally get per month, so we might be stretching by the time I get paid again in August! It's okay, I like cereal....

Well, I think I'm going to put a t-shirt and shorts on instead of this dress and take my toasty shoulders outside for another walk in the sunshine with the dogs. I'll be locked inside until Monday night writing papers, so I feel like I should enjoy the light of day while I can.

Love to all!