Thanks for putting up with my blogging hiatus. I'm back, and better than ever. Okay, so I'm just back. But here goes:

I really should be in bed right now... I just finished starting to study for the MCAT (2 hours a night for 4 months. Wow. Reviewed enzymes tonight. Looking forward to tomorrow) AND I have a job to go to early in the morning! I've been hired on as a semi-temp employee (4 months) for FYI Corp. in Melbourne, FL. I do lots of odd jobs, from the semi-mundane to the semi-empowering, and no, it has nothing to do with my college degree. I came to terms with the fact that (a) there are few (if any) jobs in my field in the Cocoa/Rockledge area, and (b) by the time I get trained to do anything micro/molecular biology related, it would be time for me to head off (hopefully) to a distant isle to teach windsurfing for the summer. So this is good. I know the CEO from previous church things--an incredible guy, I've got a great office with a big window, I got a laptop yesterday. So things are going well.

I'm also studying for the GRE so that I can keep the MPH window open. GRE = Graduate R..... Exam, and MPH = Masters in Public Health, for those of you who weren't sure. I signed up to take the GRE (a glorified version of the SAT) on the 26th of January, so I can get a few weeks of refreshing done between now and then.

Backtracking -- I had a great last few weeks in Switzerland. Our jaunt to Germany was so incredible because I had pictured it in my head and heard about it and read about it so much. We went to Dachau and visited the site of a WWII concentration camp. It was perhaps the most sobering experience I've ever had first-hand. You read the books and see the films, but to stand where those prisoners stood and froze and were tortured was intense. After Dachau, we stayed the night in Munich and awoke early to see the famed glockenspiel and the Christmas markets in Munich's main square. After Munich, we drove to Augsburg to see from whence the Amons and Schmidts (my maternal grandparents) hail. Augsburg is home to a very famous Christmas market with the most incredible German fare, so I was in heaven, and ate more food than I thought possible. Then we drove around until we found my grandma's old house, and then headed back to Switzy.

Christmas at home was fast-paced and hectic as usual (in a positive way), but it was good to be with the rest of the family. I loved hanging out with my sisters. Klarissa's so much fun now that she doesn't throw huge wooden dice at me in fits of rage because I'm beating her at board games. And Mariah's growing up so fast but is still just my cute little kid sister. I loved spending Q-time with Morgen, and he guessed the two things I wanted for Christmas: a cell phone and an I-pod. So I am now somewhat technologically up-to-date.

And then new years -- some of my best friends from BYU flew in from around the country to ring in the New Year in Florida. They split the time between my house and my friend Tim's house in the Deland/Daytona area. Considering how little time they spent in the sunshine state, we were able to do a lot... Disney, the space center, some windsurfing, lots of orange picking, Ron Jon's, New Years on the beach, manatees and swimming at the springs. I had a great time and was really sad to see them go.

And now, on to that real grown-up life that I've heard so much about. I like working, the commute's not bad (as long as I have Allison Kraus to listen to--thansk Janet), and it feels really good to be studying again. I thrive on routines, and so it's good to sort of have one again. I say sort of, because it's midnight, and according to my routine, I should have been in bed an hour ago!