Busy times in Columbia

<--- Another random picture with Charley and I... The past week has been pretty crazy for me- I guess mainly the past few days. I have been busy at work, busy with friends, and running around like a chicken in between. The Friday before last, and last Tuesday, I had blood taken for various precautionary reasons to possibly find out what was wrong with me in Japan and why I got sick so often. The first test came back fine, and I have yet to hear about the last one. I anticipate hearing from the clinic sometime this week. In other news, I was chosen on Tuesday to volunteer (yes, I did say 'chosen to volunteer') for the F.I.R.S.T Robotics competition which was taking place in town on Friday and Saturday. I spent most of my week trying to recruit graduate students to help out on Friday from 4-8 p.m. (which was difficult because many of them didn't want to work on a Friday night). Then on Thursday, one of my bosses, Dr. Williams, also asked me if I could help take some visitors from Japan around to meals and various things we were planning to do on Friday and Saturday. The visitors just happened to be Dr. Kaneda, his wife, and Mizugaki-sensei from Casey's laboratory in Japan. I knew all of them pretty well and I was excited to be able to help. They came into town on Thursday evening, and Dr. Williams asked me to come to the Fuel Cell meeting that evening at the Holiday Inn to see them. I did, and I ended up taking them back to their hotel that evening and then taking Kaneda-sensei and his wife out for a small meal around 10. The next morning, Karen and I went to breakfast with them. After breakfast, Dr. Kaneda had me take him back to the hotel so he could change before his business meeting with various professors in our department. I then took everyone to the school and then drove Mrs. Kaneda to the grocery store. Surprisingly, she didn't want me to stay with her (I figured I could help translate) so I went home for about 45 minutes to check on Charley. I took him for a short walk and relaxed for a few minutes before going back to get her. I then took her to the hotel, translated how to use the washing machine, and then went back to the school to try and track down Dr. Kaneda so I could give him an energy drink before his lecture at 2:30. He and Mizugaki were at lunch, so I decided to go across the street where another Fuel Cell meeting was going on, and ate a free (and delicious) lunch. During lunch, we found out that Steffen, a visiting student from Germany, was supposed to pick up a women at the airport but no one could find him. We spent the entire lunch hour calling people who might know where he was. After about 45 minutes, someone found out that he had finally picked her up and everything was fine. I then ran back across the street to see if Dr. Kaneda had gotten back yet. I finally found him, and then I got recruited to try and find students to go to his lecture at 2:30 because it was not announced to everyone like lectures normally are. So, I spent about 30 minutes running around trying to get people to go. I even went to the lecture, because I thought not many people were going to show up. Of course I didn't understand a word of it, even though it was in English. Chemical Engineering is lost on me. The lecture was over by 3:30ish so I ran downstairs, checked my e-mail, and then got ready to volunteer for the Robotics tournament. Jenny, Misael, Aidaris, and Karen all helped me hand out cards to the hundreds of high school students who invaded our building. They were asked to take lab tours and then fill out the card with their personal information (for recruiting purposes) and then we'd give them a t-shirt at 7:00. I thought we would get bombarded, but it turns out many of the students didn't care to visit the labs or get a shirt, so a bunch of them went outside in the courtyard at Swearingen to play Duck Duck Goose. Weird, right?
I left the school around 8, came home, relaxed a little bit, and then went back out at 10:30 to Art Bar to meet up with everyone for Clay's birthday. It was a very fun (and late) evening. There are a TON of pictures on my photo website under "Clay's Birthday". It was nice seeing everyone again.
Saturday, I was rudely awakened by my dog, who had just eaten some of his food and then decided to jump up on my bed and lick me in the face. He got my hair full of food particles and I smelled disgusting. (I may have anyway... the bar the night before was pretty smokey.) So I had to take a quick shower, and then met up with Dr. Williams, Karen, and Mizugaki-sensei for breakfast at IHOP. Turns out I had been there about five hours prior to breakfast, with Clay and some of the others from the birthday bash. Needless to say, I was pretty tired at that point.
Karen started not feeling well, so she went home, and I was asked to go around with Dr. Williams and Mizugaki for the afternoon. I ended up driving them around campus so Mizugaki could see it. We drove around the Greek Village, and took him to Strom Thurmond Fitness center so he could see how high-tech it is. He seemed impressed. Speaking of high-tech, we then took him to the Robotics tournament that was happening downtown. I have to say, it was awesome! The high school students built robots who had to shoot balls into a hoop- similar to basketball- and they were all controlled by hand. Some robots were on defense and some were trying to shoot. Also, the robots were almost as tall as I am. It was fun to see the students get so excited about the Bots, watch the teamwork, and watch Mizugaki's face when he saw all of the students. It was a fun hour and a half of time.
After that, I took him back to the hotel, ran Williams back to the school, and then came home and took an hour nap. I got ready for dinner, and went out with them again last night. We went to a really nice restaurant called Al's Upstairs and everyone really liked the food. I brought some home for lunch today. (If you are reading this and are in Columbia, you need to go to Al's Upstairs and get the lobster bisque. You will not be disappointed!)
After dinner, I agreed to take them back to the hotel, and told them that instead of having the shuttle pick them up like Dr. Williams had planned, I would do it. I needed to be at the hotel around 7 a.m. to get them to the airport and settled in.
It was a dinner that I realized that I don't think anyone had given them a gift at all, which is customery when people come visit, etc.. So after I dropped them off at the hotel, I had to run around trying to find something to get them. Walmart was the only thing open. I hate Walmart.
I bought the gifts, some groceries, and then came home. Thank GOD I turned on the TV, even though we don't have cable, because a little commercial came up reminding to set the clocks ahead. I made the stupid assumption that the hotel would have told them about that. So this morning at 7, I show up at the hotel, and realize that they only put a sign at the front desk to remind people. The Kanedas and Mizugaki went in directly to the elevator and did not have to go by the front desk at all the night before, so I got paranoid and called Kaneda-sensei. Sure enough, he didn't know about the time change, so they were forced to run around and get ready. We were only about 30 minutes late to the airport, but I felt responsible and couldn't stop apologizing. Good thing the Columbia Metro Airport is easy to get through, esp. on a Sunday morning. They are fine, and should be in Chicago now.
I am so tired. I came back and fell asleep for about 2 hours. Then Charley decided it was time for me to wake up, so now I'm sitting here typing, trying to get my eyes to focus, and motivate myself to get up and around. Jenny's mom is in town right now and they are having a cookout this evening, so I am making sugar cookies and need to bake them soon. I need energy first. :)
That's about all for me. What a weekend. What a long blog entry. I hope I can relax this afternoon and not have to worry about running around very much.
Thanks for reading the novel!

-Ashley