They say it's your birthday...

Soo....as of March 3rd, I am officially 21! (and officially without a valid driver's license...uh oh.)

Many thanks for all of the texts, calls, facebook messages, etc. You guys are great!
My roommate Natalie, photographer extraordinaire, took a bunch of photos from our roommate trip to Spark that fully captured the essence of what a birthday is supposed to be about:

Laura made me a chocolate cake from scratch! It won the best-chocolate-cake-I've-ever-had-hands-down award.

Tastes as good as it looks...mmm....

I also went out to lunch at India Palace (chicken tikka masala, heavenly) with my mom and Becky. From my family I received all three seasons of "Avatar: the Last Airbender". You know what this means, right? Weekly marathons. I think yes.
Perhaps the best present though, was getting that dang thermometer fixed! That's what working in the lab on your birthday does for you! :D

Oh, and, I have a little announcement.
That I've known for a while, but was so scared someone was going to email me and say, "Just kidding, we really don't want you," but this week was the first prep class and no one's changed their mind yet, so:

I'm doing an internship in France this summer!!!!! AHHH!!! I get to spend May 28th through the end of August in Europe!!!! AHHHH!!!! So excited!

Anyway. There's the update on life.
You should all come play lasertag with me tonight at 8:00, for a triple celebration of my birthday, my fixing skills, and my future summer in France. :)

agni kai!

Is there a job where I can just get paid for watching "Avatar: The Last Airbender" and blogging? Because that's pretty much all I feel like doing anymore.

There's not? Alas.
Guess I'll stick to chemistry then.

I have a question to pose to you, readers. I'm planning my 21st birthday extravaganza, and have a couple of ideas for what to do.

Option 1:
Playing laser tag.

Option 2:
Eating chicken tikka masala and naan bread at India Palace.

Option 3:
Seeing "Alice in Wonderland" (celebration of my un-unbirthday! how appropriate!) and maybe having a "tea" party.

Option 4:
Mocktails in test tubes à la classy scientist party.

Option 5:
All/some combination of the above.

What say ye?

Have a speedy recovery!

- my turtle birthday balloon from Alena and Joan.
If either of you are blog stalking me and you read this, I love you both and I absolutely adored your presents and card! Thanks!
A big thank you to everyone else who made my birthday special: all my friends who dedicated blogs to me, all the people who texted/facebooked/called and wished me happy birthday, my jawesome roomie Amanda for making me birthday posters in our apartment, my fam for dropping off birthday presents ("Scrubs" season one AND "House" season four...rocccckkkkkk on!), Lance for giving me lunch and a beautiful present. I really appreciate it!

The best present of all: nailing the spectra problem on my o chem quiz. nevermind the fact that i still got the same average overall score which means i missed a bunch of points elsewhere...this is the first time ever i've gotten that problem!

THE Birthday Blog

So pretty much I have the most amazing friends, roommates and family ever. We have a bit of a tradition in our apartment where we deck out the apartment for people's birthdays. I completely forgot about this tradition as I went to sleep on March 2nd, so when I woke up I was genuinely surprised at the plethora, no, cornucopia of posters saying normal birthday things like "Happy Birthday Katie!" to the more creative "You're HOT like the stove!" (taped to the oven door, complete with illustration of me saying, "Wow, I'm pretty much a babe," and a boy saying, "Wow, she's pretty much a babe.") The table was all set with my IKEA dinnerware with adorable not-from-the-creamery balloons and a note saying, "How about lunch at the MOA? See you at 1:00..." which meant that Amanda and Kristen totally read my mind because I had been thinking of asking them if they wanted to go there on my birthday to celebrate. (For those of you who don't know, the MOA is the museum of art cafe, and it has incredible food...mmmmm....) Anyway, so I'm standing in my kitchen at 6:45 in the morning staring at all these posters and the balloons and the "Katie is 19!" banner (which I was almost expecting to read K2Bob is 19...it's an inside joke) and this wonderfully nice note from Suzy, and I just start to cry. Life has been majorly stressful and hard lately, and I was just so touched by all the things my roommates had done for me. Thanks guys :)
But the story doesn't end there. Throughout the day I got multiple happy birthday texts, facebook wall posts, and actual in person happy birthdays. When I checked facebook during the day, what do I see but a message from Alyssa telling me my birthday present was on her blog. Intrigued, I quickly went to it and what do you know, there is an entire tribute to me on her blog! It was so nice! As promised, Amanda, Kristen, and I went to the MOA. (This experience deserves a blog all of its own, but I'll write that later. Be excited.) My mom and younger sisters came by with one of those candy bar posters that has things like "You're a starburst!" with the burst part crossed out. My mom also brought me a whole cheesecake from Costco! My favorite! Woot! Jody took me out to dinner at Costa Vida, which was amazingly delicious...sweet pork salad has no match...afterward, we came back to my apartment for cheesecake with all my roommates and Mark and Matt.
The next day Noah brought me over sugar cookies which spelled out "Happy Belated Birthday Katie!" They were delicious and very cute.
It was one of my best birthdays, I'd have to say. Thanks to everyone who helped make it special. I really, really appreciate it. :)