"Ma'am, we don't recommend dismounting."

Having my sister in Seattle was both helpful (on the moving front) and fun (on the everything-else front). It was also incredibly nice to have my parents there to help pack the ReloCube -- my dad is a pro at securing weird-shaped things into the smallest amount of space possible, and my stepmom derives a weird amount of joy from fitting things inside of other things (the thought of purchasing her a really elaborate set of matryoshka has crossed my mind).

I managed to graduate with Full College Honors and with my American Chemical Society certification intact; I even ended up with good marks for last quarter. Then I moved. Then I got a job (sort of -- I don't actually start until August). Then I applied for graduate school at Hopkins. Excitement!

The last person to live in my house here in Baltimore was apparently an indoor smoker, because there was kind of a grimy film over everything. A cleaning crew has allegedly been here, but you really wouldn't know it -- Matt and I put in 53 hours worth of cleaning (including the time I spent stripping and re-caulking the tub, which was desperately needed). I still have a couple of sets of blinds left to take down and scrub. Ick. I do not, have never, and now definitely won't ever smoke inside my house/apartment/abode. It's now much cleaner here and the extra space is nice; we're also negotiating some compensation for all the work. If our landlord wants to contract me to re-grout and/or remove the ridiculous popcorn ceiling in the kitchen, I am totally down for that also.

Today's task was fixing the garbage disposal. Gross. The drain's been slow all week, but it finally stopped earlier today after Matt dumped a pot of old coffee down. I was definitely not aware of the key socket in the base of those things until I called the In-sink-erator help line out of frustration. However, it is clear now and actually works when the switch is flipped (the wiring is another project altogether). I win.