Wow…I cant believe it has been 6 months since I have written in this thing. Truthfully, the reason I have not written is because I have my own journal I write in at home.  It is more of a God/spiritual journal.  It has all the normal features of a normal journal…but it is directed as more of a letter to God.  So instead of writing “Dear Journal”…it is more like “Dear God”…well not exactly…but along those lines.  If you have not done journaling, I would highly recommend it.  It is great.  I look back at my entries and see things in my life I struggled though and how God got brought me through it.  He rocks =)

Anyways…as for life for the past 6 month…my goodness, where do I start?  Ok…I will really have to highlight some key points.

1) The PhD program is going well.  I have done almost 2 years and have around 3 & 1/2 years to go!  Yeah, I will be in Seattle for a while. =)  I am doing Biochemistry in my research project, not what I would have expected at all, but still is pretty cool.  I learned to love it. He he he. 

2) I finished my last class for my PhD program 2 weeks ago!! Wooohooo!

3)  I am still a youth leader for “Driven Ministries” at my church.  I mainly help out with worship.  Dave and I co-lead the Driven band.  We are gearing up for a big event June 29^th.  We will be having a Driven lead service that Sunday morning.  Driven band will play, youth Pastor Tony will preach, it is gonna be great!  It will be fun to play some youthful contemporary Christian at main service.  

4)  The female OYA (Older Young Adult) bible study has gone well this past year.  We have studied everything from Obedience, Esther, Deborah and now studying I & II Peter.  Emily and I have co-lead this bible study since September 2007 and it has been nothing but a blessing to my life and the lives of the gals in this group.  It is quite encouraging to be surrounded by such great young women!

5)  I have tried to make it a point to read my Bible more consistently and read it straight through!  I never have done that before so there had been chunks of the bible I never read (particularly the Old Testament).  This past Fall, I read straight through all the New Testament.  There is nothing like emerging yourself in Gods word and dissecting its truths.  I am now reading through the Old Testament, though it is much harder to get through at times because of all the genealogy, law and church building details.  Because of that, I took a break and now reading through Psalms.  Lol.  I like Psalms.  It has so many encouraging words.  I am also reading “Captivating” with my best friend Shereese.  It is a girly Christian book which talks about the deepest desires of a Woman, Gods plan in our lives, how God uniquely created us and how sin in this world has shattered Gods original plan in our lives.  I think the book is interesting so far.  Cant say I agree with all of it…but it is still a fun read and good book to discuss. 

6) I recorded some of my music with Joshua Ruiz from Studio 7!  Finally huh!?  I still have other songs I would like to record there but I need to wait till my weekends free up again since I would need to travel to Portland for this.  You can hear my music at www.myspace.com/traciemusic

7)  My life has been occupied prepping for a big grad school exam that is required of all 2^nd year students to take.  It is called “Topics” because we basically write a research proposal/grant and give a oral presentation on a topic we have no expertise in.  Something out of our field.  It is meant to test our capabilities of thinking outside your comfort zone and expanding out to other areas.  This exam is a big deal.  I have to pretend I actually do work in that Topic area and propose all these experiments to do.  Other then writing the 10 page paper, I have to give an oral exam with faculty which will grill me on every aspect of that Topic and more!  The exam is June 3^rd.  So until then…it is study study study!!!

8)  Well obviously, I have done a lot of fun social activities for the past 6 months…but no time to write them all.  So you can just see my pictures on myspace or facebook =).

Because I am a procrastinator....

So yeah….I am procrastinating right now because I am tired of reading and have been putting off writing in my journal for a while.  Truthfully, I almost decided to stop writing in this thing.  I have had this online journal for at least 3 years…maybe 4. Anyways….because I want a break…I shall write and update you on what has been going on!

1)  Tracie’s 23^rd Birthday! (Sat, Sep 29^th….though my actual birthday is the 20^th!)
I must say this was one of the most awesome birthday parties I have had.  I wish my LA friend could have joined in on the festivity too!  First of all…It was exciting for my best friend from NYC…Shereese…to fly in for the weekend to celebrate with me!  Then, my aunt, my cousin and her husband drove from Portland for my party…and I had a bunch of friends from church and school come.  What did we do? Well…first we had dinner at Buca de Beppo in Seattle.  A family style Italian Restaurant.  Because I love dressing up, I asked everyone to dress up and make it a more formal event.  Everyone looked so good!  The girls wore pretty dresses and the boys look good in their dressy shirts and/or suites!  I had about 22 people show up for dinner alone!  It was so much fun!  After dinner, we all went off to “Seattle’s Best Karaoke” where we sang countless songs for 3hrs in our own private rented room.  Oh man…that was so much fun!  I had around 20 people show up for Karaoke…and as the night went by we shrunk in #’s…but that did not stop the fun!!!  In the end…we were about 8-10 and milked every last bit of our time there to sing as much as we can before our time was up!  Thanks to everyone who came and made my special day a blast!  I love u guys!!!  Here is the link to the youtube karaoke videos so u can laugh... (http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=tracie2001eagle)  Also..here are some pictures….

2)  Salsa Dancing (Sat, Oct 5)
I went Salsa dancing with the CCA OYAs (Older Young Adults) from church. Coming from Mexican decent, it was nice to do something a bit more cultural for me.  I had actually never Salsa danced before so it was a whole bunch of fun!  And the OYA’s made it even more fun!!!

3) Northwest Youth Conference (2^nd weekend in Oct)
This was an awesome experience.  We took the youth group to a youth conference in Yakima WA.  We took two large vans vans to hold around 18 teens and 4 leaders.  The leaders who went were Jalyse, Dave and I…with guest youth leader Kate! Yay!  The worship guest artist at this event was “Jeff Deyo.”  I never head of him until that weekend and I must say…he is good!  I loved the way he lead worship and his songs are amazing.  I fell in love with the song “Unveil.”  Though I was there to serve the students…the Lord still blessed me and touched my life during the services.  There was one point where I just felt the Holy Spirit fill my body with his warmth and brought me to complete surrender before the Lord.  I know a lot of the students were touched at this conference too.  There was good speakers and fun entertainment between events.  It was just a great time!  It also gave me a opportunity to get to know the students better and break down some walls they might have had.  Here are a few pictures…

4) UCLA vs CAL (Sat, Oct 20^th)
Anyone who knows me well knows I am obsessed with UCLA football.  College football season is one of my most favorite times of the yr!!!  Even though I attend the University of Washington now…I am still a Bruin fan for life!  Even if they lose…I still love them and will always root for them!  So…it happened to be that one of my good friends from church (Dave) is a Cal fan…so I threw a small football party where him, me and my other good friend Brianne came over and watched the game at my apartment.  So let me mention…though USC is UCLA’s big time rivals…Cal is our second rivals…so this was a big game for me!!!  I wanted Cal to go down!  So we watched and the odds were against UCLA since Cal was higher ranked.  The whole game was pretty close.  At one point UCLA was down and it was 4^th quarter and I began to pray out loud jokingly for UCLA to win.  At this point Brianne and Dave made fun because we had recorded the game ahead of time and were now watching it…meaning praying at that moment would not help because the game had been over for 3 hrs.  LOL!  But then I said…”The Lord knew I would pray at this moment so he still heard and can answer my prayers!” ha ha ha. Anyways…at that point I said out loud…please…we need a interception…and 8 seconds after I said that…UCLA intercepted and scored and won the game!! YES!!!  And…me and Dave had a mini bet…whoever lost the game…you would have to wear the other person’s teams hat during sermon/lunch on Sunday for all to see!  So since I won…Dave had to wear my UCLA hat the next day…and it killed him…yes!  I love winning!  Here is a picture for evidence =)

Dave (who lost the bet) and John (wearing a UCLA hat for the fun pic)

5) UCLA vs WSU (Sat, Oct 27)
Continuing on with my football obsession…I love UCLA football…but because I am not a undergrad anymore and not in LA…I cant go to UCLA home games anymore =(  But…I can still attend a away game if it is close enough.  This year…the closets away game was the UCLA vs WSU game.  So Dave and I drove 5 hrs to eastern Washington to watch the game!  We met up with his buddy Aaron and Aaron’s wife Katie….and then we all went to the game.  First might I add I had a lot of guts to wear blue in a sea of red!  I was in the WSU section and was highly out numbered.  But I did not care!  I wore by baby blue and had my pom poms out in full throttle to cheer.  The game was really cool. But unfortunately UCLA lost!  Sad!  But it is ok.  It was fun and I got to go to a live UCLA football game!!! YES!!! 

6) Bethany and John's Birthday!
My roommie and her bf had a birthday celebration at gameworks and it was so much fun!  I raced some cars…played Dance Dance Revolution for the first time…played airhockey…played soccer…played other videogames..and just had a blast!

7) Pumpkin Patch
This year was a year of new things.  I carved my first pumpkin (see picture) with my roommate…and I participated in Pumpkin Patch with my church on Halloween with the youth (Driven).  Driven was in charge of face painting and Laser Tag!  It was a whole lot of fun.  The whole church basement was full of carnival type games and prizes and activities.  It was great!

Driven Leaders

8) Life recently…
CRAZY…as usual.  Classes have been keeping me WAY busy. And I have been wring grants/scholarship essays…which have taken a lot of time.  All of this has made getting stuff done in lab a lot harder.  I am just excited for Jan so I can be done with classes and do more experiments again in lab!  As for non-school life…the OYA women’s bible study is going well.  Me and Emily have been leading this at my apartment since Sep.  Our group has really grown and bonded during this time.  Things are going well with Driven too.  It is still pretty much me and Dave with 1 or 2 students making up the Driven band.  We are praying we get some more musicians…especially a drummer…soon!  We are also now in process of interviewing for the youth pastor position.  We actually get to meet a candidate tomorrow!  We shall see if this is the one God has for this church youth.  As for music…it is going well.  My church choir is prepping for the Xmas concert this Dec 8-9.  It is looking good!  I have a couple songs I will be singing a solo in or singing praise team parts…so I am excited!  

Ok…now back to work for me.  I need to finish this one book for my bacterial pathogenesis class, write a paper, read science papers and prepare for a presentation…all by Monday-Tuesday of this coming week.  Off I go! 

Part 2: My crazy week or so....

So...here is my crazy week or so...lol!!!

1)     Wed, Sep 12th: 
          Came to lab and my cells were contaminated with bacteria!!!  NOOOO! This was not good at all!  Then…other people looked at their cell cultures too and they were contaminated too!  We traced it back to a bottle of serum free media we all had used in our experiments when we infected cells with herpesvirus.  Oh Well.  So we all where quite upset and had to start all our experiments all over again!  Blah!  And that totally ruined my schedule.

2)     Fri-Sat, Sep 14-15th: 
          Got up at 4:50am and was out on the first bus out at 5:20am to campus.  I got to lab by 5:45am and startd a 6am-9am infection.  I wanted to do the same two experiments the bacteria contamination ruined before the departmental retreat the following Thursday…and these experiments take days to do….with crazy time points.  Given I have a crazy schedule and needed to be done with lab by 5pm…I had to come in extra early to rush and do this.  Anyways…so I was up at 5:00am (had stayed up to 1am the night before)….and…I was not going to get any sleep that night because it was the Driven overnighter! 
          So after lab…I went to the church and helped set up for the Driven Overnighter.  Driven is our church youth group…and I am a leader…along with Jalyse and Dave.  Around 31 teens showed up for the event at 8am.  We had introductions…played a game of kryptonite (we hid glow sticks around our huge church for them to find)…ate some food….played dodge ball…ate more food….played more games…ate more food…then had 12-1am worship time!!!  After this…we split the girls and guys up and had separate devotional times.  We had the girls write letters to their future husbands.  A that point we had karaoke till like 4am. Then we had them play sardines (another form of hide and go seek) for about 45min.  At that point most of them decided to crash for the night….except like 8 teens…Me and Dave.  So we put on Indiana Jones in the Driven room and like 4 other teens joined us.  Two guys were playing video games in the pool room and two of the younger teens wandered around the church.  By the time the movie was over (around 5:45am)…the only ones awake in the Driven room were me and Dave…the two leaders! LOL!  The guys playing the video games and the ones wandering around were still awake too!  So then we had them wash up…they ate breakfast…then went on a scavenger hunt till 11am.  From 11am-12pm they had lunch…and then they all went home!!!

  
Dave wrapping some of the youth boys in Saran Wrap!

Some of the Youth Girls already wrapped!

Dave and I being introduced as their youth leaders for those who did not know us!

Jalyse and Hi chugging Rockstar to make it through the night! LOL!              

                My journey was not yet done!  As soon as I got home…I went out with my cousin and her husband since they were visiting me.  We went out to eat and got back at around 2:30pm.  At that point I was finally able to sleep…for 2 hrs!  I had been up for 34 hrs! LOL!  Then we hung out…had dinner…watched a movie and were up till midnight.

3)     Sun, Sep 16th: 
          Great church day as always!  Still living off of adrenaline and sleep deprived.

4)     Mon, Sep 17th: 
          Another 5:45am lab day.  After, I take Erika to SPU to check out the school.  She is planning on transferring in the spring. It went well there.  We get done with everything around 7pm…then go run errands and get home at 9pm.  Sleep at midnight.

5)     Tues, Sep 18th: 
          Last 5:45am lab day.  It is killing me by now….but I am almost done!  Have bible study with the girls latter that night.  What a day!  It was awesome!!!!  We all let our guards down and became vulnerable.  We talked about Purity that night.

6)     Wed, Sep 19th: 
          I get the data to my experiments I had been working hard at the last week…only to find my virus infection rate was too high (around 96%) and had a high lytics (8%).  In order for it to work…it has to be around 80% infection rate and less then 5% lytic.  So…my experiments went to crap.  Oh well.  I had choir rehearsal that night so at least I felt a bit better

7)     Thurs, Sep 20th: 
          My Birthday!  Thanks to everyone who messaged me, called me and texted me.  You rock!  I had breakfast with my Cousin Erika at 7am before she had to take her train home to Portland OR and I had to leave on my departmenal retreat (8:30am). Ended up driving with Kelly, Kristin, Melody and Ruth to Fort Warden for our yearly Microbiology retreat.  The talks were good…the people were cool…the housing was mediocre…and the food was terrible! LOL!  But whatever…it was still cool

8)     Fri, Sep 21st: 
          I got home from my retreat at 4pm…then went to Gary and Jael’s house.  I baby sat their kids as they went to a rehearsal dinner for their niece.  I had fun with their kids.  They are totally so sweet and well mannered.  If I remember correctly…there is Gracen who is 11…McKinsey who is 9…Cole who is 8 and Tabitha who is 3.  I love these kids and they all tell me how much they love me too and love having me sit for them…hehehe.  I watched movies with them for a while…then I played Monopoly with Gracen.  At the same time…I painted McKinsey’s and Tabitha’s nails for tomorrow.  It was awesome.  They went to bed at 9:30pm.  Their parents arrived around 10:45pm.  I stayed the night in the guest room and would go home early the next day

9)     Sat, Sep 22th: 
          ONE OF THE BEST DAYS EVER!  I had told Gary and Jael I wanted to talk to them about something.  I told them how I admired their passion for Jesus…their love for one another…and their love for their children.  I also told them I admire how they bring up their children in the Lord and how they always demonstrate Jesus’s love and kindess to everyone around them.  I asked them if they would take the role of my spiritual parents while I was here in Seattle.  I would be in Seattle for another 4 ½ years probably and would like to have a Godly couple in my life that can keep my accountable…can pray for me…and just provide a Christian example in my life.  Also…since I would be here in Seattle for another 4 ½ years…lol…if I got into a relationship…they would be like my parents and help guide me and him and keep us accountable.  I then told them my testimony and they were in disbelief.  But God is good and he heals all.  They were more then honored and flattered I would ask them for this and they agreed to do so and thought that was a great idea! They also felt that God placed me in their life and the life of their children for a reason. Their children love me and look up to me and said I am a good influence for them.  So it was a mutual thing that God was placing in our hearts!  So yeah..it was awesome. 
          To change the subject…I went home…took a much needed nap…went to lab…went to a grad student party which welcomed the new students…watched UCLA beat UW (hahaha!...ironic huh…go Bruins!)…then went to bed around 2am.

10) Sun, Sep 23th:
          Church…went with Driven to watch Brianne Race…had Driven for 1hr…went to the night service at the church since we did not have Driven at the same time this week.

11) Mon, Sep 24th:
          Went to the bosses house for Pat’s going away party.  We had karaoke. The lab finally was able to hear my sing..lol…went home and watched Heroes

12) Tues, Sep 25th:
          Lab all day…bible study event night later that night.  It was awesome! LOL!  We played “The Notebook” in the background…talked girl stuff…played “Dishy little secrets”…painted our nails and added cool designs since I had a kit thing.  It was so much fun!

OK...that is all for now!

The last few weeks (Part 1)

Wow…how insane my life has been this past month!!!  Once again…since I did not write often enough…I am just going to talk a little about different things that went on this last month!  I am actually going to split it up into two parts or else it will be a very long entry!

1)     Wednesday, August 22nd…..Choir Fall kick off!  We had a BBQ at Gary and Jael’s home.  We ate…caught up with people…listened to some upcoming Christmas music for the concert…and just had  a great time.

2)     Friday, August 24th…..Ruth’s 23^rd birthday party!  It was great to meet up with all my grad student friends that night and celebrate Ruth’s Birthday!  Woohoo! 

3)     Friday, August 31st…..I had me and Bethany’s house warming party that night.  It was awesome!  First of all…I like shopping for specials…and me and Bethany spent $35 each on the party!  This included buying 4 large pizzas from Pizza hut…5 large bags of chips…ice cream…Capri suns…4 liters of soda…cupcakes…and plates, cups, napkins!  It was awesome night.  I had friends over from church and school.  We chilled and ate some yummy food.  Then we all played “Battle of the Sexes!”  As usual…there is always more girls then guys at both school and church…so we made two teams of females (which alternated) and one team of males for the game.  Truthfully…the boys were kicking our butt in the beginning of the game…but then…all of a sudden…the girls started to catch up!  Woohoo!  By the end…girls won! Yay!  Anyways…after the game…we hung out and talked…listened to music…danced…laughed...and just had a grand ole time.  At the end of the night….my roommate Bethany, her bf John, me and Dave went to Hollywood videos like at 11pm and rented “Rocky Balboa” and watched it into the wee hrs of the night.  .  It was a good movie.  Here are pictures from that night...

Me, Melody, Kelly and Kristen

Emily, Varissa, Ingrid, Bethany and Jalyse

Adam, Chris, Dave and John

Me and Melody

4)    Saturday, September 1st…..now this was a fun day!  College football season started!  YAY!  GO BRUINS!!!!  I am always excited for this time of the yr.  Football rocks!  Anyways…I did not have cable yet…so me and Kim (a rotation student in my lab) decided to spend all day watching football at a sports bar.  We first watched my game (UCLA Vs. Stanford) and then we watched her game (she is a Auburn fan…her undergrad).  We seriously were watching football for like 9 hrs…it was insane.  I must say…I was quite exhausted by the end of the day…but it was totally fun!  And…both our teams won….yes!!!!

5)     Tuesday, September 4th…..First Women’s OYA (Older Young Adult) Bible Study.  I really wanted to start a bible study where females in the 20’s and early 30s can come together and talk about God’s word.  I prayed about it and asked Emily to help me lead it.  We had our first study that night.  We are studying out of the guide “Living Daily in God’s Grace.”  This study manual is on Obedience. You can take a look if you would like (http://www.10basicsteps.com/english/obedience/step6l1.htm).  We started with just three of us that Tuesday night and it was a great session.  I was already able to see how God is going to build us up through this study!  Yay!

6)     Wednesday, September 5th…..Choir rehearsal officially started….woohooo!  It was awesome.  I love choir!

7)     Saturday, September 8th…..The OYA’s went to the Puyallup Fair!    It was a awesome day…clear skies…and just great!  I had only been to the fair once when I was like 5…so it was all a new experience!  Me and Dave split a package so it was less expensive then expected!  I rode cool rides…ate junk food…saw animals and bunnies (I love bunnies)…took fun pictures…listened to some cool music…and just had a great time!  Here are some pictures from that day…

John & Bethany before boarding the Ferris Wheel

Me, John, Bethany & Dave

The view from up top

Me shaving some wood...hehehe

The cow just gave birth!!!

8)     Tuesday, September 11th…..Bible study…lesson 2!  Our numbers doubled that night!  We went from 3 people to 6!  So far…the bible study members are…Me, Emily, Bethany, Brianne, Jalyse and Jennifer (a friend of Dave’s from HS that I met at the fair).  Then, there were two other girls who wanted to come but could not make it that night.  It was great to be able to learn that night from God’s word and each other. 

Time for updates! 

So…lets start where I left off…the KSHV research conference in Portland, Oregon!

So from Aug 1-5^th, I spent my time in Portland for a research conference.  Basically, everyone who does research on Kaposi’s Sarcoma Herpesvirus (KSHV) went to this conference.  It was awesome to meet people in my field and identify names with faces.  The only people who went were me, Val (a senior grad student in my lab), and Michael (the boss).  Me and Val took the train from Seattle to Portland and then shared a room at the Hilton.  I love traveling!  Anyways…the next 5 days were full of talks (presentations) on what people have discovered with this virus.  It was tiring…and occasionally I was almost falling asleep…but they had enough snacks and coffee that it helped me to stay awake.  Other the 8:30am-8pm talks…there was some free time here and there.  Me and Val used that time to go exploring and shopping…woohoo!  I bought 2 cute skirts and a dress for a great value.  The conference was fun…yet exhausting…especially after staying out late, with people from the conference, in the Portland night life. 

Let see…so a shocker from the conference was that someone presented on something similar a person in my lab and I are working on.  I could not believe it.  The way science works…the first person to publish their results in a scientific journal/magazine gets the credit for the research and the other people are just screwed.  So basically…our boss talked to the person who presented and they agreed to submit both our data to the same journal so they can be published side by side.  That is great right!  Yes…but the downside is…. now we had 2 months to finish all the experiments we had planned for the paper…when we thought we would have way more time!  After a meeting with the boss on who would do what…I was lined up with lots of experiments and started working on them right away.  Most of my experiments require me to be in at lab by 7:15am and some days during the week I need to come back to lab at midnight to add certain drugs to my experiments.  SO yeah…Lab life has been crazy!  But in a few months…it will all die down…then I can watch it rise up again since classes start lat Sep.  Anyways…that is the lab update!

 
As for church life….exciting news is our new Pastor will start next Sunday…quite exciting!  Also…Choir starts up again next week…woohoo!  I also am starting a young adult woman’s bible study at my apartment.  I have everything ready and set to start!

As for life life, it is great.  My sister Susan came to visit me for a few weeks here in Seattle.  So from Aug 5^th-Aug 19^th…I spent most my life with her.  We explored the city…watched Gilmore Girls on DVD…she came with me to lab on my late midnight timepoints…we went on a cruise, the zoo, ect.  It really was good times.  It is weird now that she is gone cuz I was so used to seeing her already.  Anyways…now my life is more back to normal…meaning I have more time to spend on myself, God, music and science.

 
Ok…that is all for now!