Actually, I haven’t been all that busy, but shhh! I’ve just been being lazy.

We had the joint birthday party for the four July birthdays, DmentD and I make the cake(s), mine was the super chocolate cake *grins* we also got to try out some new recipes with a pina colada flavour, and a pumpkin and spice cake.

The party was fun, dancing, karaoke (though I didn’t partake), games and music. A small group of us played Zombies!!! Not a bad game, maybe a little long. It was a good night.

Monday’s we’ve been swimming round at a friend’s apartment, certainly nice in this hot weather, and it’s a little bit more exercise, and it’s good to see people.

Last week a friend had tickets to go see an advance screening of Julie and Julia, she invited me along and the start of the film was really good, I was enjoying it, it was entertaining (and I wasn’t drooling over the food.. honest!).. and then it suddenly started playing upside down and back to front. The audience is laughing, it stops and we wait a few minutes. They come out and tell us it’s going to take half an hour to fix. We wait and about twenty minutes into that we’re told it’s going to be another twenty minutes. At that point they’re offering free tickets to anyone who wants to leave. But we decide to stick it out and our patience is rewarded, at the end of that 20 minutes the lights go down, they tell us to turn our phones of because it’s ready to start. We sit… and wait… and the film isn’t starting, it’s still not fixed, it’s going to be another half an hour.. We grit our teeth but we’re determined to see this through. Until at the end of that half hour they say it’s going to be another half hour, we get our free tickets and leave. I would like to still see the rest of the film, it seemed promising.

We used the free tickets to go and see Half Blood Prince Friday night.. I have mixed views on it, as a film on it’s own, it’s not bad, but it’s definitely not great, it was a fun evening at the very least. As a film in the Harry Potter series, it leaves a lot to be desired, and is probably the worst of the bunch in my opinion.. As a film recreation of the book, don’t even bother *grins* I had a fun time watching it, I wouldn’t rave about it though. And is it just me, or did I dream all the interviews where Rupert Grint and Emma Watson were talking about filming the kiss scene, because I failed to see it.. or maybe it’s in Deathly Hallows.. they’re filming that now aren’t they?

Friday I spent a fun day on the phone to the USCIS. Since my visa has all of six weeks left on it I was trying to find out how long I had to be gone for. Miracle of miracles, I made it through to a person, twice! The first time the person really wasn’t much help, she decided I either needed to extend my M1 visa ($300, and not really possible when I have no legitimate reason to since the course is finishing) and then decided to answer all other questions with “speak to your school official.” My school official was not answering the phone or email until Saturday morning, so I went onto a couple of the immigration forums/wikis I’ve browsed for information in the past and finally joined to ask if anyone there had any idea. A couple of people mentioned that they thought since I was classed as an AOS applicant (adjustment of status) I didn’t have to leave, as leaving and returning would mean getting a new I-94 (the bit of paper in my passport telling me how long I can stay, they give it to you on the aeroplane), when they have my current I-94 on record. So I searched the internet a little more, and finally rang them back up again getting the second person who was a whole lot more helpful and was able to tell me this was true! A definite weight off my mind.

Turns out it was all irrelevant as Saturday my interview appointment arrived in the mail! *dances*

Saturday after work we went to Whole Foods for a cheese thing they had going on, it wasn’t all that great, but there were some nice samples, and a woman pulling mozzarella, warm and gooey and so good.

I’m driving more, actually made it on to the highway this weekend.. At half six in the morning on the way to work on Saturday, so nobody was about! We’ll build up to it some more until I’m comfortable on there when it’s busy. I’m a lot better off the highway, much more comfortable. I still get a little nervous in heavy traffic, but my moments of ‘what side of the road should I be on’ are few and far between, and mostly limited to car parks with no lines on the road and no cars to guide me *grins*