Last Friday, May 26th, was my 24th birthday! It was my first one away from home or family that I can ever remember. As my birthday falls after the end of the college spring semesters, I am often home or with fam for my "big" celebrations. "Big" is kind of funny b/c we rarely do anything. Maybe it's dinner, but more usually it's a movie. Hmmm, let's recap the last couple of birthdays..
2003: Moving into summer housing at Wash U school of med, preparing for a rip-roaring summer of fun doing HHMI research in lab (woo-hoo). I was lucky enough to have my mum help me move in. Yay, mum!
2004: I had just graduated from college, packed up all my stuff, and moved back home. I then promptly (as in the very next morning), got on a plane for Miami and a little rest. I had gone straight from a surprisingly intensive final semester of classes, directly into finals (no reading week for me), then madly finishing up a year and a half of work in lab, followed immediately by the arrival of my dear college buddy (who graduated a semester early) for Senior Week, hail the arrival of parents/grandparents/etc. for the mad dash of graduation ceremonies, all topped off my packing up the massive amounts of stuff (dare I say "junk?") that I had accumulated over 4 years. When all that was said and done, I was tired of being around people. So, I packed a suitcase and headed off to Miami to hibernate in my sister's apartment and sit on the beach.
2005: I was taking a topics course in immunology at the CDC, and my birthday happened to fall on the day of the final exam. So I went into work, took the exam, and then high-tailed it out of there to catch a plane to L.A. (By this time, my sister had moved from miami to L.A.) to visit my sister (see a trend here?) and be a tourist. While my actual birthday was spent primarily on a plane, the weekend was fun. We toured Warner Bros. studios, went on a Hollywood homes tour, and did some shopping. My sister even baked me a cake!
2006: Fast-forward to present day. I had been talking for weeks about going dancing, and now that my birthday was here it was a perfect time to coerce people into going out with me. The salsa night at a local club was on Thursdays, so I celebrated my birthday a day early. I invited people over for cake (well, fruit tart really b/c to be honest, I'm not a huge fan of cake), and then we went out dancing. Surprisingly, a good number of people came over - about 15 or 16 (I was really only expecting a handful of people to come, so the large turnout was great!). We hung out for a bit, but when it came time for dancing, only 3 of us went!...Me, my roommate, and Simona. Go Simona! I think more people would have come if there was a salsa lesson ahead of time, but the beginner lesson was at 7:30p! Anyhow, as I hadn't been to this club before, it was probably a good thing that not many people came. The crowd was, how shall we say... a bit older than I thought, but we had a good time anyway. I must say, it's great to dance with old men when they really know how to dance! I'd never been spun and dipped so much in my life! It was fun!
2007: Who knows what's on tap for next year, the big 25? My mom has already made some noise about going to Vegas, but we'll have to see about that.
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