Thanksgiving

Things I Am Thankful For Over Thanksgiving Break:

• For the second year now, I got to spend Thanksgiving with Erik
• I was able to see relatives that I normally don't see on Thanksgiving because they live in Las Vegas and Los Angeles
• Being able to talk on the phone with the Minnesota relatives I usually spend Thanksgiving with
  
• Fun times (and free drinks) with my generous cousin
• A very much appreciated early Christmas present from my aunt & uncle: A Costco Membership!
  
• Another job prospect for Erik (he has an interview this Friday!!)
• Decorating the apartment for Christmas
• Today is pay-day!
  

Picture: http://thelegacybuilder.wordpress.com/2009/09/29/a-few-of-my-favorite-things/

Pocket full of sunshine...

It's the weekend!! (I don't have class on Fridays, so my weekend starts early. It gets interrupted by having to teach on Saturday, but oh well) I would say that I'm probably about half-way through the list I posted last time. I have a ton to get done this weekend, but tonight I am enjoying an evening of relaxation (we bought a Christmas tree! but it won't be put up until the day after Thanksgiving).

Here's a goofy picture of myself that I took while playing with the webcam function on my new laptop.


P.S. Sorry if the post title gets that song stuck in your head. It was playing on the radio in the car and is in my head.

So much to do!!

Grad school is busy. Oiy.

In the next two weeks, I must accomplish a lot of stuff.
- Hydrogeology Problem Set (or two)
- Hydrogeology Take-Home test (almost done!)
- Cut a bunch of basalts down to size
- Schedule SEM time to look at the olivines in said basalts
- Give a short presentation regarding my research to my adviser and her other students
- Have my GSA Grant Proposal draft finished
- Give a practice Thesis Proposal talk to my class
- Finish the Thesis Proposal draft
- Prepping the last two labs of the semester
- Grading policy letters for those labs
- and any 'normal' homework that pops up in there (and it will)

I may need to use a substantial amount of caffeine to do this. It might hurt. Oiy.

It is pretty grand...

This is definitely the coolest thing I've seen since moving out west:


Photo 1: Grand Canyon, Colorado River, Lava Falls, Lava Falls Rapids
Photo 2: Grand Canyon, Toroweap Overlook

Some of the Products of My "Extended Weekend"

A card for my best friend and her husband who got married this summer. (Congrats to the newlyweds, Mr. & Mrs. Baker!) This one was made in July, but the other three cards are from a few weekends ago.

For my cousin who just bought her first house.

This one was for my aunt's birthday.

And this one was for my parent's wedding anniversary (the photo is from an old desk calendar I keep around for craft purposes).

Tip-Toe Through the Tulips

Tulips are my favorite flower. One of my favorite things from last spring was walking through town and seeing all of the tulips as they popped out of the ground and began to bloom in various colors. My cousin, future artist/graphic artist extraordinaire, made an amazing painting of my favorite flower (in one of my favorite color schemes!) to grace the very empty and very white wall in my living room. Thanks so much, Tess! Shortly after the painting graced the wall my mom sent tulips to me. What a perfect coincidence!

Painting: Tess F., 2009

Extended Weekend

I ended up with a bit of an extended weekend over the last few days, but only because I was sick and did not go to school yesterday or today. I started to feel a little sluggish on Friday but didn't really admit to actually being sick until I got to my lab section on Saturday where I had trouble talking. On Sunday I woke up and felt downright terrible. I felt so crummy that I scrapped my original plan of waiting until Monday where I could have gone to the school doctor for free, and looked up the nearest clinic.

From what I had heard of this string of clinics, I expected that we would be waiting in the sitting area for hours before getting to see a doctor. I guess Sunday mornings are a slow time for them, thankfully, because I was seen after a reasonable amount of time. Then the doctor told me that my horribly sore throat was probably just due to a virus... but thank goodness she also wrote me two prescriptions. 1) Typical cough syrup. 2) "Magic" Mouthwash to numb my throat.

At first, I thought the idea of mouthwash that would numb my throat was awesome. I continued to think that until I tried it out. It was then that I realized that it also would numb my tongue and lips. I absolutely hate coming home from the dentist and having that numb feeling all over, so I struggled a lot with this stuff.

But anywho... I didn't go to school the last two days because I didn't want to get other sick, and I needed the rest. Luckily, I didn't miss a lot. One of my classes and a meeting for Monday were canceled, and new homework sets weren't assigned in my other classes. Score!


I slept a lot this weekend, but I did accomplish something else: Halloween decorating!! I don't have a lot of Halloween decorations, but now the apartment is a little more festive. :)

My Life as a New Grad Student

It's already the third week of school! I can't believe it! (And I still don't have a good routine set up...).

The Office: This is where I place the blame for not having a good routine so far. I didn't have a key to my office until the end of last week. When I had down time between classes, I would "office crash" with my fellow students who had keys (I'm in the new building, hence the lack of key), or I would find a random couch in the hallway and try to get some reading done. Not the best for being productive... But now I have a key, so I can get my office set up and hopefully I'll start getting things done in a more efficient manner.

The Classes: They're going alright so far. The fact that our program considers a B- failing is kind of intimidating though. I think if we get two B-'s we're put on probation from the program. I'm hoping that won't be an issue, but it's definitely motivation to study, study, study.

The "Teaching:" So I don't really teach, I mostly just say "Today we're doing Lab 3, it's in the lab manual. Ask me if you have questions." And then I end up explaining certain things over and over again to different groups of students. My students seem like they're doing fairly well so far, and I think I've been able to help them understand concepts that they've asked me about.

The Research: I'm going to be studying the weathering of ultramafic minerals, particularly olivine. I have a list of papers and dissertations to read and look through to gain some understanding of the subject and what people have done in similar experiments. My adviser told me today that we've got the sampling permit we need to go obtain samples at one of our field sites, so we'll probably be doing that in early October. This isn't really what I envisioned studying when I applied to grad school (but really, I didn't have a good idea of what I wanted to do anyway). Yet, I know that I'll be learning a lot because this is all new to me.

Alrighty, now I must get going. I've got oreos and a paper about geology and the scientific method waiting for me.

Life in Vegas Thus Far

Things have been going pretty well so far in Vegas. I got settled into the apartment in a week. Well, mostly. I have a few pictures to hang up and some files to organize, but other than that, I'm pretty much done.
Orientation started today. It wasn't very exciting actually. I thought there was going to be more to it, but we basically just got talked at for a few hours in a banquet hall sized room with 600ish new students in it. It was nice to be able to put names to faces of people I'd possibly need to contact if I had certain issues (where to get paperwork, who to talk to about funding, how to change the people on your committee, etc...). Yet, I would have been fine with just getting a big ol' packet of information and not wasting gas money to do the 20-minute drive to campus. (I took a quicker route this time. Last time it took 30 minutes. Tomorrow we'll see how long the same route takes but with morning traffic...)

Tomorrow morning I'm going to a teaching workshop. Some renowned speaker/teacher/professor is going to be teaching us about different methods to get students involved, I guess. I hope that it's helpful, because I don't see myself as a teacher at all (don't really want to be a teacher at all... but it's how I'm getting paid, and it will be a worthwhile experience). I'm more of a one-on-one person, not a lecture to a big group of people person. I'm actually ridiculously boring to listen to when I'm "lecturing." At least that's the impression that I got during my stint as a Sunday school teacher or during RA training sessions. But oh well, even if the workshop is a bust, I am going to the grocery store (a.k.a. Walmart Supercenter... I don't have to like them, but they're cheap and conveniently located) to get some stuff. I like grocery shopping.

And then Thursday, oh Thursday. I can't wait until Thursday. Here's the first reason. Thursday is the Geoscience Department orientation. So, I'll actually be meeting people that I'll see on a regular basis, and find out what the heck I'm supposed to be doing rather than getting talked at in a crowded auditorium hearing stuff that could have been sent out in a packet. And, there's a potluck, which should be fun.

The other reason I'm excited is that Erik gets back to Minnesota from his European adventure on Thursday. At that point, our long-distance relationship gets upgraded from Gmail chats and emails to phone calls. Yay!!

An Old Bookmark

While I was unpacking the other day, a folded-up piece of paper fell out of a book. I usually just use random scraps of paper as bookmarks. Those cute and/or fancy bookmarks that you can buy at the store are nice, but I'm always afraid that I'll lose them or that they'll get damaged. For this reason, I generally just use scratch paper.

On the outside of this piece of paper was this quote, which I must have found important while I was reading the book from which it came.

"Sometimes at our most discouraged, we can also forget that the past is a resource, not a destiny."
~Jill Fredston, from her book "Snowstruck"

I enjoyed re-reading the quote, and then tossed the bookmark into a pile to be dealt with later. As I was tidying up a few moments ago, I unfolded the piece of paper to see what, if anything, was written inside. There is a doodle of a daisy and directions to my boyfriend's house. The funny thing is, I have the route memorized now but I still don't know the street names for a lot of the turns. And a few of the roads, according to these directions, have an actual name and then a county road name. Three of the roads have the same county road name, which doesn't make sense to me. Maybe that's why Kyla and I almost got lost the first time we drove there!