Day Six Hundred Thirty Six

My arms and legs are sore from paddle boarding, and my throat hurts from laughing too much at a late night comedy show. I'd say it was a pretty successful Thursday evening.   :-)

Day Six Hundred Thirty Three

The end of the semester is always so exhausting. So. Very. Exhausting. Grad school, don't you understand my commitment to the UT baseball team in the spring? Why can you not take that into consideration where my work load is involved? Regardless, I shall press on. All I have left is...4 stacks of grading, 1 optics presentation, 1 cell bio exam, and the dreaded second year seminar. May 20th, you seriously can not get here soon enough.

The past weekend was fun though, thanks to my dedication to doing barely any schoolwork. In retrospect, this probably wasn't my best decision, but it was still a pretty great weekend. Game night on Friday night where my team dominated at Catch Phrase, an art show downtown on Saturday, and a movie and games with friends on Sunday.

I would write more, but I need to sleep before giving this optics presentation tomorrow. Everyone in my optics class, you better get pumped to learn alllllll about fiber optics. Woohoo!

Day Six Hundred Twenty Five

So, turns out, the Texas Museum of Science is in a slightly sketchy warehouse that still has Rec Soccer decals on the building (see below) --

Am I going to a famous science exhibit? Or should I instead be worried that I forgot to bring my shin guards? To add to the weirdness, you walk inside, and there's still astroturf on the ground. I think it's safe to say that the Texas Museum of Science has a lot (A. LOT.) of work to do. In fact, it might be a bit of an overstatement to use the descriptor "museum" when it should really be "Texas Warehouse of Science." Regardless, the exhibit was pretty awesome. If it's ever in town near you, I highly recommend it.

After Body Worlds, I ran to Michael's to pick up a poster frame, and good grief...when did those get so expensive?! I bought one anyway, because my Sherlock Holmes poster came in the mail yesterday and I couldn't wait to hang it up. Here it is!

Oh my gosh I love it. All the dark parts behind the silhouette are words from the book. Looking closely, I think they actually fit the entire "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" on that poster. And I now literally have a book hanging on my wall, and it's the best thing ever.

I'll leave you with a photo from last Tuesday's baseball game. Let's all hope that this Tuesday's game goes better!

Day Six Hundred Twenty Four

Another exhausting week. Only 5 more weeks until summer, when I'll finally feel like I have time to breathe again. And read books. Oh how I miss my books.

I had a mid-week baseball reprieve though when I went to watch the Longhorns lose in exquisite fashion on Tuesday evening. Thank you again to the wonderful Deb for sharing her suite with me (and two of my grad student friends) at the game, you are wonderful.

As much as I enjoyed my baseball time, it meant putting off grading....which I paid for dearly on Wednesday night when I stayed up until 1am grading reports. Not fun. Never again (it'll probably happen again). Only one more week of teaching lab and 2 more weeks of grading reports, then I'm free from TAing until hopefully next fall.

The most exciting part of this week? My experiment worked on Friday! IT WORKED!!! This doesn't happen very often, and I like to think it justifies my utterly frantic excitement for when things go unexpectedly according to plan. And all the chemistry grad students got an email that we get a 5% raise starting this coming fall. So basically, Friday was awesome.

I'm still loving my new apartment, and am  excited for when I have time go hang up the final few touches. I can't wait to show off the recent art purchase that I bought and just received in the mail. Its so great. Or as my brother calls it, "intense." I'll take that as a compliment Jeff, even though I'm not sure it was meant to be.

I'll post some much belated photos tomorrow. I would tonight, but I'm writing this post via my phone, and my phone app for blog posts hates photos. So tomorrow it is. And considering I'm going to the Body Worlds exhibit at the Texas Museum of Science tomorrow...you may be looking forward to some wonderful pictures. Prepare yourselves.

Day Six Hundred Twenty

Favorite conversation heard in my lab today -

Male student #1 - "What are you ordering online?"

Male student #2 - "Greek letter decals of my fraternity for my car."

Male student #1 - "I thought only girls did that."

Bravo, student #1. Bravo.

Day Six Hundred Eighteen

Thank goodness it's the weekend. This week has been so exhausting that I'm not even sure how I'm still awake right now. Oh wait, yes I do...grading. I procrastinated tonight like a true champion when it came to grading, and I'll pay dearly for it tomorrow. But it was nice to have a couple hours of just doing absolutely nothing. In good news, one of my students decided to be funny on his lab report, and that always makes grading a little more pleasant. I wish I was allowed to give bonus points for it. This is the title page for said report. The focus of this lab was to test if a car's CO emission was below the EPA mandated limit of 2.1%. It should be noted that they messed up their calculations, so whoever's car they used isn't quite the "Bane of Mother Nature" that this student said. But still. Best title page ever.

This weekend will be madness. I have 60 lab reports to grade, a prelab of my own to complete, and a seminar to start doing background research for and writing. So, with the exception of a baseball game tomorrow (to which I'll likely take reports to grade), I'll spend the entire weekend holed up in my (awesome, wonderful, relaxing) apartment working and listening to the rain outside. 

I was reminded via Facebook that today is national sibling day. So, Jeff, thanks for being an awesome sibling, even though when we were younger you were sometimes a pain in the butt (to be fair, I'm sure I was too). You're one of my favorite people to talk to and spend time with, and I can't wait to come visit sometime again soon, wherever the Air Force may send you.

And Krystle, we're fairly new at this whole sibling thing, but you're pretty much the best sister-in-law a girl could ask for, so happy sibling day to you as well!

Love you both!

Day Six Hundred Seventeen

My dad flew in to Austin today! Albeit for an extremely brief visit (less than 24 hours). I'm thrilled to have both my parents with me, and sad that they hit the road to head back to Richmond tomorrow. But, it's been so great to have my mom in town for a couple weeks. And she's been a real trooper considering these past 7 days have been some of the busiest and most exhausting ones I've had in recent memory. Mom, you're the best (and so are you, Dad). I'm still in love with my new place and can't wait to get the final few items hung on the wall to make it really feel like home.

I'm just over a month away from giving my second year seminar...and I'm terrified. Everyone cross your fingers that my experiment tomorrow is successful, because having actual data to present to the analytical faculty would certainly take some of the pressure off.

Day Six Hundred Twelve

Moving. Is. Exhausting. This is my 3rd move in under 2 years, and I'm ready to just stay put for a while. I'm in love with my new apartment though! Thank you mom, Aunt Denise, and Avants for helping me coordinate movers, unpack boxes, and just in general maintain some semblance of sanity.