Day Nine Hundred Sixty

Okay, so I can't blame SXSW for my lack of posting these past 10 days. To make up for it, I'll make this a picture post! And I promise to do better...I promise.

Rodeo Austin! This is what I did instead of SXSW. You can see
how calm and serene the bull rider is on the big screen.

Katelyn and I at the rodeo, being excellent box-seat fillers.

Amanda's wedding photos are here! Here we
are looking adorable.

And here we are being completely normal.

The bridal party.

Here's a shot of part of the Shear Lab (including the boss-man, Dr. Shear)
at the Recruitment Weekend poster session last week.

I took the chem department recruit I was hosting to a UT baseball game, and
we snuck in to first row seats behind home plate for the last two innings.

It was basically like we were on the field with the team.

And this is just something random that happened
today when camels appeared on campus.

Day Nine Hundred Fifty

Let's all blame my lack of posting on SXSW. I didn't actually go to the festival, because I don't have a million bajillion dollars, but I did have to constantly figure out how to navigate around the horrible traffic it causes. But guess what? Today was the last day! The roads can now return to their normal state of bad Texas driving.

This past week was also spring break at UT, which meant a blissful week of work with no undergrads clogging campus. My research did its best to ruin my good mood, but I've gotten used to it rarely working at this point. There's a reason it takes as long as it does to get a PhD. Cross your fingers that this week brings greater success!

As far as fun things go, I've enjoyed both Rodeo Austin and some Texas baseball this past week. The rodeo is always lots of fun, and always reminds me of how different Texas is compared to where I grew up. There's nothing like watching grown men try to ride bulls or throw themselves off horses so they can tackle and flip over a steer. And the best part of it all is we got to watch all this happen from 4th row box seats! Our section of the bleachers (because I'm not willing to pay the amount of money required to get box seats) was chosen to be seat fillers until the rich box seat people showed up, that way the rodeo looked filled to capacity to people watching on TV. We got lucky and the people whose seats we took never showed up! Best surprise ever. I'll post some photos tomorrow when I'm writing my blog post from my laptop and not my phone.

I also took in a UT baseball game yesterday, because I'm hopelessly addicted. We lost, which we're doing with surprising consistency this year, but I still love them. And I got to take a friend of mine to her very first baseball game, which made it even more fun.

Tomorrow.......back to work. What a drag.

Day Nine Hundred Thirty Six

I've learned over the course of living in an apartment building that you get first whiff of your neighbors strong-smelling food choices.

Neighbor making spicy noodles at 11:30pm, I will not miss you.

Day Nine Hundred Thirty Two

I know, I disappeared for a while. I've been battling the cold that just won't quit, and thankfully I seem to be at the very tail end of it. I think I can speak for my entire lab when I say we all can't wait for my sinuses to get back to normal.

My past 10 days have included lots of catching up at work after being in Washington for 6 days followed by being sick for a week. I've successfully overcome a research hurdle that's been plaguing me (yay!), gone to my first baseball game of the season (UT lost real bad), had a mental breakdown over grad school (the semi-annual "what have I don't with my life, I'm never going to get out of here" moment), gotten a massage (it seems I'm tense?), and tutored some young'ns in the basics of chemistry (where I remind myself that I'm not as dumb as I feel sometimes).

I also went to a baby shower for my cousin Emily, where I made a chemistry-themed baby block because you cannot sneak attack me with crafts and not expect me to immediately revert to my comfort zone, molecules. It was for this baby shower that I went shopping for a picture book to gift Emily, and was reminded that people will publish kids books about literally anything. Some favorites were "Who Flung Dung?" and "My Mother is a Foreigner, But Not to Me." I ended up going with "Shamoo: A Whale of a Cow" - the inspiring story of a cow who becomes best friends with a humpback whale and realizes his dream of living and swimming in the ocean. This is not even a joke. Clearly if this whole grad school thing doesn't work out, I can go in to the field of children's literature. Because they will publish the weirdest things ever.