Day Two Hundred Eighty Four

I'm still missing my little corgi like crazy, but today provided enough unexpected twists to help distract me from the sadness of it all, and for that I'm grateful.

First off, the professor I helped TA for took all 3 of his TAs out to lunch today. We all expected he'd take us to Quizno's or Chick-Fil-A or something...instead he took us to the University of Texas Club at the football stadium. This is a very fancy members only kind of place, and apparently Dr. Holcombe is a member. People were wearing suits. I was wearing jeans and a bright red fleece pullover, Mindy had on yoga pants, and Daniel was wearing an obscure rock band t-shirt. We stood out just a little. The food was delicious though. Then I looked around at the other people milling about, and Andy Roddick walked by me. Famous retired tennis player Andy Roddick. I was so confused as to why he was even there, and no I did not get a photo...I'm not a big enough fan of his to interrupt his day. It was a pretty cool, unexpected celebrity sighting though. Those don't happen often.

Later this evening I went to the final UT home baseball game with the Avants. It lasted 4 whole innings until the game had to get called due to thunder and lightning. However, lots happened in those 4 innings. I won Tuesday Twitter trivia and got a free UT baseball t-shirt (as well as a retweet by Texas Baseball...yeah!). Then we moved up to the highest row to avoid the incoming rain and ended up sitting next to the camera guys from the local news stations. I decided to talk with the one sitting right next to me about his camera (inspired questions such as "how heavy is it?") and the station he was working for (KEYE tv, the local CBS affiliate). I just assumed he was some camera lackey for the station. After he left to go edit footage, Bob Avant informed me he recognized the guy and that I had just been chatting up the sports anchor, Adam Winkler. Well alright then. I'm extra proud of those camera questions now. He was super nice though, and even held up his camera so I could get a photo for instagram/twitter/facebook/blog. I tagged him in the Twitter post and promptly got retweeted by him. This may be the first day I've actually genuinely enjoyed having a Twitter...so many fun things happened with it today!

I'm sleepy.

Day Two Hundred Eighty Three

Due to the unexpected passing of my sweet corgi Sophie this past Saturday, its been an extremely rough few days. Thank you to everyone for the kind words and birthday wishes.

Day Two Hundred Eighty

I am so tired, I almost posted this as "Day Two Hundred Seventy Ten." Unfortunately, that isn't even a joke...it was a completely serious thought. Hello, post finals brain. I haven't missed you.

I had my big cumulative final this morning, and I'm so happy its over. After finishing I went back to my office, caught up on some emails, and stared into space for a while. It actually ended up being a good waste of time, as a few big storms passed through Austin at the same time. Sometimes, I'm very thankful that I work in a gigantic, practically indestructible brick building. Even though it sometimes smells weird.

To celebrate the end of finals, Kelly and I got dinner at Schlotzky's and indulged in some frozen yogurt for dessert. YUM. Then we went to see one of our favorite comedians, Jeff Dye (seen in the photo below), at a local comedy club. The perfect way to end an initially very stressful day.

Day Two Hundred Seventy Eight

I have my one final for the semester this coming Friday, which means mass panic-studying has been happening all day today (and will continue throughout tomorrow). Cumulative finals are just the worst.

In good news I got some actual research done on Monday and Tuesday! It's been the first time I've been able to dive into my own project, and its been really exciting. Also exciting (in a bad way) was the GIANT wasp that somehow found its way into lab today. Mike almost put his hand right on it when peering around the windowsill to look for it, Mindy grabbed an old textbook to eradicate the situation (seriously, a text book was the only thing substantial enough to take this bug down), and when the first swat didn't kill him, frantic swatting with both the textbook (by Mindy) and an old poster (Mike was serving as back up) ensued. The wasp is no longer a problem. Success!

Final note - we're dog sitting a snuggly corgi for the week. I don't hate it.

Day Two Hundred Seventy Five

I went to the grocery store today, and the volume of the purchases people around me were making made me wonder if everyone in south Austin was stocking up for the apocalypse. All I had was a box of Ensure drinks and a hand basket of food...as opposed to the teeming carts full of who-knows-what that I was stuck behind at the checkout line. Goodness gracious.

After enduring the checkout line that never ended, I came home and finished the book I bought last Friday (as in 2 days ago). It feels so good to be able to indulge in my obsessive reading habit again.

Most exciting part of the day...tweeting about one of my favorite comedians
(Jeff Dye) and having him Favorite the tweet a few minutes later. A minor freakout on my end occurred. My roommate can confirm this. But it was awesome.

Day Two Hundred Seventy Four

Today was a blissful day of doing nothing school related. And also going to my first handbell concert. Bravo, Baylor Bronze and director Bob Avant. You introduced me to handbell music and caused me to reminisce about my own band days.

Day Two Hundred Seventy Three

Spring semester is almost.......done.......all I have is one final next Friday, then I can officially put my second semester if grad school in the books! How crazy. And you know what's awesome? My take-home final from my other class got cancelled because neither the prof or the TA wanted to grade it. Best. News. Ever. There may have been jumping and cheering and high fives thrown around once we left class after learning that.

Today I finished grading my last batch of lab reports for my spring labs. I'm relieved to be done with it, but I'll also kinda miss those undergrads. They can be super needy at times (I'm now positive I was too in undergrad), but they definitely grow on you.

I got to spend time with one of my Austin parents tonight, eating dinner and going shopping. Thanks for hanging out with me Louise!