Napoleon Dynamite

You are Kip Dynamite and you love technology.


Which Napoleon Dynamite character are you?
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Ben & Jerry's

BROWNIE BATTER! You scored 77% SWEET, 51% CHUNKY, and 59% UNIQUE!

brownie batter ice cream with a rich brownie batter swirl Mmmm....you are a very sweet mix indeed! You are warm, loving, and caring to all those around you, but you're not boring in the least! You have a wild streak and a creative, unique streak, too. You are a great friend, an interesting person, and you know how to have fun without ending up crouching over a toilet bowl. Nice!

My test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 70% on SWEET You scored higher than 11% on CHUNKY You scored higher than 29% on UNIQUE

Link: The Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream Flavor Test written by weered1 on Ok Cupid

The true me

The True You

You want your girlfriend or boyfriend to be more relaxed, calm, and composed.

With respect to money, you spend as little as possible.

You think good luck depends on maintaining good relationships with others.

The hidden side of your personality tends to be satisfied to care for things with a minimal amount of effort.

You are tend to think about others' feelings a lot, perhaps because you are so eager to be liked.

When it comes to finding a romantic partner, you base your search on information from your friends.

Who's the True You?

Movies

My break has been pretty good so far. I almost had a job, but in the end decided not to take it because it wanted me to drive a lot and teach at night on the weekends. Jeff came down this past weekend for a day just to hang out and to meet my aunt and uncle. We went to the mall because I had a gift certificate to spend. I ended up spending it all on starting my new dvd collection. I bought Moulin Rouge, Contact, Shrek, and I bought Princess Bride for Jeff. Not bad at all.

Not much going on the wedding planning, but I did buy my dress. It is in the process of being shipped to me as is my thesis.

Job hunting

So it's been a while since I have last written in here. I think it has to do partly with not ever getting comments. Though you really shouldn't write just to get comments. But I still am going to try installing haloscan to see if that helps anything.

Today has been pretty quiet. I did do a little job hunting today, which was good. I haven't done it in a while. I applied for two jobs from two different companies. It makes me feel good to apply to different companies because many of the jobs I have applied to in the past are all in the same company. If the one company doesn't like me there still are other companies that I applied too that might. Both of the jobs have aspects that are cool, but also have aspects that make me a little nervous. One is in philly and it seems like I would have to qualify to work on each project and the other one is in Plymouth Meeting. This job seems cool, and pays well, but I'm not sure about all the writing. So we shall see. My fingers are crossed.

Feliz Cumpleanos

Happy Birthday to me!

Proof

They are real!

Sushi pillows

Are you addicted to sushi as much as I am? If you are check out this site where you can buy your own sushi pillow!

Published

Woot. I wrote a journal article with my assistantship professor last year and it was accepted with revisions to a journal in the field. I have been checking the website over and over again (its an online issue of the journal) and it was never put it up. It's finally up and I'm now published!

Japanese Name

Your Japanese Name Is...

Mamiko Nomiya

What's your Japanese Name?

I DID IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I just got home from my second meeting with the assistant dean of the graduate school. He briefly flipped through my thesis, only looking at a few things. He mentioned that my new headings looked pretty *G* and then said congradulations your done!!!! WOOT!! I gave him my signature form to sign and unfortunately he noticed two things. My margins were off by a tiny bit (he actually did measure them with a ruler) and I got the title of the dean of grad school wrong. However, he said, "I'm in a good mood and you got this far so I'm not going to make you fix it." YEA!!! So he signed my forms and I was off! All I have to do is go to kinkos and print out my thesis on the nice paper, put them in envelopes and deliver them to the library bounding place. Then gotta get the library lady to sign my form and then give it to the registrar! No more editing, expand this crap or messing with page numbers. I am DONE!!! Graduation here I come ;D

Happy Birthday Jeff!

Happy Birthday Jeff! I hope you have a wonderful birthday. I wish I was able to spend it with you, but soon I will be done and we will be local. Don't forget that since I am not able to be with you today, you get to celebrate your birthday again with me ;) I love you.

Cookies continued

Here is a comic strip that mentions the Cookie Monster Controversy that I mentioned in my last entry.

Cookies are sometimes foods

Yahoo has a story about how they are changing things over at Sesame Street. They are reporting that the Cookie Monster is learning about healthy eating and now instead of singing the C is for cookie song he sings a song called "A Cookie Is a Sometimes Food". This change is to help in the sky rocketing rates of childhood obesity. I agree that this is important to combat, but changing the Cookie Monster?

Waiting

Today is the day of waiting. Im getting things done that I need to get done, but I feel like I am just sitting on my butt all day. I got up really early so that I could get to Kinkos by 8am so that I could pick up the copy of my thesis for my dept chair. Then walked back to my building and got my advisor to sign my sheet. She freaked me out by saying I may need to go back to Kinkos to fix something. I then sat around for 45min waiting for my other committee member to sign my sheet. Thankfully she said I didn't have to fix the thing my advisor wanted. Then I sat in the computer lab doing busy work and reading stupid websites for 2.5 hours. Got bored of the comp lab, so watched the kids playing for a bit, and then decided to try my last committee member a little early. Luckily she was there so I got her to sign them and then ran back to my departments office. Of course I missed the secretary, she was out for lunch. Why do I always need to do something in the office when I know she will be out to lunch? So here I am, back in the computer lab wasting more time until 12:45-1ish where I can finally turn in my thesis to my dept chair and go home for a bit. We are supposed to have a honor society meeting tonight, but we will see if I go. I need a nap.

Revisions part one

The first set of revisions is complete. They mainly were grammatical errors. However, I am expecting more substance revisions in my next set of revisions since my next set will come from a professor in my department. I guess I will find out when she gets them to me. The good thing is that my committee member could tell all the work I put into it after my first defense. All that work was not in vain. Now if I can just make my last deadline without having to wait for anyone else.

Litte reprieve

Today I got an unexpected reprieve. I wasn't planning on going in to campus till around 12pm so I have been watching tv and the coverage on the Pope. I went to go check the weather and my email right before I was going to get ready to go and I found an email from my committee member who I was going to get my first set of revisions from. She won't be able to get them to me till tomorrow which is fine. I wasn't going to get the other set till tomorrow anyways. So today I have one more day off from doing thesis work. This is good because I had a hard time going to sleep last night partly because of day lights savings time and partly because my new drink of choice, diet sunkist, has caffiene and I drank it too close to bedtime. I think today will be a day of cleaning. My apartment really needs it. I also need to return my movies to blockbuster and turn in a paper to my apartment office.

Also I wanted to pat myself on the back. At the beginning of the semester I was really worried about my grant writing class. I had never taken any courses on it and it is an Internet course which means I can't get the same feedback I normally would. However, things have been going well. Last night I sent in my progress report for this week and this is the response I got, "Thank you. Well done, as I've come to expect."

Relief

On thursday I pulled everything together I could to finish and then friday I scrambled to get it all set up. In two days I managed to finish the rest of my revisions, to set up a time and place for my defense, to make a cover letter with all my revisions listed since they wouldn't get much time to read it ahead of time, to finish my power point presentation, to run over to kinkos to get my thesis and to distribute them to my committee members. Let's just say that yesterday was busy.

I finally defended again friday from 3-3:45. I was nervous. While I was reading my notes to them I had thoughts about what would happen if I didn't pass this time, but I pushed them away and just kept going. They asked me to leave the room so they could discuss and I got nervous. This is the time in the last defense when I knew things weren't going right. It didn't make it any better that they talked for a long time. I just paced the hallways. Turns out they were talking about something totally off topic. Anyways, my advisor opened the door and she said congradulations, you passed! LOL, the first thing out of my mouth was, "Oh thank god." LOL Thank goodness.

It hasn't really sunk in that I passed that part. I still have a lot of stuff to catch up on. But I do feel a bit lighter and calmer. Like I do have a lot of stuff to get done but I can do it at my pace, and I don't have to freak out about it, because it's not as hard as my thesis. Whats left for my thesis? Well I need to figure out how many copies of pretty paper I need to buy for my committee members to sign that will go into my binded copy of my thesis. On monday and tuesday I will get the last bit of their revisions. I have to fix those quickly (hopefully there won't be too much) and then I have to print out one more copy for my dept chair to read. After she is done, I will make all her revisions and then I have to print out a certain amount (not sure yet) on pretty paper and have it bound and sent to the graduate school by April 14 so I can graduate. Woo hoo. Graduation here I come :D

Grad School Barbie

GRADUATE SCHOOL BARBIE (tm)
Graduate School Barbie comes in two forms: Delusional Master's Barbie (tm) and Ph.D. Masochist Barbie (tm). Every Graduate School Barbie comes with these fun filled features guaranteed to delight and entertain for hours:
* Grad School Barbie comes out of the box with a big grin on her face that turns into a frown after 2 weeks or her first advisor meeting (whichever comes first).
* Adorable black circles under her delightfully bloodshot eyes.
* Comes with two outfits: a grubby pair of blue jeans and 5 year old gap T-shirt, and a floppy pair of gray sweatpants with a matching "Go Screw Yourself" T-shirt.
* Grad School Barbie talks! Just press the button on her left hand and hear her say such upbeat grad school phrases like, "Yes, Professor, It'll be done by tomorrow" "I'd love to write it all over again" and "Why didn't I just get a job, I could have been making $40,000 a year by now if I had just started working with a Bachelor's. But noooooo, I wish somebody would drop a bomb on the school so that I'd have an excuse to stop working on my degree that's sucking every last drop of life force out of my withered and degraded excuse for a soul..." (9 V lithium batteries sold separately)
* Grad School Barbie is anatomically correct to teach kids about the exciting changes that come with pursuing a higher education. Removable panels on Barbie's head and torso allow you to watch as her cerebellum fries to a crispy brown, her heart race 150 beats per minute, and her stomach lining gradually dissolve into nothing. Deluxe Barbie comes with specially designed eye ducts. Just add a little water, and watch Grad School Barbie burst into tears at random intervals. Fun for the whole family!
Other accessories include:
* Grad School Barbie's Fun Fridge (tm) Well stocked with microwave popcorn, Coca-Cola, Healthy Choice Bologna (99% fat free!), and small bottle of Mattel Brand Rum (tm).
* Grad School Barbie's Medicine Cabinet. Comes in Fabulous pink and contains Barbie sized bottles of Advil, St. Johns Wort, Zantac, and your choice of three fun anti-anxiety drugs! (Barbie Medicine Cabinet not available without a prescription)
* Grad School Barbie's Computer Workstation. Comes with miniature obsolete PC (pink of course), rickety desk, and over a dozen miniature Mountain Dew cans to decorate your workstation with (Mountain Dew deposit not included in price, tech support sold separately)
And Grad School Barbie is not alone! Order now and you'll get two of Barbie's
great friends!
GRADUATE ADVISOR KEN: Barbie's mentor and advisor in her quest for increased education and decreased self esteem. Grad Advisor Ken (tm) comes with a supply of red pens and a permanent frown. Press the button to hear Grad Advisor Ken deliver such wisdom to Barbie as "I need an update on your progress" "I don't think you'll be ready to graduate yet" and "This is no where near ready for publication." Buy 3 or more dolls, and you can have Barbie's Thesis Committee!(Palm Pilot and tenure sold separately.)
REAL JOB SKIPPER: When Barbie needs to talk, she knows that she can always count on her good friend Real Job Skipper (tm), who got a job after getting her bachelor degree. Press the button to hear Real Job Skipper say, "Sometimes I wish I went for my masters degree" and "Work is so hard! I had to work a half an hour of overtime!" Real Job Skipper's Work Wardrobe and Savings account sold separately. WARNING: Do not place Grad Student Barbie and Real Job Skipper too close to each other, as there have been several mysterious cases of children leaving the room and coming back to find Barbie's hands mysteriously fused to Skipper's throat.

So true

Night Owl

I'm a weird person. All day today I have been hammering and hawing about working on my thesis. I manage to get some work done in the morning and a little in the afternoon, but besides that I have not been in the mood to work on the revisions. However, after watching tv for a bit in bed at 11:30pm I get the urge to work on my thesis. Why now? Why when I am supposed to be going to bed do I feel like working on my thesis? I guess any time that I actually feel like working on my thesis is a good thing, but I just wish it would happen during the day as well.

The revisions are going pretty well I think. I have a clear picture of what I need to do before my second defense (bleh) which is looking like will happen April 4th. Hopefully they will like it. If not, I'm not sure what I'm going to do.

D-Day

Today is D-day. The day that I defend my masters thesis. Should I be worried I'm not that nervous? I have thought about this day for a while and I'm glad its finally here so I can get it over with. At 3pm I will know if I passed or failed. Im sure I'm going to pass. What I'm wondering about is how many revisions I'm going to get. I'm hoping that since I had sooooooo many revisions before I turned it in that I will only have a small amount to fix. That would be wonderful. I just hope I can answer all their questions and they don't think it sucks. I will be defending from 1-3pm so if anyone feels like sending me some good thoughts feel free!

Also, I know it's goofy, but I keep checking the comic PhD in hopes that the character Mike Slackenerny defends today too. He is supposed to defend his thesis this week as well. Not sure when this week though.

Stuck in two worlds

I am very fortunate. I have a lot of great things happening in my life right now. I am very thankful that I have what I have when others are struggling. However, that doesn't mean I don't worry and have my own problems. Right now I feel like I am stuck in two worlds. I have all these great things coming up soon yet all I can do is think about them. I am a person who craves stability, likes to know exactly what is going to happen and that things will be ok. I know in the end everything will be ok, but I am not liking this process. I feel that yea I can think about the wedding, getting a job, moving to Delaware yet I can't really do anything about any of it at the moment and that makes me nervous. It's hard when you live in a totally different state and need to do everything by phone or on the net. How I have to schedule myself to be in the same place with family and Jeff to check things out which takes longer which doesn't assure us that we will get the dates we want. I just want at least one thing to come through so I can start planning and feeling better about it. In six months everything will be great I'm sure, but now Im getting nervy. Yes, I am a worry wart. I just want to know where I am going and how things are going to work out.

What tree did you fall from?

I found a cute quiz on a different journal site and thought the results were pretty accurate. There are a few of course that don't fit for Jeff and I. I don't hold great animosity and Jeff is very good at forgiving. Here are my results:

Poplar Tree (Uncertainty) -- looks very decorative, talented, not very self-confident, extremely courageous if necessary, needs goodwill and pleasant surroundings, very choosy, often lonely, great animosity, great artistic nature, good organizer, tends to lean toward philosophy, reliable in any situation, takes partnership seriously.

Here are Jeff's results:

Rowan Tree (Sensitivity)) -- full of charm, cheerful, gifted without egoism, likes to draw attention, loves life, motion, unrest, and even complications, is both dependent and independent, good taste, extremely generous, artistic, passionate, emotional, good company, does not forgive.

Ready to graduate

It's now spring break. Woo hoo. Thank goodness. I needed a mega break after the hours I put in before it. I was trying to get my thesis into my committee by the 7th while my advisor kept giving me more and more revisions. I hope that because my advisor gave me so many it will be harder for my committee to find things to comment on. Probably not likely though. I just want to be done.

So for spring break I am up visiting Jeff for the week which is nice. The only thing that stinks is that he has to work, but oh well. It's nice to be in his apartment and to be there when he comes home from work. Makes me feel all domestic like.

Right now I should be working on a few things for school, but I'm just not in the mood. I'm feeling a bit lazy at the moment. I really burnt myself out that last month before spring break so I'm trying to get myself back to normal by the time I go back.

The real world

I just applied for my first job as an individual with a masters degree. It would be really awesome to get this job because its a "real" job, prestigious, and is in the city that Jeff lives. However, I can't help but wonder. Could I really do this job? Am I kidding myself applying for something like this? Who knows what will come from this, but I sucked it up and applied. The worst they can say is no.

Hurray for good deals

To break the monotony of working on my computer doing thesis work and work for classes and then taking a break on the computer I decided to go to EB Games today after I was at campus. They had this promotion going where if you bought two used games you could get one free. I picked through their used ps1 games and tried to find three I liked. It seems like they have a million copies of a few games, and barely any of others. There were a lot of repeat names, but I had never heard of the games, so I guess I can't really say anything. Anyways, I ended up buying Sim City 2000 for $9.99, Spyro the Year of the Dragon for $5.99 and Crash Bandicoot Warped for free. I like free. I have played a few of the Sims games on the computer so I'm not expecting it to be that different. May be cool. I have the first Spyro game. I believe Jeff bought it for me way back when. Its a cute game and I love turning the sheep into lamb chops. I have never played Crash Bandicoot, but the name sounds familiar. I think Jeff had it as a demo or something and liked it. I am thinking one of the characters is a racoon or something, but who knows. So yea for good deals :)

Back to reality

As Jeff wrote about in his blog we got engaged this weekend. He really got me good. I was expecting him on friday, but he showed up on my door step thursday night. It was a great surprise and we had a really great visit. Im sad that it ended, but unfortunately both of us have to get back to reality. For Jeff, back to work, and I have to meet my thesis deadline. Only a little more and I'm finally done.

But, back to our visit. It was nice just spending time together. Not even doing anything really exciting. Long distance sucks and I can't wait till that part of our relationship is over. I keep telling myself only two more visits and then we won't have any more painful goodbyes. Two more. I can handle that. So what did we do? We watched a lot of movies, had quality time together, I took him to some of my favorite restaurants around town, we bought cd's together at best buy and did some other random shopping, took turns talking to members of each others families, we cooked together, and just talked. An over all good visit.

I have been thinking about what I want to do with my free time recently. I had been playing an online mmorpg as I'm sure I mentioned. However, I'm bored with it and I don't intend to pay $15 every month for it. I had been looking for a new game to play or a new craft or something to take up. However, I think I'm going to focus on wedding planning, because we are getting married ;) Right now I don't know much at all about planning a wedding and it's kind of scary thinking about everything we will need to do. So I'm going to buy a few books and bridal magazines, read on the net and talk to some people an see if I can figure it all out. It shouldn't be too hard once I figure out the main things. I also like the fact that it will enable me to plan my own wedding, with Jeff of course, and not have to rely on anyone else telling me what I have to do. Though I'm sure I'll get some of that from family members, but oh well. That is life.

Valentines Day Gift

What should you give your valentine for valentines day? According to a psychotherapist you should give your valentine a kiss. It's actually pretty intereting though I think a little biased.

Honk if you think I'm cool

Thanks to A Small Victory and Jeff for aiding me in my search for other things to do besides work on my thesis. I have to admit that site is pretty fun to play with. What do you think of my designs?

Online job hunting

I don't know if its just me or the search engines I'm using, but its defintley interesting. I am signed up for eRecruiting through the University of Delaware and CareerBuilder after seeing their commercials a million times during the Super Bowl. LOL one successful commercial. I have only done a small amount of job searching through eRecruiting. However, when I did look I kept finding odd jobs that didn't fit. Like when I searched for children and research or research and psychology I would get pharmaceutical or computer programmer jobs. How does this fit??? This is also happening with CareerBuilder. I signed up last night in the middle of the Super Bowl. Yea, I'm a nerd, but anyways. I signed up last night and this morning I have already gotten two emails from two companies totally unrelated to anything in my field at all. I have a feeling its because I selected some option for companies outside of my field or companies that hire other people, like head hunters or temp agencies or something. I think after I do some more data entry I'm going to look around my preferences and see if I can figure out what I did sign up for so that my email box will not be stuffed with weird jobs that I would never apply for. LOL could you imagine me working at a company that deals with identity theft?

The last major crunch

Normally in this situation I would be freaking out a bit, though maybe I will as I get a bit closer. Anyways, I'm under a deadline once again. But this deadline is different. This deadline is the last major deadline that I will have in grad school - i.e. my thesis. I am just finishing entering in all the data into the computer. Hopefully I will be done with that by wednesday. Then on wednesday I will run my analysis with my advisor and then I have to have my results and discussion sections written along with all the revisions needed from my first comittee meeting by March 1st. Ouch. That gives me what? 3 weeks or so to do everything. I don't know why I'm not more nervous. Maybe because I know deep down that I will get it done one way or another. Everything always does. But after this major crunch I will have at least a draft or more of the entire thesis. After that its just lots of revisions and chart making and lots of time spent at kinkos. Yes, I still will have to crunch at the end to get my Grant Writing Proposal written but that class doesn't really matter much in the scheme of things. I'll do what I can, but I'm not going to bust ass trying to make it perfect like my thesis. My thesis is much more important. So in a way its a nice feeling. After I get past this hurdle I will only have a few smaller things to work on and then I will be done. I will be able to wear my cap and gown, get hooded, and finally graduate.

I'm not evil

How evil are you?

Aww, I wanted to be at least a little bit evil. LOL oh well :)

Random observations

Recently I have observed some interesting things on campus. Yesterday morning on the bus to campus two people who did not know each other at all on the bus struck up a friendship because both of them had that new nintendo thingy. I have no idea what the name of it is, but its the small one that just came out that sorta looks like a game boy. They sent each other their game data, an for the short time they were on the bus they played together. I had no idea they were that popular. I guess I am out of the technology loop.

This afternoon I got to class a little early. When I came in this one girl was talking about some surgery she had and swelling. I was like huh?? Turns out she was talking about how she had lyposuction on many parts of her body after she had her son (she's around my age) and is really thinking about going back for more. She was all gung ho about lyposuction and was trying to convince this other girl in my class to get it too. Then all of a sudden another girl in my class said she had had it before an what a great thing it is. Meanwhile, my professor is listening an shaking her head with many of my classmates thinking what is wrong with you people.

Speaking of my professor, I have to quote something she said today. She cracks me up. We were talking about make believe characters in the media today to use for play therapy toys. One person brought up Sponge Bob. That brought up the whole news story going around about that guy thinking that he is gay. Then this other guy in my class said that the guy accusing Sponge Bob believes that family values and diversity are just code words for homosexuality. Don't quote me on that, he said something like that, I don't remember his exact words. Anyways, my professor then responded to the guy accusing Sponge Bob by saying "My code words for your an asshole is your allowed to have your own opinion."

Also a little side note. In tonight's episode of American Idol they were in Orlando, Florida. They held their auditions at the big convention center on International Dr. that was right across the street from the hotel I had my convention in in November. I actually went in there the first day when I was trying to find the right place. Pretty cool. I kept wishing they would show what was around the convention center but they didn't.

Research

Today I was amazingly motivated to work on my thesis. I think it was because I knew I would have to be writing my results and other sections soon and I haven't finished my theory and lit review sections yet. I actually found a lot of good primary sources which has been the hardest thing for me this whole process. Anyways, just as I was about to go to bed I checked Piled Higher and Deeper which is one of my favorite online comics. I suggest you go read some of their comics if you are in graduate school and have never seen them. The most recent comic really struck a cord with me and made me laugh. So for any other graduate students out there struggling with research I'm going to quote Phd's latest comic.

One graduate student sitting at her computer says, "I hate research"
Her friend replies, "Yea, well life is tough and then you graduate. Get used to it."

LOL. There is an end in sight. Only three months and one week left. Technically I should have most of my thesis written by the end of feb so only one to one and a half hard core months left.

Beginnings and endings

This semester will have a lot of endings. This is my last semester of graduate school and boy am I ready to be done. Tomorrow are my last two days of data collection for my thesis! YEA!!!!! I have had enough of getting up at 7am. Of course the first day I don't have to do data collection I have a meeting, but at least its not as early as I would have been there.

Tomorrow I'm hoping is another beginning. On thursday I sent in my form to the Univ of Delaware Career Services. I'm not sure if other schools do it this way but if your alumni you can use their eRecruiting site for six months for $25. Yea it sucks that I have to pay, but in the long run I'm hoping it will be worth it. If your not familiar eRecruiting is a website where you post your resume and you can apply for jobs and potential employeers in the area can find you. I did sign up for the one down here, but its all jobs down here. An when I graduate I am not staying here, so that doesn't work. Anyways, I sent it in on thursday so I'm hoping they will have it bright an early Monday morning so they can set me up and I can access the site. My goal is to have a job or be close to having a job by the end of the semester. When I graduated from undergrad it took me six months before I was employed. I do not want to do that again. So in a way I'm a little bit nervous about what I'm going to find when I log into the site for the first time, but also excited. Who knows, some great company may want to pay me a good salary and I would be able to be local with Jeff. All great things that I will have in the future. The future is looking pretty good, getting engaged pretty soon, hopefully getting a kick ass job, being local with Jeff, being done with graduate school and having my masters. All good things. So lets hope the career services people are on the ball an get me hooked in tomorrow.

The nose knows

I haven't blogged in a while. Its probably because I have been getting up at 7am for the past week to collect data for my thesis and have been bombarded with other school work. It's finally starting to slow down and I can see the light, thank goodness. So I figured now was a good time to blog. Things have become less stressful with my thesis, but I'm now majorly behind on my assistantship. I guess Ill be getting caught up next month. My grant writing class is a pain in my butt. I don't know much about the process and all the correct jargon so this has been an experience for me. I think I'm finally getting it though which is good. Hope it stays that way.

On tuesday we had a program that I had been working on putting together for some time now. It was a program for undergrad's who are interested in going to grad school, but aren't sure how to begin the process. I worried about it enough over the whole process and I am really glad it's over now. It actually went pretty good. We had a lot of good information, lots of good professors from different areas, and even some good snacks. The only problem was that we barely had any undergrads. We had maybe five in the beginning, three or so in the middle and then I don't think any more came in after that. Most of the people that came were fellow grad students that I hadn't seen in months. I think grad students have a sixth sense or something. Whenever there is free food we know where to go. At our little program we had pretzles, oreo cookies, some other type of cookie, two types of cheese slices, grapes, and soda. When we left I got to take home a 2 liter bottle of diet coke. Score :)

So anyways, as I type this I'm sitting at my computer procrastinating once again. I have already been to campus and observed and created a spreadsheet in SPSS. So now I am home with little things to do like find articles for my advisor, yet I'm not. I feel like either taking a nap or playing my mmorpg. Gotta hold off for at least a bit longer. Maybe I'll try cleaning the apartment a bit. Whenever I get stressed or have little time I tend to throw things everywhere and my space tends to get pretty messy. I know what I'll be doing this weekend.

The snow dance

Last night I saw my first snow of the season. We got snow here over break, but I wasn't here so for me it doesn't count. We got a dusting on cars and grassy surfaces, but nothing really on the roads. Farther north though they got a lot of ice and lots of parents could not get their kids from school so many children spent the night at school. When I woke up there was a ticker on the tv with many schools closed, but when I looked out the window almost all the snow had melted. Guess its a big viewing range. As I went about my business today it actually felt warm for a change which I was happy about. Everything has melted. However, tonight we are under another winter weather advisory. Its supposed to start around 10pm-12am and we are supposed to get about 1-2 inches of snow. Not much of anything. However, I am in the south so its a bigger deal here. Then saturday night into sunday we are supposed to have another storm, but this storm is supposed to be heavier. I haven't heard any predictions yet though.

Anyways, I can't help but hope for a snow day. What would I do if I had one? Probably stay in my apartment where its nice an warm, do some homework, an play my mmorpg on the net. Nothing really that exciting. I guess its a mentality. Whenever you can get of doing work because of snow its always exciting. I just hope we don't get ice. I absolutely hate ice. So I may try wearing my pjs backwards tonight and hope for snow even though that will put me behind in my data collection. So we will see what happens.

Dr. Ruth and PBS

While getting stuff done around my apartment today I left the tv on PBS since I don't like to watch soap operas and I don't feel like watching the news. At this time of the day everything on PBS is kid's programming. I was watching Between the Lions and while passing by the tv I heard Dr. Ruth's name and the character's talking to her. I was like huh? Is that the same Dr. Ruth I have heard of that is a sex therapist or whatever she does? I quickly went to the screen and yup, it was her. She was part of the show talking to the lions. I wasn't watching that closely so I can't say for sure what they were doing, but I find that weird. Why is Dr. Ruth on a children's show?

Video-recording equipment = pain in my butt

This week has defintley been interesting. It was supposed to be my training week for my coders in my thesis. How many coders have I trained? Zip. Though I am meeting witih two today. Though, I'm not sure if I'm going to actually train them. Why?

At the beginning of my thesis I said I was going to use videorecording equipment to tape areas of a classroom. First problem was I couldn't see all of one area which means I will be missing data. Second, the tape I made had all audio on one area and all video on the other. Then while trying to tape again on a different day the monitor kept shutting off while I was taping. I don't know if that affected what I was taping or not, I didn't even bother to look. My advisor came up with the idea of getting a small camcorder and just taping the things I need myself in the classroom. That means standing there for an hour every day taping these areas. I'm not sure I want to do this. So basically I am very frustrated with my thesis. Partly because all the technology isn't working and partly because I feel like I made it suck because I didn't prepare enough.

So my idea has been to scrap all the technology and just go back to the basics. Pure observational research. The problem there is that I lose being able to record the duration. I also loose most of my coders, because it means they have to be there in the morning and they all have wacky schedules. Though two of them wouldn't have been able to do much anyways. I just wish I could sit down and do it all myself, but I know I can't because inter-rater reliability. I also have to nail down exactly how I am going to do do the observational research. I can tell my advisor is a bit leary about this. I'm not sure if she is just leary or kinda annoyed that I gave up in the middle of doing it this way. But at this point it would be easier for me. Yes, I lose the duration, yes its harder to find coders, but doing it this way means I can sit in the booth, code the data, and then have it. I won't have to sit through ten hours of videotape. I won't have to figure out when my coders schedules are and schedule coding meetings around them. I will be able to see all of one area that I couldn't before. I just want to do the dumb thesis. An because I am figuring these things out now, almost at the end of my training week and I don't have everything ironed out I'm getting a bit nervous. I want to just start the thesis on tuesday and get it done. Yet, if this keeps up I'm going to be behind schedule in data collection. I just need a good coder or two and to get approval from my advisor. I wish I could tell if she was just annoyed at the situation or what. I think she wanted me to stick with the video-taping thing, but Ive just had enough. *throws up hands in the air* So I guess we will see what happens.

Credits +1

Today was better than yesterday, but I'm still not sure how my thesis is going to work out next week. I got up around 9am after sleeping in which was wonderful. I did have another funky dream though. I finished the document I had been working on and read a few things for my online class. Then it was off to my play therapy class.

The class is pretty cool. The teacher seems really nice and so do the people in my class. Its weird not knowing anyone though when everyone else seems to know each other. Im sure that will change soon enough. One mega cool thing was that they are going to change the class from 2 credits to 3, which means I can drop the one credit independent study research course I had signed up for. Kick ass! I don't need any more classes, I'm very happy to be able to drop it. For an ice breaker we all got huge sheets of paper and then we had to pair up. One person would lie down on the paper while their partner would trace their outline. I'm sure you've done this before. Anyways, after that we got to color it in any way we wanted and then we had to create a time line of our life somewhere in it or on our outline. After that we taped them all around the room and we had to explain them to the class. So far the class sounds pretty cool. I like play therapy as a tool and how it works, but I don't think I would be able to do it for a living. Play therapy is all about getting to the emotions that people have trouble expressing. While that is good I like to work on more of the developmental side rather than the feelings side. Less pathology. Still a cool class though.

After class I worked on my online class more and met with my advisor to figure out how to fix my thesis. I need to find a way to make sure the cameras capture the whole area. I may use a tripod if I can get the department to let me use one. Or I may just say screw it all and find a way to do it with no videos and just do it all with observational research. I would love to do it that way. Doing it that way would mean I wouldn't have to deal with any coders and I wouldn't have to sit through ten hours of video tape. So I just have to figure out how in the heck to do that. I should really go to bed now since Im planning on getting up at 7am again tomorrow, but maybe Ill read a little more about observational research. Yea, I know big fun.

I don't like getting up early

I am really not a morning person. I prefer to sleep in. Yet today I made myself get up at 7am (yuck!) so that I would be ready and on campus by 8:30am. Today I decided to go to campus that early to practice using the cameras in the classroom and videotaping everything for my thesis data collection that starts next week. Boy am I glad I did that. Why? Because everything went wrong. I taped for an hour using two video cameras with two different vcrs. I got some great shots on the first camera. On the second one I realized it wouldn't go where I wanted too. So we will have to figure that out. Then later when I went to watch the tape I made this morning the great video I had wasn't there. The first vcr only recorded audio. Gah! Then the camera that barely showed the area I wanted recorded all video and no audio. I was not happy. At least I figured it out now and they can see if they can fix it by the time I really start next week. Hopefully it will be fixed by then. *fingers crossed*

I'm not going to try getting up early again till wednesday. Have to give them a chance to fix things. Plus I have to recover from getting up at 7am. By 2pm I was getting really tired. I know that many people get up every day at that time. However, I don't. Im a grad student and sleeping in is one of my favorite things :)

Two movies

I try to go to Blockbuster during the weekends to get a good movie to watch and get away from school work for a while. Whenever I get into the semester though I tend to get swamped with work and tend to not get to go to Blockbuster as much as I'd like. So I decided to go to Blockbuster this weekend before all the work started coming in. I rented two movies: Anchorman and Napolion Dynamite. I was expecting great things from both of them. I had heard good things from people about them. However, I have to say I was disappointed by both of them. I don't know if I was just not in the right mood or not, but I found both of them dumb an a bit weird. Napolion Dynamite was weird and a bit sad. Though the end was a little sweet. I was ready for Anchorman to be over half way through it. I thought about shutting it off but I didn't. I stuck it through and eh. I can see why some people like it, but it wasn't my type of movie. Oh well. Hopefully Ill have next week to try again. I want to see Wimbleton and that movie where the two guys go to White Castle. Mmmm white castle.

Medium

Last night while flipping through the channels I found that nbc was reairing the first episode of the new show Medium. Being bored and since I caught it at the beginning I decided to watch it. I am really impresed with it. Maybe its because I like that type of show, but I thought it was really good. For anyone who doesn't know, the main story line is that its about this woman who was going to school to be a lawyer. However, she keeps having these dreams about dead people talking to her. She seems to know how crimes occured when everyone else can't figure it out with just scientific evidence. I am defintley going to try to catch the next episode. Monday nights on nbc at 10pm!

Play therapy materials

I downloaded the syllabus off the internet for my play therapy course on friday. While reading it I found a list of materials we are supposed to get together by the second week of class. Just reading it has gotten me really excited to start this class. What materials do I need to buy?

White paper, colored construction paper, blunt scissors, a box of crayons, markers, clear tape, and a clean new pair of white socks.

I can't wait. Also, according to the syllabus there are no exams! Kicky beans. Just a short paper thats just a critique of five articles and a presentation. I just hope that the class lives up to my expectations! I'll find out on Tuesday.

Goodbye Boomhower?

I came back to town over vacation thinking my area of the aparment complex seemed very empty. I figured it was just because I was back from vacation a little early and not everyone was back yet. Its a little bit fuller now with cars, but I have noticed one thing. I think Boomhower is gone. Who is Boomhower? Let me explain. I live on the top level of a two story apartment complex. There are four apartments on my level. There are two apartments at the far end and then there is my apartment and one directly next to my door. That is Boomhower's apartment. He always seemed nice enough. He wasn't always in his apartment, but when he was you could tell. When he was home he was loud. I think part of that is that my apartment walls are pretty thin. My next door neighbor can hear when my alarm goes off in the morning. But anyways, he was always playing music or something. He also always had people coming in and out of his place. People coming up the stairs and down the stairs, talking right infront of my apartment. He and his friends would also occasionally smoke infront of my apartment, which I really hated. All of these reasons combined are the reason why I have stopped opening my front windows.

Anyways, back to the present. Why do I think he's gone? Well I noticed his floor mat is gone. Also he had written on his door the initials of an emo band he is really into. That has been scrubbed off the door. So I don't know for sure, but I think he may be really gone. This thought makes me happy. I will have to talk to my other neighbor on the other side next time I see him. He seems to know all the gossip about everyone in our little part of the complex. Who knows, maybe someone cool will move in next door or even better maybe the apartment will stay vacant for the rest of the semester an Ill have some peace an quiet.

I heart Hardee's

Saturday nights are the night that I normally go out to eat or bring something in for dinner. I try to be good during the week eating wise so that Saturday night I can eat whatever I want for a whole meal. Even though I have eaten a lot over the holidays like everyone else I decided to go to my local Hardee's for dinner tonight. I got a cheese thickburger, curly fries, and a chocolate milkshake. What can I say? All very yummy. I have a Sonic, a Burger King, and a McDonalds all within two minutes of my apartment. Yet, I have not been to any of them in months. I only go to Hardee's. It's my favorite fast food place. No, I have never gotten there monster thickburger, just thinking about it makes me gain ten pounds. Though I would like to get it sometime with Jeff an split it just to see what the big fuss is about. Too bad Hardee's are really hard to find now days. I'm gonna have a major craving once I'm done with school and I move up north. Anyways, the moral of this entry is if you see a Hardee's go in and have a thickburger. You won't regret it.

First long night

So I'm back at school. I think I mentioned that in my last post. If I didn't, I'm back at school, lol. The nights are usually the quietest. Last night wasn't too bad because I was tired from driving four and a half hours and staying up too late. But now that I'm some what rested, bored of playing my game, and knowing that Jeff won't be online to talk too till Sunday, I'm realizing I'm ready to graduate and move to Jeff.

Today was pretty productive actually. Im coming off of a really good vacation so I'm feeling like I can get things done. I hope that stays. I got up today, met with my advisor, made an important list for my thesis, made a huge amount of copies at Kinkos and then went home and sent out a massive amount of emails. Hopefully they will all work out. Tomorrow, I have to go in again, but this time it will be a little bit later in the day. Today was really quiet on campus and sort of nice. Tomorrow is the first day of classes so I'm sure it will be more crowded. However, most people don't schedule Friday classes so we will see. I basically just have to get some papers ready and make sure my list is ok. Then I can go home for the weekend. I should work on the first part of my thesis more but eh. I know the second part will be easier to write but the first part still needs to get done.

Have I mentioned that I can't wait till Janurary is over? Once this month is over I will have carried out my thesis plan and will just have to play with my numbers and report what I found. I can't wait. Though I do have to admit that I am looking forward to one of my classes. Its about Play Therapy in the eyes of social work. Sounds really cool so far. I have always wanted to take a course on Play Therapy. Who knows, maybe it will help me figure out what I want to do with myself when I graduate. Speaking of that, I need to fix my resume so I can send it out to get on eRecruiting again. My dream is that some great company will find me on eRecruiting, love me and my resume, and offer me tons of money so I can live very close to Jeff and not have to worry about a thing. Ah, dreams. Though it would be really nice not to have to worry about finding a job after I graduate.

Alright, back to the brain drain of my mmorpg. I started a new character for a new challenge. We will see how that turns out.

To go or not to go

I like vacations and like anyone else I am not ready to go back. Classes start on friday, but I don't have anything until the next tuesday class wise. However, I do need to get back into town to get things ready for my thesis before the semester starts. So I have to go in earlier. I was thinking leaving today or tomorrow. All through our trip home (which we did not get in till around 9pmish, bleh) I was trying to decide if I was going to leave today or tomorrow. I emailed my advisor last night when I got in to see when she would be able to meet. She did email back quickly (thank goodness, I love people who email you back so quick) and said she couldn't meet till thursday at the earliest. Which means I can drive home tomorrow. Woot. I could techinically drive home today, but I just woke up and I don't have any of my winter stuff packed so that gives me some time to repack, go to the bank and do other things to get ready to go. The only crappy thing about leaving tomorrow is that its supposed to be raining as I leave. They said yesterday on the weather that it was supposed to rain today not tomorrow. I checked the weather back at school and its not supposed to rain so hopefully it will only rain for a small amount of time as I leave my home town. I love the weather back home too, 70s an high 60s! Yea for the south! Ok, so I guess I should get off the net now an be productive. Maybe Ill even have some time to do some thesis work that I of course did not do over vacation. Heh, knowing me probably not ;)

Going back to reality

Tonight is the last night we have here in sunny florida. I am not ready to go back into reality when I have to worry about deadlines and such. January will be a busy month for me with collecting and coding all of my data for my thesis, but as everything, it will get done.

I had a really good visit here. I love the warm weather and hate the cold. I got a new pair of flip flops to replace the ones that I broke this past fall too. I got to show Jeff all of the fun things to do in florida such as the boat ride to look at aligators, the special needs birds, and my favorite restaurant here. It was also nice to be able to spend that much time with him in one visit.

One of the more exciting things happened tonight actually. We went to see National Treasure in the afternoon, which Jeff will post that he didn't think was too bad. Hah, told you so :) After that we went to a restaurant for dinner which was pretty yummy. Around dessert time the topic turned to future plans and such and Jeff mentioned that his parents said I could live with them if I needed somewhere to stay before I had housing. Then my mother started asking questions about if we were official or not. *side note* Jeff had bought me a really pretty cubic zerconia (sp?) ring that looks like a real engagement ring that I have been wearing on my left hand. If anyone back at school asks me about it I will tell them that its the ring before the real one. I think that also prompted my mother. She wanted to know if we were offical. I said not really yet cause he hadn't asked for real an he hadn't asked my dad yet so right there in the middle of the restaurant Jeff told me to go get some food an then asked my dad. My mother and I of course got all emotional an such in the middle of the restaurant. I'm sure people thought we were nuts. Thats ok though. My grandma was caught mid mouthful an was totally shocked. She was like "I had no idea that was coming then and I was in the middle of eating ice cream!" So we are that much closer to becoming really official. Good job jeffy.

So off to the cold we go tomorrow. We will be dropping Jeff off at the closer airport tomorrow around noon an then I fly out around dinner time. I hope this new year is a great one. Its turning out to be so far.