The Office Premiere

Okay, so I had to make one more entry today because I watched The Office premiere last night. Josh and I think it is the most uncomfortable episode to date (Diversity Date held the title until now). I still laughed of course though. SPOILER ALERT: And bravo to Pam...she is going to be single for awhile before her and Jim are going to get together...that is my theory anyway.

Full Proposal Time

My committee accepted my pre-proposal so I now I am working on my full one. I have questions to address and oral exam preparation to do. But soon it all will be over. I'm not too stressed right now, thankfully. God has given me a lot of peace this week. Hopefully, I'll keep trusting in God and won't get too stressed this next month.

OSU GAME

We played Florida Atlantic Saturday - it was another blow out game. Maybe we can keep the momentum up this season! Michelle met us there; she is in the MFT program that Josh finished up last year.

Padme and Me Hanging out

Newman and Tulle

Tulle crawled over to see Newman.
After Newman let her crawl by him for a bit, he got up and just watched her.

Padme and Tulle

Padme and Tulle hit it off Sunday night.

Little Tulle

Pam and Tulle visited us this weekend. We have enjoyed them a lot - nice to just relax with them and play with Tulle. The dogs did well with her. Newman came running over when she was crying. They both were wondering I think why we were playing with her instead of them. I'm not sure, but I think Josh likes babies.

In the Hands of the Committee...

I turned in my preproposal yesterday (Friday) to my committee...dun,dun,dun,dun...I'll hear back in a week if they approve. If they do then I write my full proposal and then present it and take my oral exam. yikes!

Bday Fun

Our friend Wes had a brithday last week. His wife Sharbee organized at little birthday fun for all of us. We went bowling...I managed to break 100 the first game but did even worse the second game. Josh bought Wes a bunch of superman stuff kinda as a gag gift for his bday. Then we ate at El Vaquero and ended up going to El Chico for dessert so we could watch the last half the OSU game since it was on ESPNU. OSU won!

Game Day

Last Saturday, OSU smoked Missouri State! It was a fun game; we went with our friends Wes and Sharbee and their little boy Caleb. The picture with the hands in the air is the "waving wheat" - that's what we do when we make a touchdown.

It's Raining, It's Pouring...in the chemistry lab!

This week in lab we did distillations, where you run water through your set-up. Tubes came loose once when one group turned on their water so water was shooting out everywhere. After that, I backed up every time a group turned their water on for the first time. Then a group forgot to hold their tube while it drained water into the sink and a tube was flying in the air like a snake, shooting water everywhere. Cries of "What do we do? What do we do??" were heard. I answered them backing away from the lab rain, "Turn off the water!" Later a similar incident occured, but this time the group remembered that turning off the water, turns off the water shooting across the lab. It was a long lab period; I left wet and tired.

Ultra Nerd

This morning I got to teach the lecture portion for a professor that was out of town. It was a good experience since I have never done a course lecture (just lab lectures) before. The prof wanted me to use this giant model of a cyclohexane molecule to demonstrate the chair conformation. I had to take it home last night to make sure I knew how to use it; to be able to explain to the students the things I needed to using this model. So yesterday, I broke it down so it would fit into my backpack. I didn't want people seeing me walking across campus with it. But this morning I didn't know if I would have time to rebuild it once I got to class so I just sucked it up and walked with it totally intact. It was early so I actually only ran into a few people..not too bad. BUT after class, it was primetime on campus for morning classes so the courtyard I had to walk across from the lecture building to my building was full of people. I had to carry my gynormous molecule looking like an ultra nerd. What's worse, I look young so people never think I'm a professor...sometimes people think I'm an undergrad. So I definitely didn't look like a prof carrying a teaching tool. No, I looked like a nerdy student who LOVES her giant cyclohexane molecule. YEEESSSSS!

Waiting...

So Friday morning I turned in my preproposal and my "almost-full" proposal to my advisor. YAY!! I'm finally moving along in my graduate hurdles. I'm just waiting now to hear what I need to change before I can submit it to my full committee. It's a bit stressful and nerve-wracking waiting...it's going to be a long month of this.

Bragging Time

Here are two of my favorite pictures of my neice; her mom just sent them to me. Isn't she the cutest??!!
One is of her as the "mud monster" - that's what she called herself.

I Heart Jack Bauer!

Ok, so that's a bit overboard, but for those of you who know Josh and me, you know we love 24! And 24 took a lot of emmys Sunday night. We only watched maybe half an hour of the emmys so I was glad when I read Monday morning that 24 won 3 major awards:
Best Drama Series
Best Directing for a Drama Series
Best Actor for a Drama Series (Keifer Sutherland).
If you don't watch 24, you should start.

Weekend

We had a good weekend. I was pretty efficient on Friday; I worked late at school and then went grocery shopping late that night.
Saturday, Josh and me took the dogs for a run at the lake and swimming. Newman ran the whole 3 miles! His leg is doing awesome.
Padme ran a mile with me and kept wanting to stop and lay down on the mile back (we were walking by this time). Newman and Padme swam quite a bit later - Padme looks like a seal because she goes all the way under the water - head and all! I'll have to take some pictures of them next time we take them to the lake. Funny enough, Newman was not sore and still hyper all weekend while Padme has been sore and sleepy.
Last night, Josh and me went to the Acapella concert at church. It was great - I was really impressed with this new group. It was an uplifting night.
Today after church we had potluck. We met one of our "adopted" college kids - they're baseball players. Josh is in Heaven already talking to them about it.
Overall, it's been a nice, eventful weekend!

Newman's Healing

Newman's leg is healing as you might be able to tell from the pictures. He can be outside without a leash for short periods of time now.
He can run and stretch his leg out, too.

Padme and Newman have been playing together A LOT; I guess they're making up for lost time.

BaCk To ScHoOl

It was the first day back to the fall semester today. I haven't ridden the bus in quite awhile due to the 3-digit-weather we've been having. This morning it rained and cooled us off so it wasn't too bad to walk to the bus stop. In the summer, the bus is pretty much empty except for me, the bus driver, and maybe another person. Today, to and from school it was packed. Some people even had to stand (not me, I got a seat quickly).
I met my students today - they seemed like a good group of students. I usually have a good group so I'm not really worried about that. All I had to do today was give introductions and give a spill of safety. Hopefully, I didn't talk too fast, and my students will pass their quiz on Wednesday. Ha!

Chemistry Meeting

So Friday we had our department TA meeting where we get our assignments for the fall and get our annual safety training. Here's what I remember:

1. As usual our head of department was full of jokes at the beginning of the meeting. And as usual I laugh at his jokes. I appreciate his humor.

2. Some new grad student, in his introduction to the department, informed all of us he was single. With the girl/guy ratio in chemistry, not sure if his search will be sucessfull. Especially since many of the women are married/engaged.

3. Another new grad student who is Asian American told us in her introduction (with obvious-American-English) that she was from OKC, and that she was NOT an international student...so please stop asking.

4. I got the lab I wanted to teach, and a good time, too. My friend on the other hand gets the losing end every semester...if she gets a good lab, she gets an awful time to teach (eveningss or Fridays)...if she gets a good time, it's a not-fun lab (too much grading). Maybe she'll grow to love her teaching assingment this semester. Maybe.

5. My students' final is the Friday of finals week - the last possible day of the semester. Which means I for sure will be grading that Friday before break.

6. We watched some safety video about gas cylinders and how to handle them safely. I was hoping they would demonstrate in the video how they can become "rockets" - no such luck.

7. The day ended with another meeting about my lab and me running into an old friend from OC who is about to start his first grad year in the Biochem department. He looked maybe a little shell-shocked. He had a million things to do. Welcome to grad school.

Treadmill Dance

I think I might have mentioned it one time, but I'm not the most graceful on the treadmill. One time, I fell off. I grabbed onto Josh who was on the treadmill next to me. He was going down with me if I was going down! Anyway, go to this link...it's of some guys dancing on treadmills - something I only aspire to do, for I never will be able to synchronize my steps like that!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pv5zWaTEVkI&mode=related&search=

By the way, many of you may be thinking (as I was), who has time to do this? Of course, you (and I) have time to watch junk on the internet, too.