Prelims!

Hey y'all,

For those of you who didn't hear, I passed my prelims! That means I'm an official Doctoral Candidate. Which means... I still don't know what I'm doing, but I'm allowed to keep doing it until I finish my research. Just kidding-- I have my dissertation relatively planned out now. And I know LOTS of places where it needs work. So that's awesome!

In other news, I'm nearly done getting together my very first paper :)

And in OTHER other news, we have a slight mouse problem. We found out about it when Annabel killed a mouse... and put it in our bed for us. Under the covers... I spent a lot of time telling here what a good cat she was between sobs.

All in all, what a weird 2 weeks y'all...

LOTS of environmental and craft abulousness coming soon. For real

Practice Prelims!

For those of you who don't know, the next major hurdle in my obtaining of three letters (PhD) is my prelims. It's basically a defense of my dissertation proposal and an oral exam combined into three FANTASTIC hours. It's scheduled for Friday, April 30, from 9 to noon-- so everyone be thinking of me then. Anyways, today I did a dry run with a bunch of PhD students, and I did really well! THEY EVEN SAID SO, I AM NOT MAKING THAT UP. AND NOT JUST BECAUSE I BROUGHT THEM DONUTS AND COFFEE. So *phew* I feel a lot less worried about prelims, but still a healthy dose of terrified. Now to find the inspiration to do work...

The 2008 - 2009 School Year in One Blog!

Hello out there all my fine people! It has been approximately forever since I last wrote on this blog to update all my beloveds (and anyone else out there on the interwebz) about my super exciting life as a graduate student! Well, let me get you up-to-date, and then I have an awesome announcement about the future of this blog (and why I hope to update it more often)....

In order to keep this interesting, I shall utilize the minimalist formatting of "bullets"

September 2008

• Matthew came down for my birthday, and what a birthday was had

birthday cupcake and coffee-- for breakfast

• I came up to see the New York Football JETS play an awesome game, back before the horror that was the 2008 season truly began.

• I looked longingly into Matt's eyes, knowing this he was really going through with this whole 'grad school in England' thing:

October 2008

• The awesomeness of the Jets continued somewhat unscathed

• I adopted the cutest kitten ever: Miss Annabel Somers, also called Banabel, Banana, Nanner, Nan, Nannerpuss, and the ever-popular "GET OUT OF THE DRESSER"

• Halloween came and went-- I actually spent that night watching Goosebumps, building an IKEA dresser, and having a glass of wine. Needless to say, it was lovely.
  

November 2008

• I saw a really awesome Decemberists show with Jenna, Jordan, and Marlie. I believe I touched Colin again, which made my oh-so-schoolgirl heart cheer with joy. However, no pictures were to be had due to... us being lame and forgetting our cameras. Also, Jenna and Marlie were found to be very poor at following directions and/or common sense. This was not surprising.
  
• Thanksgiving! It was awesome! We ate food! It was awesome!
  
• I'm sure something else important happened... What was it... Oh yeah! GOBAMA!!!! I should really type something more thoughtful or thought-provoking, but basically I was just really happy. And still am.
  

December 2008

• December was hectic, and not just due to finals (all A's, yay me!) and traveling up and down the eastern seaboard.
• I also got to see my mother, my baby nephew: Chris, and my nephew's lovely parents (also known as my sister, Antonia, and my brother-in-law, Mark... but let's stay focused on the cute bundle of joy, shall we?)

proud new grandmother and baby

proud new aunty and baby

proud new family with baby (please note Mark's awesome shirt: "The angels have the phone box"-- if you don't know what this is from, your life is sad)

proud new Jets fan...

• Plus I had about 8 Christmases-- one with Mum, Antonia, Mark, and Chris; one with Dad, Marlie, and Jordan; one with Matt's close family; and multiple with Matt's extended family.
• Matt's family was especially wonderful and inviting and gave me a chance to see Matt at his best:

January 2009

• Back to the grind! Three new classes: Biogeochemistry (the science of the entire world in tiny little bits of awesome), Wetlands and Stream Restoration Ecology (all the details of my research), and Spatial Analysis (awesome statistics that could blow your mind)
• I also got to TA an Intro Environmental course with a ton of wonderful undergrads and a semi-deity of ecology and nicest man ever, Norm Christensen
• Plus I re-potted my sweet plants
  

February 2009

• Matt and my's TWO year anniversary, spent far apart but in love nonetheless
• Continued the grinding
  

March 2009

• We had a gorgeous, and rare snow day down here in NC

• It was also Jenna's birthday, AND Marlie applied for (and got, of course!) the Humanities Scholarship at UMBC

Jenna, current Humanities Scholar

Marlie, future Humanities Scholar
We are a serious bunch.

• That strange man, Matt, showed up again. We had an epic Baltimore and Cumberland tour of awesome.
• A high point was seeing "Tis a Pity She's A Whore" at Center Stage which was so fantastic, and we got to go with Los Humanitios
  

April 2009

• Guglhupf, a fantastic bakery in Durham, makes bunnies for Easter WITH SUGAR BUTTS. To be honest, the bunny didn't impress me too much (unlike most of their pastries) but was worth it for the cute-factor

• Got to see the FANTASTIC AND ORGASMIC (if you don't know who he is, check him out! for your own sake!) Robyn Hitchcock and the Venus 3 in Carrboro, an area that requires more inspection
  
• That Matt person showed up AGAIN. This time at my house in Durham.
  

finally fulfilling one of the promises our relationship is based on, Matt made me an Epic Cheese Plate that I could eat every day (and did for about a week)

• We also ate multiple awesome meals and went to a few fun bars
• I ate in the same room as Robert Redford and NEARLY got my pic with him
• I went to Ben and Jerry's for Free Cone Day and got a card for one year's worth of 10% off at B&J's
• Attended 3 or 4 end of year / beginning of summer parties that were all fantastic
  

May 2009

• I continued the epic end-of-year party crawl

• With the beginning of summer, I've been able to bike more regularly and go to the famous Durham Farmer's Market, which consists of everything good in the world, including the Scene of the Crime Rovers by far one of the coolest bands ever.

And with that, I have updated you to the present time. The next blog post is going to be legen- wait for it...

First Two Weeks of School

HEY NEATO I FOUND AN OLD BLOG I STARTED WRITING BUT NEVER PUBLISHED. Check out what I was thinking more than half a year ago!!!

Well, I spent the first two weeks of school being pretty darn sick with a horrendous head cold. So sick that I got through two and a half seasons of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, which was the upside of being under the weather. Nonetheless, I made it to all of my classes.

I am taking three academic classes: Landscape Ecology, Wetlands Ecology, and Introduction to Geospatial Analysis. Landscape Ecology is all about looking at spatial heterogeneity and patterns at a landscape level. Wetlands Ecology is about... wetlands. And their ecology... Intro to Geospatial Analysis is about Geographic Information Systems, which consists of mapping and lots of data analysis.

I'm also taking two more casual classes. One is just a seminar that consists of a lecture every Friday. The other is a two-day-a-week meeting with first- and second- year ecology students and a few professors to discuss articles on different topics in ecology.

So that's the general idea of my semester. Now for a few specific stories. The other Saturday, I went to campus to print out a few things, and I was still feeling a bit sick. When I got there, I couldn't figure out how to get into the gated parking lots. I had been told that they were open on the weekends, but I had missed the part about needing to swipe your Duke ID card to get the gates to open. So, instead, I had to drive around campus and park far away from the building. Walking over, I dropped my ID card on the road, and didn't realize it until I was already at the building, which I couldn't get into without the card. I walked back to my car, assuming I had left it on the seat. As I walked to my car, another car went around me and I heard a loud clicking noise. I looked over and there was my card, having been hit by the car. Luckily, it was only severely bent and not actually broken. I managed to straighten it out enough to get into the building and print the articles. As I was packing up, I hit my usb drive with my knee and broke it in half... I was able to fix it with some army duct tape eventually. After all that, I drove home and crawled back into bed-- and probably watched some Buffy, although I don't really remember at this point.

Orientation Week!

I am now officially orientated!

The first day was mostly Nicholas School stuff-- meeting some of the head peeps in charge, other first-years, and some older students. I learned all about being a good TA and felt vaguely less lost getting around campus.

I also had a more general Graduate Student orientation, where we were talked at for awhile about fairly informative things and then got to walk around to a bunch of tables of people giving away free stuff and information for services and groups around Duke. I myself received multiple pens, a flashlight, and a variety of stickers.

On Wednesday, I visited the lemur center, where the lemur that played Zoboomafoo now lives. This excited me to no end, but others seemed considerably less impressed. They also allow some of the lemurs to live in a separated part of the Duke Forest, so that they can be studied in an approximately natural habitat. It was really interesting, and one of the other first year PhD students is going to be working there, so hopefully I'll get the inside scoop on those crazy lemurs... Wednesday night we went out to an interesting bar and got some decent panini type food. It was nice to relax a bit with people.

On Thursday, we had our Responsible Conduct of Research orientation. This was basically a really long repetition of "Don't Cheat", but it had some interesting discussion about what to do if you felt that someone was using questionable practices and how copyright works. Plus, we got a lot of decent food. A few of us met up later at Felix, one of the first year PhD student's house, and had a couple of beers. It was nice to just sit around and relax. I'm really glad that everyone in this program is so friendly.

Friday was pretty much open, so I biked on to Duke campus. It didn't take too long, but I felt a bit tired so I parked my bike on east campus (which is a bit closer to my house) and took a really short shuttle to west campus. There, I met with my advisor, Dean Urban, to discuss some specifics. It was a good meeting, and I felt much more certain about many aspects of my PhD. When I returned to my house, I felt strangely tired and my throat was hurting. Concerned, I decided to relax for a bit and curled up in bed. Little did I know that a hellish cold had been set upon me.

Saying Hello to Durham

Hurray! New blog up and running! Some quick info for peeps...

To the right are buttons to subscribe to my RSS feed, so you can INSTANTLY know when I publish a new blog. You could also email me if you want me to set up the blog to email you when I update... Or, you could just check out my blog whenever you get bored enough to amble on over. I plan to update every two weeks or more often, so it shouldn't be too hard to keep up to date with me...

I also put up an archive, groupings of blog entries by subject, and a bunch of links (including my Amazon wish list!!!) and such on the right.

And now on to my current plans...

Saturday morning, I will be heading down south in a convoy of three cars packed with most of my earthly belongings. The drive is about five to six hours, and we aim to be at my new house by mid-afternoon. The trip should involve many humorous pictures of overly-filled cars, sweaty family members, and angry and threatening people... All in all, a good way to remember my loved ones for a few weeks before I see them again.

Once down there, I am going to settle in, deal with all the fine tunings of living in a new town and state, and try to explore the area and meet new people! As you can tell, this will all be fodder for my blog...

Stay tuned!