Freedom!

My last fall semester of classes is over! Hooray! I still have two classes left to take, but I'm taking one in spring 2010 and one in spring 2011 (the one I'm taking in spring 2011 is only offered in the spring semester and it's a very small class, so that's when I was able to get in to it). This spring I will also be TAing BME 202L, a new lab that should be very interesting. It's a combination of two other classes that they're not going to be offering anymore, one that's an intro biomaterials lab and another that's an intro mechanics lab. The class is small and there are some really helpful faculty members that are looking forward to helping me set up the labs.

Although my classes are finished for now I'll be hanging around the lab getting another version of my paper ready for Monty this week -- I hope to have it finished by Thursday at the latest. It's a lot of information-compiling right now. I'm putting together a new table of info that requires me to look back at all the papers I've read and pull info from each of them about different biomedical composites. It's tedious and time-consuming but not especially difficult. I'll probably come in to lab through December 23 because Keegan is working until then anyway and now is a really good time for me to get stuff finished. It's a little weird thinking I'll only have one class to take (maybe technically 2 classes, since I'm also taking a seminar) and one to TA in the spring. I hope I'm able to get a concrete plan laid out as to what exactly I'm going to be doing in all the time I'll have next semester to research.

I am still waiting for some of my grades, but I know I did really well in my bio class because those grades have already been posted and I think my other exam went alright, but I guess we'll see. I believe it will depend on how all the other students in the class did since I think they curve the class to a B or B+ so my numerical grade doesn't matter so much as my score compared to the class average.

Saturday night was Keegan's Christmas party through work; it was held at a restaurant in downtown Raleigh called Humble Pie and it was veeeerry tasty. Our meal was tapas-style which just a bunch of different appetizers that made up the dinner, but it was really nice to socialize with his work friends and enjoy being finished with all of my studying. Yesterday I went with my mother- and sisters-in-law on a tour of historic downtown Raleigh where we were able to tour some of the houses and see all of the decorations. It was really nice and interesting but the weather put a damper on things; it was so cold and the drizzle was a little annoying. All in all a good day though. :-)

I also was able to do some shopping for Keegan for Christmas; I've been waiting to do it because I bought him ski gear and I needed him to go with me to show me what he wants/needs because I don't know anything about skiing. Now we just have most of our other shopping to do! We have finished shopping for my sister, my brother, one of Keegan's sisters, Keegan's dad, my dad, and my dad's girlfriend. We haven't started shopping at all for my mom, my stepdad, or Keegan's mom and we have part of our gifts for both of Keegan's brothers and his other sister. Whew! And then I still need to finish Keegan-shopping. I just loving shopping for people and picking out things I know they want/need and I especially enjoy wrapping presents! I wrap everything we buy except for whatever Keegan buys for me :-D Boy it's a good thing we get paid early in December! (except for the part where I don't get paid again for another 7-ish weeks at the end of January)