BMES and P90x pause

I found out yesterday that I'll be presenting a poster at BMES in Austin in October! I was already going to go to Austin since I bought tickets to ACL, but now I get to go for free (at least the flight, most of my nights in the hotel, and most of my meals). Keegan will be there after the conference to go to ACL also, so he and I have our own room for after the conference is over. I'm a bit concerned about missing class for the conference, but I'm sure teachers will understand.

I have been trying to sign up for this class at UNC, synthesis of polymers, but in order to do that I have to have at least 3 credit hours at Duke because I can't take more hours at visiting institution than I'm taking at my home institution; the course I'm taking this fall is only 2 credit hours, so I need to find another seminar or 1 credit hour class to take so that I'll be able to take the class that I really want to take. It's a vicious cycle. I only need 3 more hours to be finished with all of my required coursework, and I really want to take this class at UNC, which essentially means I have to take 6 hours guaranteed. Oh well, at least these courses will be useful to me down the line.

I've also been keeping up with P90x pretty well (missed 2 days but at least kept the order of the workouts) but I'm going to have to probably restart the whole 90 days after Keegan and I get back from our anniversary trip. Today through Friday I'll be house/pet-sitting at my family's house in Raleigh and although I could take the DVDs with me, Keegan also needs them and I can't really take all of my weights and mat and pull up bar with me. Then Friday-Sunday we're going to a wedding at the Outer Banks, then next Saturday we leave for our trip. I will just be so messed up with the schedule that I might just want to do what I can, then really start over from the beginning. I could be hardcore and take these things on vacation with me, but I'd rather enjoy our anniversary trip and just go running in the hotel fitness centers or something :-) I think for now I'll just do the ones I don't need any equipment for, like the yoga and the plyometrics. Maybe I'll take one set of weights with me to do the arms workout while I'm at my family's house, but we'll see.

I'm super-excited to go to the Outer Banks this weekend to see Jen and Philippe get married! And on the day before our wedding anniversary! How romantic :-) I also can't wait to take an entire week to spend time with Keegan in relaxing locales! It will be wonderful to see some beaches that aren't 95 degrees (but then I will probably be cold, but oh well) and to see a part of the country I've never been to. I'm sure there's a lot of history there for me to soak up :-)

This year's confirmed new state tally:
Kentucky, Indiana, Washington, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Maine, Texas

I'll be 32/50, only 18 from my goal (assuming I don't go to any other states this year)!

Ahh, what I'm looking forward to:

Newport, RI




Bar Harbor, ME