My goals for 2011 are about the same as my goals for 2010 except they are a bit more specific:
• Submit an abstract to 3ICSHM by January 14, 2011
• Submit an abstract to BMES 2011
• Reach vacation weight by February 10 (I know I can't reach my target weight before our trip using healthy avenues, so I have two deadlines for myself)
• Reach target weight by May 1
• Attend basketball campout
• Save $900-$1000 at the grocery store over the course of the year -- This may or may not be possible, depending on how much we spend on groceries this year. Usually we spend about $50/week on groceries, with some weeks being higher when I stock up on meats and stuff. We can reasonably expect to pay about $2800 for groceries and health and beauty stuff over the course of the year and saving $900 in a year would be pretty significant savings. We'll see what I can do...
• Save at least 20% on each trip to the store -- This is a more feasible goal based on how much we spend on groceries, but it's nice to aim high. I guess ultimately I want to save at least a month's rent ($815) on groceries but it would also be nice to save a month's rent plus utilities at the store
• Contribute the maximum to my Roth IRA -- I will be doing this Monday!
• Open an individual mutual fund
• Contribute a set amount to our joint mutual fund every month
• Contribute a set amount to my Vanguard accounts each month, dividing it as necessary between my money market (money I might need in the short term) and mutual fund
• Run at least 20 miles every week
• Weight lift twice every week using the new regimen I planned with my course instructor
• Run in the Turkey Trot race on Thanksgiving and beat my time from this year
• Plan trip to England/Wales (assuming I'm asked to present at 3ICSHM)
• Go to Jazz Fest in New Orleans with Caitlin
• Submit research paper describing my current experiments by June 15, 2011
• Get my Master's -- submitting my intent to graduate form this month!
• Try one new recipe every month
• Read a book for pleasure every month
Well this is a nice summary of most of my goals for the year; it's not all of them, but it's a good overview of what I want to do. Ambitious, but I work well when I have a checklist of all my stuff that I can go through and see definite progress.
Friday, December 31, 2010
Meeting my 2010 goals
Each year I make a list of "goals" instead of New Year's resolutions because not all of the things I want to accomplish during a year are really "resolutions", such as saving money, submitting to conferences, and making new recipes. I think "goals" are also easier to keep because I have defined end points (ex: saying I want to lose 10 pounds is a lot more descriptive than saying I want to lose weight).
Overall I'm happy with the progress I made towards those goals and I successfully completed about 80% of the stuff on my list :-) Some of those goals I was able to meet:
• Getting in shape and learning to eat healthier
• Contributing the maximum to my Roth IRA
• Contributing a set amount to our joint mutual fund and my money market account every month
• Submitting abstracts to and presenting at both the Society for Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering Society conferences
• Completing my review paper by May 31 and submitting it for publication (it's now online!)
• Planning our trip to RI and ME for our one year anniversary
• Attending basketball campout
• Reading a book for pleasure every month
• Finishing coursework and TAing responsibilities
Some of the goals that didn't fare as well:
• Losing weight -- I did lose some weight, but I didn't reach my target weight. I'm not sure if that's due to the fact that I gained a fair amount of muscle or if I just didn't lose enough weight. My clothes fit better though, so maybe I'm a little smaller than I was earlier in the year...? I don't know, but since we're going to Costa Rica in a few months I have extra incentive to slim down!
• Making a new recipe every week -- For the first two months of the year I kept up with this resolution really well, but now it's the last day of the year and I've made about 30 new recipes. That's pretty good, roughly a new recipe every other week, and for 2011 I've modified that to be a new recipe every month
• Backing my computer up once a week -- I am AWFUL about this. I rarely back up my computer. But now that I have a new computer at work and actual data worth protecting, I have an external hardrive that I take with me every day to backup what I do that day. And really that's the important info on my computers anyway, work/school stuff
• Tracking our grocery spending and saving -- I did this really well for the first year we lived together, and then I began slacking off. From fall 2008 to fall 2009 we saved almost a month's rent at the grocery store! We rarely ate take-out or ate at restaurants. This year as I've become busier with work and school I've slacked off a bit and we make a lot of little trips to the grocery store that is a sure-fire way to waste money. I still shop with a list and stock up on things when they're on sale and I have coupons, but I only saved roughly $600 this year with coupons and MVP savings -- next year my goal is for between $900-$1000 in savings. I'm already off on a better foot; yesterday I bought our meat for the next few months because beef, chicken, and pork chops were on sale (I buy a lot and freeze it) as well as some healthier and new produce choices (like asparagus) and I spent $86 but saved $31. That's not the best percentage savings I've ever had, but it's still respectable. I hope next year to save at least 20% on every trip to the store!
Soon I will post about making my 2011 goals, which are really similar to my 2010 goals, only perhaps more specific and including more work-related information (since now I know much more about what I'm doing than I did this time last year). Happy New Year!
Overall I'm happy with the progress I made towards those goals and I successfully completed about 80% of the stuff on my list :-) Some of those goals I was able to meet:
• Getting in shape and learning to eat healthier
• Contributing the maximum to my Roth IRA
• Contributing a set amount to our joint mutual fund and my money market account every month
• Submitting abstracts to and presenting at both the Society for Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering Society conferences
• Completing my review paper by May 31 and submitting it for publication (it's now online!)
• Planning our trip to RI and ME for our one year anniversary
• Attending basketball campout
• Reading a book for pleasure every month
• Finishing coursework and TAing responsibilities
Some of the goals that didn't fare as well:
• Losing weight -- I did lose some weight, but I didn't reach my target weight. I'm not sure if that's due to the fact that I gained a fair amount of muscle or if I just didn't lose enough weight. My clothes fit better though, so maybe I'm a little smaller than I was earlier in the year...? I don't know, but since we're going to Costa Rica in a few months I have extra incentive to slim down!
• Making a new recipe every week -- For the first two months of the year I kept up with this resolution really well, but now it's the last day of the year and I've made about 30 new recipes. That's pretty good, roughly a new recipe every other week, and for 2011 I've modified that to be a new recipe every month
• Backing my computer up once a week -- I am AWFUL about this. I rarely back up my computer. But now that I have a new computer at work and actual data worth protecting, I have an external hardrive that I take with me every day to backup what I do that day. And really that's the important info on my computers anyway, work/school stuff
• Tracking our grocery spending and saving -- I did this really well for the first year we lived together, and then I began slacking off. From fall 2008 to fall 2009 we saved almost a month's rent at the grocery store! We rarely ate take-out or ate at restaurants. This year as I've become busier with work and school I've slacked off a bit and we make a lot of little trips to the grocery store that is a sure-fire way to waste money. I still shop with a list and stock up on things when they're on sale and I have coupons, but I only saved roughly $600 this year with coupons and MVP savings -- next year my goal is for between $900-$1000 in savings. I'm already off on a better foot; yesterday I bought our meat for the next few months because beef, chicken, and pork chops were on sale (I buy a lot and freeze it) as well as some healthier and new produce choices (like asparagus) and I spent $86 but saved $31. That's not the best percentage savings I've ever had, but it's still respectable. I hope next year to save at least 20% on every trip to the store!
Soon I will post about making my 2011 goals, which are really similar to my 2010 goals, only perhaps more specific and including more work-related information (since now I know much more about what I'm doing than I did this time last year). Happy New Year!
Thursday, December 30, 2010
December pleasure reading, part 3
I just finished reading the third book in the Narnia series, The Horse and His Boy. This book was also enjoyable although it didn't really have that much of a plot. I guess since it's just a kid's book it doesn't really have to have much of a story behind it. It's only peripherally related to the other books, mentioning Lucy, Edmund, Susan, and Peter only briefly. I think I'll keep reading because now I'm invested in finishing the whole series. :-)
Sunday, December 26, 2010
The season of... receiving?
This year I got SO MUCH STUFF for Christmas! Keegan and I even cut what we decided to spend on each other by a third, and I still feel like I got so many presents I can't even remember what all was involved.
Now, I am thankful that I received all these wonderful things, but I'm also a bit overwhelmed. I am much happier giving thoughtful presents to people and it makes me a little uncomfortable actually when people watch me open presents (other than when it's just me and Keegan). I know they want to see that I like the gift, and I love watching people open what I've given them, but when I look under our tree I'm almost a little ashamed. Some people have nothing for Christmas and yet here I sit with more things than I could possibly dream of asking for. I had like 6 things on my list and all of them were things that I would like to have but nothing that I needed. For example, I really love the show Murder, She Wrote, so I thought, "Hey, I'll put that on my list because otherwise I only have gift cards on here" and I got SIX seasons! I'm really pumped to watch them (I love me some Angela Lansbury... "Good times, she wrote" as Phil Dunphy would say) but at the same time I feel like that money could have been spent in much more rewarding ways. Again, that doesn't mean I didn't want the gifts, because I love them and will enjoy them, but how much do I really need?
When I was growing up, and even now (although regrettably since I started grad school I've slipped a bit and began buying more things just because I want them) I would never buy things for myself. I would agonize over small purchases, like a single movie, and just look at it every time I was in a store without ever buying it. I guess now that I have steady income that is above what I need I figure if I want to buy a season of something or a movie that I "deserve" it. I think this is a really dangerous attitude for myself because I remember at Christmas from my mom and stepdad I would get about 4 presents, usually around $100 in value, and I was always very content with that (and I'm still content with that). But as a kid I was really insensitive to my siblings because I remember coming back from my "second Christmas" with my dad and my grandparents and gloatingly showing off all my Beanie Babies and toys or whatever I got that year. It was never really big, valuable stuff, but as a kid I think the number of gifts was always more impressive than the value. I look back on those times and I feel ashamed. I've tried to make up for that in the past 6-8 years or so, getting them presents I know they'll love and downplaying the things that I have that Keegan or other family members have given me and just generally being less obnoxious. I also try to think of things we can do together that are just fun and don't require spending any money at all.
But joining Keegan's family has also changed that because they give a TON of stuff at Christmas. I would say that they spend at least 5-6 times more on each person than my family does. It's wonderful they're in a position to afford that but I feel like they may be setting their kids up for disappointment when they realize that in the real world you have to work for stuff. It also makes me feel a little sad because I think maybe the kids just don't realize how much their gifts cost and that they are in fact above the "middle class" bracket and have astonishingly more than a huge percentage of the population. I've heard several remarks about the "rich" and "upper class" and I wonder if they realize they're in the group they're commenting on. Keegan seems to have adjusted well to working in the "real world" and having to save for things you want, so I hope his younger siblings are also able to make that transition smoothly. But then again, Keegan has very little that he wants for and I think that's in sharp contrast to some of his family members. I am really happy to be a part of their family now too, and I love them all dearly, but I can't really adjust my mindset to getting so much stuff, easily 3x more than my own family gives me, when I'm happy with a lot less. I guess I don't want to get "poisoned" or whatever and start needing progressively more and more to feel satisfied.
Keegan and I are also concerned with what will happen when we have a baby. We would like to set up a college fund for the baby(ies) that would be open for everyone to contribute to because, especially with the first grandbaby on both sides, and with my parents being divorced, there is going to be a crazy amount of toys and clothing given to us when in reality one toy from each source would give the kid 5 or 6 toys, and that is more than enough at a time.
For example, this Christmas I got 35-40 individual items and that's crazy to me! I'm worried that I don't mind getting so many gifts enough to tell people to stop giving things to me, but I also feel like there's no harm in getting all this stuff. But there is a little bit. I don't want to raise our kids valuing the wrong things and I'm worried that there will be several sources from which our kids will not learn by good example. Hmm, I guess maybe I won't have to cross that bridge for awhile though....
Now, I am thankful that I received all these wonderful things, but I'm also a bit overwhelmed. I am much happier giving thoughtful presents to people and it makes me a little uncomfortable actually when people watch me open presents (other than when it's just me and Keegan). I know they want to see that I like the gift, and I love watching people open what I've given them, but when I look under our tree I'm almost a little ashamed. Some people have nothing for Christmas and yet here I sit with more things than I could possibly dream of asking for. I had like 6 things on my list and all of them were things that I would like to have but nothing that I needed. For example, I really love the show Murder, She Wrote, so I thought, "Hey, I'll put that on my list because otherwise I only have gift cards on here" and I got SIX seasons! I'm really pumped to watch them (I love me some Angela Lansbury... "Good times, she wrote" as Phil Dunphy would say) but at the same time I feel like that money could have been spent in much more rewarding ways. Again, that doesn't mean I didn't want the gifts, because I love them and will enjoy them, but how much do I really need?
When I was growing up, and even now (although regrettably since I started grad school I've slipped a bit and began buying more things just because I want them) I would never buy things for myself. I would agonize over small purchases, like a single movie, and just look at it every time I was in a store without ever buying it. I guess now that I have steady income that is above what I need I figure if I want to buy a season of something or a movie that I "deserve" it. I think this is a really dangerous attitude for myself because I remember at Christmas from my mom and stepdad I would get about 4 presents, usually around $100 in value, and I was always very content with that (and I'm still content with that). But as a kid I was really insensitive to my siblings because I remember coming back from my "second Christmas" with my dad and my grandparents and gloatingly showing off all my Beanie Babies and toys or whatever I got that year. It was never really big, valuable stuff, but as a kid I think the number of gifts was always more impressive than the value. I look back on those times and I feel ashamed. I've tried to make up for that in the past 6-8 years or so, getting them presents I know they'll love and downplaying the things that I have that Keegan or other family members have given me and just generally being less obnoxious. I also try to think of things we can do together that are just fun and don't require spending any money at all.
But joining Keegan's family has also changed that because they give a TON of stuff at Christmas. I would say that they spend at least 5-6 times more on each person than my family does. It's wonderful they're in a position to afford that but I feel like they may be setting their kids up for disappointment when they realize that in the real world you have to work for stuff. It also makes me feel a little sad because I think maybe the kids just don't realize how much their gifts cost and that they are in fact above the "middle class" bracket and have astonishingly more than a huge percentage of the population. I've heard several remarks about the "rich" and "upper class" and I wonder if they realize they're in the group they're commenting on. Keegan seems to have adjusted well to working in the "real world" and having to save for things you want, so I hope his younger siblings are also able to make that transition smoothly. But then again, Keegan has very little that he wants for and I think that's in sharp contrast to some of his family members. I am really happy to be a part of their family now too, and I love them all dearly, but I can't really adjust my mindset to getting so much stuff, easily 3x more than my own family gives me, when I'm happy with a lot less. I guess I don't want to get "poisoned" or whatever and start needing progressively more and more to feel satisfied.
Keegan and I are also concerned with what will happen when we have a baby. We would like to set up a college fund for the baby(ies) that would be open for everyone to contribute to because, especially with the first grandbaby on both sides, and with my parents being divorced, there is going to be a crazy amount of toys and clothing given to us when in reality one toy from each source would give the kid 5 or 6 toys, and that is more than enough at a time.
For example, this Christmas I got 35-40 individual items and that's crazy to me! I'm worried that I don't mind getting so many gifts enough to tell people to stop giving things to me, but I also feel like there's no harm in getting all this stuff. But there is a little bit. I don't want to raise our kids valuing the wrong things and I'm worried that there will be several sources from which our kids will not learn by good example. Hmm, I guess maybe I won't have to cross that bridge for awhile though....
December pleasure reading, part 2
This month I also read the second of the books based on ABC's Castle. This book was called Naked Heat and was just like the first one: fun to read but not substantive (I mean, just look at the cover. It really screams "life-changing novel" :-P). I read so many technical things at work that I'm okay with easy reads at home. The book was a lot like the show, focused on the sexual tension between the two main characters, also similar to the show Bones. But I didn't figure out who the killer was before it was revealed in the book, and I enjoyed the book. And at least I haven't fallen all the way to trashy romance novels (which I think are funny and, I'm not gonna lie, I might start reading).
Right now I'm reading The Horse and His Boy, the third book in the Narnia series, and I received Ayn Rand's Anthem and We the Living for Christmas.
Right now I'm reading The Horse and His Boy, the third book in the Narnia series, and I received Ayn Rand's Anthem and We the Living for Christmas.
#26: Mint chocolate chip cookies, #27 Puppy Chow, #28 Sharp cheddar cheese straws
I always bake a TON at Christmas, but primarily for us to give away. This year I made three new recipes that were not hard at all but were still new and therefore I wanted to sneak them in to this calendar year as far as my "new recipe" goal goes:
#26: The only thing different here is that I made these with mint chips instead of chocolate chips. Woo, fancy, I know. But I made them from scratch and I also used Splenda because I gave them to my grandparents, who are all diabetic.
#27: I eat this almost every year but I've never actually made it myself. This finally gave me an excuse to use my 4 cup Pyrex measuring cup :-) This was gone in like 3 days flat, but we did give about half of it to Keegan's family.
#28: I love cheese straws. I love the extra kick the cayenne pepper gives them, but this year I took a recipe I found online and modified it to use Cabot's seriously sharp cheddar cheese, essentially the sharpest cheese I've seen at our grocery store. Oh man, they were delicious! I know for next year to double the recipe because we gave half to my family and half to Keegan's family and kept only the ones we "taste-tested" right out of the oven for ourselves.
This mixer and my double boiler (featured in the picture for the puppy chow, where I was melting the chocolate/peanut butter combo) were life-savers this year! It made everything so much faster and easier to clean up. Also for several recipes the only moisture is the butter and that is a PAIN to stir by hand.
This year's baking list:
-Oatmeal scotchies
-Chocolate and sea salt shortbread cookies
-Peppermint bark
-Puppy chow
-Peanut butter pie
-Cheesecake (made with my grandmom's top secret recipe)
-Mint chocolate chip cookies
-Cheese straws
#26: The only thing different here is that I made these with mint chips instead of chocolate chips. Woo, fancy, I know. But I made them from scratch and I also used Splenda because I gave them to my grandparents, who are all diabetic.
#27: I eat this almost every year but I've never actually made it myself. This finally gave me an excuse to use my 4 cup Pyrex measuring cup :-) This was gone in like 3 days flat, but we did give about half of it to Keegan's family.
#28: I love cheese straws. I love the extra kick the cayenne pepper gives them, but this year I took a recipe I found online and modified it to use Cabot's seriously sharp cheddar cheese, essentially the sharpest cheese I've seen at our grocery store. Oh man, they were delicious! I know for next year to double the recipe because we gave half to my family and half to Keegan's family and kept only the ones we "taste-tested" right out of the oven for ourselves.
This mixer and my double boiler (featured in the picture for the puppy chow, where I was melting the chocolate/peanut butter combo) were life-savers this year! It made everything so much faster and easier to clean up. Also for several recipes the only moisture is the butter and that is a PAIN to stir by hand.
This year's baking list:
-Oatmeal scotchies
-Chocolate and sea salt shortbread cookies
-Peppermint bark
-Puppy chow
-Peanut butter pie
-Cheesecake (made with my grandmom's top secret recipe)
-Mint chocolate chip cookies
-Cheese straws
Friday, December 17, 2010
2010 in review
I know it's not the end of the year yet, but I'm in lab, running experiments, and this stage is about an hour of just waiting around for my surfactant to dissolve, so I figured I could do my usual summing-up post about all the stuff that happened this year.
January:
-Was the coldest I've ever been in my life while going on a trip to Boone with my mother-in-law and one of my sisters-in-law. The trip was really fun but so cold that we didn't actually get to do any of the things we were planning on doing. The zip line and snow tubing were both closed due to the wind chill so basically we just sledded.
-Started 4th semester of grad school and TAing my first class
February:
-Don't really remember anything exciting happening in February, but I did get my first credit card (wooo) so I can be building up my credit score before Keegan and I attempt to get a loan to buy a house.
-Was duteously following my plan to make a new recipe every week
March:
-Entered the lottery to win tickets to the Final Four and then actually won tickets to go to the Final Four!
April:
-Was the busiest month I've had in a really long time
-Spent essentially the entire Final Four weekend either in Lucas Oil Stadium or in its parking lot -- was SO WORTH IT to see Duke win the 2010 national championship! I'm so glad I signed up to go last year when they were such a long shot because frankly if they go again this year (2011) it'll be a mad house and EVERYONE will apply to win tickets in the lottery so my chances of winning again are dramatically decreased
-Went to Seattle to present at the Society for Biomaterials conference. This was my first big conference (I don't think regional symposiums really count) and I really enjoyed it. Seattle was an awesome city and the farmer's market was a lot of fun. I was also able to talk to some folks at the FDA and other people who are working on encapsulation about my work and received some valuable feedback
May:
-Started planning a trip for our one year wedding anniversary! :-*
-Went to the Azalea Festival in Wilmington, NC with my mother-in-law and my aunt... in-law? Keegan's aunt and uncle have moved to Wilmington, so we were visiting them and touring some of the old homes in the downtown area
-Duke BME had their retreat and it coincided with my 24th birthday
-Attended our first wedding as a married couple!
-Starting working on polymer synthesis in the chemistry department so that I could begin work on my project
June:
-Celebrated one year married to Keegan!
-Went to the Outer Banks for our actual anniversary, to attend another wedding
-Started our trip to Newport, RI/Bar Harbor, ME :-)
-Got trained on the SEM so I could start imaging my samples
-Started and stopped P90x after deciding it was really not worth my time (but signed up for a weight training PE class at Duke)
July:
-Finished our anniversary trip by attending Brochufest 2010
-Met with Duke's nutritionist to learn more about structuring my meals and balancing my diet and exercise. Mainly this was for me to start getting in the habit of eating healthy now so that when Keegan and I decide to start a family I will already know how to take care of myself and will be in better health going into pregnancy
August:
-Started my third year at Duke (how have I been here for 3 years already?!)... and that's pretty much it
-Did meet with a director of R&D at Ethicon, Inc who is excited about my project and agreed to donate materials for my research purposes. Awesome :-)
September:
-Keegan made his first trip up to the Cambridge, MA office
-Keegan celebrates his 25th birthday!
-Booked our trip to Costa Rica with Caitlin and Zach :-)
October:
-Completed(/survived) graduate student campout! Didn't win tickets though... boo.
-Presented at BMES in Austin, TX where I received even more feedback than from my presentation at SFB in April
-Went to Austin City Limits! Definitely going to make it a plan to go back there for ACL or for South by Southwest. Or both. Already on my agenda to go to Jazz Fest this year!
-Review paper (finally) accepted for publication! (Was submitted in May, and it took this long for me to hear back)
November:
-Went to see HP7 at midnight! When I had a test that day! Movie was awesome, so worth it. And I got a really good grade on the test. Maybe I should do that all the time...? Oh wait, I have no more exams to study for!
-Ran my first 8k! When I signed up I thought it was a 5k... only to find out 3 days before hand that it was actually 5 miles
-Began tracking the miles I run every day; goal is to run at least 20 every week
December:
-Got our Christmas tree!
-Finished my last classes and my last TA-ship! Bring on the experiments and labwork!
-Review paper appears online (woot!)
-Finish out my last semester of classes at Duke with a 4.0
And then just because I always track where I've been in the year:
North Carolina
Virginia
West Virginia
Maryland
Pennsylvania
Delaware
New Jersey
Connecticut
Rhode Island
Massachusetts
New York
Vermont
New Hampshire
Maine
Kentucky
Ohio
Indiana
Minnesota
Washington
Texas
That's a pretty impressive list for one year! The new states visited were Kentucky, Indiana, Minnesota, Washington, Rhode Island, and Maine :-)
2011 is definitely including at least one new place -- Costa Rica! We could also be going to England and Wales because I'm applying to present at the International Conference on Self-Healing Materials in Bath, England in June/July. Since I'm also planning on Jazz Fest with Cait, that would at least give me Louisiana as a new state visited, and perhaps Alabama and Mississippi depending on where we fly and if we go to visit her dad in Alabama. I'm not sure how else I would go to those states unless we decided to drive to Texas for Keegan's cousin's graduation... which would be unpleasant hah.
January:
-Was the coldest I've ever been in my life while going on a trip to Boone with my mother-in-law and one of my sisters-in-law. The trip was really fun but so cold that we didn't actually get to do any of the things we were planning on doing. The zip line and snow tubing were both closed due to the wind chill so basically we just sledded.
-Started 4th semester of grad school and TAing my first class
February:
-Don't really remember anything exciting happening in February, but I did get my first credit card (wooo) so I can be building up my credit score before Keegan and I attempt to get a loan to buy a house.
-Was duteously following my plan to make a new recipe every week
March:
-Entered the lottery to win tickets to the Final Four and then actually won tickets to go to the Final Four!
April:
-Was the busiest month I've had in a really long time
-Spent essentially the entire Final Four weekend either in Lucas Oil Stadium or in its parking lot -- was SO WORTH IT to see Duke win the 2010 national championship! I'm so glad I signed up to go last year when they were such a long shot because frankly if they go again this year (2011) it'll be a mad house and EVERYONE will apply to win tickets in the lottery so my chances of winning again are dramatically decreased
-Went to Seattle to present at the Society for Biomaterials conference. This was my first big conference (I don't think regional symposiums really count) and I really enjoyed it. Seattle was an awesome city and the farmer's market was a lot of fun. I was also able to talk to some folks at the FDA and other people who are working on encapsulation about my work and received some valuable feedback
May:
-Started planning a trip for our one year wedding anniversary! :-*
-Went to the Azalea Festival in Wilmington, NC with my mother-in-law and my aunt... in-law? Keegan's aunt and uncle have moved to Wilmington, so we were visiting them and touring some of the old homes in the downtown area
-Duke BME had their retreat and it coincided with my 24th birthday
-Attended our first wedding as a married couple!
-Starting working on polymer synthesis in the chemistry department so that I could begin work on my project
June:
-Celebrated one year married to Keegan!
-Went to the Outer Banks for our actual anniversary, to attend another wedding
-Started our trip to Newport, RI/Bar Harbor, ME :-)
-Got trained on the SEM so I could start imaging my samples
-Started and stopped P90x after deciding it was really not worth my time (but signed up for a weight training PE class at Duke)
July:
-Finished our anniversary trip by attending Brochufest 2010
-Met with Duke's nutritionist to learn more about structuring my meals and balancing my diet and exercise. Mainly this was for me to start getting in the habit of eating healthy now so that when Keegan and I decide to start a family I will already know how to take care of myself and will be in better health going into pregnancy
August:
-Started my third year at Duke (how have I been here for 3 years already?!)... and that's pretty much it
-Did meet with a director of R&D at Ethicon, Inc who is excited about my project and agreed to donate materials for my research purposes. Awesome :-)
September:
-Keegan made his first trip up to the Cambridge, MA office
-Keegan celebrates his 25th birthday!
-Booked our trip to Costa Rica with Caitlin and Zach :-)
October:
-Completed(/survived) graduate student campout! Didn't win tickets though... boo.
-Presented at BMES in Austin, TX where I received even more feedback than from my presentation at SFB in April
-Went to Austin City Limits! Definitely going to make it a plan to go back there for ACL or for South by Southwest. Or both. Already on my agenda to go to Jazz Fest this year!
-Review paper (finally) accepted for publication! (Was submitted in May, and it took this long for me to hear back)
November:
-Went to see HP7 at midnight! When I had a test that day! Movie was awesome, so worth it. And I got a really good grade on the test. Maybe I should do that all the time...? Oh wait, I have no more exams to study for!
-Ran my first 8k! When I signed up I thought it was a 5k... only to find out 3 days before hand that it was actually 5 miles
-Began tracking the miles I run every day; goal is to run at least 20 every week
December:
-Got our Christmas tree!
-Finished my last classes and my last TA-ship! Bring on the experiments and labwork!
-Review paper appears online (woot!)
-Finish out my last semester of classes at Duke with a 4.0
And then just because I always track where I've been in the year:
North Carolina
Virginia
West Virginia
Maryland
Pennsylvania
Delaware
New Jersey
Connecticut
Rhode Island
Massachusetts
New York
Vermont
New Hampshire
Maine
Kentucky
Ohio
Indiana
Minnesota
Washington
Texas
That's a pretty impressive list for one year! The new states visited were Kentucky, Indiana, Minnesota, Washington, Rhode Island, and Maine :-)
2011 is definitely including at least one new place -- Costa Rica! We could also be going to England and Wales because I'm applying to present at the International Conference on Self-Healing Materials in Bath, England in June/July. Since I'm also planning on Jazz Fest with Cait, that would at least give me Louisiana as a new state visited, and perhaps Alabama and Mississippi depending on where we fly and if we go to visit her dad in Alabama. I'm not sure how else I would go to those states unless we decided to drive to Texas for Keegan's cousin's graduation... which would be unpleasant hah.
Sunday, December 12, 2010
December pleasure reading
I am continuing to read The Chronicles of Narnia, and last week I read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. They don't really take that long to read obviously, since they're only a couple hundred pages, so now I'm on to the third book in the series.
The book was nice to read, but I think the thing I enjoyed the most was actually the dedication. I didn't know that C.S. Lewis's goddaughter was named Lucy and the book was written for her :-) I thought the dedication was cute/funny.
I don't really have anything that deep to say about the book, although I'm pretty surprised it is considered a "childhood" story since it's got a fair amount of violence in it. But then again I guess one could say the same about Harry Potter. I'm also always surprised at how simple the book is compared to movies that are made based on them. For instance, I don't remember much about the movie and I'm not even sure I saw the whole thing, since it was just on TV, but I know the battle scene took up like 1/3-1/2 of the film time while in the book it was literally one line that didn't even specifically say that Aslan had killed the White Witch. It was only stated a few lines later that the witch was actually dead. I know those are the scenes that make the most money and make the movie more theatrical, and I'm seriously looking forward to some HP battle scenes in HP7p2, but it's still interesting the way Hollywood changes things.
The book was nice to read, but I think the thing I enjoyed the most was actually the dedication. I didn't know that C.S. Lewis's goddaughter was named Lucy and the book was written for her :-) I thought the dedication was cute/funny.
I don't really have anything that deep to say about the book, although I'm pretty surprised it is considered a "childhood" story since it's got a fair amount of violence in it. But then again I guess one could say the same about Harry Potter. I'm also always surprised at how simple the book is compared to movies that are made based on them. For instance, I don't remember much about the movie and I'm not even sure I saw the whole thing, since it was just on TV, but I know the battle scene took up like 1/3-1/2 of the film time while in the book it was literally one line that didn't even specifically say that Aslan had killed the White Witch. It was only stated a few lines later that the witch was actually dead. I know those are the scenes that make the most money and make the movie more theatrical, and I'm seriously looking forward to some HP battle scenes in HP7p2, but it's still interesting the way Hollywood changes things.
Friday, December 10, 2010
Good news or bad news?
I'm pretty much over having to study for this exam. There are several parties tonight that I wanted to go to (such as Keegan's office holiday party and then a guy in BME is also having a party). But today I also realized that I really didn't want to study because there are a lot of experiments I want to run in lab. Yes, yes, you heard me, I don't want to study not only because I don't want to study but because I'd rather be working in the lab. Does this make me a true grad student now? Or just a loser...? I mean, maybe both. But anyway, I never thought this day would come *sniff sniff* and I'm so proud.
Sunday, December 5, 2010
November pleasure reading
My book of November was The Magician's Nephew, the first book in the Narnia series by C.S. Lewis. I decided to start this series because I saw one of the movies was being aired on ABC Family or something a few weeks ago and I realized I'd never read them all. I read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe when I was in elementary school but I literally remember nothing about it other than the fact that I read it (so that's the book I'm currently reading).
This book was really easy to read since the whole series is geared towards younger kids, but it was still something simple to occupy my limited free time. I think it's just meant to introduce the rest of the series really, and how this land of Narnia came into existence. In that regard the book is just sort of filler that's not really necessary to know when reading the other books (I mean, obviously it's not important if they didn't even bother making it into a movie :-P) I guess I just read it for completeness. But still, it was a nice little story even though I'll never read it again.
I want to check out Duke's library for more adult and current books, so I'll probably do that once the undergrads have left and my exam is over. I think the reason I gravitate towards autobiographies and books for teens is that I don't have to concentrate when I read them and that's something I like. I don't always feel like reading things that I have to concentrate on really intensely to understand when I've spent all day reading papers, doing experiments, working on my TA duties, and going to class. But in the spring, when I don't have classes for the first time in 19 years, maybe I'll feel more like reading grown-up books :-P
This book was really easy to read since the whole series is geared towards younger kids, but it was still something simple to occupy my limited free time. I think it's just meant to introduce the rest of the series really, and how this land of Narnia came into existence. In that regard the book is just sort of filler that's not really necessary to know when reading the other books (I mean, obviously it's not important if they didn't even bother making it into a movie :-P) I guess I just read it for completeness. But still, it was a nice little story even though I'll never read it again.
I want to check out Duke's library for more adult and current books, so I'll probably do that once the undergrads have left and my exam is over. I think the reason I gravitate towards autobiographies and books for teens is that I don't have to concentrate when I read them and that's something I like. I don't always feel like reading things that I have to concentrate on really intensely to understand when I've spent all day reading papers, doing experiments, working on my TA duties, and going to class. But in the spring, when I don't have classes for the first time in 19 years, maybe I'll feel more like reading grown-up books :-P
Thursday, December 2, 2010
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