The Week of Good Things

The past week has been awesome. I wasn't feeling so good on Friday or over the weekend and we did our taxes and it turns out we owe money (grrr, why the hell do I have to get a 1099-MISC instead of a W-2???). But it seems like all of the good things that can happen to a grad student have happened for me all in the span of a week!

Good Thing #1:
Monty gave me the print edition of the journal that published my review paper so now I have that to add to my bookshelf :-)

Good Thing #2:
I reached 137 pounds on Wednesday (loss of 6 pounds since January 14) , which is the lightest I've been since essentially right after we got married (I weighed around 133-135 when we actually got married) even though it is still almost 20 pounds more than I weighed when I graduated from NCSU. I am hoping to weigh 135 before/at the end of this week so I will make my goal to reach my vacation weight. That shouldn't be hard because it is great running weather and I specifically told Keegan "NO CANDY" for Valentine's Day.

Good Thing #3:
Eating healthier. The past few days I've been making smoothies at home and bringing them for lunch. I haven't been eating after dinner and I've been running every day for the past 2 weeks (even Super Bowl Sunday!) I also like to bring cut up veggies to eat at school too, so I'm glad to be getting in that routine. Otherwise I haven't changed my eating habits much since meeting with the nutritionist over the summer except that now I'm eating less and burning 600+ calories on the treadmill/track every day.

Good Thing #4:
In November Monty submitted a grant on my research with my data that I helped to tweak and edit and we found out last week that it was funded! On the first try! Hello $275K over the next two years (presumably funding the rest of my research)!!

Good Thing #5:
I mentioned on here that I submitted an abstract to the 3rd International Conference on Self-healing Materials in January and today I was asked to be a speaker! WOOO, ENGLAND!

Good Thing #6:
I went to the dentist and I have perfect teeth with very little plaque or tartar. Money saver!

Good Thing #7:
It is absolutely gorgeous outside. And it's Valentine's Day so I can be confident that there will be roses at home when I get there :-*

Good Thing #8:
I have been listening to a new (to me) cd in my car the past week and I'm totally in love with it. It's called Brothers by The Black Keys and there's not a single song on it that I skip.

Now this week is crunch time but it's a lot easier to work knowing that I have a Masters thesis to write so I can walk in May and a trip to England to look forward to!

Costa Rican adventures!

I haven't actually elaborated about what we're going to be doing when we finally take our vacation, but our general desires when we planned the trip were to spend time in both the rain forest and on the beaches. So we're starting the trip with 4 days in the mountains at Arenal Volcano. During our time here we'll be staying at the Lost Iguana Resort, which looks like it has some pretty nice things to explore just on its property :-) From this hotel we should actually have a view of the volcano and be able to see the lava flowing. I'm hoping Arenal will be mildly active while we are there because it would be really neat to see some actual lava flow. The volcano has been continuously erupting since 1968 or something, so our chances of seeing the flow are pretty good *fingers crossed it won't be TOO exciting...*

During the first days of our visit we're going waterfall rappelling, doing a canopy tour, and spending time hiking through the forest around the volcano. It should be a LOT of fun and we'll get to see some unique animals, birds, and bugs I'm sure. Just reading up on Costa Rica I've learned it has a ridiculous amount of biodiversity (which is why we wanted to go there in the first place) and it has been estimated that something like 6% of all the species of life found in the entire world can be found in the country, which is about the same size as Vermont + New Hampshire! Eeee! I'm mainly excited about the birds and mammals though, ESPECIALLY sloths and monkeys (but mainly sloths). I'd also really like to see a quetzal.

After our days in Arenal we're going to go to Manual Antonio, a small national park on the Pacific coast (and I've never seen the Pacific Ocean!) where we'll spend the last 4 days of the trip. Here we're planning a tour of the park and then 3 days to relax and explore (local cuisine, crafts, snorkeling, etc). We're going to be staying at La Mansion Inn, which sounds pretty classy hah. Part of traveling to countries in Central and South America is the difference in costs once you're there. Currently the dollar is worth about 500 colónes so it will also be interesting dealing with the local currency. I collect foreign money so I'm pretty excited to see what Costa Rican money looks like and what varieties there are.