Looking to spring

Well look at that, I'm breaking my record for posts in a month :o)

I registered for Spring 2009 classes this morning, and thankfully I'm only going to be taking 3, because 4 is killer (and 2 is full time). So no more 4 classes for me :-D

I'm going to be taking Drug Delivery, some sort of intro to cell biology class, and something with the words "transport phenomena" in the name. And the BME seminar that doesn't count for anything, but I have to take it. But I think the cell bio class is only 1/2 a semester, yahoo! So no class on Friday for part of the semester.

Anyway, I have a group meeting in 10 minutes I have to get to (gotta develop that neural tissue engineering method!) and then I'm going to the body tone class with Emily again. But I'm going to try to run before it since I didn't go to the gym this morning- I registered for classes instead. Then I think tonight Keegan and I will carve our pumpkin!!
:-D

Oh, and I got to have lunch with Amy today; that was nice :o) It's so good to see old friends you haven't seen in awhile!

The amazing exponential workload

So it's actually been one month since my last post, and I'm killing a little bit of time before going to a gym class with Emily, so I thought I'd post a short something.

I bought my wedding dress! Last weekend with Cait, and it's beautiful and unique and I'm so happy (but I can't go in to more detail because Keegan reads this blog!) to have found it. It was also "last season" and off-the-rack, which made it about 60% off and in my price range, so that was pretty exciting. As if the dress wasn't "me" enough, the fact that it was super on sale definitely makes it me :o)

I guess the last big things to tackle on that front are getting the bridesmaid dresses in order, picking a menu for our reception, and picking flowers. I hope to get all of those things done before Christmas, but I've got vague ideas for each of them. Then over the break and into January and February I can get smaller things finished, like ordering invitations and making a hair appointment or whatever. I'm sure there are many other things I'm forgetting though...

On the school front I'm slowly being squashed by my workload. The end of the semester is approaching, so that means we've reached the project season. I'm working in a group to develop a method to engineer nerves and then writing an R21 grant proposal on that, I'm working on my own to present and write a paper about unnatural amino acid incorporation into proteins and the genetic code, I'm writing an individual R21 proposal on an unrelated topic for my biomaterials class, and I'm trying to work on the NSF Fellowship application as well. That's on top of the usual load of math homework, biomaterials readings, tissue engineering homeworks, biomolecular engineering homeworks, and monster lab reports. I get so excited when I realize the end of the semester is approaching, then I remember all this stuff has to get crammed in to all that time somehow :-o

I guess there's not too much new to report... just doing school work and that's about it. With some minimal wedding things thrown in there too. I supposedly have a midterm in my applied math for engineers class, but he hasn't posted it yet, even though he was going to about 2 weeks ago. Then he decided he'd post it Wednesday... well, it's Thursday late afternoon and still no midterm. I hope he just waits until tomorrow to post it so that way I can have a night where I just have to do a whole crapload of reading instead of working on homeworks and getting up at 5a.m. And then I can go running in the morning :o) I've only been twice this week and I like to go every day. That's my time so I don't go insane... but somehow I'm still going insane, little by little. But at least I'm getting my exercise. And the dress I bought fit me almost perfectly, it just needs to be taken in a little, so that's my incentive to stay the same weight to I won't have to do major alterations.

Anyway, it's time for the weight-lifting fitness class that I forgot the name of, so I guess I should pack up my stuff :o)

What's goin' on

Since I seem to be posting on a monthly basis, maybe it's time I gave some updates.

School:
Classes are keeping me so busy it's a little alarming. I don't think I'll be taking 4 classes in the spring semester, but we'll see how I manage with this load. It might be easier next semester too when I've got a bulk of the wedding details hammered out. But more on that later.

Luckily I only have one class with an in-class midterm (I have one that's take-home, too), but it's in my hardest class. Somehow I thought Tissue Engineering would be about tissue growth and how to manipulate it, but so far it's all quantitative, which is boring and difficult for me. I want to know how and why cells move and grow in certain ways, and I don't really care about things like radial flow detachment assays. I know they're important, but that's not what I was hoping to learn when I signed up for the class.

My math professor is really, really nice, but I don't really learn too much during class; I learn it all on the weekends when I go home and crack open my book. He's actually very helpful outside of class- I went to his office hours once, and he's hilarious and explains things really well one-on-one. But in class he seems to stress the theory and doesn't do many examples. Or stresses the fact we're allowed and strongly encouraged to solve everything in Mathematica. Maybe I'll actually learn this program! I hated Maple and I never was forced to learn Matlab, so maybe here's my shot to actually learn a program.

Biomolecular engineering is very interesting but still a little over my head. I didn't come in with much background in biochem or even biology (that was high school) and it's a very detail-oriented class. I have my first lab to write, which I'm about 1/3 of the way finished with, and it's going to be beastly I think. There's a lot of reading I still need to do to understand more of the fundamentals behind the experiments we did during lab.

Biomedical materials is keeping me busy working on my IACUC protocol, but that's due on Friday, so then I'll have one thing out of the way for the semester. It's like 35% of my grade though I think, so hopefully it goes well. Monty hasn't said anything bad about the draft I sent him, so I'm crossing my fingers that doesn't mean I'll get an email on Thursday night with a list of 8 things wrong with it. Then after this I'll get to work on the R21 grant proposal and I'll try to turn it into an NSF proposal also.

Wedding:
I went dress shopping with Cait and Sara on Sunday and I think I found "the ONE". It's beautiful and has all the elements I was looking for in a dress and none of the ones that I really didn't like. We also found a color dress for them that they both like (I just told them I wanted blue and they could pick their own style dresses) and will look nice on my sister too. We're going to go out again in a few weekends, just to scout out a couple more places to cover all my bases pretty much. But I have a feeling I'll be back in David's Bridal ordering that dress :-D

Keegan and I met with a photographer on September 12 and she seems really great and her prices are reasonable compared with all the other quotes I've seen. She's very sociable too, so that's a plus. Now we just have to send in the deposit :o)

Speaking of Keegan, his birthday was on Friday- happy 23rd birthday to him!

I've been looking a bit at bridal bouquets also to get an idea of what I want to do with everything else. I know I want calla lilies, but other than that I'm pretty much open. A lot of colors will go with the blue for the bridesmaid dresses, but I'm thinking maybe something yellow or peachy colored. We'll see what sorts of flowers exist for each option. Maybe yellow calla liles for them and white ones with something else for me... Hmmm...

Keegan and I also have our Marriage Prep Forum this weekend at his church, so that will be really interesting and insightful I think. Hopefully he won't realize that really I'm so annoying he can't deal with me for the next 70 years. But I think we've already discussed a lot of the major pitfalls to relationships (finances, kids, careers, values, etc) so we're probably in better shape than some couples.

Well, my lunch break for myself is just about over, so I'm going to get back to working on that lab report. I'm about 2/3 of the way finished with my tissue engineering homework due on Friday, but I'll try to get some sort of idea on how to do the first one this afternoon too. Then I can go home, cook dinner, watch House, and then work a bit more before bed. Sounds like a pretty sweet time, huh?

Projects galore!

So I've just finished my second week at Duke, and I'm definitely keeping busy. It's not so much work work as reading work; essentially I spend 4 hours reading for a class, then I feel exhausted and don't really have anything to show for it. Except now I can tell you all about different drug delivery methods. But that's not the same as having 10 pages of homework to turn in or a 5 page essay. But that's okay, I'll get used to it I'm sure.

My classes are really interesting, and all the professors just jumped right in; it's really neat to be in such specific classes that are all about what I actually want to know. Except for the math class. Is it bad that as an engineer, I don't care about applied math for engineers? I understand how statistics or something will be extremely useful, but I don't really care about residues, complex integration, and imaginary numbers. I'm hoping as the class progresses I see the relevance to it, because that will motivate me more.

I've already got 2 projects assigned, and I have third, but it's not been finalized yet. For my biomedical materials class, the Ph.D. students have to write an IACUC procedure (which basically describes how you're going to use animals in your research) and a mock R21 grant proposal (which is a 15 page proposal describing a research project you'd like to do- but for me I'm actually going to describe what I would like to do in the lab). I believe if you're awarded an R21 grant you get $250,000 over two years or something like that. Monty really wants to submit the grant I think, and it would be nice to have that money to work with :-P I'm really thankful to be writing a grant so early because it's getting me thinking seriously about what research I'd like to be doing, instead of a vague idea of something related to what I'd like to do. For my Intro to Biomolecular Engineering class we also have projects already assigned, and mine is called "Unnatural amino acid incorporation into proteins and biopolymers", which (because I'm a nerd) I'm pretty excited about. I think it will be tangentially connected to the research I'll be doing for the mock grant, and I think the class itself is really going to help me. We have a lab associated with it, and over the semester I'm going to learn how to purify DNA and transfect it so I can make the DNA create a specific alterned protein that I could use. I know a lot of people already use those techniques all the time, but I've never used them, so I'm excited to learn.

I also have a project in my Tissue Engineering class, but it's a group project and hasn't been assigned yet. I think it's going to be something along the lines of "Here's a problem faced in tissue engineering- how would you solve it?" then you use what we've learned in class to try to develop a method to do whatever needs to be done.

Wedding planning is slowly chugging along, but I think once I get settled into my school routine it will be easier to know when I'll have free time and can set up appointments for things. I am going to try to go dress-browsing on September 20 with Cait, and on the 27th Keegan and I have our Marriage Prep Forum, so that's a step also. We should be able to place the order for our cake in the next week, too.

Even though it's Saturday, I'm going to be lame and work on homework. It's raining outside anyway (thank you, Hanna!), and this way I can enjoy the afternoon and evening when the weather should be much nicer. And I can also avoid being swamped later in the week.

PS: I was at Target yesterday, and the Halloween candy was out. I want fall to be here! That means the changing colors of the leaves, slightly less hot days, college football (yay for Duke winning a game- shocking!), Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas! EEEEE, I'm way too excited for those things, considering it's September 6. I think it's because Keegan and I went to visit my dad in the mountains last week, and the leaves were just beginning to turn yellow. I've caught the fall fever. Which is odd, since I hate cold weather. Hmm... okay, back to work.

Let the Ph.D. begin!

Tomorrow is the first day of my Ph.D. work at Duke; I can't believe it's here already! I'm about as ready as I can be- I bought the supplies I need and the textbooks the store had in stock. Only one class had books at the store, and I've already spent $265 on books. For ONE class. Boooooo, no wonder college students are poor! And my first stipend check won't be coming in until the beginning of October! Looks like there will be a lot of Ramen noodles in my future...

I only have two classes tomorrow, but I think we will probably dive right in. As a grad student, we only have classes for 3 months, since our classes end before the undergrad classes (my last day is November 25) so I've got 12 weeks to learn a LOT of things. Looking over the syllabus I have for one of my classes, we spend about one week per topic, and that's a little intimidating. All of my classes meet twice a week (except the lab and seminar), so that's like 2 classes per topic... and I'm hoping I will be able to keep up! But I keep telling myself that if I could make it through some of the hellish semesters I had at NCSU with 7 or 8 engineering classes, that I can handle 4 grad classes. We'll see how that theory pans out...

Yesterday Keegan and I met his priest, and I really like him; he's an NCSU alum, and when he greeted us and we filled out our info sheets, he told me that his grandparents were Presbyterians. I thought that was a pretty tactful way to make me feel less uncomfortable. He showed us around the church and answered the few questions we had at this point. Then we went to Duke for me to buy the books, bought a couch (yay! somewhere to sit!), AND went to a wedding consultation at Edible Art.

Edible Art is a store we're looking at for our cake, and they were so helpful there! We got to sample 4 types of cakes and several different fillings to help us choose what we might like, and then we described what we'd like the cake to look like, and we were able to get some price estimates. We have another consultation on September 7 with another bakery, then we'll decide which to use, but I know we both found what we were looking for at Edible Art. I'm a lemon person and Keegan's a chocolate person, and they were definitely able to meet those tastes! Mmmmm :-D

I think the next step of the wedding planning will be to meet with some florists and hopefully I can start looking at dresses in early October. Then there's ordering invitations, programs, picking a menu, bridesmaid dresses, finding a photographer, etc. But it'll get there eventually. I have a feeling a lot of this planning will be done over my Christmas break :-)

Well, that's all for now. I'll try to update again relatively soon about how all of my classes are going.

Life in Durham

I'm moved in to my townhouse in Durham now, and I really like it! There's still a considerable amount of unpacking to be done, but that's okay. It sort of looks like a home now, I mainly just need a couch and a desk. I found a desk I really like at Office Max that is a nice L desk that fits in a corner with two separate workspaces (which is what I really want), so once I start having a reliable income, I'll venture out to buy it.

I've started some minor decorating too; it's nice to have room to spread out all of my important things and trinkets where I can see them. Speaking of trinkets, Cait brought me a really neat coffee pot from Ethiopia; it's made from clay so they can grind up their coffee, put it in the pot, and then put the pot right on the hot coals. She also brought me a beautiful scarf and gave me some of her money from the countries she visited. I like to collect coins, and considering that I haven't really visited many countries, I've got a lot of foreign money! I still need to print a lot of the photos I've taken in Ecuador, at the beach, etc, to use for decorations. I also have a few small paintings I bought in Ecuador that need frames. So maybe by the time it's time to move into a house when I graduate, I'll be finished unpacking and decorating :-P

I haven't made a lot of progress on my wedding planning, but I have started looking at photos of wedding cakes to get a general idea of what I want. I'm going to start looking at photographers also, but I'm not sure how to know that I'm getting a good deal; I know they are expensive. I don't really have much money to spend on this wedding, so I hope I can find something I can afford. On Saturday I'm going to visit the hall where our reception will be held to see what it looks like all dressed up; it's so exciting! I will also set up a time to sample the menu of snacks and things we could choose to have at our reception. Our meeting with the priest has also been set up, so I suppose I am making a little progress :-)

Yesterday my old senior design team met with the Office of Technology Transfer at NCSU to discuss starting a patent application for our design project, that's really exciting too! They're going to start contacting companies we listed as possible competitors to see if they would be interested in licensing our idea. Then we could decide to file for a patent. Looks like my plan of just living off royalties from my inventions might actually happen ;-) Then again, maybe not...

Orientation starts next week; it's hard to believe classes are about to start again. But I'm excited because now all the classes I take are ones that I want to take and are actually in my areas of interest.

I'll try to keep this updated with wedding details as I go, but here is a link to our Knot website:
Alice and Keegan

Wedding plans

Well, I'm off and running with the wedding plans. It sounds a little crazy to be planning now, but once school starts, I'll be really busy with my classes. This fall I will be taking:

Biomedical Materials
Introduction to Biomolecular Engineering (a lab and lecture)
Tissue Engineering
Applied Mathematics
BME seminar

That's quite a full course-load, but I'm going to finish ASAP. None of this 6 year Ph.D. nonsense.

So Keegan and I will be getting married June 20, 2009 at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church in Raleigh. This is the church his family belongs to, and I think it's really pretty. We'll be having a simple ceremony, since I'm not Catholic and no one in my family is Catholic, I'm not having a wedding that excludes my family. Before the wedding, we have a Marriage Prep Forum we need to attend; it's an all-day event, but it's supposed to help us prepare for marriage (as the name implies) and I hope it is useful. We will also be meeting with his priest a few times, and I might require extra meetings with him because I'm not Catholic and I'm not going to convert. I've also done some investigation into their hall to rent for the reception, but the woman in charge of scheduling those is on vacation until Monday, so I'll call back then. Now that we've got a date set, I guess I need to start tackling all the other things that go into a wedding... eep!

Right now I'm in the process of packing everything I own to prepare for my move to Durham. My brother and I are preparing to trade bedrooms while my sister is away at band camp. It's sneaky, but she'll throw a fit when she doesn't get my room. My room is the biggest of the non-master bedrooms, and my sister is older than my brother; however, my brother's bedroom has two doors that connect it to the bonus room and the hallway and bathroom where the rest of the bedrooms are, so everyone walks through it at all hours of the day. It's sort of like another hallway, and I think he deserves a room with one door. Plus if Kristin takes my room, then Hunter moves to hers and I move to his and that seems like one more move than is necessary. And she's going to college in 2 years anyway.

That's all for now; I've got more packing to do before I go to work! (Still working at Target until next Wednesday... gotta earn all the money I can before I move and start school!)