Joy, Joy, Joy!

Hello, all.

I know it's been forever, or so it seems, since I last updated, but...well, you know the next line: TIGS!  Even when classes aren't in session, there is SOOOO much to do!

Last week was wonderful in that respect, though - I didn't have any classes to worry about and I got to just work in the lab and meet with SW and figure out where we are going just what I am doing over the next 2.5yrs (yes, that sounds like a long time...but when you have the to-do list that I have, it seems like that is absolutely NO way I will get all of it done - I will, don't you fret..).  I've decided!  I'm doing a monograph for my thesis work!!  I'll do a post a little later on about what a monograph treatment is.  It's the part of taxonomy/systematics that I love, I'll just say that for now.  All in all, it was a great week.  And I closed it feeling satisfied and accomplished...it's been a while since I've felt like that at the end of a work week.

The 3-day weekend that followed that productive week was pretty grand, as well.  The first half of Saturday was full of Skyping and relaxing, the second half consisted of a ton of fun with Meg and Markster.  Markster picked me up and we grabbed Meg.  We grabbed some lunch at the Mall of America (seriously, there's like a bazillion restaurants in there...and we had some stuff to return and some gift cards to try to spend).  While at the MoA we saw this epicness:

The WHOLE ENTIRE thing was made of LEGOs...I. Want. One!

After running around MoA we continued on our path to REI so The Markster and I could procure our new parkas followed by the 3 of us trying on the most ridiculous winter hats in the clearance bin...oh man...we should have taken pictures.  It. Was. Epic.  And!  We all came away with a new hat that made each of us rather cheery.  After running home to let Jakers out the three of us went back to Meg's to work on....drum rooooooolllllll.....A GINGERBREAD HOUSE!!!  SO FUN!  The house had been constructed a few days earlier and the decorating had begun, but the bug dorks tricked that house oooooout!

Markster working hard on the roof.

 Meg and Markster working hard on adding our Harmonia infestation...that's right we are true dorks and added the tell-tale sign of fall/winter to the lovely little gingerbread house by adding and infestation of ladybird beetles - epic.

Ta-da!!  I was in charge of the icicles and filling in the gaps on the roof - I'm not gonna lie, I'm way impressed with my icicles...like, considered for a split second that I should change careers and be a gingerbread house decorator or something  :)

 See all those little pink clusters?  Those are our little Harmonia!!!  It looks just like a real infestation!  Little aggregations and all!

We didn't finish the backside of the house, the front and sides look pretty darn awesome, we think!

Sunday was a nice chill day...Skypage, church...it was a pretty good day.  I was especially blessed at church Sunday night, and it was wonderful.

Monday was awesome!!  We bug dorks plus a few other friends made brunch and had an absolutely lovely time together.  Everyone brought something to share with the group and we all just sat around with some nice folksy music in the background while we chatted, ate some delish food, sipped on coffee/tea/mimosas...mmmmmhmm!  We closed out our brunch time with some Strong Bad and Teen Girl Squad.  It was glorious.

Post brunch, was positively delightful, as well.  The Markster, Meg, Christine and myself went back to REI so I could exchange my parka for a different size - the sleeves were like half-way up my arms when I put the hood up on the first one...that's something I definitely should have checked at the store.  Oh well, REI makes it super easy for co-op members to make returns/exchanges.  We next ventured to a Starbucks for some coffee (we were all spent) and freaking awesome conversation.  Man, I love these kids so much!  After a couple hours there we went to TJMaxx so Meg could make a return and decided to kickoff our semester with a steakhouse dinner at Timber Lodge.  Oh my goodness, y'all, it was amazingly delicious.  And!  They messed up my order so they brought us a ginormous piece of whipped cheesecake.  Ummm...amazingly tasty.  Soooo grood  :)  We really had an awesome Martin Luther King, Jr. Day...it was incredible.  I can't wait to continue building and strengthening my relationships with my bug dorks here...seriously, such blessings to my life.

Week one (or rather, the first 4 days) of semester two was pretty decent, all-in-all.  Nothing went wrong or poorly...always a nice way to start a semester.  I made some more headway on my semester docket as far as what I need to do for my research/thesis stuffs - I still have a lot to do for this semester yet, but I'll get there.  Classes will be quite enjoyable, I think...just a lot of work...and I mean a LOT of work.  My museum studies - practices course will be especially heavy on the work load.  Yikes...papers and projects due every week!  Most of which require going to museums and writing papers and things about exhibits, pieces, etc...time consuming, to say the least.  Not hard or tedious, just time consuming...busy work.  I am excited to have an excuse to get out and see the museums around the area, though, that will be nice.  Time is just so lacking...oi vey...I so need more hours in the day or another day in the week...something, anything!

I'm trying to remember if there was anything super important that happened this week, or if it everything was just same ol' same ol' in the land of grad school...hmmm.  Well, I'll let you know later if I forgot anything.  Oh, we had our first Pig's Eye of the semester tonight.  I left pretty early, I'm just beat - I've fallen into another bought with insomnia...yay, no sleep!  No worries, though.  This happens from time to time, and it always passes with time..sometimes it takes a few months, but it hasn't killed me yet!

Ok, enough about school and work.  I'm sure you're all familiar with my friend Katy, over in Africa, who I've mentioned a number of times.  Well, if you aren't pay her a visit - her blogging is honest, fun, colorful, exciting, broken for the Lord, encouraging, pretty much just all around awesome.  One of her resolutions was to find joy in every day, whether it be in the little things or in big things.  I really like this idea - I think it will serve to help keep each day in perspective; so, even though I'm a few weeks behind, it's never too late to start, right?  I'll start with last Saturday.

Saturday, 15 Jan 2011:  (<-- it's still really weird for me to write 2011) Fun adventures around town with a couple of my favorite bug dorks.

Sunday, 16 Jan 2011:  Made some new friends at church - a lovely young family with two little boys.  Such a blessing!!

Monday, 17 Jan 2011:  Beautiful, real conversation with 3 of my absolute favorite bug dorks.  SUCH A BLESSING!!

Tuesday, 18 Jan 2011:  Meg and I trying to keep our snickers below audibility during insect behavior...it's going to be a gooooood semester  ;)

Wednesday, 19 Jan 2011:  DAY ONE OF INSECT TAXONOMY!!!!!!!!!!  This class = me.  Oh!  And lunch with some of the bug dorks I hadn't seen since being back.  Oh!!  And surviving the campus connector bus!  (I totally felt like a freshman all over again...)

Thursday, 20 Jan 2011:  First Frenatae meeting of the semester = seeing just about eeeeveryone I hadn't connected with since the break.  I love them  :)  Plus, departmental potluck lunch day...so grood.

Friday, 21 Jan 2011:  Catch up chat on the phone with SW...I am so blessed with two incredibly amazing advisors.  Like, really.  SW + RH = advisors extraordinaire  :)

So, yeah...it was a super blessed week, full of joy, joy, joy  :)

And now, my loves, I am off to bed.  Lots to do tomorrow before Meg's big start of the semester potluck bash tomorrow night.  And so, I will leave you with this:

My sleepy, super, super spoiled Jakers dog  :)

Praying all is well in your worlds.

Much love!

Shalom!

~MW

P.S. - it is officially cold, y'all.  This morning it was -18 degrees F...without wind chill...neeeeeeat!

Avoiding finishing an assignment?

I invite you to enter the wonderful world of Blogger :)

Yes...I am indeed procrastinating. It's so hard to be motivated when something isn't due until 3:30pm and the actual class is no longer meeting...yuuuup, I am there. Is it possible to have "senioritis" in grad school? Maybe it's just a case of "holidayitis" or "homesickitis." Stay tuned for the diagnosis.

But, for now I am going to prove to all y'all that I am indeed still alive and that I am still a contributing part of the blogverse...even if 90% of my contribution of late has merely been in the way of comments...MY APOLOGIES. As my lovelies in Africa say TIA (This Is Africa), so I shall say TIGS - This. IS. Grad. School!! I have come to accept the sad but unavoidable truth that grad school will indeed keep me from gracing your monitors and screens from time to time.

So, how goes life in the FT of late?

snow...Snow...SNOOOW!!! (<-- White Christmas style, Daddy!) We've had quite a bit of snow here, along with single digit and negative degree days, daylight that disappears circa 4:30pm, and...wind. So, the snow I love, the single digit and negative degree days I really don't mind...like my property manager said the other day, "It's so cold it's like it actually makes you warm." I know y'all probably can't understand that, but it's true! It's so cold that it's like our endothermic capabilities actually finally kick into action and boom! - you're warm and toasty...well, if you have a decent coat...and some good socks...aaand a hat...and maybe some long underwear...yup, that aught to do it :)

The ever so essential base layer....does this not remind you of Peter Pan's shadow??
Right about the time he gets ready to stitch it back on..?


Definitely one of my best investments since the move up here.

Oh...do NOT forget your gloves or a scarf - those are key as well, especially the glovies. Man. My finger tips get SOOO cold!! I need to invest in a legit set of glovies, I think. My layered knit gloves just don't seem to be cutting it anymore *sad*

BUT! All that to say, it's really not so bad until the wind gets to blowing. Even a little breeze can feel like a million little ice daggers slicing right through you...yuh, it's pretty brutal. Sometimes I'm convinced that by the time I make my trek through the snow to/from my car that the wind will have successfully taken thousands of little nicks out of my face - the only part of my body that is not layerfully covered as I brave the winter weather. So far the wind has not won, although I can't seem to get enough fluids into my body to keep my lips from cracking/peeling (gross, I know...welcome to my life.). Ah well, hopefully I can recover for a spell in my beloved TX before making my return to brave another 3-4 months of winter...neat.

Now that you have some sort of an idea what winter is like here allow me to share some of my favorite things with you.
* The snow. I've already mentioned it, but my goodness is it gorgeous! There are a number of fields around the "Cow Campus" (Ags, it's somewhat equivalent to West Campus) and they are all currently blanketed in a beautiful white, glistening, sparkly layer of powdery snow. Every time I walk past one of the fields all I want to do is get a running start and leap into the middle of the field (what? It's totally humanly possible to do...) and just land in the foot or so of snow that is resting around town right now...I think I'll wait until there's another foot or two, though.
* The sound my boots make walking on packed snow. It's this fun little squeaking, compressing sound...I don't know, it's weird, but I just like it. Probably because it's still novel...but hey, I'll take it for now.
* Footprints in the snow. I love seeing all of the animal tracks that have started turning the fields into puzzle pieces. I have to admit that they are starting to tease my imagination...I want to know where they lead and who they belong to!!! I totally have Beatrix Potter scenes running through my head...hmmm...maybe I can work on finishing that little story of mine over the holidays! Hey J-Hump, shall we play around with some illustrations over the break? Yes? Mmmk, great :)
* Wintery Christmas spirit. It's been super fun to ring in the season with snow on the ground...seriously fun. Ups the awesome by a good 50%.
* Driving in the snow. I know it terrifies some of y'all, but I seriously love it! Especially when it's actually snowing while I drive. Mmmmmhmm. Perrrrrfection. Ice, however, is a different story - I don't really want to talk about it.

Ok...so pretty much everything I love revolves around snow right now...it's just that awesome.

Last week was pretty insane...I really don't remember all that much of it. A number of us attempted our first preliminary exam (one of the requirements of our program) - we'll find out how we did in about 2 weeks. We also had a number of final projects, papers, etc. due...TIGS. There were a few nights I definitely did not sleep. We hardly saw each other...I think that was the weirdest and most difficult part of last week...being pretty much cut off from everyone, even here. But we survived it!

Well, I've also been a little busy around my little apartment! With...what? If any of you know even a little about me I'm sure you could guess this one pretty easily...CHRISTMAS!

Me Mum sent quite the goody-filled box of love last week...complete with ornaments to fill my tree which, at the time, only had 4 sad, lonely ornaments...It is now pleasantly full :)

Only a small number of fatalities.

Jakers helped me decorate the tree...looks rather enthused, doesn't he? ;)


Haha, I could NOT resist giving this one to y'all...doesn't he look like he's
singing Christmas songs??


Nonna sent this to me via Aunt June earlier in the year...I love these things!

Snowman nutcracker, mini nativity, and seasonal candles...perfection :)

Hope chest Christmas style. A Christmasy runner, Christmas
traditions calendar, nativity, snowman plate...sparkly garland...I'll take it.

I tried to get a little creative with some Christmas "orbs" and spiralling the garland in the
tree dish I would have filled it with candies, but Jake would clean it out...meh, it'll do.

Stockings! Had to hang them somewhere! My very empty wall seemed like as good a
place as any...One for me and one for the kids...Jake and BigBoy can totally share.

NUTCRACKERS!!! I miss our big collection back home :(

I've had this little tree since my junior year of high school...I felt it fit in nicely
in my whimsy corner.

My very own Advent wreath!!! Thanks parentals :)

And finally......


THE TREE!!!

I'm pretty proud of it :) I won't lie. A HUGE thanks to Momma for sending me all the little balls and the extra ornaments...especially the Aggie and Texas ones :) I think my favorite part is my Aggie Santa hat...I've had that thing since freshman year at A&M and it has made it's appearance ever Christmas since. Gotta love it.

Well, kiddies, I'm signing off for the night. Hope all is well with each of you. Praying blessings on you, my sweet readers. Love to you all!

This is what happens when you don't sleep for a good 2-3days...at least BigBoy
and Philly were there to keep me company =]

Sleepily Yours,
~MW

Saturdays :)

Oh Saturday, how I love you, but how fleeting you can be...

Well, initially today wasn't going to be all that exciting, other than swim time with the lovely Alyssa...but then...haha, you have to wait 'til I get to it!

So, I went to work for a bit and got some specimens a bit farther along in the curating process for miss Mika. Ugh, I had to do it without using a chemical hood, though (shhhh, don't tell the health & safety inspectors!!) and it was AWFUL!!! I'm pretty sure I burned the top layer skin off of my throat and nose...and my eyes burned sooo bad! Builds character, right?? Right!

Well, after that Alyssa came over and we swam around and attempted to catch some rays, of course as soon as we started to lay out the biggest clouds in the history of the earth (ok, so maybe not quite in the entire history of the earth, but they were huge!) decided it would be a fun time to come out and completely cover up the sun. The temperature was nice outside, though (what, nice temps in August, in C.S.?!?! It's true...) so we stayed out anyways. Well, and here comes the exciting part, we finally decided to head inside but much to our dismay found my front door locked!!! What?! Oi vey. Lindsey had come home and left again, locking the door behind her. We got ahold of her and she said she and David would be back from Wal-Mart in about 30min...more like and hour, but it's whatev. So, we decided to go back to Alyssa's apartment (she had taken her purse out to the pool with her - smart gal) for the time being. There we ventured through mylifeisaverage.com and got in some good laughs while waiting for me to be let back into my little apartment.

Lindsey left again and I took it easy. LeeAnn and Mel came over for a bit later on and we just chillaxed - they brought me food!!

All-in-all it was a pretty good day, I suppose. Really enjoyed my time with Alyssa.

Oh! So, for your viewing pleasure, here is a snapshot of my lovely new couch cover!!!


It's so pretty :)

Well, kids, I'm off to read for a bit and then I'm going to try to get to bed early - I think my insomnia is on its way to being cured again!!

Blessings!
~MW

Naturally...

As I informed you yesterday I decided to go ahead and try for Teach For America - grad school will always be there, maybe just with different people and doing different things...only the Lord knows and only time will tell. But for now, I feel the Lord is leading me to keep pushing for Teach For America.

If I don't get it, well then that's ok because, quite naturally, as I had predicted, George Heimpel emailed me back about grad school in Minneapolis. But...as I was saying, if TFA doesn't work out it's ok because, George has a spot "for me" fall of 2010. Fancy that.

Oh life, you are so fickle.

On a more temporal note, my couch cover came in today!!!!! It looks amazing!! I absolutely love it. It's a little wrinkly right now, but it definitely helps to pull our little living room together. I had planned to snap a picture of it for your viewing pleasure, but Lindsey and I got distracted watching movies on her little TV - yay girl time :) I also unpacked TWO more boxes (little ones) of stuff for my room - all the good stuff, picture frames, crosses and the like.

Work was uber productive. I do have to go in for a little bit tomorrow, but not for too long. And THEN! And then, Alyssa and I are going to catch some rays! Holla!! I'm soooo excited to get to see her, it has definitely been too long.

Well my loves, I took my sleep stuffs about 40min ago, so it is time to close my sleepy eyes and try for a "good night's sleep." 4th night's the charm!!

Happy weekend!

~MW

Ah, Wednesdays...

Today was another day. I'm still an insomniac so it's been a little difficult to be pumped about much at all...I'm exhausted, but can't sleep - I love life! I really do love life, it's just tricky right now. But, I started my sleeping meds up again last night, so hopefully come next week I will be sleeping like a baby again. That's the bad thing about non-habit-forming, it takes a while to kick in. But that's OK. I have a very gracious boss who allows me to come in late when these goings ons occur in my life - thank God for him!

On a brighter note, today was the Baptism and Watermelon Fellowship Night at Living Hope! I wish I had been peppier to enjoy the mingling and meeting of a bazillion new people, mostly courtesy of the lovely Humphreys, but alas I was rather dull for conversation. However it was wonderful to see the Lord working tonight. My friend Travis got baptized tonight, so that was awesome to witness.

Came home to an empty apartment, which was kind of surprising as my roommate officially moved in today, but she came back a bit later with a bunch of our buddies, so it was nice to see all of them, especially the newly pronounce Mr. and Mrs. Cargill! Love them.

Well, my dear ones, that's all for now.

Lots of love and blessings to you all. I'm off to medicate and hopefully get some sleep tonight.

~MW

Unpleasantly awakened.

So....I failed to mention something in my last entry, which is a sort of preface for this one, so I'll fill you in: I found a baby roach in my kitchen last night!!! Ok, let me be clear: I found a baby American Roach, NOT a baby Madagascan Hissing Roach - that would have made for a completely different story. American roaches are naaaaastay! They pretty much turn me into this little whimpy school girl who wants to die if one touches her. Yes, me, the entomologist is totally and completely GROSSED OUT by American roaches. Seriously, peeps, these things are crawling with germs and sick things so I highly recommend killing them dead on sight! *shudders* Well, let me continue with my story.

Circa 6:30 this lovely morning I am awakened by BigBoy (my big fluffy kitty) pouncing around my room. Initially I think nothing of it and figure he just has some wild, early morning hair. But as I groggily and blindly (glasses were in the bathroom...perfect.) watch him run and jump around I think to myself, "my, it sure does seem like he is chasing something real...." My stomach immediately sank as I recalled my horrifying experience in the kitchen last night: what if it's a roach..!?!?!? "Oh, this can NOT be happening!!! I cannot be having roaches running around my home!!!" So, I try to shine my cell phone light to see what he is chasing - because, I sure wasn't going to get out of bed and walk over to the light switch to flip on the light. When that fails I flip on my bedside lamp....BigBoy was, at this point, patting all around my jeans from yesterday. I'm thinking, "Great one of the few times I throw my clothes on the floor and there's going to be a roach running around in them" **seriously shudders**
Well, my fears were realized when I saw those two nasty little antennae followed by that horribly oblong, brown, crinkly (you know what I'm talking about if you've ever had a roaches legs stuck to you - alive, or dead), slimy body. I seriously wanted to cry - no joke. I know, I know, I'm a terrible excuse for an entomologist, but they just seriously freak me out!!!! thankfully in my laziness last night I also dropped my flip-flops on the floor right by my bed. I stealthily snatch up one of my flip-flops and wait in horrible anticipation for my villain to scurry *gulp* into reach of my "long arm." At this point if that nasty thing had somehow managed to touch me I have no doubt that I would have screamed like a little girl and most likely would have started bawling. *sigh* Finally the little devil comes close enough for me to whack it! So I do with all the force I can muster whilst awkwardly leaning out of my bed. Success!!! And I made contact! I am now rolled back over onto my bed, breathing deeply trying to chilax myself out so I can tromp across the apartment to get some paper towels to dispose of the nastiness that is legs-up on my bedroom floor, right in front of my bed. I suck it up and leap over the roach and promptly flip on ALL lights in the apartment to send any other lurkers into hiding (at this point I just would rather not know...) and make my way, cautiously, to the kitchen.
I come back to my room armed with TWO paper towels and a plastic grocery bag - this thing is NOT coming back to life, like roaches are notorious for doing, and wrecking havoc on my apartment/sleep again!!! After dancing around pathetically for a few moments I go in for the final kill and wrap up the nasty in my paper towels, flip the plastic bag over the bundle (I was definitely wearing the plastic bag as a glove...wow, I'm such a sad excuse for a 22-yr-old.), throw that bundle inside yet another plastic bag and tie that bag off about 20 times. *sigh* The deed is done, now I can go back to sleep. Except that now I am awake and can't figure out how exactly I want to go about sanitizing my carpets....Ugh, lame.

Well, needless to say that first order of business today is to go to the store and pick up roach traps/killing agents/something! Anything! This cannot and will NOT keep happening - this you can be assured of. Oh my, what a start to the day. Hopefully this doesn't set the tone for the entirety of the day...that would not be a good thing.

I am going to try to snooze for a little bit longer before I head into work since I didn't get to bed until about 2. Hooray for the return of my insomnia! If this keeps up for a few more days it's meds time, baby!

Happy Tuesday to all - I hope your day is roach-free!!

~MW