Finally Finished Finals!

So it has been an exciting two months of my life. For the the most part bugs and graduate school has consumed my time. I am glutton for punishment. After working so hard on my undergraduate, I have decided it would be fun to major in Entomology and make insects my life for the next two years. We will just say, I NEVER thought this is where I would end up. You just get a net, kill jar, and an assignment worth 40% of your grade...you cannot help but falling in love with those six legged creatures. At first, they were a bit creepy but they have slowly grown on me. And now that I have completed my bug collection, I just HAVE to show everyone. I will say I am quite proud of myself :) LOOK AT IT!!!



21 Orders, 102 Families, 435 Specimens

Additionally I took the GRE and Biology PRAXIS test. I will say that GRE was not quite my cup of tea. Since grad school was a last minute decision, I didn't really have time or desire to put of lot of effort into studying for the test. When I got in there, the math portion wasn't too bad though I definitely guessed on a number of questions. The verbal portion was something else. I was convinced after the first few questions that there had been some horrible mistake and I was being given a test in Sporishenese (a combination of Spanish, Norwegian, Finish, and Chinese). Eventually I started to recognize a word or two but it was not pretty. Lest you know think I completely failed the test, I actually did fairly well...extremely well considering the amount of study I put into it. Let's just say I am glad to have that over with.

And as if the GRE wasn't enough, Dr. Whiting also wanted me to apply for this prestigious fellowship from the National Science Foundation. I pounded out my proposal in about two weeks and will hear back in April what they think of it. It was so satisfying to put that together and be a little ambitious in trying to do something new.

Now, I am home, the semester is over and I am just enjoying the Holidays. Just to prove my festiveness, this is what I have been up to over the breaks.

Beautiful Vegetable Trays for Thanksgiving--They couldn't have picked a better job for me.

A Single Strand of Christmas Lights--First time in years they have been up...I am quite proud of them!


...OH!!! I almost forgot the most exciting news of all. I fly out to DC in two weeks for student teaching. It won't be stressful as far as academics (due it's pass/fail nature) but I am sure it will be plenty challenging and grand!!

Good Night's Rest??

Going back to my younger years, I could toss and turn in a bed as good as anyone. Many mornings I woke up on the floor because Melanie would shove me off. Evidently she didn't appreciate having my feet in her back. Our move to Boise afforded me my own bedroom with a single bed. It was here that I learned to sleep peacefully without moving. Many mornings now, I just slip out of bed with the covers hardly ruffled. I thought I had been cured of my restless sleeping, until this last summer.

Seeing as my phone is my alarm clock, it rests on the table next to my bed. However, when there is no table or I check the time in the middle of the night, it ends up on the bed with me. It happens many times that I wake up in the morning, check the recent calls in my phone and see that I have called such numbers such as *432050832 or 520344. Rarely does anyone answer when I call. Thus, I decided to try calling real people. Fortunately, it has always been close friends who understand that I can be a bit quirky at times. This last week, however, it went too far. I woke up at 4:53 to my phone reading "Dialing Kara Martin..." Kara is a great girl, but only a class friend. She may not appreciate my subconscious thinking of her at such an early hour. As quickly as I could, I ended the call...cutting it off at a mere six seconds. Of course, when I told Kara about the incident the next day, she laughed with me. But I realized I need to tame my sleeping habits before I become much more talented. It has happened once that I have texted someone in my sleep. Once again, it fortunately was a good friend and only said something to the effect of "s820zd830". My next endeavor will be to train myself to stick simply to sleep talking. However, it would be nice if I could get other things accomplished in my sleep, such as my homework, showering, and getting ready. We will see what we can do...

The Simple Things!

I have realized this week how much I love little things. I become obsessed with even the littlest and most insignificant things which I am sure drives the people with whom I associate nuts. Thus, I have a blog to express the obsessions and only those who want to be involved are. So for this week, here are a few of the simple things I have discovered:

Super glue--evidently band-aids don't work all that great for cuts on your thumb. I reverted back to the mission habit of supergluing all my cuts. It worked within a day...like magic!

Bugs--I have found and identified some of the smallest bugs there are this week. It took me 30 minutes to identify one of my bugs but was I was determined to do it simply because my TA suggested I should just give up. But no worries, I did it! Waste of time? Not for my pride :-)

Dictionary.com word of the day--there are some great words out there. I am always tempted to throw them in even the most casual of sentences but then I remember how weird that would be and I refrain.

Parents: okay, so they aren't that small or simple but I was so happy that they visited me this week. They brought me pumpkins and just played with me. The greatest laugh of the week was watching mom try to pin a cicada....just look at the thing! To her credit, she did it.

There is oh so much more I could say, but for now this should suffice! Till next time.

A Happy and Hairy Halloween!!!!

Every year it comes and every year I have the same problem. I never know what to be for Halloween. Maybe one of these years, I will start planning ahead like my roommate and spend a Saturday being crafty and putting something together. Then I remember that I am not that crafty and that could be disastrous to try something. So often I look at other people's costumes to see what I could pull off. This never works either...it just makes me more indecisive. So I resort to the one thing on myself that I can emphasize...my hair!!!! My hair is crazy enough as is and so it is not hard to make it go out of control. But what to be done with such wonderful hair?!? An 80's Rock-star, James Brown, a Polynesian princess, or maybe just a good ole' mad scientist. Melanie, my sister, sealed the deal. When I asked what I should be, she seemed most excited about the lab coat and goggles, so scientist it is. The sad thing is, is that it took me less time to totally destroy my hair with a comb and a lot of hair spray than it does to make it look half way presentable. I set aside a good hour to throw together my hair and costume. Ten minutes later I was ready. The finished product?....just look!
I wore the hair like this for two days. The second day it was much better than the first because I got to sport it around to a volleyball game, the library, and walking down the street. The matted mess has strings of fuzzy kinky hair sticking out. I couldn't wait to get it out. But that is the second problem with this hair. To get it out I sat on the floor of my shower with some (A LOT) of a conditioner and a comb. Half hour later and no more hot water, the mess was gone...along with half my hair. So was it worth it? I am not sure. I think I just may start planning now for next year's costume. But then again, what is the use? 99% chance I will once again meet the Mr. Hyde in me.