Finishing the Semester

I am posting to say I may not post for awhile. I have projects and finals coming up (though it's less than normal, it will be time consuming for awhile anyway), so expect to hear more later in April, but probably not before then. For those interested in what I'm looking at, I am doing a pilot study testing language perception of ambiguous language for Psycholinguistics. I also have a final for that class, a small paper due for Editing for Publication, a final paper due for my internship class, and a short oral report on my internship. Definitely doable, but all the more reason to make sure to do it well. So good luck to everyone else in their projects, papers, and exams as we get near the end of the semester. Hasta la vista!

Feeling Grateful

Lately, I have been feeling extremely grateful when I think of everything going on in our lives. Even right now, things are crazy and busy with school, work, and other demands on our time, but there's all sorts of little blessings that I've seen in my life that have made these things less stressful than they might have been. For instance, I have realized lately what a great man I married. I mean, I've always thought so (obviously, or I wouldn't have married him), but I've really thought so when the pressure was on first to finish my thesis for honors and then to organize an activity for my major's social organization (of which I'm an officer). While Patrick and I are both leaders and overachievers, we tend to be so in different spheres so these two things are not ones Patrick would have any involvement with on his own, but here he is stepping up and supporting me . . . and helping me way more than just a little.

Then, yesterday, we went to the doctor's office and we heard the baby's heartbeat and every time (two so far) it's a sort of miracle and shock: "Um, yeah, so we're going to be parents, apparently." And it's amazing that there's a person growing inside of me that's going to have our genes (my frizzy hair, for one, as Patrick pointed out this morning, and hopefully our more endearing characteristics like a sense of humor, strong spiritual character, and a good work ethic). And it's a little intimidating of course, but mostly right now it's exciting.

And then besides those big blessings, there's all these other great things we have to look forward to soon.

April:
-possibly attending my major's banquet
-the ultrasound and learning the baby's sex
-my parents and my aunt Jennifer coming
-the honors luncheon
-the commencement and convocation ceremonies
-Patrick getting off of work with his option days while my parents are here

May:
-no more school and homework until I decide to go to graduate school someday
-joining my ward's bookclub (because I won't feel like it's one more demand on my time, but something fun and enriching to do)
-going to Wisconsin for an entire week
-being there for Angie's wedding
-seeing all the family, particularly the latest editions for the first time (Sandy's twins)
-looking ahead to the future a little (possibly checking out the closest UPS and looking at Marquette)
-talking to our parents in person, not just over the phone- ah heaven
-celebrating our second anniversary
-celebrating Patrick's birthday

June:
-Well, it's summer, so that's nice. Okay, I don't think we have anything special planned for June.

July:
-our family reunion in Flagstaff with family I've never even met (or at least that I don't remember), and Patrick's never even heard of

August:
-Again, still summer.

September:
-Our baby will arrive! Perhaps in August, but certainly in September if not before.
-And Patrick will get off work for it
-And my mom will be here
-And Patrick's family and my dad will come
-And we'll have the baby blessing
-And I'll start learning this whole "Mom-thing"

So, life is pretty exciting in the future, and I just wanted to share how much we have to look forward to in the next couple months. Now, back to homework!

Thesis: Mission Accomplished

Today, I arrived at work at 8:00 and worked until 12:00. Fortunately, my class was canceled because I don't know how I would have made it today if I'd had class to break up my day. At 12:00, I went to the Wilk where I hunched over my computer to input the corrections my advisor sent me, formated the document properly, made sure everything was arranged to my satisfaction. Around 2:00 (when I had planned to be getting my advisor's signature), I headed to Cougar Creations. If you have eight copies of a 200+ page document to print, I don't recommend Cougar Creations. This day was not helped by the fact that my stomach was starting to cause me the greatest pain I have yet felt during this pregnancy. (Patrick told me later that I was probably so stressed that an ulcer was developing on our baby's head-- lovely, relaxing thought)

I went to one of the computers and plugged in my jump drive. Nothing. I went to "My Computer" to try and find it. Nothing. But I followed my dad's advice and just kept breathing. I unplugged the jump drive and moved to a different computer. I plugged in my jump drive and up it came. I breathed even easier. "Okay, this is going to work." I then accidentally pulled up Firefox which didn't load. Though I didn't need it, that didn't seem like a good sign. I double-clicked on Word (which I did need) and it loaded... very, very slowly.

I went to "open" and the window popped up where you ought to be able to find your documents but the slider (I don't know what the thing is called that you scroll up and down with) wouldn't move. Nothing would work on the page. The mouse was still moving but I couldn't click anything. My computer is getting to the point of being ghetto, but this computer (which wasn't that old) was working much less efficiently than mine. I waited and clicked the window closed and clicked on other things and clicked on some more things (which is what I do when I feel that a computer is moving too slowly, even though I know perfectly well that it's counter-productive), and finally I could move the slider. I searched my jump drive and selected the two documents that I needed to print.

I printed the small four page introduction and then printed just fifty pages of the body of my thesis (which was about 220 pages in total). I thought fifty pages was reasonable because being an optimist and being in a hurry, I assumed everything would go smoothly with the printing and I figured that was fifty less pages I had to print for one of my copies. It all printed and I went up to the desk to retrieve it. On the first page, it was obvious that something was clearly not right with the margins. I had already called Patrick, in a panic, and asked if he was out of class yet, so it was a relief that he showed up soon after this. By then I had already asked someone at the desk to try to explain to me why the margins were wrong. This student employee looked at me blankly and I stared at that first page in frustration. (It didn't help that it took me some time to realize just how wrong it was.)

Patrick showed up and messed around with it. I tried asking two other employees for help. One at least came to the computer and messed around with the things Patrick had already done. I appreciated that she at least pretended to be useful. Finally, we discovered that we could print it directly from my computer where the document pulled up fine and didn't have the margin problem. We printed the introductory material and then printed the body. I warned them ahead of time that it was going to be a lot of paper and they said, "It tells us when it's out of paper, so we can refill it." (They told me this right after it had run out of paper and they didn't realize it until I came up to the desk and asked for the pages.)

They soon saw that I was serious. It printed, and printed, and printed. And when they handed it to us it was ordered page 1, page 1, page 1 (+8). Revelation: We were going to have to collate it by hand. By "we" I mean mean because only one person can really do it at a time. Apparently, this is work I can handle because Patrick was amazed by my speed. I eventually even caught up with the printer (which jammed about four different times). It was getting close to 4:00, when one of the professors whose signature I needed was going to class. We were almost done. "Are we going to make it?" I asked Patrick and he looked at me in disbelief that I even thought we could pull it all together and get to the Joseph Smith Buiding in the next 10 minutes. "You could just run over there with the signature page," he suggested. By then, I had five minutes.

I pulled the eight signature pages off the top and ran from the Wilk to the Joseph Smith Buiding. I hurried past groups of people and felt grateful that I didn't have my backpack because that's when people really start to look silly-- running with backpacks. I arrived outside the classroom with two minutes to spare. I asked a student going into the class, "Who's your professor for this class?" "Professor Huntsman," he replied, probably baffled by my frazzled hair and heaving chest. I looked around and he wasn't there. The bell rang and I hovered outsid the classroom. Down he came, "Will you follow me into the room so my students know I'm here?" he asked, so I trailed him to the front of the room and handed him the little stack of papers. He signed one and then another and then another and then another.... and then another. "How many of these do you need?" he asked. "Oh, my parents wanted a few," I replied, blushing. He handed them to me, I thanked him and I hurried (though I didn't run) back to the Wilk.

In Cougar Creations, I found Patrick sitting with our backpacks beside him and a box containing my completed theses beside him. I pushed the signature/title pages into the box and we went to the Jesse Knight Builing to the fourth floor to the end of the hallway and I knocked on Dr. Thorne's door. "Will you sign these?" I asked, out of breath from... well, everything, but particularly my jog across campus and the four flights of steps we has just ascended. He smiled and welcomed me and I handed him the papers. He signed them while I plopped into one of the chairs across the desk from him.

Then we went to the Maeser Building, all the way back across campus by the Joseph Smith Building, while I ate an apple to calm my stomach. We put the signature pages back on top of the stacks of theses as we stacked them before the student employee in the advisement center. "How many do you have?" he asked. "Oh, my parents wanted four extras. I'm not completely sure why since there's only two of them and they're giving one to my grandma," I explained. "One for the dog," he quipped, "or the wallaby," I mumbled under my breath in Patrick's direction.

Then up to the third floor to pay for the extra copies and the extra tickets for the luncheon. (My professor had already received his ticket, so we were glad to see that mine had come when we got home.) Finally, we were done. We walked out of the building empty-handed. In the course of the day, I commented, "I'm not even going to want to look at this thesis again for at least a year. When they hand it to me at the luncheon, I'm going to want to toss it across the room." "Or you could have a lighter with you and stand in front of them all laughing maniacally," Patrick suggested. "After all, there is an extra copy." And, while the idea is completely and utterly ridiculous and unrefined, it is also amazingly funny and extraordinarily tempting... and it probably will be for at least a couple days. Fortunately, the luncheon isn't until next month, so the honors luncheon should be as dignified as ever, until I'm sitting there imagine myself doing that and I burst out laughing hysterically.

Blogging

I haven't told Patrick that I started a blog yet. He will consider this something of a Facebook-like addiction. I just thought it would be a good way to keep in touch with family and friends if you all were interested. We'll see how it goes. However, to disprove his theories on my addiction to these types of newfangled technologies, I am not likely to post more than once a week. Fortunately, our lives are pretty mellow, so that's plenty of time to keep you up-to-date on our fascinating (but mostly predictable) lives.