Traveling

So the three of us (hubby, son and me) are going to CA to visit my in-laws as they have not seen Kiernan (KB) yet. We bought 2 plane tickets, and will be holding KB. we need to bring the car seat though. how does that work? how do i make it be luggage? and any suggestions for traveling? it's only an hour and 45 minutes of flying.

Ok, I'm really not that whiny

So I was posting all the past posts, I could not believe how many whiny posts and frustrated posts I had. Including the last couple about my qualifying exam. I'm just so dang nervous about it since it determines if I get to continue with my master's program or not. However, one thing did cheer me up a lot while I was prepping for it. Kiernan. Seriously, he's just so cute. He made me smile every time I looked at him as he would smile almost every single time I looked at him. It was as if he knew I needed to be smiled at to help me relax and not just go into a mental breakdown. He really is an awesome baby, and we truly are blessed.

I haven't posted pictures of him in awhile, there are two reasons for this. We accidentally broke Bryan's camera :( And I thought my camera was lost for good. Bryan just found it the other day, so now I need to start getting back into my picture taking habits of him.

Kiernan just turned 3 months this past Friday. 3 whole months! I've heard people talk about how time flies all the time, but I didn't really realize it until we had Kiernan. I cannot believe how big he is, how alert he is, how strong he is, how etc etc etc. We are seriously so happy with him, and I cannot imagine my life without him. I was afraid for a long time that we were having him too soon, with both of us in school full time, with quite a bit of schooling left, and me working. But it's honestly worked out for the best. It's just made my testimony grow stronger that God really does know what he's doing, and he'll help us out and make things work if we follow him and his plans.

The Qualifying Exam is over. People ask me "doesn't it feel great?" well...no. I've taken it once before and barely failed. I felt great about it last time, was sure I passed. The day I get home from Brazil, after crying for a couple of hours because I wouldn't see Bryan for 3 months and I was all hormonal from being pregnant, an had been flying for a good 30 something hours, spent 12 hours alone in the peru airport, after all that, I got the letter saying I failed, and an e-mail from my program director saying she was concerned. yeah, it was a very bad day to return to reality. So no, I don't feel better :) I won't feel better until I get letter that says I pass. Unfortunately this is my last chance. I did my best, I know I did. I took the 6 week workshop to try and help my writing skills, I took my time writing it. I stopped after every paragraph to proofread, proofread the whole thing on the computer, printed it out, proofread it again, printed it out again, and proofread it one last time. Then handed it in. We had 3 hours to write 6 pages, with citations, in APA style and to sound extremely smart as if we know what we're talking about. It was very difficult to go on for 6 pages about collaboration, but I did it (many thanks to mom here for giving me help while I was researching for the 24 hours before the test that we had when we got the question). I did what I could, and if I didn't pass, then it's truly just because I'm not supposed to be there. But dang...I want to pass :)

Work is great. Bryan is awesome, he's been picking up where I've been slacking off on housework this week, despite the amount of homework that I know he has (which is loads). He's awesome, and I hope he knows how much I really appreciate it.

We did go to sacrament today, but came home as I was feeling sick (cold's coming back), and needed to sleep. I feel a little better in the exhaustion area, but worse in the feeling sick area. Hopefully this passes soon, and I don't give it to Kiernan. He' sjust too cute to be sick! :)

It's official

It will take a miracle for me to pass this exam. Stupid brain farts and stupid wall I keep running into, and stupid mental block.

No pressure....really...

I have to take a qualifying exam. This exam determines whether I get to graduate or not, despite the number of credits I've already taken. I despise this exam. I have taken it once before, and did not pass.
The exam works like this.
They e-mail you a question 10 AM Friday, and you have 24 hours to prepare an outline, study it, etc. You are not allowed to write it out. The outline may not contain more than 100 words. at 10 AM on Saturday, you go to a computer lab, with only your outline and your APA manual in hand. You are expected to write 6 pages, with references (thank heavens they don't make you do the reference page, but you do need to cite references in your paper), with perfect APA style in 3 hours. You have THREE hours to write an answer to this question, 6 pages long, APA format.

I despise this because they claim that it's a test to see how your writing reflects on the university. In reality, if I were to ever have anything published, I wouldn't force myself to sit down and write it in 3 hours with no one to edit it or proofread it. It's unrealistic, and stupid. I have no lower than an A- in ALL of my grad classes, and have written numerous research papers and have not gotten lower than a 95% on all of them. You think this would be good enough, but no, it's not.

I also hate the scoring format. They score on 13 different points. 1 point is content. All the rest has to do with the writing style. And it's a pass or fail. You get two chances, if you don't make it both times, sorry, no degree. This sucks, because I'm halfway done, and my master's program is not short (10 semesters). So to be halfway, when most grads would have already graduated, and not pass this exam, would really suck.

Ah well, time to stop venting and go back to working on it.

Kiernan

I'm so sad! Kiernan is sick :( he has been doing little coughs since last night, and sleeping a lot. An hour ago I noticed his face was flushed, so i took his temperature and it's 99.9. I'm counting it as a fever since his face is warm and flushed while his hands and body are cool.
I'm just sad that he's not feeling well :(

my lovely husband

We were watching friends, having a discussion:
"Honey, Rachel is dumber than you are!"

*ahem*

Explanation

You will find a humungous archive as I decided to transfer some old posts from livejournal to here. Note, I did not transfer them all. some of those posts were just too embarassing to transfer as I was...well..quite immature. Also, instead of going all the way back to 2003, I decided to start in March of 2005, which was when I get engaged to bryan. All the other posts before that really don't matter, and just show how immature I was :) 

Also, major props to anyone who actually makes it through all the posts :) Previous LJ users don't count. 

Following everyone else

Well, I've decided to go with blogspot mostly because so many people I know are on blogspot. I wil definitely miss the days of having a friends page on livejournal. I'm still keeping that account in order to keep uo with everyone I know. 

This blog is a work in progress as I will be moving some old posts form livejournal to here, so that people can get a better idea of who I am. 

That is all I have to say for the time being, exciting, I know :)