Breathe!

Ahhhh
Feels good to do it!
I just finally finished the two outlines for my two research paper, finished my take home midterm, did all my readings for one class (almost 200 pages worth of reading for ONE class session, ugh), and am currently doing readings for another class so I can just focus on my test critiquing tomorrow. Then, after class tomorrow...I'll actually be able to take a break! YAY, well...sort of. It just means I'll finally get to folding the laundry, doing dishes, and cleaning the place up. Probably do some painting to so we can get our darned kitchen island up, and rearrange the frontroom to the way we think it may work out best.

Just...yay.

Research

So, I'm doing this research paper.
It's a pretty specific research paper. So much so, that I can't find anything on it worth putting int he paper that isn't 30+ years old. I've discussed this with my teacher and she keeps givng me journals and names, but I'm not turning anything up. She suggested I meet with a person would know more about this stuff, I did. Guess what, she said I might as well change my topic because there's nothing out there on what I'm researching. Well...I wish i could change it, but I can't as this is specifically what my teacher wanted me to research. I've learned a LOT in my research, and I've spent over 25 hours on it now just looking at resources and reading articles. I've spent two of my Sundays here (it's a day where I take time to religious observe things, and part of that is staying at home after church or visiting family, not doing homework or work, etc.), which I HATE more than anything. I've spent a whole Saturday here, and two Sundays here, plus whatever spare time I can muster up. And now that I MAY have found somethings that I can do, the library automatic retrieval system is down. This system is used for books that are hardly checked out, thus put away in "storage" until someone requests it online. A machine then gets it, and brings it to a certain person, and the person brings it to the reserve desk and I pick it up, within 20 minutes. So I requested three different things which right now seem vital to my research, and my outline is due Tuesday, which I can't do without the articles....I'm a little frustrated. It does nothing to help improve my self-esteem about me being here doing grad school. Makes me wonder if I'm really cut out for this...
and my teacher says that it's all "good for me." Bah freaking bah.

In other news, things are normal and boring :) (that's a good thing right now!)

Research

So I sent in a research paper outline last week. It was already postponed a week because I had so much stress with moving and such and she understood it. Well with the topic that she had wanted me to research, I was confused and couldn't find what I needed. So I submitted what I had originally thought she meant, and made a note that I didn't think this was it, but I can't seem to find anything on intervention stuff, in the way that she wanted it.
She e-mailed me back saying she wanted to look more over my outline etc. There was an attachment (or so I thought), and it was just my original submission. So I thought I was still waiting for more feedback from her. That was on Monday. She e-mailed me again t his morning asking if I got her feedback, so I went through the e-mails and couldn't see anything. I e-mailed her and told her so. I went and looked through one more time just to be sure. Well, there were TWO attachments to that one e-mail, not just one, but TWO.
So here I am on Saturday, looking at it, realizing I have to basically start from the beginning. This sucks. I shouldn't be in grad school if I can't figure this stuff out. :P
Here I come, oh wonderful library.

Mondayisms

an up date eh?

The south beach diet got put on hold for last week as moving was just taking too much time and energy when we both had midterms and projects due last week. There was no way either one of us could cook as well, that and all the dishes were still packed for awhile as well as some food. So, that got put on hold and I totally jumped off of it. But we're going to go back on it tomorrow,s tarting with phase 1 again. I'm excited. I've only gained back 2 or 3 lbs of the 13 that I lost, so I'm not upset or anything. I had expected it :)

I haven't done any running recently either, again, I'm using moving as an excuse. :) But I will start back up again, hopefully tomorrow.

More updates behind the cut..


Our two year anniversary was yesterday, and we though that we might go on a trip this weekend since this week is fall break and I can take Th and F off, but we decided to do something else instead. We bought an iMac computer :) My old computer is just not doing it for us anymore, so we decided that the new computer will be our anniversary present, my birthday present, and our Christmas presents combined. So far, I think it's completely worth it. It just works SO much better. We will however, go out to dinner tonight to celebrate. :) I may leave work a little early to get a head start on getting my pretty face on tonight. :)

We went to my parents' house for the weekend for general conference. WE had fun, I saw Premonition and 1408 with my mom and sisters while Bryan was at priesthood session. I didn't like either one of them. Premonition was just...weird and lame. 1408 was just too scary for me. I hated it, bothered me more than most scary movies (I have one scary movie that still bugs me to this day). Then on Sunday, dad was home, and David and Melissa and their son (my nephew) Ben came over to watch conference as well. It was nice having the whole family home, well almost the whole family. :)

My younger brother is on a mission in Thailand right now. He comes home November 30th, so that means his friends are starting to come home as well. One friend got home last week. (Michael and his friends are REALLY close, they've been best friends since elementary, and nothing has ever separated them before. It's awesome). He came over to visit with the family. It was a lot of fun, and just made it seem more real that my brother is coming home soon. We all can't wait :) I miss him more than I think.

School is going well. I just got done with my block class, so no more Saturday classes this semester! YAY! I'm pretty sure I got an A in there since I didn't get lower than a 90% on ANYTHING in there that I know of. (We'll see about the two projects that I turne din on the last day that were worth 100 each). I also got an A on my midterm for another class. I have yet to take a midterm for a different class, but it's a take home, so I'm not too worried about it. It's just the two research papers that are kicking my butt, I feel like they should be worth more than 50 or 100 points! (200 would make me feel better!)

I have an online class, and it's really easy, only 1 credit. We had to write a teaching philosophy after finishing one module. I did that barely on time, and I just got asked if she could use my philosophy statement for future classes or whatever anonymously. I gave her permission of course, and I had passed it, so I know it was good and won't be used as a bad example. :)

So yeah, classes over all...they're really good. :) I'm excited that I did this after all. My mom may start a master's program through her school district, I hope she does it. She'll enjoy it, especially the pay raise :)

I'm excited for no classes this week. I'm working all day today, tuesday and wednesday so that I can take thursday and Friday off. I also have no saturday classes anymore, so it's FINALLY going to feel like I have an actual weekend. I'm VERy excited about that.

Our apartment is good. We love it, and love the community so far. we've met more people the first week than we have in our previous two places combined. That's just how strong of a community it is around here. The place is a bit smaller, but it helps A LOT to have a second bedroom to use as an office/music place. We had to buy a new desk for the computer because our last cheap one broke. We're also buying another book case so that we can finally put all of our books away. I'm tired of having a bunch in the car because we don't have anywhere to put them. It should arrive today.

We also bought a kitchen island thing (a small portable one) just because we have virtually no counter space, but the island will solve our problems. We're painting it right now (well Bryan is, I haven't touched it :) ). It's looking good, and I'm just excited to get everything in order at the apartment. I'm hoping we can finish setting it up and unpacking the odds and ends this week. Yeah..very excited. :)

Ok...break is over and I've rambled much too long. :)

Hope everyone is having a good Monday :)

Two years

I guess technically it was yesterday (october 7th)

But...Happy two year anniversary to Bry and me :)

dum de dum

So updates?
The weight is definitely off that I lost from phase 1. I haven't gained any since I've started phase 2, which I was REALLY scared of, but nothing bad has happened!. It has been fluctuating up and down the past couple of days, but on average it's still the same weight I hit on the last day of phase 1. So, YAY! :)

I did make it up at 5:50 this morning to go jogging for week 3 day 2. I was able to do it without cheating during a jogging part. No cheating this time. Felt better, especially since I tried to take a different route to see if the hills were less in the area. They weren't, but I still made it through. :)

I'm getting haircut and dyed today. I will take a picture of it after I've done it. You'll see a before picture once I actually get my DITL up (man I suck at getting it done, darn wanting to get good grades in school!).

Hope everyone is having a great day! :)

Help!

So, I've been trying to look for the past two weeks for this information.

I have a presentation on Saturday (I'm prepared mostly, just need to see if I can find this bit of information) about a balanced look at teaching hearing infants to sign. This means my teacher wants to hear the pros and cons of teaching a hearing infant/toddler to sign. I know there's a research study out there that's called "Baby Talk" or something similar that discusses the cons of doing so. It was a research that came from Harvard. I can't find it! Does anyone know where I can find it, or if it's under a different title? Or does anyone know of any other resources besides personal experience that talks about how teaching a hearing infant to sign hindered something in the child's development?

If you could help, that would be awesome.

(No worries, I've got PLENTY of stuff on the pros of teaching a baby to sign).

Thanks!