(Belated) Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

It was an odd Christmas for me- traditions had to be shifted a bit to meet everyone's schedule- so Christmas felt rather un-Christmas-like. The only tradition I managed to fulfill was getting sick. It seems like I am sick every year for Christmas- a glance back at photos of the recent-Christmas past reveals me with a red nose- every year. I have to say this is one tradition I wish I could fore-go.

I've also been feeling rather blah. I had hoped that reaching the milestone of being done with course-work would be more exciting- or maybe more fulfilling somehow. I mean it's a major milestone- it should be exciting right? Well, it just seems kind of anti-climatic. This may be because I now feel the pressure to dive headlong into reading for comps- which is terrifying. Everyone is giving me advice on how to approach the readings but I haven't really figured out a system yet which is a bit frustrating and the whole process feels very intimidating. It also doesn't help that I still have my language exam hanging over my head. Don't even get me started on that- I'll save my rant on the language exam for another post- right now I'm trying not to dwell on it as it makes me very angry and it's counter-productive to fall down that particular rabbit-hole.

So for me, it was a rather strange, somewhat melancholy Christmas- that was made better by being in the company of family and friends... and of course Rusty.

Cinema Class

i miss my students. They were a lot of fun. So in honor of them here is one of my favorite scenes from a movie we watched this semester.

Mascot

William & Mary is looking for a mascot- we're called Tribe- but what mascot goes with that? Anyhow, here are the finalists. They made me giggle. I can't decide which is the most appealing/funny. What do y'all think?

I should be working on my last paper- my LAST paper- but I'm writing this and looking at mascots instead. I am the queen of procrastination. Hey- maybe we should go with the king and queen mascots!

ending a chapter

This is my last semester of coursework.

I remember talking to my fellow TA last Fall, my first semester here at W&M, about the end of coursework. It was his last semester and he was looking forward to being done with classes. At the time I couldn't imagine life without class- I love going to class, although I'm somewhat embarrassed to admit that I miss lecture courses- most graduate classes (well- all that I've taken) are seminars- where the students talk as much if not more than the professor. I love leading discussion sections as a TA but there is something special about listening to a (good) professor's lecture. And now that I'm getting closer to a point in my career that I will be giving lectures- I have started appreciating the skill and preparation that goes into a lecture. I gave my first lecture the week before Thanksgiving and I spent 5 full days working on it and preparing my visuals. But back to my original point, I wouldn't have been able to last this long in school if I didn't enjoy going to class- seriously, I feel like I've been in school forever- I hardly remember what life was like before my return to college.

My feelings about school have shifted since then. Now I cannot wait for coursework to be over. I am sick to death of writing papers on things I have no real interest in- I want to be able to do the research for and to write my dissertation. I am so happy that classes are coming to an end!

I'm sure that I will be reminiscing more about this as I move on to the next chapter of graduate school- but right now I'm too busy since I still have more books to read and papers to write- and of course, preparing for my colloquium- the fist official step towards my comprehensive exams. Yikes!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I wanted Rusty to be thankful today too- which is why there is no picture of him dressed up as a turkey.

Jammin' the Blues

This is a truly awesome short from 1944- we watched it in the cinema class- we've watched some amazing stuff...

Shopping with Rusty

I try to take Rusty with me whenever I can. So I take him with me into stores, as long as they do not sell food I figure it's probably ok- and I carry him so it's not like he's running around or can get into anything. Of course, we are occasionally asked to leave- or I'm asked to take my dog to my car and come back and spend money- but normally no one seems to mind and a lot of people stop to talk to him (not to me) and pet him- well, occasionally they do talk to me and when they do they usually tell me stories about their dogs.

Here's a picture of him during one of our shopping trips. How sweet is he?

The Riverwalk

I've been feeling kind of blue of late and a couple weeks ago I decided to cheer myself up and drove to Yorktown, I wanted to see all the beautiful fall leaves along colonial parkway before it was too late and it was fun to sit on a beach and read- you should all be jealous that I get to do homework on a beach (although, I'll admit I'd rather not be doing homework and just enjoy the riverwalk).

I wanted to share how pretty the drive was but the pictures don't really do it justice and I learned that I shouldn't try to take pictures while I'm driving.





It was a little colder than I expected- I knew it would be cold so I wore a sweatshirt but I should have thrown on a jacket too!



And Rusty LOVES the beach- as soon as his feet touch the sand he takes off and starts running around like mad.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Here's the inspiration for Rusty's costume...



I personally think Rusty is much cuter!





Not surprisingly, Rusty wasn't too fond of the costume- here he is attacking it before I even put it on him....



And here he is trying to get it off...



And here he is celebrating his freedom...

The Seven Dwarfs- in French!

Wonder Woman

I've been watching Wonder Woman- if you haven't ever seen the pilot- you MUST watch it- add it to your netflix queue now!

Anyway- here's the theme song- my favorite line is "she'll stop a war with love."

Yes!

When I was home last month we woke up one morning to find this on my parent's driveway...



(It says- "YES! oops wrong house, response to Homecoming")

catfight!

Awesome (although they could have been less obvious with the stunt doubles).

Sherlock Jr.

I love this movie and I think it includes one of the best car chase scenes ever (well- the best I have seen) and I've been meaning to put a clip here for a while. It's a longer clip than I wanted but if you skip forward a bit- to like the four or four and a half minute mark you can just watch the car chase- but the rest is great too!

Monticello

Just when you thought I was done talking about summer I bring it up again.

I went to Monticello, for the second time, with my friends Laura, Amy, and Anna. They came to DC when I was there a couple years ago and we spent their last day there at Mount Vernon so we decided to make it a tradition and go to the home of another president on their last day here. Since it was my second time visiting Monticello and I was still suffering from KES I wasn't all that into it-nothing against Monticello- it's an amazing place- my friend Jenel says she understood Jefferson much better after visiting there (well, if I remember correctly, she was talking about his motivation for slave owning, but I digress...). Anyway, I only took a couple pictures- sorry you'll have to refer to my first post about Monticello or go there yourself if you want more.

rest stops

Rest stops in Virginia...



Rest stops in Utah...

Yorktown... I think

So I think this picture is from Yorktown- maybe Laura, Amy or Anna will comment and correct me or fill in the story behind this house. I was kind of checked out the day we went to Yorktown- I blame Keio Exhaustion Syndrome (KES) perhaps that also explains my current procrastination and lethargy.

More Summer Photos

Forgive me I still have catching up to do....

Here are some more pictures from my friends trip out, these are from our trip to Historic Jamestown, my first trip there- it was very pretty and worth the trip out- I'll have to take my next visitors there too.

recent unexpected trip home

Here's Rusty hanging out with Angel and Kate (a hamster).

Dallas

If you haven't watched Dallas you have no idea how awesome this is. Still, it's too funny.

self defense

Oddly enough this clip ties in nicely with the reading I did this week.

another trip to CW

The same day my sister left a few of my friends arrived for a short visit. We spent there first day here at Colonial Williamsburg. Here are some of the pictures, they'll look familiar because I have been there too many times!

back to summer

After my last trip to DC, I returned home and got to spend a day with my sister who was kind enough to travel across the country to hang out with Rusty while I was in DC. We ran all over town and also went to Jamestown Settlement, here are some pictures....

I'm not a huge fan of the animal skins.

Simon and Simon

I just started watching Simon and Simon (I don't know what it is with me and 80s TV). The end theme song cracks me up every time so I thought I'd share. Enjoy!

What to do?

Last spring my incredibly nice neighbor held a bible study in her apartment. I arrived home as they were leaving one night and one of our other neighbors invited me to join them. I have no desire to join a bible study and luckily I had class the night they met so I had a good reason and didn't have to come up with an excuse or explain my real reasons for not wanting to go.

And then yesterday she was clearly listening for me to come home and caught me on the stairs and told me about another bible study, this time one that is taking place at her church. She rather hurriedly told me a little about the group and then explained that she wasn't going to be able to go to all of the meetings and was hoping I could give a ride to two of the other women in our building. Again, I was totally thrown by the invite. I really don't want to alienate her, she is an awesome neighbor and it's clear religion is important to her. But being a non-Mormon from Utah I am very leery of conversion attempts. I realize it's totally possible she would accept and respect my lack of interest but that hasn't been my experience in the past. I don't want to have to explain to someone I actually know and like (as opposed to missionaries I don't know and only have to be polite to) that I have no interest in joining their church. As I was trying to figure out how to respond I realized that I have a class the night of this bible study too and had an easy and truthful excuse again. But what about next time? How do other people handle these situations?

Ironically the class I have at that time is on religion.

Twitter

Ok, I did it- I am now tweeting. I don't know how often I'll tweet but I think I may tweet more than I post here. I often think about random things I want to blog about and then never get around to it- so this way I can tweet my random thoughts and there won't be such long gaps between updates. Be fore-warned, I doubt they will be very interesting but there it is.

Keio

About a week after the DC trip Keio started. I have already mentioned Keio and I'm not sure what else to say about it, other than it was an amazing experience. I loved my students I had a great group. My dialogue class, the Yellow Dialogue Class, was by far the best group, everyone got along and everyone participated in class. We hung out together outside of class too and had a lot of fun. The program ended in DC, here are a couple pictures from my third trip there this summer.

Next trip

I flew home to Utah with my nieces and spent 3 very nice weeks visiting family and friends there, but I've posted pictures of that already so I'll move on to my next trip. After I got back from Utah I headed up to DC for a research trip and spent a week at the National Archives. My mom was kind enough to fly out and join me for the trip. She and Rusty hung out together in the hotel while I was at the archives. Since she hadn't been to DC before I tried to show her a bit of the town- so I took her to some of my favorite DC sights. We went to Arlington and took the Monuments by Moonlight tour (which I highly recommend). Here are some of the pictures we took.

The next visit...

Shortly after my dad was here my sister and nieces came for a visit- - I miss them a lot so it was amazing having them here in my new home.

Here are some pictures from their trip...

We went to the beach and Rusty actually got in the water- usually he just barks at the waves and runs away.





We also went to the zoo in Norfolk. It was a fun day- but way too hot- we were all rather grumpy after being in the heat and humidity here.







We also took a short trip up to DC. (the first of three this summer- I have been meaning to get up there all year and was giving myself a hard time about not going, I guess I more than made up for it).





I also took them to the Yankee Candle Store (my friends pointed out that Virginia is an odd place for Yankee Candle seeing how it's in the South, and then of course we had to have a debate about whether or not Virginia is really part of the South- I argue that it is since it was the capitol of the confederacy). Anyhow, there is a little show in the candle store- much like Chucky Cheese, ironically it also featured mice and they sung about cheese. My nieces really liked it so I guess that's all that matters.



And of course we had to go to CW (Colonial Williamsburg) here are a couple pictures- they aren't too exciting.