Stranded, with 100% chance of showers

Yes, this weekend there is a 100% chance of showers. A baby shower for BF Kimmy and a bridal shower for Anna!

Both are in Buffalo, both are this weekend and both are slightly dependent on me showing up with lots of decor and prizes and gifts.

And I am currently spending my morning at the chevy service center in the Little Town, rather than heading to WNY.

Why? Because some horribly awful person side-swipped my parked car Sunday night while I was sleeping. And not just some scratches, but a broken side-view-mirror and a horribly bent tire. I will make the drive sans-mirror (unsafe, but driveable), but it is impossible to make the long trip with only 3 wheels.

Is anything ever easy for me?

At least I'll get to enjoy this busy busy week/weekend with Ry, my family and my pregnant and engaged friends!!!

Mom's March for Babies

My mom (and my lil' bro and his gf Kel) will be Marching for Babies on Sunday, April 27th!

As my mom writes on her website: "The March of Dimes has changed the name of its biggest event to March for Babies. It's a great change because it makes it very clear exactly who I am walking for -- all babies. I am very excited to be a part of the “first” March for Babies; please support my participation."

Many of you readers have just had babies, are about to have babies, or hope to have babies in the next few years! If you have a few extra dollars ($5 isn't a lot of money!), please consider donating to this worthy cause!

Click Here to donate at my mom's personal website

Week in the life of a grad student

The past week has been super crazy for me! Most of it good, but all of it crazy. And pretty much everything has been about work!

Here's a list of the few things that have happened:

• Gave a seminar (1hr) on a really awesome portion of my fieldwork from Costa Rica this past January
• Spent 1.5 hours helping a labmate go over a research talk for her conference
• Spent 3 hours and then another 2 hours helping a different labmate edit her dissertation defense
• Was appreciated at a grad student lunch
• Worked with undergrad in lab (and she managed not to kill the fish with ice cold water this time)
• Spent 12 hours at a local research conference (which literally drives grad students to drink)
• Gave talk (15min) on fieldwork from last year's Jamaica trip
• Watched 2 dissertation defenses by students in other research labs in my department
• Taught my own classes as well as classes of labmate
• Graded over 100 lab assignments
• Finished and submitted Costa Rica field research paper to very good journal (1st paper submitted in 2008!)
• Finished and submitted Jamaica field research paper to another very good journal (2nd submitted paper this year!)
• Watched my labmate's dissertation defense
• "Celebrated" labmate's dissertation defense completion (by drinking with remaining labmates)

All that, plus normal life stuff, means that I am now exhausted. Perhaps I will catch up with sleep (and laundry) this weekend ...

Assess the Asses

Realization of the day (as I am working on 3 different Powerpoints for research presentations and teaching next week):

If you mean to write the word ASSESS (as in "to estimate the value of") but you accidently write the word ASSES (as in "derrière"), spell check will not catch the mistake and you might find yourself giving a totally different talk than you expected ...

Luckily, I caught the mistake!

Keep an eye out for accidental asses!