Award-winning week!

This past week has been a pretty exciting week for Ry and I!

Well ... as exciting as an exciting work week gets.

First, Ry took part in a student research symposium during the inauguration of our school's 13th president. This was a very big deal as he was one of about 20 students from the entire university that was invited to show off his work. I am so proud of him (and doesn't he look handsome?!)

Then, we found out that Ry has been awarded the Graduate Student Leader award! This award is a nomination-based thing, and a few weeks back there were some departmental emails suggesting that another graduate student should be nominated by everyone. Ry's advisor (in some odd random act of kindness) replied to everyone that he'd be nominating Ry instead! And Ry won! YAY! This means some cash for him and a fancy dinner for the two of us next week!

Finally, to top off our exciting week, we attended a local all-day evolution and ecology symposium on Saturday where I presented some research that I did with Dancing Fish this past summer (the photo below is hers!). It's not at all the focus of what I study, but it was an interesting story about some little desert fishes.

I enjoyed presenting it, received really good questions afterwards and was awarded best graduate student presentation!! So exciting! My prize consisted of a hand shake and a "the check is in the mail", but that's OK! It was very exciting to be recognized (and a line on the CV!)!

All-in-all, a very good week for us, professionally.

Super Big Happiness

Hamster_Grrl is my favorite and I will remember her fondly while she is away in Australia for the next few months.

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter!

Awesome PEEPS gifts courtesy of Kathryn!
I really should post about our PEEPS phylogenetic analysis ....

Not quite a Woman, not yet a Misses

There are only a handful of other blogs that I actually read, the majority of which are written by people I have actually met in real life and are my friends.

However, I do stop by Crazy Aunt Purl's page quite often and couldn't stop laughing at her last post: Dear Fashion World ...

If you are also not a size 2 and have been perplexed by the clothes created for women with curves, I urge you to click on over to her latest post. I couldn't have expressed my feelings any better!

I love hockey!

Zamboni driver skates by drunken driving law

I am surprised this story is NOT from Buffalo!

Thanks for the great New Jersey story, Kathryn!

Palm Saturday in Bangor

Because Ry and I are heading to Buffalo in May and because we plan on being with the family for Christmas this year, we decided to spend the Easter Holiday with his family.

The festivities began with a gathering for Palm Sunday. On Saturday.

As I learned at Christmas, it is important to Ry's family to get to church early. One hour early. To get good seats. In the back.

After a very exciting mass, we headed over to The Galley to eat fish dinners. Well, the rest of the family ate fish, but Ry and I don't eat ocean creatures, so we had pasta.

We then traveled to the local bowling alley for some fun and excitement. Ry's parents spent the whole day discussing what good bowlers they were. Too bad I (a pitiful bowler) scored about 30 points more than everyone in the first game.

I also enjoyed watching the locals on the other lanes. I did spot a mullet or two. The highlight was defintely this woman. Who I think was there with her grandson.

YAY for holidays with the "in-laws"! Can't wait to see what this weekend's big holiday brings!

Someone wants an A!

Today, I walked into my office after class and found some beautiful flowers on my desk!

Ry was in the room and immediately declared "They aren't from me!", as though I had accused him of some heinous crime.

The flowers were actually from one of my Animal Behavior Lab students!

Isn't that sweet?

I thought they all hated me! :)

Well, at least one of them liked me!

This goes up there with my Genetics Lab evaluations of "Jen's Hot" and "Jen is bringing sexy back".

(Seriously. I kept them. Maybe I will try to scan them in for you!)

Go Metric?

Did you know that in 1975 Congress passed the Metric Conversion Act??

Therefore, by law, if I submit any grant proposals to government agencies, I must have all measurements converted to metric units.

I mean, it's science, so we pretty much only use the metric system. But I thought the reasoning behind it was because everyone else in the world uses the metric system. Not because it was a LAW!