Week 1 - Relief

To truly start at the beginning, I must say that after a heavy rain blasted a drought-stricken Ohio, I woke up in the morning on a Monday, put on my suit, got the double windsor correctly on try number 3, packed up the car and sat down on a towel - because I had left my windows up and had an inch of standing water in my car. Ordinarily, I would've probably just left them open, dried the car out and stayed home, but this day was my Master's defense. Needless to say, my self-confidence was shaken, but the defense turned out pretty well in the end. I walked out of the room feeling like the idiot I knew I was supposed to feel like, and they walked out about 15 minutes later, shook my hand and handed me 300 pages of edits which were due by 8 am the following day. There's nothing a little Olive Garden can't fix, and so we went out that night, binged on pasta and breadsticks, and the next day I turned in my thesis, revised and properly formatted by 3.30 pm with 90 minutes to spare. The relief that I have felt from that moment is still sinking in to my core. I am grateful to so many people for helping me to that moment and I hope you will be able to enjoy the renewed enthusiasm I will bring back to the world around me.

Then began the boozing. I went out to lunch with the mother-in-law who so kindly dropped me off to turn in my forms, and then back to our department from which I briefly departed for the Varsity Club. A bustling bar on weekends, this Tuesday afternoon/evening reminded me of Bryan Adams as we bought each other pitchers of beer in celebration of the freedom we had been granted. Plans were laid and we went out later together, only to be reminded we weren't in undergrad anymore when we woke with the splitting headache of the unpracticed drinker. Not to let me enthusiasm be dwindled, I rinsed and repeated with orientation, then followed with a dose of 27 horde waves in Gears of War 3 coupled with homemade cider and my wife's homemade chocolate chip cookies. To say that we celebrated would be an understatement, and I knew it was at an end when I sobered up to our father's sermon on Sunday about loving and honoring each other in your marriage. It was time to get real and start treating her like the true heroine of my story. After all, nothing could be done without her around here.

I also learned some about my new PI: the man is a trivia whiz. We spent 4 hours at BW3s answering trivia questions and ended up nationally ranked #1 along with our winning competitor (almost 50,000 pts) which is something I never thought I would be able to say. The following night we went to see our friends' kids play in band and football. This was a great opportunity to practice my sports photography and I think we finally found a limit for the Canon Digital Rebel with basic lens. There's just not enough light, speed or zoom to do any better than what we took, but we still had a lot of fun watching a high school game and hanging out with friends. This is the second high school game I've ever gone to and it was hard to believe that was 7 years ago as I sat on the bleachers.

So over the weekend we put the house back into shape as well, and none too soon because she proceeded to host a Pampered Chef party Monday night. A skoch better than Mary Kay, Pampered Chef people are still just a little bit awkward and overbearing. The house survived (barely) and the dog didn't scare anyone off, so I'd say it was a success. In my own little way, I helped to add some homemaker to the house with clipped marigolds from the garden in a vase on an autumn tablecloth. But I was far away playing video games with the brothers and admiring Pop's new chicken coop for my younger brother's ill-conceived 4-H project.

Determined to diversify my educational experiences whilst my research perspective narrows, I enrolled in an interdisciplinary nutrition program that is highly regarded. I also expected for people over there to be a bit quirky and impractical. What I didn't expect was to meet a few very nice, open-minded and conversational individuals who are the shining stars in the group - I wish them the best. However, some people also have their head stuck in the clouds (or elsewhere) and it's probably mean of me, but while I watched them struggle with homework I did last year, I just let them struggle. Hopefully they will learn to fend for themselves or natural selection will send them to other callings, and they won't turn into intellectual parasites.

Another great feature of this, my 3rd year on campus, is my involvement in a technologically innovative class. What you can see here from this picture is me monitoring "Poll Everywhere". This is the questions component of our class which enables students who attend class remotely through Adobe to still ask questions. To put all questions in the same place and not interrupt the flow of a recorded lecture, students in class can also text their questions to this site. The instructor then can read off the questions anonymously and answer them for the whole class. It will hopefully encourage questions as well as enable off-site students, and is just one part of such a great initiative. If you didn't already know this stuff existed, brace yourself, these are the classes of the very near future.

That's it for this week. A huge shout-out to my cousin who turned 18 and started college in the same week, to my grandpa who brought over a tv stand for our new house and to my wife who will undoubtedly shake her head when she discovers this. I'm timing you! ;)