California, contracts, and conferences

That's some pretty sweet alliteration, right??

So THIS week has been oodles of fun. Sunday I went to a farmers' market before doing my other grocery shopping and got lots of fresh fruits and veggies - beets, Brussels sprouts, strawberries and ANNONNAS! I got five and one avocado, and Monday morning I mailed off three annonnas and the avocado to Orlando. Unfortunately they arrived in "bad" condition, but as Mom says, at least they have the seeds now. I'm glad they enjoyed the avocado, seeing that it arrived safely. I can't figure out how, with ALL THAT BUBBLEWRAP I used, the annonnas didn't make it. I ate one annonna but the other isn't ripe so it's waiting on my counter until I deem it to be at the peak of yumminess.

Then I did my regular grocery shopping and worked all night on homework.

Monday I had my early class, rushed home, ate, rushed back to campus, desperately tried to pound the intricacies of SPSS17 into my poor brain, and then grabbed some dinner at Panda Express (I swear, it's my new second home there. After that (and some highly-treasured time with my Kindle) there was an emergency AGSA meeting so we could prep for the What To Do With A Degree In Anthropology event we were holding Wednesday.

After the meeting I had 561 (my computer class) and we were in a new lab learning NVivo (it used to be called NUDIST, but it never caught on for some reason...haha) and I'm going to have to try and get into that lab sometime this week to work on our homework lab, or I could download the month-long free trial...that might work better.

I got home at 10 and passed out.

Tuesday was spent doing shopping for the anthro event (we had a concession stand) and homework.

Wednesday rolled around and I went to campus early to pick up my paycheck...which wasn't there. Libby - the anthro secretary - promised to make some phonecalls about it.
Then, during my first class, I found out that my lab partner was in a motorcycle accident the night before and broke both of his legs and his nose. I sent him an email saying I was glad he didn't break his skull and I hoped he'd be better soon. In one way it's good for me because my new partner is Jake, who not only is a grad student and is pretty much my coworker already, but he has GIS skills already and will be absolutely invaluable to me in that respect as my GIS skills are as close to nil as you can get.

After lunch and an hour of 451 I left early (I do this every Wednesday due to scheduling conflicts) and went to GEOG400 (my stats class) and pretty much just worked on my 451 stuff since I've been done with my stats project in there for a day and a half. I'll print it all out on Monday (even though it won't be due for another week) and then redo my old project for extra credit before starting on Project 4.

After that I went home and ate dinner with my favorite news bloc before driving over to the Soroptimist House on campus (where we were holding the event) and dropping off the supplies. Luckily, Sharon had her car there so she followed me home and then drove me back to campus, saving me a half-hour of walking - I don't have a parking pass and can't park on campus.

The even was pretty good - we had a full house which was SO exciting. The speakers all talked longer than we expected them to, and Dr. Larson didn't show up, so I got up there and gave a three minute speech on the importance of CRM. Once again, I remembered why I only did Extemporaneous Speaking once in high school...I'm great at giving a speech I've thought about and have note cards for, but to get up cold and tell people about something - even something I'm really good at...not so much.
I ended up saying, "It's easiest to just answer questions, so if anyone has questions just let me know in the Q&A session." And then in the Q&A session those little brats just sat there mute! Only the grad students asked questions - to get them started you know, I remember being a shy undergrad! - but the kids just sat there with big eyes.

Oh well, I did my best and saints can't do better. I went home and let my mind go blissfully blank while the tv talked at me. It was lovely.

Thursday I got an email from Libby saying to go over to the office immediately and not do any work til I'd spoken to her. I rushed on over there and it turned out that my contract had expired in January and no one thought to tell me (or Dr. Lipo apparently) so I kept working. Libby (who is an angel, I swear) not only sorted through the bureaucratic tangle, but had a new contract all ready and waiting for me for February through June (although I'm technically done at the end of May and don't HAVE to work during June, even though I'll totally do what I can remotely from Florida and South Africa) which I signed and delivered personally. Libby says I should get two paychecks at the end of this month (yippee!) which will be lovely and I'll probably go out and have sushi to celebrate.
I really think I need to bring Libby some cookies.

Class last night was interesting - Dr. Quintiliani really liked my annotated bibliography so I really want her to like the second half as well (that's due this upcoming Thursday). I spent about 20 minutes talking to her after class about my concerns about my project and she seemed very pleased at how I was already interpreting the reading and research I've been doing.

This morning I got an email from Dr. Lipo saying well, you have less than a month to do this project but if you work very hard every day you might pull this off (gulp!) and gave me a list of stuff that needs to be done before the conference, which is now printed up and hanging over my desk. I'm running out of ink (and I put in a new cartridge a month and a half ago, damn grad school), but thankfully I have another black one so I don't have to get ink right this very minute. Maybe after I get those paychecks.

It's noon and I've already called the bank, but I still have a couple calls to make and a lot of writing to do (I want to get Essay 5 done today and hopefully rewrite some of my older essays to get higher marks on them, so I can rewrite the labs on Sunday) so I'll end here.