It's official, I got a B in Physics lecture and an A- in the lab, so I am FOREVER DONE WITH PHYSICS!!!!! WOOOOoooooo!
To keep all my dear readers occupied till I get another real post together, here's a link to some FABULOUS stories. Well, they're fabulous if you like reading about equine antics.
http://theliteraryhorse.wordpress.com/mr-chips/mr-chips-the-stories/
I really think Dax needs a Shetland pony :-)
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Monday, May 16, 2011
So I....
....aced the final. Considering that's 36% of my grade, I don't think I'll be taking Physics again, even with the 3rd midterm fail. :-)
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Back in the land of the living!
Woohoo! So I'm riding high on being done with Physics, whether I manage the C to pass or end up having to take it again. I keep saying I either aced the final or failed it miserably :-) But I think it's leaning towards the ace side of that feeling b/c the undergrad I know who was also taking the class thought the final was easy like I did. I busted my heiny (side note: why isn't heiny in my spell check? It speaks italian but not euphemisms for butt? Do I have this thing set to high-brow or something??!?) studying and prepping and felt confident that I understood the concepts and questions. The big issue for me with the exams was having to rush/not reading questions carefully enough. When I'm already nervous and know I've got to work quickly to finish, it's easy to gloss over details like remembering to switch the direction of a predicted magnetic field b/c and electron has a negative charge...blah blah blah. Basically, when my nerves are up, my attention to detail craps out. I'm hoping my over-prepartion will counter act that effect for the final, and that I rocked the final enough to counter act the third exam fail. The lecture and lab are considered separate courses, and both are graded on curves, so we'll see where I fall in the undergrad pool. And we'll see how long I can put off looking at my grades to keep enjoying the feeling of just being done ;-)
Let's see, in other news, hubby has accepted the job offer previously mentioned. They didn't want to play the haggle game, but seeing as no other offers were forthcoming, we figured it was a place for him to start. Accepting the position doesn't mean he can't keep his eyes and ears open for other opportunities. He's got a quitting day at the old job and a starting day with the new one, with 3.5 weeks between. *grumble* I'm only taking 9 days off between b/c there's so much going on in lab and I needed to start with the beginning of a summer session at VT. The hubby's first day will be July 1st and my first day in my new lab will be July 5th. Which means.....
WE FRICKIN' NEED TO FIND A PLACE TO LIVE!!!!!
The nester/planner side of me (which I keep trying to suppress) is shrieking, jumping up and down and pointing at a calendar. Ok, so we've got a pre-approval letter for a mortgage, and an agent that we like has been contacted in B'burg, and houses have been looked at online. We're trying to get a bunch of house tours lined up for next weekend. Why not this weekend you may ask? Well, I've got a nursing gig in Richmond - the moms had a bionic knee installed so she can kick even more a$$, and I'm here making sure she doesn't try barefoot water skiing before the sutures heal. And shuttling bits of giant cookie with frosting to her.....it helps with the healing, and don't you say otherwise.
Back to the housing situation. So we've found a couple of promising places online, but if our previous dalliance with house-hunting taught us anything, it's that every place looks different in person. Usually worse. I think with the right lighting, a wide angle lens and a bit of blur, real-estate agents can make a yurt look like the Biltmore. That being said, hubs and I aren't exactly picky.....as in, if it doesn't have contact paper for counter tops in the kitchen, we'll be thrilled :-) On top of the house-hunting moving forward, hubs also just found a super-cute rental available that is pet friendly, so we'll probably look into that as well.
Why would we still be considering a rental you may be wondering?? Or not. But I'm going to tell you anyway. We're pretty much stuck with renting SOMEWHERE for two months when we first get to B'burg. In order to have the full, official mortgage qualifications go through, they will need two months worth of pay stubs as proof of employment/income. And darn if those banks aren't bright enough to realize we aren't commuting from B'burg to C'ville to continue working at UVa. The plan is, if we find a place we really like and want to buy, to negotiate a rent-to-own arrangement for a few months so we can get those pesky stubs, then apply for the mortgage, making the paperwork WAY easier. Considering the housing market, if we agree to earnest money, have a loan pre-approval and pay rent and all, I think we stand a reasonable chance of negotiating this kind of thing. But, first things first....FIND A HOUSE!!!
And maybe start packing. Ugh.
Let's see, in other news, hubby has accepted the job offer previously mentioned. They didn't want to play the haggle game, but seeing as no other offers were forthcoming, we figured it was a place for him to start. Accepting the position doesn't mean he can't keep his eyes and ears open for other opportunities. He's got a quitting day at the old job and a starting day with the new one, with 3.5 weeks between. *grumble* I'm only taking 9 days off between b/c there's so much going on in lab and I needed to start with the beginning of a summer session at VT. The hubby's first day will be July 1st and my first day in my new lab will be July 5th. Which means.....
WE FRICKIN' NEED TO FIND A PLACE TO LIVE!!!!!
The nester/planner side of me (which I keep trying to suppress) is shrieking, jumping up and down and pointing at a calendar. Ok, so we've got a pre-approval letter for a mortgage, and an agent that we like has been contacted in B'burg, and houses have been looked at online. We're trying to get a bunch of house tours lined up for next weekend. Why not this weekend you may ask? Well, I've got a nursing gig in Richmond - the moms had a bionic knee installed so she can kick even more a$$, and I'm here making sure she doesn't try barefoot water skiing before the sutures heal. And shuttling bits of giant cookie with frosting to her.....it helps with the healing, and don't you say otherwise.
Back to the housing situation. So we've found a couple of promising places online, but if our previous dalliance with house-hunting taught us anything, it's that every place looks different in person. Usually worse. I think with the right lighting, a wide angle lens and a bit of blur, real-estate agents can make a yurt look like the Biltmore. That being said, hubs and I aren't exactly picky.....as in, if it doesn't have contact paper for counter tops in the kitchen, we'll be thrilled :-) On top of the house-hunting moving forward, hubs also just found a super-cute rental available that is pet friendly, so we'll probably look into that as well.
Why would we still be considering a rental you may be wondering?? Or not. But I'm going to tell you anyway. We're pretty much stuck with renting SOMEWHERE for two months when we first get to B'burg. In order to have the full, official mortgage qualifications go through, they will need two months worth of pay stubs as proof of employment/income. And darn if those banks aren't bright enough to realize we aren't commuting from B'burg to C'ville to continue working at UVa. The plan is, if we find a place we really like and want to buy, to negotiate a rent-to-own arrangement for a few months so we can get those pesky stubs, then apply for the mortgage, making the paperwork WAY easier. Considering the housing market, if we agree to earnest money, have a loan pre-approval and pay rent and all, I think we stand a reasonable chance of negotiating this kind of thing. But, first things first....FIND A HOUSE!!!
And maybe start packing. Ugh.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Will return to regular schedule after Thursday.
Thursday, from 2pm to 5pm I will be flexing my mental muscle to it's limits......that's just sad to consider. Actually, not my brain's limits, but more like the limits of my attention, interest in physics, and motivation to do crap that is hard and not fun at all. *Sigh*
Is it worse to feel stupid or lazy? I'm not sure.
Anyway, on a happier note:
Happy belated Mother's day to all the wonderful Moms in my life - both the actual and the spiritual ones!!
More this weekend....
Is it worse to feel stupid or lazy? I'm not sure.
Anyway, on a happier note:
Happy belated Mother's day to all the wonderful Moms in my life - both the actual and the spiritual ones!!
More this weekend....
Monday, May 2, 2011
All style, no sub....
Well, hope everybody enjoys the new blog-look! Spring is fully sprung 'round here and I'd thought I'd share the love. Also I'd like to point out the new "follow by email" gadget to the right ------>
Can't say I've tried it (seems weird to "follow" one's own blog) but I'm hoping it simplifies things for those of you who are interested. Also, I've heard from a little birdie (*cough* sister *sniff*) that it's hard to leave comments after posts. All I can say is that I have enabled the anonymous commenting option, so folks should be able to leave comments without having to sign up for anything. That being said, I'm sure that blogger (the free program I'm using to do this) would prefer that you have some sort of account and probably asks you to sign in by some method - just keep looking for that anonymous comment option/button, realizing it won't be the first option that is presented. Beyond that, I'm afraid I'm not much help b/c I'm pretty sure that blogger "looks" slightly different depending on which web browser you're using.
Business aside, there are a few things going on (har-dee-har-har):
1. Hubby got a job offer!!! So I'm not the only one who thinks he's brilliant, hard-working, honest as the day is long and has a cute tush. Well, I might be the only one who thinks that last part, but whatever. Of course we're both excited, but not surprisingly the offer wasn't for the income he had hoped....thus begins salary negotiations. Salary negotiation is such a foreign concept for us coming from academia that we didn't remember that he's supposed to counter-offer at first! He did call them back with a counter just this past Friday, so we'll see what they say. He's being modest about his experience and conservative due to the economy, so I have high hopes the company will agree to the counter offer. I also think he should have pushed for more, but I'm not the one doing the negotiation (and I do have all the wifey bias of thinking he's worth more than his weight in gold.....I mean, c'mon!! The man does dishes so I can work on my physics homework then helps me with the algebra when I get stuck! Who wouldn't want him!??!?)
2. Physics/Hell is drawing to a close! But the pressure is on. So I kind of dropped the ball on my third exam....as in, like, left my brain somewhere somewhere under the desk at home. *sigh* I can over-analyze the situation and why I did poorly all I want, but what it comes down to is that all that's left is cumulative final worth 36% of my grade. So from now until May 12th, it's one last push to conquer my math and motivation demons. I'm sure you'll hear more about this :-)
3. Working on pre-qualification for a mortgage....happily there are still specialized first-time home buyer options out there. Once we have the pre-qual in hand, it'll be coordinating with an agent to check out as many houses in B'Burg as we can in one day. We want to minimize the trips with gas being so frickin' expensive. Pre-qual should be figured out early this week, so we might be looking at houses as early as this Friday. I wish I could say I'm thrilled to be buying our first home but....well, I honestly feel backed into it by the lack of rental options, and I'm totally dreading all the paperwork and surprise expenses and obnoxious owners who change their minds 20 times and....you get the idea. Being an adult and realizing the implications of these big decisions sucks the excitement out of it for me.
Don't worry, I still get excited about some stuff. Stuff like free cookies at a seminar, and new episodes of "Glee". And I definitely get excited when nature decides to throw a little surprise into the mindless task of lawn-mowing:
Morels, baby!! For the first time the five years of renting in the same house, we've had a bumper crop of morels - all over the yard! These things are about $25 per pound at the foof-stores in Charlottesville. Hubby and I briefly considered selling our crop, but that passed pretty quickly :-) First dish I made was a chicken scaloppine with a sautéed morel-vermouth-tarragon-cream sauce. (Random side note - spellcheck just blew my mind and corrected my phonic butchering of scaloppine....my spellcheck speaks Italian. Who knew?) Anyway, with lots left over we decided to dry the remaining morels. Boy was that depressing! Know what two pounds of fresh morels looks like dried?? A handful of bad-looking prunes is what. We have one 2/3 full ziploc baggie in the freezer (extra precaution) for all our dried morels. NOT that I'm complaining, but it was a bit of a surprise to realize how much of a morel is made up of, well, just water. Anyway, I'm happily soliciting any morel recipe suggestions from you guys - feel free to share!
Well, it's quite past my bedtime now. I shouldn't start the week sleep deprived, but it's hard to let relaxing Sundays go :-) Hope everyone had a lovely weekend!
ps- furries are all great. Dax is a fattie and not getting ridden enough, but otherwise fine.
Can't say I've tried it (seems weird to "follow" one's own blog) but I'm hoping it simplifies things for those of you who are interested. Also, I've heard from a little birdie (*cough* sister *sniff*) that it's hard to leave comments after posts. All I can say is that I have enabled the anonymous commenting option, so folks should be able to leave comments without having to sign up for anything. That being said, I'm sure that blogger (the free program I'm using to do this) would prefer that you have some sort of account and probably asks you to sign in by some method - just keep looking for that anonymous comment option/button, realizing it won't be the first option that is presented. Beyond that, I'm afraid I'm not much help b/c I'm pretty sure that blogger "looks" slightly different depending on which web browser you're using.
Business aside, there are a few things going on (har-dee-har-har):
1. Hubby got a job offer!!! So I'm not the only one who thinks he's brilliant, hard-working, honest as the day is long and has a cute tush. Well, I might be the only one who thinks that last part, but whatever. Of course we're both excited, but not surprisingly the offer wasn't for the income he had hoped....thus begins salary negotiations. Salary negotiation is such a foreign concept for us coming from academia that we didn't remember that he's supposed to counter-offer at first! He did call them back with a counter just this past Friday, so we'll see what they say. He's being modest about his experience and conservative due to the economy, so I have high hopes the company will agree to the counter offer. I also think he should have pushed for more, but I'm not the one doing the negotiation (and I do have all the wifey bias of thinking he's worth more than his weight in gold.....I mean, c'mon!! The man does dishes so I can work on my physics homework then helps me with the algebra when I get stuck! Who wouldn't want him!??!?)
2. Physics/Hell is drawing to a close! But the pressure is on. So I kind of dropped the ball on my third exam....as in, like, left my brain somewhere somewhere under the desk at home. *sigh* I can over-analyze the situation and why I did poorly all I want, but what it comes down to is that all that's left is cumulative final worth 36% of my grade. So from now until May 12th, it's one last push to conquer my math and motivation demons. I'm sure you'll hear more about this :-)
3. Working on pre-qualification for a mortgage....happily there are still specialized first-time home buyer options out there. Once we have the pre-qual in hand, it'll be coordinating with an agent to check out as many houses in B'Burg as we can in one day. We want to minimize the trips with gas being so frickin' expensive. Pre-qual should be figured out early this week, so we might be looking at houses as early as this Friday. I wish I could say I'm thrilled to be buying our first home but....well, I honestly feel backed into it by the lack of rental options, and I'm totally dreading all the paperwork and surprise expenses and obnoxious owners who change their minds 20 times and....you get the idea. Being an adult and realizing the implications of these big decisions sucks the excitement out of it for me.
Don't worry, I still get excited about some stuff. Stuff like free cookies at a seminar, and new episodes of "Glee". And I definitely get excited when nature decides to throw a little surprise into the mindless task of lawn-mowing:
Well, it's quite past my bedtime now. I shouldn't start the week sleep deprived, but it's hard to let relaxing Sundays go :-) Hope everyone had a lovely weekend!
ps- furries are all great. Dax is a fattie and not getting ridden enough, but otherwise fine.
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