Here is a little run down of our lives this past semester:
September
This semester has been the hardest by far with an additional class and trying to work part-time. I'm not fond of my job, but it pays the bills so I guess I should be grateful. I have an on-campus job at the "bindery." It's a windowless basement where we print, copy, cut, collate, bind, glue, staple, etc all sorts of paper projects for the school from posters to pamphlets to parking passes. I started working there in May to help produce the graduation books and was able to stay on through June and then come back in September once school started. I work with some great people and it's an awesome school job, but I guess paper is just not my thing.
Luckily Mike and I both had busy schedules so no one was bored waiting on the other to finish homework or something. This semester he was part of the Huntsman Scholars Program. It's through the business school, which is ironic since Mike has absolutely no interest in business, and is a scholarship program that is geared towards teaching business and leadership with international experience. I still don't really get the point of it, but they paid him money and sent him to Europe for a month at almost no cost so it was a good experience for him.
Also, my amazing husband has an awesome diamond-encrusted crystal award! Ok, well it's not really diamond-encrusted or crystal, but it's glass and pretty big so it looks fancy. Last year for one of his terrorism classes (he's studying international relations and peace, not how to be a terrorist) he was able to do an internship with the Cultural Intelligence Institute. He basically just had to write a paper for his class and then turn it into the institute with some minor adjustments and got paid for it, but his paper has turned out to be a pretty big deal. It was on how the media fuels terrorism and makes it easier for terrorists to terrorize. The institute liked it so much the want to publish it in their scholarly journal (http://culturalintel.org/Journal.html) plus his paper has been read by several important people (i.e. members of the CIA, a police constable in London) AND they want to fly him out to DC for their next conference to present his paper! So my husband is pretty amazing and that's not even a biased opinion!
October
In a nutshell, our month of October: Mike played in Europe and I studied and did giant school projects. As happy as I am for him he got to go, I'm totally jealous and think it's highly unfair that I had to sit at home and study while he traveled Europe for almost the whole month! They went to Switzerland and ate cheese, to Belgium and sampled chocolates, and to France and went to EuroDisney. (They also visited business like NATO, WHO,the Red Cross, Huntsman Chemical but I think these places were all an excuse so they could do the fun things.) While there, they also had a free weekend where they could travel wherever they wanted so Mike and a group of students went to Rome. He said it was the most beautiful place he's ever seen and someday when we aren't so poor, he'll take me there :)
I studied and worked on papers and projects the whole month. I lived off McDonald's chicken nuggets and Little Caesar's pizza. I do love chicken nuggets even if they are horrendously bad for you, I love them, so that part wasn't so awful. One night I had a sleepover with my girl friends since Mikey was gone and we had a break from school. We went out to eat and made skookies (cookies baked in a skillet) and watched a scary movie and it was a blast. Even though I would never trade being married for the single life, I do miss sleepovers!
November
Thankfully this month was a little less hectic for the two of us, but still kept us busy. Mike was usually up all hours of the night writing and editing papers for his program and I was trying to go to bed early so I could be at the hospital at 430am. I've had more practice with IVs and while I'm definitely not a pro, I still feel pretty good about my skills, which is a good thing. I was shadowing outside the hospital for a clinical day and had someone I knew through church come in and at first I didn't recognize them since we were new to the ward. I realize who they were as I was preparing to start an IV, so I was very grateful they had good veins and I didn't look like a fool screwing it up!
Our ward boundaries changed and our apartment building was switched into a different ward which we were both way sad about. Both of us are shy and we finally felt like we were making friends, I was really enjoying my calling in the Relief Society Presidency and then they gave up the boot! We like our new ward although the dynamics are rather different since everyone is more established and some people live in real houses and not cinderblock prison cells! Mike is happy about the switch though because he is now the Sunday School President. Every since we've been married, his only calling has been ward missionary, which he likes, but is very difficult to fulfill in Utah.
November flew by but we were grateful we got to go to Orem to spend Thanksgiving with my aunt and uncle. I was super excited that my sister Alicia and her fam were able to drive down from Oregon. Like all aunties, I think my nephews and nieces are the cutest and her son is no exception! We went to Tucanos the day after Thanksgiving and had another delicious meal with too much to eat. We also played Nertz where for every round you lost you had to eat a Burtie Bott's jellybean. Luckily I only had to eat one and it was strawberry. Poor Mikey lost a lot a had to eat a rotten egg, moldy cheese and some other disgusting ones :) I felt bad after the first couple...
Thanksgiving was a nice break before my one last week of school and then finals. When we got back we found out where we are going for our preceptorship (kinda like residency for doctors) We have to follow a nurse around for their shifts for 140 hours. They had us sign up where we wanted to go in September so of course I had no idea. By time I finished my clinicals for this semester, I had a totally different idea of what kind of nursing I wanted to do than in September, so I'm kinda bummed with what I got. I have night shifts on the post-surgery floor, which will give me a good foundation, but it's a little scary to think that in 12 shifts at the hospital I'm supposed to be competent enough to care for patients all by myself! YIKES! I've decided I would have preferred the ICU or ER, but I guess I can always work there later.
Well that's all from us!
Luckily Mike and I both had busy schedules so no one was bored waiting on the other to finish homework or something. This semester he was part of the Huntsman Scholars Program. It's through the business school, which is ironic since Mike has absolutely no interest in business, and is a scholarship program that is geared towards teaching business and leadership with international experience. I still don't really get the point of it, but they paid him money and sent him to Europe for a month at almost no cost so it was a good experience for him.
Also, my amazing husband has an awesome diamond-encrusted crystal award! Ok, well it's not really diamond-encrusted or crystal, but it's glass and pretty big so it looks fancy. Last year for one of his terrorism classes (he's studying international relations and peace, not how to be a terrorist) he was able to do an internship with the Cultural Intelligence Institute. He basically just had to write a paper for his class and then turn it into the institute with some minor adjustments and got paid for it, but his paper has turned out to be a pretty big deal. It was on how the media fuels terrorism and makes it easier for terrorists to terrorize. The institute liked it so much the want to publish it in their scholarly journal (http://culturalintel.org/Journal.html) plus his paper has been read by several important people (i.e. members of the CIA, a police constable in London) AND they want to fly him out to DC for their next conference to present his paper! So my husband is pretty amazing and that's not even a biased opinion!
October
In a nutshell, our month of October: Mike played in Europe and I studied and did giant school projects. As happy as I am for him he got to go, I'm totally jealous and think it's highly unfair that I had to sit at home and study while he traveled Europe for almost the whole month! They went to Switzerland and ate cheese, to Belgium and sampled chocolates, and to France and went to EuroDisney. (They also visited business like NATO, WHO,the Red Cross, Huntsman Chemical but I think these places were all an excuse so they could do the fun things.) While there, they also had a free weekend where they could travel wherever they wanted so Mike and a group of students went to Rome. He said it was the most beautiful place he's ever seen and someday when we aren't so poor, he'll take me there :)
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| Mike outside the Palace at Versailles |
I studied and worked on papers and projects the whole month. I lived off McDonald's chicken nuggets and Little Caesar's pizza. I do love chicken nuggets even if they are horrendously bad for you, I love them, so that part wasn't so awful. One night I had a sleepover with my girl friends since Mikey was gone and we had a break from school. We went out to eat and made skookies (cookies baked in a skillet) and watched a scary movie and it was a blast. Even though I would never trade being married for the single life, I do miss sleepovers!
November
Thankfully this month was a little less hectic for the two of us, but still kept us busy. Mike was usually up all hours of the night writing and editing papers for his program and I was trying to go to bed early so I could be at the hospital at 430am. I've had more practice with IVs and while I'm definitely not a pro, I still feel pretty good about my skills, which is a good thing. I was shadowing outside the hospital for a clinical day and had someone I knew through church come in and at first I didn't recognize them since we were new to the ward. I realize who they were as I was preparing to start an IV, so I was very grateful they had good veins and I didn't look like a fool screwing it up!
Our ward boundaries changed and our apartment building was switched into a different ward which we were both way sad about. Both of us are shy and we finally felt like we were making friends, I was really enjoying my calling in the Relief Society Presidency and then they gave up the boot! We like our new ward although the dynamics are rather different since everyone is more established and some people live in real houses and not cinderblock prison cells! Mike is happy about the switch though because he is now the Sunday School President. Every since we've been married, his only calling has been ward missionary, which he likes, but is very difficult to fulfill in Utah.
November flew by but we were grateful we got to go to Orem to spend Thanksgiving with my aunt and uncle. I was super excited that my sister Alicia and her fam were able to drive down from Oregon. Like all aunties, I think my nephews and nieces are the cutest and her son is no exception! We went to Tucanos the day after Thanksgiving and had another delicious meal with too much to eat. We also played Nertz where for every round you lost you had to eat a Burtie Bott's jellybean. Luckily I only had to eat one and it was strawberry. Poor Mikey lost a lot a had to eat a rotten egg, moldy cheese and some other disgusting ones :) I felt bad after the first couple...
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| The lighting is not the best, but I love his turkey butt! |
Well that's all from us!
Jules!
ReplyDeleteI love love love hearing the update. You guy sound so busy but busy with all these great things!
Congrats Mike with that paper—that's super impressive. He really needs to hang out with Blake who just changed his major to Geospatial Intelligence (YES that is a major at BYU) so they can talk shop. He would probably love to read that paper!
I'm sorry your job is weak sauce. We both make books though...kinda.
This comment is getting long. I need to talk to you for reals!