MIA

Sorry I've been missing. I'm really not good with keeping up on daily life blogs. Don't know if I'll revive this in the future.

The big move

This week I'm packing up my little studio for the big move. I'm moving in with Brian! I guess after nearly three years together and now that we're planning a wedding it's an ok idea. I don't even hate packing as much as I hate unpacking, when I have to find a place for everything. At least while I'm packing I get to get rid of things, reorganize, and so on.

Wedding updates

I bought my wedding dress! It's by Maggie Sottero who makes beautiful wedding gowns. This particular gown originally retailed for $1,000 but it is discontinued now so I got it NEW on eBay for $199!! The size is a bit large but even with alterations (which I'd have to get from any dress anyway), the total cost should still be less than $300!

It's a 2 piece dress which might sound weird, but is really nice (you'll see) with a corset top that just overlaps the skirt. It is satin, has a sweetheart neckline and sparkly beading around the edges. It's simple and classic and beautiful, but not overdone. The best part is that it is not white (or any variation of white such as "ivory"). It is a completely different color which is what makes it so special. But you won't get to see photos because it will be a surprise for the wedding day. For now, use your imagination.

4th Fest

So now 4th of July is already past, which seems to mark the descent of summer. There's not much left now until classes start again in August.

I bought a new 28-200mm zoom lens (used, on eBay) just in time to get some fireworks shots. They turned out rather abstract.

View them all HERE.

Wedding: August 1, 2009

Brian and I finalized our wedding date and location: August 1, 2009 at the Tussey Lodge. We looked at a number of places such as the Nittany Lion Inn, the Penn Stater hotel, the Gamble Mill restaurant in Bellefonte, and some others. The two hotels were just so..."wedding package." These are the decorations, this is when we cut the cake, this is how long the reception lasts, here's where the photographer takes your photos. Basically, here's how we'll make your wedding like all the rest! So we decided on the Lodge because it's up on Tussey Mountain, has lots of windows over the valley and hills, has a big deck out back, and we get the whole thing to ourselves that evening. There is a kitchen, cooks, servers, and a bar on site. They don't decorate the place for you which I love because it lets us do whatever we want, which is not to hire a florist and have them make the place all flowery.

One big step done. Yes!

Montreal

I just got back from Montreal last night for the ICA conference. When I went to Florence I seemed to have a ton of time to just wander around the city. I walked around for 2-3 hours a day and made it to all sorts of areas. But I hardly saw Montreal at all, which was disappointing. I only saw Old Montreal at night and didn't even make it to the water. But it seems cool and I should go back. I knew they spoke French there but I didn't realize everything was in French and then subtitled in English. Greetings always started in French ("Bonjour, hi"), and if signs only had one language it was always French. Oh, the picture to the right is of the view I had from my 17th floor hotel room! Pretty great right?

So I didn't get to wander around much because I somehow was always back at the conference, but it was a good conference. Met many important people, received a great compliment on our research by a leader in the field, and saw some interesting new work.

In 2010 this conference is in Singapore! So hopefully I'll be there. And my advisor (who is Indian) said that sure we could just go up to India then too and he'd show me his old town. He better not have been joking because I would love, love, love to go to India.

Over the next few days I will continue to add my photos HERE.

Academic burnout

Classes ended 2 weeks ago, yet all my work carries on. This won't be a restful summer at all, but I really need some rest. I've been going with classes non-stop (that is, including both summer sessions) since Fall 2006 and this is my first semester without class since. But with so much funded and group and independent research to finish and my goals of having a dissertation topic by Fall, this summer won't provide much relief!

I still feel so mentally tired from this last semester that I can't get anything done lately. Nothing works and nothing helps anymore: not caffeine, not naps, refreshing jogs, TV time, getting up early....I don't know what to do right now but take the chance to focus on other things. But my advisor will still expect a draft of this Presence conference submission before I go to bed tomorrow night.

Thursday several of us are driving to Montreal for the biggest conference in our field where three of us will present our study of Facebook as a social support venue. Hopefully I'll also get to see the city! I wish the trip wasn't right now because I feel like I've been traveling so much; I'd like to just stay home for a weekend. I'd also like to see less money moving around so I could get a grasp on where my savings for the wedding are.

Also, Brian starts an internship at Merck in New Jersey next week so he's moving there for the summer this weekend. What stupid timing. I wish he could just live here for a summer finally. This of course also stifles our wedding planning a bit--we still haven't even picked a location for the reception.

The only thing to do now is go to bed and see if I can get up at 6am to work in the coherent hours of sunrise.

I finally met the in-laws!

This past weekend Brian and I drove down to Williamsburg, VA to meet up with his parents who flew there from Dallas, TX. Why Williamsburg? I'm not sure. But we went to Colonial Williamsburg which is a permanent reenactment of Williamsburg circa 1774. As you can see in the picture on the right, people in costume go about their daily lives in the town as though it were still during the time of the Revolutionary War and put on shows in the street (on the left are Brian's parents, watching). You can also hear important figures of that time, such as George Washington, speak about the current government. Plus there are shops and restaurants, all kept in the theme.

Meeting my future in-laws went well, much better than Brian or I had expected! Of course some talk of the wedding came up including talk about how his mother would like it to be. It was a time to just smile and nod and then know that we're going to do what we want. But that was a minor moment at dinner; overall they really seemed to take great interest in me and were quite gracious hosts. All in all a good weekend.

More pictures from Colonial Williamsburg HERE

Surviving my teaching semester

I just graded my students' final reports and tomorrow I will be submitting their final grades. Still strange to have authority over a college class. But the important thing is I made it all the way through a semester of my own class! I almost can't believe it. There were days when I thought I should just have someone else take over my class. Nothing was ever going badly but I'd have moments where I realized I had no authority to teach advertising/public relations research! If only I could have taught a media effects research class, I would have been so comfortable.

Ah well, I made it through. My students were good and all received good grades in the end.

I still don't know if I'm teaching this again in Fall but I assume so. And hope so! I know I wouldn't want to do this level of weekly preparation all over again for a different class!

Spring!

Spring has finally, finally arrived, and the tulips are out! That's all. One week left of the semester, and then we're off to Canada's wine country. Then? Summer work and research. Someday I will graduate!

Florence

I made it back from Florence the other day and have finally finished putting up all of my photos. Yes, there are over 200 of them, which I know is a lot, but I had so much to document! As usually, the story of my trip is told through the photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/acidcookie/sets/72157604500157784/

We're engaged!

Last week Brian and I went to Disney World for spring break. On Wednesday, March 12, he surprised me with a reservation at the restaurant inside of Cinderella's castle--before he had told me they had no reservations left. Then, after dinner, I received a plate with red rose petals and a glass slipper with the ring inside. There was a pretty dessert plate, champagne glasses, a photographer, and the Fairy Godmother included us in her show. Of course the whole restaurant clapped when I said "yes!"

The middle stone in the ring is a pink sapphire, the others are diamonds. This is definitely a fancier ring than I would have imagined, but I love it!

High turbidity

In Oregon we often had stormy weather: lots of rain, wind, trees swaying, branches flying around, mudslides. Here in Pennsylvania the weather usually doesn't feel so stormy, but it causes a lot of grief. All winter we had our normal snow, ice, sleet, freezing rain, glaze (that's a new one for me), and the always popular "wintry mix." This always interferes with any means of getting out of the house.

The other day though, it rained enough that with all the water pouring down, and the several inches of snow that it melted, we had a flooding problem. Apparently. I didn't see any flooding, but somehow this flooding made our water unsafe for drinking. "High turbidity" is the problem, and water is unavailable all across campus. It's always something with the weather here.

Lunar Eclipse @ 22:31 EST

There was a full lunar eclipse last night. I managed to capture a decent picture of it in progress. I know that there are closer, more detailed pictures out there, but I only have a standard 18-55mm lens right now, so I think this shot is not half bad. I guess the brightest point diagonally down and left of the moon is Saturn.

Italy!

More news: Another paper got accepted to the Computer-Human Interaction conference which is in ... ITALY! Assuming funding goes through I will be going to Florence, Italy in April!

Montreal

A paper that two other students and I submitted to the International Communications Association (ICA) has been accepted! So, unless something comes up that prevents me from doing so, I'll be traveling to Montreal in May to present! Finally, I'll make it up to Canada. And, one of the leading researchers in the field of computer-mediated communication (Joe Walther) whose work I have read and written about quite a bit, is the leader of our presentation panel, so I will get to meet him! And lots of other researchers whose work I know too, I'm sure. My adviser is the chair of the division I'm in so he's already told us that as his advisees we'll have extra duties at the conference.

Teaching

Class started again yesterday, and today I took my first shot at having my own class. I just introduced myself, went over the syllabus (usual first day business), had the students fill out a little survey about themselves to aid in my team creation, and then had them do an activity. They played Bingo, the kind where you have to find someone who matches what it says in the each square, for example having to find someone who "has lived in another country" or "who favorite color is orange." I'm sure I said and did stupid, nervous things, but at least I wore a suit and made myself presentable. And I was prepared. Those are my main goals right now: be prepared, be presentable. I have the first lecture and quiz all set to go for Thursday, whew!

Happy new year! Still in grad school

This comic (from PhD comics) pretty much sums up how my new year feels. I went to Maryjo's and Lance's house in Lancaster and then came home to work on a draft of a conference paper. Today I had a meeting with my advisor, and have to send him an updated version of this draft by tonight. Plus I really need to start writing the lectures and assignments for my class. Absolutely no fun there.

It's snowing still/again, and now that the holidays are over we've moved into the standard post-holiday bitter, dead cold. Thanksgiving is a tease with occasional 50-degree days, and even earlier in December it's not so bad. Then we come back and it's hard to bear. It may be sunny, but the "feels like" temperature is 8 degrees right now, it's windy, and it's so dry and cold that even the snow just blows up in the wind like dust. Just three more months of this....

Finally, some content again

Most of my life is kept on unofficial record through the photos I take, so here is a little tour of recent events:

In October I flew to Oregon for mom's 65th birthday where I also got to see family from Germany! See all the pictures HERE.

In November I flew to Miami and played for Maryjo and Lance's wedding.

Since I was the one playing the music, I didn't get any pictures of the ceremony, but there are a ton of professional ones on the way. There are even a few shots of me warming up on the beach by myself. It was almost like a photoshoot--it's not everyday that I put on a nice dress and play my violin in the wind on a tropical beach. I'll be sure to share those when I get them.


As always, I have been more busy than I could imagine with school. My advisor has a lot of things lined up for me! And next semester I start teaching my own class: research methods for advertising and public relations students. I'm teaching in the IST (Information Sciences & Technology) building which is one of the newest and definitely the "coolest" building on campus.

Since my area of research is so new media technology focused, I spend some time in their school where they have a whole field of human-computer interaction. I took one class there this semester and will be taking two more there next semester.

Little things...Our symphony played our annual family concert recently which is always silly and fun. I saw a Central PA interpretation of The Nutcracker which mostly followed the story but started it in a barn and added some Amish folk. Brian and I made a trip to Hersheypark for their Christmas festivities.

Otherwise, I'm just continuing to take in Pennsylvania life:

So long

As usual, I've done a terrible job keeping this blog updated! I will write some posts soon about what has been going on, like...

-my trip to Portland in October
-playing at Maryjo's wedding in Miami last month
-symphony concerts
-school updates, like teaching next semester!
-upcoming trips

Snow hills

It has been unseasonably warm here still. Yesterday I looked at the weather for Portland, which appears to be in the 50-60° range, while today it is a relatively sweltering 85° here in Central PA. Autumn is my favorite season and I like it to be appropriately filled with chilly (but sunny) days, and a thick layer of orange/red/brown leaves on the ground. Warmth here is always accompanied by a disgusting feeling of sweat in the air, so while I may appreciate a good heat in the west, I find it rather unappealing here. It almost makes me look forward to days like the one in the picture (February 2007).