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| I've been asked to update. I didn't realize just how long it had been since I last wrote. My last public entry is from September. My last private entry is from October. There have been so many times since then that I have had ideas of things to write, but then those ideas never quite made it onto here. I guess I forgot that absolutely none of them got here.
Perhaps a bit of a recap of the past few months, or even the past year, would be appropriate. It's been a tough year for me and for my family. Things were tough for me in my academic life and my personal life. And my grandmother's health began to rapidly decline. She was diagnosed with Alzheimer's a few months ago, and everything changed for her suddenly. I think that hearing the diagnosis really hurt her because she's decided that something's wrong with her and there's nothing she can do so she should just give up. It's sad to see and hear how she is doing.
My dad has been traveling to see her at least once a week, adding to his already incredibly busy schedule. My stepmother has started staying with her for several days at a time, taking care of her when no one closer is available. I am looking for a job near her with the idea that I could perhaps move in with her and take care of her whenever I'm not at work. The job search isn't going too well in general, and is going especially poorly for jobs in that area.
I applied several months ago for a government fellowship that would be a really great opportunity. I have to go to DC next week to take an exam to hopefully stay in the running for the fellowship. I thought I might have a decent shot at the fellowship until I saw the 181 pages filled with names of those who applied and were nominated by their schools.
If I can't find a really good job anyway, I'll probably try to just get a job at a restaurant or store near my grandmother's house, or maybe near my current apartment if she's not living at home by then. It would be really nice to just stay in the same place instead of having to move.
I do have some really great things to report. I am very happy in my new church. I've become involved in a Sunday school class, a Bible study, and the choir. I've met some really great people. Almost all of them are much older than I am, but I still fit in better there than in many groups of people my age. I did have a rough semester, but I managed to get through theory of statistics, one of the hardest classes of my life (perhaps just because I somehow overlooked the prerequisite--multivariable calculus--which I've never had) without hurting my GPA too much. I'm looking forward to what should be a much easier semester this spring.
I'm very far behind the thesis schedule I had set for myself but still seem to be ahead of many of my fellow students. I hope to get through my analysis and write up a brief draft by next week so that I can submit it for a paper competition, but I'm having trouble making myself do anything with my analysis because I'm just not sure how I need to play with my variables and so forth. I need to somehow just make myself do something and run with it. I can go back and make adjustments as needed after meeting with my advisor.
I am currently stuck at home. I had hoped to go to a Christmas party and then continue north to my apartment, taking back some Christmas gifts and getting some things I left behind last week. I hoped to stay there for a day or two to get some work done. Unfortunately, the snow has messed with my plans a lot this break. I got home a couple days later than anticipated. I didn't get to leave today. I may not be heading to Virginia for New Year's. I really hope that the snow doesn't keep me away from the fellowship assessment and ruin my chances of getting into the program.
I had actually hoped to have snow on Christmas because I have never had a white Christmas. All the snow melted where we were, though, and Christmas was rainy with temperatures in the fifties.
I'm afraid this entry sounds much more negative than it should. Really, I am currently pretty happy with life. I'm home with family right now, I just bought my first Christmas tree for $17.50 (I really like real trees but figure that a nice fake one is good for this stage of my life), Christmas went fairly smoothly (the whole family was together, and we weren't sure how everything would go with my grandmother), I am set to graduate after one semester that should be much easier than the last, I have found a wonderful church family and found a friendly back-up church for when the snow keeps me from getting to my usual church, and I feel extremely blessed.
Everything's changing right now. I'm learning to just make the best of what I've got and not dwell on everything that will never be the same.
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| Today's the second football game of the season. I can't say that I'm really all that excited. It's kind-of gross out, and I just want to sleep. I want to be excited though. I want to go to this game and to all the rest of the home games. I've got to get my money's worth before I graduate, and I know I'm not going to get it from basketball games (though perhaps I'll make it to at least one game this year, since I don't have a second job... of course, I could end up getting another job by then).
I don't think I could be too excited about anything right at this moment.
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| Life is pretty good right now. There's a lot going on, not all of it wonderful, but I'm feeling pretty good right now. I'm working on making my life less stressful and more worry-free. It's nice.
This semester's classes are a bit scary, but I'm sure I'll survive. It's nice to have a friend to help me through it all.
I got a new computer to replace the old tablet. It's nice and pretty.  Oh, and it works, so that's awesome. I got another tablet because I like having something very portable for class, and the whole tablet thing's nice for my notes since I have a bunch of symbols, diagrams, etc.
I really don't have much news. I usually don't. My life's really pretty boring, but I'm okay with that. Right now, I'm really okay with my life not going much of anywhere. I'm okay with being alone and with not knowing where I'll be in a year. Everything will be all right.
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| While I was a bit upset that I was going to have to miss the state fair for orientation today, I must say that orientation was a good experience for me. The second-year students were required to attend orientation again so that we could go over the time line for the year and such. We also got to meet the new students and the new faculty members. I had an opportunity to talk with the professor who will be the third member of my thesis committee. We are going to go with a non-traditional, four-person committee for my project so that I can get going with my research and still add a statistics guru later to fulfill the requirements for my unofficial minor.
The rest of today has been less than wonderful, but I've got to stay positive, right? At least the carbon monoxide detector is just beeping because of a malfunction and not because my apartment is filled with carbon monoxide. Right?
It's going to be a good year. I've got to make it a good year. Once I get through this semester, it'll all be smooth sailing. I need to get the thesis pretty much finished this fall so I'll be ready to defend early next semester. Then I'll just have two classes to go to. Piece of cake.
I guess I'll need to be working on securing a job too. Hmm. I think I'll go with the government. That'll still be here a year from now.
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| I'm in Wisconsin for a few days. My boss came into my cubicle a couple weeks ago and asked if I'd like to take off the week before school starts, since most GAs take that week off. So, I booked a flight. I hadn't planned on coming up here until January, but it's good that I went ahead and did it.
People are asking me how my vacation is going. It's really no vacation. It's going pretty well so far though. So far, Grandma hasn't made fun of my weight, pale skin, or political leanings. It's pretty good. She's only (sort-of) made fun of my face and my foot. Shwhatever.
We'll be flying back to Virginia (it's cheaper to fly in and out of Roanoke than anything in West Virginia) Thursday morning. I've got to be at orientation Friday morning. Ugh.
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