Beginning of classes

Well, just like that the Delaware County Fair is in the books again. We'll have the carcass show tonight for the few animals which were purchased and slaughtered and that will be the official end for one more year. There's a lot of pictures from the fair showing up on the website, so check them out. Not only are there great photographers entering in the show (including my wife, who won 3rd place!), but it seems there were a lot of good pictures shot by fairgoers and submitted to the site throughout the week.

As we sort through all of Amanda's pictures, mine have been posted to the Picasa album. Suprisingly, Picasa has not been cooperating well with her Google-brother Blogger, so I'll include the link to the album so you can go there straightaway. In the end, only 25 pictures made my cut onto the site, but as I fill up that site I'm trying to weed out some of my less good shots, including a cut yesterday on some pictures which lacked clarity or subject focus and were just on there for sentimental reasons.

I also began a new photo website which I like less, but they tricked me into joining with a contest for the best geocached photos. I'm a sucker for contests like this so hopefully I'll win something, and if not I've at least put in a little ad online for the Delaware County Fair. Yahoo's Flickr is just a little bit too glitchy and gimmicky for me to use it much yet.

Class is started here on campus and so now i have to adjust to a new schedule once again. I have yet to remember that I TA a class in the morning, so luckily it's for my forgiving mother-in-law because I haven't showed up to it on time yet. Coffee gets me through the long days of adjustment and by November my pigs should start coming off trial. Looking through the fog of chaos to the future of lab work and predictable schedules. Well, here's to hoping anyways...

Busy Week

I'll warn you now that I'm going to have quite a few blogs on the way out in the next couple of days. I've been in the habit of writing blogs and keeping them on my desktop, publishing one a day as I see fit in order to allow me time to focus on writing, but also and more importantly time to focus on what is quickly becoming a more busy work schedule.

It's not that I'm actually doing any more physical work but I've had a lot of projects and the like which are open and running at the same time. All of these things have to come to a close soon, especially as I get ready to finish classes and head into the summer with research and literature reviews. I've been trying to wrap a lot of stuff up this week and the middle of yesterday afternoon finally marked the breaking point where I was mostly done with all pressing matters and I could collapse into temporary complacency on the rest of it. Last night we watched Megamind in honor of that and Amanda graciously sat through a movie which is not her type and smiled along with the dumb humor which I of course was very entertained by.

This week marks the submission of my IACUC proposal for starters which has been a much larger endeavor than I had originally supposed. For those of you who don't know, IACUC is an Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee and every research institution has one of these committees. The main purpose of the committee is to oversee research that deals with animals and ensure the animals' well-being by reviewing the protocols and making sure that the animals will be well cared far, that the research has a practical use in today's society, that animals will not be wasted needlessly in this research and that there isn't some crazy professor doing horrendous things to animals in the name of science. All of these criteria have some very specific reasoning behind them which focus on the 3 R's of research today: Replacement, Refinement and Reduction. For more on that I'll refer you to a parallel blog of mine where I've already commented on this. Let's just say that I spent over a month now refining my protocol and editing in many people's comments, ensuring the staff for the project were appropriately trained and certified and dotting my i's before it was turned in this week. I'm very glad to have it off my chest.

Second big thing on my plate this week was my last homework for my SAS class. I've got to say that apart from the homework, this hasn't felt like a class at all. I've enjoyed nearly every minute in class and out of it when I've had questions for the professor. He is a great guy and we are lucky to have him teaching here. I finished the homework and immediately after turning it in had regrets on the accuracy and appropriateness of my models; hopefully it went better than my gut feeling is always telling me.

Then the third big thing I had this week was a research seminar on the 3 main manuscripts leading to my research proposal. This was for a class and a satisfactory grade so while I wasn't super concerned about it, I have my own reputation to uphold as well and I want to be known for professionalism and a job well done in these things. I tried to throw a bit of pizazz in the presentation with imaging and using our department's new big screen TV rather than blurring my images through the old slide projector and I was really happy with how that turned out. But the presentation itself sometimes felt more like an interrogation session than a talk I was giving. It's something that I'll have to get used to during my time here pursuing my Masters, I think. Based on my impressions from Masters defenses around here they're just prepping for the big show in the future.

So with all of that off my plate, I can refocus on my other stuff obscuring my desk right now. Lauren and I still owe 4-H our final write-up from March and I have a final exam project for SAS along with finishing up data collection from elapsed video shots (~130 dvds in all!). I can't wait to be done with that, it feels like that's all I've been doing the past year.

Fast Weekend

The weekend, which consisted of a MSU victory with Dantonio in the hospital, and a crushing Buckeye victory over the failed EMU Hurons, passed way too quickly for me to look back and now that I'm late for my first class and waiting for my Meat Lab Group meeting at 11 I'm realizing just how fast the weekend flew back. It was really great to see Katherine starting to settle into her classes at OSU and I wish her good luck and it was also great to catch up with Liz and Chris this weekend.

This leads me to a video which I highly encourage you to watch. We saw it yesterday morning as Stephen Colbert made Sunday Headline News. He apparently also really ticked off some people at Fox, but you can find that footage on his website. Watch the video, even through the questions and notice the skillful way in which he does something witty without script and also still makes his somber point.



I'm headed off for now to update my other blog and get cracking on my Stats homework. Since I missed class this morning, I'm aiming to get my stats homework for the week out of the way so that I can better focus on attacking multitudes of Biochem questions and trying to get a good grade in that class.

Catching up

Because I’m without internet at my current location, but it’s so beautiful and cool here by Mirror Lake that I don’t want to leave, I am typing my blog now and posting it this evening.

Summary of my life this past week…

Amanda and I drove up and spent a night in Detroit, then passed over to East Lansing for an IHOP encounter and a whole day of hanging out with the Dani and her family at their tailgate. The Notre Dame/MSU game was fantastic, and stereotypically frustrating with more than enough penalties and turnovers. But this is the tradition, and we came out the victors as Amanda and I began the day of our 3-month anniversary driving back from the game. Thanks to Amanda for driving clear from Brighton to home and not falling asleep. We then went to the sheep show that night and while we were waiting for a urine sample that evening as Katherine’s Reserve Grand Champion Lamb was standing on the shearing stand, Amanda says to me “Happy 3 Months! I’m going home”. What a long day! Congratulations to both Katherine and Jacob (and Josiah) on a great fair.

County fair was in general a very hectic week, even worse than I had expected. Between classes starting, and my volunteering at Farm Science Review, and cattle clipping and our photo entries, combined with my photographer position with the fair board, there were few moments to slow down and enjoy things without feeling the urge to just fall asleep. Now that I’m at the end of the week, I’m still exhausted and struggling through the day. I’m taking a nap before my next class just to stay awake through it.

Classes have been interesting so far. My biochem class promises to be more challenging than my previous interaction with the subject but thankfully my determination to study is also doubled and I am sure I will make it through the quarter. However, I was short on any good impressions of class or my fellow students when I stumbled into class late on Wednesday morning. It took far too long for me to get across campus and I am proud to say that today I corrected my error and was 10 minutes early. Campus here is just so much bigger than I expected once you get on the ground and start walking places. The people here have been really rude and pretentious as well. I have yet to interact positively with any of my classmates who seem to think that God gave them the right to go first everywhere and take up three seats in a full classroom with their stuff piled everywhere. Give me a break.

Other than that, all is well here, and I will be spending my internet time tonight trying to update my other blog with a whole series of ag-related newsletters I’ve received since last week. Go Bucks and Spartans this weekend and try not to beat your opponents too badly, since you’re playing 2 of the worst teams in the NCAA.