So, I guess we survived the last week of school and finals week. It was pretty intense at the time, but it all seems like a dream now. I got all my classes finished last week. Even though I didn’t have any classes after Mon., I spent many, many hours every day trying to finish a research paper on Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge (TPACK) which is a framework for technology integration into teaching. I have read and studied and coded and analyzed and discussed TPACK for enough hours that I don’t really care to learn anymore about it ever again! But perhaps that will change in a few weeks after I’ve given myself a break. I was working a few research hours with a professor and another grad student on all of the TPACK information, but the grad student moved away and is getting married and I’m going to start working on my master’s project, so I don’t know if I’ll do any more research for that professor anymore. It was a really good experience though.
I was also able to finish my statistics final and finish the final loose ends of the Church Museum Department project. One of the people in the department that we presented to sent us a really nice email about the project. In part she said, “I had high expectations when I recommended to Marie that she contact you…and I want you to know that you far exceeded anything I had hoped or dreamed that you would create for us. . . . What you have created is a masterpiece…and I was so amazed by how perfectly it was aligned with every ideal that our department is striving for (and everything I hope to someday be able to accomplish). . . Thank you for being willing to put so much into supporting us and striving to create the very best that the Church History department can offer the world.” It felt good to receive such high compliments after so many long hours of work!
This week I spent many hours grading, grading, and more grading, but I am now done and ready to enter all my grades into the system tomorrow. Yippee! Fortunately, I was able to do a few fun things in the midst of all my grading.
Monday night Jason and I went to a dinner celebration at Susan and Gerrit Gong’s home. We had a little over half of our design team there from the Church History project and we had a delicious dinner. Dr. Gibbons even came, which was fun. After dinner, Susan got out a set of hand chimes and we played “Come, Come Ye Saints.” I thought it was really fun and I got really excited about it.
Tuesday I went to the Tulip Festival at Thanksgiving point with Jason, Sara Moulton, and her roommate Kristen. It was beautiful, but I must admit that I was a little disappointed because almost half of the tulips had not bloomed and in some areas I just had to imagine how pretty it would be in a couple more weeks. The weather was perfect though and I managed to get my first sunburn of the season. Fortunately it wasn’t really that bad.
We went to the Tulip Festival on Tuesday because Sara had major hip surgery on Thursday. Wednesday I went over to help her do her cleaning checks (in return for her expert editing on my TPACK paper). I cleaned out their apartment fridge and freezer and both of them were disgusting! I think it’s been a year or two . . . or four of five since that thing has been cleaned and it was pretty satisfying to leave it behind spotless.
Thursday Jason and I played some racquetball and then Kristilyn, James, and Grant came to visit us in Provo. We played a little in our apartment, played some more at a nearby park, and then topped it off with some Arby’s sandwiches, fries, and milkshakes. It was fun to talk with Kristilyn and see her adorable boys.
Jason’s brother Steve graduated in Accounting from BYU so we went to the convocations on Friday…well at least half of it. It was really long, and after an hour of talks and everything they finally started reading the long list of graduates. Fortunately I married into a family at the beginning of the alphabet, and since he was getting his masters, he was about the 18th in line. After he walked across the stage at the Marriott center, Jason and I left to go visit Sara at the hospital. Apparently they were still reading names an hour and a half later!!! I can’t say that I’m sad that we missed it. ☺ We went over to Steve and Kirsten’s that night for pizza and cake to celebrate.
So, if you’re wondering about Jason’s finals, he finished as well. He’s such a good studier that he likes to save his finals until the end, so out of the four finals he needed to take, he took three of them on the last day of finals, and two of them after 8:00pm that night—He really didn’t mean to wait THAT long on the last two but it somehow ended up working out that way. In any case, he is done, done, done, and enjoying the lightened load of stress. He will just continue working at the coding lab this summer and can work up to 40 hours a week if he can handle working there that many hours a day. ☺ I, on the other hand, just found out the class that I was planning on taking Spring was canceled, so I guess I won’t have anymore school either until Summer term at the end of June. I’m still planning on working for Dr. Rich 20 hours a week, but I may see if I can pick up some other work hours for the next couple of months.
One last thing, I finally got my hair cut again on Friday. I lost both people I knew cut hair to having a baby and the other to getting married, so I got desperate enough and called a hair school. I usually have pretty good luck with hair cuts (I can’t say the same for hair coloring!!!) but I guess my luck ran out. Two hours later I walked out with much shorter hair—some of it much, much shorter than I would have liked! Oh well, it will grow back right? Some of you may even say that you like my hair, but you don’t know what I’m hiding. ☺
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Sunday, April 12, 2009
April 12
Happy Easter!!! It has been a really good Easter, and one that I’ve focused a lot more on the atonement and the resurrection than I have in some years past. Part of that probably has to do with the Passover dinner that Jason and I went to last night at BYU. It was hosted by Dr. Victor Ludlow. We were there for 5 hours, but we sure came away knowing a lot more about Jewish traditions and culture. I think we both wished we could have come away with that knowledge in only 3 hours.
I got a call asking me to play the piano in sacrament meeting today about 10 minutes before we left for church. I was a little nervous about playing Easter hymns without any practice but it turned out okay. . .except for the introduction of the first song. It’s the worst when you make your big mistakes when no one is singing!
The couple of weeks have been especially busy with the end of the semester so close. We’ve both been up a few nights or early mornings (in Jason’s case) to get are homework done. Of course it’s at busy times like this that unexpected things happen. The unexpected in this case happened at Jason’s basketball game. Usually I don’t go, but I decided I wanted to this time. I was asked to keep track of the points on the scoreboard for the game. Our team was ahead with a couple of minutes to go. Jason had the ball and the other team tried to foul him to stop the clock., and boy did they foul him. I guess it was determined later that someone’s teeth made contact with his head. Anyway, within seconds the blood was running down his head and he had to leave. He actually didn’t feel much pain or anything and wouldn’t have known he was bleeding without the ref telling him. I was going with him out of the gym, but the sight of the blood was getting to me and Jason could tell, so he just told me to stay there. He started jogging to the locker room, but didn’t make it because he started feeling lightheaded and didn’t want to faint. We ended up going to the urgent care that night and he got three staples in his head and a tetanus shot. Neither of us had been to a doctor in years, so it was an interesting learning experience. We definitely got an April Fool’s joke on us.
Last weekend we went to Jason’s mission reunion up in Salt Lake. Jason really enjoyed it and I met a lot of his companions and friends from the mission. Jason was excited to hear that his mission president was called into the 1st Quorem of the Seventy the next morning—Michael Ringwood. I would say one of the most interesting things of the night was talking to Elder Residori who was the financial secretary when Jason finished his mission. He remembered Jason but couldn’t remember how, then later that night he came up to him and said he remembered why he remembered him. Jason had a little extra money that he didn’t spend during his mission so he turned it back in to Elder Residori before he left. Elder Residori told me that the amount equaled about $1500 in US currency and they only received about $200 a month! Apparently the mission used that money to re-wallpaper some of the apartments in his mission that badly needed it. I hope that paints a little bit of a picture in your head about how frugal my husband is—and I thought I was frugal, but he has got me on that one.
General Conference was great! We watched the Sat. sessions here and Jason invited a non-member Korean friend over to watch the afternoon session with us. Unfortunately he couldn’t understand a whole, but we hope he understood enough to feel the spirit.
Sat. night we spent the night at the Burninghams in Alpine and ate doughnuts and played Ticket to Ride. We watched conference with them in the morning and ate a delicious lunch and then drove to Mom and Dad’s for the afternoon session and another delicious meal.
Well, not much to report other than that. We finished up the last full week of classes and I taught both of my classes for the last time this semester. I enjoyed teaching both of those classes and I really enjoyed my students. I gave my final presentation to the Church History Department on Friday as well and that went really well. I’ll have to show it to you sometime.
I got a call asking me to play the piano in sacrament meeting today about 10 minutes before we left for church. I was a little nervous about playing Easter hymns without any practice but it turned out okay. . .except for the introduction of the first song. It’s the worst when you make your big mistakes when no one is singing!
The couple of weeks have been especially busy with the end of the semester so close. We’ve both been up a few nights or early mornings (in Jason’s case) to get are homework done. Of course it’s at busy times like this that unexpected things happen. The unexpected in this case happened at Jason’s basketball game. Usually I don’t go, but I decided I wanted to this time. I was asked to keep track of the points on the scoreboard for the game. Our team was ahead with a couple of minutes to go. Jason had the ball and the other team tried to foul him to stop the clock., and boy did they foul him. I guess it was determined later that someone’s teeth made contact with his head. Anyway, within seconds the blood was running down his head and he had to leave. He actually didn’t feel much pain or anything and wouldn’t have known he was bleeding without the ref telling him. I was going with him out of the gym, but the sight of the blood was getting to me and Jason could tell, so he just told me to stay there. He started jogging to the locker room, but didn’t make it because he started feeling lightheaded and didn’t want to faint. We ended up going to the urgent care that night and he got three staples in his head and a tetanus shot. Neither of us had been to a doctor in years, so it was an interesting learning experience. We definitely got an April Fool’s joke on us.
Last weekend we went to Jason’s mission reunion up in Salt Lake. Jason really enjoyed it and I met a lot of his companions and friends from the mission. Jason was excited to hear that his mission president was called into the 1st Quorem of the Seventy the next morning—Michael Ringwood. I would say one of the most interesting things of the night was talking to Elder Residori who was the financial secretary when Jason finished his mission. He remembered Jason but couldn’t remember how, then later that night he came up to him and said he remembered why he remembered him. Jason had a little extra money that he didn’t spend during his mission so he turned it back in to Elder Residori before he left. Elder Residori told me that the amount equaled about $1500 in US currency and they only received about $200 a month! Apparently the mission used that money to re-wallpaper some of the apartments in his mission that badly needed it. I hope that paints a little bit of a picture in your head about how frugal my husband is—and I thought I was frugal, but he has got me on that one.
General Conference was great! We watched the Sat. sessions here and Jason invited a non-member Korean friend over to watch the afternoon session with us. Unfortunately he couldn’t understand a whole, but we hope he understood enough to feel the spirit.
Sat. night we spent the night at the Burninghams in Alpine and ate doughnuts and played Ticket to Ride. We watched conference with them in the morning and ate a delicious lunch and then drove to Mom and Dad’s for the afternoon session and another delicious meal.
Well, not much to report other than that. We finished up the last full week of classes and I taught both of my classes for the last time this semester. I enjoyed teaching both of those classes and I really enjoyed my students. I gave my final presentation to the Church History Department on Friday as well and that went really well. I’ll have to show it to you sometime.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
March 28
Well, another week has come and gone. For me it doesn’t feel like anything has really happened out of the ordinary, but you can be the judge of that, and by ordinary I mean the grind of school and work that suddenly intensifies at the end of the semester creating it's own kind of Madness.
Monday we had a Burningham FHE and celebrated Steve and Jeff’s birthday at Jason’s parents’ house in Alpine. We really tried to pack it in that day because we left our apartment at quarter to 8:00 in the morning and didn’t get home until close to 11:00. Fortunately that included a full day of classes, work, an appointment with the chiropractors, laundry, most of our taxes, dinner, and FHE. It was a busy day, but we got a lot done! We finished our taxes the next night and have a pretty big tax refund coming which is nice since it might have to cover my tuition for the next while.
Tuesday I had an appointment with the dentist and was very glad to hear the report that I didn’t have any cavities, especially since we don’t have any dental insurance right now. Jason went in last week with the same good report, so we’re good for another six months.
Friday morning I had a pretty important presentation for my Instructional Design class. We presented our prototype to our client (The Church History Department). It took many, many hours to prepare, but the presentation went really well and all the people who came to see the presentation (5 people) plus my professor were really pleased. That's makes me really glad because hopefully I can put those may extra hours back into teaching since my classes that I teach start back up this week and I have a very large and important paper due in two weeks that really needs some attention.
Friday night we babysat for Jeff and Sally’s three kids and Saturday I studied about four hours for a Statistics exam with some girls in my class. It’s funny because I was hoping to be using more math since it seems like Statistics is a math class, but really we’re learning all the theory behind why and how the statistics work in research and learning how to program it into a statistical software called SPSS, and let’s just say that the computer part is by far the easiest part. Oh well, I definitely know I’m learning something, otherwise my essay tests wouldn’t be 4-5 pages single spaced.
That night Jason and I went to a BYU men’s volleyball game which was fun to watch considering all the things we’re learning in our volleyball class--which reminds me, I need to take a written test for that class this week. :) BYU played UCLA and won in close matches 4-1.
Today was our fast Sunday. We got a new Relief Society Presidency today and they seem like they’ll be a great group to have. We also had a ward dinner after church to break our fast that was very yummy as well.
Monday we had a Burningham FHE and celebrated Steve and Jeff’s birthday at Jason’s parents’ house in Alpine. We really tried to pack it in that day because we left our apartment at quarter to 8:00 in the morning and didn’t get home until close to 11:00. Fortunately that included a full day of classes, work, an appointment with the chiropractors, laundry, most of our taxes, dinner, and FHE. It was a busy day, but we got a lot done! We finished our taxes the next night and have a pretty big tax refund coming which is nice since it might have to cover my tuition for the next while.
Tuesday I had an appointment with the dentist and was very glad to hear the report that I didn’t have any cavities, especially since we don’t have any dental insurance right now. Jason went in last week with the same good report, so we’re good for another six months.
Friday morning I had a pretty important presentation for my Instructional Design class. We presented our prototype to our client (The Church History Department). It took many, many hours to prepare, but the presentation went really well and all the people who came to see the presentation (5 people) plus my professor were really pleased. That's makes me really glad because hopefully I can put those may extra hours back into teaching since my classes that I teach start back up this week and I have a very large and important paper due in two weeks that really needs some attention.
Friday night we babysat for Jeff and Sally’s three kids and Saturday I studied about four hours for a Statistics exam with some girls in my class. It’s funny because I was hoping to be using more math since it seems like Statistics is a math class, but really we’re learning all the theory behind why and how the statistics work in research and learning how to program it into a statistical software called SPSS, and let’s just say that the computer part is by far the easiest part. Oh well, I definitely know I’m learning something, otherwise my essay tests wouldn’t be 4-5 pages single spaced.
That night Jason and I went to a BYU men’s volleyball game which was fun to watch considering all the things we’re learning in our volleyball class--which reminds me, I need to take a written test for that class this week. :) BYU played UCLA and won in close matches 4-1.
Today was our fast Sunday. We got a new Relief Society Presidency today and they seem like they’ll be a great group to have. We also had a ward dinner after church to break our fast that was very yummy as well.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
March 22
I don’t think this letter will be long, but I’ll give you an update. School and work are going well. Jason decided to take a “promotion”(?) in his work from being a coder to a group leader in the coding lab. He gets a raise and more responsibilities in the lab, but I think it will be a good thing since he generally likes what he does.
Thursday I went to an enrichment and we learned how to make wan tons and egg rolls from scratch from a girl who grew up in Hong Kong. They tasted really good, but it took so much work, I would rather just go to a restaurant every once in a while and eat them there.
Friday I went to a BYU v. U gymnastics meet with Sara. I really like gymnastics so it didn’t matter that we totally lost. The U has a great team, so it was fun to watch them perform. Afterwards I watched a movie with Jason called “Fireproof.” It was really good about a fireman and his wife that were really struggling with their marriage and almost got a divorce until the guy’s Dad made him promise not to file until he tried this “program” for 40 days which helped him treat his wife better and find the need for religion. We really liked it and it had a good message.
Saturday Jason went and played football with his elder’s quorum while I tried to do work and homework. Jason didn’t really feel like doing his homework, so we ended up playing games and eating pizza for awhile that night.
Today we went to the Draper Temple dedication at our stake center. We have late church and Sacrament Mtg. is late, so when we had Sacrament Mtg., that’s really all we did. We sang one verse of the opening hymn, had an opening prayer, conducted business, the priesthood administered the sacrament, and then had a closing prayer. It seemed pretty weird to be so short.
We all had to leave and then come back 30 minutes later for the temple dedication. The dedication was really nice and I enjoyed hearing the talks from the General Authorities.
Thursday I went to an enrichment and we learned how to make wan tons and egg rolls from scratch from a girl who grew up in Hong Kong. They tasted really good, but it took so much work, I would rather just go to a restaurant every once in a while and eat them there.
Friday I went to a BYU v. U gymnastics meet with Sara. I really like gymnastics so it didn’t matter that we totally lost. The U has a great team, so it was fun to watch them perform. Afterwards I watched a movie with Jason called “Fireproof.” It was really good about a fireman and his wife that were really struggling with their marriage and almost got a divorce until the guy’s Dad made him promise not to file until he tried this “program” for 40 days which helped him treat his wife better and find the need for religion. We really liked it and it had a good message.
Saturday Jason went and played football with his elder’s quorum while I tried to do work and homework. Jason didn’t really feel like doing his homework, so we ended up playing games and eating pizza for awhile that night.
Today we went to the Draper Temple dedication at our stake center. We have late church and Sacrament Mtg. is late, so when we had Sacrament Mtg., that’s really all we did. We sang one verse of the opening hymn, had an opening prayer, conducted business, the priesthood administered the sacrament, and then had a closing prayer. It seemed pretty weird to be so short.
We all had to leave and then come back 30 minutes later for the temple dedication. The dedication was really nice and I enjoyed hearing the talks from the General Authorities.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Happy St. Patrick's Day
Well, I’ve let a couple of weeks get past without writing, although if you realize where I am in the semester, it’s not too surprising. I just wanted to hit a few of the highlights
A couple of weeks ago (March 3) we had our last racquetball game. We played really well and won the first game. I served the point that should have been the game point on the second game, but after a few dives on the floor, we ended up barely loosing and again in the third game as well. The bad news is that we lost when we could have won, but the good news is that we have a little more free time to get our homework done.
A few days after that we went to the Draper Temple open house with a couple of Korean friends and Jason’s parents. One of the Koreans spoke almost no English, and the other Korean wasn’t a member of the church, so we were glad they had each other to talk to. The Temple is beautiful and it was a good experience to be able to go.
Friday we watched “A More Perfect Union,” a movie produced by BYU about the forming and signing of the constitution for Jason’s American Heritage class. We both liked the movie and I was just glad to have an excuse to watch a movie with Jason since he doesn’t usually like to watch them with so many other things that need to get done.
Saturday night we went to the last home BYU basketball game against Air Force with Jason’s family. We barely beat Air Force, but it was a nail-biting, low scoring game. After the game I cut Jason’s hair. I don’t know that I do the best job, but he doesn’t seem to notice any big mistakes and it’s always nice to save a little money.
We were also really excited that night to find out about Anna Renae. Congrats to Neal and Katrina.
Last Tuesday Jason and I both came down with something pretty awful as far as being sick. Early that morning Jason woke up and started throwing up, and an hour later I followed suit. We took turns all morning sharing the bathroom intermixed with sleeping in between. Jason felt better by the afternoon, but I pretty much slept the entire day and night and felt better when I woke up Wednesday. I slept about a total of 33 hours or something like that. I don’t remember the last time I’ve been so sick to my stomach, I hope it’s another long time before I am again. It’s definitely not fun. There must be something going around because when I mentioned it to a group of girls in my ward, they said all of them had been throwing up in the last week as well and none of us had seen each other.
As a result of being sick, both Jason and I spent the next few days getting caught up with work and schoolwork. We didn’t even see much of each other, let alone talk or eat together.
We spent part of the weekend looking at a house and condos that Jason’s dad was talking to us about buying since it’s a good time to buy and he’s looking to invest some money, but ultimately we didn’t feel good about moving, so we’ll probably be here a while longer.
I do have to share one embarrassing moment from a few weeks ago though. I usually forget about these moments if I can help it, but this was pretty funny so I thought I would share. I was helping out Dr. Graham with a teacher technology in-service class in the McKay computer lab that has a separate room as part of the lab. The separate room is mostly glass so people can see in and see out. Anyway, the lights were off and I was standing at the back of the room by the door talking to Dr. Graham to excuse myself early since they didn’t need my help anymore. I turned to leave and walked right into a glass panel that is right next to the door. Fortunately I didn’t draw too much attention to myself since I was at the back, but Dr. Graham was standing right there and got me pointed in the right direction. I can’t help but laugh at how funny that must have looked!
A couple of weeks ago (March 3) we had our last racquetball game. We played really well and won the first game. I served the point that should have been the game point on the second game, but after a few dives on the floor, we ended up barely loosing and again in the third game as well. The bad news is that we lost when we could have won, but the good news is that we have a little more free time to get our homework done.
A few days after that we went to the Draper Temple open house with a couple of Korean friends and Jason’s parents. One of the Koreans spoke almost no English, and the other Korean wasn’t a member of the church, so we were glad they had each other to talk to. The Temple is beautiful and it was a good experience to be able to go.
Friday we watched “A More Perfect Union,” a movie produced by BYU about the forming and signing of the constitution for Jason’s American Heritage class. We both liked the movie and I was just glad to have an excuse to watch a movie with Jason since he doesn’t usually like to watch them with so many other things that need to get done.
Saturday night we went to the last home BYU basketball game against Air Force with Jason’s family. We barely beat Air Force, but it was a nail-biting, low scoring game. After the game I cut Jason’s hair. I don’t know that I do the best job, but he doesn’t seem to notice any big mistakes and it’s always nice to save a little money.
We were also really excited that night to find out about Anna Renae. Congrats to Neal and Katrina.
Last Tuesday Jason and I both came down with something pretty awful as far as being sick. Early that morning Jason woke up and started throwing up, and an hour later I followed suit. We took turns all morning sharing the bathroom intermixed with sleeping in between. Jason felt better by the afternoon, but I pretty much slept the entire day and night and felt better when I woke up Wednesday. I slept about a total of 33 hours or something like that. I don’t remember the last time I’ve been so sick to my stomach, I hope it’s another long time before I am again. It’s definitely not fun. There must be something going around because when I mentioned it to a group of girls in my ward, they said all of them had been throwing up in the last week as well and none of us had seen each other.
As a result of being sick, both Jason and I spent the next few days getting caught up with work and schoolwork. We didn’t even see much of each other, let alone talk or eat together.
We spent part of the weekend looking at a house and condos that Jason’s dad was talking to us about buying since it’s a good time to buy and he’s looking to invest some money, but ultimately we didn’t feel good about moving, so we’ll probably be here a while longer.
I do have to share one embarrassing moment from a few weeks ago though. I usually forget about these moments if I can help it, but this was pretty funny so I thought I would share. I was helping out Dr. Graham with a teacher technology in-service class in the McKay computer lab that has a separate room as part of the lab. The separate room is mostly glass so people can see in and see out. Anyway, the lights were off and I was standing at the back of the room by the door talking to Dr. Graham to excuse myself early since they didn’t need my help anymore. I turned to leave and walked right into a glass panel that is right next to the door. Fortunately I didn’t draw too much attention to myself since I was at the back, but Dr. Graham was standing right there and got me pointed in the right direction. I can’t help but laugh at how funny that must have looked!
Sunday, March 1, 2009
March 1st
It’s hard to believe that it’s March already. And based on how great today’s weather was, I’m predicting snow at the end of the month. You know what we learned in 1st grade, in like a lamb, out like a lion. Was it just me or did you make the picture of the lamb with cottonballs and the lion with the curled up paper strips on the pencil for the lion's mane to hang up in the school hallway?
We had our stake conference this weekend. It went pretty well. We had Elder Teixera from the 1st Quorum of Seventy come visit our stake. He is a pretty dynamic speaker, so it was interesting to listen to him. He talked a lot about making your family your priority and having the faith to do as the Lord asks. He also reminded us of some wise financial council such as living by a budget and spending less than you make. We also went to the CES fireside in the Marriott Center for Elder Hale’s address. He talked about the importance of standing on high ground and not giving way to the temptation to lower our standards. We took a Korean woman with us who is here visiting the United States for a couple of months. We also invited to go with us to the Draper Temple Open House on Thursday. She is a member of the church, but she doesn’t speak much English and she likes to experience what the church has to offer here.
We spent the weekend going to Stake Conference meetings, going to the temple, going to Enrichment, and going to the fireside. I must say it was a pretty spiritual weekend, which is a good thing since I had to take a long Stats test on Saturday amidst the other activities. Several hours and several typed pages later, I feel pretty good about it, so I hope it turns out okay.
I taught for the last week this week before my students go into the Elementary schools. It’s a really good thing too, because I’ve been putting off some projects that really need my attention now. I’m hoping to get some work done on them, but it’s hard to find time with so many extracurricular activities planned.
This week Jason and I will play in the final round for our division in racquetball. We already played this team before and lost, so I don’t have a whole lot of hope to win, but it’s always fun to play other couples too.
One of the best things that happened this week as far as school is concerned is that I’ve pretty much settled on what I’m doing for my Master’s Thesis Project. I’ve been worrying about it for a while. I talked to Peter Rich, the professor that I work with to teach Educational Psychology , about it for a while one day and he suggested that I do a project to put the Educational Psychology class on-line. At first I wasn’t interested in it, but I thought it over for about a week and decided that it would be do-able and a good fit for me. Peter will be the chair of my committee and I will start working to gather materials starting in May and then actually create the website during Fall Semester. The goal is to be done by December and possibly pilot the class for Winter Semester 2010. The other blessing about doing this project is that Peter got permission for me to be paid for my work, so I can work up to 20 paid hours a week during the summer months while I work on it. It’s so nice to be paid to do school work! I hope things continue to fall into place with this project.
Jason has also been thinking about what he’s going to do this summer. He talked to one of his professors this week after class about possibly doing some research for him this summer. He’s also possibly thinking about working at the MTC again since behavioral coding for more than 20 hours would be a little tedious.
We had our stake conference this weekend. It went pretty well. We had Elder Teixera from the 1st Quorum of Seventy come visit our stake. He is a pretty dynamic speaker, so it was interesting to listen to him. He talked a lot about making your family your priority and having the faith to do as the Lord asks. He also reminded us of some wise financial council such as living by a budget and spending less than you make. We also went to the CES fireside in the Marriott Center for Elder Hale’s address. He talked about the importance of standing on high ground and not giving way to the temptation to lower our standards. We took a Korean woman with us who is here visiting the United States for a couple of months. We also invited to go with us to the Draper Temple Open House on Thursday. She is a member of the church, but she doesn’t speak much English and she likes to experience what the church has to offer here.
We spent the weekend going to Stake Conference meetings, going to the temple, going to Enrichment, and going to the fireside. I must say it was a pretty spiritual weekend, which is a good thing since I had to take a long Stats test on Saturday amidst the other activities. Several hours and several typed pages later, I feel pretty good about it, so I hope it turns out okay.
I taught for the last week this week before my students go into the Elementary schools. It’s a really good thing too, because I’ve been putting off some projects that really need my attention now. I’m hoping to get some work done on them, but it’s hard to find time with so many extracurricular activities planned.
This week Jason and I will play in the final round for our division in racquetball. We already played this team before and lost, so I don’t have a whole lot of hope to win, but it’s always fun to play other couples too.
One of the best things that happened this week as far as school is concerned is that I’ve pretty much settled on what I’m doing for my Master’s Thesis Project. I’ve been worrying about it for a while. I talked to Peter Rich, the professor that I work with to teach Educational Psychology , about it for a while one day and he suggested that I do a project to put the Educational Psychology class on-line. At first I wasn’t interested in it, but I thought it over for about a week and decided that it would be do-able and a good fit for me. Peter will be the chair of my committee and I will start working to gather materials starting in May and then actually create the website during Fall Semester. The goal is to be done by December and possibly pilot the class for Winter Semester 2010. The other blessing about doing this project is that Peter got permission for me to be paid for my work, so I can work up to 20 paid hours a week during the summer months while I work on it. It’s so nice to be paid to do school work! I hope things continue to fall into place with this project.
Jason has also been thinking about what he’s going to do this summer. He talked to one of his professors this week after class about possibly doing some research for him this summer. He’s also possibly thinking about working at the MTC again since behavioral coding for more than 20 hours would be a little tedious.
Monday, February 16, 2009
B-day/V-day
This has been a pretty good week. Jason and I played our first racquetball game together on Monday. We’re in a mixed doubles racquetball tournament. The other couple was actually pretty good and the girl had played on the BYU women’s racquetball team a couple years ago, but we still beat them two matches in a row. Jason’s tennis skills come in really handy. He’s so quick and agile that there’s not much that gets past him. We won the first match 15-3. The second match they were winning 10-3 for the first part of the game, but then we came back to beat them 15-10. The girl was a little frustrated! We play our next game this week.
It was Jason’s birthday on Tues. Feb. 10. He said he wanted a low-key day so I tried to keep it semi- low-key. I gave him some new gloves since he lost his other pair during finals week and a new shirt that we’ll probably return to the store. We ate dinner at his brother Steve’s house and almost everyone came over for dinner. We had a delicious dinner from Mom B. and Sally with pasta, salad, and bread. Since Jason doesn’t really like cake, we had Puppy Chow (kind of like Muddy Buddies) for dessert. Jason’s parents gave him the game “Ticket to Ride” which he liked. My favorite birthday present to give him was a new memory foam pillow. I replaced his old pillow with the new one during the day so he didn’t find it until he went to bed. He was happily surprised.
He also got calls from several of his brothers and both of my brothers. Emily and Mike Rogers left a really cute happy birthday song on his phone.
Friday I babysat Sally and Jeff’s three kids while Jason took his test and played basketball. I left my cell phone on the kitchen table. One of the kids slid my phone across the counter and on to the floor that apparently broke it, because I could never receive anymore calls after that. I took it into the Sprint store on Saturday and they couldn’t fix it so they gave me a new phone for $35. It was kind of a sad experience, but I’m glad it got taken care of quickly.
Jason was good about making Valentine’s Day special. He bought me red roses and we ate a heart-shaped Papa Murphy’s
pizza for dinner at the Tanner Building on campus. He brought my laptop and played music from when we were dating that brought back good memories. We played a lot of “Remember when . . .” Afterwards we stopped by our Stake Valentine’s Dance and danced for a little while. I went to the grocery store that day and bought him a Maple Bar doughnut, which is one of his all time favorite treats.
It was Jason’s birthday on Tues. Feb. 10. He said he wanted a low-key day so I tried to keep it semi- low-key. I gave him some new gloves since he lost his other pair during finals week and a new shirt that we’ll probably return to the store. We ate dinner at his brother Steve’s house and almost everyone came over for dinner. We had a delicious dinner from Mom B. and Sally with pasta, salad, and bread. Since Jason doesn’t really like cake, we had Puppy Chow (kind of like Muddy Buddies) for dessert. Jason’s parents gave him the game “Ticket to Ride” which he liked. My favorite birthday present to give him was a new memory foam pillow. I replaced his old pillow with the new one during the day so he didn’t find it until he went to bed. He was happily surprised.
He also got calls from several of his brothers and both of my brothers. Emily and Mike Rogers left a really cute happy birthday song on his phone.Friday I babysat Sally and Jeff’s three kids while Jason took his test and played basketball. I left my cell phone on the kitchen table. One of the kids slid my phone across the counter and on to the floor that apparently broke it, because I could never receive anymore calls after that. I took it into the Sprint store on Saturday and they couldn’t fix it so they gave me a new phone for $35. It was kind of a sad experience, but I’m glad it got taken care of quickly.
Jason was good about making Valentine’s Day special. He bought me red roses and we ate a heart-shaped Papa Murphy’s
pizza for dinner at the Tanner Building on campus. He brought my laptop and played music from when we were dating that brought back good memories. We played a lot of “Remember when . . .” Afterwards we stopped by our Stake Valentine’s Dance and danced for a little while. I went to the grocery store that day and bought him a Maple Bar doughnut, which is one of his all time favorite treats.
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