Another Do-Whatever-I-Want Day!

Wow, have things been busy around here–workwise, schoolwise, socially, and personally! I set a lot of goals for myself each week (e.g., each week I will make reportable progress on project A, reportable progress on project B, meet with the social worker for supervision to continue accruing hours for my license, etc.), and these last couple of weeks have been really busy–although I’ve accomplished a lot!

I have been working really hard on a portion of my dissertation. I have started to train another coder, as I had to stop working with the woman coding on my project from Italy (Italy is just too far to allow for enough consistent communication to get the work done). Starting a coder is a lot of work, and I have been wanting to put a lot of time into training her, as well as putting a lot of time into talking and meeting with my current coder. So many of my hours over the past couple of weeks have been spent watching videos of parents playing with their two-year-olds, coding them, and talking about them! I also wanted to do an “even trade” with my new coder, who is a post-doc from Harvard. Since she is spending time working on my project, I offered to trade time, so I am now coding on her project as well. I like the trade, and I enjoy coding her things…it just makes the weeks busier.

School has also been pretty busy. David and I spent a good 5 1/2 hours on our last homework assignment. Luckily the drone of hierarchical linear modeling was punctuated by JoJo play time, a dinner break, and some alcoholic beverages!

First Saturday Dinner and a Movie was this past weekend, and it was A BLAST. I always think they cannot be topped, and then the previous month’s gets topped! We had about 12 people over, and we had our new furniture, which was great. Most of us could eat at the table, as we left it expanded…we had some spillover onto the couch, but it was still a huge improvement over using our old table, which only sat 4 and was tiny. Now we can put all the food out onto the table, eat and chat together, get seconds (and thirds, and fourths…), and hang out. We also decided to play games, so we all hung around the new table to play. Our new bar was also fantastic, letting us organize and put out all of our drinks. I love the new setup.

On Friday, we are hosting the recruitment party for those people being recruited to our graduate program. There will probably be 30-40 people! We aren’t cooking for everyone, like we usually do, because school gives us money to purchase food and supplies. Nik and I are basically offering the house, and the recruitment/admissions committee takes care of the organization. We are going to head to BevMo tonight to pick up some drinks and restock the beers and rose wine, as we ran out at the last party!

And next weekend, Mandi and Justine are coming to visit! I can’t wait. We’re most likely going to head to San Francisco on Sunday and go to brunch and either the zoo or aquarium. Besides that, the weekend will be spent eating cupcakes, laughing, and enjoying shenanigans.

I’m enjoying today as a do-whatever-I-want day, catching up and getting ready for the party. April is spending the night tomorrow, so I’m getting the guest room all set up for her. So much fun happening!