Emuzines

Our chapter was just submitted to Amaral (research director at the MIND Institute) and Dawson (prominent autism researcher out of U of Washington).  So cool!  My name is right up there next to Sally’s at the top.  I am so proud of myself!

Today I finished a major portion of  my chapter (and got a big fat A on my genetics midterm), so I felt like a celebration was in order.  That, and Nik said “dog park” in front of JoJo, so we took her to the dog park.  It’s been raining here for days, so it was muddy and very fun.

Jo had a wonderful time.  She likes to run alongside the dogs who chase balls, but she will not touch their toys.  Once in awhile she’ll get there first, but she just sniffs it and steps aside.  She made a few friends.  She made the meanest dog in the park love her by inviting him to play in the largest mud puddle with her.  He layed down and rolled, but she looked at him like he was crazy and she dug holes and splashed around.  We all had a great time and laughed really hard.  She was a DIRTY PUPPY.

I was a tad depressed and nervous today for school and work to start up again–I told my officemate Carolyn that I felt like a 2nd grader on her first day of school.  I had a meeting scheduled with Sally today to discuss the work I did for our chapter over break, and to talk about how we’re going to use part of it in our next grant proposal.  She was THRILLED with the work I got done, saying over and over how much it was and how good it was!  I found out, also that she wrote me into the Autism Speaks grant she is applying for.  I, along with one of her postdocs, are going to be the main people on this…and I am so excited!  I hope we get the grant.  It’s a really exciting new project!

I headed over to class after my wonderful meeting with wonderful Sally.  Of course, I was two hours early, and got a parking spot right away.  It was great to see Kyle, David, Abby, and Natalie again.  The class seemed great and the professor is a young, smart- and laid-back-seeming type of guy.  It’s behavioral genetics.  I’m actually pretty excited to start some of this reading.

After class I chatted with my friends, and then we went home, not sure what to do because we’re used to getting out of class late at night!  It is now the most perfect type of drizzly, cup of tea day, and I’m sitting at my brand new laptop, sipping on Coffee Bean Winter Dream tea, watching Jo watch the dryer steam fog outside the window.

Similar to my List of Happenings post, here is a bulleted list of happenings.  I don’t feel like I can put into words the great fun and relaxation I have had during this winter break home, so here are some thoughts and happenings.

• Scrapbook catch-up!  Or, rather, scrapbook work-on, since I have completed a few pages, but made so many more memories since I’ve been here, that I’m sure I’ll go home needing to do more than I did.  But hopefully I’ll have completed all July, 2008 activities by the time I get back into school.
• I finished sorting all of my literature for my chapter.  In other words, I finished reading through all early intervention literature EVER DONE on kids who are blind, deaf, mentally retarded, or premature, or have Down Syndrome or cerebral palsy.  That’s a lot of studies.  I had to find them, first of all, which I’ve been doing since September.  Then I had to read through them all, determine their quality, and rate them.  Now I get to write on the highly rated ones!
• Gaby time.  Last night Gabs and I went to Cozymel’s for dinner and then to the movies.  We laughed so hard.  She’s the best.
• Logan cuddles.  Logan spends most part of most nights with me, and leaves in the mornings (or middle of the night, I can never tell).  In what *I* consider morning, I call him in, and he jumps on my bed for cuddles.  He is so cute.  SO CUTE.
• Again about Logan.  We played “Where’s the ball?” with him tonight, which is really hide-and-seek with a ball.  He’s great at this game and searches the house high and low for whatever particular toy we’re playing with–he always remembers.  He looks on every shelf, he checks the top of the table, he looks under and over furniture and between each pillow on the couch.  It’s great.  So today we hid it in his water bowl.  This was new, but he found it right away.  He just couldn’t bear to stick his nose deep enough to get it out.  He worked at picking it up by tennis ball fluff for a long while, while we sat and laughed until we couldn’t breathe, but that didn’t work.  Then, he drank all the water and got the ball!
• Tonight we had a Thanksgiving dinner, mostly since Mandi wasn’t able to join us in Amesbury for Thanksgiving.  My mom did a spectacular job with the food, as I selfishly perused the scrapbook store and worked on a Mark and Noah page while she cooked.  Yummy!
• Mandi, Danny, and I went ice skating, which was great fun.  We went to Seaside Lagoon.  Here we are:

• My mom treated Nik, Mandi, Danny, and myself to an incredible dinner at Fogo de Chao, a Brazilian restaurant in Beverly Hills.  It was quite the experience…SO much food!  We chatted and chatted and couldn’t stop chatting (and eating).  Here WE are:

• Tomorrow is sledding with Mandi and Justine.  It should be really fun.  I remember toppling over quite a bit last time Mandi and I went.  We’re sure to scream, and the most fun happens when it makes us scream (think dark San Francisco forest)!
• There’s so much more…  It’s just been a great break so far, and it’s been nice to see everyone who I’ve missed so much, and I hope I can squeeze everything in in my last remaining days!

Today is my first official day of winter break!  Ok…maybe yesterday was my first OFFICIAL day, but I worked all day…so today is really it!

We sure celebrated on Thursday after our last day of classes.  Here we are at Bistro 33.

We had a pretty good, but uneventful, last two classes (April and I gave a great puberty-related presentation, and David was a champion wrapping up Piaget in an exact hour)…and then headed out to Bistro 33.  We had some mojito pitchers and sweet potato fries, and had an exciting White Elephant gift exchange.  It went so fast and we were all so polite about (not) stealing gifts that we invented a new, Forced-Trade Gift Game after we were done, to up the competition and laughter.  It was a great time, and we moved inside (thank you, my Southern California, flip-flopped in 39 degrees toes said) for shots…yes, shots…  It was tough to get up for work yesterday, but it was completely worth it.

I made it through yesterday without a zombie-day, which I’ve had 2 or 3 times since starting school, and even just 1 caffeine.  Sally and I worked for a solid few hours on our chapter, which was great.  After work, I lounged around, watched a movie and lots of TV–totally lazy. 

I slept in very, very late today.  So did Nik and JoJo.  None of us had any idea it had already hit the PM.  Nik and I did some Christmas shopping, went out to lunch, and grocery shopping.  It’s so nice not to have to read all weekend, not having enough time to lift my head for a drink of water.  I do have some work on my chapter to do this weekend, or Monday, but I enjoy it and am super-excited about it, so it doesn’t count.

Anyway, yay to winter break!  I’m relaxed already.