Meet Norbert!

Happy Holidays to all! This past week has been filled with Christmas Spirit here in Oregon, now that I am officially done with classes this term, David and I have begun to fill our condo with christmas cheer! Cookies have been baked, presents are being delivered and wrapped, the stockings have been hung by the chimney with care, and we had our first official "christmas tree day" of our relationship.

What is Christmas tree day you ask? Well basically its when you get your Christmas tree, specifically a live one that you cut down yourself. This wasn't an option when we lived in Texas, which is why it was our first christmas tree day. So we grabbed the car and drove to the christmas tree farm that I run by in the mornings. There we tromped through the farm until we found our tree.

Some trees were too big!

Some trees were too small!

But then we found our perfect tree! A 4 1/2 foot Nordman Fir, which of course we (and by we I mean myself) chose to name Norbert.

We brought Norbert home, went out and bought a tree stand, and set him up in our living space. Lilly and Norbert quickly became friends, she especially loves to cuddle up in the tree skirt.

Fast Friends!

We finished putting all the decorations on Norbert on Thursday when David was off from work. Lilly still enjoys sending time with Norbert, although I do worry when she is going to try to chew the lights on the tree. We hope everyone is having a great Holiday season and want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from Oregon!

Mini wave in celebrate of me!

Woohooo! I'm done, one term down and 5 to go! (insert happy dance here)! I'm done, I'm done, I'm done!!! And there is no one to celebrate with (since its 11am and no one is here on campus today!). Oh well, I will no go celebrate by returning my 17 some borrowed books to the library and follow it up with a nice long nap with my cat!

Don't worry I really will celebrate. Its planned for tomorrow evening, drinks with my fellow grad students!

The arrival of Finals!

Well, they are finally here, my last week of my first graduate school quarter. I have a spatial/temporal statistics final in about 30 minutes, so wish me luck! Many may wonder why I'm writing this blog post rather than studying, but I have reached my tipping point. I have crammed as much information about point pattern analyzes, fractal dimensions, differences between semivariograms and correlograms as I possibly can. I do apologize to those of you who didn't understand the last part of that sentence, the key part is that I do.

After this final is over, I have to do a mental memory dump and begin cramming for my cartography final. But at noon tomorrow, my first quarter will be over, and I will have survived!


Anyone wanna get a drink?

Dead week

Well folks, it's that time of year again!

Sorry, I'm not referring to the holidays, thanksgiving, black friday, cyber monday, or whatever. I mean dead week, the week before finals. OK, let's remember back to a time during our undergraduate degree during a dead week, any dead week is fine. People were making plans for the holidays, the campus was dead, no classes, just pure study time. The library was filled to the brim, and you could always find students at the local IHOP studying. Dead week was always a nice break. A nice quite week filled with books, papers, and computers, but you didn't have classes, no exams, no homework, no major papers due, etc. You had a break!

Well apparently dead week does not exist for graduate students. Why didn't anybody warn me? I have two major papers due Friday, a lab due today (which I did finish... this morning), and then have to prepare for two final exams over the weekend. I know, chalk it up to procrastination, but I swear I have been working. Graduate school is just a different beast entirely. It has even forced me to resort to coffee. To give you some background, I am not a coffee drinker, despite many peoples attempts. However, I guess I just needed the proper motivation, and yes I found mine, grad school.

OK, back to the books, papers, and yes, caffeine! Wish me luck!
At least it will be over next week, and than it will definitely be time to celebrate!

OK, somebody lied!

When we cam up to visit Oregon State last March, everybody talked about the weather. They would say things like 'it's perfect in the summer' and 'its gray and misty in the winter' but everyone agreed... 'it never actually snows in Corvallis'

Well... they all lied!

It started snowing last night and we weren't expecting anything to stick since it was all melting. Well, it stuck and now it looks like a pretty winter landscape. Kids across the street are sledding down the hills and all I want to do is make some hot chocolate and curl up under a few blankets and stay warm. Too bad that I have class today and have to go in. Wish David and myself a safe time driving through our first snow!

Buried under papers

I am working on a project form my spatial and temporal statistics class today, with the task of assessing the use of spatial and temporal statistical methods for a specific topic over three decades. I choose to look at spatial relationships between marine habitats and fish assemblages. Tasked to find 30 peer reviewed journals articles over 3 decades is not easy! Even using specific terminology, I still didn't manage to find 30 papers. But I did find a lot of false advertising! I don't care how many times each papers uses key words like pattern and spatial relationship, nearest neighbor analysis, autocorrelation, they still lie. It reminds me of historical map making like.....

Personally I have never seen a sea turtle with blowholes?

Don't forget the modern version of identifying monsters...

You know the maps where cartographers drew the world they knew of and anywhere that they were missing information they would add some elaborate drawing (usually in the ocean, because its still relatively unknown)! False advertising!

Maybe I should just review my papers using this:

Midterms!

Whoop! Cartography midterm here I come! If I used this as one of my map 

projections do you think I'd get full credit?

 

Hope everyone is have a great start to the month of November, cause I know I am!

Midterm week!

Well, five weeks almost down, five weeks to go before I complete my first quarter of graduate school. I am defiantly swamped and a little freaked out that I have three large papers all due at the same time and in less then a month, but hey I can do it right?!! Anyways its a good thing that its been rainy and wet this past week, it defiantly helps keep me in the office working! And no matter how bad I feel about myself, all I have to do is think back to those poor sheep outside in the cold wet rain, and to top it all off for feeling sad for the poor sheep, they just got shaved today! At least I know my life isn't as bad as a sheeps!

Anyways, happy early Halloween from the batcat!

The arrival of Fall

 

I missed fall, fall is by far my favorite season. It always makes me think of apples, pumpkins, scarecrows, warm soups and stews, mulled cider and wine, fuzzy sweaters, fires in the fireplace, and hot chocolate. It makes me want to cook and read, but unfortunately I'm stuck studying. But fall has arrived here in Oregon I get to see fall again, and I still love it. At least as I walk to the library this morning I get to hear the leaves crunch under my feet and watch them fall from the trees blown by the light cool breeze. Makes me want to pile up the leave and jump in them. Anyone want to join me?

Hope everyone is having a great weekend!

Portland visit!

OK, this Saturday David and I traveled up to Portland to see his family. But before I totally 'dragged' him to the city to see some of what Portland has to offer. Being a small time, but ambitious foodie our first stop was the famous Voodoo Doughnuts. But man when we got there I was surprised to see a line of patrons streaming around the corner of the block in the rain (OK well it was mist mostly) just for a pink box of doughnuts. I knew Texans liked their doughnuts but I had no idea Oregonians would! So after paying the meter to park David and I waited in line, for about 30 minutes before it was our time to order. Choices, choices, choices. They had a ton of doughnuts to pick from, so David and I decided to get a dozen for variety. They included the voodoo doll, maple bacon bar (David's choice), a few cake doughnuts, including what they called Mexican hot chocolate (is was sweet and spicy and my personal favorite from the trip), and of course, how could I refuse, the Tex-ass doughnut! The doughnuts were great and worth the wait in the rain.

After we consumed way too much sugar we headed off to the largest new and used bookstore in the world! Talk about a bookworms dream. We stumble around the multiple floors and rooms of book categories in our sugar coma, and managed to buy relatively few books considering the options available. Unfortunately we were running low on time to browse so we will have to go back sometime to conquer that bookstore, but don't be surprised if that becomes a quest along the same magnitude of the quest for the Holy Grail! OK, well at least a Monty Python's sized quest for the Holy Grail, although hopefully no one will run into 'the rabbit!!". Huh, I bet you could find all kinds of movies and books about the Grail and Monty Python there.... but sorry I digress.

After we dragged ourselves away from the mountains of books we ran some errands and eventually met up with David's family, to run only more errands with them. But hey this errand was to IKEA and trips to IKEA are in my genes. I have spend many hours wandering around the depths of IKEAs in all my home states, its almost like a required trip in my family, kinda like an Olson tradition. Maybe its because of the whole Swedish heritage thing, its probably one of the closest times I have come to experiencing Swedish culture in America, beyond Christmas cookies with my family, the American Doll book from my childhood about a girl from Sweden (I think?) and the Swedish chef on the Muppet's. After all there are not a lot of Swedish restaurants in Illinois or Texas. However, I have heard there is more of that culture to be found here in the Pacific Northwest and I will definitely have to seek out some cultural events while I'm here.

But now I'm back in Corvallis with my nose in many books (unfortunately all the textbook kind) and completing multiple homework assignments. But don't worry I will make it back to Portland someday to further explore the city!

To Portland!

Tomorrow David and I need to head to Portland to search out the Ikea and purchase some dressers for our large amount of clothes. Yeah, my first time in Portland! Also while we are there we are gonna check out Voodoo Donuts, a local dive that creates some interesting breakfast items. Their signature donut is the voodoo donut, a donut in the shape of a voodoo doll, covered with chocolate, filled with raspberry jam, and a pretzel stake in the doll. Don't worry I will take pictures and post the experience. On top of it all we are meeting up with David's family in the area which will be one of the first times we get to meet them, one of many I'm sure.

Unfortunately, its supposed to pour tomorrow. I guess I better get used to it!

Running into new challenges

Well week two has come to a close and soon I will be leaving to join some classmates for a brew at a local pub. As can be expected school is occupying majority of my life, between classes, labs, assignments, and various readings I haven't spent a lot of quality time with my husband or my cat.

My cat is extremely frustrated with me and taking her anger out on me through cruel and unusual ways of torture that can only be conceived by an evil demon spawn. Besides finding hair balls on my bed she has been working hard to prevent me from getting my R&R. Every morning this week at 6:30 sharp when my husband leaves the bed to get ready for work, cue the evil cat. She heads straight for the window and moves the curtains, with a precise that can only be developed through years of practice, to send bright streams of light directly into my eyes. About 15 minutes later she scratches and cries at the bedroom door demanding to be let out. Yes, she always wins this fight and either David or I will let her out. About 5 minutes later she's back at the bedroom door, this time from the opposite side, crying to get back in. However David refused to give in so what do I hear from under my pillow? "Lilly, sshhhh!! Come here! Bad cat, quiet!", to which comes cat responds with a series of back talking cries.

This vicious cycle has put my nerves on edge along with the stress of class assignment I have officially had my first meltdown session of the year. I know, I know, freaking out over an abstract for a research proposal is not a big deal, but to me it created one of those "what the hell am I doing moments!". But don't feel bad for me, I am seeking my revenge on the cat by demanding affection from her to help me get through my feelings of self doubt. The person you should feel sorry for is my husband since he has to put up with me and the cat!

Oh well, gone are the days of peace and relaxation, onwards to next week!!

One week down 9 more to go!

Well I have survived my first week of classes. I must admit that I feel weight down by the pure weight or reading material, and literally weighed down by my book bag (ahhh... freshman backpack syndrome). Although the pace is fast its nice to think I am a tenth of the way through the quarter. Unfortunately, that also means 15 weeks of class material crammed into 10 weeks of class.

Field Geography of Oregon

Steen Mountains, southwest Oregon... aka middle of nowhere with a fantastic view!

The week of September 16-22 I was on a field trip for my first graduate class, Field Geography of Oregon. Basically it involved driving around Oregon (and a very small part of Washington) and seeing local geographic/geological areas of the state. The class was awesome!! It's been a very long time since I got to camp, so that was interesting but I made it work (thanks for that helpful hint Tim Gunn!). Along with meeting many of the incoming geoscience graduate students (and a few other from different disciplines) I also learned a lot about geology (i.e. rocks and furthermore basalt) and the geography of each area (and for those who don't know what geography is, don't worry I'm still confused and I'm majoring in it. A basic definition is the relationship between land/sea and humans... and that's very basic).

Here are a few things I learned:

• You have a 98% chance that if you see a rock/rock formation in Oregon its basalt, a type of magma. 

Can you guess what type of rock this is? And yes it is the a lava flow.

• Oregon used to mainly be ocean but thanks to plate tectonics it is now here and I have a land underneath my feet (although its still slightly damp, but thats due to the rain).
• It get frickin cold at night, actually below freezing, and my sleeping bag was not rated to that temperature... so next time I go camping I should not forget my thermal underwear!!

Sunrise on a volcanic crater... beautiful but freezing cold! To warm up we stated having cold raves with our own rendition of techno music.

• Oregon has really weird road signs, when a sign says ROCKS, what the heck does that mean?? Look at the rocks, falling rocks, rocks in the road, basalt rocks.... I mean come on peoples, descriptions are a good thing! And check out this sign...

• Camping and traveling with 35 other people is difficult... it takes at least 30 minutes for bathroom/gas breaks, although it never helps with the restrooms are out in rural Oregon and consist of only one toilet. Not to mention that we take up a lot of space, see picture below where we took up a parking lot drying out all of our camping gear from the rain and ice.

• I knew very few gleeks in Texas, but I found a lot more on this class field trip (and you can't call majority of them Oregonians). We all bonded over Bohemian Rhapsody and Journey.
• Mount Hood rocks, this is the closest that I have ever been to a glacier and the top of a mountain!

• Only two out of the 34 incoming graduate students had a background in geography, only 4 people were from the West coast, and everyone was nervous about starting there graduate career. 
• Maybe only 10 of the students actually knew what they were going to be researching. And when we meet with last years class they informed us that they didn't know what their thesis project would be but a year later they all had nice concise projects, which gives me some hope...

The beginning of a long journey

Pretty scenery at a rest stop (can anyone say oxymoron?)

Welcome Readers!!

Just thought I'd say hello to all of my friends out there and all of my potential and future readers, thank you for listening and I hope that your prepared to listen for a while because this Master's program could take a few years.

Anyways, at the beginning of September I had to dive in to the first part of my Master's program, traveling from Texas to Oregon so I could attend the program. This journey is probably the longest part of my master's degree that I will have to face (OK, I know not my actual time longest but distance....).

So hear are all the details of the trip:

The Journey to the center of my new world  check out the link to view the map!

Allen, me, and Jonathan

4 days of time

4 drivers total (myself, my husband David, his father Allen, and his best friend Jonathan)

2,489 miles

Our very long and yellow rental truck

   22 foot truck pulling a full car tailer and one Honda CR-V

   4 different books on tape

   Bad fast food the entire way

   WAY too much money spent on diesel and gas

   and one very unhappy and thankfully drugged cat




Despite some very tense moments and some scary mountain descents in a truck with poor brakes (a good story but one that is still too fresh in my memory for me to detail) we all survived.  Thank you to all of our friends who helped us move and unpack, and especially to the family who was willing to help with the drive, and yes Jonathan I now consider you family, because family are the only people who could have survived that journey with us.

David and I