Change of address...

I have decided to relocate my blog to wordpress. I like that I have more control over various aspects, and can customize things easier. So, please change your links and head over to the new blog at http://julieanne.wordpress.com!

Riley

Happy Birthday baby Riley! I love you so much, and don't know what I would do without you.

Terrible twos, here we come!

(I hope to have a much more involved birthday post tomorrow.)

I be educated

Graduation was great fun, except for the fact that it was crazy hot and I ended up with 4 blisters. It seems that cheap shoes and walking across campus don't work too well together. But I have pictures!

This is at the main campus graduation. Everyone started out over here (if you wanted to go), then the grad students were dismissed to their own diploma ceremonies elsewhere. The flags at the front represent each of the colleges. Peabody is the light blue one third from the left. The light blue represents education, and is the same color that was on my hood. While we were there, each school and degree was announced. The med school whipped out the beach balls and silly string when they were called to stand. Everyone laughed, and it wouldn't surprise me if this is a med school tradition. I can only imagine how excited they must be to be finished with med school.

There's me, all fancied up in my regalia. I have a picture from the back as well, because you can't get the full effect of the hood. The back picture is on my dad's camera, so I'll post that one later.

Me and my parents. If anyone was wondering how I ended up as short as I am, now you know. =)

Me and my mom, with my diploma.


These two are me and my friend Crystal. The one on the right was a self-portrait that was taken at our banquet the other night. The was one on the left was at graduation, obviously.

It was a good day. My parents and I went to eat at Cheesecake Factory afterwards, then I had TCBY ice cream. Then I went home and took a long nap. Graduation was outside, and sitting in the sun makes me really tired. I'm probably going to spend a lot of time this weekend laying around, watching TV, and trying to come to terms with the fact that I really don't have any papers due. Of course, I should work on cover sheets for resumes, but that's different. I should set aside time to work on that though, considering it would be nice to have a job sometime in the near future.

That's all for now! I'll probably have more pics later this weekend. Thanks to everyone for all the well-wishes!

Tomorrow! Tomorrow!

The day is almost here. I have my cap and gown and hood. My tassel is a light blue color, which I really like. My hood is light blue velvet on the outside, and black and gold lined on the inside. There is no way I'm going to be able to get dressed by myself tomorrow, due to the fact that you have to strategically flip part of the hood so the inside and outside shows. I have the diagram that came with it, so hopefully Cassie and I will be able to figure it out. I mean, we're getting our Master's degree. Surely we can figure out how to get dressed for the ceremony...right? =)

I had a surprise visitor in my classroom yesterday. Mayor Bill Purcell was in the building for most of the day yesterday, and he (along with the principal, assistant principal, resource officer, and someone else) came in during my 4th period class. Yesterday's topic (from a program that's put out by RASAC) was sexual abuse and all the issues (emotional, reporting, etc) that go along with that. Luckily, I had finished the part where I had to explain what actually qualifies as abuse, and was talking about mandatory reporting/limits of confidentiality (meaning that if a child discloses abuse of any type, I HAVE to report it to the authorities. There's absolutely no way around that, and I think it's important that they know what my legal and ethical obligations are, so it doesn't come as a huge shock that I can't keep this a secret like I do with everything else). This is something that has been drilled into my head from day one of my program, and I've given the speech numerous times already, so I was able to keep it together and keep teaching. Until they left, of course, when I had a moment of hyperventilation. Then we finished the lesson.

As of today, I have officially finished my internship hours. I go to graduation tomorrow feeling free and relieved. I'm still planning on going to internship on Monday, just to say all my goodbyes with the kids and thank everyone for allowing me to work and learn there this year.

I've been knitting on the sleeve of my Central Park Hoodie. It's going well, except for the fact that it's like 90 degrees outside (maybe not that hot, but too hot to be thinking about wearing a wool sweater). At least it'll be all ready for next year! I've slacked a bit on my socks, and I guess I currently have a bit of SSS (second sock syndrome). I recently ordered some Yarn Pirate sock yarn in the Mermaid colorway, so I'm excited to see what that looks like. I'm also thinking about buying myself a set of the Knitpicks Options needles that I've been eyeing pretty much since they came out. Hehe...I just went to the knitpicks web page, and see that they've changed the "view shopping cart" to "view stash." I think that's pretty cute.

Riley got mail today. He has a birthday coming up on Monday, and the vet sent him a birthday card. He'll be two years old. Maybe that's why he's been barking and being a bit irritating lately...it's the terrible twos! I'll have to get him a present. His gotcha day is in July, so I'll have to celebrate that too, of course. I can't believe I'll have had him for 2 years in July. Time is going so fast!

I guess that's it for now. Hopefully I'll have lots of graduation pics to post!

Riley

This is what Riley looks like after a bath. This video is pretty old, but he does basically the same thing now. This is definitely one of the most entertaining parts of having a dog. =)

It's been awhile...

So I've neglected the blog for a bit, but hopefully I'll be able to remedy that. Look! Puppy pictures!




These were taken at Riley's Delta Society graduation back in March. I'm a little slow, obviously. Riley took his test on March 31, but unfortunately he didn't pass. The test is going to be really hard for him, just because he's pretty much by himself in a room (with me and the tester) and people walk towards him. The same for the neutral dog part of the test. Riley does great when he's out in public, I guess because the people are just part of the scenery...but if someone walks towards him, then they're obviously coming to see him. He got a little too excited when the neutral dog came in and whined at her. It wasn't aggressive, but they're still not allowed to vocalize. I'm hoping to get him tested again soon, but I decided to wait until I'm out of school and not stressed with all that. Next time I'm going to wear him out before the test, to see if that helps. Oh well. He's a good doggie, and I know he'll pass when he's ready.

School is going well, especially considering I'm done with classes! This semester's ending was kinda anti-climactic, especially compared to last semester. I had papers due throughout the semester, and everything lined up so that I had time to focus on each thing. It wasn't like last semester when I had 13 assignments in a month so I was counting down. All of a sudden, I was just done, and classes were over. I'm still doing internship hours, but I hope to have those done a day or two after graduation. I'm having to play catch up a bit, but it's all working out. I really love getting to know all my kids, and I wish I could've done more of this earlier.

I haven't been knitting as much as I would've liked, partly because I've started reading more. I recently read Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and now I've moved on to The Golden Compass. This is a re-read, inspired by the fact that they're making a movie out of the book. This scares and excites me at the same time. I love Lyra and Pantalaimon, and being the visual person that I am, I'd love to be able to see them. At the same time, book movies have the potential to be majorly messed up. Let's hope this is one of those movies that does the book justice.

I've been pretty tired lately, which isn't fun. I don't know how I managed to go to school all day every day when I was in middle school. Maybe I'm just getting old. =)

I went on a shopping spree this past weekend, which was great fun. For some reason they decided to do the tax-free weekend thing, which was nice, and people also had some big sales going on. I got some new pants, and even found a dress for graduation! This weekend I need to get shoes, because the ones I have gave me blisters again today. I'd rather not be hobbling across the stage because my shoes hurt. I have to process from main campus to Peabody, which is enough of a walk that I'll have blisters by the time it's over. I haven't decided if it's the style or the place I bought them that's the problem.

In other exciting news, my dad and I celebrated a milestone this weekend. Check out the odometer on his 1983 Nissan. It still has the original engine, too!


This is the car that I rode in on the way to school for years and years. It's been a good one, even without the power windows/door locks and air conditioning.



It turned the big 30(00000)!

There's a first time for everything...

I have the influenza. I don't think I've ever officially had it before, although there were times that I wondered. I knew when I spiked a fever that something was definitely wrong, because that's really rare for me. I may feel bad and have sinus stuff, but never a fever. It topped out today at 102.2, before I dragged myself off the couch to down some advil. I have a renewed love for advil gelcaps, because they have gotten the fever down some, and make me feel like I might actually not die. The sweats/chills junk isn't cool though.

I was dreading the TCAP (standardized testing) process, but at this point I cannot wait to get back and count answer sheets. I guess that's what I get for complaining about it.

I forget if I mentioned that I finished my Monkey socks. They've been done awhile, but I haven't taken a picture. I'm planning on ordering some sock blockers, but the person that makes them is out of town right now. They're going to make me an extra-small size, so that'll be nice. I'm currently working on my Dublin Bay socks in Sweet by Sunshine Yarns, and the Central Park Hoodie. I finished the back and one of the fronts, and am only on the second ball of yarn. I love that Cascade 220 goes such a long way. The hope is that I'll have some extra yarn that I can switch out. I think I've also decided to make a mitered square blanket from Mason-Dixon knitting. It seems that other people (*cough*enablers*cough*) have started on the mitered bandwagon, so I'm going to too. I have some yarn money left over from birthday/Valentines, and the Easter bunny brought me a little too. So, the next thing to make will be a mitered square afghan out of Tahki cotton classic.

So the laptop feels like a furnace, so I'm going to go sleep some more. Riley's been keeping watch over me today, and has been stopping to look over at me every time I move or turn over. He's a good boy.