Week 1 bites the dust...

Part of me wants to be like, "Where the hell did the first week of classes go?" but the truth is that I'm still trying to figure out where my last year went. Suffice it to say, Fall 2011 has started and methinks it's going to be a great semester.

I'm taking three classes, all of which are going to rock my socks. They're all going to be a lot of work (a lot!), but that's expected at this level. I have two assistantships, both with professors I really like. And both professors have asked me to spend my assistantship time working on projects for them. (Oh, darn!)

For fun, let's add this up: I'm still volunteering for the Curley Center, am working on two projects/assistantships with different professors, have my own independent study to complete, have three classes that will require individual/varying projects, still have a book chapter to complete, am an unofficial officer in a student group, am a communications officer for the AEJMC sports interest group, have two studies I need to clean up for conference submission... and that's before I add in course work. Speaking of, on top of regular article/chapter readings, I only got assigned two 200+ page books to read by Wednesday next week.

And here's the thing; I'm NOT complaining. This is freakin' badass stuff!

You probably think I'm being clever and showing you
Hurricane Irene (I am). What this really represents
is my next four months.

The other really nice thing about being back to the grind is getting to see everyone again. The new cohort is going to be lots of fun, and in general I've already been to two social outings hosted by groups in the college. I even managed to get sick in the middle of all this, but my willpower is stronger than my germs and I won this round.

Things helping me through my first week include The Joy Formidable, Pearl Jam Radio, Slatkin & Co. candles and lots of water. My weight loss kick is about to get a dropkick to the face 'cause I'm going to buy a bike. And I'm going to use it. (Crazy talk, I know.) Natural disasters abounded. First, there was the earthquake I didn't even feel. Next, there was the hurricane that completely passed me by. (I'm actually a bit disappointed. When I worked at Disney we had three hurricanes in a 5-week span and the best thing in the world was going to the parks the day after a storm. Walking directly on to rides is no joke.)

And despite all this, my favorite thing that happened this week managed to occur this morning. There I was, minding my own business, reading a book about how to build social science theories (aptly called How to Build Social Science Theories). As I get to the chapter about model-building, the last thing I expected to read was that "Models help build theory, but they do so mainly by maiming and murdering," (Shoemaker, Tankard, & Lasorsa, 2004, p. 113).

Just chew on that until you hear from me again.

Toodles,

Mel(li) :)

The one where I discover I still dislike smoothies

I've tried. With all my heart and patience, I've tried. But whether I buy them at some fancy place or make them at home, I just don't like smoothies.

I suppose I should back up a bit. I'm on a health kick these days after I topped an embarrassing weight on the scale. In a way, this is the start of a culinary adventure for me. I'm a picky eater. Waaaaay picky. Just introduced peas to my diet kind of picky. Ethnic foods, for the most part, are out (unless they include a lot of bread and cheese, in which case I'm all in). Part of the problem is I'm a texture-eater (whatever the hell that means). I can't stand when things are too mushy or tough. So when it comes to smoothies, I strongly dislike drinking something that requires chewing or navigating seeds.

Even so, when I went to the grocery store the other day, I saw the prettiness: peaches, apricots, raspberries. I thought, "Alright, I'll give it a try." I've never been a big fruit eater, but since arriving in State College I've at least tried things I would normally avoid. (I've also watched enough Cooking Channel to be tricked and inspired into trying new things. Jamie Oliver can probably get me to try anything except anchovies at least once. I'll give him that.)

Today I decided to break out this huge Disney smoothie maker Mom bought me years ago. (It's turned out to be more of a fridge decoration than a useful appliance.) I tossed in ice, a peach, two apricots, a handful of raspberries and a cup of orange juice. I dispensed, I drank, my face puckered like all hell... back into the blender goes the mix, add two teaspoons of sugar.

Although the smoothie wasn't bad, I just couldn't get past the seeds. Once again, the smoothie won. But then I realized I was hungry, and that's when the magic happened. I got out some chicken and got it cooking... then I cut up my last peach... then I strained the smoothie and added balsamic vinegar. I toasted and made a bed of slivered almonds and next thing I knew I had the best freakin' piece of chicken I've ever put in my mouth. No, really. That ish was delicious!

At that point I realized, "I want to tell someone! I must overshare!" So here I am, oversharing my meal on my blog and possibly beginning a new trend: Stuff Mel Eats. I probably won't do this often, but be warned that I might start talking about food other than ice cream. (Frozen Friday happened quite frequently last year, despite the lack of posts regarding it.)

In other unrelated news, two days until the semester starts. I have one chapter essay done, one to go, and a bunch of other stuff to catch up on. Meetings are already starting to pile up for next week, syllabi are showing up online... ahhh, beginning again.

Toodles!

- Mel(li) :)

The Sarlacc Pit

If you've been following this blog you've probably forgotten about it. Not posting in almost a year will do that to a tiny, smidgen corner of the internet. But I'm OK with that.

To say the least, this has been a wild year. After making it through my first semester as a doctoral student, my second semester was a breeze. The first semester had its ups and downs. I felt like the semester started without me and spent the rest of the time feeling like I was playing catch up. I had a project that took a lot out of me confidence-wise, and that was compounded by a constant desire to just go home. It's odd to be in the middle of a lot of life changes; moving out of my home for the first time was difficult, so I decided to do that, move out of state AND start a doctoral program. No pressure. There were successes, though, and I clung to those. I went to my first conference (NASSS in San Diego) and banged out a couple of papers worth turning into something more than semester-end babblings. Then I went home, recuperated, and came back ready to kick ass.

My second semester went much better than the first. I was ahead of my work and got a lot done with my assistantship. Apparently I'm really good at making codebooks; who knew? I didn't do a lot "extra" in terms of writing immediately publishable or presentable papers, but all my semester papers are getting tweaked for conferences in the coming months. I got through my classes easily and actually started to enjoy State College more. Homesickness waned considerably and I really started to feel like I was in the right place.

After taking a six-week course at the beginning of summer I returned home to a bit of craziness. Not only did our home sell, but we also moved into a new place. There was a two-week lull between closings, and a whole lot of madness outside of that. After packing up a 4-bedroom home in two weeks (it's amazing how much shit closets hold) I got to semi-relax for a couple of weeks. I spent that time catching up on assistantship work and hid in my friend Joe's kitchen as a way to de-stress. Then the townhouse closed and, with the help of my dearest friends, we painted a three-bedroom, two-story townhouse in two weeks. And got the floors changed out. And got all new electrical stuff. And cleaned up the messes left by past tenants. And started actually moving in. All in all, I had my first all-nighter (the day we moved out of the old place) and Joe and I had two nights working 9-5 (that is, 9 p.m. to 5 a.m.) packing and unpacking a huge storage unit.

My blog, like Lando, gets saved from
ten thousand years of digestion.

And somehow I managed to gain 10 pounds. *shakes fist at weight gods... then remembers that week spent cooking*

So that's how my last year of blogging nearly fell into the Sarlacc Pit. With everything going on, the last thing I thought about was dedicating 30 minutes to an hour per week talking about the monotony of my daily routine. Only it wasn't really monotonous. It was kind of hectic monotony with a bouts of insanity and a whole lot of Cooking Channel.

All that said, I'm hoping to be a bit more diligent with this blog. I'm also planning to launch my hockey communications blog, which was started and stopped but will have a place in my CV when all is said and done. I have two book chapters I'm wrapping up, an independent study to bang out, and three planned conference submissions this semester. I'm starting new assistantships (two; research and teaching) and hope to continue my involvement with various on- and off-campus groups (CGF and the AEJMC Sports Interest group). The ball is rolling faster down that doctoral hill.

Adieu, mes amis! It's good to be back!

- Mel(li) :)