Exams and other news

I received an e-mail from my advisor today that explained the whole grading process of my cumulative exams. Apparently, I don't get to find out about my writtens before the orals. I go in, do my oral exam and then I have to go out in the hall and wait while they decide whether or not I've passed. It was a nice e-mail that made me smile though, so hopefully that's a good sign.

In other news, I found out last week that I received a $450 scholarship to attend the Conference of Inter-Mountain Archivists next week (May 15th). They take out the conference registration and then give me a check for "expenses" so I'll actually get some take home money out of the deal. It makes me happy, not only do I get to attend the conference with the cool people I work with at the county archives, but I also get some cash, and a snazzy line for the resume/cv. Yay!

One down (I hope)

So I completed my written comphrehensive exams on Tuesday, I hope that means I'm done, but I won't know that for sure until I hear from my professors, so I'm holding off on totally celebrating until I know I'm entirely through the hoop...now I just have to start thinking about the oral exams.

I told my Grandma the other day that my birthday present this year (May 17, 4 days after my orals) is going to be having survived until my birthday.

More gushing about springtime...

Tracy had to move this tree last fall and shortly after he moved it all of the leaves fell off. We figured it was dead. So we were delighted when the first little green buds appeared, and now we have a fully blooming tree in our backyard. Yay!

Horray for Spring...now let's hope it sticks around.

Today it is actually nice here, sunny and not freezing. It makes me smile amidst my stressing!

My Husband is a Miracle Worker

So yesterday my laptop crashed, like as in, black screen, no communication, major freak out on my part kind of crash. However, my miracle husband was able to somehow get the computer to give up my entire My Documents folder before he had to reload it, so everything vital has been saved. (We think!) I had been backing up my stuff, but I do it once a week, and in my world lately a week of lost work could have been very annoying.

I'm still putting the pieces back together, but less than one day after said crash I am up and running again, and everything seems to be alright...someone ought to hire a guy who can do that, don't you think :)

Forks

So, I wrote this blog post once and then deleted it, because it was so fan geek I almost couldn't stand it, but well, (since I sat at my computer all day fiddling with stuff for a curriculum project map and re-writing stuff I'd already written) I don't have anything more interesting to say, so what the heck.

I bought the Twilight movie last week and, after watching the vampire baseball scene about 10 times and deciding that the kid who plays Jacob Black is so good I can almost forgive him for not actually having much of a Native American background, I've been on a renewed Twilight kick. Last night my friend Becky and I were talking about it, and it reminded me that Tracy and I had driven down Highway 101 between Port Angeles, WA and Seaside, OR on our honeymoon. Now for those of you not Twilight crazy this meant I had been to Forks (the town where Twilight is set).

Now I didn't remember Forks, but on a lark I dug out the video from that trip and, for no explicable reason other than that I was playing with the video camera at the time, there was Forks, WA in all its tiny glory. It's was a sunny day, which sort of ruins that whole Pacific Northwest vampire ambiance deal, but still it was fun to hear myself vaguely mocking its small size and then declaring it "kind of a nice little town."

Maybe the reason I think this is so fun is because so many of the novels I like are:
A) Set in places that don't exist, like Robin McKinley's Damar, or Shannon Hale's Bayern
B) Set halfway across the word, like Jane Eyre and The Count of Monte Cristo

Anyway, it was kind of fun.

Oh, and as an example of the universe's sense of humor, I know Stephenie Meyer started writing the book at the beginning of June 2003, which was the same time we were there on our honeymoon - and the book has a minor character named Mrs. Cope :)

Exams

I finally have dates for my comphrehensive exams, my written exams will be April 27th and my oral exams will (probably) be May 13th. I'm fairly nervous about it, especially with finishing up my preparation in the midst of all the other craziness that's going on, but I'm glad to know what the deal is.