I've Moved. . .

Totally Taught First Classes!

So I totally taught my first classes yesterday and I think this may indeed be a fun semester. I am so INCREDIBLY excited! Seriously.

I love the students, I love the interaction, and I love talking about subjects endlessly. And I like making students think. I'm starting the semester hopeful and full of anticipation.

What's new on the thesis end of things? I have a committee meeting next Wednesday, and think I have an entire first draft finished. Assuming they like the Findings I'm almost in the clear. Praise God!

And I applied for a conference coming up in October (we'll see if I get in) and am applying for one in February (just a poster presentation for that one). And I'll likely be attending one in May. It is a good day!

Stress

I can't wait to finish this sucker. . . for real. It's taking me forever and I've work SOOOO hard. Anyways, I submitted another draft on Monday and I would appreciate any prayers you can send up for it. I believe that this draft is actually it this time. Pray that God would give me much favour and that the committee would LOVE the draft. Pray that even the member who I've been at odds with would have a soft heart towards it and me. Pray that I would have much favour in our meeting in September and that God would let me finish this degree -- complete it, and achieve it. Ask that He would let them like my conclusions and findings. Pray that God would let them be happy with my work. Let them all see the hard work I've put into my draft and find it favorable. Let them also be pleased with my last two chapters. Pray that I would be allowed to extend my program and finish it -- that the committee would let me continue without any ramifications. Ask that God would let this meeting happen before Sept 15.

Thanks for the prayers all. I'll try to post a real update laster this week.

Graph Procrastination

At this moment I should be making graphs for my methods chapter (just some bar graphs showing the population distributions), but because I HATE (yes, I HATE) making graphs, I'm writing a blog entry with the hopes that this entry will motivate to make said-graphs. So what will be in this entry? Several movie reviews for now, maybe I'll add another later.

MOVIE REVIEWS
I managed to see two phenomenal movies this week: The Dark Knight and Mama Mia! -- note that the exclamation point is part of the title, not my doing. Let's start with the Dark Knight!

Just as a preface, I loved Christian Bale in his batman debut. The man portrayed batman and Bruce Wayne well, something which is no small feat as evidenced by the array of good Batmans who played terrible Bruce Waynes(Val Kilmer) and good Bruce Waynes that played terrible Batmans (George Clooney). Christian Bale (much like Michael Keaton) did an incredible job in his debut, and I would argue, a better job in its sequel. The constant tension between his two personas is well-constructed, well-portrayed, and somewhat moving. You can sense his torment in both roles at different times. The low-raspy Batman voice mirrored by the somewhat higher Bruce Wayne voice is a nice touch (although I have to admit now and then I had to guess what Batman was saying. . . can't really see the lips move very well and the low voice gets lost on me now and then). Additionally, I loved Scarecrow in the last Batman movie. I found him frightening as both the Doctor and crazed madman (just for the record I think Cillian Murphy makes a great bad guy, there's something purely evil about his performance in both Batman Begins and Red Eye), but how did Heath Ledger fair as the Joker? I've heard Oscar buzz over Ledger's performance and that's beyond understandable now. The Joker's laugh was chilling, his chaos undeniable, and his ick-factor high. What do I mean by ick factor? Most times Joker is shot in the dark and so his hair just looks oily (and unwashed for weeks), but in one daylight scene the shot of his hair revealed what this viewer can only describe as a green-ish blackish mould (Ledger's ordinarily medium brown/blonde-ish hair is greenish in nature). It was disgusting, but added something to the film. I didn't think anyone could outdo Jack Nicholson's performance, but Ledger managed to create a sociopathic character hell bent on chaos without rhyme or reason. Harvey Dent was magnificent. I don't want to go into too many details, but I was pleased with how his storyline unfolded as well and he was extremely well portrayed. It truly was brilliant in terms of casting and performance. The only person I didn't like was Maggie Gyllenhaal. I found her performance flat an unentertaining. Overall I give it 4.5/5.

Mama Mia! is cute, funny, and fun. It's obvious that the actors enjoyed the roles they played and enjoyed each other. It's romantic scenery and romantic nature is actually very entertaining. And while it didn't contain depth, it was highly entertaining and quite funny overall. I give it 4/5.

What to do About Time??

It's 2:30 AM and I've already put in a half hour of work. Seriously, being a grad student sucks. I hope that I'm nearing the end here. . .

Anyways, instead of further working on my thesis (I'll do that at a holier hour), I thought I'd zip off a quick note with everything that's been going on. In all honesty life hasn't really been that exciting since my last entry. All I do these days is read and write. . . write and read.

I've been reading a lot about time-stress in general, and women's time-stress in particular. So much that it's making me nervous. Let me be perfectly clear before I write much more: I want a family someday, but have never envisioned myself as the stay-at-home mom type; however, I am bothered by the idea of letting someone else raise my children while I'm away at work. Talk about guilt!! I would have persistent guilt about not being with my kids. But if I was at home, I'd feel guilty for letting Rob be the only one working. What is wrong with me?!!! Well it's the same thing "wrong" with a lot of women, we are damned no matter what we do. Society looks down on us if we work and have children. Society looks down on us if we have children and stay home to raise them. We just can't win no matter what we do.

And this concern over time (which really I shouldn't be even thinking about as children are a few years away for us) has forced me into crazy planner mode. What is crazy planner mode? I have become that woman who sits with her husband and insists on building a "time-line" (i.e. what we should be doing and when). Seriously. I really shouldn't be worried about these things, but I am. I guess it's at least semi-distracting from the thesis.

On the thesis front I managed to finish a draft of my Findings and will probably send it in today to my supervisor. Prayers are solicited. I am sooo hoping he likes it because if he does, I'm probably near the end here (I have drafts of two other chapters that I need to smooth over before sending him, but if he likes this one, I basically have an entire first draft). Thanks everyone!