the parking gods are smiling

first of all, it was negative 2 degrees when i got to work this morning. it's eleven o'clock am now and the temperature has risen 8 degrees. that's right, it's 6 whole fahrenheit degrees. now onto my good news.

just got an e-mail from transportation services - i'm up for a parking permit for next school year!!!!!!!! happy days are here again! no more riding the bus! no more illegal parking! no more parking tickets!

i accepted the offer, paid for it (well, i will, as i pay off the credit card debt i'm accruing), and all i have to do now is pick it up. can't use it until september, but yay! i have a parking permit!

btw, the high today is 15. i don't think it'll get anywhere near there. it's 6.

heteroskedasticity

it's a real word and it's my favorite. i read it in a journal article a couple of years ago, immediately wrote in on a little yellow post-it note, and stuck it on my desk so i could look at it whenever i wanted to. yes, i had to research what it meant, and no, i have not been able to use it in a conversation yet, but - and here's where it gets exciting - since i've been back in school, i've had two, count 'em, two! professors use the word. and since the semester has only begun, one has to assume i will be hearing, using, and correcting for heteroskedasticity on a regular basis. doesn't it just give you tingles?!

spring semester 2010

i have three classes this semester: quantitative methods, epidemiologic methods, and health services research. these classes are supposed to prepare us for the qualifying exam this july that phd students must pass before we can move on in our academic careers. so not only do we get the stress from the difficulty of the classes themselves, we get the compounded stress of preparing for a test that determines the course of our lives for the next few years. fortunately, it's only the first week of classes, and the oppressive weight of mental and emotional tension has not yet set in. i still possess the capacity to find humor in things, so while this lasts, let's review:

professor 1: a small man with a columbian accent so thick, it takes all of my accent-sorting listening power to stay focused. it's hard not to get mentally stuck on words like 'kuh-myoo-luh-tiv' (emphasis on the 'myoo'), roll it around, play with it, stretch it out. you just have to think, he means 'cumulative' and keep following the lecture, otherwise you'll miss half of what he's saying - because half of what he's saying are mispronunciations like 'in-stant-tin-ay-ose' (emphasis on the 'stant') (instantaneous); 'pope-oo-lation' and 'huh-sard' (emphasis on the 'sard') (hazard).

professor 2: first day of class wore boots over his gray trousers, held up with suspenders, a blue shirt, and a pea-green plaid, tweed sports coat. oh, and glasses. nice enough guy, reads from his notes. no accent but uses words like 'multivariable regression analysis' so i'll probably have as much trouble understanding him as i do professor 1.

professor 3: will farrell-look-a-like (see 10nov2009 blog entry). i only pictured him as a giant elf once during the two-and-a-half hour lecture; i consider that a success. this class only meets once a week, which is nice, but it's two-and-a-half hours long, in a small, overcrowded classroom, so a bit painful.

so the first week is done (sort of. tomorrow, i have a full-day seminar on sas, statistical analysis software) and the semester has officially started. the anxiety really only goes up from here.

this week in review

ok, so it's really a review of last week.

monday - went to the eye doctor for a routine eye exam, ended up in emergency retinal surgery. turns out i had detached retinas. left the doctor's office that day with the right eye fixed and the anticipation of another surgery to fix the left eye.

tuesday - got to recount my story for everyone in the office and received lots of empathy.

wednesday - met with my new therapist. i think she's the reason i haven't posted a new post in a couple of weeks. my blog has been my personal therapy (remember, most of what i write, i don't post), and now that i'm meeting with her, i haven't felt the need to write as much. i've also been on school break so there hasn't been as much to write about. also went to the dmv to try to get my wisconsin driver's license, title, and plates but i didn't have my passport or birth certificate so i took the forms i needed and vowed to return.

thursday - went in for the second eye surgery i had been dreading for three days. it was painful but since i knew what to expect this time, i employed mental imagery (i kept picturing george clooney) and it helped up until the very end when i couldn't ignore the pain. i didn't make my afternoon dentist appointment but i'm not blind so i figure it balances. i went home after the surgery, took a nap, grabbed my passport and got to the dmv at 4:05. the dmv closes at 4:00 on thursdays. i shook my fist at the locked doors and drove away with my california driver's license, california title, and california plates.

friday - drove to rockford, illinois to pick up flav and the kids. it's the tiniest airport i've ever seen and it has free parking. short-term, long-term, it's free. it's also an hour and a half away. on the way back we ate at a place called 'beef-a-roo'. not kidding. it's like a mix of arby's and a regular burger joint. despite the name, it was actually pretty good.

next week, classes begin. dun, dun, dun (you know, menacing, descending, song-like tones)

the search for church

i have been very productive during my school break so far: i made appointments with doctors within my new insurance plan, i changed my car insurance, i packed up my christmas decorations, and i made a long list of things that still need to get done. things like finding a church in madison; a church with good, solid teaching, not too big, not too small, not too short, not too tall - oh wait, wrong list, and available service opportunities.

there is certaintly not a lack of churches in madison. i like being an informed consumer so before i started the exhausting process of 'church shopping', i thought i'd do some research to narrow down the field of possible candidates. you might think this means looking up the distance from my house, service times, congregation size, etc. and perhaps i'll get to that at some point. but first, when a church proclaims to be 'reformed' or 'four-square' or even, 'non-denominational', i want to understand what that means. what do they believe, what do they teach? it's been a long time since i could rattle off the five points of calvinism, the arguments from lutheranism, and how arminianism felt about it all. i don't fall neatly into any of those schools of thought, but i want to know where a church stands. free will vs. predestination? limited vs. universal atonement? uncertainty vs. certainty of perseverance?

my grandpa told me that as long as the church is bible-based and preaches against sin and nancy pelosi, he would approve. with these standards in mind, first, a theological quest to understand the doctrine; second, service times. this should be easy.

banana cream pie blizzard flavored lip balm anyone?

'tis the season for giving. and, as a result, i cannot be the only one who received gifts that made me say, huh? (with love and appreciation, of course) and, for the record, the doggy socks, pictured right, are not 'huh?' gifts, they're adorable and i took the picture right before i put them on.

i had the honor of being visited not once, but twice, by santa; i must have been a very good girl this year. gum, post-it notes, pens, etc. and, oddly enough, each time, santa left me a food or beverage-flavored lip balm in my stocking. the first, a dairy queen banana cream pie blizzard flavored lip balm (not kidding), the second, a wild cherry pepsi flavored lip balm. they're both still in original packaging if anyone has a 'huh?' gift worth trading.

please feel free to submit your candidates for most random gifts via comments.
happy new year!