Finished my third-to-last class in this Master's program. 94%, not bad at all. Especially since the final was due Sunday night, right after Penguicon ended. I even made time to get a pedicure with SGW, which shows how smoothly it all went!

Next, unfortunately, I have to write my thesis. Booooo. I do not want to write a thesis. Even one on an interesting topic. Also my thesis advisor is sort of waffling on whether she still has time to be my thesis advisor.

My plan is to spend the summer working on my thesis without taking classes. Then in September I will sign up for "Thesis II", and at the end of October I'm supposed to turn in a completed thesis. Seems a reasonable plan... six months.

The downside is that I don't know how an idea becomes a thesis. I'm sure it must follow some logical progression, but I'm fuzzy as to what it should be. I want my thesis advisor to help me sort of outline what should happen in these next six months, with deliverables every 2 weeks or so, so I can stay on track and know I'm on track.

Except that she's kinda waffling... see above. I suppose I should contact my advisors and get this figured out, instead of fretting about it on LJ. Except that this is easier....

Tags: school

It's been awhile, and I haven't read much....

13. Beginning Jana EE 5 Platform, by Kevin Mukhar and Chris Zelenak. Distributed Systems Concepts and Design, by Coulouris, Dallimore, Kindberg (paper) These are school books, so I only read bits and pieces. I'll count them both as 1.

12. The Graveyard Book, by Niel Gaimon (paper) Sort of a Jungle-Book-in-a-graveyard story. Aimed more at young people. I enjoyed it.

11. The Dirty Girls Social Club, by Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez (audio) Six Latino women with very different lives and perspectives. Enjoyable. I recommend the audio, so you can hear the accents.

10. Headhunters, by Jules Bass (audio) Four women from New Jersey decide to go to Monte Carlo and pretend to be billionaires. Good cheesy fun.

.......

As an interlude, today I remembered a book which I had read in 2010 ("The Year Of No Tracking"). It was loaned by my brother. Called Homer & Langley: A Novel, by E.L. Doctorow. It's the kind of book where the story sticks with you for a long while, and you keep thinking about the characters. They each had these amusing little foibles, which eventually took over and destroyed them. Disturbing - but recommended.

Tags: books

Traditionally after every Race for the Cure I've participated in, I pose with the Detroit Tiger outside the baseball stadium. Life has gotten busy though, so I missed last year's race and am unsure about this year's race.

However yesterday M and I went to see a ballgame! It was fun (even if the first inning screwed everything up and we lost), and as we were leaving I decided to pose with the ol' tiger again. Just in case I don't do the race this year.

2012



( Girls with tigers, over the years.  )

Tags: tiger photos

Two plus two. It doesn't equal four, not in this case, because the sizes aren't the same. Two weeks in this class, plus two classes more, equals a master's degree.

This will happen before the end of 2012. The only sucky part is that there is a thesis hiding in those numbers, waiting to come out and bite me. I don't wanna write a thesis! But I want to be done....

I can do this. I will do this! I'm so close. Soon I'll be done.

Thesis = ???
Other class = ???
MCT*620 XP40 Distributed Systems = ???
MSCD*650 XP40 PL/SQL Programming = A
MCT*624 XP71 Thesis Fundamentals = P
MCT*618 XP70 Object-Oriented Design = A
MCT*619 XP70 Object-Oriented Programming = A
MCT*614 XP40 Database Concepts = A
MCT*610 XP70 Software Engineering = A-
MSCS*650 M40 C++ Programming = A
MCT*613 XP40 Database Architecture = A-
MCT*611 XP70 Cmptr Arch & Operating Systems = A

Tags: school

This morning when I arrived at work, I found a brown paper bag with my name on it. In it was half a sandwich. My friend across the table said, "It's Nutella." He remembered how much I said I liked it last week, when he had a nutella sandwich for lunch, so this morning he decided to make me one. How sweet, I was so touched! (literally, how sweet, too... yummmm.....)

**

My brother and his kids were in town visiting over the weekend. It was really nice. He has not yet visited me since I moved in with M, so he hasn't seen my house. Also he's never visited me with his children. It was really lovely spending quality time with him and the kids, without our parents or sister around. Not that I have a problem with any of them! It's just that it is a very different kind of interaction when there are fewer people vying for each other's time.

The first day, we went to a playground and met up with M's brother, and his children. All four kids had been in our wedding together, so they had fun playing with their "wedding friends" again. I had fun watching them. Afterward we all went to Buddy's for pizza. There was a 20 minute wait, and the lobby was very crowded. I noticed that in a corner under the bar there was a nice empty space, with a footstool just the right side for a child to sit on. Will was getting antsy, so I told him to go sit there. Eventually all four children were huddled in that little space under the bar, playing Plants vs Zombies on my brother's iPhone. They fit there perfectly, and they were out of the way and having fun, but I still laugh every time I picture them all crouched under the bar together.



The next day we went to the zoo, and then we visited the house my bro and I had grown up in. I enjoyed showing it off to M and the children, none of whom had seen it before. The present owner was really nice, letting us in and allowing us to take a full tour of the house. It looks really different, but really good.



The day after that (a Monday), M had to go to work. I had taken Monday and Tuesday off to spend some extra family time, so we went to the Henry Ford Museum. We met up with a college friend of my brother's, and his two children. We all enjoyed the museum. At one point we found a payphone in the hallway. (A real one) The kids found it just as fascinating as the historical displays, and I realized it wouldn't be long before the payphone became an exhibit in the museum, instead of a tool.



**

After everyone left on tuesday, I met up with my cousin to get my hair done. I was interested in doing some color. I'd been considering going darker, like "low-lights", but she had a cool idea. Our inspiration was a calico cat. So she put some dark streaks in, and some red streaks, we left some of my natural lighter brown, and some of my old blond highlights. It's kinda cool looking! I'm finding a little bit startling to get used to, but I'm enjoying it anyway.



After my hair appointment, I tried to meet M at the gym. Only I couldn't find him anywhere. Finally I went to the front desk to make sure he'd checked in. They said he had, so I figured he must have already finished his workout and left already. I was relieved and went to begin my workout. Shortly after this, he emerged from the men's locker room and waited for me in the lobby. (I'm not sure why.) Then he decided to ask at the desk if I'd checked in. "I'm looking for my wife," he said.

"There was somebody looking for her husband. Does she have red hair?"

He laughed. "I don't know! She just got her hair done. I don't know what color she went with!!"

Tags: family, hair

The protocol for recording vacation days where I work is: send a calendar invite to everybody on your team with the entry (for example) "Renniekins Vacation". That way we can tell who's supposed to be in the office at any time just by looking at our calendars.

I did this for a couple of days I'm taking off in April. Amy turned to me awhile later and said, "What if I don't accept your vacation invite?"

"Well, I'll just go without you."

Bernie said eagerly, "I accepted! I can fit into remarkably small spaces, I'm sure you can carry me in your suitcase."

Kris called from across the room, "Hey are we going to Mexico again?"

"No," I said, "We'll just be hanging out in Ypsilanti. My brother's coming into town, with his kids. You guys are going to love them!!"

"Oh. Um... I'd like to change my meeting response," said Bernie deflatedly. "And here I was going to offer to fold up into a garment bag."

"No no, the kids are great, we're going to have so much fun!"

"Yeah that's okay. I think we'll just stay here and work."

Tags: family, work

Visited the dermatologist, and now the large bump on the back of my neck has been replaced with a painful hole, two stitches, and a bandaid. That's okay though... I'm relieved to have it out! It was sore and very uncomfortable.

Turns it wasn't actually a large cyst after all, despite appearances, but a small cyst that had become infected. That explains why it was hurting, and why it appeared so suddenly on Monday... and makes it an even better thing that I saw somebody quickly and had it removed. She (the dermatologist) is fairly sure that it was the same cyst from last year, and that she must not have succeeded in removing all of it then. In her notes from last year, it said she couldn't find the "pore". However this time she says she did find it, and she seems confident that she got it all. I hope so! I'd rather not have to do this again next year.

In other news, when I got home from my minor surgery we were in the middle of a tornado watch. A tornado touched down just a few towns over, and it destroyed several houses. Scary. We locked the kitties in the laundry room and hung out in the basement for awhile, but all we got was thunder and rain. Really a lucky day all around, when I think about it.

Tags: health

One of the useful things about journaling is being able to look at events in my past, and be able to see what happened, when, and what I thought of it. Unfortunately the fact that my journaling has faded over the past couple of years has made this less effective. I miss journaling, even though it's my fault that I've slowed down.

That said, I am pleased to see that I did remember to record this annoying cyst I had last year, just a few months before my wedding. I'm glad I recorded it, because it's back. Now I know what it was, when I had it, and I was able to also use that date to find the name of the doctor who removed it for me. Tomorrow I'll call and see if she can remove it again, hopefully more thoroughly this time. Yay for having a history to look back on!

Tags: health

"While you work on your homework," he said, "I'll go downstairs and watch sports."

An hour or two later, he wandered upstairs again. I asked politely, "Did we win?"

"Nobody we really care about was playing tonight."

"Nobody I really care about is ever playing, Mikey."

"Oh. Well in that case, we're up 156 to zero!"

"Hooray!!!"

9. The Sagan Diary, by John Scalzi (paper)- Doesn't quite count, given that it's a "novelette" not a full-sized book, but oh well I'm counting it anyway. Very quick read, about the thoughts of a character from his Old Man's War novel.

8. The Wedding Girl, by Madeleine Wickham (paper) - A fun chicklit story about a girl about to get married, but has a secret past that must first be resolved. The characters were alluring, and I read it in a (long) day.

7. Dance With Dragons, by George R. R. Martin (paper) - This one took me forever to finish. I liked it, and I still want to find out what happens to all the characters I like, but I wish he'd stop throwing in new characters and plotlines. I can't keep them all straight, and it makes me lose interest.

6. Here and Now, by Kimberla L. Roby (audio) - This book is categorized as "black romantic fiction", but could be just "fiction". It was the story of two sisters, now adults, each who envies the other for having what she wishes she could have. I enjoyed it.

Wow, more paper books than audio - first time that's happened in awhile! I guess it's because I was on vacation.

Tags: books

So I have now been married over a year... crazy! Mike and I celebrated our 1-year anniversary on Sunday, in sunny Cancun Mexico. It was an awesome trip, and I will share more about it in the near future.

However we came home to some sad news: my grandmother passed away on Friday. This is my father's mother, also my last living grandparent. She was 96 I think, and she has been fading for several years. Significant dementia, and forgetting most everything... but she was still my Grandma, and I will miss her.

She lived in New Jersey all my life, although she and my grandfather moved quite a lot as my dad was growing up. My grandpa passed away when I was just a baby, so although I have photos of me with him, I do not remember him. We used to visit her every Christmas holiday - generally we would spend Dec 26th through 31st in New Jersey with her and other family members. After I graduated college I didn't make it out to NJ as often for Christmas, but I tried to make a habit of visiting in the Spring or Summer.

Last year I got married, and instead of my traditional NJ trip, most of the family came to Michigan. Unfortunately she was not well enough at that point to travel. That was one of the downsides of meeting M later in life: Grandma didn't make it to my wedding. On the plus side though, he and I did travel to NJ together two summers ago and he got to meet her. (On another down side, he didn't get to meet my "real" grandma, the vibrant one before she started fading.)

I keep thinking of memories to share here, but finding it challenging to summarize 40 years worth of trips to Grandma's house, not to mention her trips to Michigan, in a simple blog post. She had a basset hound named Cleo when I was a kid. He loved to have his belly rubbed. I would take him for walks, and I would crawl through his doggie door after him.



( more stories and pictures... )

Tags: family

What a strange February. Went for a walk today and saw: kids playing basketball, couples walking dogs, girls riding bikes, a man and boy tossing a football, lots of kids on a playground, and boys playing baseball. In February? In Michigan?

[Edited to add: oh yeah, and my neighbor across the street was washing his car while wearing shorts. He had a hoodie on, but still....]

As many of my friends know by now, Groundhog Day is my favorite holiday.  I have been told by a few friends that they think of me on groundhog's day....  and I love that my weird obsessions make people associate this silly little holiday with me.

So YAY, it's Groundhog Day, and a happy day to all my friends online!

This morning I wished everyone at work a happy groundhog day, and I think I was largely ignored.  Sort of a "blink and move on" reaction.  Which explains why, when I received a delivery of flowers in the afternoon, people were a bit confused.



"Is it for valentine's day?"  "Is it your anniversary?"

That's when I explained that they were from my husband, to wish me a happy groundhog day.  "Of course."  I then elaborated that it is my favorite holiday.  The guy I was pairing with today, from India, didn't know what the day was.  I  quickly looked up the wikipedia article, and gave him the two-minute overview.  "...so the rodent comes out of the ground, and he predicts whether the winter will end based on whether he sees his shadow.  If he sees his shadow, it scares him so much that he runs back underground, and we have six more weeks of winter."

He nodded uncertainly.  "So did the groundhog say we'd have more winter?" 

"Well, the groundhogs are in disagreement.  Phil, see he's pictured here being held by this man in the tophat, he says we'll have more winter.  But other groundhogs in other towns say we won't.  It doesn't really matter, that's the fun of it, that it's entirely meaningless."

"I see.  And this is your favorite holiday?"

"Yes!  I like it precisely because it's so silly.  I mean, it's all about a rodent predicting the weather.  And it's all inclusive; nobody has to feel bad or excluded.  It isn't for a particular gender, race, nationality, or religion.  Also you don't have to buy gifts, send cards, or eat special food.  It's nothing but silly fun."

"But you make your husband send you flowers?"

"Well I don't make him.  He just decided to.  I think because he enjoys my little obsessions.  Also, he can make all the guys in the office feel bad for not sending their wives flowers for groundhog's day."

"Hmm.  I just won't tell my wife."

I had a good time at confusion last week, but managed to bring home some kind of ick that made its appearance Monday. It started out as a sore throat and cold, but then on Friday stabbing ear pain added itself to the mix. Whee!

Since I happened to have an unused and unexpired bottle of antibiotics in the closet, M and I decided to self-diagnose the ick as antibiotics worthy without a doctors visit. (The back story: I had a possible infection right before a vacation on May, so I got a script just in case. Didn't end up needing it then, yay.)

Anyway despite attacking this thing with a variety of treatments, I'm still under the weather. Getting better, but slowly! I'm taking today as a recovery day, and have spent much of it thus far nested on the couch. My Kitty Robin is delighted with the situation, and has spent much of the time cuddled up with me. At one point, when M had kindly brought me a mug of tea, he looked at us and laughed. "You've got a cat, a blanket, a Teddy bear, pillows, a book, and a cup of tea. "

I smiled at him. "You can't get much more nest-y than this, can you? If this doesn't cure me, nothing will. "

This better do the trick, because tomorrow it's back to reality. Hopefully by then the worst will be a thing of the past!

Tags: health

Deep thoughts on a Sunday morning: I love that my bathrobe has a hood. Why didn't I discover these earlier in life?



That's Robin, often known as "monster" these days. :) but he's our monster...

A year and a half ago, M and I were visiting my sister in Milwaukee. We were in the middle of trying finding wedding bands. We also wanted to get them engraved, so we were trying to come up with something appropriate to permanently represent our marriage.

During the drive there, I had googled the question. We found some great suggestions for an engraving on the inside of the wedding ring, including one of my favorites: "Put it back on."

There were more serious suggestions of favorite long lyrics, each others' names, dates, code words, latin phrases, quotes from important moments, and so forth. But nothing seemed quite right. So it was that the three of us we were strolling together on a hot August today, heading somewhere for lunch, and discussing the issue. M and I were holding hands, and Sis was walking slightly behind us on the sidewalk.

The heat made hand-holding warm and uncomfortable, so I disengaged. My hand was moist, and I was grossed out. Subtly, I tried to wipe the moisture off my hand onto my shorts, but they both noticed. "What's wrong, don't you want to hold my hand anymore?" said my sweetie. "Are you trying to say I sweat too much?"

"It's nobody's fault," I explain with some embarrassment, "It's just that it's hot. My hand is a little damp, so I want to let go until it dries off."

"But honey," he said in exaggerated mushiness, "it's our sweat!"

"THAT'S IT," exclaimed my sister. "That's what you should put on your rings!"

"It's our sweat??", I echoed. "First that's kinda gross, and second... well.... that's just weird."

"No no, it's romantic," said Sis, and M agreed. I rolled my eyes. Fortunately we had reached our destination so the conversation dropped.

Quite some time later I told my sister that we'd ordered our rings, and of course she asked what we'd engraved on them. "We ended up with simple messages to one another, that's all. Nothing fancy." I avoided telling her exactly, since the messages are for each other's eyes only.

She looked at me with sad eyes. "Not... it's our sweat?"

I laughed and had to break the news that we had not, in fact, gone with her brilliant suggestion. It's now a part of our lives forever anyway though. For one thing, anytime we hold hands on a hot day we remember it and quote it to one another. For another thing, she got us a cool plaque for our wall. It contains our married name in fancy letters, our names and wedding date underneath, and at the very bottom the words: "It's OUR sweat."

Tags: wedding

5. Mockingjay, by Suzanne Collins
4. Catching Fire, by Suzanne Collins
3. The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins (kindle) The above three books I read on an e-reader, when my sister and I tried borrowing books through the Kindle service. After a few false starts we figured out the book-borrowing procedure, and I started reading the Hunger Games. When I finished it, I begged her to loan my the other two books, because I was totally caught up in the story. They are young adult novels, and each is a very fast-paced and captivating read. Set in a postapocalyptic world, reality television has turned into a punishment where real children from rebel districts must fight to the death in an arena for the amusement of the capital's residents. Definitely recommended.

2. The Devil's Advocate, by Morris West.  (audio)  Very interesting!  I picked it up because I thought it might be from the movie with the same name, but they have nothing to do with one another.  Instead it's a story of a priest who is sent to an impoverished village in Italy to investigate the possible sainthood of a man during WWII.  Recommended.

1. Children of the Mind, by Orson Scott Card.  (audio) This book was so-so at best, overly philosophical and mushy, and the most interesting plot line in the book was the one he didn't resolve.

Tags: books

We had front row tickets for Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me... a live taping of a public radio show news quiz. Which is really hilariously funny, and something M and I like to listen to whenever we drive to Chicago.

This was our view. Way off the the side, but front row anyway. I got to say 'hi' to Mo Rocca, and I discovered that he's a very sweet and very funny nerd.



My only disappointment is that they don't use a real bell. Whenever a contestant gets an answer right, Peter will exclaim, "You're right!", and there is a DING sound. In my head, I always pictured him enthusiastically swooping his hand down to tap a bell-hop sorta bell.

There was no bell, it's probably just computer-generated. Worse yet, there is no enthusiastic swoop. I spend some time watching Peter, Karl, the panelists, and the backstage production team... nobody swooped their hand onto a button to announce that the contestant had been right.

Oh well, just one disappointment in an otherwise delightful performance. So glad we made it, and got to hang out beforehand for yummy food with crappy service!!

It seems we ordered more holiday cards than we have addresses for. If you would like one, just comment with your address. (Comments are screened. ) I'll send them until we run out.

Also, I am working up the courage to tell the embarrassing story of why I have bruises on both legs. We are tentatively calling it SinkGate.

So I was getting ready for our Saturday plans this morning, and when I was dressed my sweetie walked in. "How do I look? ", I asked, striking a pose.

"You look good, " he said. "Are you going to be cool enough? Is it to warm? Or will you be warm enough? Or just right? Or is it hard to predict...?"

I blinked at him.

"Isn't that the itchy sweater?? "

At this point I burst out laughing at him.

He said, "Wow, stream of consciousness there. You look great, you're beautiful, you look adorable... "

He trailed off then laughed also. "Um. How'd I do? "