Vail

This weekend Chrissy and I went to a retreat in Vail for the Cell Biology, Stem Cells, and Development (CSD) Graduate Program retreat. It is beautiful there and the pictures I will post do not really do it justice. We both enjoyed the talks and I am particularly excited about potentially rotating through the lab of one of the speakers. Chrissy and I ditched one of the talks to drive up to Vail Village, which is where all the condos and shopping areas are in Vail. We had fun just walking around and enjoying the scenery.

We have also enjoyed watching the semi-annual General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints yesterday and today. Hurray for live online streaming (we don't own a TV). We missed being with our friends and family for the conference but we also enjoyed the time together.

-Nick

Terrorists in da 'hood

So if you haven't heard, one of our neighbors is a terrorist (or at least a suspected terrorist). He's a young airport shuttle driver who is being tried for being involved in a terrorist plot. I'm pretty sure he was my shuttle driver when I came to interview. I had no cash so, as a tip, I offered him a card to receive a free video from the Church, but he seemed offended and informed me curtly that he was Muslim. Anyway, it may or may not have been him, but it's crazy to think about it.

Yesterday on the bus, I didn't notice anyone I thought was a terrorist, but I did fear for my iTouch, my Macbook, and my life (just a little). When I boarded the bus, two guys were talking about how many of their friends from jail they had seen on the busses that day. They were talking pretty fast in Ebonics, so it was difficult to understand--it really is like another language. Anyway, I heard gang names dropped and talk of illegitimate children, drugs, etc. Then another guy came on the bus, who I am pretty sure was under the influence of something. He sparked a debate with the first two about who was the best rapper in the history of the world--50-cent or Tupac. The debate became quite heated and people from the back of the bus started to weigh in as well. I was in the middle of what I was afraid would become a physical brawl. The first two men got off the bus and then, after they calmed down a bit, the remaining debaters discussed the inconvenience of having to take public transportation after they lost their licenses for DUIs.

I'm not in Utah anymore...

My new addictions!

Completing my very intense, very fulfilling masters degree and diving right into--well--nothing, particularly, has been a bit of a struggle. School gives every day meaning and purpose: there is always something to be done for classes, some test to prepare for, some concert program (in my case) to be polishing, etc. etc. etc.

So, after 20 years of being a student, I landed with a thud in this thing we call "free time," and I had no idea what to do with it. At first I wandered aimlessly around our new house and checked my email too many times a day, but as the weeks have passed, I have slowly rediscovered SO MANY things that I love to do--so many things I have a passion for. Here is a quick rundown of what I do to occupy my time these days:


Cooking! Well, when I have enough first-trimester energy for it :) I already posted about my cookbook-reading craze, but I just had to reiterate what a joy it is for me to cook right now! Fast forward 7, 8, 9 months, and I know this enthusiasm will be greatly diminished by the brand new baby that will demand so much time and energy. But right now in this brief season of pure self improvement and indulgence, I am loving it. And I especially like it when Nick comes home to a nice warm meal and tells me how much he loves it.

Reading! I unpacked our books a few weeks ago and decided it was high time I read the many classics I placed on the back burner for all these years while textbooks and music took over my life. I can't even begin to count the number of times I had this thought: "Wow, I wish I had time to read for fun." Happily, the time is finally here! I learned that my Ward Book Group was reading Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen, and I eagerly consumed it in a matter of days. I have since started reading Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton (oops, I was definitely going to read that before going to South Africa 2 years ago!), but even that has taken a backseat to my newest addiction...

Family history work! Oh my gosh, if you haven't checked out the new family search website, you NEED TO!! It is so awesome. I used to be a family history consultant, and I knew this database was coming down the pipe. But until I got on the website myself, I didn't realize how much it really offers. In a nutshell, it combines everything from the old website, and I get to streamline the information into my very own family line that all my relatives can see and work with (it was a serious headache to share pedigree information before). Best of all, it is very easy to see what temple work needs to be done. Awesome! Check it out if you haven't already: https://new.familysearch.org/

Blogging! Okay, that's obvious! But it has to do with something else I have been terrible at for a long, long time: keeping in touch with people. I have written more letters to missionaries in the past 2 months than I have in the rest of my life combined (sorry to all my older brothers!!). I have also called and emailed people with our baby news, and I have enjoyed renewing past connections with old friends. I am going to see an old BYU friend tomorrow, and I didn't even realize she was here in Colorado until last week! I also have high hopes of sending out a Christmas Letter for the first time this year. We'll see how that one goes!

These are the jewels I have rediscovered and reconnected with. "Free time" is not as bad as it seemed initially, and I know that it will be hard to come by as my life is filled with new responsibilities and purpose (particularly next April).

For now, I can't get enough of it!

Big news!

We are pleased to announce that we are expecting a baby! The due date is April 15, and we can't even begin to express how excited we are.

I have been feeling great, overall. A bit nauseous occasionally, but it never gets too overbearing. And I haven't thrown up yet--unless accidentally gagging myself with my toothbrush last week counts :)

We are so excited to be parents!!! We'll keep you posted as the baby grows (and as I grow) over the next 6.5 months.

Accepted at last!!!

In all the stress of medical and graduate school, I had sort of forgotten about the manuscript I had been trying to get published for the last year. Dr. Hansen said he would take care of continuing to revise and resubmit, so I quit worrying about it. Well, on Friday I checked my e-mail in the dissection lab and was surprised to see that our manuscript has finally been accepted! I was so excited I couldn't focus on the dissection for probably a half hour afterwards. It feels like I'm a real scientist now that I'm actually going to have a publication. I'm not sure when it will actually be published, because the acceptance is pending minor revisions. Also, I think they plan the issues months in advance--the November edition of the journal is already available online. But anyway, I'll be sure to post a link when it is available so you can all see my pretty pictures. :-)

How to post a comment...

For all you readers of our blog (and I know you're out there) I thought I'd figure out how you can post without an account on any of the sites listed in the drop-down menu for comments. Just select "Name/URL," from the menu, type your name in the "Name" section, and leave the URL blank. Type your comment and click "Post comment." You will be asked to type the warped text to make sure you're a real person. And you're done! Hope this helps.

-Nick

After the first month...

Everything is going very well for us. We are enjoying making new friends as well. Last week, we had Sunday dinner with a nice couple from church and they invited Chrissy to go boating the next day (I was invited too but had to study). This Friday we went to the Colorado Ballet with some of my medical school friends to see Copland's Rodeo. It was a lot of fun. Tomorrow, we have a dinner with a group of LDS medical students. I guess the second-years started a dinner group last year and they wanted to include the LDS students from this year. It will be fun to get to know them better. Since we didn't join my med school friends for their debauchery after the last test, we decided it might be nice to have a few of them (my MSTP class) over for dessert and games a week from today.

School has been good so far. I just finished my first major round of medical school tests and I think I did well enough. I'll find out my score sometime this week. I am really enjoying the mixture of medical school and graduate school. I am trying to already practice the type of interdisciplinary thinking I hope to do each day as a physician-scientist. This week we had my favorite dissection so far--the thoracic cavity. Not only was it much easier than our other dissections, it was so amazing to touch the lungs and uncover the heart that kept a body alive for 95 years. It was much more awe-inspiring than anything we had done before, at least for me.

Despite our otherwise wonderful week, a few traumatic things have happened:

1) While swinging my backpack off my shoulder, I lost my grip and it fell to the ground, inflicting a dent on my otherwise pristine Macbook. Good thing it was an aluminum one, or it probably would have shattered.

2) I bought a used bike on Craig's List that broke the second day I rode it to school, just when I was really getting motivated to actually ride to school each day. I haven't had time to fix it yet.

3) Penelope (the pitcher plant we introduced you to last week) almost died, but we revived her.

4) Jake and Molly moved out after they closed on their house. The house feels lonelier for Chrissy, but at least they only live a few blocks away. We feel lucky to have gotten to know them so well while they were here. Jake and Jamie (their kids) refer to us now as their Aunt and Uncle.

That's about it for last week. The end.

-Nick