First Semester Finished!

Wow - what a month! Some parts of it weren't so fun - for example, my car accident. Many of you already know the story, so I won't get into it, but it was a mess! I hurt my collar bone, which still hurts, and my car has been in the shop for 5 weeks getting fixed. I'm really starting to miss my little Corolla.

Nate and I went to Ohio for the Ohio State/Michigan game - what a weekend! Luke was gracious enough to let us crash at his place, and Nicole made the trip down from Akron to spend the weekend with us also. We left for the tailgate at 5:30 in the morning - it was a dark, cold walk to the tailgate site. We all had such a great time, though. I got to spend some time with Joe, Aaron, and Jessica, which was nice, and Lisa made her way to the tailgate to see us, which was awesome. We froze our butts off, drank like fish, and had a great time. It's definitely a trip I'll never forget.

Things got really busy with school throughout the entire month. I was adjusting to my new job at MSOE, which was okay but not really what I was expecting. The Friday we left for Ohio, though, I got a call from Marquette offering me a graduate assistantship, so that was definitely a highlight of the month for me. I immediately accepted it (I'd be a fool not to!), and put my two weeks' notice in at MSOE the following Monday. More on that later :)

For Thanksgiving, Nate's co-worker Greg and his wife Sherry invited us to their place, along with Roger and Lori - we were all orphans for the holiday, so they took us in. Sherry made a ton of food, we all brought things with us, and it was a great day. It was our first holiday married, our first holiday we spent together away from our families, and it ended up being a very nice experience.

That brings us to December! My last day at MSOE was on the 1st, and I started my new assistantship this past Monday, the 4th. I LOVE it! They pushed me right on in with the work on the first day, which was wonderful. I basically created my own hours, too. I work 20 hours per week, and I get a monthly stipend as well as a full-time tuition scholarship. I made my schedule so that I only work Monday-Thursday - I'm no dummy. Nate's jealous, but I'd like to remind him of his grad school days where he could work whenever he wanted to. The atmosphere is wonderful - everyone really loves what they do, it's very relaxed (I get to wear whatever I want!), the work is great, it just truly doesn't get any better than this. Not only that, but the entire University is closed the whole week of Christmas. I've never worked anywhere that gave the entire week off - I'm very excited about that. We fly to Ohio the Thursday before Christmas and come back the Wednesday after, so I'll actually have 2 week days that I don't have to do anything. Yay!

I have my last class of the semester this evening, and I'm very happy about that, as well. Part of me can't believe all I've gone through this semester - the wedding, starting and quitting a job, starting another job, the car accident, etc. It sure has gone quickly, and took everything in me to just keep up at some points. I'm pretty pleased with how I've done considering, and look forward to having the extra hours every week to focus on my studies starting in January.

Tomorrow is my big hair cut! I can't believe I'm this excited over getting a hair cut, but I've not been able to do anything "different" with my hair since Lisa got engaged. I fully intended to cut it short again right after her wedding but then Nate proposed about a month before it, so I had to keep growing it long. Here I am, with hair to below my shoulder blades (those of you that have known me for a long time know this is so far past the longest my hair has ever been it's not even conceivable). I'm really excited, though. The guy that is cutting my hair tomorrow was trained by Nick Arrojo from TLC's What Not to Wear, so I'm only telling him that I have to be able to pull it back to work out and that it has to be low-maintenance and he can do whatever he wants. We shall see!! I'll try to post before and after pics tomorrow.

Well, time to wrap up my work day and enjoy a little bit of leisurely reading before class starts. Sorry for no pictures today - I'll try to write again tomorrow and add pictures from our trip to Ohio for the football game and my new hair do :)

Hope everyone's doing well!