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November 25, 2007
let's waste time / chasing cars
so i finished hand tying my quilt abit ago. It looks good. I thought that the ties would be intrusive, but they look pretty good. I used white on the white tees and gray tees and black on the sashing and black/dark tees. I am so proud of it, and i am very happy with it. Here's an upclose shot in case you were wondering.
yesterday we decided that we would break down and get a fake tree. We are big fans of real ones, but (1) they are expensive (we would spend $80 for not a huge tree) and (2) they are a big pain in the ass. One has to water the tree every day. One has to vacuum the needles. and oh boy, the getting it to and from our 3rd floor apt is a big pain in the ass. So we joined the masses at target yesterday and got a pretty nice tree, but definately not the most expensive one. It looks great. I am quite pleased with. FIRST - it came PRELIT so there is no stringing the lights (the most annoying task to me). We hung our stockings and put up our snowmans. I've plugged in the apple cinnamon scent, and we are looking and smelling good. Since I've left for college i've never gotten that into decorations, but this year i was excited. Boredom i think. and with the birth of aiden we are more a family of three instead of just two people with families elsewhere.
so i've never been a frou frou drink orderer at starbucks, which is why i think i get so flustered whenever i try to order something. i always forget something. it is so strange how flustered ordering there makes me.
i've been all into imovie lately. i think i'm going to post them, though they really are just meant for me. i've done one of my pregancy photos. Of course, i used an mp3 as a background. I do own the cd I got the mp3 from, but don't know the legality of using it as as soundtrack for my montage. i reason that this is a private video for a small audience and i should be okay if i post it here, right?
Posted by christina at 7:01 PM | Comments (0)
November 14, 2007
on and on and on
pete and aiden
the one side effect of having a baby is the hospital and doctor's bills. It is not cheap to have a baby. I was covered under my good, but not great student insurance - meaning i had access to the care i needed, but my co-pays were pretty big (20%). I did reach my out of pocket max by the time i got to the delivering part. but then aiden started out with his own deductible and out of pocket to be met. But he was covered under my single person's coverage for the hospital stuff, so that was nice. We all went on ben's much better plan right after aiden was born so that was good.
Anyways, the bills have been interesting. It is AMAZING the difference b/t what is charged people and what is charged insurance companies. It is routinely half the price for the insurance company. This is annoying as we have one preventative dr. visit with aiden that before we got on ben's insurance that my insurance doesn't cover. So we are paying $250 when i know that the insurance company would have paid WAY LESS. This makes no sense at all. But we can afford it, Thank God. I have no idea how most people do.
This funniest moment with the bills was when we got aiden's hospital bill. We had already gotten mine for $9,000. Aiden's was $25,000!!!! They had charged us $19,000 for a procedure. Anyways, we thought it had to be a mistake. It was. We soon got a bill with a total charge of $2,000. Out of curiosity i requested a detailed bill - turned out - $300 for the procedure.
Posted by christina at 9:04 PM | Comments (0)
November 13, 2007
duhda da da da!
my quilt!! well. the quilt before it is quilted.
there are a million ways i found to finish a quilt. i ended up doing to easiest way - the reverse bag method. it was bulky, but i did it. it looks great, though the part i had to had sew totally looks like i am in 5th grade. i am totally proud. i am going to hand tie for the quilt part - where you connect the top, middle, and bottom together every 4-6 inches.
Posted by christina at 9:17 PM | Comments (0)
November 11, 2007
he will leave this world and become a dream
i have finished my tshirt quilt top!! it is awesome. now to tackle the finishing steps...
i have hurt my knee. so much that i am not working out. that means i've really hurt it! i hate not being able to do cardio. i suspect it was an overuse injury (i didn't pause before diving back into to 5 miles running) that i kept running on until i actually hurt it. so my sister, the PT, has given me some exercises. i hate exercises. it is amazing how i have no trouble going out every morning for a jog, but for the life of me cannot remember/don't want to remember to do any "exercises". sigh. i will though. tomorrow.
Posted by christina at 9:19 PM | Comments (0)
November 9, 2007
there is no one on the corner and there's no one at home
a couple of weeks ago we switched from comcast to direct tv. comcast 's random fee finally pushed ben over the edge. he did a lot of research and found that direct tv was cheaper. so we switch.
when we cancel comcast, they told us that they would be sending us a dhl box to mail the receivers back. it was two weeks ago, and we not received the box. yesterday at 9 pm i did receive a call from an ernestine wallace. she wanted to set up a time for today to pick up the receivers. It was a little strange, but it thought it was just a contract/tech person getting her schedule down for the next day. we've had plenty of tech call us from cell phones so i didn't think it was that strange. I set up the time for 3.30.
She called from the same number twice this morning. I did not answer, but thought it was strange that she didn't leave a message either time. I went to lunch with my sister and her friend. Ben got home early and i had him call comcast to make sure this check was legit. there was just something off about the whole thing.
sure enough, when ben called the guy laughed at him. the chick was not legit. and the dhl box request never went through. we were at my sister's at 3.30, so we never did deal with the person, but we are looking forward to her calling again. if she does, it will make the fifth time today.
Posted by christina at 5:31 PM | Comments (0)
November 5, 2007
kitty getting tummy time
Too Many Bad Apples is a professor's rant about graduate students in the Chronicle of Higher Education. My favorite quote:
"An especially exasperating type is the student who is determined to extort a degree. That student's attitude is, "I've paid my tuition, I've taken the requisite number of courses, so you owe me a degree." The fact that the student has invested the bare minimum of effort in his work is beside the point."
It is interesting, and it got me thinking about my own ph.d. grad experience. I am secure in the knowledge that I was a great graduate student. I was hardworking, possessed and implemented my own original ideas, and was self-directed. I hated hand-holding. I also was not a fan of anyone that required hand-holding. More than those people, I was not a fan of those students that took advantage of the grad school system. These were the students that rolled in at 10. took a coffee break. took lunch from 11:30-1, had a hour coke break at 3 and then rolled out about 4, 4:30. They chatted their way through the day. Graduate school has little direct supervision. Very few profs make you keep certain hours. My advisor wasn't even around for the bulk of my career. I got use to communicating via e-mail and doing everything myself. I was a little miffed that the forementioned people would be getting the same degree as I would. It would take them a little longer, but several of them walked with me in June.
This said, there is a difference between the slackers and those whose projects just don't go well no matter how much they try. I think the author misses this. I understand how hard it is to get out of bed in the morning and make it to work when your project is sucking, when you feel like your days are worthless. These people need more of a support system then graduate school provides. They need access to other advisors when theirs is horrible. They need access to working equipment and quality supplies to make samples. Many grad schools just let their students hang when this happens.
thankfully, this rarely happens at the school i went. i think it is way more common at most schools.
Posted by christina at 3:26 PM | Comments (0)
November 2, 2007
With these revisions and gaps in history
My favorite quote from the reviewer:
"The discussion of different thermodynamical stability of lattice planes R (110) and R (101) is not correct and should be therefore omitted."
A quick literature search found 5 references that supported our statement and none that supported the reviewers. oh review. how you should get your facts straight. It definitely discounts the rest of the comments.
Posted by christina at 5:17 PM | Comments (0)