Faking It

Claira Ann Barnes was born this week. On Thursday morning. She has a full head of hair and a huge dimple chin. I'm so happy for my friends; I'm glad she's here safely, that there were no complications, that the entire thing is over, and that God has blessed them with a beautiful healthy baby. And I can honestly say, she is the first baby I cannot wait to get my hands on. Also. People are starting to know who I am. Personally and professionally. It's quite nice. I'm different from everyone else here because I'm Jennifer's only grad student. Where people usually come in and work in a lab with returning students, I'm all by myself. I don't mind. But it's been harder to meet people and by harder I mean I really haven't. I talk to people in my classes and I've gone out with people whenever they go out which has been twice. Everyone's really nice, we're all just so busy. Jim, the professor I TA for now, talked to Jennifer and requested ...

Erin, my sister, was here for about 24 hours. Quickest planned trip ever. There was the time over labor day that she met me at the airport and then went back to Tucson, but that wasn't supposed to happen. We went to the El Paso Zoo, which may be the smallest zoo in existence. But we spent a few hours there so I guess it did what it was supposed to. Getting there was an experience--we drove off a part of the freeway I've never taken before. I don't go that direction because it's the way you get to Juarez. As we got closer to the zoo the Mexican flag kept getting bigger and bigger... ...but it wasn't in Juarez. We did, however, find the Coliseum where the Academy had stayed and Erin declared her undying hatred of El Paso. They were right by the border, in the Coliseum right after the circus had come through town so yeah...I get it. Now that I've been down there. Dodgy. We then went shopping, got sushi, found all the cute songs on her itunes and then went to bed. S...

I'm teaching on Wednesday. A whole class. By myself. It's my job to teach chapter 9 on Hearing and Auditory processes. Processes I know nothing about! I've never held anyone's attention for an hour and a half! I walked into Sensation and Perception this afternoon to help administer an exam and the instructor I work for says to me, "You're ok to teach this Wednesday instead of on Monday right?" Me, "I'm teaching?" Her, "Ok thanks! I'm sorry I got the dates wrong but I'm glad you'll do it on such short notice!" Me, "?" And the next thing I know I have a book chapter and supplement and 72 slides to make sense of. Enough to where if someone asks me what does that mean I have something intelligent and correct to tell them.

Part of my job is to work in the lab my advisor runs. At the moment we're doing a study on probationers on a mental health caseload. The thing about people on probation is that they tend to be slightly evasive. And by slightly, I mean, they lie to their PO's and give inaccurate information like their phone numbers or place of residence. Or they don't pay their bills and their phones get disconnected. So in order to find them to take part in our study every once in a while we go on home visits, or as I call them, drive-by's. I went on a drive-by on Thursday and me and my lab partner only picked out a handful of people to try and connect with and the hardest part was actually getting her to agree to drive to all these places. Because according to her, a location that is 20 minutes from UTEP is a "hella far drive." Seriously? "20 minutes is like half of El Paso!!!" "Oh-kay...1. We have to do it so there's really no point whining about it. And B...

My sister was here so my entire weekend was filled with relaxed fun like I haven't seen since the summer. Thursday, I picked her up at the airport and we just spent the night in watching t.v. and doing homework because we're both in school. We weren't even into a full hour of being together when Kelly was telling me about a friend of hers who's pregnant and I regaled her with tales of how it's just going to be a common occurrence now that she's out of high school. I was surprised at how long some of her friends have waited; people I know have kids that started school this year. But I knew a girl who got pregnant at prom prompting Kelly to say, "promdom" rather than "prom" giving us our joke for the weekend. Friday, I left her alone all day because I had school and a few meetings but afterwards we ate Mexican food! I haven't had any Mexican since I moved here somehow. There's Mexican food everywhere but I don't have the time/the mo...

Tests themselves don't make me nervous. What makes me nervous is during the time you're waiting for the test to start you hear people talking about things you've never heard of before. Yeah. Cue the music. My first midterm as a PhD student was today. Stats. Blah. Historically, statistics and I don't have the best relationship. It's quite tempestuous because frankly I hate stats, but I see the need for them, but I don't get it, but when I do it feels so good. Tempestuous. But I've been hearing horror stories about Ozzie, the ANOVA teacher, and how his tests are total ball busters and he goes way too fast for anyone to learn. And maybe because this is the fifth stats class I've taken and we may be reviewing things I've already "learned", but I like him. And the test was not nearly as horrific as I was expecting. Somehow I didn't experience any test anxiety which is new for me. It's so unusual that when I told my Mom she was quite shoc...