Thin Mints, Transmissions, and School...Oh My!!

Let me just start off by saying Dreyers Thin Mint ice cream is delicious! Chunks of thin mints in chocolate ice cream, what more could you want??

The last couple weeks have been interesting. Danny and I are both back in school now. I love my classes, for the most part. Here's a quick run down.

Sensation and Perception- My teacher is way cool. She does a great job. She is a grad student and will graduate with a PhD in April! How cool is that? The class is really interesting too. We have been talking about the visual system. There is so much information to learn but it is so fascinating that it does not seem too rough. Of course, we have not had a test yet, so I may change my mind later.
Masterpieces of English Literature- We are reading some really great stuff! So far we have read Gawain and the Green Knight, excerpts from the Cantebury Tales and The Faerie Queen. We are working on Shakespeare's Twelfth Night right now. SOooooo much reading but I love British literature. Some of the class discussion I am not too keen on. FORTUNATELY my teacher is more down to earth and thinks it is ridiculous to analyze every single detail, unless it is an allegory. I was surprised that we are not reading anything by Dickens. We will be reading all of Pride and Prejudice. I like having an excuse to read Jane Austen during the school semester.
Behavioral Neurobiology- Most likely your first perception from reading that is true. The class is completely fascinating but haaaaaard. There are just so many aspects of the brain! The material is very interesting though. It totally rocks. Yesterday my professor brought a brain to class! It was the brain of a juvenile rhesus monkey. It was small and squishy. He let us hold it after class if we wanted to. The brain is just so fascinating to me. It is this lump of gross squishy grey stuff that looks like play dough or some type of rejected art project that you just can not live without or duplicate. Fascinating.
Adolescent Development- In this class we learn about our changing bodies. Just kidding, that was just one chapter in the book. The rest of it is more cognitive, psychological development rather than biological development. We get to learn why teenagers are so WEIRD!!! hahaha. We have our first test on Tuesday. Yikes!
Clinical Psychology- We get to learn all about different techniques and approaches to treating clients (the p.c. term for patients). So far, so good. It will be interesting to learn about the different orientations. I am semi familiar with Cognitive Behavior Therapy and Rational-emotive Behavior Therapy. Oh, we have to write the coolest paper ever in this class! We choose a ficitonal character, from a movie, book, or song. We then assess this character and figure out what treatment would work best for them and then go through an imaginary session. I can not figure out who to pick! Danny wants me to do Darth Vader (I do have the most material for him. haha.) I was also considering Javert from Les Miserables... So we'll see.

Ok, and this is turning out to be longer than I thought...So for those who are still reading...

Danny and I bought a Wii! Yay! We have Mario Kart which makes me very happy because that is my favorite nintendo game. Do not worry, we are still being responsible and doing our homework and all that type of good stuff.

On Thursday we found out some bad news about our beloved car. It is sick. Very sick. I had noticed that the car didn't have his 'get up and go.' Danny took it to a car place near campus for them to look at it and they refered us to a specialist. (that is the first sign that it is no good). So on Thursday we took it to the specialist and found out that our poor car is sick!! I guess there is some type of 'metallic mud' that is in the transmission and prevents our car from shifting gears (hence the get up and go). So, our car can't go over 40 mph and we are deciding what exactly we want to do. It will be a very expensive fix, more than the car is probably worth, but we can't afford to just go buy a used car that would last us any amount of time. It looks like we will fix it. Fortunately it is something we can afford, it will just be tight. We are planning on contacting a few other places to get prices. The good news is that they guy who looked at it and gave us the quote said that other than the hole goop in the transmission thing, our car is in really good condition for being 17 years old. Yay! We are just praying that we can fix this and then our car will hold out long enough till we can afford a new one.

Oh, and for those of you who are wondering, we bought the Wii BEFORE we found out about the car. And we had a few giftcards that we used towards it. We are financially responsible. Don't worry. :)

That is our life right now. I think I will go play a bit more of Mario Kart. I am actually pretty decent at this game! Not great, but I can hold my own.

Back to School

Danny started school again today. I start up tomorrow. He has classes and work everyday. I have classes on T/Th and a night class on Wed. So far it looks like I will work M/F/Sa. Yee haw!

This semester I will be taking:
Sensation and Perception
Masterpieces of English Literature
Behavioral Neurobiology
Adolescent Development
Clinical Psychology

Should be an interesting semester. I am pretty excited to be in more specific classes for my major. The last two classes listed are for the Clinical psych cluster and the other two psych classes belong to the Behavioral/Cognitive cluster. The Eng. Lit one is for a general education requirement, but it should be pretty awesome.

Danny is taking:
Business Law (the book for this class is really mean looking)
Data Communication
System Design and Implemenation
Enterprise Application Development
ISYS Capstone project

We both are taking 15 credit hours. I haven't taken this many hours in a while. So, we'll see how this goes. Yikes.

Our trip to Texas was wonderful. I got to see a lot of friends and family so I say it was a success. I am also addicted to Mario Kart for Wii. I did not take a lot of pictures so hopefully my parental units will send copies of the ones they took. (hint hint mom and dad). I also got to see my brother. We were not sure if it would work out, but it did. Yay! Who knows the next time I will see him though. Sad day.

We took our Christmas decorations down yesterday. I am always amazed at how bare the house looks after the decorations are down.

Danny and I aren't big on resolutions, but we decided that this year we really need to work on exercising and eating better. We have both gained some fluff that we are not especially fond of. We will work out more nutritious meals and figure out exercise fun stuff. I really needed to do this for myself and I am excited that Danny is willing to help out. So, if yall have any suggestions or ideas or delicious/nutritious recipes and are willing to share, that would be awesome and much appreciated.
Maybe I can make a resolution to do something about our couch...slip cover time!

I think that is about it for now. Get ready to go back to hearing school stories! Aren't you excited?

2009

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Welcome 2009!

Here's wishing all of you the best for the new year!




Danny and I are still in Texas and loving it. Today we are off to see the King Tut exhibit. I am pretty darn excited about that.