TOGA

Well, grad school has finally gotten busier. After Jay Banner and John Mylroie (my coauthors) saw my presentation at GSA and talked about it, they decided that they think we can publish a paper in the journal of Cave and Karst science! This is exciting, but it also means that I have a lot of work to do!

TAing has also gotten a lot busier because I have to grade all of my students' labs. Those things take forever, but boy do I really remember mineral properties after I've graded 16 labs. My students have their first quiz on Wednesday, and their first field trip is this weekend, so wish them luck!

Last weekend UT beat OU in Dallas, and this weekend they destroyed Missouri. It was so amazing. I wish that I could watch the games with my UT friends! It just doesn't seem right to not watch the games with a big group of UT people. Hopefully I can entice some of my UC Davis friends to watch the next game with me... if I offer beer I'm sure they will come.

Peter and I signed up for salsa classes, and so far we've gone to two. It's really fun! It's great to know what all the steps are, and now I can't wait to go out dancing. On a less fun note, I got sick this week with a sore throat =(. I hate getting sick. It wasn't too bad, though- just painful. I loaded myself up with Ibuprofin and was able to deal with it and make all of my classes/work.

On Friday I drove to Palo Alto to see Robert at Stanford. He and his friend Tom were throwing an awesome party they called Rumble in the Grundle, Part 1: Ceasar's conquest. Everyone wore togas (yes that is actually my bedsheet- with a lot of safety pins) and they had the Crothers basement decorated and stocked with cheese, grapes, and franzia. Almost all of the Stanford grad students live in grad student dorms or on campus apartments, so the party was in the basement of Robert's dorm. I don't know if I could live in a dorm again, but they all didn't seem to mind. The trees are starting to turn beautiful shades of orange and red, and it's gradually getting cooler! I had my first cup of hot chocolate tonight, and soon I will buy a pumpkin for Halloween!