Hi everyone!
So I know its been forever since we last blogged so I thought I'd post one now that I have a tad bit of spare time :)
This semester has been insane! This came as quite a shock to us as last year we were going to school full time, working part time, working in the temple, and I was volunteering at the Utah State Hospital. Now, its just school, work, and Adam's ORCA project, yet we don't seem to have enough hours in a day (or especially days in the weekend). I know the Lord definitely helped us out last year because of our work in the temple. Adam is taking 12 credits this last semester of his with two Digital Humanities courses to finish up his minor, a class on the history of WWII, and a 300-level Spanish class (which he hates). He will be graduating at the end of this semester in December, after which he will find work and apply to grad school. He will also be ending his work as being a TA which is hard especially because he has to do all of his normal grading in addition to helping hire and train his replacement. In addition to all of this, he is finishing up his ORCA project. His thesis for this project has evolved into being about Molly Brown (from the Debbie Reynolds movie) and how media and memory affect preservation of history. He has worked insanely hard on this especially in the past month. He finished his first draft which he will edit and then submit for publication. He also got specially invited to present his project at a symposium put on by his college. He did amazing at his presentation and had quite a few people come and watch it just for him :) Afterwards, the organizers, student presenters, and key note speakers went out to dinner at the Bombay House. They were nice enough to include me as well :)
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| Here is the poster with his name on it that was on quite a few bulletin boards :) |
As for me, I have been kept very busy with work and school. My secretary job has changed quite a bit because we transitioned the testing service I help run to being administered online. In some ways this has made my life easier and in others, not so much. We still have to spend quite a bit of time ironing out kinks in the system but it will get better. I am taking 15 credits this semester with Life-Span Development, Behavioral Neurobiology, Social Psychology, Current Social Problems, and Child Psychopathology. This is the first time I've taken all major (or rather major + social work prerequisites). It has made it so that often a few of my classes are talking about the same things at the same time. I have enjoyed my classes this semester except for this last week when I had a midterm in every class all in the space of 8 days. But I got through thank goodness! Now there are no tests until finals week. After this semester, I decided that I will only go part time school because I only need two classes to graduate. I am considering taking an additional job at a residential treatment center to gain experience for a master's in social work program. I am looking forward to the idea of only taking two classes though!
Although life has consisted mainly of school and work, we have been able to do a few other things. Adam promised me a long time ago (either while we were dating or engaged) that he would take me to a dance. So, we decided to go to BYU's homecoming with a couple of our friends :) I love dancing and it was fun to have Adam join in as well.
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| Us at the dance :) the theme was Old New York and they had a live swing band |
We also got a chance to celebrate Halloween a tiny bit by carving pumpkins :) We didn't do much else because this was at the time that Adam had to complete his first draft of his ORCA paper.
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| Our pumpkins that we carved :) Adam's=a football player, mine=happy vampire |
We are enjoying our new ward and have finally received callings!! I say "finally" because we did not have callings in our old ward where we lived for a year and a half and therefore didn't get to know anybody. Adam is a home-teaching district supervisor and I am a Relief Society instructor. I haven't taught yet but Adam has gotten to know quite a few people through his calling. We are leaning towards having Adam do grad school at BYU so that we don't have to move and can stay in the same ward :) He is looking at a couple programs at BYU (Instructional Psychology & Technology, and Comparative Studies) as well as grad programs at WA State, University of OR, and University of UT. We will know our options next year :) We are excited for the upcoming holidays where we'll be going up to Idaho Falls for Thanksgiving and then staying home for Christmas for the first time. We're very nervous about all of the changes coming after this semester but we have faith that all will work out for the best :)
We love you all and will hopefully write a little sooner next time :)
<3 Ashley