Well, we completely forgot about January. In fact, the whole month is a blank. (not really)
Ian turned 28 and received some wicked sweet board games for his birthday, along with snarky remarks from his darling wife. He was, and remains, utterly thrilled. Seriously, these games are pretty great, if you're into games: Ticket to Ride and Jambo.
What else, what else? Oh yeah: Ian accepted a post-doctoral fellowship at the highly-esteemed Columbia University! He was the only candidate out of over 1000 candidates - we're quite proud of this fellow. It's a three year position which drops us right into New York City (we will most likely be living in Morningside Heights). This position was in competition with a tenure-track position at Wayne State in Detroit, MI. There was much deliberation over what job to take, especially when we compared housing prices and transportation costs, not to mention job security and pay. But, all said and done, could we seriously say no to Columbia? We will have to sell our beautiful little car and will end up paying 4x as much for housing (for square footage), but we're both really looking forward to the adventure of New York City.
All of this means that I actually do need to squeak my master's degree out this summer, but I'm on the right track to get everything done on time. I had two papers accepted for presentations next month, and another nominated for a grad school prize. I also applied to the National Women's Studies Association conference next fall - we'll see how that goes (for my thoughts on research and school related things, I recently started a blog on tumblr). I've decided on a concentration on sexuality (completing coursework this semester), and believe my second concentration will be counseling, which I could finish up this summer when working on my thesis.
Ian has 52 days to finish his dissertation. He's reworking the first and second chapters, so it's quite a task. His foot has healed up nicely from his stress fracture in December. When the weather allows, my little ninja is out scaring the locals as he zips past.
Our kitties continue to flourish and purr. We've avoided all chickpeas in our stews. We are working on making our bedtimes closer to midnight (and actually succeeding at this). And we've been shoveling a lot of snow. Much snow. Tired of snow.
We also (through much hard work and dedication on our end) became aunts and uncles this week! My beautiful sister and her doting husband Jason had their first child, Josiah Paul Furrow, aka "Furrito," born February 16th.
Ian and I purchased tickets to visit this cutie in April. I can't wait to not only see this fine lad (a "McBaby," as my mother has designated any current and expected grandchildren), but Sarah and Jason's work on their orphanage and property. Check out their blog - neat stuff.
Ian turned 28 and received some wicked sweet board games for his birthday, along with snarky remarks from his darling wife. He was, and remains, utterly thrilled. Seriously, these games are pretty great, if you're into games: Ticket to Ride and Jambo.
What else, what else? Oh yeah: Ian accepted a post-doctoral fellowship at the highly-esteemed Columbia University! He was the only candidate out of over 1000 candidates - we're quite proud of this fellow. It's a three year position which drops us right into New York City (we will most likely be living in Morningside Heights). This position was in competition with a tenure-track position at Wayne State in Detroit, MI. There was much deliberation over what job to take, especially when we compared housing prices and transportation costs, not to mention job security and pay. But, all said and done, could we seriously say no to Columbia? We will have to sell our beautiful little car and will end up paying 4x as much for housing (for square footage), but we're both really looking forward to the adventure of New York City.
All of this means that I actually do need to squeak my master's degree out this summer, but I'm on the right track to get everything done on time. I had two papers accepted for presentations next month, and another nominated for a grad school prize. I also applied to the National Women's Studies Association conference next fall - we'll see how that goes (for my thoughts on research and school related things, I recently started a blog on tumblr). I've decided on a concentration on sexuality (completing coursework this semester), and believe my second concentration will be counseling, which I could finish up this summer when working on my thesis.
Ian has 52 days to finish his dissertation. He's reworking the first and second chapters, so it's quite a task. His foot has healed up nicely from his stress fracture in December. When the weather allows, my little ninja is out scaring the locals as he zips past.
Our kitties continue to flourish and purr. We've avoided all chickpeas in our stews. We are working on making our bedtimes closer to midnight (and actually succeeding at this). And we've been shoveling a lot of snow. Much snow. Tired of snow.
We also (through much hard work and dedication on our end) became aunts and uncles this week! My beautiful sister and her doting husband Jason had their first child, Josiah Paul Furrow, aka "Furrito," born February 16th.
Ian and I purchased tickets to visit this cutie in April. I can't wait to not only see this fine lad (a "McBaby," as my mother has designated any current and expected grandchildren), but Sarah and Jason's work on their orphanage and property. Check out their blog - neat stuff.
