Master Carolyn and such

Since grades came out this week I officially got my masters degree in Chemistry.  I'm currently looking for a position that will use my degree and such.  I was able to get an adjunct teaching position at a community college near me.  I will be teaching Earth Science on Friday nights from 6-10.  It should be interesting.  It will probably be like teaching high school again to some sort as the college is for less "traditional" types of students I've been told. This means that starting Memorial Day weekend and going for 8 weeks I will be working three jobs!  It should be interesting to say the least.  I wanted to teach two sections of earth science so that I didn't have to work at UIC for the summer, but couldn't make the time fit with hours I need to keep at the zoo.  One of these days I'll have one job that I make enough money in so that I only need one job, and I'll be using the snazzy new chemistry degree I've got as well. 

Other than that, this week hasn't been super exciting.  The weather has been rainy and so we've not been riding bikes.  Though today was great.  Jolene and I rode about 22 miles to a town called St. Charles.  It was neat to be on the flooding Fox River.  As we rode, we could see the dirt and sediment from where the water was last week.  It was especially nice coming back because the trail had cleared up quite a bit and we were able to get a good cadence going -- we did 19 mph for a while there into the wind and it was GREAT!  Maybe tomorrow I will be sore. 

This week I also made a rosemary foccacia loaf, a chocolate pound cake and red velvet cake.  Neither of the cakes are as "creamy" in texture as regular flour stuff, but they taste close enough that they will work.  :)  Sweet success in the kitchen like that is always a good thing.  For the foccacia I used chickpea flour and it turned out really well.  I'm going to investigate how hard it is to grind up chickpeas because I could do that myself.  I've also started researching pasta making methods as we're wanting some variety in pasta and my mom got me a pasta attachment for my kitchen aid for completing my masters.  It looks snazzy and should be all sorts of fun.  I just have to figure out some easy way to dry the stuff. 

This week should be interesting -- tomorrow my office mates are throwing me a party and I get to meet with my advisor.  It also looks like it might be sunny some of the time so we'll be able to ride to the train station some.  We'll see what happens I suppose.  I hope that everyone has had a good week and has a great week coming up.  Enjoy the wonderful spring weather -- whether it brings tornadoes or brilliant blue skies. 

Mother's Day Weekend

Mother's Day weekend started Friday with my mom coming to Chicago.  We went up the Sears Tower and this is part of the display that you might see and get to read a lot while waiting to go up the tower on a busy day.  There were all sorts of interesting facts about the tower that I didn't know!  It was neat to see everything from 103 stories up.  When the lady asked my mom for the credit card and told her the price of three adults she said, "And what does that come with a souvenir or anything?" because it was shocking to her.  A list of the neater things we got to see:  A comparison of how many "you" it would take to get to the height of the Sears Tower,  a movie about the completion of it, a comparison of different buildings as you went up the elevator, the entire city of Chicago from 103 floors up, the "ledges." Here's a picture of our "feet" on the ledge.  There had been school groups walking out and laying down, but we decided that just our feet on the ledge would be enough.  I'm still not convinced that it is worth

For Saturday we went to a White Sox game with the group from church.  The Sox ended up winning so that was a nice change from the rest of the season.  We got to see some rowdy people kicked out by security -- they had been heckling the right fielder and security came for them.  It was funny to see them wonder what they had done.  It was funny to listen to them trying to get under the opponents skin, but they apparently went a bit far.  It was a fairly cool game -- in the mid forties with a nice wind.  We busted out the beanies for the game!  Here's a picture of us at the game:

We stayed the night in the Palmer House Hotel.  It had a GORGEOUS lobby, they really don't make lobbies like that anymore.  Overall it was just a hotel and quite loud for our tastes -- there didn't seem to be any sound dampening in the hotel.   Today for Mother's Day we tried a new Brazilian Steakhouse -- and it was good!  I haven't gotten much other than a nasty headache (and it could be much much worse) so we may go back.  We didn't think about what they fried the plantains in until after I had put one in my mouth.  We then thought about it a second and realized they probably fried them in an oil that I shouldn't eat.  We'll go back to the restaurant and see if I don't eat the fried stuff how I feel.  The manager was great even though he remarked, "And you don't really eat anything ever." upon seeing my card.  The waiter asked, "Allergic to all of these things?" when he looked at the card, so we'll add that to my collection of stumping the wait staff at a restaurant.  However, this does increase our number of Carolyn approved restaurants to three, so we're stoked -- I mean that's 50% more places I can go out to!  The other really neat thing about this place was the rolls -- they were made of yucca root flour!  This meant I could have the bread that was put on the table!  How cool is that? 

Anyway, we've taken a part the fridge and need to put it back together and get to bed.  We'll see how this week goes, but after the weekend it promises to be more mundane. 
 

May already?

Well, softball season is going full swing.  Bad pun, but hey, its late.  I'm actually blogging now as I am rather wired and tired all at the same time.  It is finals week and I took a final today.  I also thought I was going to get an allergy shot after my final -- but I ended up with 4 shots instead.  After the first one, I itched a little and so the doc suggested we do a second as he knows that I'm more than willing to speed things up on the shot department.  Well, apparently the second one was a bit much.  I got ended up getting 2 epi shots (one for each arm), an antihistamine, and some prednisone before I left the office.  I also believe that my doc didn't want me playing softball.  He didn't believe that I play a mean benchwarmer/sub.  He kept me for observation for a long time and I ended up missing a train able to make me even close to time on the game.  Overall the epi is doing wonders, though my body is really sore now.  Last week for softball I got to play second base.  I had my shining moment for the season with an out!  Apparently you have to run around base defensive players (I think the people not hitting are considered defensive players) when the ball is near them.  I stood in the way of the 200 lb man running from 1st to 2nd, got bowled over, didn't really realize what had happened but he was out!  Everyone on my team was worried that I took such a bad hit.  He hit my butt though and so I just kind of rocked on my feet.  Who knew that you couldn't knock a soccer player over by running in to them? 

This week is finals week at the university.  This means that Chris is working on getting the labs ready for the summer session that starts the second full week of June.  I'm taking finals -- I took one today and should end up with an A in the course.  I take my next one (and FINAL one) on Friday at 8 am. 

I also have an interview with Argonne tomorrow morning.  Hopefully I'll be able to get enough sleep that I can be coherent enough to make them give me a position.  It would be doing inorganic chemistry in air sensitive environments (I really like working in air sensitive environments actually -- the big gloves are GREAT!! and I'm just a nerd like that) on batteries.  We'll see how it goes. 

Really not much is new here.  It is getting warmer and looking much like Spring.  If anyone wants to come visit let us know. 

Anyway, I should probably go.  Not much is really up or exciting here.