Toad Meets His Namesake

House Closing

We closed on our new house yesterday. It was exciting and not as bad as we were led to believe it would be as far as the paperwork goes. We went later in the afternoon to pick up the keys, and when I opened the envelope, this fell out:



That, my friends, is a leopard print key. And now I kind of want to decorate the house like a jungle. You know, to keep with the whole theme.

We took Toad with us to see the place. He really likes the yard and had a lot of fun running around the empty rooms. I think he'll like it there.

The one bad thing was that when I went to unlock the front door with my leopard key, there was a sign hanging on the knob from the pool company that said "Pool motor went bad. Needs repair. Call me." Since we had owned the house for exactly 12 minutes at the point, I called the realtor and asked what we should do. Luckily, we have a home warranty that covers the pool, so if it is our responsibility to fix it, we don't have to pay for it. But it's kind of a bummer to arrive at your brand new house (at least, it's new to us) and discover a huge repair immediately needs to be done.

So, we are officially homeowners. We'll throw a party once we're settled in and remodeled. And we get the pool fixed!

Migraine Study

This post is sort of going to be about my period, so any readers who don't want to know, you might just want to skip this one.

So, I was watching the local Waco news the other day. Why was I doing that? Because my Waco TV has only 3 channels and no DVR. Yeehaw! Anyway, they had a little spot on a clinical trial the Waco hospital is doing for menstrual migraines. I have suffered from migraines since I was in junior high. A doctor once diagnosed them as menstrual migraines and put me on a few different medications for them, but nothing I have ever tried has been successful. Since I have become an adult, I have developed pretty good coping mechanisms for it. I pop four Advil at a time as soon as I feel the tightening begin in my head, and that usually makes the pain manageable. I call it the "ghost headache." Where I can actually feel the headache lurking behind my eyes, and if the wall of ibuprofen were not there, it would feel like an icepick through my skull. But as long as I catch it early, I can function like a pretty normal person. If I don't catch it early, I have a day like I had yesterday.

I woke up with a headache. I, of course, forgot to bring any painkillers with me to Waco. My roommate - who is apparently oblivious to pain - does not have any in the apartment. So, I taught my first class with a migraine. Luckily for me, the adrenaline got me through because I was so nervous.

After class, I walked back to my apartment. It was hot, I was in pain, and I honestly didn't think I was going to make it before I collapsed in the middle of the sidewalk. Fortunately, I did make it. At this point, my head hurt so badly that I could no longer drive a car to go pick myself up some pain medication. I just stumbled up to my room and slept on the air mattress, waking up sporadically because of the pain in my head.

After about 2 hours, I returned to my campus office, and there was a girl there who had mentioned having Tylenol in her desk. I asked her if I could have some, and she had not only Tylenol, but my precious ibuprofen as well. I popped four of them, ate a graham cracker (the first thing I had eaten all day), and went to teach my next class. Again, I pulled through on adrenaline.

I decided to drive home to Dallas after class because the Advil wall was kind of halfway up, and I figured I could make it. Maybe that was foolish, but I really just wanted to be home with my dog and my own pillow. Anyway, about halfway through the drive my headache faded completely away, heralding the arrival of my monthly sign that there are "no babies in here."

So, I wrote the hospital in Waco. I am going to participate in a clinical trial for menstrual migraines. We'll see how it goes. I've never done anything like this before, but it also means I have to get back on the pill which makes me want to lose like 15 pounds before I start. I have two months before they put me on any drugs, so here's to losing 15 pounds before the pill forces me to gain them back!

I'm a Huge Dork

I totally went to the wrong class today. Well, not really the wrong class. But I thought my Wednesday class was today, so when the professor walked into the room (luckily they are both in the same classroom!) I totally thought she was the TA b/c I know my other class is taught by a male professor. So, I'm sitting there thinking she's the TA, and then all of a sudden she started handing out syllabi and talking like she was the teacher. Which she was. Oops. I totally brought all the wrong books which didn't turn out to be a big deal, but I still felt like a huge idiot!

Audiobooks

I made a fantastic discovery today. www.audible.com!

When I was working on my Master's degree, reading for fun really kind of stopped for me. I was really bummed out about it, too, because I love books. I really like to talk about books, I learn a lot from them, and they are good source of conversation. Since I was reading books that no one else I knew was actually reading (or even wanted to read), I felt like I had very little to talk about.

However, now I have 6 hours in the car every week that must be filled with something, and I have decided that it will be filled with audiobooks. I used to think that audiobooks were cheating, but I have really enjoyed and retained the ones I have listened to, so I am now officially not judging them as cheating anymore. I signed up on audible.com, went through my goodreads.com "to-read" shelf, and added as many books as I could to my audible.com wishlist.

This month's audiobook is David Sedaris' When You Are Engulfed in Flames read by David Sedaris. Yaaaaaaaay! Review to come...

More Laidback

I've realized something this week while I've been at my graduate orientation and teaching workshop. Being older has made me a nicer person. Ten years ago, if you had thrown me into a room full of complete strangers and expected me to walk out with a good impression of everyone, I couldn't have done it. However, I can honestly say that I like all of the grad students that I have spoken to so far. I mean, I'm not going to be best friends with all of them. There are some of them that I obviously don't have a lot in common with and once we've exhausted the conversation about our research interests, there's not much left. However, even with the ones that I probably would have brushed off as impossible friends 10 years ago, I find that I have no reason not to be as friendly as possible. I've actually found myself making an uncharacteristic effort to remember the "unique thing" about themselves that we are forced to name every time we are in a group and bring it up later as a conversation piece. I am trying very hard, and the weird thing is - it's not that hard.

I think my previous experience in grad school has given me a lot of confidence. When I started my Master's degree, I experienced all kinds of feelings of inadequacy and thoughts like "Why was I even admitted to grad school? There must have been a administrative mistake!" But this time around, I don't feel that yet. Maybe those feelings will come back once classes actually start and everyone demonstrates their brilliance. But at this moment, I really feel like I belong here and that given time, I will fit in.

It helps that people are responding well, of course. When I make little jokes, they laugh. When I bring up their unique moment, they engage me in conversation. They are being nice back to me. That helps a LOT. It's a huge part of why I'm having a good experience so far.

Anyway, there's an update for you. I like it here. I really want to succeed. But at the same time, I'm ready to go home for the weekend and be surrounded by the people I love and the surroundings that are so familiar to me. It's going to be interesting to have two lives. I am excited to see how it turns out.

Back in Waco

I drove to Waco today to attend my teaching workshop and new student orientation this week. Here are my initial thoughts so far:

1) Katie - my new roommate. She has got to be one of the most beautiful girls I have ever seen in real life. I mean it. Absolutely gorgeous. She's very nice so far and friendly. She is super-girly and the apartment is very decorated and frilly. Not in an obnoxious way, but definitely not Spartan like my room is right now.

2) Baylor - Wow! They have really classed this place up! The buildings are gorgeous, and I'm looking forward to walking around campus tomorrow and seeing all the new and old places.

3) Wal-Mart - my checkout girl told me I looked like Zooey Deschanel. I love her forever. It makes me want to go back there again and again.

4) Big Daddy's (the local hamburger joint) is now a tanning salon! Whaaaaaat? I hope they just moved locations instead of going out of business.

So, all in all, it's been a good experience so far. I am excited and nervous about tomorrow. I hope the other grad students are nice. They have a lot to live up to considering the group of Medieval Studies grad students at SMU were awesome!