Welcome Home to Snow

Looking out the front door to snow

After ten days away on the West Coast, I finally arrived back in Lansing. It was a wonderful trip, although strange as well. I have made Lansing my home and found a routine for myself, as well as focus to concentrate on school and to pursue what I have always dreamed of pursuing. Being back in Seattle reminded me why I love the landscape of the Pacific NW, and my heart ached ever so slightly for the salt water, mountains, big trees, and steep hills of the city. However, I know that place isn't my home anymore, and when the plane took off to come back to Michigan, my body longed for the Midwest. I was reminded of one of my favorite children's books titled Grandfather's Journey by Allen Say. In it he writes, "...the moment I am in one country, I am homesick for the other." Although my feelings are not quite this easily translated, I do have a hint of having the pull of one western and one midwestern state. 

We Travel with a Robot Arm

After our first day out in Coeur d'Alene to watch the eagles, we spent the rest of our time there doing some much needed lounging, reading, watching terrible movies, shopping, and last on the list, visiting the Spokane Winter Glow Spectacular. This is a first for Spokane and the lights are located at Riverfront Park near downtown. The sidewalks and paths of the park have little light displays set up all around, and even some Christmas music being piped out near the large fountain in the middle of the park. Since it was the inaugural year, we just had to go! It was kind of like a mini tour of Christmas lights, but only with flat two-dimensional figurine displays. I can't remember the last time I was in Spokane during the Christmas season, I think it may have been almost seven years ago. Even though there was no snow this year, I do appreciate the small city celebration that Spokane embodies.

Next, we flew to Seattle to visit the other side of the family, our robot arm in tow. (It's a gift for one of our friend's children, we think he'll like it). I carried it in my backpack all the way from Detroit, and when the TSA stopped my bag on the security machine I thought for sure it was because of the robot arm. Instead, the TSA agent who was requested to rifle through my bag pulled out my reading book and walkie-talkied over to his buddy, "Hey Mike" and lifted up the 900 page novel of the second book in the Game of Thrones series. I responded "Oh, it's just the book? I thought for sure it would have been the robot arm" at which point the TSA agent made a little robot arm pinching motion himself. We were free to go.

Two Turtle Doves and 120 Eagles!

I arrived in Spokane very late on Saturday night (basically, it was Sunday if one wants to be specific about what time it was). Traveling from Eastern Time, however, made the trip even more brutal because 1am in Spokane is 4am in Lansing. Despite the long day of travel, I woke up mostly rested on Sunday and spent the morning drinking coffee, reading the paper and visiting with my folks. Then on Sunday afternoon, we went to Lake Coeur d'Alene to watch the eagles fish in the lake. During December, bald eagles have a stop over in CdA to fish and catch their breath before they continue south to California and Arizona. CdA is one of the few places in the US to see this kind of eagle action, and it was pretty cool. There is a small ferry boat that takes people out to the other end of the lake to an area called Wolf Lodge Bay. Once the boat gets close to this part of the lake, the eagles are just everywhere. And I mean everywhere! They are sitting in trees looking stoic, soaring on thermals, cruising the shore, and diving feet first and plucking fish out of the lake. And to top off the gorgeous weather and sunshine, it was a record day for eagles. the count was the highest of the season, at 120. Very cool indeed. 

A One-Eyed Cat and a Ticket to Ride

Last night we went to our friendly neighbors for one last game night before we all leave town for the holidays. We started playing a game called Ticket to Ride, which is quite fun. Don't judge us that the directions are for six year olds. Basically, if you build the most train lines from a stack of picked routes, you win. Last night, I won. This is rare, so I like to rub it in a little. Our neighbors also have three pets, one of which is a super sassy friendly one-eyed cat named Oscar. The other two are dogs, who aren't as sassy. Oscar watched the game with us, and I think he was also pretty pleased that I won.

  

More Little Fixes

When we first found this house in Lansing, we were told that it would get a fresh coat of paint before we moved in. (This also meant we couldn't paint anything) Getting a fresh coat of paint on the interior also meant that all of the hardware was painted: knobs, hinges, escutcheons, latches. Fortunately, I know someone who can fix all of this! Now, almost all of the hardware and doorknobs in the house are cleaned and look so much more attractive. He's even fixing the mechanisms for the latches. It's all these little things that make living here so much more wonderful. I'm so appreciative to have a handyman around because, well, without him I would just live with cabinets that get stuck shut and crusty painted knobs. Here's a before and after.

I Am Told Grades Don't Matter

Oh, and by the way, I did just fine. Actually, I did great.

One of the first conversations that the faculty have with new PhD students is the conversation about grades. Specifically, the fact that grades don't matter. This program is about the learning process, not about a number on a scale of 1 to 4. With that said, the faculty also remind us that just because grades don't matter does not mean that we can have a subpar performance. Also, for someone like me who has a departmental assistantship, I need to have a certain grade-point average to maintain my funding. This dual kind of conversation happens a lot in the program. For example, "You don't need to be worrying about comps right now" and then the next 30 minutes are spent discussing comps. This happened to me twice already. So, the semester is officially OFFICIALLY over, because grades are out now. Additionally, the residual anxiety I have been experiencing the last few days can now be put to rest. During the semester I have told myself and my cohort mates, "Grades don't matter!" but in reality I silently fret and wring my hands. This last week, I woke up almost every night at 2am feeling guilty about my overall performance, and hoping that my quant professor doesn't think poorly of me because I bombed the final. Or that I probably could have done just a little more on my final paper for my Prosem class. At 2 in the morning I am trying to remind myself, "Grades don't matter!" and yes, I have learned! I have learned so much! However, sometimes that hardest thing to learn is that learning in itself is the aim here. And after I lull myself back to sleep I remind myself that I certainly am achieving this aim.

The Tranformation

My semester is officially over! This past weekend I had a mixture of emotions. I admit, that I felt stressed out, and anxious (because of the horrible exam experience I had on Friday) and also confused about what to do with myself. During the last week I just wanted to be finished with everything, and then when it finally came, I didn't know what to do. I woke up on Saturday morning and tried to find something to work on, but I was also fatigued so I also just wanted to watch bad television all day.

What ended up happening was the transformation of my dining table desk into what I call the Craft Palace. I also started expanding my Craft Kingdom onto the coffee table, but was able to reel it back in late yesterday. I'm getting used to relaxing, and it's pretty nice. Relaxing and crafting for the next few weeks. So if a ric-rac dish towel shows up at your door, please know it was with the best of intentions.