Well. Life is officially about to get super busy.
This morning started with the normal things. During breakfast I read some more of my textbook. It made a lot more sense the second time through. Since it is mainly a continuation of my financial math course, it will take some time to get back into the language of finance.
After reading I studied some more. Today I just did review problems.
I met some of my classmates for lunch at Pita Pit before class. There were about 6 of us that showed up. We had fun. We talked a little bit about our summers and who all was not coming back to school and just... whatever came to find. Then we went to class.
My first class was my Actuarial Models course with Dr. Foley. We went over the syllabus and he summarized some of the things that we'd be doing in class this semester. I realized that I have done some of these things already in my time at Central, which is neat.
In between classes I tried to get some administrative work done. I'd wanted to get my Blackboard page set up, but there were some technical difficulties with that. So I went to the math department and they tried to help me out. Unfortunately, the new Blackboard system and a couple of other new systems that Ball State is using are not cooperating and I haven't been able to get things working. Yarg. Oh well!
My second class was with the new professor, Mr. Owen. I think he will be a good fit into the department. He's new to teaching, but he did a good job today. He is teaching my Financial Economics course.
After class I came home. Kimmy and I made corn chowder! It turned out really well. We used corn that we'd gotten at the farmer's market, which I feel like made a lot of difference. We both really liked it.
I went back to school after dinner for a meeting. I met with some other actuarial students to discuss a some things we'd like to put together for the freshman and sophomore actuarial science majors. So I met with them for an hour or so and we made some good progress.
When I came home I studied some more, watched the last part of an episode of Firefly, then finished working on my calendar. This time included when I study and do lesson prep. It is very full. :(
And now it is time for bed. Good night, all.
Well. Today was the last day before school starts!
I got up early to do some studying. So I studied and ate and everything. Then Kimmy and I went to church. Today the pastor talked about how wrong it is to hang on to a belief that keeping some mystical list of "dos and dont's" will get us into heaven. It's easy to maintain a list of absolute rights and wrongs. It's much harder to unconditionally love our neighbors... and enemies. I really like that Mark (our pastor) is very up front about how important it is to do certain things. He doesn't suggest that we love people... he is very adamant about how we have to do it. He does that for other things too, like when something is going on at church. Pastor Mark stresses how important it is to be at church functions and grow as a community. Quote: "I know you're sitting there thinking about how busy you are and don't have time. You know what? Make time. This is important and you all need to be here." He certainly is not passive or shy in his beliefs, and I really like that.
After church mom and dad came to visit! They brought us their green couch and had lunch with us. Mom gave us an update from Primrose and dad told us about some of the things that have been going on with his team. I was glad that they were able to come visit.
After lunch I studied for a little bit, but then realized that nothing was sticking. So I got some coffee, took an hour break, then got back at it. I hate how addicting coffee is... but it's just so effective at keeping me focused and thinking clearly.
Tomorrow is a review day for my studying. I really like that my study manual has those built in.
Kimmy and I had a late dinner, then I did some more studying when we got back. I also read for class tomorrow, but I plan on reading it again tomorrow morning. The book for my Financial Economics course uses a textbook that was also used for my Financial Math class/exam. It's not a very good book, but it's pretty much the only one out there that covers this specific material. I say that it's not good because the author tried to write it for both MBA students and mathematicians. To be fair, that's a very difficult task. I think my issue is that it's too mathematically technical for most MBA students to really understand, but it is not consistent with commonly accepted mathematical notation for me to readily grasp it. Many of it's definitions are often unclear and the examples tend to confuses the matter even more. And the practice problems (once you understand the material) are often just trivial and not near the caliber necessary for exam preparation.
I would like to sit down with the author for a mid-afternoon lunch or tea and discuss some of the issues I have with his text book. He has a lot of great information hidden in that book, but I just wish to help him make it more apparent. We would sit at an outdoor cafe, eating the soup and sandwich special while a young barista refilled our coffee when necessary. Yes, I believe that McDonald and I could make some good headway on this.
Anyhow. Reading was fine. I also finished up my lesson for Tuesday, I believe.
Then I played a game with Miles... and now it's time for bed. Good night!
I keep losing track of time at night. One minute it's 10:30.... then I'm exhausted.
After my shower I got Kimmy up and made us breakfast. Then we went to the farmer's market! We got there pretty early because we didn't know how busy it would be or anything. When we got there we just took a few minutes to walk around and see everything. There was a vendor who stopped us to ask if we'd tried the best barbecue sauce in the world (I don't actually remember what he said, but it was probably something like that). So we tried his sauce and it was quite tasty. We decided to get a jar. Partially because it was good, partially because the guy was just awesome. Then we got some vegetables and such. I was going to get eggs, but I'm not quite ready to commit to spending twice what I regularly pay on eggs. I'm sure that they're a lot bigger.... maybe sometime.
After the market we stopped at home to drop off the food. Then we went to Wal-mart for some other things. We learned that even though the trash cans and lids are stored on different shelves, you cannot buy them separately. Just so you know. We tried. After Wal-mart we stopped back at home so that Kimmy could fill out her Aldi application. Then we finished our grocery shopping at Aldi.
I made lunch when we got home, then did some studying. After I'd studied for a while I worked on other school things... like putting my syllabus together, getting my Google Calendar all set up, and working on my lesson plan. I have it pretty well done, I believe.
We had left overs for dinner. Then we looked at some recipes that we want to try in the near future for cookies and such tasty things. Kimmy and I have decided to try one new recipe each week. Hopefully that works out well.
I played some TF2 with friends for a while. Then Kimmy and I took a walk through the park near our house. It was really nice. It's the same park that held the farmer's market. We'll definitely be going back there.
When we got back we made a cookie run. Kimmy really wanted cookies, so we went to Marsh and got a pack. Then we ate them! Well, we ate a few of them. After cookies we played some video games... then went to bed. The end.
Well. We made it through yet another day in Muncie! I got up a little early so that I could wait for the guy from the gas company to get here and turn the gas on. I was told that he would get here "sometime after 7:30 am." Yay. So I was downstairs around 8 and just went about my business of getting breakfast and studying. Someone from the gas company came around 9:30, which was far earlier than I had anticipated. I honestly wasn't expecting someone until later in the afternoon. You know, Murphy's law and all. But someone came and we have heat! For whenever it gets cold. Knowing the Midwest, that could be tomorrow.
After studying and things we got lunch. I made some sandwiches that I fried on the stove. On a semi-related note, I'm a bit confused on something with regards to cooking. What is the act of cooking something with a skillet? "Frying" is commonly associated with "deep frying," which is heating food by use of a lot of oil. "Grilling" is associated with using a grill or (according to Wikipedia) a griddle. Technically most of what I do is sauteing, since I usually use just enough oil to keep the food from sticking to the skillet (or just as a general cooking agent). But it would sound silly to say that I sauteed us some sandwiches. And it's tedious and weird to say that I made skillet-fried sandwiches.
Anyhow. The repair guy came during lunch with our washer and dryer. He was supposed to have help, but I guess help never came. So he just did it all himself. About a third of the time was just him taking the necessary doors and railings off to move the machines up and down the stairs. I did not envy him.
I went to a meeting for all of the graduate assistants this afternoon. It was fine. We all got packets of information so we just went over those. Then I stayed around for a little bit to talk with some other people from the department.
When I got home we started making dinner. I made a meatloaf! And used my favorite ingredient: cinnamon. It turned out really well (I thought). Jessie stopped by on her way to Findlay with Kimmy and my laundry. We'd left it there last night since it wasn't done when we had to leave.
After dinner Kimmy and I watched the first episode of Firefly. I liked it. Kimmy fell asleep, so she didn't enjoy the show quite as much as I did. Oh well.
I played a game on my computer with Becky and Miles, Kimmy did... something on her computer. Whatever it is that she does, she did it! And now it's bed time. Good night!
Yesterday seems like it was such a long day! Even though I didn't really do too many things.
My alarm went off at 8, but I was still pretty tired. I stayed in bed for just a couple more blinks... and then it was 9. The service man was supposed to get there at 9:30, so I figured that I should get up. For his arrival. In the mean time, I got breakfast, studied, and wrote a couple thank you cards.
When the service guy got here he fixed the stove and is going to get us a different washer, dryer, bathroom faucet, and doorbell. I'm not sure when all of that will happen, but I think it will be soon?
Most of the afternoon was spent studying and writing thank you cards. I also made a really tasty snack.
It looks gross, but it was amazing. I fried bananas in peanut butter and butter, then topped it with cinnamon. Kimmy and I decided that we should use that as pie filling sometime.
We went to dinner at Jessie and Richard's. Jessie made a beef and noodle dish. It was pretty good. Richard told us a little bit about his new job and Jessie told us about some of the....neat aspects of working at a hospital. After dinner we went to Berry Winkle! We had fun with them.
When we got back we didn't really do anything productive. Kimmy watched a show on Netflix and I played a game. Then we went to bed. The end!
You know, today was not quite as productive as I thought it would be. But it was a good day, for certain.
After we woke up Kimmy and I cleaned the kitchen some more. We were having Tim and Erin over for lunch, so we figured we shouldn't have dishes all over the place. I hadn't thought about it at the time, but the lunch I made was pretty heavy for a lunch. I still thought it was good though.
I was actually pretty impressed with how the green beans turned out and I'll probably do them again sometime. I cooked them with onion, pepper, and garlic salt.
But lunch was fun. We exchanged some stories of our renting experiences (because Kimmy and I have had so many). They also told us about some things to do in Muncie. Apparently there is a farmer's market just down the street from us, as well as a butcher. Kimmy and I are going to go down to the farmer's market on Saturday! It will be fun. Also, there is a smoothie place call The Island. Apparently some guy took a little shack and made it all beach-y and such. We're going to have to check that out as well.
After lunch Kimmy and I cleaned up, then started working on thank you cards. It's going to take a while... but they'll get done. I only have about 23 more to go!
Then... we went to go clean the dryer. You see, the last tenants here apparently decided to put wood chips in the dryer. So the inside of our dryer had about 4 billion wood chips in it. We spent about an hour trying to get them out. Not only were there loose chips in there, but there were also some places where it had solidified onto the dryer. We had to use steel wool and a putty knife to get it off. After we'd gotten most of it off, we decided to put a couple washcloths in there to get all the loose chips.
And the dryer wouldn't start. Yay.
I did a little studying after that. My book is split up into 65 sections, so my goal is to do one or more each day. I've been staying on track thus far. I'm going to try to double up a few days so that I can get some extra study days in there for reviewing, but we'll see.
We had left overs for dinner. Then after dinner we cleaned up and played some games on our computers. And we made milkshakes!
There were pretty tasty.
And now it is bed time. Good night!
More things happened!
Yesterday morning started with me going to a meeting for GTAs (Graduate Teaching Assistants) that was run by the Office for Educational Excellence. It was pretty well. We talked about some strategies for working with students as well as some technical details for putting syllabi and things together. I rode my bike to school and it's definitely an easy ride. I will absolutely be using that as my main means of transportation. While I was gone the service guy came to fix the stove and dryer. He was also supposed to fix the doorbell and do something about the cat poop in the basement (like figure out if there were still animals downstairs). He kind of fixed the doorbell and cleaned up the cat poop, but determining whether there is an animal he left on us. After some experimentation the doorbell works if we put the receiver in the kitchen, but no where else.
After that Kimmy and I ran some more errands. We did our first grocery shopping! We also picked up our internet modem from the Comcast tent at Best Buy. When we got back we put groceries away, then I went about setting up our modem. That was an adventure. The first time I plugged it in and called Comcast, they could not get a signal from the modem. So I plugged it in at two other places in the house, but none of them worked. I had to schedule for a service call on Monday and it would cost $60. I was not amused. Kimmy and I went to the basement to examine where all the cables went. We were thinking that perhaps there was a problem that we could fix? So we looked at the absolute mess of cables in the basement. There is an 8-way splitter, so we took the next half hour trying to figure out which ones were important and which were even connected properly. After concluding that everything was in place, we took the modem back upstairs and tried to plug it in the living room again. After waiting for an eternity it finally started working! Huzzah!
So we celebrated the fruits of our labor by eating dinner and taking a break to enjoy having internet. Which turned into Kimmy getting a sudden burst of motivation and going on an organizing frenzy. So at this point all of our rooms look livable and some of them even look really good!
Later on I did some more studying. Then Kimmy and I watched a movie, followed by bed. The end.
