Mission Completion

I took a trip into space.

My name was inscribed on a microchip and blasted into space in 1999 on the Stardust mission by JPL. The purpose of the mission was to collect dust from the Stardust comet. In order to gain public awareness for the mission, some marketing genious for JPL started a campaign where you could submit your name to be included on two microchips. One microchip would return to earth upon completion of the Stardust mission and the other chip would be left in space forever...

I included my name as well as my nephew's name (I only had one nephew at the time). So, we are now immortal.

Please visit the Stardust mission's web site for information. Stardust just returned to earth with more samples than NASA engineers thought possible. It's such a cool mission and the public outreach for this mission for NASA on this mission was among the most creative campaigns they have ever come up with.

A room full of leaders

And we all want to be the leader...

My Studies in Leadership class is on Tuesday nights. I just got back from it. It was the second night that my group got to work together on our group project in which we are to design a company, a product, come up with interview questions that we will use in a mock interview. I got stuck with a lame group. But, the first thing in leadership is that you have to learn to work with what you've got.

We do not really get along well as a group. I would probably only CHOOSE to work with one of the people out of the 5 that I got saddled with, but again, work with what you've got. I think the thing that made us not get along is that we all wanted to be the leader. Are you familiar with the forming/storming/norming/and performing model of group dynamics? We are very much in the "storming" stage. But I like to think, as do all the other members of the group, that I am the leaderist of the group!

Oh, and my Psychopathology class was interesting last night. Some kid came drunk out of his mind, passed out on the table and the teacher thought he was sleeping and just let him "sleep". In the middle of her lecture he puked all over the table and floor. Get this. She didn't stop the class! His friend ushered him out and she just kept on lecturing with the puddle of barf that was 3 chairs away from me. I couldn't believe it. This was after we watched a video of someone drilling a hole in their own head. I am really not looking forward to going back to that classroom next week given the nasty associations I have with the class.

Sorry for the disgusting rant. I will have some cute kid pictures up this week to compensate for your having to read my unpleasant news.

A Little Update

I didn't write about all the things I had decided to write about while on break. It was my plan to develop a few ideas I had and post them here but I enjoyed not writing for awhile since my composition class had me all written out. Although I did enjoy the hard work. And, it paid off.

Here are a few updates:

On School
I got a 4.0 and am "technically" on the Dean's List although they messed up and my ethics instructor didn't get my grade turned in on time so I'm not on the list that's posted everywhere. Still, a 4.0 was my goal for this semester and I am proud to say "I did it!"

I did my final speech on running, even though Advance Directives won the poll I had posted here (thanks for voting). I was the first speaker to go and I couldn't see myself starting the final speeches on the topic of death. Plus, Advanced Directives required more research than the running speech and I had to devote all my energy to my composition course.

Regarding my composition course, my final paper was very well-researched and I worked my butt off on writing the damn thing. I was so thrilled when I read the professor's comments, which said it was the best paper of her two honors' classes. Yeah, me! Also, she wants to use my "Midwestern as a Second Language" paper for the writing magazine they publish twice per semester. Yippee! And the presentation I lead went off fabulously. I think I did a really good job helping everyone do a good job and that makes me happy. It was a great group to work with.

On Adam
Adam is doing great. Amusing us daily and being a good big brother. We were working on potty training but he REFUSES to poop. He is literally very anal retentive. Being a (currently) psych major, I am aware of what this means, therefore, I find myself worrying..."am I too controlling?" So we put the potty away for now and are forgetting about it. Still, when a child says "No, I am not going to poop on my potty, I'm just gonna poop in my diaper" it seems like they are capable of potty training. I'll give him some more time.

Sadly, Adam was spending so much time at daycare during the last two weeks of fall semester that he actually said one night when I brought him home "I wanna go home to Cheryl's house". I almost cried. Fortunately, children are quick to forgive and we spent a lot of re-bonding time over the holiday break. I missed my little guy SO MUCH. He is such a good buddy.

On Natasha
She has had one ear infection after the other. Her pediatrician is not recommending tubes yet, but it's a technicality. Her last EI took 3 rounds of antibiotics to kill ending with Omnicef (which I keep mentally changing to "unicef"). If the Omnicef doesn't kill it, it's tubes. Though this EI they kicked her back to Augmentin, which means it won't kill it, she'll have an EI for two months meanwhile not eating. I have been working so hard to get her up to 16 pounds and the EI's don't help. I just want tubes already. I might bypass the Ped and go right to the ENT.

Her development is way ahead of what I expected her to be, though. She has been crawling for about a month or two. She pulls up on everything (including, to her disfavor, Adam and Desi, who do not stay put) and has attempted letting go only to fall a few times. She claps and does "so big" all the time. I am convinced she's going to be my wild child. You throw her up in the air and she cracks up laughing. Swing her around and she doesn't stop smiling. When you did these things to Adam he would just get a scared, surprised look on his face.

Oh yeah, and she caught the stomach flu the other day and barfed all night last night. At least I got to see how much breastmilk she actually consumes in a sitting. More than I thought! I was thinking of weaning her but with the EI's she gets, I can't bring myself to do it. She was down to two or three sessions a day and I was drying up so I've been drinking tons of water and taking Fenugreek to increase my supply.

On DH
He got DirectTV. Good research on his part. It's cheaper than cable and we get more channels. He's on the Atkins diet (sort of), which is good because it resulted in him eating broccoli, which is something I never thought I could get the man to do. I can't believe he hasn't left me yet considering how stressed, tired, not there for him I have been. It will pay off one day, honey!

On Desi
You know, he gets by. The dog has been climbing into my lap lately when there are no kids on it. He's also been climbing into bed with us lately, which is something he hasn't done in quite some time.

This Semester
Microeconomics, Studies in Leadership (with the crazy right brained, type C personality professor I had fall 2004), Digital Art (lookout red eyes here I come!), and Psychopathology.

Lots of subbing for daycare (meaning I fill in for our provider with like 900 kids screaming for me at once, but my own scream the loudest at this time). Everyone pray for an easy cold and flu season for us.

Thanks for reading. I'll be posting lots now because posts on here mean avoiding homework and housework!