So when I began this looooong journey called Graduate School, I remember thinking to myself "I'm not going to get involved". My intention was to go to class, come home, do homework, and not let the world of academia permeate me. I don't know why I had this thought. Perhaps it was the extreme worldliness of all my classmates that turned me off. Perhaps it was being out of the bubble of HPU that made me feel insecure. I have never really felt "smart". I am good at school and can follow directions to a T. I never really excelled though. That was always left up to Mike and Sarah. They graduated Cum Laude and with honors, and I was more excited about my new graduation dress then I was about my GPA.

My campus puts on a student conference every year. Partly as a recruiting tool, partly as a chance to let student showcase their work. Last year I thought "I'm not that good of a writer to submit a paper" but this year my thesis advisor said he required it of all his students to submit a paper. My friend Tammy, also an advisee of this professor, wrote a paper together last fall, so we pulled it out of oblivion and submitted it to fulfill that requirement. Imagine our surprise when this past Wednesday I got an email stating that our paper was accepted to be on the Top Graduate Paper Panel! What? MY paper? Heck no...you must be mistaken!

Low and behold, when I opened the attachment that had the conference schedule, there was my name, one of four chosen for the panel. Now, we didn't win the top paper award, but we did present our paper to a room of about 100 professors and students from schools all around Texas, and I won't lie....I felt a bit prideful and proud at my accomplishment. But more importantly, I felt like I belonged with that group. Most of the people in my classes are Teaching Assistants. They are up on campus all day every day,have close friendships and call the professors by funny nicknames. I go once a week and have only really made friends with two people. At the conference, people knew who I was, lots of them said Hi to me, and I was introduced by my advisor to a few professors from UT, TSU, and SMU. Wow....I was an academic. People actually took seriously something I wrote. I was shocked and a little taken aback.

At the end of the conference, my professor from last semester whose class I wrote the paper for came up to Tammy and I and said "Your paper was one of the best in the class, and probably one of the best I have read as a graduate professor. We need to keep it moving!" She wanted permission to tweak it a little and try to get it published. We of course gave her the go ahead, and I left feeling like maybe, just maybe, the world of academia actually fit me.

New Toys

Last night at the grocery store we each got to pick out a treat. I chose some beautiful spinach tortillas to make wraps with this week at lunch. Dave chose a new flavor of coffee creamer, and Dexter....well....we picked out this toy for him.

(his face in the pic above says "Hi, I'm Dexter, and I ride the short buss to school)

In about 5 minutes he had already chewed a hole in the handle and taken out the squeeker. We had to take it away with him so he wouldn't swallow chunks of plastic. But, it kept him busy long enough for Dave and I to watch our netflix movie without him coming up to us with his ball wanting to play. Such a cute little guy!

A qucik little Ode to my dad!

Sometimes when I am at home all day reading and writing, the only thing I have to look forward to is what I am having for lunch. The past few weeks, this has lead me to spend a little more money then desired on impromptu lunches out. In an effort to cut down on that expensive habit, I resolved to start buying some interesting things for lunches in, because let's face it, I have had enough bland sandwiches to last me till heaven. Today for lunch I had this....

and the whole time I ate it, I couldn't help but remember my dad fixing the same thing oh so long ago on Saturday afternoons or in the evenings when mom was gone. The chili dog is something that will always make me think of my dad. I know that's strange, but it's those simple things in life that usually make me think of him.

On another note, let me share with you a dad and daughter story that wiggled up into my mind from a memory filing cabinet buried deep in my brain from long ago. This past weekend when I was working, a dad and daughter came into Target, and the daughter was dressed in a cheer leading uniform. This made me think back to my cheer leading days. When I wanted to try out for cheer leading, my parents enrolled me into a tumbling class specifically for cheerleaders. Most of the time, my dad took me. My mom may have taken me a few times, but in my memory , it was always my dad sitting in the colorfully decorated observation room watching a bunch of 12 year olds doing hurkies and toe-touches. After about six months of my tumbling class, I got good enough where I attempted to do a round-off back-hand-spring all by myself...no spotter. For a 12 year old just starting her cheerleading career, this is a huge accomplishment. I was nervous as all get out, but I did it anyway. The roundoff went fine, and the back-hand-spring was ok too. Instead of my hands, I landed on my elbows, and instead of my feet, I landed on my knees, but I went over all by myself! I remember being on all fours realizing what I had just done, looking over to the parent's room with a huge smile, and my dad stood up and started clapping for me! He gave me a standing ovation in front of all the other parents watching their daughters. He had that smile that I always saw when he was excited about something and was clapping loud enough for me to hear it in the gym. I was so proud of myself, and was proud that dad was proud, that I stood up and literally jumped in circles all the way back to the end of the matts. Now the next few handsprings didn't go so well...my nerves got the best of me, but for that first time, I will always have that memory of my dad, my #1 cheerleader, cheering me on.

Two year anniversary!

Yesterday Dave and I celebrated our two year anniversary. As cliche as this sounds....it really is amazing how time flies! We had a wonderful and relaxing day. Dave played hookie from school, and we spent the day watching movies, shopping and then went out for our favorite celebratory food....fondue! We received some wonderful calls from family and friends wishing us a happy and blessed day, and were surprised when an anniversary gift arrived from Mom and Dad Norvell....they bought us our own fondue pot (the Rachael Ray one, to be exact). I am thinking that for our Easter appetizer we must have some yummy cheese fondue! Here are a few pictures of our day.Dave and I on our two year anniversary! This is us about to go do a little shopping (my special "gift" on our anniversary)


Us at our Fondue table. This is right after we finished our entree. We had lobster tail, all kinds of yummy beef...and our favorite veggie...a never ending bowl of mushrooms!

Dave digging in!

and me digging in!

I love these pictures with all the steam. It really shows how good all the food was.

Me enjoying our dessert fondue. We had Bananas Foster....white chocolate with caramel and cinnamon. They set it on fire, and then added chopped pecans and bananas. It was to die for!

This is our dessert fondue. Needless to say, it was the best part of the meal.

Who says it doesn't snow in Texas!

And this is just this morning. Last night it was coming down so hard that we could barely see out our front windows. Sounds like a perfect day to snuggle on the couch and watch a movie. Too bad that's not what I'll be doing :>).