Happy Christmas!

When we were writing our Christmas cards, Justin pointed out that "merry" implies drunkenness, and that it is therefore more appropriate to say "Happy Christmas," as our British brethren do.

We did indeed have a happy Christmas, though quite busy. Justin's graduation went well, although his diploma says "Justin Oshay" rather than "Justin O'Shay". Boo. We spent 4 days with his sister Lillian who's 14 and a freshman in high school. We think she had a good time; on her last evening with us we overheard her chatting with a friend on the phone, telling her about all the fun things we'd done. Yay!

After four fun-filled days with Lillian, culminating in a 3-hour each-way drive to take her home, we began our final Christmas preparations. We spent Christmas Eve and Christmas morning with my family, then Christmas dinner with Justin's. Amidst the hubbub of all the Christmas festivities, we have also been putting final touches on the planning of our trip to Japan, for which we still have not started packing (yikes!) We even had a brief moment of "I know I'm excited about the trip, but it feels like I haven't had nearly enough time to prepare for it and how did my month long Christmas break become so full with so little relaxation/veg time?"

However, this feeling was soon overcome. I had lots of fun visiting with my family, which this year included: Mama, Daddy, Grandmarm (Mama's mom), Grandfather (Daddy's dad), Luke, Amber, Titus, Joy, Apollos, Simon, Katrina, Carsen and Canon. I particularly enjoyed Joy and Carsen's rendition of Jingle Bells. It was so good, Titus and Canon could not resist the urge to dance.

It was lots of fun, especially getting to see Simon & Katrina and fam, since they live in Dallas and we don't get to see them that often. The only thing that was missing was Mari and Chris! This realization refreshed my excitement of our trip to Japan. Not only will we be getting to do lots of fun sight-seeing, but we'll get 10 days full of Mari-Hannah-Justin-Chris time! Hooray!

A+

After 16 weeks of sparse (non-existent?) blogging, minimal apartment-cleaning, and lots of time with my 7 classmates, I have completed my first semester of graduate school. So far, it's a lot tougher than I had expected, but I think my mathematics background prepared me well. Although I have definitely been having to work hard, I enjoy what I've been working on, which is very encouraging. I took four classes this semester. My favorite class was Microeconomic Theory; this is the field that I would like to focus on. My other classes were Macroeconomic Theory, Math, and Statistics (bleh!). I found out I got an A+ in Micro, and since that is my favorite, and the most important for me to do well in, I consider this semester an academic success.

Now I'm enjoying a month of no school before starting next semester on January 11. During my month off, I plan to celebrate my husband's graduation from TAMU (he graduates tomorrow, and will be beginning his M.S. in Geophysics at TAMU in January); do fun stuff with my sis-in-law Lillian (justin's younger sister) for a few days; visit with my mom, dad, grandfather (dad's dad), grandmother (mom's mom), brother, sis-in-law, nephews, niece, who all live in Katy now, and even see my other brother, sis-in-law, niece and nephew, who will be in town for Christmas; and ...drumroll... fly to Japan with Justin and spend 10 days with my sister and bro-in-law!!! Needless to say, I'm very much looking forward to this Christmas break, especially the Asian Adventure! Oh, and of course spending some quality time curled up by the fire with my 1000 pages of Microeconomic Theory.