Spring Semester

The first half of this semester was spent counting down the weeks to Spring Break, which was last week (March 1 - March 5). It was a nice week, though it didn't coincide with Justin's Spring Break (next week, March 15 - March 20). But I did get to relax and spend some time not doing anything. I also got to enjoy a day of shopping with Mama, which was a belated birthday outing. I got lots of cute stuff on sale! Thanks Mama! Justin and I also got to spend a super-fun day at the zoo with Amber, Titus, Joy and Apollos. Justin and I get in free with our Rice I.D.s. As we were leaving, Justin offered to buy the kids ice cream. Yay! We get to be that fun uncle & aunt that spoil the kids! We sat by the duck pond while the kids ate their ice cream. Apollos crawled around chasing pigeons and trying to get in the water with the ducks. Then he spotted a cooler and headed speedily towards it. I pulled him away just as he was about to reap a bumper crop of strawberries and juice boxes. Thankfully the guy whose cooler it was seemed to think it was a funny as we did.

Sadly, my spring break is now over. I have 8 more weeks of class (finishing on April 23), then a couple weeks of finals, finishing no later than May 5, then ... my qualifying exams! I have to take 3 qualifying exams, each of which pretty much summarizes one of the subjects we've learned in our first year: microeconomics, macroeconomics, and econometrics. I'll be done with those on June 4, so 13 more weeks until I'm really done with my first year of graduate school! In the meantime, I have to study diligently, first for my midterms (going on now through next week), then for my finals and qualifiers. Based on past exams I've looked at, it is not unreasonable to expect that I will need to be studying pretty much constantly (or at least very regularly) from now until the exams. Wish me luck! Or, better yet, pray that I'll do well.