Regular Stuff

Recently I've been thinking that it would be nice to take more pictures of everyday stuff because those are lots of fun to look at later. So here are a few of our apartment:

This is Justin locking our door as we leave to go to Luke & Amber's house:

And here is Justin walking out to our car in the little parking lot behind our building:

Here are a few pictures of us having fun with the kids.

Graduate Housing

The other day Daddy asked me if I was acquiring lots of good stories about living in this graduate student housing that I could pass on to my kids some day. So far it's actually been quite nice, but here are some things I will not miss about living in this 1940s graduate housing setup:

• Not having a dishwasher
• Not having a washing machine/dryer
• Having a small kitchen
• Having only small-ish windows
• Being able to hear lots of sounds from neighbors, including: crying baby next door, noisy parties next door the other way, arguing couple somewhere downstairs, and a lugy-haucking neighbor in an unidentifiable direction

Here are some things I will miss about our apartment:

• Nice hardwood floors
• Great location near Rice Village
• Pretty tree visible from our window (see previous post)
• Cheap rent

On a different note, guess how much Justin and I are getting back from our tax return? $3000! (That's $3000, said excitedly, not $3000 factorial) We plan to put it toward student loans.

I have a pretty view

The other day I noticed this beautiful tree just outside my window.

It looks very Springy to me and makes me feel cheerful. I thought "if I was Mari, I would take a picture and write a blog post about it. And if I was really Mari, I would take a picture from this same window in Summer, Fall, and Winter."

I can't promise the all-seasons-from-the-same-vantage-point, but here is this Springtime tree picture.

Shortly after I had noticed the tree, one of my classmates who had come over to study said "wow! That's a nice tree!" In a later discussion with my neighbor/classmate who lives downstairs from me, who said he is thinking about moving to a "nicer" apartment next year, my other classmate said "Hannah's place is nice- and she has this great view of a really pretty tree!" It turns out my downstairs neighbor can't see the tree from his window- all he can see is the parking area (whose corrugated metal top is visible in my tree picture). Yesterday another of my classmates, who lives on the 4th floor of the apartment across the street, said she is able to see over the top of our 2-story building to the beautiful white-flowered tree beyond. I'm glad we are all able to appreciate this lovely tree... except Xin, who lives downstairs.

When I loaded the tree picture from my camera, I realized that I had some pictures from Japan on my camera that I still hadn't downloaded!!!!! So here are a few of them:

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.

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.

Our Apartment on Shakespeare St.

I started Grad school this week. I'll write about that later (maybe).

2 weeks ago today Justin and I moved into our new apartment!!! It's part of Rice Graduate Housing, which consists of 3 apartment complexes. One was built in the '90s, and is recommended for first year grad students, but married students are not allowed. That left Justin and me to choose between the brand new building in Rice Village, or the much older building across the street. Justin and I chose the old one- it's bigger, cheaper, and has more character than the new ones. We love it! After several trips to Ikea, we finally feel mostly settled in. I would like to he done "before" (boxes and junk all over th

e floor) and "after" (current decorated, organized state of the apartment) pictures, but my camera didn't surface until the end of the unpacking period. So here's a photo tour of our apartment as-is. In fact, it's a little bit messy, since these pictures were taken this morning and I didn't feel like cleaning up, so blog readers can get a feel for what our apartment is really like!

Living room, viewed from just inside the front door and looking left:

And then looking around the room from left to right:

Justin's working at the computer.

And now facing the wall with the front door:

(notice our 32" TV, about which Titus said "Aunt Hannah, since you have such a cute little TV, how can we play Wii Mariokart with 4 players?")

And our small bathroom (no space wasted here!):

Dining Area, with our nice little Ikea kitchen cart, and wine glass rack:

Kitchen table, with this morning's leftover pancakes: (note the plants by the window- these normally go in the living room on shelves, but they're here for there occasional sun-feeding)

And now, the wood-panelled kitchen! (ignore the drying dished that wouldn't fit on our dish-drying rack).

I'm going for a Japanese theme in my kitchen; note the authentic Japanese panda oven mits and wall hanging (unfortunately not very visible, as it is behind me).

This picture looks pretty bad. It was difficult for me to get the right lighting, since it was right by a bright window, but I wantd to show the cute stuff on my sink-side shelves. On the middle shelves you'll see a Japanese tea set (mine, from Mari 'n' Chris) and a Japanese sake set (Justin's, from Mari 'n' Chris). On the bottom shelves I have some cool Japanese sushi / side dishes, and my cream and sugar dishes. And on the window sill are the rosemary and basil plants I'm trying to grow, as well as an unsightly dirty rag.

Justin and I hope you've enjoyed this photo tour of our apartment! If you want to see more, come and visit us!