Where Is Amy

An Awesome Valentine's Day

noreply@blogger.com (Amy) — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 20:39:00 +0000

Honestly I was not expecting much for V-Day this year. (Which was fine with me, that is, I am not one of those girls who is like "ooh shower me with gifts because it is Valentine's Day!!") I was very tired (as you can probably tell from my last post) and all I wanted was to take a nap. I know, right, a nap??? I might as well ask for a narwhal or something! Oh wait, narwhals exist... I mean, a unicorn...

Anyway when I got home, I had some surprises in store....

DH had bought 2 pieces of art from Ikea, which I had had my eye on. Here's the big one in our living room:

How awesome is that? It looks like Hawaii in our living room now!

He also made me a really nice dinner and while he was cooking I did attempt to take said nap. (It didn't work though, I am bad at napping!! It felt nice to lie down for a few minutes though.)

That is all. Just wanted to publicly thank DH for giving me the best Valentine's Day ever!!

Last Friday

noreply@blogger.com (Amy) — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 17:55:00 +0000

Just in case you were thinking "wow Amy is doing such a great job juggling school and baby", I thought I would tell you about my day last Friday.

It started out OK, the usual morning routine, drop off the Tuff, study for a while, pump, and then class. Then I got my midterms back. One of them was fine, so I really shouldn't complain too much, but the other one was pretty crappy.

Here was my conversation with DH when I got home. Part 1 emphasizes how I am a bad student and part 2 emphasizes how I am a bad mom.

Part 1:

Me: I did so bad on my micro test!
DH: Oh no, how bad was it?
Me: I got an 80.
DH: *slaps forehead*. Sheesh, that's not bad you silly.
Me: Yeah but the average was a 90.
DH: Ohhhhh.
Me: Yeah.

Part 2:

DH: The daycare lady says no more cottage cheese in the Tuff's lunch.
Me: Why?
DH: Because he won't eat it anymore.

This is frustrating to me because a) babies change their mind on what they will eat all the time and b) I have a hard time coming up with a creative lunch every single day, so yes I tend to re-use the same ideas and the Tuff probably does get bored of it but what can I do? I'm at school all day. If I was at home I'd try a bite of cottage cheese and if he didn't like it I'd try something else. But he can't talk yet! I can't ask him at 8am what he would like for lunch that day! And besides, as countless moms have said countless times in history, I am not a short-order cook.

Then, just to drive home the point about what a bad mom I am, the Tuff ate a piece of food off of the floor. Because even though we vacuum almost every day, there is always food all over the floor.

The Sandwich Queen

noreply@blogger.com (Amy) — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 01:17:00 +0000

This quarter I've been much better about bringing my lunch! It really does save me a lot of time and money, especially since the Hub (food court thingie) is still under construction so there is nowhere particularly close to where I am on campus to get decent food.

In the past I've tried many times to start bringing my lunch more often. But it's tough because I'll eat the same sandwich for a couple days and then get really bored of it. Also if I just do a PBJ it won't be enough to fill me up. So, I thought about what sandwiches are out there that I'll actually pay money for at a restaurant, and this is what I've come up with so far:

Week 1: egg salad, on sourdough bread. (Having nice bread I find is also key to not getting too bored/disgusted with your sandwiches by the end of the week.)

Week 2: Vietnamese sandwiches (delicious, but it turns out that daikon starts getting really smelly after a few days, just beware.) BTW I used roughly this recipe but I just did canned chicken to keep things simpler.

Week 3: Turkey and cranberry sauce. This is a great sandwich although it's better warm. Luckily this was the week of snowmaggedon so I got to stay home and toast my sandwich.

Week 4: Roast beef and brie, on rye bread. Delicious sandwich, although kind of expensive. Still way cheaper than eating out though. Also better warm. BTW I got this idea from BisonWiches, yay Tucson!

Week 5: Turkey and cream cheese on bagels. Here's where it started getting kind of boring.

I'm about to start repeating sandwich ideas, but I am curious if anyone else has any fun, delicious sandwich ideas for me to try. Sandwiches are awesome because they are easy to eat while pumping or walking, and don't require any heating. But other easy-to-eat lunch ideas are welcome also!

Ack, What Have I Done!?!?

noreply@blogger.com (Amy) — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 07:16:00 +0000

On Marginal Revolution today, I just saw a post called The Three Laws of Future Employment, in which Alex Tabarrok discusses future employment trends.

You'll never guess what his conclusion was....

the way to go is to be a hot engineer who can write well and get along with other people.

Damn it. That was me!!! Seriously! I write well (I mean hey, you're reading this, right?), I get along with most people (especially engineers) and of course by virtue of being female I was one of the hottest electrical engineers around. :)

And yet.... I left. Why is that? Maybe because if you are stuck in lab coding in ASSEMBLY LANGUAGE (or PERL, or GAUSS...snort) all day you don't get to use your hotness(?), writing skills, or people skills.

Also, to be honest I think there is something wrong with the conclusion that there will be fewer STEM (science, tech, engineering, math) jobs in the future. As someone who has worked on "machine learning" I think that we are far, far, far away from having computers actually "learn" on their own, and thereby really start taking high-tech jobs away from people. "Machine learning" is just math, people. That's all it is! Just fancy math. A neural network is just a churched-up version of a linear regression, and I am pretty sure it takes more engineering-person-hours to set up and run a neural network than to run a linear regression (because we all can go do a linear regression in excel in the next 5 minutes.)

Whew, and now that that rant is over with, I better go to bed!!!

The Scarlett Petticoat

noreply@blogger.com (Amy) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 20:02:00 +0000

I already mentioned this on google+, but most people I know still aren't on there (and really I am very rarely on there myself) so I'll also post here - a friend of mine is writing a novella and she posted an excerpt here:

The Scarlett Petticoat

It's a fun, light chick-lit story. From what I can tell from this excerpt it's mostly about dating fiascos, and I truly enjoyed reading it. Also, it's short and quick, so it will take you probably 10 min, tops, to read it. If you are so inclined, please read and post a review. (Yes you have to give your email address in order to put a review, but just do what I did and use an old email that you never use anymore - I used my yahoo one.) I'm trying to help her spread the word because a) if she gets more reviews it gives her 'points' on this website, which could eventually get her book published! and b) I'm guessing that so far all the reviews are from people who know her, so it would be good to get some unbiased editors (not to be confused with unbiased estimators, heh heh, I am a dork.)

PS. As I also mentioned on google+, lest you start guessing that the actual author is me, I can assure you that it is not. First of all, I have dated waaaay less. If I wrote a book such as this, it would be over in about 3 pages. I did go on a date once with a guy who came out of the closet a few months later. There, that is my dating fiasco story! :)

PPS. If I ever do write a book someday (which yes I ponder sometimes, it's true) it would probably be sci-fi or at least have some elements of sci-fi (such as the crappy character development and total lack of believable female characeters... oh wait...)

Another Crazy Week

noreply@blogger.com (Amy) — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 06:28:00 +0000

Last week was super busy! Here's the quick run-down:

Monday - stayed on campus after class to work on Metrics homework. (GAUSS coding. For those who care, GAUSS is a math/statistics language that is lamer than Matlab and less free than R. Not sure how it's surviving in a competitive marketplace but whatever.)

Tuesday - parent/teacher night at the daycare. Like most of my nights, I don't do any homework.

Wednesday - I get to school, do homework for 20 minutes and then go home because the Tuff has a fever. I skip class (for the first time this quarter). I get a bad sleep cause our poor little guy is up a lot.

Thursday - I stay home in the morning with the sick Tuff. I then go to the library and study for my metrics test for approximately one hour. I then work on my GAUSS code until class at which point I turn it in unfinished.

Friday - The Tuff wakes up at about 3am. I attempt to comfort him until DH comes home from work at 9am. I have brownies for breakfast and then frantically try to finish my macro homework. I try to look over my metrics notes before our test, but my brain is too tired to comprehend the jumble of e's and e-hats, and e-hat-stars, etc. How do I think I did on that test? Well, let's just say that halfway through the day I noticed that I had put my underwear on inside-out. So how do you think I did?

The good news - I actually went to a bar after class on Friday, and I had a great time hanging out with my classmates and some other friends who I don't see very often. AND, the Tuff was doing better so DH brought him out to dinner, where he behaved himself quite well. (Or at least as far as I remember... I had 2 beers on 3 hours of sleep so I was enjoying the dinner regardless of what the Tuff did or didn't do.)

The bad news - I got kind of frustrated towards the end of the week, because of course having a sick child throws things off, but I sincerely doubt that I would have been able to get everything done that week even if that Tuff had not gotten sick.

The "here's why it's not so bad" speech - first, this past week sucked for everyone. Only the real over-achievers in our class made it to Thursday without freaking out. We had a ton of homework plus exams to study for. Second, the snow days made this all worse. (I can't remember if I wrote about it on here but UW closed for 3 days a couple weeks ago, due to snow.) We had the exam yesterday and we have another one on Monday but those would have been more spaced out if the snow hadn't happened. That whole time it was snowing I kept thinking, oh I am going to pay for this "free time" later, and sure enough that is what happened. But I am still clinging to my belief that if everything goes exactly perfectly (no snow, no sickness, no funny stuff!!) I can just barely eke it out at school.

My Coffee Fear

noreply@blogger.com (Amy) — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 20:56:00 +0000

For those of you who have ever smoked, did you ever have a friend quit smoking and you thought, "oh no there goes another one"?* I have those thoughts when someone I know quits caffeine. (You know who you are.... BUB....)

Despite living in Seattle, I seem to have a disproportionate number of friends who don't drink coffee. Sometimes I fear that coffee will go the same direction as cigarettes, and I'll be relegated to the "coffee drinking area", outside in the cold dark wind, huddling in my parka and nursing my coffee, either alone, or with the few other holdouts. We sit and reminisce about the good old days when men, women, and heck sometimes even children drank coffee, and no one thought anything of it! No one ever gave you a dirty look when you ordered a double tall latte. No one questioned your moral fortitude, etc. Sigh..... where are all my coffee drinking friends?

*PS I'm not advocating smoking I was just making an analogy!!

Book Review: The Going to Bed Book

noreply@blogger.com (Amy) — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 20:54:00 +0000

The Tuff is now at the age where he wants us to read him the same book over and over again. I'm very happy that he's now looking at the book, rather than trying to eat it, slam it shut, or throw it. So this is a good thing. But I feel compelled to discuss one thing that really bothers me about his favorite book.

You parents out there are probably familiar with this Sandra Boynton classic, "The Going to Bed Book". I know it is supposed to be a silly book so I won't ask about why these 10 random animals are living on this boat. Or why they all take a bath together. But here's what bugs me:

They take a bath, get their PJs on, brush their teeth, and THEN they go exercise?! Does this drive anyone else crazy? I mean a) don't exercise right before bed, because you're going to be all energized and you won't be able to sleep, and b) don't get all sweaty right after your bath, especially in your PJs!

Two Working Moms Walk into a Bar...

noreply@blogger.com (Amy) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 19:35:00 +0000

... and that's the whole joke, because two working moms would never have time to go to a bar!

Yet sometimes I try to do something almost as ridiculous. I have a friend who had her daughter last summer and then went back to work in the fall. (She works at the university so we can both use the campus gym.) We are "surfing friends", and by that I mean we both used to like to surf, but since we've met each other we haven't been able to go surfing together.

Last quarter we decided that we would try to go swimming once a week. Ha! Guess how many times that happened? 1.5. We swam together once, and the next week she was late so our swim overlapped by about 5 minutes - so I'll count that as 1/2. I swam a 3rd time by myself and then I got too busy (and broke my nose!) and didn't exercise again for the rest of the quarter.

So far this quarter I have swam once (by myself). But we keep trying... I don't want to spend a lot of time at the gym, since I already feel guilty for leaving my little bundle of cuteness at daycare all day, but I feel like one hour a week isn't really asking tooooo much, right?

PS. I was doing my econometrics homework (finished now, 2.5 hours before class, BOOM!) and I just found out today that the word "collinear" is spelled with two l's. Why? Two points sharing a line, I feel like it should be co-linear, or colinear. Why the second l? Dislike!! :(

Awkward Pumping Moments

noreply@blogger.com (Amy) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 19:19:00 +0000

You are probably asking yourself, what could possible be awkward about wearing a sports bra with two holes cut out of it, out of which are protruding plastic flanges with bottles below them which are catching some sort of liquid, and those are attached to a machine that makes a noise that is a cross between Darth Vader breathing and a life-support machine for a coma patient?

And the answer is nothing.... as long as no one sees you.

So, the room that I pump in has two doors - an outer door which requires a key code, and then an inner door which you can close and adorn with a sign that says "occupied." Well, I used to close the inner door but I stopped doing it because the only people who come into that room are other pumping moms, and I figured if one of them ever comes early for her shift I might as well just let her in, cause who cares, right?

Well a couple weeks ago, I was pumping and I heard the door open. I figure it's one of my fellow mom-warriors, so I turn around and say hello. And... it's a man! Er, more like boy. I'd say he was an undergrad. He froze, mouth open, and then said, "the mail room is.... not here!" and turned around and ran out.

I felt bad for the kid, I think it was actually more awkward for him than for me. Once you've given birth to a baby you pretty much don't care who sees what anymore. BTW it took me a while to notice this, but it turns out that the "mail room" is actually a metal shelf in the area between the two doors...who knew? I didn't realize because it's usually empty. So, from now on I keep the door closed!

The "It's Not Worth It" Dinner

noreply@blogger.com (Amy) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 20:12:00 +0000

AOC is on vacation with her 2 kids right now, and reading her blog I am 100% in agreement with her.... a "vacation" with your kids is not a vacation. Er, I'll rephrase: you must redefine the word "vacation" to mean "out of town", rather than "relaxing, catching up on sleep, reading, doing anything that you would like to do for yourself, etc.".

Anyway, this reminds me of how last Friday DH and I decided to go to our favorite hamburger place for dinner. For some reason, after almost 11 months of motherhood, I still get a little bit excited when we reach Friday. (Not as excited as Rebecca Black, but ya know, kind of excited.) Why?? Well, I guess for 30 years of my life, "Friday" meant "Time to kick back and relax a little bit". Old habits die so, so, so hard.

So, in my excited Friday haze, I said, "hey I'm tired of cooking, let's go to Counter Burger!" And DH, who also apparently still forgets he's a dad sometimes said, "yeah sounds great!"

We drive there, thinking well it's time for the Tuff's second nap right now (yep he takes his second nap at 5:15pm, whatever, I am not a bad parent). So surely he will fall asleep in the gently swaying van, only to awaken in about 30-45 minutes, as per usual, and then we will enjoy a relaxing dinner.

Instead, he was tired so he screamed most of the way there, only pacified by me singing Banana Phone at the top of my lungs over and over again, and sure enough he did not fall asleep. But we're already making stupid mistakes, let's intensify them by going into the restaurant!

I manage to quickly order some sweet potato fries while the Tuff refuses to sit in his highchair and decides to use me as a jungle gym, thereby making it impossible for me to look at the menu. Then we get about 5 minutes of peace while Tuff enjoys a few bites of fries.

Then, he pees his diaper and it soaks through his pants. I go change him, and he screams the whole time. (He hates changing tables. I should really bring a little pillow for his head or something, I suspect those things are uncomfortable.) I OF COURSE didn't bring a change of clothes, so I bring him back out to the restaurant with no pants on. The lady sitting next to us has two kids so she kindly offers me a pair of pants. (I decline, but it was a nice offer. And yeah, nothing makes you feel like a stellar mom like having a stranger offer your child a pair of pants.)

Our food comes and DH wolfs down his burger so that he can hold the now very upset and over-tired baby while I eat. I get through half of my cold burger before the Tuff's screaming escalates so much that we decide to leave. I dont' even want to waste time asking for a box so I grab the burger and wrap it in a napkin and we escape.

Next time I *think* I'm tired of cooking I will re-read this post, and remind myself: Self, you are not tired of cooking. You love cooking because it is a BLESSING to be able to eat reasonably tasty food in your own home. In private. Don't be stupid. Don't go out to eat. It is never worth it. And if you really, really can't cook, ORDER SOME PIZZA.

An Economist's Anniversary

noreply@blogger.com (Amy) — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 05:36:00 +0000

Tomorrow is my 2-year anniversary with DH! Do you think it would be too unromantic/morbid if I wrote him a card that said:

"To min(T1, T2)-2 more wonderful years!"

Heh heh. JK I will not do that. And if I really felt the need to model our relationship in discrete time, I would be sure to use an infinite time horizon.

And.... I'm off to bed. Here's hoping we get enough sleep to enjoy our day off tomorrow! Happy MLK day to everyone, and happy anniversary to me & DH!

Singing Baby Songs

noreply@blogger.com (Amy) — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 19:50:00 +0000

Sad: Sining the (not very musically creative) theme song to "Baby Signing Time" to yourself while cooking dinner

Sadder: DH joining in and singing it along with me

Saddest: Our baby was not even in the room.

Balancing School and Home Life

noreply@blogger.com (Amy) — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 18:50:00 +0000

You may laugh when I say this, given some of my earlier "I'm freaking out" posts, but overall, balancing the two worlds was much easier than I had thought it would be. I always thought I was bad at jugging multiple things. I remember once when I was working I tried to take a graduate class in DSP (digital signal processing) but I had ended up traveling so much for work that I dropped the class. So, that’s how I balanced work and school, that is to say, poorly. But now my priorities are very clear. The Tuff comes first, and everything else is after that. I have him in daycare about 6 hours a day, which I’m sure sounds like a lot for the SAHMs out there, but I think it’s working well for us. DH picks him up by 4pm, and I’m in class until 5. So I’m actually away from my baby for about 7ish hours, which is just enough time for me to walk to school, pump, do a sort of decent job on homework, and go to class.

Now, I had several times where I had to turn in an assignment that wasn’t finished, and I certainly never felt like I studied enough for any of my exams. A few years ago, I would have freaked out about this, but now I am very relaxed about it. I used to always be mad at myself for procrastinating, and I would rarely,if ever, be satisfied with my performance in a class. But now I’m 100% satisfied that I am doing the best I can, so in that sense school is actually easier.

I read a book about working moms and the book said that some moms are “separators” and some are “blenders”. I would have guessed that I would be a “blender”, i.e. having work spill into home life and vice versa, but I feel like I have turned out to be a mega-separator. My two lives are so separate, I sometimes feel like I’m living a weird secret double-life. Yesterday I went to the children’s museum in the morning with another friend and her baby, and then in the afternoon I went to Econometrics. Neither group of people knows anything about the other. My stay-at-home-mom friends could care less what Ordinary Least Squares is, and my classmates could care less what the Children’s Museum is. (It’s actually super fun, btw, the Tuff loved it!!! The museum, that is. Although I’m sure he will love OLS someday too.)

And there are actually many things that didn't change much when I went back to school. As far as sleep goes, it's really about the same whether I'm staying at home or not. I thought I would do some late nights with homework, but I tried that a couple times and decided very quickly that it wasn’t worth it.

There are many things that I miss having time for, and I think many SAHMs would agree that they also don't have time for any of these things:

- having uninterrupted conversations with people
- exercising
- reading
- watching movies
- spending time with my husband
- surfing the internet
- shopping for myself (I really wanted to buy some new clothes over the break, that didn't happen!)
- going out to eat
- getting my haircut
- cutting DH’s hair (FYI don't try to cut your husband's hair and keep an eye on your crawling baby at the same time. We had a minor disaster last week for which I deeply apologize to DH.)
- going to the dentist

Speaking of the dentist, since I find myself with time to write this blog post, I am going to end it right now and go call the dentist. It has been almost a year since my last cleaning, shameful!!

Free time... nervous...

noreply@blogger.com (Amy) — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 20:31:00 +0000

I managed to drop off the Tuff at daycare by 10:20am and went to campus, pumped, and finished up my first homework assignment. and I still have almost an hour before my first class starts. Ok, I should be doing some reading or something, but really, I am experiencing some free time right now! Weird.

The funny thing is that I'm always composing these insightful and hilarious blog posts in my head, but I never have time to write them, and now that I have time I'm like... ummm... what should I write about?

Here's one thing: I went to dinner with a girlfriend of mine yesterday, who also has a baby, and we left the babies at home! It was SOOOO refreshing and fun. I hadn't been out without the husband and/or child since September when I went to the symphony with another friend.

Also, I should add that the Tuff is doing better in the car these days. It seems that he is not getting carsick after all. I wonder if he just started to believe that every time he got into the car he was going to end up on an airplane to another strange, strange land. We adjusted his straps a little bit, and also started loudly playing children's music in the car, which seems to help a lot.

And by car I mean van. And by van I mean this van, which has had about 9 lives over the last 3 years. But last night, as DH was dropping me off for my Very Exciting Dinner, the van started making Super Crazy noises, and then making smells, and then smoke, and then the power steering didn't work anymore. So, we have been test driving new vans for awhile but the time for a new van is approaching more and more quickly.

Happy New Year

noreply@blogger.com (Amy) — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 20:58:00 +0000

I'm so tired right now. The only new year's resolution I can think of is: Never take my baby anywhere again.

It was actually really fun having all the family see Lil' Tuff over Christmas, but I am paying for it now!! His sleep is more messed up than Enron's books and I have no idea where to even start fixing it. Also, he cries every time he's in the car now, so I'm afraid he might be getting car sick.

I can't even imagine right now what my life will be like if the Tuff is a carsick baby. (We want to try a couple more experiments before determining that that is the cause of the crying. And no, not like science experiments, just stuff like adjusting his straps.) I guess we would be ordering more take-out, and DH and I would spend even less time together, if that is possible, because only one of us would go on all the errands. And we would see our friends even less too. I am just thankful that we actually never *need* to drive our baby anywhere, since his daycare is right outside our door.

So, happy new year everyone! Here's to getting some more sleep in 2012.

First Final

noreply@blogger.com (Amy) — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 01:14:00 +0000

So the Grand Finale, a.k.a. Finals Week, was a spectacle of a week. Mr. Tuff was sick the whole week, which culminated with DH and I taking him to the doctor on Friday at 11am, which was 3.5 hours before my last final. Not exactly a recipe for scholarly success.

However, I would just like to take a very brief moment to brag. I just checked my scores for my first final exam, Micro, and I did ABOVE AVERAGE on the final exam for that class!!!!! I wasn't sure how that test went because it felt hard, but everyone else seemed to think it was really hard too. I am very proud and happy right now, because I had pretty low expectations. That test was on Monday, and I did have some time to study over the weekend but the Tuff got sick on Sunday and I had to sleep sitting up in the rocking chair for half the night because he would cough (and then cry) every time I put him down.

So, yay for me!!! :) And, if I don't get around to posting again beforehand, have a very merry Christmas!

Mini Mom Convention

noreply@blogger.com (Amy) — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 04:24:00 +0000

Two days ago I decided to work at Tully's in the morning and then grab the bus to campus. (More on Tully's later... I have decided I am done with that place!)

I usually walk to school but since I have the most-awesome "One Bus Away" app on my phone, I could work until the bus was about 2 minutes away and then run outside to the bus stop. Efficiency! Seriously, everyone's life in Seattle is better because of that app. Although I don't want to use this too often, because my walk to school is the one last vestige of exercise in my life.

Anyway, as I waited for that whole minute, the girl standing next to me said "hey aren't you my new neighbor?" It turns out she lives in my same building - and since we live in student family housing that implies that she also has a child/children. When we got on the bus she said hi to two other mom-students, so there were 4 of us standing together on the bus who were moms in graduate school. Our conversation lasted for about 4 minutes, since I was only riding the bus for 2 stops, but it was possibly the highlight of my week. Sometimes I feel like I am so insane for doing what I'm doing, it's just really nice to be reminded that there are others like me. (Hiding in my midst, but of course we are all too busy to see each other!)

Mid Quarter Update

noreply@blogger.com (Amy) — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 05:06:00 +0000

As of today we are trying a new schedule. DH is going into work at 6am and leaving at 3:30pm. I am (hopefully) dropping off the Tuff at 8am and getting home around 5ish. This way the Tuff is still only in daycare 8 hrs or less each day, but his schedule is shifted a little earlier.

I am hoping that this will help me get more studying done, because I have learned a couple things so far. One, I have found that nights and weekends are not nearly as useful as I had thought they would be. Here's the key thing - I really have to leave the house to get anything done (or send the two boys away) - and that means I have to pump again. And that just makes it too difficult so I rarely go. (Yes I know I am lazy, but I am tired of pumping!)

Two, I had originally planned to work more on T/Th afternoons since I finish class earlier on those days. But I find that once I'm done with class I want to rush home and see my baby, so I will work for about 30 minutes and then quit and head home. Somehow in the mornings it's not as hard, and then by the time afternoon comes and I am missing my baby - too late! I am stuck in class!

So... we'll see how this pans out. I am hoping it helps because I am not doing so good right now. As of today I got all my midterm grades and they are.... not my best grades ever. That being said I'm not super stressed about it. Well, I am worried about funding, but that is a topic for another post.

Why Not to Go Surfing

noreply@blogger.com (Amy) — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 06:59:00 +0000

I had midterms last week, so to celebrate finishing those and having a three day weekend, DH and the Tuff and I went out to the coast to go surfing as we used to do in our pre-baby days.

We had a great time Friday night and Saturday up until I went surfing and my board hit me in the nose. Here was my thought process:

That hurt, I think I'm gonna go in.
Oh no, there's blood on my surfboard!

I wiped off the two drops of blood, and then it really starts. Blood everywhere!

I'm glad there are no sharks around here.

I start walking in and a girl sees me and asks if I'm ok. She looks really concerned. I tell her that my husband is on the shore and I'll be fine. These things happen, I tell her. Yeah, I said that. :/ She probably thought that either a) I had not yet fully realized what thing had just happened to me, b) I was insane, or c) I was super tough.

And the rest of the thought process:

What if I have to go to the hospital and then I can't breastfeed my baby?
If my nose keeps hurting like this I won't be able to get any studying done!
What if it's broken and I end up looking like Owen Wilson? No offense to Owen Wilson but thank God I already found a husband.

Well, I did not go to the hospital. I called my dad (who is a doctor) and he said to put some ice on it and stop being a baby. (JK he didn't say that last part, just the ice.) So... I am going to ice it one more time and then get some sleep. Not sure yet on whether it is crooked. Will update after the swelling goes down.

How Not to Freak Out...

noreply@blogger.com (Amy) — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 05:19:00 +0000

... while you're trying to not fail grad school and then your baby gets sick and then your husband gets sick, and you have no time to do homework because obviously your poor baby is more important and he is fever-ing and cough-ing and has green mucus (and bit me again today OUCH!!!!). And you are super tired and your baby goes to bed at 9:45 and then you spend half an hour frantically crossing things off your to-do list and then you wonder why you can't fall asleep.

That whole thing was supposed to be the title of this post. And the contest is as follows:

I don't know.

A Hilarious Song!!

noreply@blogger.com (Amy) — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 05:55:00 +0000

So, DH is having that same weird new-parent thing I had where I randomly pull children's songs out of the depths of my brain. The other day he came home and said, "Have you ever heard the Teddy Bear's Picnic?"

Well, I had not. But now I have, and let me tell you, this song is awesome. Here's why it's hilarious. The song is all about these cute little happy-go-lucky teddy bears having a picnic. However, the song also implies that the teddy bears are real bear-bears. As in, if you come across one in the woods it will eat you.

Now granted, I am the person who didn't know what a duck was at age 27. (Short story: I thought that all water fowl were just types of ducks. It's really just a semantics thing. Nothing to make fun of me for.) That being said, I always had teddy bears in my head as.... well, not a bear. Like I don't say to someone who just got back from Alaska, "Oh what kind of bears did you see? Grizzly, black, teddy, polar?"

So you see why this is hilarious, right? Now, I highly recommend listening to the song. There are a few versions on YouTube but my favorite (so far) is this one. <--I'm done with embedding YouTube videos on this blog, they always look bad and I'm too lazy to fix the formatting.

Economic Theory #1

noreply@blogger.com (Amy) — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 05:11:00 +0000

Today was another day where I ran around like a beheaded chicken*. But, I think the Econ grad school is already starting to pay off because today I came up with a great idea.

Backstory - my DH got a phone call tonight from the blood bank, asking him to donate plasma. I am all about donating blood but I told him not to do plasma cause a) he's afraid of needles, and b) it takes forever. For something that takes that long you should get paid for it. (And c) if he's doing plasma for 2 hours that's two hours that he isn't home, helping me out!)

Here's where the idea comes in.... I'm always getting emails saying that they need me to donate blood because the blood bank is at critically low levels, etc. But I bet if they took the money that they spend on emailing, phone calling, having those blood trucks drive all over town, etc, they could just offer to pay people for their blood. I think normally this wouldn't work that well, because they would have to pay too much. But in today's economy I think if they offered to pay $5 you'd have people lining up to donate blood. This helps both the unemployed and trauma victims! It's like, the New New Deal. In fact, the Red Cross shouldn't have to take it out of their marketing budget. The government could pay for it. Then in 30 years politicians can argue about Social Security, Medicare, and Blood Transfers. <-- bad pun

Then again, many economists believe that people should get paid to donate organs, because there would be way less of a shortage (if any). Of course there are of course moral issues there, so maybe there's a moral issue with the blood. But I feel like people used to get paid for donating blood, isn't that true? And if so, why did it stop? Did the Red Cross or whoever get so good at marketing that they were able to drum up all this free blood? Strange.

So there you have it - economy solved! You're welcome America.

*I literally ran to my first class today, in the pouring rain, because I was late because Lil' Tuff took a really long nap this morning, and by the way I then worried about him all day because I thought maybe he was extra tired because he's coming down with something. Then, in my 1.5 hours between classes I heated up my lunch, ate said lunch, finished writing up a homework problem that was due today, worked on another homework set that's due on Friday, read part of a paper, pumped, ran upstairs to a computer lab to check my school email, and met with a professor.

What Have I Learned in School

noreply@blogger.com (Amy) — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 02:10:00 +0000

Things are slowly starting to run a little more smoothly. Lil' Tuffy seems to love his new daycare, and I love dropping him off right outside my door! After about a week I finally figured out that I can just bring milk in bags instead of bottles, because they keep my bottles there and wash them for me. Not having to wash and label 3-4 bottles a day is going to be a big time savings for me! <-- This may sound trivial, but it is not. Little time-savings such as this may allow me to stay sane, and even post on this old blog sometimes!

And poor lil' Tuff is mostly better, although still a tiny bit stuffed up. If the poor kid inherited my nose he will probably be snoring for the rest of his life! :(

Last Tuesday was probably the low point before things started to get a little bit less bleak. I took the Tuff to the doctor that day. He was mostly better by then but I had bailed on an earlier doctor appointment and then he had gotten worse again, so I didn't want to jinx his recovery. But, because that appt. took so long I had to miss a class, and it was the first time that class was meeting, which is sort of a bad way to start out a class.

As I was racing from bus to bus and imagining all my fellow classmates (who by the way were already done with their micro homework which I hadn't even started yet) sitting in class, I was feeling pretty crappy. Only 6 days into school and I'm missing class and I'm way behind on everything... this is not good!

I stopped at a bench because the Tuff was getting really heavy (he fell asleep at the doctor so I was free-carrying him with no wrap so that he wouldn't wake up) and the bench happened to have this quote inscribed on it:

“It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.” --Theodore Roosevelt

Indeed. And that is what I keep telling myself. I like economics, and I think I will be good at it, and I will NOT compare myself to kids who have all the free time in the world to read entire textbooks and be 10 weeks ahead on their homework!

So that is what I have learned so far at school. That, and lots of math. And a very small amount of economics such as "people like to consume stuff."

Craaazy Math

noreply@blogger.com (Amy) — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 16:42:00 +0000

During math camp, I noticed that all of the older grad students kept telling us how hard the first year courses were. I thought, well, I have a pretty substantial math background, so I'm not sure how hard the math will be.... but even one guy who had his undergrad in math told us that the first year was really hard, which made me pretty nervous.

Now that I've been in school for one week, I am starting to have an idea of why this is. See, here's normal math:

For example, say you have the equation: y = mx + b

and someone says, take the derivative with respect to x. That's easy!

dy/dx = m

Ahhhh. Clean, crisp, and refreshing.

Unless you're a grad student in economics.

In that case, the derivative is not m. Because guess what? m is also a function of x. And so is b. Oh yeah, and b is a function of y too. And by the way you were just supposed to know that, because it's just basic economic principles.

So, that's why it's hard. Also I forgot how to solve differential equations... the 2 hours we went over that in math camp was not really enough. But other than that, things are going better. Lil' Tuff is liking his new daycare. He sits on a chair (not a high chair, a mini wooden chair) and eats his lunch with the big kids! Awww, so grown up!!! And I'm liking it cause I now have NO daycare commute!!! I just walk to and from school and that's it. Happy days.