Ikea and Exams

They have been a few busy days since I last posted. Mom and Alicsa arrived on Wednesday evening. For supper I planned on making Vietnamese beef noodle soup, but since it was ash Wednesday I had to change the beef to shrimp and the beef broth to vegetable broth. It tasted great. I was impressed at how well Mom could use chopsticks on her first try. Just as an asides- eating with chopsticks is great: you have to eat more slowly which leads to enjoying the food.

Thursday morning, Mom and I spent two hours looking at stores downtown. There are some pretty nice places and nice things to look at, but we didn't buy anthing since the next day we were going to Ikea. I walked to campus around noon to TA my small class of 7. That was fun. I really prefer having 7 students instead of 52! I was able to spend some time one on one with one student to help him understand things beyond the scope of the lab. I sometimes wonder if I would prefer teaching over research... Thursday night we all went to Angels Diner to celebrate Alicsa's birthday. Afterwards we had Dairy Queen icecream cake. It has been ages since I've had that kind of cake. I've missed it. My favorite part? The crunchy chocolate fudge layer!

Ikea is amazing - I wish I had gone there when I first moved in. That way I really would have decorated the place. It's hard for me to be motivated to buy lots of stuff knowing that I'll be moving in a few months. But definitely my kind of store. Maybe Alicsa will drive me there again next weekend?

Yesterday was busy. Proctoring the exam at 8:30am. I was happy to have been trusted enough to head one of the exam rooms :). Afterwards lots and lots of marking. Did you know that there is a gremlin gene. It doesn't have to do with not eating after midnight, but with birds having webbed feet or seperated toes. The is also a Sonic Hedgehog gene/mutation that makes limbs have lines of symmetry/line of reflection. If I ever discoverd a gene, I would definitely name it something cool like these ones.

For two nights I have been staying up late playing clue with Mom, Alicsa, and Jason. Everyone has won games except me. This is different- usually I have uncanny luck at new games!

Company is leaving today but coming back this weekend. All in all, this visit is going better than I thought.