Utah Sojourn

My life and experiences while I work towards my MS in Utah.

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Location: Gitting, Manyara, Tanzania

Just finished my MS in Watershed Science at Utah State University. Am now embarking on an adventure in Tanzania through the Peace Corps. After 2 months of training, I have just started teaching secondary Chemistry and Physics, which will be for 2 years.

Sunday, December 24, 2006

Christmas Eve
Early in the day, dad and I took care of some errands like picking up a table at Uncle Kevin's and getting fresh cannoli. I was also finally able to get the copy of the poem that a lady wrote based on an interview with my Grandpa Schulz several years back. After the errands, I typed up the poem and put it in a frame for Kait and I to give Grandma for Christmas. Since Grandpa died last year, I knew that it would be a touching, tear-evoking gift but it was too good an idea to pass up.

The family went to the 5pm mass tonight as usual except that we were missing about 7 people because Chris and Dena (my brother and sister-in-law) weren't there nor were Uncle Dennis, Aunt Ann Marie, and their 3 kids. Mass was pretty typical with the songs being sung slow and the temperature a bit warm. However, the annual event of Santa running in from the back was slightly off this year and we wondered if he fell asleep in the back. Eventually he did come out and had the kids go up to sing Happy Birthday to the baby Jesus...I think it's church's way of trying to bring the focus from Santa back to Jesus.

Since Grandma Schulz had a small fire in her house and has been living with my family for a couple of weeks, we had Christmas Eve at our house. It's the first year that I've been home and didn't go to Grandma's for Christmas Eve (last year I was in Germany). Everything worked out well and mom, surprisingly, did not get too worked up. We had our traditional kids table in the downstairs room (parents were in the dining room). Eddie renamed the table the generation table though because most of us there are not young kids anymore. Danny was there and he's only 11 years old but Krista (age 4) didn't join us and Jason (10), Stephen (7), and Jenna (4) weren't there (they were with the other side of their family). So besides Danny, we ranged from Kellie at 16 to Melissa at 28. If Dena were there, we would have ranged up to 30. So generation table is a much more suitable name...even if we still act like kids there. We had a great time together and the parents got jealous that they were hearing so much laughing and such coming from our room. At one point Danny asked if he had to have salad. Eddie responded with, "Only if you want to. You're at the kids table where there are no rules. You want ice cream? We'll back up the truck." Danny is a little straightlaced sometimes so he didn't laugh as much as the rest of us but he did think it was nice not having to worry about adult etiquette rules and all. We reached in front of eachother and did other things not typically allowed...gotta love the no rules generation table. Also, all of us were sitting down at the table before the adults were settled because we listened to Grandma when she told us to. So the adults (aka parents) ended up serving us some things that we would have had to get up and go to the other table for. Dinner was the typical large fare (Grandma is 100% Italian) and included some lasagna, cheesy potatoes, and sausages. We had it made.

After dinner, we did the traditional gift exchange. I got a couple neat pictures of Krista and Danny opening gifts. I got a good one of Grandma's face as well when she opened up the framed poem. Everyone else in the family now wants a copy of the poem so I'll have to get that out to them. Although the gift unwrapping was a bit subdued without the other 3 young cousins, it was still a great time. My mom gave Melissa a calendar of Syracuse firefighters that she loved but to which she exclaimed, "they have their clothes on!" Gotta love family.

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Mom's Birthday
Mom didn't have to work today, her birthday, which is unusual. She took it off so she could go with my sister to her pre-op appointment. I had planned on going before I knew mom had taken it off so I also went. Of course, I ended up falling asleep while reading in the waiting room during her appointment. We went to the mall afterward and I ended up getting a couple of nice tops at GAP with a mall gift certificate from last year (when I was in Germany...and couldn't spend it).

Tonight we decorated the tree and there was less bickering than normal but I don't think it was quite the family affair that mom had hoped for. However, the tree is now done and looks pretty good. It doesn't look overwhelmed with ornaments either, so I think it was a good idea not to put every single ornament we own on it...probably half made it out of the garage attic and onto the tree. Even though we have a big tree, we have a lot of ornaments and the number keeps increasing every year because we inevitably receive more. At least all of us kids will have a decent number to start with when we finally settle down and have our own trees. Like that'll happen soon, ha.

Monday, December 18, 2006

Home
I spent last night at Shannon's and she drove me to the airport this morning before work. We were going to have our usual breakfast at IHOP before heading the airport but were thwarted by some strange thing. Apparently the 24 hour IHOP is closed from 10pm Sunday until 06:00 Monday. If the restaurant is closed, then how can it be a 24 hour one? Furthermore, as Shannon pointed out, rush hour in Layton is 06:00 during the week so the restaurant is excluding all of those people as possible customers on Monday mornings. So we went to Einstein Brothers Bagels for bagels that were just not as good as those found in our good ol' state of New York.

My flight out of Salt Lake was delayed because the plane was late coming in from Alaska. While waiting, I heard the lady behind me say something to the effect of, "Is that a goose?" Sure enough, there was a lady walking through the airport holding a live goose. Better yet, the lady was dressed like Mother Goose herself. Neither of us could believe it...that is the craziest thing I have seen in an airport.

Despite the delay in my flight, I was still able to make my connection in Cincinnati fine. I arrived in Rochester before my mom but I didn't have to wait too long till she got there. Then we went and picked up Kaitlin from school since she had finished up her last final earlier in the day. We ended up taking a rabbit home with us, which mom wasn't expecting. Apparently Kait's friend's friend needed someone to watch the rabbit (Pippin!) at the last minute because the person who was supposed to watch him backed out. So Kait's friend offered Kait to watch him, since we had watched a rabbit of a friend of hers over the summer.

It's weird being home again because in some ways it's like you never left. With only being home occasionally, it's like I have two lives. Anyway, the tree is up in the living room and is of decent size. We are going to decorate it tomorrow (Mom's birthday) as a family...I'm sure it's one of those things she wants for her birthday...and since Chris isn't home, it'll have to do.

Sunday, December 17, 2006

2 Classes
Today I taught 2 religious ed. classes - mine and Eamonn's. I understand why he has such trouble with his class because it is like mine. A few are ADD or ADHD, some love to talk and give you a hard time, while a handful do what you ask and are good little students. I probably should have sent one or two out of the room but I just didn't care enough...I mean, I was in the Christmas spirit and being nice. All they (both classes) did today was work on making Nativity scenes that Eamonn had created. They mostly just had time to color in the people and such on the three sheets. A few did get to cutting out and putting the people together but no one finished. At least more of my students actually showed an interest in finishing it at home so that was good because it really is a neat project and quite remarkable that he made it all himself from an idea he saw somewhere...he's definitely crafty...in the womanly arts and crafts sort of way.

After teaching, I went home, did laundry, and started packing. As usual, it took me forever to pack and I left much later than I had hoped. However, I did get to see Andy for a few minutes to say goodbye so that was nice. He gave me a jar of huckleberry jam that his friend in Alaska had made...how cool is that? It's a little runny but I don't care. Besides, it was her first time making it and I have never made it so who am I to judge?

Saturday, December 16, 2006

Airport Run & Lieutenants
This morning Molly, Eamonn, Joe, and I woke up early so that I could take all of them to the airport by 06:00. We had some time so we stopped at IHOP for breakfast and filled up. I got my usual hearty grains pancakes but didn't think that I was going back to bed in a couple hours and didn't need to eat all of them right then. Oh well, live and learn.

I got my friends to the airport without any problems although I did see a car off the road. It was only snowing a little bit too. So when I got back to Shannon's, I crashed on the couch for a few more hours. Then we got up and took our time to do anything. We ended going to a nearby restaurant where you have a phone at your table and you use it to place your order. When your food is ready, the phone rings and you go down to get it and pay for it. It's a neat experience and a twist on the typical burger joint. After lunch we went to see Pursuit of Happyness, the new Will Smith movie. I think it is a good movie, which isn't too surprising because I tend to like the ones that are true stories.

Following the movie, we hung out at Shannon's apartment for a bit and eventually went to one of her Lt. friends' house. I met some of her Lt. friends from work and we watched most of Zoolander since it was on TV. After the movie I headed back to Logan to finish preparing the lesson for my religious ed class and Eamonn's tomorrow. And I leave for break tomorrow....

Semester 1 - DONE!
I have officially finished my first semester of graduate school. This morning I got up early so that I could take my Small Watershed Hydrology exam at 07:30 in hopes of finishing before Eamonn's thesis defense presentation at 09:00. Luckily the exam wasn't all that hard, except some of the short answer questions that worth too much. This is in contrast to the other tests that had at least one really hard question or too many questions to answer in the alloted time (50min). I was done with the test in just over an hour so I had no problem making it to the presentation.

Eamonn's thesis defense went really well. He had stayed up till 2 or 3 in the morning with some of our friends to change the formatting and such. The presentation turned out great save for a few technical difficulties of the computer mysteriously changing the orientation of the text. So yeah, we're proud of him.

Tonight we went out for a late dinner to the Firehouse to celebrate Eamonn's defense, the end of the semester, and our last chance to all get together before Cena goes back home to student teach. We didn't end up leaving the place till late and I had to drive Eamonn, Joe, and Molly to Layton tonight. After dinner, Jamie, Cena, and I helped Eamonn fold his laundry so he could finish packing. Then we picked up Joe, who had thought in his altered by sickness (a cold) mind that he would walk a couple blocks to save us some time or something. And finally I picked up Molly and we headed to Shannon's apartment in Layton where we were sleeping that night.

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

GIS - DONE!
Our GIS (Geographic Information Systems/Science) projects and portfolios were due today and I only handed it in 30 minutes late. I actually passed Matt, my advisor and the professor for the class, as he was headed out the door. Even though my project is really bad, at least it's done. Plus, Matt knows how much I have learned and how much I have been working on stuff for this project (the big one, not for the class). So I'm not too concerned about this grade because my other scores (tests, labs, and quizzes) are good...then again, the project and portfolio are worth 45% of my grade. As long as I get a B, I should be alright. I'm just so relieved to finally have this gosh darn project done. No more staring at the computer for endless hours accomplishing nothing. Thank goodness! Now just have to study for and do well on the Small Watershed Hydrology final Friday....