I'm back- and with lots of pictures

Considering the frequency with which I normally post, it's been a while since I last posted anything. There are a couple reasons for that. First, I had a really busy week. I had an Ichthyology practical on Tuesday, and an Instrumental Analysis exam on Friday. So I spent the first half of the week memorizing more latin fish names, and the second half of the week reading and discussing liquid, gas, and supercritical fluid chromatography. Throw a doctor's appointment and a haircut in there, too. Also, I've been writing my less positive thoughts elsewhere, so I don't have the urge to post quite as often as I did before.

I was recognized twice this week for my genius. Our last day of Ichthyology was on Thursday, and the professor and our TA gave out three "distinguished icher" awards. They chose one grad student and two undergrads. Here is my award. I think it's really cute and folksy:The Bronze-looking fish in the background has nothing to do with the award. That's just where I set it until I figure out where I'm going to hang it. And yesterday was the honor's ceremony. It was pretty boring. It was just like a mini-graduation, where they gave us honors cords and a certificate. And me, being the overly-critical person that I am, felt slightly disappointed with myself because I got the lowest ranking of honors cords. The rational side of me knows that I did the best I could and considering I have kids and whatnot, any honors at all is pretty impressive. But the overly-critical part of me (which is probably the part that pushes me to excel) is slightly disappointed that I didn't get the silver ropes (3.8-4.0 GPA).

As a result of my crazy schedule last week, I didn't get to spend as much time with the girls as I would have liked. I did take them along for one of my study groups though. I met with a couple class members at this really cute coffee shop close to campus. Lucky for us, the coffee shop also had italian ice cream (Gilatto?). Chloe was showing off her mad vocab and alphabet skills, and Leyla was being her normal cute self and getting lots of compliments on her cuteness.

So here are a bunch of pictures that Miguel took last week. Enjoy.
This is one of the many daisies currently blooming in my front yard. Gotta love South Texas.

I look like a goon in this picture, but look at how cute Chloe's posing!

I don't post picture of me very often, so here are a few that Miguel took last week...








Finally, the last picture. Leyla LOVES animals. Particularly dogs and cats. She's always chasing Pistachio around and laying on top of her. And I always feel bad when she sees dogs because she gets so excited that she can hardly contain herself. I wish I could get a dog for her, but I just can't. Therefore, she has to live vicariously through other people's dogs. Here she's checking out the neighbor dog.