I'm still here!!

So, the summer has been pretty great thus far. Busy, but great. My birthday was tons of fun. Michael really out did himself with all the surprises and fun times. It was a wonderful 30th birthday. We had a great time showing my cousin around dallas and austin. It was so great to see her and be able to spend some time with her. We also got to see my aunt for a few days and both my aunt and cousin were here to help michael and i and my parents celebrate our anniversaries. We had a great time all around.

Well, today is Michael's last day for the summer session. He found an apartment in Alexandria and will be moving on August 18. He has a few weeks to get himself packed and ready to go and hopefully also spend some time relaxing. I have my last class for the summer next week and then I have a few days off before I need to start really studying for my qualifying exam, which is on August 17. Please send good thoughts my way between 1-5 on August 17. This is the exam that I have to pass in order to continue on in the PhD program. Big stuff. It comes at a very inopportune time as the week before Michael moves, i will have to be studying, but that is life, so we will make it work. I plan to go visit Michael the weekend after he moves down to Alexandria to help him get all set up there.

There really isn't much more going on with us right now. Just getting ready for the qualifying exam and the big move. Wish us luck on both accounts. :)

I love SUMMER!!

So, as most of you know, my life is crazy busy right now with school and teaching and work and life in general. But, summer has been much nicer. Since I am only working, teaching one course and taking one course, I have had a bit more down time. It has been great because Michael's school schedule has been a bit more flexible also. There have even been a few nights when I didn't study at all after coming home from work. That sounds crazy to write, but it is so true. :)

The class I am teaching is going well. It is a lot of work as there is a lot of content the students need to know, but one thing I really like about teaching is that it really makes you learn the information very well, which I think is a very good thing. My students this semester are also pretty good, so that is nice.

Work is going well. I am getting a bit more adjusted and learning the ropes a bit better. The days have gotten busier, which is nice. There is more to do and I actually feel as if i am helping people which is what i signed up for when i chose to be a social worker.

So, summer fun planned...Here we go. I am looking forward to a 4 day work week next week as we have friday off for the 4th of july. I am also looking forward to whatever crazy birthday plans my husband has put together. :) Then, the next two weekends, my cousin from lebanon is going to be in town. One weekend, we are going to hang out in this area and then the next we are going to austin to spend some time with my brother, his wife, and my sister. Good times ahead.

Also, this past weekend, we got to catch up with our two good friends from the master's program. one was in town with her new baby. He was so adorable and she seems to be doing well. It was great to catch up with them.

I am looking forward to tomorrow night. I am going to dinner with all the ladies from my old job. I am so excited, I have really missed catching up with them everyday. :( Anyway, it will be nice to see how they are all doing.

Well, that is all I have right now. Not a very interesting blog, I know, but it will have to do for now. :)

CSWE, here I come!!

So, a few semesters ago, I worked VERY, VERY hard on some research with a professor. It took quite some time as I was using a new qualitative program to analyze all the data and then had to write the article. Well, we finally submitted the article and are now waiting to hear back from the journal to see if it was accepted. But, we also submitted the paper as a presentation for the CSWE (Council on Social Work Education) conference in November in San Antonio. Out of 38 abstracts submitted for our track at the conference, ours ranked 4th!!! Not bad at all. I am so excited. This will be my first conference presentation. And the conference is local so it wont cost too much to go.

In other news, my day at work today was better. I am getting used to everyone and how everything works. We have research day at work tomorrow. This is an afternoon reserved for the 3rd year doctor residents to present the research they have been working on. I think it is going to be very interesting. Also, when it is over, we all get to go home early. I like that!

In school news, I made some changes to my summer schedule and I feel much better about it. I dropped my education course and am only taking 1 course that is a research practicum with my professor. so, i will have one course and will be teaching one course. I think that sounds like a much more doable summer. I should still be able to finish all my course work by Spring 2010. Not bad!! then, i will start some serious work on my dissertation. good times ahead.

I had a great evening tonight. i was able to get dinner with one of my coworkers from my previous job. It was great to catch up and spend some time just chatting. I really miss everyone there, but also think this new job will be a good fit for a while.

Well, I am off to take care of a few things, but just wanted to give a quick update.

I am back...

So, a LOT has been going on lately. I know I have been away for some time. it has been a very hectic few months. First off, I have a new job. Yeah!! Last week was my first week at the new job and it was fine. It is definitely going to take some getting used to, but I think it will be a good fit in the long run. I am working as the outpatient social worker for a hospital clinic in the area. I will be working with clinic patients and also with the residents who work at the clinic. Everyone there is very nice and welcoming. it is a bit further from home than my previous job (about 30 minutes each way), but in the DFW metroplex, that is not so bad.

My sister graduated with her bachelors degree last week, so we went to austin to help her celebrate. Congrats, Nadia!! I am very proud of her, she has already found a job that seems to be a good fit for her also.

Other than all that, school starts next week and i am already feeling overwhelmed. I am teaching a course again this summer and taking 2 classes of my own, while also learning this new job. Very busy. also, my big exam to continue in the PhD program is at the end of the summer, so I need to prepare for that also.

I need to get back to the studying, but just wanted to give a quick update.

Bad News Bears!!

to add insult to injury, our house was burglarized today. When it rains, it really does pour. I really just wanted to vent about this in the hopes that it will make me feel a little better. They only stole our TV, it seems that the alarm scared them off. They just kicked down our front door and welcomed themselves in. I am so glad neither one of us was home. the tv is just a material thing, it still sucks, but at least we are both safe. I wonder what people must say to themselves to justify breaking into someone else's home and stealing their hard earned things in order to benefit themselves. i just lost my job and am already looking for a new one in order to continue paying our bills and contributing to society. why don't i just give up the job hunt and start stealing other peoples' things for my benefit? because I am a decent, hard working, passionate human being. anyway, the guy that came to fix our door and provide the boards to make it a bit safer for now said something pretty true, i think. i told him that the police officers told us that burglaries are happening more and more lately with the economy and everything and that people are becoming more blazen when it come to breaking in and burglarizing. the door guy responded with, yeah that might be true, but you still have to have a few screws loose to burglarize someone's home. i agree.

anyway, all this to say, we are safe and life will go on as it always does. I am trying my very hardest to keep a positive attitude through all this, but any good thoughts you all want to send my way will be greatly appreciated. check out our front door below. :)

the 2X4's are the wood guys safety precautions.
maybe we can just keep those on our door at all times
and just use the garage to come in and out of the house. :)

Michael's Surprise 30th Birthday Party!!

Ok, so i know i have been a very bad blogger this semester, but when things are too busy to get everything done, I think blogging is one of the first things to go. :) well, we have a little less than 2 months left in the semester, so that is good. i think things should be much better this summer as far as school goes. so, i have been gone way to long to sum up the past few months, lets just leave it as BUSY. I will start with Michael's surprise birthday party. It was awesome!! my parents, michael's whole family and i have been planning this for months. I sent out the first email in september of last year. I am such a crazy planner. well, i told michael that my parents wanted to take him out to dinner for his birthday, so the plan was to go to my parents house and get some dinner with them. but, when we showed up michael's whole family (i mean just about everyone) was there, my siblings and my parents. it was perfect. michael was completely surprised. the company was wonderful and the food was also quite delicious (thanks to fadi's and my mom :). also, since it was the beginning of our spring break, michael's family stayed with us for a few more days to hang out. it really was wonderful. thanks mom and dad for all your hard work, we could never have pulled this off without you. here are some party pics.

One party table

Another party table

The food. delicious!!

Michael blowing out the candles


Michael and some of his siblings in front of the best birthday gift ever
(the portrait of will ferrell)

In other news, spring break is over and now we are back to the crazy schedules. we are both feeling rested and ready to punch out this last month and half till summer.

More big news is that I found out the week before spring break that i am being laid off from work. the good news is that i have 60 days before i am unemployed there and then another month of pay before there is no paycheck coming in. so, hopefully i will be able to find something new and possibly even better in the next few months. it is another added stress that we weren't planning for, but i think that it will all work out. as everyone keeps telling me, i need to stay positive and things will fall into place. i guess i am so busy right now that i don't have much time to stress. :) anyway, please keep us in your thoughts and if you hear of any great social work positions in the area, please let me know. :)

well, it is late and i am need to get to bed to be rested to start another week. will try to post again soon, but i can't make any promises. :)

Busy, Busy, Busy =

no blogging. :) still very busy, so this is a going to be a short post to keep you enticed for my catch up posts during spring break next week. :)

Things have been crazy busy. work is going well, school is going well, michael is doing well.

we have a few days until michael's 30th birthday and then next week is spring break. I am actually taking the whole week off from work. So, i will not have class or work and I will get to be home. I haven't had all that in a long time. :) Michael and I have tons of school work to do over spring break, but it will be a great time to catch up and maybe sleep in a few days. anyway, just wanted to check in. i will write more next week.

Friday night...

study time is NO fun!!! I am studying on a friday night and it just feels wrong. anyway, wanted to take a quick break, so I thought I would write a quick blog.

I did get to learn about how to make a webpage today. I am going to put together the social services webpage at work. I am actually pretty excited about it. I hope that it will be a great way to get more information out to the public.

anyway, I think I should stop wasting precious study time. back to the books, my friends.

Two posts in one week...

that is sheer craziness. But, i have seen crazier things happen, so here it goes. I have a couple of quick things I want to blog about.

First, I want to talk a bit about the class I am teaching this semester. I really was in the mood to blog about this on Monday night after the class, but i was too tired. So, the class was GREAT!! I had a really great time teaching it and I felt that the students really enjoyed it. I had them write down the most confusing part of the lecture on a piece of paper at the end of class and hand it in. my goal is to go over those points at the beginning of the following class. many students wrote some really nice comments about how they feel they are going to enjoy the class and that they already learned something on the first day. yeah for me!! I guess I just really enjoy teaching. I always have and I always will. I think teaching social work information is going to be even more perfect. I found myself being able to explain things very easily, it was a great feeling. Anyway, all this to say, I am really excited about teaching this course despite the challenges I am sure it will present.

Second, due to "inclement weather", my classes were canceled on Tuesday and Wednesday nights. this is good in that I got a slight break this week and had more time to study. this is bad because i am sure we will have to make up those classes some time in the future. oh well, it will all work itself out.

Third, Michael and I have picked up on this show called Man vs. Food. We have only watched it a few times this past week and have actually vowed not to watch it anymore for the following reasons. So the premise is that this guy, Adam, travels all over the country and finds the best hole in the wall restaurants with the most unhealthiest delicious food ever and he tries to eat as much of everything as he can. He also has a competition, hence man vs. food, each week. Last week, he was in austin and his goal was to beat their reigning champion at Juan in a Million and eat 8 Don Juan tacos. He got through 5 and called it quits. On one of the episodes, he went to Amarillo and ate that huge steak they have at the big texan. he won that challenge. anyway, since watching this show, michael and I have been craving some unhealthy food. We usually eat pretty healthy at home, so since i had the night off from class, we decided to eat out. I asked some people at work for some burger food joints and they recommended buck n loons. it is a local arlington restaurant with lots of fried food and burgers. well, we went there for dinner and got our fix of fries, potato chips and burgers. It was very delicious, but it also reminds me how I feel after eating such fatty foods. ugh. All in all, it was worth it, but I will keep that type of eating out to a minimum. I will say the price was nice also. pretty cheap and a co-worker gave me a 25% off coupon. good times.

well, that is all, I am off to continue prepping for class.

I was lost...

and sort of still am, but here I am ready to post. So, I am not even sure what was going on last time I posted. The holidays were great. We had some great times with Michael's family in Amarillo and then were also able to spend some time with my family back in Dallas.

We had a very relaxing, yet short break during the holidays. I took time off from school work from Christmas till January 1. It was a nice break. I had to hit the ground running again at the beginning of January since I have a research project and a CEU presentation I had to be working on. My CEU presentation is this weekend, so I am glad that will be over. I am looking forward to it, so hopefully it goes well. Also, my research project is in the final stages, so hopefully I can get that sent off soon in the hopes of getting it published.

Classes are back in full swing. I thought last semester was challenging, but it seems that I am even crazier this semester. I guess somewhere in my subconscious, I feel that if I am able to handle it, why not just keep piling more on myself. :) so, this semester, I am finishing up my research project and teaching a class all on my own. I am teaching a bachelor's level social work practice course. It is tons of work to prep for, but I am getting paid and getting some good experience. I am also taking 2 courses of my own and one is the second PhD statistics course. good times. So, I am at work Mon-Fri 8:30 - 5 and then on Mon, Tues, and Wed, I head to school to teach or sit in class from 6-9, then I spend any other time I have available studying or preparing for class. I see good times ahead.

I do want to send a shout out to Michael. Even though he is also crazy busy with school, he is really helping me so much since I just don't have any extra time. Thanks.

Well, all this to say, I am still really enjoying getting my PhD. I haven't really looked at the program of courses in a while as not to overwhelm myself, but I am thinking that i only have a few more semesters of actual coursework. We will see.

Other than work and school, there is not much going on in our lives. this weekend will actually prove to be quite enjoyable. i have my CEU presentation from 9-12 on Saturday, then we have a party for a good friend of mine's birthday that evening. then, Sunday will be full of studying until the superbowl, when we will have my parents and a few friends over.

Good news, I had my annual review at work and got a raise. YEAH!! anyway, sorry for the long delay in posting, but I can't promise it is going to change soon. I will post as often as I can. Thanks to everyone for their constant support. It really helps.