Hello, lovely people! I apologize for my nearly month-long absence from this fine blog that you're all so avidly reading! It's been a busy start of the semester, and because I love lists, I'm going to tell you all about what I've been doing in bullet list form! Here I go...

- The GSE-wide open house for this semester took place on Saturday, January 31st from 11 AM to 1 PM, and I was the "point person" for the event. This proved to be quite a task, involving conversations with caterers, room set-up arrangements, agenda planning, and folder compilation, among other things. Luckily, I had the support of my fellow graduate assistants, who kept me functioning during the busy week. The event itself went well overall, though there were a few small glitches that could have been prevented. For me, it was a lesson that you can never be too prepared for events like these!

- Ph.D. weekend was this past Friday-Saturday-Sunday, and our office was working veeery hard to get everything ready and perfect! My supervisor, Alyssa, was a woman on a mission, and she did an awesome job with everything! My job was primarily to gather the materials that would be distributed to potential students, which ended up being rather more taxing than I expected. The pamphlets and brochures I compiled came from all different parts of campus, and since I was the one requesting them, I was the one expected to pick the materials up. Suffice it to say that 400 brochures about the President's Gutmann Compact are heavier than you can possibly IMAGINE! Ugh. The things I do for the cause of higher education! :-)

-Since just about the start of this semester, I've been dealing with some unexplained symptoms of illness that have been causing me lots of irritation. I thought maybe it was something stress-induced, or acid reflux, or a very very prolonged flu...I finally secured an appointment through Penn Student Health Services, where my (wonderful) new doctor and I concluded that I probably have GERD. An awful-sounding name, signifying chronic acid reflux. As horrible as this may be on some levels, I'm pretty happy because...

1. It could have been something waaaaay worse.
2. My doctor was so much fun to talk to that I thoroughly enjoyed my appointment! And we bonded over our shared knowledge of Francoluigi's, where she'll be coming to hear me sing.
3. I can officially get myself some medicine and feel better!

I realize that my blog may not be the wisest of places to post my current medical state of affairs, but I want all future Penn-goers to know that, should you get sick while here at Penn, you will receive the most excellent and friendly care you could ever ask for!

-Classes have also been keeping life busy, as to be expected. Public speaking is an adventure--an intimidating one--involving weekly speeches that are uploaded onto a computer for me to torture myself watching over and over again...(I don't actually do this...haha). I'm also really enjoying my Globalization and the University class, which is providing me with all sorts of interesting new knowledge about education across cultural and geographical borders. I'm content with all of my courses, and will hopefully discuss them in greater detail in a future blog.

So that's my life in a very small nutshell. Tomorrow, I'm taking an overnight trip to LANCASTER, and clearly, I cannot wait to visit my dear old F&M and see some friends I've been missing! If the week isn't yet good, this trip will likely seal the deal! Whether sick or healthy, life is good overall...full of great people, chirping birds and other signs of impending spring, and many a learning experience!

Talk to y'all soon!