i'm supposed to be reading and studying right now. . . but i'm not

i've decided that i'm going to include lots of pictures from my birthday party in this post, because it's almost all that i've done that wasn't school-related since my last blog. sad, but true. and good news, i suppose, because it probably means you can skim over most of the content without missing much :) the first one is lacey and me, then me with jeremy, one that includes caroline, lacey, me, amy, and rachel, and the always necessary "blowing out the fake candles" picture. because you can't actually put candles on pizza. my eyes are weird, but you also can't expect not to share such a picture, right?

it's been busy here trying to get things organized for comps and for the prospective student weekend that is coming up. the comps process is at least starting to demystify. the writing - as previously stated, i think - is going to take place from april 6th to april 20th. then my oral defense will be the following week on the first of may. i am hoping that defending on karen's birthday will mean lots of good luck and positive karma. let's pretend that's how the world actually works, okay? okay. now i also feel less guilty about posting this instead of studying right now like i should be.

five prospective developmental students are visiting this coming weekend from thursday night through saturday morning. it seems unfortunate that that will overlap with matt's thursday through sunday visit, but it's actually turned out to mean that we don't have to participate in all of the goings-on. see? karma's rolling already. sweet. we'll have times to do fun things like watch mediocre basketball (psu vs. indiana) and movies and enjoy one another's company :) but look at this fun recruitment-related video i found!

another pleasant surprise was having liz here over this past week. she came to talk with kristin and me about projects that we're working on together and also to some of our staff and undergrads about some coding that they're doing for her dissertation. it's been such a long time since we've been able to hang out and i forget - not how great liz is - but how she was another large contributor to making my time in missouri so wonderful. we mostly did work while she was here, but since she stayed with me got some quality time in - if i do say so myself.

although most of my excitement right now is wrapped up in matt's visit this weekend, i'd be lying if i said i wasn't also excited about the fact that spring break is only two weeks away. (excited and scared, given the amount of work that i need to get done before then). i'm hoping to have both papers that i'm working on done by then, if not sent out for review. we'll see how close that actually is to happening. no exciting plans except for continuing the race toward comps. ooooh, and i should probably put together my poster for scrd. that's also quickly approaching.

just in case being associated with wisdom and success makes me look awesome, can i briefly say how proud i am of matt and lacey? both have seen some form of recent success in the top journals of their relative fields (social psych and developmental psych). matt has an article coming out in the journal of personality and social psychology and lacey has a very promising revise and resubmit to child development. they'll both be humble about it, but it's very exciting and they both have a lot to be proud of.

okay. . . so maybe i should get back to work. i'm betting that if you're reading this, i miss you. and i further bet that i miss you a LOT.