i wore flip flops today and it was awesome

i'm finally feeling better following a too-long sinus infection that i m convinced was brought on by stress. is that possible?

last week was our spring break, though mine was taken up by the obligatory trip to baltimore for the infancy conference (yes, you'll find me if you type my name into those boxes). as you can tell, it was gray and rainy for most of our visit, but we had a really sweet view of camden yards. yay! this year i presented a poster (as usual) but also chaired a symposium, which meant giving my first talk about research that i'm doing in our lab. things went pretty well, i think, despite my limited participation in the ensuing discussion (there were three talks other than mine) because it kind of felt like my head was going to explode under all of the pressure. kristin was happy though, and so was i, so there are no complaints from this end.

perhaps the best thing about this trip was getting to see and spend some quality time with liz, my very first lab mate in missouri and someone on whom i continue to depend to be a model of success in graduate school. she's pretty fantastic - and maybe the happiest person ever to have a ginormous lolly. i actually haven't seen liz since she and her husband, aaron, got jobs at the university of miami - ohio. believe it or not, miami-ohio has a longstanding rivalry with ohio university, meaning that liz and aaron will be rivals with matt once they all "take office" next year. liz and i have already discussed the opportunities that this is going to bring about for get-togethers of various sorts. and matt says if that also ends up meaning a reds game at some point, he's not opposed to it. seems about right, doesn't it?

so, as you may have guessed, while i found the conference to be really valuable this year (i.e., directly relevant to some things that i'm working on) we did a little bit of sightseeing while in baltimore. this mostly involved time at the inner harbor, modeled here by the "other liz" in our lab, our wonderful new (as of this year) post doc, liz davis. you have to give her points for being willing to pose in front of a gigantic blue boat with no apparent function except to signify the land around it as a harbor. whatever, baltimore. you're just lucky we take such little effort to be entertained. the other group trip was when liz, liz, jeremy, jess, steph (another student in human development & family studies) went to the national aquarium. (importantly, this produced the lolly pictured above). what did we see at the aquarium, you ask? well, luckily i've got pictures. . .

of a parrot

and a sloth (two not-very-aquariumish animals, i know)

but also divers feeding the sharks and stingrays

and evidence that one whale vertebra is roughly the size of my entire back. i'm not sure why i'm making that face. just stick with me on the point of the picture, okay?

others were notably less interested than me in our lucky proximity to places of notable athletic accomplishments. so, while my tour of camden yards didn't happen (thanks both to rain and a scheduling snafu), i did go on my own to tour the sports legends museum right by our hotel and to take a peak at babe ruth's boyhood home. that's babe's place on the right. no word on if that's his suv parked out front. something tells me not. i actually sometimes enjoy doing stuff like this on my own - especially when it involves getting to wander around a new city. i mean, it's not exactly magellan or ponce de leon, but i did find some cool stuff, so . . . it seems comparable.

and now i'm back at home running visits for my dissertation study, putting together a poster for the graduate student exhibition next weekend, finishing my grant (Stony Brook wants it on April 1st, so that's when some sort of sanity might return), and getting super excited to see Matt this coming weekend. i can't believe how quickly the last month has passed.

so, it's been largely work and work and work since i've returned. although today i did go get a dress for amelia's wedding. lacey and i had a shopping date, as she needed one for some events that she's got coming up, too. being my mother's daughter, i have to say how proud i was to return home with a $178 french connection dress for only $40. woo-hoo! sooooo lucky it was on sale, too, because it really was the one that both lacey and i liked the best. i'm sure you'll see pictures in another month or so.

hope everyone is enjoying their mix of spring and winter weather this weekend as well as the bracket-busting events that have come about the last few days. go panthers! and now everyone please vow to teach two of your friends to say Ali Farokhmanesh correctly :) then when ESPN stops calling him things like "Al" or "Alooo," we can all pat ourselves on the back.