Could it be?

Could I really be caught up on homework?  I think I am!  Mostly I can't believe it...mostly I feel like somehow, someway I must still be behind.  Maybe because my prof for the class I was superly behind in hasn't been online this week to comment back on anything.  It took finishing my thesis, one fun Fourth of July weekend, and then a couple of nights of reading to catch up and put in my discussion posts. 

Thesis work was really...really really...rough the last two night of the project.  I finished the paper on the 29th, but then on the 30th I went through and tried to replace some of the less professional citations with more peer reviewed articles, and then had to redo footnotes and citations in the process.  Matt was great and stayed up with me in my cranky, sleep-deprived state that night/morning finishing it up.  I still get nervous even at the thought of ever seeing a grade on that thing.  I really don't want to know what I got, so long as I pass at this point.

Fourth of July weekend was fantastic.  Matt's bro, sister-in-law, and two wonderful little girls spent 4 days (well, 3.5 days, technically) with us.  We took the girls to a fireworks display, walked for part of a day in Weston, MO, sent the parents on a date night while we spoiled the girls with popsicles and games like hide and seek and Hungy, Hungry Hippo, went to Mass, shared some wonderful meals, and stayed up late talking about life.

After they left, I spent a couple nights doing my readings.  Part of the reason I was having trouble catching up in one class is because, in the effort to save money, Matt and I went for the Kindle version of some of my required texts.  Because the prof for that class gives assignments in page numbers, I have been trying to figure out what those page numbers correspond to in the text since Kindle does away with the page numbers.  Oy.  Again, I'm finding it hard to believe I could be caught up.  Blowing my mind at the moment.

My volunteer job has been going alright.  As a secular bioethics institution, it has been interesting to be pointed out a time or two as a Catholic.  The Center and the National Catholic Bioethics Center, through whom I had my bioethics courses, disagree on whether to use TPOPP, a type of advanced directive.  I'm not in a position where I have to deal with that at all, thank goodness, and while I don't know whether my future lies with the Center due to the disagreement, I am thankful for the new experiences and opportunities to get my feet wet in my hopeful career field and meet some very influential people in this field.  I had the opportunity to meet with a doctor and a director of an institutional review board recently over coffee.  Last evening I was able to go to a consortium of various ethics panels participants from area hospitals.  I'm involved in research of completely new topics to me in bioethics and I'm learning so much.

I haven't announced on here up to this point, but in August I will be beginning a position as a preschool aide with our parish early ed center.  It will be during the week from 6:30am-10am, so a rather early morning, but it's a nice paid job, and it will leave my evenings free to volunteer, clean, and cook, so I look forward to this new adventure in my life.  I'm desperately awkward around little kids, I never thought I was very good at babysitting, so this will be another opportunity for growth.