Europe-bound! -Noel

So it looks like Chris and I are going to Europe this summer! This May and June, we'll be spending 4 weeks travelling in the UK, Italy, Greece, Russia, Germany and Holland.

I'm compiling a packing list, and if you have experience backpacking please drop me a note so that I can get your help/advice on our list... we've never backpacked before so this is intimidating (but awesome!!)

Chris - Back in school

I am sooooooo happy to be back in school! Calculus II, Physics and a philosophy course that is required by GSU (Georgia State). I can be done with my undergrad in less than 2 years if course availability and times sync up for me (knock on wood). That may be too must to ask for, though. Anyway, most all of my core requirements are done so its just physics, meteorology and math from this point on. Yay! I love math! I plan on taking a statistics course, or 2, as well just for fun. But i'm sick today :( so no school and no work and lots of bed for me. Hope everyone is doing well.

Noel: First day of school, Spring 2010

Started today off at the gym again- I've missed it, surprisingly. Since I haven't worked out since mid-November, I just did 30-40 minutes of cardio and lots of stretching.

0900-0950
Drugs, Behavior, and Society
Professor is very nice, very down-to-earth.
Has been going on for 10 minutes now about the student email system, though... but at least he's fairly funny :)
We're going to be covering a lot of material really quickly, though.
Overall, I think I'm going to enjoy this class.

1000-1050
Interpersonal Psychology
Instructor is a small woman, quiet-ish. I bet she's formidable.
She passed out small sheets asking for information about us: name, year, hobbies, movies, etc but with a couple of surprising ones: What cultures are you most familiar with? With whom do you currently have the most emotionally intimate relationship? Interesting....
She expects a lot of participation in class, and flat-out said that some of the things we'll work on will be triggering for some of us.

Lunch with Chris!

1200-1250
Gender and Power
I'm definitely going to like this class. The professor is really nice, and did her ethnographic research in St Petersburg- awesome!
Lots and lots of reading ahead, there are 5 books for this class and 1 really long paper. I probably want to decide here very soon what that will be on, because it's definitely going to be some real work.

1330-1445
Cross-Cultural Psychology
This course is going to be easy, but annoy me. The instructor is Korean and has a really annoying tendency to lilt the ends of her words so that every one of them sounds like a question. She's super anal-retentive as well, so I'm going to see if there's another 3-4000 level Psych course that's open in the same time slot. That said, the assignments are 4 simple 2-page papers.

Update: I dropped Cross-Cultural Psychology and am now taking Sexuality and Society.

1500-1615
Queer Identities
Dr Cavalier is a newly minted PhD, and very androgynous.
She flat-out said that she likes to give A's and doesn't test, but does require a lot of writing. That's not really a problem for me, though.
The good news is, she's a little sick and letting us out as soon as we're done with the syllabus :)
.........but what really amuses me is that apparently a lot of people sign up for this class and don't realize that it's heavily focused toward gays and lesbians. Um, really?

Overall, looks like a good line-up and lots of reading.

Lots of random pictures of us

Christmas 2008 at Dad's

Chris and Noel, Thanksgiving 2009
At the bookstore Chris, Jessica, and Mom
Chris and Noel LaLunas Mardi Gras Ball 2008
Chris and Noel, LaLunas Mardi Gras Ball 2008
Chris and Noel, Etruscans Mardi Gras Ball 2008
May 2008, Chris, Noel, and Noel's mom
Chris and Noel, Chris's 31st birthday

We made it home safely after visiting Chris's family in Alachua/High Springs/Gainesville.

Jessica is going to pop any minute, it looks like!
(And yes, I know you read that! :-p)

First post! (Noel)

So we're still in Gainesville, FL, visiting everyone.
Currently, we're at Borders Bookstore where Noel just set up the blog so that everyone can keep up with us if they like.

This is our compromise with Grandma Betty and Great-grandma Eileen, since everyone who knows Chris knows that he won't actually ever pick up the phone and call anyone... but I can probably get him to occasionally update this :)

So a brief overview of where we are right now:
School starts Monday, and Chris will finally be back in school. Right now he's only signed up for Physics and Calculus, but we're planning to add to that on Monday (when he can register again). He's currently working at a restaurant in Atlanta, but looking for somewhere better because the place, well, kinda sucks.
No season tickets to the Thrashers this year, finances didn't allow it but he has a spot that lets us all go as a group and still see well.
His birthday is coming up in March, and that's also over our Spring Break so we're hoping to go down to Tampa for a Lightning-Penguins game, and our 4th anniversary is in late March as well.