A Nice Long Weekend at Home

Mike and I packed up ourselves and our cats on Wednesday afternoon to head home to PA for five days jammed packed with family!

After sitting in about an hour of traffic, and dealing with a sick kitten on the drive home, we made it up to PA just in time for dinner with my parents. There is nothing like mom's cooking, especially when it is a beef roast on a cold night.

I want to learn how to make a Thanksgiving dinner, because I hope to someday be able to host my family at my house, so I woke up very early to help my mom (okay watch her and ask a lot of questions) make our family dinner. We definitely had a packed house, with my sister and her family, my younger brother, my parent's international student, my grandmother, my aunt and her family, my parents, Mike and I. There was definitely a lot to be thankful for, and a lot of yummy food to consume!

Grace (my parent's international student), Ryan (my brother), and Momma (my grandmother)

My Aunt had a great idea about getting my mom and her friends together for pictures on Friday. My mom has been friends with these women since she moved to PA almost 30 years ago. They all had daughters around the same time, and their daughters all just recently had daughters. Since everyone was in town for Thanksgiving, my mom had everyone over for lunch and a photo op. What a cool idea!

3 generations plus 2 sisters

Then on Saturday, we headed to Mike's cousin's wedding, where we danced the night away! Then on Sunday Mike battled the traffic back to VA while I slept in the car (what a wonderful husband!).

Mike with his brother and cousins

Now, I am back in PA at my sisters house (I would have stayed, but I had to be back for class last night), because we are going to New York tomorrow to see Promises, Promises. I am not excited about the torrential rain they are calling for, but I am excited to see the show.

On a side note, while filling out one of my applications today, I realized that on all of the applications that have gone out thus far, on my cover letter I am missing a number in my zip code. I hope none of my reviewers notice this mistake!

Giving Thanks

1. Law and Order marathons

3. Rainy days

3. Clean clothes

4. The ridiculousness of Christmas in November(lights up before Thanksgiving, Black Friday sales that start at 3am, Christmas music on the radio that lasts for 6 weeks)

5. Being home to watch Glee

6. Glee songs being on iTunes

7. Knowing that I get to see my family tomorrow

8. Friendly Wii competitions with Mike

9. Two day work weeks

10. Flannel sheets

Now I am off to pack, because we are going to PA tomorrow for Thanksgiving. Excited to see my family! I hope you all have safe travels. 

Sleepy Thanksgiving

We had a great night watching football at our friends house last night, but that left for a very sleepy Caroline today. Today was just a typical Monday, managing in the morning, a lab meeting in the afternoon, and class in the evening {with a nap on my desk squeezed in the middle ;)}. I am now settling in to cuddle up with my husband and kittens to watch some TV and then head to bed early, so I am going to keep today's post short. 


Here are my 10 for today:
1. Coke Zero Cherry
2. Cuddling under a blanket with my pjs on
3. Chats with my sister
4. Cute kids at my research sites
5. Cooperative researchers
6. Blog friends
7. Fun music to sing to in the car
8. Fresh popped popcorn with white cheddar seasoning
9. A steady paycheck
10. Facebook status updates

Weekend Update and Giving Thanks

Mike and I have definitely been keeping busy this weekend. We got a coupon in the mail for buy get one free at a new Korean buffet in C'ville, so we decided to check it out. It was okay, it wasn't terrible, but I am glad we had a coupon, and am not sure I would ever go back :(. But it was nice to enjoy a nice dinner with Mike and to not have to worry about cooking or cleaning. Then we came home and put in a movie then loaded up our laptops and settled in for a night of homework.

Saturday was a day full of errands. We had tickets to see Harry Potter at 1:20, so we woke up early and ran some errands before heading to the mall hoping to shop before the movie. Only, we discovered that people we lining up over an hour before the start of each movie! So, we grabbed a quick lunch, and then went to wait in line. Harry Potter was ah-maze-ing!!! I cannot wait until the second part comes out in July!!! After the movie we did the shopping that we were hoping to get done earlier that day. We were definitely productive, but we definitely have a lot more shopping to get done! We didn't get home till around 7, so we made a quick dinner of burgers and hot dogs, threw in another movie, and settled in for another night of homework.

This morning we went to church, and are planning to go to our friends' house to watch football later tonight, so once again we are trying to get some homework done.

At church this morning, our pastor gave us homework {as if Mike and I don't already have enough ;)}, we are to write down ten things we are thankful for each day this week (no repeats!). As I mentioned on Thursday, I am definitely in a place where I need to focus more on the positive, so here is my list for today:

1. How beautiful VA is in the fall.
2. Grilled cheese sandwiches.
3. My kiddies in children's ministry.
4. My co-instructor in children's ministry, who this morning cleaned up a little girl who wet herself, so that I didn't have to.
5. Having my car clean.
6. My kittens, who love to cuddle.
7. There are only two work days this week!
8. Mike's help cleaning up the leaves this morning.
9. Cinnamon muffins at church.
10. The warm temps we are having in VA.

Don't forget to stop to think about what you are thankful for.

Always Look on the Bright Side of Life

This week has definitely been a rollar coaster of emotions, so I have been postponing posting, because I don't want this to be a negative place. This morning on my way to school I was thinking about all that has happened, and I found myself singing "Always look on the bright side of life". This got me thinking about the upcoming holiday, and I decided that instead of posting about all the negative things that had happened, I would instead post about things that I am thankful for this week.


1. I am thankful (and proud) that I was able to go to Mike's tournament on Saturday to see him win third place.

2. I am thankful that we have such great friends in VA and that we were all able to enjoy a fun dinner on Saturday night.


3. I am thankful that our friends have welcomed us into their family, since we live so far away from ours. They are always the most gracious hosts, and make us feel welcome.


4. I am thankful that I submitted my last midterm EVER on Monday.


5. I am thankful that the Cowboys finally won a game so that Sundays can be fun again.


6. I am thankful that all of the leaves are finally cleaned up from my yard.


7. I am thankful that I have a husband who is willing to do anything to make me happy.


8. I am thankful for students who tell me that my class was one of their favorites.


9. I am thankful for a yummy soup and salad dinner at Panera.


10. I am thankful that I already have my Harry Potter tickets.


11. I am thankful for a loving and supportive church community.


12. I am thankful that I will be seeing my family next week.


13. I am thankful that it still is not so cold out that I need to wear a winter jacket and leggings under my pants. 


14. I am thankful that tomorrow is Friday.


When you think about all of the blessings in your life, it definitely makes the bad seem more manageable.

"But those who trust in the Lord will find new strength, They will soar high on wings like eagles, They will run and not grow weary, They will walk and not faint."

Phone Interviews

Since I was working in the advising office yesterday, and wouldn't be home until after Mike would have left for pool, we decided to meet up to eat dinner. On my way to meet Mike, I had a missed call from an unfamiliar number. The whole time we were eating I was anxious about who had called me, since I am hoping to hear back about my job applications.

I am not sure why, other than God was trying to test my patience, but the voicemail did not register in my phone until an hour an a half later, when I was driving home. Well, my anxiety was well deserved, because it was one of the school that I had applied to calling to ask for a phone interview! We set up a time to talk this morning at 11, she had a couple of questions she wanted to ask me about my teaching philosophy and research goals. They are calling 15 people, and will only be inviting a handful out for interviews, but that I should know whether I am picked by next Friday. I don't want to jinx myself, but I think that it went well, but it is just a waiting game from here!


All of this excitement is keeping me from being able to focus on working on my midterm though, I definitely want to finish it by the end of the day today, not only because I just want to be done with it, but also because Mike has a pool tournament all day tomorrow that I want to go watch, and I definitely don't want to be the dork working on my homework at a bar.




“Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring.” Proverbs 27:1.

Can I make an advising appointment?

Because of an overwhelming demand for advisors, I was asked to help out in the advising office on Thursday afternoons for the rest of the semester. Though, I have been enjoying having more time to work on my own research and classes, I have definitely missed working with the students. I hear all of my colleagues who are teaching talking about their lesson planning, and it does make me a bit jealous. Even if I know that I wouldn't have enough time to get it all done. I have missed working with the students to plan their courses and talk about graduate school plans. But, now I need to make up those hours by spending the night working on my midterm (last one ever!!!). Hopefully I will get a lot done since Mike will be out all night at pool.

Working from home

After church yesterday, Mike and I went to visit our friends who recently had a baby. It was great catching up with them, and the baby was so cute! However, that meant that all the chores that I typically do on Sunday didn't get done. 


This morning I woke up to go to my school, and was so excited to see the sun at 5:45am! I am sure I am not going to like it being dark by 5:45pm, but it definitely made getting out of bed this morning a bit easier. 


I headed out to my school, met with all of my teachers and students, and was back home again by about 10am. I typically have class on Monday night, so I stake out in my office for the day. However, because today is canceled, and I have a lot of chores to get done around the house, I decided to work from home. So here I sit, with a hot cup of tea, a load of laundry in the washer, getting ready to start working on more applications. 


Today's applications are going out to Toronto, Massachusetts, and Saskatoon. Truth be told though, I am a bit nervous about those locations, as I sit here below the Mason Dixon line in the beginning of November wearing two layers under my two blankets! Brrr...

Pimp My Blog

So, now that I have been blogging for about 5 months, I decided that I need to make some changes. I have been looking at some other blogs out there, and feel that there is a much better way to do this. So, please bear with me as I begin to make some changes around here. 
I am hoping to add some more bling to the main page, as well as add some links and pictures. Most importantly, I want to give the blog a more focused feel, instead of just rambling about whatever it on my mind that day! 
Looking forward to hearing your input as I go through this blog transformation! 

It's the most wonderful time of the year... already?

I can't believe that it is already time to start prepping for the holidays. Mike and I went on our first shopping trip, and couldn't believe the number of people who were out with the same mission. Time is flying by so quickly. I started this semester thinking that I had all of the time in the world to get everything done, and here we are in November, and there is still so much left to be done. 


It is just a matter of weeks before another semester is behind me, and I am preparing to submit the final draft of my dissertation and walk across the stage to get my diploma. It is just a matter of time until Mike and I are packing up our belongings once again as we prepare to move to a location that is still unknown. I can't believe how quickly the past four years at Virginia have gone, and how as we get closer to the end of our time year the clock seems to be ticking even faster. 


There are days when I can't wait to be done with it all. I am sick of homework, job applications, and the unknowns that the future holds. I want to know where I am going to be living, where I am going to be working; I am ready to be established. But I am also realizing how important it is to live in the moment, and to cherish the present. I need to be careful not to wish my life away. 


For everything there is a season,
And a time for every matter under heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die;
A time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal;
A time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
A time to mourn, and a time to dance;

A time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
A time to embrace, And a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to seek, and a time to lose;
A time to keep, and a time to throw away;
A time to tear, and a time to sew;
A time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate,
A time for war, and a time for peace.
- Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

Part Research Manager

So, this is one of the roles that I hold so that I can keep my lights turned on. In previous semesters, I held this role part time, but was offered a full time job managing this semester, so I don't have to worry about doing teaching and advising in addition. 
My advisor was awarded a grant that allows him to research the effects of a patterning intervention in first grade classrooms. We prescreened the children to see which ones did not already know the patterns that we were going to teach them. Then, we randomly assigned those children to four different groups. Each group works with an undergraduate student for 15 minutes a day. The Social Studies groups works on coloring sheets that focus on geography and civics topics. The Literacy group reads poems and focuses on rhyming words and comprehension. The Math group focuses on basic math skills. The Patterning group focuses on learning patterns. We are trying to determine whether the children in the patterning group can match the math kids on measures of math, match the literacy group on measures of literacy, and outscore the other groups on these measures. 
My job is to prepare all of the literacy materials, and to make sure that all of the classrooms have all of the materials they need to do the literacy activities. I also am the manager at one of the schools, am responsible for the project at that school. I am the point of contact for the principle and teachers, and need to make sure that they are happy so that we can come back the following year. I am also responsible for making sure that the undergraduate students are trained and are implementing the intervention measures appropriately. 
This is a really cool project, and I enjoy having the opportunity to work on such a large scale project. However, it can be stressful, because it means that I need to leave my house at 6:30 in the morning so that I can make it to the school by 8am to meet my researchers. It also means that non-confrontational me needs to confront my students whenever they act inappropriately in the school. It is definitely a learning opportunity for future roles. 

Part Graduate Teaching Assistant

This is a role that I held for the majority of my my time at GMU, but that I am not holding currently. In order to make money so I can pay my bills while I am in graduate school, I worked as a GRA (Graduate Teaching Assistant). This meant that I taught classes and worked in the undergraduate advising office.
My first two semesters at GMU I was a TA for Psych 100 recitation sessions. The way GMU sets up their Psyc 100 classes is that students meet twice a week in a large lecture, and once a week in a smaller review session. I led the smaller review sessions. I met with about 30 students one morning a week to review the material that they had covered in lecture earlier that week. This was a great way to ease me into teaching. I only had to lesson plan for one day a week, and I was not the person responsible for introducing the material to the students. It was difficult though, because I didn't have very much control over the structure of the course, because it was Psyc 100, I had to cover material I wasn't very familiar with, and the students tended to not take theses sessions very seriously, because they had already gone over the material with the instructor, and didn't see a real reason for the recitation.
After gaining this experience, I was then appointed the Adolescent Psyc teaching position, and I ended up teaching this course 5 times over a year and a half. It was a lot of work prepping for the class, and a bit nerve-wracking lecturing to 70 students, but overall I had a lot of fun teaching the course. Adolescent isn't laden with theory, so I was able to get creative with my lesson planning. 
Finally, I worked in the undergraduate advising office for about three years. I have already talked about the work I did in there on here, so I won't bore you too much ;). 
Unfortunately, because I am doing managing full time this year, I can't teach anymore, but hopefully I will find a job for next year that will allow me to do this again. 

Part Researcher...

In order to graduate from my program I need to write a dissertation (a long research paper) on a project that I did. I also need to publish research papers in order to be able to obtain and maintain a job. So, I have been spending the past three years working on my own research projects. All of these projects have surrounded the same theme, preschool children's self-awareness.
My first project was conducted in Head Start centers, and was focused on the children's abilities to recognize the dimensions of their own bodies, as well as the ability for their bodies to be obstacles preventing them from completing a task. The results of this study indicated that body self-awareness is still not complete by four years of age. The children were also significantly better at the tasks that required them to recognize the dimensions of their own bodies than on tasks requiring them to recognize their bodies as obstacles. This paper is going to be submitted for publication on Friday, and will hopefully be my first, first authored paper. 
My second project was also conducted in Head Start centers, but was focused on the children's abilities to accurately evaluate their own cognitive abilities. Each child was administered one test of basic mathematical abilities, and two tests of basic cognitive abilities, and were then asked to assess on a 4 point scale how well they did on the test. I have not yet analyzed these data,  but am planning to do so soon, and am going to use this project for my dissertation. 
My third project is being conducted at the Child Development Center on campus. This project is a combination of the previous two projects, and I am hoping to find a connection between body self-awareness and cognitive self-awareness. I am hoping to take this data set with me to my job, and will analyze the data during my first year while I establish a research base in my new town. 
In order to conduct this research, I have undergraduate students in the classrooms at the centers, who administer the tests to the children on a weekly basis. I go to the school each day to make sure the researchers are doing what they are supposed to be doing, have all of the materials they need, and I also assist with the testing of the children to make sure that we get it all done on schedule. 
I love this role, because it means I get to play with preschool children 2 days a week. This is a lot more fun than taking notes and studying for exams. 

What do you do?

I have frequently been asked what exactly it is that I do, and typically when I begin my rant, I either see eyes glaze over, or have people respond with complete inaccuracies. I don't think this is because what I do is over the head of the average person, but because I hold so many different roles, and they are not roles that are very common. 


I am currently a Psychology Graduate student, but that means that I am part student, part researcher, part graduate teaching assistant, and part research manager. I think the things that I get to work on are pretty cool, so I am going to devote a post to each (that way this doesn't get to long).


First and foremost, I am an Applied Developmental Psychology graduate student. This means that I study human development. Mostly though, my program is focused on typical development of young children. We want to know how individuals get from being a one-celled organism to walking, talking, thinking human beings. I study how we learn new material, how we develop language, how motor skills are developed, etc. As well as how we can improve development in these areas. 


In order to study this, just like any good student, I take classes. Typically I take about 2-3 classes a semester on topics such as, research methods, statistics, socioemotional development, cognitive development, etc. 


I am currently taking my last class ever, and am just a little excited at the prospect of finally being done with homework assignments and exams. 


As a student, my workload definitely has peaks and valleys. Taking statistics classes take up a lot more of my time than other courses, and with any course the time during mid-terms and finals I typically feel as though I don't have a moment to breathe. However, I do get my summers off as well as a four week break over Christmas. I prefer this way though, I don't mind working hard for several weeks, when I know that there is a break in sight. 


Typically the misconceptions about this position include the fact that studying psychology means that I am studying clinical psychology, and while, yes, I do take classes with clinical psychologists, and I have taken Abnormal Psyc, this is not my area of expertise. I personally think that the media has done an enormous disservice to the field of psychology, by making people believe that clinical psychology is the only type and that all they do is take notes while someone sits on their couch and discuss their past. The truth is, this is a very small population of psychologist, and even a small population of clinical psychologists. But, let me step down off my soap box...