Well it's hard to believe, but January is already halfway over! WOO!! Already it has been an interesting month what with snow storms and ice mixed with below-average temperatures creating delay after delay after delay! I was not in Knoxville when we got our big snow which shut down UT (first time that has happened since the blizzard of the late 90s). I was in sunny Florida attending an International Embryo Transfer Society conference in Orlando. Jessy, Charlie (Schrick's PhD student), and I drove down Friday...yes...we drove. Let's just say I will never make that drive again if I have a choice. It took us about 10 hours with breaks for gas and lunch. Orlando weather stayed in the mid to upper 60s the whole time we were there which was such a pleasant change from 20s and wind chills!
The conference overall was a good experience. We attended a pre-conference symposium that featured about 10 talks on bovine-related ET/AI practices and new technologies. That was the best part of the entire conference since it related to what we study. The other days were full of talks, poster presentations, and meetings. While we were there, we ate out every single meal. I got tired of that quick, but the food was delicious everywhere we went (yes that includes Chic-fil-A and Pizza Hut). Jessy and I hit up the outlet malls one afternoon where I snagged three shirts from Banana Republic and a pair of trouser jeans from NY&Co (aka my favorite store). The last night we were in Orlando, we went to a restaurant/bar to meet up with the student chapter of the IETS (rightfully and humorously named the Morulas). It just happened to fall on the same night as the BCS National Championship game. We had every intention of eating dinner and heading back to the hotel, but ended up staying for the entire game! (we left the bar at 12:30 AM) It's been a long time since I've stayed out that late, but it was fun I had a yummy strawberry daiquiri!!
The drive back to Tennessee was interesting. I drove the first 4 hours or so until lunch. Charlie then took the wheel so as to navigate us safely through Atlanta. That was a trick and though the roads were in terrible condition and people driving by us were extremely dangerous, we made it through safe and sound. It was a shock to get out of the car in Knoxville, where it was about 20 degrees plus strong winds, when it was about 65 when we first got in the car. All in all it was a fun trip and I had a good time.
Classes started this Wednesday. I am taking a statistics class that is almost completely SAS-based. SAS is a computer program that runs statistical analyses for you (takes the headache out of doing it the old fashioned way). We are very lucky as students to have free access to it because it costs $10,000 a year to have the software for personal use. My professor is Dr. Saxton who is actually in the animal science department and is also an NCSU graduate! That will be a great class because I will definitely need to know how to use SAS for my research analysis! I am also taking a writing course called "Writing for Publication". My professor is awesome! He is really funny, very laid back, and is incredibly smart. We will each be working on our own writing assignments (thesis, literature review, grant proposal, etc) throughout the semester and will have a "coach" help us correct mistakes and to make suggestions. My third class is advanced reproduction which will most likely be a journal-club style class where someone brings in a paper each week and we discuss it.
On top of the classes I'm taking, I am also a teaching assistant for Dr. Edwards's class, Animal Reproduction and Lactation (hereby referred to as 320). Kim is the official TA, but since I will be Edwards's main graduate student next year and will most likely be the TA for 320 next Spring, I am learning absolutely everything that goes into this class. There is lecture twice a week and then a 2-hour lab on Fridays. We had our first lab yesterday and it went really well. There is a LOT of preparation involved when you have a dissection lab for 80 students all at once. The reproductive tracts have to be thawed about 3 days in advance. Once thawed, they are soaked in histological-grade ethanol overnight to "fix" them. The morning of the lab (7:00 AM) the tracts are taken out of the ethanol and put into water to soak for an hour or so. They are then put into empty buckets and transported to the lab on the Ag campus. On top of the tracts, all of the supplies have to be rounded up, packed up, and taken to the lab. That includes gloves, scalpels, hemostats, wooden skewers, rulers, plastic trays, plastic tablecloths, paper towels, disposable gowns, hand sanitizer, document camera, and cleaning products. Once at the location, everything has to be set up on the individual tables. (This all has to be cleaned up afterwards too) We had lots of help and the lab went smooth as butter. All the kids had a great time and learned a whole lot about female reproductive anatomy. I thought it was really neat that the first time they were exposed to this material, they had the tracts right in front of them so they could see/feel/touch/dissect the parts as we were going through them. I'm really excited to be a TA and to learn how everything works so I can do it again next Spring.
As you can probably tell, this will be a busy semester! I am going into it with the goal of learning as much as I can while having fun at the same time. I have a feeling its going to fly by and I welcome the fast pace! Until next time!
* P.S. tried yoga...didn't like it...scratch that one off the list!
* P.P.S. Here are some funny pictures of Essau's new friends.
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