Whoa...graduate school...who me?

Last week, we got the cabinets all mounted and Paul got the sink in and all the plumbing hooked up and a new disposal in so that was very exciting! Still haven't taken any pictures of the new kitchen yet, so apologize for that. Paul was his usual busy self over the time I was gone and got the new light fixture installed. It was a chain-pull, but we found a handy-dandy little wireless get up that allows us to install a switch. It works really well and I would definitely recommend it to anyone with a problematic chain you want to get rid of.

I started my graduate program this weekend. We had an orientation on Friday and all the instructors and assistants gave a little presentation and basically scared the bejesus out of us. This is going to be a lot of really hard work, but I'm confident I can do it. We give a presentation with a group at the end of every class and we investigate a "cold case" and we have to do our own research and know what to ask for in that research to answer the questions our instructor poses to us. Our case is a woman who was murdered in 1966 and is sometimes thought to be an early victim of the Zodiac Killer, one of the most famous unsolved serial killers in the US. He told investigators through letters that he'd killed 37 people, but there's only 7 that they definitively have attributed to him. So, I'll be getting immersed in his world for the next two years. I'm absolutely convinced without a shadow of a doubt that you can find whatever you need on the internet these days. Our group wanted to request the autopsy report from our instructor (who has a case file of some sort, but she won't tell us what she has in it) and lo and behold...I found one on the internet. Sheesh...how'd we ever do anything in the old days? We also have to do two internships, not one like I thought. We do a short two-week, full-time one in the summer coming up where we just do observations (um...of 6 autopsies and we go to one crime scene, yikes!) and then a much more involved one after classes are over. Then we basically write a thesis and give a dissertation defense. So...um, yeah, I thought this was NO thesis, scary! But it was so much fun on Saturday (actual first day of class). I already feel as though I've learned a ton of stuff, now I just have to get back in the habit of studying and all will be fine. Heh. I have about a ton of pages to read before next class and want to get started on writing a paper that's due on Sept. 10th and then I have a take-home test due on the 24th, so I'm now a bit overwhelmed! Bye-bye little bit of social life I once had. Ah well...all is good.

So, be prepared to be bored to tears with school crap for a while (two to three years to be exact) and everyone, please say a sympathy prayer for poor Paul, who belatedly realized he's in for it now! LOL!

Love,
B