Wow

I had forgotten what real life was like. --And I don't just quite yet know it either, but I have lately started to feel the relief that it is about to start again. I have had a love/hate relationship with grad school for the past two years, mostly because I have tried to squeeze far too much into too little time. But today I received the email that my graduation application had been approved. And I'm writing the conclusion to the thesis I've been working on all summer. As of August 17, I will officially be a Master of the Arts, as awarded by one of the top-10 graduate programs in education in the country. Thank you, Texas, for a rigorous education.

On top of the relief of finishing a demanding chapter of my academic career, I was offered (and accepted) my first teaching job last week. I am a high school Spanish teacher, and I am flooded with all the excitement and terror that go along with that. I am thrilled by the opportunity to teach. And from what I hear, Cedar Park High School is a great place to work. Jeff bought me roses and we went to The Alamo Drafthouse (our favorite date spot) to watch a movie to celebrate the occasion. We met up with our good friends Christina and Geoff for additional merry-making.

Oh, and I finally legally changed my name today (added my new last name, moved my old one to the middle, effectively giving me four names and the longest name in history), and I will be getting my first out-of-home-state license made tomorrow.

Aaaaand Tanner graduated from puppy school last week.

Isn't he great?

So there. Life is grand.

On the DIY Wedding

As I have blogged about before, I recently (May 30) got married, and we got the photos from the photographer yesterday. He took some great shots of some of the decorations that we made ourselves, so I thought I might share some of the things I learned through planning our wedding.

We had our wedding in my grandmother's yard, overlooking the bayou in Moss Point, MS. For that reason, we had a lot of work to do ourselves in preparing things. We also took on other tasks ourselves to save money and personalize them more.

Tip #1 - Order your own flowers. You can save a lot of money ordering them through Costco or Sam's, and they were beautifully fresh and on time, two important factors.

Tip #2 - Personalize everything. The more like you the wedding is, the more fun people will have; after all, they are there because they love you. If the wedding reflects you in every detail, everyone will feel at ease to relax and celebrate.

Tip #3 - Let your attendants be themselves. Along with the personalization theme, I asked my bridesmaids to choose a black dress that they would feel beautiful in (it was cocktail hour, so it didn't look overly morbid). I gave them matching black jellies and simple rhinestone jewelry to unify their attire, and they looked great. Plus, they ended up being "stuck" with a new little black dress (can't have too many of those) instead of something they didn't really like.

Tip #4 - Consider your guests. True, it's your day, but that doesn't mean your guests have to be uncomfortable or bored. For example, we knew it would be warm, so we gave our guests raffia fans. We ordered them from an online vendor and added personalized ribbons. We (ahem, I) also hand-wrote the thank-you tags on the favor baggies to let our guests know we were really glad they were there.

Another way to consider your guests: your music. I know you don't typically listen to the same music as your grandmother or that weird cousin from Kentucky, but there is a lot of music that is commonly-known and -loved among social circles like the family and friends who will be at your wedding. If you actually want your guests to dance, you have to give them the right music to do so, whatever that may be. For our family it was Oldies/Motown and Classic Rock; we rented a sound system and used iTunes to create a playlist and just let it run (money saver!). And I can't tell you how many compliments we got from our guests about the "great" music. If you have a DJ, you can give him/her a specific playlist.

Tip #5 - Relax. Two ways: plan down time, and have a relaxed attitude.

Planned fun: We planned plenty of activities for our wedding party because we knew we would be needing their help finishing up the wedding and wanted to provide lots of fun times to show our thanks. We had a joint couples party in lieu of a bachelor/bachelorette party and went together with all of our attendants for a night out; we hired a party bus to cart us around from place to place and simply had fun together. The guys all went canoeing the day before the wedding while the ladies enjoyed a sunny brunch. Luckily, my parents have a pool at their home, so we also spent after hours swimming and chatting pool-side.

Attitude: I'm not unwilling to allow plans to change, and I found that flexibility helped the preparations for the wedding move more smoothly. Things are going to go wrong; expect it so you don't go nuts when it happens. Just say, "It's fine," and rest assured that it really is. Our photographer (the wonderful Joey Miller of Memphis-based Interrobang Photo) told me that out of all the weddings he had been to, ours was the most relaxed he had ever seen. That's what we were going for. As blessed of a once-in-a-lifetime event as a wedding is, it is also a celebration, so have fun and everyone else will, too.

There you go, my list of recommendations.

That's all!

Good things come to those who wait

Jeff has had this oversized King Kong poster forever, and we haven't been able to find a frame that would fit it for cheaper than $150. We thought that was an absurd amount of money to pay to frame a poster, so we decided to wait and try to come up with a solution on our own.

Well, in a recent thrift store trip, I saw this interesting doctor's-office-esque print...

I painted the frame, cleaned up the plexiglass, and voilà! It's perfect!

Good things come to those who wait.

Fascinating

From Mantle-Bromley (1992), Preparing Students for Meaningful Culture Learning:

Guioria [1972] and his colleagues have examined subjects' language egos, studying the relationship between subjects' sensitivity to cues in interpersonal situations (empathic capacity) and their ability to reproduce a foreign language. They found the degree of subjects' authentic pronunciation (which is psychologically the most difficult language behavior to manipulate) was significantly related to their empathy. Language ego, the personal egoistic nature of language learning, play such a part in each student's ability to take on new behaviors that it determines, in part, whether a student will succeed in the language class. (121)

Date-iversary

Last Thursday was the anniversary of my first date with my [new] husband, Jeff. He decided it was a proper occasion for flowers:

...and delicious dinner at the restaurant where we had our first date, Thai Noodle House:

Afterward, we took a walk and enjoyed...the stifling heat of Texas. We like being married so far :)

Healthcare and how individuals can help

Something you may already know about healthcare, but is good to read, here.  And another article about how to cut your own costs here.

If you don't want to read it (lazybones), at least read this:

Doctors are afraid of being sued. Does that contribute to excessive treatment?

Fear of malpractice suits is universal among physicians. It's sometimes a legitimate reason to order tests, and it's sometimes an excuse.

How can a patient keep from being subjected to all these needless tests and procedures?

You should go to your doctor with an attitude of healthy skepticism. And don't be afraid to ask questions. Do I really need this CAT scan? Do I really need to go to a specialist? If you don't feel as if you've gotten adequate answers from your doctor, go to another doctor.

Medicare is soon going to bust the U.S. budget. Could the changes you are talking about prevent that?

If you reduced expected spending growth in Medicare by one percentage point per year below where it is now, you would save over $1 trillion over the next 15 years. Medicare goes from the red to being in the black.

Could the cost savings be enough to enable us to insure everyone?

If we fixed the way we deliver care so that doctors are rewarded for providing good care at low cost, we could afford it. We have an incredible opportunity to make American medicine the envy of the world, and cover everybody. 

Laughing With

This is the video of the song "Laughing With" by one of my favorite female musicians, Regina Spektor.  She just released this new album last week.  What do you think of the lyrics? (Read them here)