Busy Busy Weekend

Thursday, Sister Beck, the Relief Society General President, came to our area to speak to us sisters. She did an amazing job answering questions and lifting our spirits. I rode to the meeting with a fellow student whom I do not know very well. We ended up really getting to know each other, especially on the ride home, discussing all the things we learned from our speaker and how the subjects related to us in our own lives. I’m really grateful Sister Beck was able to fly out to see us. My mom was extra lucky and got to meet with her on Friday when she crossed the state to uplift the women in that part of the state, to talk about Relief Society responsibilities and give another fireside. It was a really special meeting that lifted my heart and burden a little bit and reminded me to face my responsibilities head on, with faith and hope and courage.

Friday I was invited to present a poster at a dinner in celebration of the very first W&M Honors Fellowships, of which I was a recipient last spring. In the afternoon I met with the organizers at the Charles Center and with Mr. Dintersmith to discuss how to better publicize the scholarships to get more funding and fund more students. I felt quite honored to be a part of both meetings. Jacob accompanied me to the dinner in the evening and we had quite a good time discussing chemistry stories and communication (are blogs bad for research?) and hearing a talk from W&M’s own Rhodes Scholar about the virtue is the words “I don’t know”.

Yesterday Jacob drove me to Harrisonburg for a meet at James Madison University. Well drove me is an interesting choice of words… really he was tired and I cheered him up, like I would a child in our primary class, with a stop at dairy queen and a nap, while I drove the rest of the way. Silly guy. On the way home we took turns napping and driving. The sun really took it out of us.

The meet went well. Every meet this year I have been increasing my distance. I started out pretty lame around 34 meters or about 110 feet. But yesterday I threw my season’s best of 39.05 m, or 128 feet. I’m still ten feet from my college personal best, but I’m really having a blast this season with my teammates, trying not to let it go too quickly ya know? I was actually surprised that I threw decently yesterday. The winds were howling and the throwing circle is in this weird valley. In fact, all the spectators just sit in their cars or on the hill and look down on 3 sides of the circle. It creates a wind-tunnel-type effect with the strong wind and actually pulled one of my throws into the left side hill.

Jacob treated me to some celebratory doughnuts on the way home. And then put me straight to work on my thesis the second we walked in the door, meany. Gosh, I have so much left to do with it, which is a bit scary considering I only have this next week to work on it. But I’m excited to be wrapping up the year with this project. I’m really starting to see that I don’t hate writing in general, although it is difficult for me to want to sit down and write, like I have always claimed. I truly enjoy collecting thoughts about experiments and writing down my findings, and explaining to others my story and my toil in written form. So maybe grad school is a little less far fetched than I have worried in the past. Chemistry is so what I do and know and love.