A Master's Degree

And just like that, after one final momentous push...grad school is over.

It's hard to think about.

I'm done. I've finished. I just finished two years of some of the most difficult schooling of my life while simultaneously working full-time. Holy smokes.

I'm glad it's over.

The amount of free time that I've had lately has been a fantastic breath of fresh air. I can DO things again. I spent this past weekend just chilling at my parents'. No papers to write, no deadlines, no presentations to prepare. Just a weekend.

It was awesome.

Thanks to the sheer amount of writing that grad school requires, I haven't been able to keep up to date on here as much as I would have liked. Writing is a finite resource. You can only spill so much at a time. I have managed to keep pictures of the past year or so on hand though.

This has been life:

I discovered a pretty sweet waterfall way in the backwoods...

There's a park nearby where I managed to capture this awesome sunset while attempting to dodge mud and baby ticks (yeesh)...

My brother got married...

This cool, little, philosophical frog was chilling by the pool of the beach house I got the opportunity to stay at for a while with some awesome people...

"So. What are you going to do with your life?"

I discovered that Yellowhed makes medium-rare boiled eggs...

This almost made a colleague throw-up.

We adopted a little puppy dog from the shelter who was terrified of men, raised her for 6+ months, and then had to give her away. With school and work going on, she was spending the majority of her day locked away in a cage. Not fair to her. She's now running and playing with a family of 11. 

Meet the puppy who knew she was going to get in trouble for pooping on my carpet, and covered it up with my sandal to hide it from me.

This hermit crab at the pet store made me laugh...

And, I've done a little kayaking...