The Day I Got My Master's Degree

As you may know (cause trust me, I wasn't quiet about it) I finally graduated with my Master's degree a couple weeks ago.

Woop woop!

And boy does it feel good!

Remember when I was just starting and I was all nervous about not being smart enough...along with a bunch of other crap? Cause trust me, I worry about a lot of crap.

You can read about that HERE.

Good news - I was smart enough (just barely), I made friends, and I never showed up to the 

wrong classroom.

Woop woop!

I keep trying to tell Nate he has to refer to me, from here on out, as "Master Rissa."

So far he's not buying it.

Graduation was everything I thought it was going to be, in all its anticipated glory.

I wore a cap and gown that had wings, and tails, and capes, and made me look pregnant, walked across the stage with all eyes on me as the screen read "Carissa Ruth Townsend," I shook hands with a bunch of people on stage I've never seen before, and received a fake diploma that when opened reads "Your real one will be in the mail in 8-10 weeks"...or something like that.

And I loved every minute of it.

My friend Julie and I were blowin' up our Google chats errry day during work with a countdown leading up until the big day. 

We counted everything down.

Number of classes left, number of papers left, days til' grades are posted, and of course, days til graduation.

We even made bets on what the speakers might say in their speeches.

She went with, "never stop learning," and totally nailed it.

I was happy to have my family there on the big day...with the exception of my sister's fiance.

He missed the ceremony and I told him it made me cry.

Don't tell him I made that up though.

Daddy and me

Me and mom

The hubs

When we were taking pictures my dad goes, "Get in there Nate, you're the one who's gonna be paying for this, you need a picture!"

True story...my dad's just glad it's not his wallet this time!

Nate has been never keen on student loans though.

He told me one night, "I don't get why this is so expensive. Can't you go to like, a community college or something??"

I hate to break it to you Nate, but you can't get a Master's degree at a community college.

Good idea though. 

My family, the King's!

My sister

The BFF Charlene

        

Hubs and Mama Townsend

My posse for the day...minus Charlene who was taking the picture =)

LOVE them all!! 

After graduation we all went out to lunch at Macayo's Mexican Restaurant.

Cause it seems like that's what you do when important things happen, considering we went there after my Bachelor's graduation, and for Nate and I's rehearsal dinner too.

What can I say, they make a mean mango margarita.

And after lunch for the rest of the day, I celebrated my graduation...by taking a nap.

Cause I feel like I deserve a nap after finishing grad school.

Uncle Si had it right:

So now that school is over a few things have changed:

My house is way messier because I can't use house-cleaning as a homework procrastination tactic...and who really wants to clean their house unless it's to put off doing homework?

Also, I've come to the realization that I now have to do all the things I said I never had time to do during grad school.

Like cook, and work out, and stuff.

Ugh.

I won't lie though, some of my coworkers and the new interns were talking about all their summer classes that started today and how much work they have ahead of them this summer, and in my head I was kinda like, "Neener neener neener!"

Ahh, it feels good to be done! 

Counting Down

Guess what?!

So in honor of there only being 49 days left of my entire academic career, I thought I'd make a list. A list of:

You know you’re a grad student 49 days away from your degree when...

-You turn things in late cause you just weren’t in the mood to do it on time

-It’s no longer imperative to read and respond to emails from professors and group members in

a timely manner. Eh, you’ll look at it later.

-Straight A’s are no longer your goal. A B sounds pretty dang acceptable

-Your motto becomes, “Who cares. Let’s just get through the class and graduate.”

-You no longer care to look up the correct form of an APA citation if you’re unsure…who cares.

Let’s just get through the class and graduate.

-You practice signing your name with three extra letters behind it (i.e. Carissa Townsend, BSW,

MPA)

-You blog about being 49 days away from graduating

-You dream about never having to do homework again for the rest of your life

-You have nightmares about having to start paying your student loans

-You don’t even have a binder anymore. You’re school crap is all over the place.

-You don’t double check the guidelines before writing a paper...cause your school crap is all over

the place and you can’t find your syllabus

49 days and counting folks!

Oops I did it Again

I broke my cardinal rule...back to back link-ups.

Shoot dang.

That means I haven't blogged all week.

Shoot dang.

Oh well...onward and upward.

It's time for this week's edition of High Five for Friday with Lauren from From my Grey Desk

...that was two froms in a row, anyone else catch that?

1.) Last weekend we bought a new couch. I'm freakin' thrilled about this for a number of reasons:

1.) It's new furniture

2.) We scored a pretty good deal on it

3.) I finally have something to put my feet on!

That last one is the reason I'm most thrilled about, cause right now we don't have anything to put our feet on. No recliners, no ottoman, no nothin'. So now I can kick my feet up and stretch out!

As excited as I am for our new couch, I'm just as disappointed for ONE reason:

1.) It doesn't get delivered for THREE weeks.

Three.

That's a lot of weeks.

You know, all things considered.

2.) My new Erin Condren Lifeplanner arrived!!!

Two words: IN LOVE.

2013 can now officially begin.

3.) School started

This normally is not something that would be the highlight of my week, but considering it's the last time I will ever start a semester, I figured we might as well get this show on the road. That's right, I had my last first day of school this week and the countdown to graduation is now in full force!

4.) Found this awesome new app thanks to my friend Amanda over at My Love for Lyla

It's called Cuptakes and it has over 350 different (and way cute) home and lock screens for your iphone.

Check it.

You'll dig it.

5.) Got this shout out from Rachel over at Rachel's Country Roots 

Totally made my day. 

Go check out her blog, it's good stuff. ...and plus her dogs are really cute

I'm happy to say I survived my first full (an entire 5 days) week back at work after all the holidays. 

Survived, but definitely a doozy!

Happy Friday!

School's out for...Winter

Stick a fork in it.

I've turned in my last paper and this semester of school is officially over!!

...it's actually been over since last Tuesday, but I get tired of always starting out my posts with how late I am on blogging things.

If this were Instagram, or Twitter or something, I'd be like: [hashtag]fail.

Since school is over now, I am in full holiday mode. I have two nights of the week back in my possession to do whatever I please with them. 

I plan to spend my Thursday nights watching new episodes of the Big Bang Theory instead of sitting in a classroom until 9 o'clock at night talking about public works, municipal services, and how local government needs to get more creative in their service delivery.

I intend to spend my Tuesday nights watching the Phoenix Suns play basketball instead of getting the game updates on my phone because I'm sitting in a classroom talking about civic engagement, public decision making, and the city of Phoenix in all its 1980s glory.

I'll spend my Tuesday afternoons at my job actually doing work instead of writing my reading response (that I haven't done the reading for) due at 6pm before class.

I can now leave work and not have to think twice about what day of the week it is, and therefore, what route I need to take to either go home or go to campus for class.

Any writing that I do will be for this here blog, not a midterm paper, or a final paper, or a city council communications memo - and it certainly will not be in APA Style with any sort of footnotes or reference page. 

I plan to read my Better Homes and Gardens magazines to get quick and easy holiday tips, instead of reading academic journals or peer reviewed articles researching the importance of festivals and celebrations to a community... or any myriad of other issues for that matter.

And lastly, instead of counting down the days until the semester is over, 

the countdown 'til Christmas is now in full effect!

  

H54F

It's been a while since I've done my favorite weekly link-up, and since I've managed to run out of time for the last like, 5 Fridays, I made sure to make time for a post this week!

So without further ado, I give you...my high five for Friday.

1.) Last weekend I had a couple of my favorite ladies Sarahita and Stephanie over to my house for dinner. I cooked (I know, it probably won't happen again for another 6 months), we ate, we drank, we discussed the important issues of the day (i.e. why Halle Berry has man problems, Mariah Carey's biracial-ness, and my lack of gay-dar), we introduced Stephanie to Nutella (she liked it), and as always, we laughed.

2.) We decorated the office for Christmas this week

 

Considering all we had to go on was an 8 year old artificial tree, a hodge podge of old bulbs, and a handful of candy canes, I'd say we did pretty good.

The bow on top is my own personal touch...if I do say so myself.

3.) The dogs got their Christmas collars from grammy this week, so they're looking extra festive

Although, they're always looking festive, with cute faces like these.

4.) Thursday was the conclusion of one out of two classes remaining this semester.

Halle-freakin-lujah.

One research paper and power point presentation to go, and come Tuesday I can wash my hands of another semester of grad school.

And then the countdown to graduation begins!!

5.) And last but not least...I daresay I left the best for last.

Drum roll please...

The Duck Dynasty Christmas Special!!!

Hil-freakin-larious.

And there's really nothing else to say.

Besides I love Si.

And I really love him as an elf.

Happy Friday Jack!

It's OK Thursday

If it's Thursday, you know what that means...

It's OK...

to start counting down until the weekend at approximately 12:00pm on Wednesdays...cause it's all downhill to Friday from there!

to consider skipping class next Tuesday night to watch the finale of So You Think You Can Dance...I said consider ok? I haven't made any decisions yet...

If Cyrus is less-than-stellar at most other genres, cause he's way beyond BA at his own style, and he always tries so hard, has improved so much, and has such a good attitude and I want him to win it all!

To eat cereal for dinner

To take pictures in class instead of taking notes cause you don't feel like writing it all down

To get a little (or a lot) peeved every time a class takes a quantitative turn and starts throwing 

numbers at me. 

...I'm not getting a master's degree in math for a reason here folks

To stay up late and blog and justify it by telling yourself you'll have an extra (or two) cup of coffee in the morning...and then another one in the afternoon when those wear off...and so on and so forth

If time management is and always will be a challenge for you

To believe that maybe, just maybe your dogs have some sort of super power and can shoot lasers straight from their eye balls

What's OK with you this Thursday?!

Cry Me a River

I've never been one to use my blog as a journaling tool...cause, I dunno, it's just not my style. 

I like to keep things light around here. 

But holy-crap-on-a-cracker it's been an intense 12 weeks forreal. 

Yesterday concluded my four summer classes I took this year: 2 in first session, 2 in second session, and since I'm a grad student, I know that 2+2=4. AND since I'm a grad student, I know now to never ever do that again.

I've never wanted to down a glass bottle of wine so badly.

Check out my alarm from yesterday morning

I'm not sure if I'm just really bad at picking classes to take over summer, but seriously, I picked some bad classes to take over summer. I feel like it's kinda like how at the grocery store I always manage to pick the carts with the squeaky, cockeyed wheel that pulls to the left. I managed to pick the hard, quantitative, numbers-y classes to take online, in a condensed 6-week session, which resulted in me having to listen to this song before I started every study sesh just to get me pumped up:

 ...And that's not even a joke. 

I feel like I should be happy and joyful and in a superb mood, but despite my classes finally being over, I'm in the midst of arguing my final grade in one of my classes cause my professor is a loon. 

And grades like a loon.

And I've never wanted to down a glass bottle of wine so badly.

So needless to say, I still feel like I can't quite relax yet.

AND on top of all of this... I ate beef jerky today, which means I have to floss tonight.

Frick on a stick.

I hate flossing.

So, in order to try and get happy again I'm trying to find some things to look forward to, some things to enjoy. So here's what I've come up with so far:

Dancing With the Stars All Star season...Team Shawn Johnson!

New music from Ms. Swift.

New album from Ms. Swift...let the countdown until October 22nd begin!

Phoenix Suns basketball is just around the corner, and although we no longer have Na...rather, he-who-must-not-be-named, I'm a glass half-full kinda girl and hoping these rebuilding years won't be too terrible!

Next Starts Now!

So, now I'm gonna go sip drink some wine and wait for my grades.

And cross my fingers.

And pray.

And tell myself I will be happy no matter what.

It's Gonna be a Fun Day...

The last week of summer classes began yesterday...

...pray for me!

Regression Assumptions

Monday nights is my stats/research methods class. 

It's pretty much a doozy. 

Every time I go to this class I start to get irritated, because last I checked, I'm not a math major and by the end of class my notes look like this:

  What the heck?! 

Every Monday night I ask myself, why is this important for a degree in public administration??...don't answer that, I know the real answer, but that's not the answer, nor the sympathy I'm looking for.  

BUT on the bright side of things, we totally learned something fun today:

HOMOSKEDASTICITY

I know right?! My spell check was like, "whoa what the effff??"

Now, sitting in a statistics/research methods class for 3 hours is terribly long, boring, confusing, and...confusing. So you can imagine my delight when our professor busted out this bad boy.

 I learned that Homoskedasticity occurs when all random variables in a sequence or vector have the same finite variance, or when the variance of error term is equal to all observations, blah blah blah... which isn't nearly as fun and exciting as just saying the word!

 But wait! It gets better!

HOMOSKEDASTICITY has a counterpart.

 wait for it...

HETEROSKEDASTICITY

Which would be the opposite, or absence of homoskedasticity...don't ask me what that looks like or implies, I haven't really thought about it yet...homework isn't due until next week and I'm having too much fun just saying it the word. 

See, regression assumptions have a sexual preference too!

Done and Done

Research Design: check

Finals: check

Another semester of grad school in the bag: check

Internship: check

PHEW! I was afraid for a minute I wasn't going to make it out of that semester alive!

It was certainly a busy one to say the least, between work, school, and internship; but it was good-since I have such a hard time being productive with lots of time to spare, when I don't have time to procrastinate things get done!...go figure eh?

I had the opportunity this semester to intern at Congressman David Schweikert's office, of Arizona's 5th Congressional District. ...and it was pretty cool!

The Congressman is awesome, the staff is awesome...the only bummer was I didn't get to meet his dog Charlie, who gets to go to DC from time to time, makes frequent appearances on his Facebook, and is almost as popular as the Congressman!...it's too bad, really, cause Maycee and Gunny could've totally been friends with Charlie, and then they could hang out and play tug-of-war and do all kinds of dog things together.

I was pretty pumped to get a picture with the Congressman on my last day...not gonna lie, I felt pretty cool.

Anyway...for some weird (and kind of stupid) reason ASU decided to schedule the start of classes on January 5th, which means I only have 27 days until next semester starts. Which means I only have 27 days to:

-Celebrate Christmas

-Enjoy days off

-Sleep in on said days off

-NOT do homework

-Read material that does not consist of text books, scholarly journals, or peer reviewed articles

-Catch up on this season of Glee

-Scrapbook

-Blog

-Sleep in...wait did I say that one already?

Ready, set, GO!