Awake @ 4:30 am

Good Morning! I have been awake since 4:30 am for no known reason - well, except that I am pregnant and life isn't normal. So I balanced the checkbook and paid bills and now I am catching up on the blog. It's been a busy week. Monday we had a little scare because there was some concern that I was leaking amniotic fluid. All turned out well and we haven't had the baby yet. They did tell me that I am starting to efface and that the things my body is doing puts me right on schedule. I assume that means not sleeping as well. Just love those coursing hormones!!

This morning Aaron and I go to have my biopsy done at 9:45. I will keep you updated with the results when I find out what they are. I'm sure it will take them a few days. Then later in the day, Rachel, our doula, comes over to give me a reflexology session which will just make it all better. For those not in the know this would be a foot massage/accupressure type thang. Mmmm... did I mention that my doula is a massage therapist by trade. Gotta love it!

The staff and faculty of UM Civil Engineering Department gave me a shower on Tuesday. That was very kind of them. I was thinking a little party with some cake and they went all out. The peanut got a a bunch more gifts (like he needed any more!!) and they also took a collection and gave Aaron and I a little $$. Or I suppose I could put that in the peanut's college fund, nah, diaper fund would be more appropriate at this point. I really picked a good place to go to school. We have a great department who are really supportive of my efforts to educate myself and my advisor is awesome. He just had a little boy a couple of months ago named Gabriel. It's nice because he is very understanding of where I'm at.

I was talking to him a couple of weeks ago about grad school and internships for next summer because now is the time to start planning these things. Also I was struggling with trying to get my GRE taken and thinking it just wasn't going to happen so I wanted to see what the reprocussions of me not taking it would be. I should be honest here and say retake it - because I took it once and did very well in the verbal and writing sections and bombed the math. Not good for an engineering student :) (I didn't figure I needed to study for the math part, whoops! ego). Anyway, I'm staying at UM for grad school, so they told me no biggy on the GRE, they know me and will except me as is. As for funding they will take care of me internally and I can try for external fellowships the following year. So that worked out good. Whew, one load off!

I got a little off track there. I was meaning to talk about the whole internship thing. Well, at the time my advisor had asked me where I wanted to work and not being prepared for this question I blurted out what would be my dream. Working for a company called ARUP in San Francisco for the summer! Aaron had mentioned that he could do an internship as well, Zingerman's encourages this, so I was thinking that would be a lot of fun. Prof Parra was open to this and although he didn't know anyone in ARUP SF, he mentioned other cities and businesses that sounded equally exciting. So I brought this whole crazy idea to Aaron and we talked and talked and thought about what really would be the logistics of working in SF for the summer with baby and all and threw out the idea as a little less than practical. Since the earlier conversation with my advisor, I hadn't really talked to him until yesturday. In between that time he had gone to a conference/meeting in Japan for a week. So yesturday I told him that Aaron, the peanut and I had decided to stay local. His response was "are you sure, because I talked to some people in Japan and you could probably work there and I talked to gentleman from a company in San Francisco and he said he had a position for me." YIKES!! Ok, so Japan is out. I'm not transporting husband, baby and me with all the gear to Japan. But, San Francisco sure is appealing. I think I have to follow up on this and at least find out what the offer is. If they provide housing and a good salary and we could subrent or something... It sure would be a good experience. See, I am really interested in seismic design and where better to learn than with a company who does it everyday! And well, San Francisco... I love it! I lived there for maybe 4.5 years and it sure is beautiful. And what great food. Aaron would be in heaven!

Ok, so there are at least a couple people in my family shaking there heads and thinking I'm crazy but... well you know me well enough to know that I have always been a risk taker. And shoot - Tokyo pregnant worked out well, so why not San Francisco with the baby and husband too? Anyway nothing is close to settled, I haven't even talked to the company yet. I just thought I would share... Life is a lotta fun.