First semester

Of grad school is officially done!

It went well I must say. for like. all the new things i had to handle all at once. and I enjoyed it!
I got ABs in both my classes, which, is a thing Wisconsin does. It means that the grade was above an 87 and below a 92. So on a 4.0 scale I get a 3.5, which is cool. I'm with that. It was such a bummer in undergrad getting 3.0s when I had an 89 at the end of the semester.

After the brutally long stats exam, some new friends (from the same program and cohort as me) and I went to a restaurant/bar on campus and hung out and played Love Letter for a couple hours. It was really fun and a really good way to end the semester. I've really enjoyed my time up here.

I'm excited to have a break and get so sleep in and eat a bunch of for for the holiday season!
I hope all of you have a good holiday season and eat lots of good food. Sean will have bunuelos for the first time ever, courtesy of Geli's family (thanks!), and it will be great.

We'll be flying out tomorrow and we will be with my parents til the 28th, and then here. We're gonna move into a new, bigger place and it's gonna be good. Things are good right now (: I hope things are good for you all too!

It's finals week!

I've only got 2. I'm 2 exams away from winter break. One tomorrow, 5pm, one thursday, 10 am. I am in study mode. 2 exams away from being done with my first semester of graduate school!

My Post-Thanksgiving Post

Happy vegan thanksgiving!

This might be my favorite holiday because I love food.

This year there were TWO feasts. My PI invited me out with his family because I was the only lab member that was staying in town. So Sean and I went to a Thanksgiving buffet at a golf resort and while it was not the most veg friendly, there were plenty of edible sides and we were stuffed.
It was nice. We met my PI's family and had a good time, it was pretty pleasant and less awkward than I anticipated which is great.

Sean and I came home after that to finish cooking. We had baked two pies, a pumpkin and a pumpkin cheesecake, and made deviled eggs the night before. I had also gotten the seitan roast/turkey log started. We had a lot of time before dinner though so we just hung out, watched tv, got stuff done around the house. I think I even napped, haha. Around 6pm we decided to finish cooking so we made this buttery spaghetti with corn and salt and pepper that my mom usually makes, mashed potatoes, gravy, and finished the log.

We ate and it was amazing. Here's some proof. I was so full. I had to go to bed at like 10pm haha.

pumpkin cheesecake

pumpkin pie

So like I said, thanksgiving defeated me and I had to go to bed early. Well Sean came to bed at 1am and was super excited because he found a PS4 on sale and we had been planning on getting one and he wanted to tell me all about it. Well, he scared my sleep away (me espanto el sueño) and I was up until 6 am, but I made it productive. I got ALL the christmas shopping done. 

And today! Was amazing! 

it was 65 degrees out! Insanity! And it was sunny and beautiful and so I went out for a jog/walk after waking up at noon and having thanksgiving leftovers, haha. And it was great! beautiful! everyone was out because it'll probably be months before it's that beautiful again. Walking, running, biking, with pets! It was great. So I made it from our apartment out to this outlook point past Picnic Point which is the one I knew existed, but I went a little further and found another one that's actually a boat dock, but it was empty and there was a bench and I sat there for a little while and just took it all in. It was quite nice. I wish Sean could have joined but he was working :(  It was amazing. Like, I guess maybe that's why people are outside so often here. It's beautiful! The sun felt great, and there was a nice breeze. Nothing like El Paso or San Antonio, haha.  

A walk by our home!

Sean and I took a walk the other day, probably weeks ago. There were still leaves on the trees and they were green, but now they're on the floor and they're not green.
 Here's some pictures:

This is the main road to our home. To the right of this image, probably a hundred feet, is our apartment. Tot he left, about 200 feet, is the lake! 

Sean! 

tiene telefonitits haha 

It's beautiful, but it's too cold to go out and walk for a long time now, but hopefully in the spring we'll walk the whole trail!

Harry Potter Festival! Some of it, anyway

Grad school is both hard and awesome. I am enjoying it, but it seldom gives me time to blog.

Sean and I went to a Harry Potter festival in Jefferson, WI, about 45 minutes away in the beginning of October. Basically the whole town just does stuff to celebrate Harry Potter and people from all over go. It was super packed, though definitely aimed mostly at children, and it was really fun. Here's some pictures:

This was the entrance to the corn maze, which was aptly named Serpent's Maze 

Professor Sprout made an appearance (with a mandrake) at a greenhouse attraction

Some fun signs! 

This was at the town's library 

Some talking portraits!  

I will post the rest of the pictures on facebook but it was great, they'll include a giant sorting hat, a werewolf, the dragon in the basement of the bank, and more of Jefferson, WI. We had veggie dogs for lunch and went through the corn maze. The town was fairly small, there were buses to move people around but Sean and I walked it all because the town was small. There were shops too, and we bought a Hufflepuff pillow and a wand and it's official living room decor because we're adults and we can.  

It was fun and apparently this festival is an annual thing!

The Madison Edition

     We're in Madison! I am starting grad school in exactly 3 days! Sean and I drove across the US and now we're here. We're pretty much moved in and settled in our apartment. We've been exploring the town and it's been good. We really like it so far. My assistantship officially started a few days ago, and I had the chance to go out into the field and see the crop, as well as work on some of the data collection. I'm really excited to start school and my research and learn as much as I can. 

On the way up we ate in several different vegetarian/vegan places different cities.  Here are some pictures: 

In Addison, Texas at Loving Hut

Save the Earth Curry

Pad Thai

Obligatory Spring Rolls

Next we stopped in St. Louis at The Tree House

We both had the Mushroom Ravioli in a cream sauce 

Once we got to Madison, we had dinner at Sa Bai Thong, a Thai place

I had Pad-z-yew and Sean had an eggplant + tofu dish 

Sean made us burgers with the Beast Burger patties once we were mostly settled

Super delicious

We've been out to a place called Curry in the Box a couple of times 

Sean's Masaman Curry 

Here are some other notable pictures we have taken in Madison so far (: 

At the Capital building

A monument to women 

Some adorable chipmunks

I'll probably try to post weekly and keep it relevant. It's been great so far, and I'm really enjoying everything so far.