Boy, Does Time Fly

Hey Everyone! It seems that time certainly flies when you're not back in school, or atleast that's how it has been for me. I'm currently still living back home in the pa and working for the same medical device company as before. I work in Clinical and Regulatory, and my regulatory supervisor is leaving in December on maternity, and I will be replacing her for that time, which is a huge step up and some serious responsibility! I have also been traveling (site monitoring, and presenting to doctors) for one of our clinical trials, which has been great. We are conducting a trial for our cartilage repair device, and have sites all over the US. I spent all of September in St. Louis, MO for 2-3 days each week - I saw the Arch, which was unbelievable, and I touched the Mississippi River! I could definitely get used to the traveling lifestyle and being able to expense everything. :)

I finally got a car, my dad's hand-me-down graduation gift 2000 chevy impala that I am pretty excited about! My older sister just had her first baby on Tuesday, Oct 13th. She had a baby girl, Erica Lily, and she is beautiful. I understand why Megan loves being an Aunt, it is quite the experience!

I am still searching for a position in the pharmaceutical industry, and I hope to go back to school for my PharmD (I actually miss school!). My neighborhood had an Oktoberfest block party this weekend, in the pouring rain, and I met a lot of young, new neighbors who are actually in the industry and offered their connections, so things are still looking good.

I miss everyone immensely!

Brianna

Greetings from Texas

Hi friends,

So it's been a while since I posted on here or anyone for that matter. Things are going alright in Texas for me. My apartment is a huge step up from my campus residences. My roommate is pretty cool. It took him a bit to realize I'm not much of a chatter in the morning though. He cooks a lot of delicious food and actually shares it with me, so that's different from before too. His name is Tyler and he is from Colorado. He's kind of a mix between Jon Avery and my old roommate Mason (Hey Arnold/Football Head). He brings the random/pointless knowledge of Jon with the love of outdoors/randomness of Mason.

I've made a close group of friends so far. It's me, Tyler, and two girls named Kate. We do homework and eat dinner together frequently. They are all classier people than I am. They like to eat better food, drink wine with dinner, and drink microbrew beer. I am definitely known as the cheapest and least classy of the group, which is expected because I fill that role in most groups of people. They are slowly rubbing off on me a bit, so maybe I'll be a classier individual when you next see me. One of the Kates reminds me a lot of Maggie, except without the student affairs mindset. I describe her as a sarcastic, mean, yet humorous and friendly individual. We get along well by making fun of others, mainly Tyler. Another similarity he has with Jon. We haven't gone out drinking much so far because downtown is kind of far away and you can't walk there. I hate not being able to walk there. Also bars are expensive and aren't the chill drinking scene I enjoy like house parties. The Drunk James you all know and somewhat love has a lower tolerance now, so it'll be interesting to see how things go in that regard in the future.

There's a solid group of OSU alumni down here. There is a bar that shows all of the OSU games which is amazing. I don't know what I'd do without that. I'm also on a kickball team with some of them through the city of Austin. It's a really social league with everyone on the team being under 30. We bring a couple of cases of beer and drink on the sidelines and sometimes on the field. It's a nice group of friends I'm trying to make outside of the chemical engineering department. We volunteered to run tables at college fairs at local high schools to promote OSU, so that was kind of interesting. It was nice to talk to students about the great things OSU has to offer.

Academically things aren't going as well. The classes are harder than I expected and I spent a ton of time doing homework. If I had to do Stater activities now, I would fail. The students in my classes are also much smarter, so I can't bank on a low curve now. The biggest problem is that I still haven't been placed with a research advisor. I won't take many classes after this semester and will just be working full time in a research lab under one professor, so the advisor selection process is incredibly important. We submitted our top 3 choices, but I didn't get any of them because my 1st choice was really popular and my 2nd and 3rd choices had already reached their allotment with other students that picked them first. I am kind of in limbo right now waiting to hear back from a couple of professors to see if they still have room for another grad student. I'm down to my last 2 solid options. If these 2 don't work out, I'm not quite sure what to do next. I should figure this out by the end of next week, so I'll either be very relieved or very pissed/depressed.

I did go to the Texas-Colorado game this past Saturday because Tyler wanted to go because he went to Colorado. It was interesting. Their stadium is newer and nicer looking but not quite as big. They have a U-shaped design but their south stands equivalent is smaller but with a massive scoreboard (the godzillatron). They don't use nets behind their goalposts which I found interesting. It did get really loud in there because they were playing really poorly against a lowly Colorado team. I was impressed with the intensity of the fans after the game was well in hand however. That is something we don't do well at OSU. Once we are up 20 points, the fans take it down a significant notch. I was curious to see how I would feel at the game. Would I develop some love for my grad school? Not at all. I really didn't care who won. In fact I mainly wanted Colorado to win just to see the devastation on the faces of 100,000 UT fans. I still take joy in other people's misery in case you were wondering.

I got a digital camera before I left for Texas and included some photos below. I think I'm going to put some up on Facebook as well. I know I'm surprised about this as well. The first one is me and the 2 Kate's at the Texas State Fair. This was a fun day filled with fried food and a "Dancing with the Dogs" show (ridiculous) but I was disappointed in the people watching. I wanted hicksville Texas cowboys and I got none. It was the same type of people you'd see at the Ohio State Fair-weak. Tyler took the picture early so I look ridiculous. The Kate on the left went to Notre Dame (also weak but she's not stuck up like most of the Irish) and the one of the right went to Princeton and is the Maggie clone. The next picture is of me and Tyler with some random food mascot from the fair. I think he looks like Steve Nash the basketball player but some people disagree with me. We also purchased Sham-wows which are the things in our hands. They are awesome. The third pic is from the Texas game. The guy one the right is genius who helps everyone with homework. Then its me and Tyler again. Guess how old the next guy is? ........................37 years old!!!! He doesn't look or act like it, but he's in our first year class with us. He has crazy life stories. Then there's Kate again. Check Facebook for some other pictures. Alright I think that's all for me tonight. Hopefully all is well with you all too. Let's get some more posts on here folks. I miss the good times we all had in Staters and OSU in general. I'll be back in Columbus for Thanksgiving and around Christmas so let me know if you'll be around then as well. Adios!

-James