Flying Home

I guess my travel woes aren't limited to work trips.  I took my boyfriend home with me for Christmas this year, and we decided to fly instead of making the 10-hour drive.  The good news was that I had a $400 credit on United for getting bumped last November, so I was able to get us great tickets without paying an arm and a leg.  All went well on the trip to Nashville last week, but the trip home became somewhat of an adventure.  We were supposed to fly back to Lawrence yesterday on a 6:10pm flight.  At about 3:30, I checked my email one last time and discovered that United had cancelled our flight. Uh-oh.  Apparently there was bad weather in Chicago so they were delaying all the flights headed that way.  Since our flight didn't have many people on it, they just outright canceled it.  We discovered that United had put us on a noon flight today that was to go through Cleveland.  Unfortunately, that particular flight sequence included a 4-hour layover in Cleveland.  Lovely.  I looked at United's available flights and discovered one that was scheduled to leave Nashville at 5:05pm yesterday, going through Charlotte.  We sped over to the airport to try to make that flight, but the odds were against us.  We arrived right at 4pm, but proceeded to stand in line until 4:20pm.  Clearly, there was no way we'd make that flight.  So, we just got our boarding passes printed and went back outside.  Thankfully, Mom and Dad were willing to wait for us just in case we didn't make it.  So, we got an unexpected extra night in Nashville, which I thoroughly enjoyed.  I was able to call the pet sitter to make sure the bunnies were taken care of, so that worked out.  Now, here I sit in the Cleveland airport in our 4-hour layover.  I'll admit, it's not that bad of a place to be stuck, and they have free Wifi, which is always a plus.  I have two trips scheduled for work in January.  Hopefully the weather won't continue to be a problem!

Thanksgiving away from home

Yesterday was my first Thanksgiving away from home.  The first time I didn't see any of my family members on Thanksgiving day.  It was definitely different.  My boyfriend and I hung out at home in Lawrence to watch the NFL games.  His brother came over for dinner, which I had fixed both the day before and on Thanksgiving day itself.  It was a hit, and the spread was even similar to what I would have had in Nashville!  I got to Skype with my parents today, so I'm feeling less odd about not seeing them in person yesterday.  I guess this is what happens when you are an adult and you live 600 miles from your family.

Family Fun

Got home this morning from a fun weekend with my family.  We met in Nashville and then drove over to Asheville, NC, for a fun couple days of hiking and sightseeing.  It was an old-fashioned family vacation!  It was also the first time I'd seen my brother in more than a year.  I hope I don't always have to wait that long to see him, though I am glad he is enjoying his time in grad school at the University of Washington.

Grad School, Year 4

Tomorrow I begin my first full semester as a Master's student in the ECU program.  I'm a lot excited and a little nervous.  This is a new direction for me, but I feel like it's the right direction.  I'll still be working in the FXS lab, so I may disappear from the blogging world as I get accustomed to my new class schedule (I have all evening classes instead of morning and early afternoon ones). 

Yet another Illinois adventure

It's only been an evening, but already Illinois is yet again proving to be adventurous for Fragile X lab GRAs!  Our flights were nice and smooth this time (well, except for the massively hard landing at O'hare!), but getting to our hotel was somewhat less smooth.  While driving on a four-lane highway, 3 teenage boys decided to jaywalk across the street.  But they didn't simply cross the street.  They walked out into my lane, and stayed there.  As I approached, they walked toward us and very slowly sidled out of the way (into the other lane).  Even after honking and glaring at them, they didn't seem to think it a bit strange to be meandering among the highway lanes.  A few miles later, things got more frightening.  The highway had filled up since we were approaching the business district, and this meant that cars were frequently making turns into and out of lanes and driveways.  The driver of one particularly large pick-up truck decided that she should be able to turn into our lane even if we were right there.  So she did.  And I swerved into the other lane.  Thankfully there was no one there.  I am beginning to wonder if this rental car is invisible!