Wednesday I retook my oral PhD qualifying exam. I thought I had done much better than my first attempt, and was pretty confident. However, I could unfortunately hear my committee deliberating through the door after I was asked to leave the room; it didn’t sound good. When they finally called me back in, they told me while I did do better than my last exam, I was borderline pass/fail and they need to deliberate further.

Yesterday, my program director emailed me and told me she wanted to talk to me about the outcome of my exam. So I went into the city, to her office, to meet with her. I already had a pretty good feeling that I had failed. The regulations of the program say that means I’m kicked out of the program, so I was understandably stressed and a bit depressed. I had failed my exam, but I had 4 options: voluntary withdrawal from the program/school, take a leave of absence and take classes elsewhere, do a master thesis and take a terminal masters degree, or appeal to the executive committee of my department to stay a PhD student. I’m only willing to even consider the last two options. I’ve already taken 3 months off to study for this retake, and I’ve put too much into the past two years to just leave. So I’ve pretty much decided I want to appeal. I have the rest of the graduate students in my department behind me; my boyfriend, parents, and my sister are all supporting me on this decision as well. I have a meeting with my program director again on Monday afternoon - she wanted me to take a few days to make my decision.

After my meeting with my program director, my department had a social thing that my boyfriend came with me to, and we had a great time. We usually take the train home from Center City, but we got done with the social in between trains, and the bus takes us by our apartment just as well, so we took the bus home instead. We were walking home from the busstop when my boyfriend noticed some kinda creepy teenage guys in hooded sweatshirts following us. So we crossed the street and picked up the pace home. When we got to the parking lot of our building, the guys crossed the street as well, and approached us. The one guy tried to take my totebag, to which I resisted and kept yelling NO. The other guy claimed to have a gun and threatened to shoot my boyfriend. My boyfriend just kept telling them to calm down and leave me alone. The guy trying to take my bag threw me to the ground, which made it possible for him to yank my bag off my shoulder, and they ran. My boyfriend ran after them for a few blocks to see if he could catch up to them or see where they were going. I called 911; by the time he got back to me, my boyfriend was calling 911 as well. We rode around with the cops for a good hour, but didn’t find any leads. We made a report and I’m waiting for a detective to call so I can make a statement.

We’re getting the locks to our apartment changed, since my keys and ID were in my bag. I’ve also already called my bank and credit card company to cancel all my cards and get new ones. I’ve ordered new health insurance cards, and will be going to get a new state photo ID (I don’t have a driver’s license) and a new school ID today or Monday. Physically I’m alright, I’ve just got a sprained wrist from being thrown on the pavement. I’m more mad and frustrated at having to replace what was in my bag - my wallet was from Etsy, it was one-of-a-kind, my headphones and microphone adapter for my iPhone were in there (luckily my iPhone was in my pocket so I still have that), my school notebooks, including a notebook with all my notes from PodCamp Philly were in there. All because a stupid bunch of teenagers wanted some cash or something. I only had maybe $50 in there. And I was only a couple hundred feet from my front door.

My poor mom is worried sick about me, which is even more awful since today is her birthday I’m fine, but she’s worried about her little girl. For now, we’re waiting for maintenance to get here to change the locks, and then I’ll see what sort of time I have to get new IDs in the city. Not what I planned to do today, but life happens.

When I’m not doing work for school, or for Girls Gone Geek, I love photography and baking. If the whole grad school thing doesn’t work out for some reason, I’m either going to become a photographer or open a bakery for people with food allergies and intolerances.

Along the photography lines, check out Thomas Waters’s Photo Blog. I “met” Thomas through Twitter, since I was tagging along with my boyfriend to Filemaker DevCon this past July. He has some fantastic work up there!

My cousin, who is practically my sister, is having a baby due in late December/early January. As I am the closest female member of our family to her, I’m throwing her baby shower. I’ve only ever been to 2 baby showers in my entire life, one of which when I was 12 for our aunt and one a few years ago for a co-worker. So I’ve been having fun flying by the seat of my pants.

So far, I’ve made a website in iWeb with all of the registry items my cousin wants, since she wants things from MANY different websites. I’ve used a MobileMe alias for an email address purely for baby shower stuff. Unfortunately, not many of the people we’re inviting are very internet-savvy, nor do I have everyone’s email addresses, so I will have to send out snail mail invites. I’m planning on using Moo to print postcards as invites, so I can save a bit on postage. Also, planning on using Bento to organize all the people I need to invite. Keep an eye out out on the Girls Gone Geek blog for a screencast about using Bento sometime soon.

I’ve searched online for an awesome array of co-ed baby shower games. What I have left are the favors, the prizes, and the menu. The baby shower is Halloween-themed, as it’s November 1, and Halloween is my cousin’s favorite holiday, so I’m not worried about decorations really. I have a Sam’s Club membership, so food for the menu and candy for the games and probably some of the favors will more than likely come from there. I might be able to find prizes there as well, but I’m also planning on raiding the Dollar Store and 5 Below for cheap favor/prize stuff.

*whew* Can I just get the the spoiling my nephew rotten part?

I think part of the problem of working from home is the inability to unplug from technology. The computer, phone, TV, and Internet are always there, unlike a project you could leave at an office or job. This week’s Girls Gone Geek, which will be on iTunes Thursday, discusses this topic. The more I think about it, the more I think this is part of what is burning me out this summer while working at home. So I’m trying the following to help me disconnect:

~close my laptop and read an actual book at least once per day
~screen my phone calls
~work out on Wii Fit and ignore the computer for at 30 minutes

Suggestions? Thoughts? Please let me know!

Lazy Saturday with the kitties. Testing the WordPress app on Fozzie, my iPhone.

Is it ironic or just pitiful that I love watching cooking/foodie shows like Iron Chef America and No Reservations, even though there is no chance I can eat anything on these shows EVER?

Evernote t-shirt!

Originally uploaded by melitami

Got my t-shirt for getting an Evernote Premier membership. *geeky grin*

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fciD_II7NI&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999]

I’m in Phoenix, AZ, at the hotel for Filemaker Developer’s Conference. My boyfriend is attending the conference, and I’m tagging along for a relatively cheap vacation with him (work is paying for the conference, so we had to pay for my plane tickets and my meals). The hotel is gorgeous!

We left Philadelphia yesterday morning. We took the bus and the train to the airport, got our bag checked in relatively quickly, and chilled in the airport until our flight to Columbus. We took Southwest Airlines for our trip, since they’re still relatively cheap and they don’t charge for checking bags. Plus I’ve flown Southwest several times before, the people at Southwest are so nice and amusingly funny. The flight to Columbus was fairly uneventful, other than the overweight woman who sat next to me and kept falling asleep and invading my space. Kevin and I spent most of the flight playing Aurora Feint on our iPhones, my new favorite game and app on the iPhone.

We made awesome time to Columbus, actually arriving there early. We had a few hour layover, so we found lunch in the food court (I got a grilled vegetable hoagie and kiwi lemonade, it was tasty, Kevin had Wendy’s), went back through security since food had been outside our terminal, and played with free WiFi and charged our iPhones. (FYI, we both still have 2G iPhones, we’re not getting 3G ones due to the AT&T plans, and we both really just wanted the 2.0 software, which we upgraded to and LOVE.) Flight from Columbus to Phoenix left on time, no problems most of the flight; in fact we got exit row seats with plenty of leg room. I played more Aurora Feint until my iPhone died; Kevin alternated playing Aurora Feint and listening to audiobooks.

We were almost to Phoenix when the pilot came on the intercom, and told us that there were thunderstorms over the airport in Phoenix, so all planes were in a holding pattern. Apparently we didn’t have enough fuel to be in the holding pattern very long, so we made a pit stop in Albuquerque for fuel. They let us off the plane because we were stuck there for a few hours until the weather cleared up in Phoenix. Kevin ended up going into the airport to search for food since it was way past dinner time for us. It was slim pickings; I ended up with a bagel and a bottle of Sierra Mist and Kevin had a generic rice krispies treat and a Mountain Dew. We finally got to Phoenix about 2.5 hours late, found our bag, and hopped in a cab to head to the hotel.

Then we got stuck in traffic for over an hour. It was the most expensive taxi ride I’ve ever been on, approximately $75, and we were both so exhausted by the time we got checked in last night. It was only 9-9:30PM here in Phoenix, but that’s midnight in Philly, so we went to bed.

Kevin’s at the conference sessions, and I’m chilling in the room for the day. I should venture out to find lunch soon, and probably get lost in vast expanse of the hotel. There’s 10 restaurants, 6 pools, a spa, and all sorts of stuff here. So far the having nothing to do and sleeping in the comfy giant king-sized bed is good enough for me

I met with my advisor yesterday to discuss what happened with my epic fail of my prelim, and how I need to not be in lab and be off studying for the rest of the summer. The meeting went well; I’ll be in lab most of this week, on vacation in Phoenix next week, and then sporadically pop into lab when necessary for the rest of the summer.

So here’s what a typical day for the rest of my summer is going to look like:
get up and shower when Kevin gets up to leave for work so I can actually be productive
eat breakfast, take meds
check email, Twitter, etc.
read papers and study while listening to podcasts (e.g. TWiP, TWiT, MacBreak Weekly, TWiS, and of course, the show I co-host, Girls Gone Geek)
eat lunch and play with the kitties for breaks
do 30-60 minutes on Wii Fit
watch TV with Kevin when he gets home from work, eat dinner somewhere in there
go to bed

Such an exciting summer I’m in for! *sarcasm*