Yankee Stadium!

If you've read my previous posts about baseball games, you already know that C and I traveled around the country and saw a game in all 30 MLB stadiums.  Since completing that list, some of the stadiums have been replaced, and so we are slowly making our way back to the new stadiums one at a time.  In 2013, we went to a Nationals game in Washington, DC, and in 2014, we went to a Pirates game in Pittsburgh.

One question we are often asked is, "What is your favorite stadium?"  There are some very nice ballparks that we thoroughly enjoyed, but to be honest, there are also some truly awful ones.  In my opinion, one of the very best, if not my absolute number one favorite, is Camden Yards.  I say that not because it is the closest thing we have to a "hometown" American League park; I've loved it since before we moved to this area.

So when we had the opportunity to go to an Orioles game last weekend with my brother and sister-in-law, we jumped at it.  Unfortunately, the weather did not look promising, and because of a thunderstorm, we feared the game might be cancelled.  However, luck was on our side and the game only ended up being delayed by an hour, and once the storm passed, the weather was practically perfect for a night game.  Our seats were on the first base side, in row 2, but no one sat in front of us, so our view was pretty spectacular.

While we waited for the game to begin, I did a quick photo collage and posted it to Instagram.  In between innings, some Instagram photos were shown up on the jumbotron, and mine was one of them!  I felt way more pleased and excited than I probably should have…but I was seriously thrilled to see my photo up there!  It really does not take much to make me giddy.

This weekend, we headed up to New York to see at game at the new Yankee Stadium.  I had given C the tickets for one of his birthday gifts, and we'd been looking forward to the game for several weeks.  We left very early on Saturday morning and arrived in NYC around 10:30 am, which left plenty of time to wander around the stadium before the 1:00 start time.

A lovely sunrise to start off our trip!

As you can see, the weather was gorgeous and the ballpark is absolutely beautiful!

There was this really cool wall of player photos, that changed from photos to silhouettes as you walked by...I was a little obsessed with it.

The game itself was a bit of a letdown – the Yankees ended up losing to the Rangers 15-4.  We actually left during the 7^th inning because it was clear that the game had gotten out of hand and we were far from the only people doing so – there seemed to be a mass exodus out of the stadium when we were leaving!

One thing that I thought was super cute was when the grounds crew came out to clean up the infield and "YMCA" was played to get the crowd dancing.  It's hard to tell from this photo, since I was caught off-guard, but the grounds crew dropped their equipment and spelled out "YMCA" during the song.  Adorable!

One thing I did not like was that my Instagram photo of the field did NOT make it onto the jumbotron at Yankee Stadium.  Camden Yards is responsible for my unrealistic expectations that my photo would be displayed!  Apparently word had not made it from Baltimore to NYC that my Instagram photos are jumbotron-worthy.  Or perhaps I was not clever enough with my hashtags.  I guess we'll never know.

On Sunday, we drove up to Tuxedo Park for a quick visit with family and if I am being honest, I did not want to leave because it is just so peaceful there.  We drove my YaYa home to his new retirement community in NJ before heading home.  On our way, we stopped at a rest area in Maryland and grabbed at bite to eat at Earl of Sandwich, which may not seem like a very big deal, but we LOVE Earl of Sandwich!  It's the little things in life, right?!?

When we came out of the rest area, the sky was so beautiful that I had to take a photo of it:

Yep - that's the moon!

We got home around 9:30 pm - definitely a quick trip…only 40 hours from start to finish!  We had a great time, visited a gorgeous stadium, and spent time with family!

Six more new stadiums to go!

Happy Tails to you!

The Perpetual Student

I was thinking about how long I've been in school and decided to do some quick math.

While I understand that some people's definition of a "full-time" schedule might actually be fewer classes / credits than what I've listed below, I operated on the following notions:

-  30 credit hours constitutes a full-time schedule at the Bachelor's degree level

(10 classes per year / 5 classes per semester)

-  24 credit hours constitutes a full-time schedule at the Master's degree level

(8 classes per year / 4 classes per semester)

-  18 credit hours constitutes a full-time schedule at the Doctorate degree level

(6 classes per year / 3 classes per semester)

So I looked at all of my transcripts and figured out how many years I was a full-time student at each level using this formula:

credit hours earned

divided by

credit hours per full-time academic year

equals

number of years

Bachelor's

227 credit hours ÷ 30 credit hours = 7.56 years

Master's

96 credit hours ÷ 24 credit hours = 4 years

Doctorate

59 credit hours ÷ 18 credit hours = 3.28 years

Then I added all of those totals together:

7.56 years + 4 years + 3.28 years = 14.84 years

SO what does this mean?

I have earned the equivalent of more than 14 FULL-TIME YEARS of college credit.

That is more than all the years I spent in school from kindergarten through high school.

How crazy is that?!?

Happy Tails to you!

Hurdle #3

Today was a BIG day.  As I explained when I wrote about Portfolio 2 back in November, part of my program is going through three portfolio reviews, with the third one coming after all coursework is completed.

I PASSED PORTFOLIO 3 TODAY!!!!!!!!

I have a new title:  Doctoral Candidate!

And I am officially "ABD" – All But Dissertation!

When I was offered a three-year scholarship in the spring of 2012, this about summed up my attitude:

And now that I have passed all three Portfolio Reviews, I have two huge hurdles still in front of me:  Proposal, which I am going to begin on Monday; and after I successfully write and defend my Proposal, the final hurdle will be Dissertation.

I don't know who coined this phrase, but at this moment in time, it is resonates very strongly with me because I cannot believe I am done with regular classes:

I have a million people to thank for supporting me through this first part of the program – my fellow doc students, who are always reassuring and happily commiserate when things are tough; my amazing committee, from whom I have learned more than I ever imagined possible; my friends, who keep me sane and tell me they believe in me; my awesome work wife who checks in constantly and brings me food when I am too busy to go to the grocery store; and my family members, who support me in every sense of the word.

But there are two people who I absolutely would not have survived these three years without.

First, my mom, who drops everything at a moment's notice to help me with any and every thing I need – especially with caring for our dogs when I have long days or sitting at my house when I can't stay home with a sick dog – and who is the queen of encouragement.

Case in point:  I texted her as soon as I got out of my Portfolio Review today to tell her I had passed and this was her text back to me:

How lucky am I

to have this phenomenal woman in my life?!?

Second, and most importantly, C, who has made countless sacrifices for me and has kept the entire household running, particularly over the past two months while things have just been insane for me.  He is my biggest cheerleader, he makes me coffee at all hours, and he beautifully handles the most daunting of tasks – waking me up from random naps when I have work to do but accidentally fall asleep from sheer exhaustion (if you know me, you are well aware that waking up is my very least favorite thing to do of all time and I am a bear).

So I have a few days to catch my breath before the Proposal class begins on Monday.

And then on Tuesday, the next big adventure in my teaching career begins…I am teaching a Master's level class on Literacy assessment for teachers in the Reading Specialist program.  I am so excited!  I am the professor!  Not a TA, not a co-teacher, not a co-instructor, but THE PROFESSOR!

Visions (or perhaps delusions) of Professor McGonagall…

:-)

Happy Tails to you!