Fall Break is over and already I am counting down the days until Winter Break

Fall break was way too short, although that may have been due to the fact that the first half was spent battling severe allergies and someone with the flu (*cough*MK*cough*). That actually probably isn't too far off from how I sound in real life anyway. I have been stuck with a very persistent cough for the last couple of weeks that I also blame on allergies. On the plus side, I did get lots of sleep (doesn't feel like it this week) and made actual physical progress on my research. While purchasing the supplies necessary to build my flow loop, the guy at Lowes who help my undergraduate assistant and me mistook us for "Mama bear and Papa bear buying supplies for a science project." I didn't know I looked old enough for someone to think I had kids old enough to be building science fair projects. I very politely told him that the young man beside me was my research assistant and that we were building a flow loop to do a PIV study of flow through the aortic valve. Also on a research related note, I have been working on writing my NSF proposal and hopefully when it is finished I can post a version of it here so everyone can see all the cool work I will be doing over the next few years. Also, maybe by the time certain friends make it out of med school there might even be a new medical tool in use by cardiac surgeons that I will have had a hand in creating, but more on that in another post.

On Friday I went to the Lighthouse Place in Michigan City with MK. It is an outdoor outlet center with stores from the likes of Burberry, Yankee Candle, Le Gourmet Chef, Correlle, Harry & David, etc. I was hoping I might find a good deal on a bag from Burberry, but I just found grossly overpriced items such as a pair of ear muffs at the wonderfully reduced price of $99. It was a grey day, but we went to the beach anyway. It was neat to walk along a deserted beach and listen to the waves even if it was bit on the chilly side.

On Monday, Nova went in for her rabies vaccination. Cookie had come along for the ride and seemed to be having fun trying to get into everything in the vet's office. She even pulled up the menu to add observing vet students to Nova's appointment and locked it on that screen so that the nurse had to restart the computer. Nova was not having fun. She walked around for a bit, but then came over and stared hiding in the sweater I was wearing until I forced her to come out. During her temperature reading, she showed her discontent by peeing on the nurse. She didn't actually make noise or jump like Cookie does when the actual injection was done. She needs to go back for her distemper shot in a few weeks.