Category: life events

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D.B.D.

A few years back, I was at home for Christmas break and had a gathering, of sorts, with some folks from High School to attend.  We happened to have family friends staying with us, who had two young children.  One of those kids, apparently, had some kind of sickness, ’cause that very night, I came down with one of the worst viral infections in recent memory…and it only lasted a few hours, enough time for me to miss the party.  Figures.

Since then, I’ve been particularly wary of babies and the diseases they carry.  Sure, babies are cute, but they’re breeding grounds for a variety of viral and bacterial infections, especially when they go to day care and are exposed to a wealth of things that the other kids are exposed to.  The immune systems of babies are heavily taxed during the first few months to years, as they are being exposed to all kinds of things that they’ve never seen before, let alone the fact that their immune systems aren’t even fully operational yet.  My sister had quite a few ear infections during this period, largely because she was teething and her body simply couldn’t handle all the stress (and Meg has no teeth yet…).  So yeah, it seems like whatever you get from them hasn’t been knocked down in the least, so you end up getting something even worse than you would have had you contracted it from someone older.  (I have no scientific basis for this assertion…just observation…)

I typically refer to these as “Demon Baby Diseases.”  Not necessarily because they come from “Demon Babies,” but because they’re so bad, they surely must be borne of some evil not known of this Earth.  They’re bad.  Truly bad.

In general, my immune system is pretty spectacular and I don’t tend to get sick.  Sure, I’ll get a cold once a year and usually have a non-productive cough for a few weeks in the dead of winter, but aside from that, I don’t get viral or bacterial infections.  I’ve always found this somewhat remarkable, and it probably has something to do with genetics, as to my knowledge, my Dad doesn’t really come down with much of anything, either.  Brooke, on the other hand, is a bit more likely to come down with things.  Granted, I usually work in somewhat sterile environments, so we’re all pretty attuned to the idea of keeping things clean.  Brooke, however, deals with many other individuals in different environments, so she’s hit from all sides with a variety of different things.

So why do I write this now?  Well, we had a nice weekend up here in Iowa sans Meg, as we shipped her off to hang out with Brooke’s parents for the weekend.  By all accounts, the weekend went well: Brooke and I went out to dinner Friday night and went to a winery on Saturday, and Mark and Diana very much enjoyed having their grandbaby with them, and Meg was good the whole time.  But when we got home Sunday, Meg wasn’t feeling well.  She felt warm when we picked her up in Hannibal, but she slept most of the way back home.  She was acting mostly fine, but still felt warm right before bedtime.  But bedtime didn’t go so well.  Really, it didn’t “go” at all.  Brooke and I probably got 4 hours of sleep that night, as we traded off with a crying baby, which is, thankfully, not something we typically have to do.

Long story short, Brooke was home with her Monday and Meg didn’t get much better.  We traded off every two hours over Monday night, and I took off work Tuesday and took her in to the doctor, as her fever hadn’t subsided.  Turned out it was strep.  Eeeeeesh.

The doc got her on amoxicillin and, shockingly, by Tuesday night, Meg was already feeling better.  She wasn’t 100% or anything, but she was able to sleep (which, for a kid that had only slept a few hours over a period of 2 days, was much needed…you know…’cause they’re supposed to sleep something like 14 hours a day or something…).  I stayed home with her again yesterday and she was acting like her normal self, although she was a bit “clingier” than usual.  Last night, again, she slept relatively well.

So I’m back at work and Meg’s going to daycare again today.  Generally, things are back to normal…but now Brooke thinks she may be coming down with something.  Probably not strep, but still something.  And, most likely, a direct result of a near complete lack of sleep over those few days.  Thankfully, so far, I’m unaffected, but I’m ever vigilant.  Always watching for the next Demon Baby Disease.

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New Developments

In recent weeks, Meg has gotten quite a bit better about sitting up.  This, I’m told, is typical of most babies in their 6th month of life, so I guess it shouldn’t be all that surprising.  The crazy thing is just how quickly she seems to be developing!  Within the past few weeks, she has started getting much more “tactile” in her interactions.  She still doesn’t quite understand that her hands are, necessarily, “controllable” by her brain, but she has realized she has them and that she can pick things up with them.

"What can I do with this?"

The most interesting part to me, however, is how she has started to grab my face and grab Edie.  She takes such an interest in touching my face, almost as if she didn’t quite realize that I was alive, or that I was “real,” for the past few months.  As if she now has a different sense of me, or of people in general.  Maybe as if she treated all the people around her much like people on a TV screen: they’re there, but they aren’t really “there,” if that makes any sense.

Meg has always paid close attention to Edie, watching her walk through the house and so on, but now she can actually reach out and touch her.  Thankfully, Edie is just fine with this.  Meg reaches out and will hold onto Edie’s skin (more than the hair).  Meg just stares at Edie, possibly wondering if she’ll move or run off.

"I'm very proud of all my toys!"

Regardless, it’s been fun over the past few weeks watching her.  It’s just cool to watch someone learn things for the first time, things that we adults tend to take for granted.  Not even relatively simple things like “walking” or “sitting,” but just the realization that people exist and that you can actually interact with them, rather than watch them.

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One Decade Down

This coming weekend marks my 10 year Hickman High School reunion – The Class of 2000.  It took me awhile to find the Columbia Daily Tribune’s article about it (way back in their “archives”…that aren’t what I’d call “searchable”), mostly so I could remind myself of the statistics these kinds of things tend to include: 619 graduates, 73% of which were going on to four-year colleges, 13% to jobs, and the remainder to two-year schools or the military.

We’ll be heading down to Columbia this Friday to attend this year’s Hickman Homecoming Game, and hopefully we’ll get to see my old marching band play some of this year’s show while we’re at it.  Otherwise, the general “plan” is for people to get together for some Mizzou tailgating (which I won’t do, in favor of frolfing with Stu…) followed by a group dinner at Boone Tavern on Saturday night.  RSVPs for all of this were done over Facebook, so while I have some idea who is attending, I don’t know exactly because the invites were only sent to “fans” of “Hickman High School Class of 2000.”  If you weren’t a “fan” of that particular Facebook Group, you probably didn’t get the invite.  So yeah, to an extent, I have no idea who’s going to even be at this event, besides a few specific people I’ve chit-chatted with in the past few months.

That all aside, we’re due for a visit to Columbia.  We haven’t been down there for a few months now and Mom is itching to take Meg shopping for some winter clothes (which is good, ’cause Iowa is COLD).

But back to the Reunion.  This will be the first time most of my “Group of Friends” from high school meet Meg.  In a few cases, this will be the first time they meet Brooke!  I guess part of the fun of going to a 10 year High School Reunion is “reconnecting” with friends you haven’t seen in years (or a decade), but it’s going to be fascinating to see what trajectories we all ended up on.  I was friends with a wide variety of folks in high school, ranging from valedictorians to band geeks to space station simulators.  To date, I’m the only one I can think of from high school that was part of that group and also has a child.  I’m also one of the few that is married (although most have “significant others,” to some degree).  Considering 10 years has passed, I find those particular milestones to be rather interesting, as I’d argue that the preceding generations had a higher percentage of individuals that were married and had at least one kid 10 years after graduating high school (my Mom had 2 kids within 10 years of graduation).

I guess  I’m just reflecting on how I ended up here, as compared with others from my graduating class.  Whether it was always subconsciously in the plan to be married, have kids, and have a Ph.D. in time for my 10 year reunion.  Whether that notion was part of other people’s plans, or whether their lives took them in completely different directions than they’d otherwise intended.  Whether I will be considered the odd-man-out, or whether someone else’s shocking revelation will trounce anything I could come up with in this post.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not worried about going to the reunion.  On TV, you see people fretting about going back to their high school reunions, usually that they’ll seem somehow “less successful” than their brethren, or that they have memories of the “high school experience” that no one else remembers like you do (think of the season three 30 Rock episode, “Reunion“).  Despite my questions above, I’m just genuinely intrigued by the idea of how my experience differs from the experiences of the other people I hung out with in high school.  Personally, I think if we were to rate attendees based on their “successes” post-graduation, I’d rate fairly highly.  I guess I’m just wondering if I meet the expectations that my friends had 10 years ago, and if they will all meet mine.

I guess I just find it all to be “curious.”

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Teaching Experience

About a month ago, the FUTURE in Biomedical Sciences group here at the University held a forum, of sorts, to help answer questions from graduate students and postdocs regarding what it takes to get a job at a Liberal Arts institution, especially in the State of Iowa (where these four individuals reside).  The FUTURE group, now in its second year, has multiple professors from Liberal Arts schools across the state (this year’s participants came from Loras College, Drake University, Morningside College and Wartburg College) come to Iowa City to do research for the summer, learning some new experimental techniques and generally expanding their horizons beyond what they can do at their respective institutions.  The forum was very informative, covering a variety of topics including how to write up your resume, what kinds of places to apply to, what to look for in a school, when to start looking for jobs, and what the jobs tend to be like.  More than anything, however, they all stressed the need for experience: the more experience you have on your application, the better chance you’ll stand against other applicants.  I’m not really looking for another job yet or anything, but it’s really good to have this information at the back of my mind as I keep building up that resume.  Hearing them talk about their jobs makes me want to get to that stage even more, providing me with some much needed motivation to get a few things done while I’m here!

Thankfully, I already have a leg up on that one.  Back at SLU, I had the good fortune of getting to teach in “Drugs We Use and Abuse,” a course run by the graduate students of the Pharm/Phys Department.  It is team-taught each Fall to around 50 non-majors (e.g. Business majors, History majors, etc.) and generally centers around…well…just what it sounds like.  If you ever wanted to learn what meth, cocaine, opiates, depressants and caffeine do to your body, then this is the class for you.  I taught in it for 3 years: I was a section director for 2 of those years and course director for 1 year.  The experience was very good, so much that I decided I want to do it full-time as a career: teach at the undergraduate level.

When I took the position here at the University of Iowa, I asked my mentor if it would be alright for me to continue teaching occasionally alongside the rest of the research I’m doing.  He was kind enough to allow it (if anything, he was excited that I’d take a few lectures off his hands).  This October, I’ll be teaching two classes of Advanced Toxicology, one talking about neurotransmission and the other talking about neurotoxic agents (e.g. cocaine, methamphetamine and ecstasy).  Both of these subjects are within my proverbial wheelhouse, so they shouldn’t take up all that much preparation time.  That, and I have the previous year’s lectures in a Powerpoint file to help me throw something together.  While Drugs We Use and Abuse was directed at non-major undergraduates, this class is for graduate students and there are only 12 in the class, so the dynamic will be quite a bit different than what I’m used to.

I will likely get the opportunity to teach in the Spring as well.  That course is in our department, Medicinal Chemistry and Natural Products, and is also targeted at graduate students (and will likely be just as small, if not smaller).  Not sure when we’ll get that going, but it probably won’t be until January, knowing how things go around here.

Either way, I think I’m doing a reasonably decent job at preparing for what’s ahead, with regards to that whole “career” thing.  At the very least, getting to add a few “guest lecturer” points on my CV is always a welcome addition.

And maybe I’ll even have a little fun doing it.  🙂

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The Meaning of Efficiency

One of my favorite video game genres is the “Real Time Strategy” game, or “RTS.”  In such a game, you generate resources in order to build units that the allow you to conquer the other player.  Starcraft II is, perhaps, the most recent example of such a game, and one I’ve been playing a great deal of recently, however the Age of Empires series is, perhaps, best-suited for explaining more clearly.  In an RTS like Age of Empires, you start the game with a few units (Villagers) that harvests resources for you, like wood, food, stone and gold.  These four resources help you to produce other Villagers, but also Military units.  When you’re starting out in the Dark Ages, you primarily need food and wood for “Clubmen,” but as you advance toward “Swordsmen,” you need more diverse resources like gold.

These games are generally part of a larger game mechanic called “resource management.”  Basically, you begin a given game with a finite amount of resources and you choose how to spend those resources.  Some of them should go to more resource-generating (e.g. investments), while other resources should go toward the ultimate goal of the game.  It’s up to the player to decide to what degree they go in either direction.  If you want to win quickly, then you pour more resources into building military units so you can take out the other player.  If you want to “tech up” to a more stable position, but take longer doing it, you pour those resources into investments.

As I said, I’ve always liked this kind of game.  But I’ve never been terribly good at it in real life.

Brooke and I have never made huge amount of money, but the move to Iowa cost us a great deal.  Brooke was unemployed for the first 3 months of living here, and she’s still only been able to get work part-time (but that’s going to steadily increase).  That combined with the fact that we have a baby now means that our collective (limited) resources have been directed in other avenues than what we are used to.  Child care alone is a ridiculous, but necessary, cost.  Therefore, we’ve been doing our best to maximize our available resources as best as possible.  With various payments that one has to car loans, student loans, life/auto insurance, etc., that only leaves a relatively small percentage of cash that you can adjust for whatever purpose is required.

A few summers ago, we started with helping limit our energy costs by getting a single-room A/C unit for our bedroom.  That helped save us $100 in a single summer, paying for the A/C unit itself.  We’ve been using it in our house in Iowa now, helping to limit the excess cost of cooling a much larger space than we were dealing with in St. Louis by only cooling our bedroom(s) at night, as opposed to having our central A/C running too heavily.  Thankfully, Iowa summers are substantially cooler than St. Louis summers, and the house is in the shade enough that it rarely heats up to a significant degree.  We’re already talking about ways to limit the amount of propane we’ll use in the relatively harsh Iowa winters, trying to defend against the northwest wind by insulating specific windows.  We’ll probably spend more time upstairs, as the heat will collect there.  We’ll probably try keeping the house cooler than we had it in St. Louis, as well.

We’re also trying to limit travel to some extent.  When we can take Brooke’s Scion xA on longer trips, we’ll take it (37 mpg), but when we need a larger vehicle, we’ll have to use the Sportage (27 mpg).  I’m driving the Sportage to and from work every day and, on those trips, I’m doing my best to stay around 65 mph, as an engine runs most efficiently within that range.  Doing so, I’ve been able to help limit my gas costs to a reasonable degree.  I’ve also started getting up earlier, getting to work around 7:00 am and leaving around 4:00 pm, thereby allowing me to miss the traffic that frequently causes me to speed around people.

Brooke has done an excellent job over the summer growing vegetables and canning them for later months.  We’ve been able to save a pretty decent amount of money on food already, but those savings will continue on into the winter months.  So far, Brooke hasn’t had to buy much solid food for Meg, either, as the carrots and squash she’s been eating were grown in our garden.  Brooke froze down more of it so she can make more in the next few weeks.  As Brooke already posted about the cloth diapers, we’ve already saved a pretty large amount of money over disposables.  Otherwise, we still shop at Aldi, as always, but are making a more concerted effort to limit the “extras” (although, Brooke has already demanded that her ice cream allotment not be limited).

Our entertainment costs have dropped dramatically, as we don’t have cable anymore and our internet connection is fast enough that we can Netflix or stream everything we want.  I’ve seen one movie in theaters this summer and have decreased the number of games I’ve purchased, as well.  We also aren’t going out to eat as often, partially because we have to hold Meg and would rather have her in a high chair or something (which she isn’t…quite…ready…for…).

We’re still looking for improvements, but I think this is a helpful, albeit stressful, experience.  As in RTS games, if you build up your resource-generating units early on, you get a strong economy that can then provide you with better military units later in the game, allowing you to conquer and win.  It takes keen resource management to do this, as you have to be very, very efficient with the military units you do build early in the game, while instead putting those resources into things that can help you later on.

Let’s hope we learn something now, so that we’re prepared for later stages of the game.

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At Work and Working

Now that I’ve been working at the University of Iowa for over 3 months, I figured I’m past-due to explain what exactly I’m doing. Honestly, it takes about that long when you’re in a new job like this to figure out what’s going on, who you’re working with, and what the general trajectory of the position really is. Suffice to say, it’s all been very interesting thus far and I’m enjoying myself.

As I’ve stated before, I’m a “Postdoctoral Research Scholar” in the College of Pharmacy at the University of Iowa.  A “Postdoc,” as we’re commonly referred to, could be equated with a medical doctor’s “Residency” period.  At this point in the career, you are above a Graduate Student (i.e. no longer taking classes), but you’re still below a full Faculty Member (i.e. no responsibilities with committees, teaching, etc.).  Basically, you have more responsibility and freedom than you did as a Grad Student, but you still report to a mentor for training and guidance.  I have been adjusting to this dynamic over the past three months, but it will probably become more apparent as the school year starts and the graduate students in the lab start attending various functions that I’m not required to attend anymore.

Speaking of which, the other students in the lab are cool.  They certainly aren’t like what I experienced at Saint Louis University (no alcohol allowed on campus…stupid public schools… :-P), but they are a dedicated bunch that do good science.  This is also a larger lab environment than I became accustomed to at SLU, with 4 graduate students and a lab manager (and now a postdoc) in this lab alone, plus all of the other students in the other labs we work with.  The grad students in our lab are working on related, yet different, aspects of Parkinson’s disease, ranging from the effects of neurotoxins on PD-like symptoms to protein binding to dopamine metabolism.  One thing I’ve noticed is that this lab is much more Chemistry oriented than anything we had at SLU.  Considering that I haven’t taken a Chemistry course in over 5 years, I’m having to remind myself and/or re-learn some basic concepts that I haven’t had to use since then.

However, that’s kinda the point of a postdoc.  The general rule of thumb in choosing an appropriate postdoc position is to a). use techniques you already know in a different scientific field, or b). stay in the same scientific field but learn completely new techniques.  I would fit into the latter category, as I’m still working in PD research, but I’m using Chemistry much more than I did in Grad School.  The ability to use mass spectrometry as an analytical technique is especially exciting in that it’s something I’ve wanted to learn more about since Undergrad, but haven’t had access to the equipment to learn on.  Now I do, and I have a variety of scientific questions built up in my head over the past few years of things to look at.

I have just started working on a grant.  The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is the primary government entity that provides scientific research funding, and they offer an F32 grant for Postdocs designed to help defray the cost of their employment, but also provide the funds for you to train in things you don’t know much about.  The application is due in December, so I’ve got some time, but right now I’m working on getting some preliminary data to include in the 6 page research design portion (6 pages is very, very little…I could write 20 pages today on the subject, but figuring out what is important and what isn’t will be the challenge).  The NIH has a relatively high fund rate for F32s, but the award is by no means guaranteed.  I’ve never submitted one before, but I’m going to do my best to write the best one I can.

Regardless, the lab itself is a good learning environment and I’m learning more and more about my co-workers every day.  It took awhile to figure out all of their “inner-workings” (i.e. who will take to my sarcastic personality and who won’t…), but I’m getting closer.  The science itself is very interesting and I feel like I’m learning, hopefully preparing myself for what lies ahead.

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A New(er) Car

So, my 2003 Hyundai Elantra served us well, but a). had 107,000 mi on it; b). needed extensive brake work; and c). needed new tires.  Rather than drop $1000 on various repairs on a car with that many miles on it, and a car that probably wouldn’t perform well in the Iowa winters, we were considering getting something a tad bit newer.

We’d been discussing a 2010 Subaru Forester for awhile, largely because they hold their value substantially longer than other vehicles, they’re reliable, and they have all-wheel drive standard.  However, considering the value of our trade-in (which wasn’t much…), it just wasn’t going to be feasible anytime soon…  Therefore, we expanded our options to look for something closer to what we were paying on our Elantra (i.e. relatively little, compared to what it would be with the Subaru…).  The options are rather limited with those kinds of restrictions, but we were able to find this 2006 Kia Sportage at a local Ford dealer.  It had a few more miles on it than we were initially considering, and it didn’t have 4WD or anything, but it did improve road clearance over our Elantra (let alone Brooke’s Scion xA) and it had more safety features than the Elantra did (e.g. ABS, traction control, ESC, curtain airbags).  Honestly, for the number of miles on the car, I’m shocked the exterior of the car is as pristine as it is. To be fair, the interior isn’t too shabby, either. 😛

Anyway, we’ve got another car now.  This one should get us through winters here, and will certainly be more comfortable traveling on the gravel roads of Iowa (and there are many…).  I’m pleased with it and think it’ll serve us well.  Maybe it’ll end up being Meg’s first car… 😛

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Five Years

June 25, 2005 was our wedding day.  I’m not going to recount that day in particular (besides pointing out how friggin’ hot it was…), and I’m not going to write anything sappy in this post (as that really isn’t our style).  But, instead, I’m going to highlight a few old blog posts here as a reminder of various important (or less important) events in our lives over the course of the past 5 years.

(I’m doing this partially because I’ve been going through a lot of old posts, “tagging” them to make it easier for me to find in the future.  So, I’ve been reminded of quite a few things over the past few days of doing this!)

…and then…there were two…

“Yup, I’m married…crazy, eh? Brooke and I have moved into our new place in St. Louis and are almost done putting everything where it needs to go…by the end of tomorrow, we should be mostly done…until the next volley of wedding presents arrives this weekend…”

…fun with turtles…

“…and on a side-note, I get to play with my new praise band tonight at Webster Hills UMC…those drums won’t know what hit ‘em…”

Al…most…there…

“Otherwise, Brooke and I are preparing to move to Soulard (neighborhood in the City of St. Louis) from our current apartment.”

…what a weekend…

“Arguably the most pertinent part of the weekend, however, came on Sunday… Brooke and I were wanting to get a pet, so we finally did.”

Miracles Happen

“The moral is that it seems that this thing would have happened no matter what Dad was doing or where he was, so it’s pretty amazing that he was at the fire station with capable people instead of anywhere else.”

Meet Edie

“Well, we found Edith Ann at the Humane Society here in St. Louis yesterday…”Edie” for short…”

Yay!!

“So, I had a spur-of-the-moment interview today with a company called Bridges Community Support Services. It went really well, and at the end of the conversation, the CEO/owner offered me a job as a Community Support Worker.”

Edie: Wonder Dog

“We go downstairs to check out how exactly she got the door open. Apparently, as the picture above shows, she didn’t get the door open – she tore a new hole in the bars…”

Meet Meg

“Margaret Jean Linsenbardt (or “Meg,” as she’ll be called) was born at 8:57 am on Friday, March 5th. At birth, she weighed 6 lb 13 oz and measured 19.5″ tall.”

Fin

“Now that I’m out of school, after 22 years, one could argue that I’m finally ready to join the ‘real world.'”

Happy Anniversary, Wife.  🙂


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Passing On

DSC_0105

We went down to Columbia this past weekend for my Grandma’s funeral. She was 95-years-old and took a fall a few weeks ago. Grandma never recovered from it and, thankfully, her pain didn’t last for too long. While my Aunts and Uncles (and Mom…and the whole family, for that matter) were sad to lose her, Grandma lived a very long life and was able to do things on her own for the vast majority of it. She only moved into a nursing home last year, and even then, her heart was always strong.

I’m very happy that Meg got to meet her Great-Grandma. In my case, I actually remember my Dad’s Grandparents (as they passed away in the late-1980s/early-1990s), but I never really knew my Mom’s Grandmother. We do, however, have a picture of Mom’s Grandmother holding me while in the nursing home when I was a baby. Similarly, Meg will probably get to know Brooke’s Grandparents over the next few years (as they’re all in their 70s), but will have a picture (or two) of her being held by my Grandma.

Of course, I now have someone else I can call “Grandma” (or whatever Meg decides to call my Mom, someday :-)).

On another note, some of you may have noticed the server was down over the weekend. We woke up Friday morning to find the server powered down. I tried a few things, but couldn’t get it started again – it wouldn’t power on at all. I was hoping it wasn’t the motherboard, as replacing that would likely have me lose the blog up until my last backup (which was a few weeks ago…grrrrr…). Fortuitously, we were going to Columbia anyway, where I could take advantage of Dad’s stash of components and electrical equipment, so I just took the server with us! Long story short, we tried a few things and eventually figured out it was the video card. The fan on the thing was immovable, suggesting it had overheated. After I removed it, the thing turned back on…but I had to go get a new one from Best Buy in order to actually see anything on the screen. The new card was recognized by Linux without a hitch and it’s all up and running again (obviously). Now I’m investigating ways of automatically backing up the blog database…

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Back Online!

porch

Well, we’re up in Iowa. I’ve got a picture of the view from our front porch, which is arguably less interesting than the view we had on our deck in Soulard. We’re certainly in the middle of a bunch of fields! Brooke talked with our landlord yesterday and he said that the guy farming the land around us has about 10,000 acres he’s producing from. If “acres” were part of the metric system, I’d have some clue what that means…

Anyway, we loaded up our 22 ft truck on Friday in about 3 hrs, thanks to help from Mom, Dad, Ryan, Annie, Jerry and Jerry. I then proceeded to drive said truck the 4.5 hrs all the way to Swisher, IA while Brooke and Meg stayed the night in Hannibal (Sam came with me, so I wasn’t completely alone). We unloaded the truck shockingly quickly, thanks to help on this end in the form of Mark, Diana, Rachel and Jason. Since then, we’ve spent most our time unpacking and getting to know the area!

I’ll leave it to Brooke to post more later. Otherwise, I’ll be starting my position at the University of Iowa on May 10th! More on that later, too. 🙂