Ode to Butterball, Pol Pot, Mao, and yes...even Hugo Chavez

I have been wondering how my mice were doing, and well...I found out today that they have all been euthanized. I am not entirely sure why right now, but I know that there were not really any people to run them or handle them, so perhaps it is better. Also their brains did go to another researcher to look at their AcH receptors. While I am quite sad that my sweet mice are gone, I am glad that they are at least being used to help people who have Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. They were able to do one more analysis of their motor function as well, and since I have YET to be able to defend my dissertation, maybe I will be able to incorporate that data into my final paper. As far as my dissertation and defense for those if you who are interested, it looks like we may be able to do it in the Spring. There have been some slow communications between my advisor and I as far as the data analyses, some because I am busy with work and others because she is busy with work. It makes it a little harder when you are not near the person you are working with. While I am glad that I decided to go ahead and take the job here it has made it really hard to get my dissertation done. I think that if I do not have it totally complete over Christmas things could get really sticky with my schedule. Hopefully all the data stuff will be worked out and it will be down to just defending and working that into my schedule.
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Since I have not written in a while I feel like I should update everyone on what is going on here in Virginia. My classes are going ok, even the one that was not going so well. I am enjoying getting to know some of my students better - they are really good kids. I have my teaching schedule, and next semester I will have two section of Intro (10 and 11 MWF) and then Learning (2 MWF) and Psychopharmacology of Psychoactive Drugs (2 TTH). Not a bad schedule. I may also have one person doing independent research (an undergraduate) that will be for anywhere from 1-6 credits worth of a class. That will mostly be supervising him and making sure that he learns the ropes of research. I will have one student that I am advising, although they will officially be under another faculty member who will be supervising me. It will be good training. The last two weeks we had a School of Social Sciences meeting and a full Faculty Meeting. Both were long and I got to learn some about the current situation of the school, as well as how academic politics work. It is interesting to see all of the different strong personalities interact. I wonder how many of the faculty meetings went a the schools I have been at? I am sure that they were interesting....
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Justin is still doing well at Camp Bucca. I have not heard from him in about a week which is very frustrating, but I know that he has been busy. He did get to call last Saturday night/Sunday morning at about 4 am and we were able to talk for about two hours. It was a bit tiring at that time, but nice. His internet has not been working either, so I guess we will see if they can get that back up. He is scheduled for leave around the 25th of November for 18 days. We will be staying here during that time since I will be right at Finals time and the semester ending. While it is not the ideal time for him to be coming home (as the week before that we have a week off for Thanksgiving) there are worse times. I do not have any cumulative exams, so it is just going to be grading and some teaching. That is not too bad I guess.
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I did have an interesting experience this week. On Friday, after the faculty meeting, I drove home around 4:00 excited to put on pajamas and take a nap. I was exhausted, my back had been bothering me all day and I was very happy the week was over. When I got to my door I noticed a problem. My house was covered in orange LadyBugs! I do not mean that there were like 10, or 12....more like 100-200 on the front of the house, the windows, the doors - EVERYWHERE! I remember thinking "At least they are not INside.....". I thought far too soon. After changing I noticed that Cleo needed some more food, so I went to the back room (the laundry room ) and opened the door to find approximately around 40-50 LadyBugs on the ceiling, floor, washer, dryer, walls, door....you get the idea. I was freaked out. I do not like BUGS at ALL. I like infestations of bugs even less. I could not get them off the ceiling!!! I called the builder of my house, as I still have a warranty. They said to call back on Monday and they would send someone out to look and see if there were gaps in the door, but there was nothing that they could do now - this was not an EMERGENCY. My definition of emergency is apparently much different than theirs. I called exterminators...they were closed for the weekend! I did not know you could not get an emergency exterminator?!?!?! Alas, I called and accountant. Sounds like a dumb idea, but it worked - mostly. Jason, the new accounting professor at Ferrum, came over and raked them off the walls, swept them, and sucked them up in the vacuum. After that he used some clear tape and well...taped the door shut from the inside (as that seemed to be where they were getting in). By this time I was much more calm, and would probably be able to sleep without worrying about what was crawling on my bed. More vacuuming had to be done today, since these little bugs seem to be getting in all over the place, but again - mostly we are under control. On Monday, I am going to get an exterminator and my house people out to get this fixed. Not what I call fun....

Thanks Jason!

Not too much going on other than work, school an the above information. If you feel that I have left anything out that is of value please feel free to ask questions, or request a topic, etc. :) Hope all is well with everyone!