Slugged!

That's about what this week feels like... but it hasn't been all bad!  It started with an awesome weekend getaway to SLO for the Homecoming football game!  I got to play in the 40-person alumni band (lots of recent graduates!), and I even got to pretend I was back in band again! 

It was also good to see some special friends again :-)









And, I missed these sunsets...

Unfortunately, the wonderful weekend came to an end with a traffic-ridden commute back to SC.  I guess they had to close part of 1-N for an accident, and the detour they chose was the equivalent of a parking lot.  So, it took over an hour longer than it should've to get back, and then I had to try to finish my homework due the next day... Tuesday I had my first set of labs to grade & hand back (22 lab reports, ~5 hours to grade), along with office hours for E&M.  Wednesday was the dreaded weekly E&M quiz, Wednesday night was grading midterms.  I graded one page of the test, which had 2 problems on the page... not too bad, except there were 200 exams!  It was really slow at first to try to figure out partial credit, but eventually, I was flying through just to get 'er done.  It ended up taking about 5 hours, just because of the sheer volume.  Fortunately, my roommate Jen had the bright idea of a grading party with pizza!  And that made it much better... even just being able to laugh with each other: "Why would the unit for a radius be in degrees??!" (you gotta laugh so you don't cry :-P).  I finished the night with some lab grading, which I fully completely Thursday morning before lab at noon, and then enjoyed a lighter night on Thursday of figuring out how to do the undergrad's homework (for the discussion section I covered today and TA on Monday).  Needless to say, I haven't had much time this week, and with that, I'm afraid I haven't had time to stay healthy.  Of course, the bajillion sick people around probably didn't help either haha.  I picked up a cold Thursday morning; and am now trying to rest up and beat it this weekend (which is much milder than last weekend, in other words, I'm actually getting sleep!).  Anyway, the whole point of this post was NOT to rant about how intense my week has been, but to instead share one of the little moments that brightened it incredibly.  On my way to my second class on Wednesday, in the middle of the intense week, I nearly stepped on this beauty:

I was so excited!  I couldn't believe it!

 Now I feel like a true Banana Slug.  And, I followed the UCSC tradition for good luck... :-P

But as I skipped away, I knew that it wasn't the luck that had brightened my mood.  It was the reminder that God loves me.  Enough to place a banana slug in my path on the way to class!