Checks in the Mail = Love

When I came back from Thanksgiving break, it was like a carnival in my mailbox! I finally received my reimbursement check from my eye insurance, and I also had a check waiting from mysurvey.com. Add that money into what I got today for returning the Zeno I bought (such a waste of money ugh), and I made a $100 deposit to my EF today!! I know it's not a whole lot, but I'm desperate for all I can get at this point. I updated my sidebars to reflect my new money stuff. (On a side note, how much of a bummer is it that I've only paid 3 car payments and have paid of 5% of my loan already, while I've been paying off my student loan for 2 years now and have only paid off 10%?? Ugh.)

I'm getting so excited for Christmas!

I usually hate all the Christmas hype starting before Thanksgiving, but for some reason I am getting super excited about Christmas this year! I was kind of a freak this year and bought most of my presents in the summer at various craft fairs and festivals. So far I got presents for my sister, brother, two best friends, and a birthday + christmas gift for the boyfriend (his bday is Christmas eve). I already wrapped them too-- don't judge! :-P But anyway I hardly have any more presents to buy. Here is a short list of who I still have left to buy for and some ideas about what to get them:

Dad-- Texas Roadhouse gift card $40 (his favorite restaurant-he's mega obsessed)
Mom-- new walking shoes or a Wii game $40-50 (she wants Sports Resort or Boom Blox)
Grandma-- Susan Boyle's new cd + something else (Do you guys have any good ideas??) $40-50
Roommate-- kitchen gadgets or nice stationary $10-15

First day at the lab

Today was the first day of my food study, and I made $15. :-) I don't get paid until the very end of the study, which will be in early December. It'll be nice to get it then though, because then I'll have $75 to use for Christmas presents! The food was pretty good, not stellar or anything, but definitely good enough. You should see the portion sizes they give out though- I'm not sure anyone could eat that much food. I got two whole trays full of stuff to eat, thank goodness I don't have to eat everything!

I have a syntax test tomorrow, and I can't even make myself care about it. I think I studied enough, but I did not study well. I am basically being irresponsible and playing around on the internet instead of doing any work (as you can see). I must say, Facebook aps are wonderful in these situations- I'm completely addicted to Restaurant City...

Sometimes I love grad school (and those times usually involve free money)

I submitted my NSF grant proposal today. When they told me about the grant last year, I was totally meh about it. For some reason I didn't want to do it, even though it's about $30,000 a year for three years and I wouldn't have to teach at all. Call me crazy, right? But this year I've been working on it for the last 2 months, and I finally submitted it today (right under the deadline)! I'm not really sure if I'll win, since it's a national competition and I'll be competing against linguists from freaking MIT, but it was a good learning experience for future grant writing. AND! (possibly the most important part), our graduate school gives you a free THOUSAND DOLLARS just for applying. I am nervous it won't actually happen, but hopefully that paperwork all goes through alright, and soon I'll be getting my moneyyyyyyyyy.

PS- They picked me for the study! 3 free meals a day on Tuesdays and 75 bucks, here I come!

Cool Food Study

Remember how I posted once about how much I love getting paid for experiments? Seriously, one of the best parts about going to a big research school. Today I signed up to do a food study, and it seems really sweet. All I have to do is go to the lab once a week for all three meals and I get paid $75! I mean, really?! I love food, I love money, how is this a bad thing? Plus, it'll almost be like I'm getting paid more than that since I won't have to buy my own food. Today I went in to taste-test some of the stuff, and it seemed pretty normal (and really tasty!). I also filled out a big pamphlet about my eating habits and attitudes, so they'll call me tomorrow to let me know if I'm in. I'm a bit nervous they won't take me though, because even though I think my eating habits are perfectly normal, sometimes other people don't seem to think so. But I guess we'll see, I'm keeping my fingers crossed!! ($75 wow!)