Convocations and Corollas

Wow. It's been a little while since our last post. I guess things got pretty busy. We both finished up our last semester at BYU, graduated, packed up all of our belongings (sans some furniture), and moved to the East Coast. Woah! We'll back up a bit and recap some of our exciting transitions and highlight what we'll be up to in the next few months.

First: Graduation

We had so much fun during graduation! Both of our families (well, most of our family members) were able to travel out for graduation, so we spent several days with parents, siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles, and grandparents. It was a blast! We had just finished the mad rush at the end of the semester where it really seems like things will never end, so we definitely welcomed the break. Graduation was great! We had the processional the first day for all the graduates. Elder Oaks was the speaker and it was great to hear his words of wisdom for us.

The next day we went to the College of Family, Home, and Social Sciences convocation. We decided we only wanted to go to one and we picked mine because I was selected as the Valedictorian for the Political Science department! I was so surprised and honored! We had a lot of fun sitting on the stand during the ceremony and looking out at all the family members who came to see us graduate. So I now officially have a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science. And Matt, the cum laude graduate, has a Bachelor of Science in Bioinformatics. Wahoo! Go Class of 2012! And we took lots and lots of pictures, of course.

Second: Move to East Coast

After graduation, our families left and we packed up everything in our tiny apartment. We gave away most of our furniture, which really helped us save a bunch of space in the truck. We only occupied 9x8x5 feet of space with everything we own! Half of our boxes were filled with books. It is really hard to get rid of them! We just keep buying more and more and we can never get up the courage to try to slim down our collection. Maybe we never will and I can have my dream library like the one in Disney's Beauty and the Beast! Of course we'll be able to afford that :)

Before we left, we tried to visit as many friends and family as we could. We spent a few days playing a grand total of 8 or 9 games of Settlers of Catan with Matt's cousins before we left. Matt won 4 times and I won twice. We're trying to become a serious double threat with that game. I'm just worried that someday no one will want to play with us anymore! So we decided to save a bit of money and catch a red eye flight to North Carolina. Wow. All I can say is that I felt pretty weird for a few days afterwards. We left Utah at midnight and got to Raleigh at 8:30 am. Yikes. At least we were able to spend a few days sleeping and catching up!

All of our things in the back of the moving van

Third: New Car

Neither Matt nor I have ever owned a car. We've been married a year and a half, are now college graduates, and we just purchased our first automobile! Our car is a beautiful blue 2006 Toyota Corolla we have christened "The Blueberry", a not-so-subtle homage to one of our favorite TV shows, Psych. And we LOVE it! So far, The Blueberry has lived up to all the high expectations we had for the famously tireless Corollas. My Mom also graciously gave us a Virginia is for Lovers bumper sticker that both is a good reminder of Matt's proposal in Lovingston, VA and a foreshadowing of our new home in Charlottesville. Perfect.

The Rest of the Summer

So what in the world are we up to this summer? Not too much. And we're ok with that. It has been wonderful to wake up and know that there aren't any looming deadlines, no tests coming up, and no strict schedule. It will be hard to give that up when we re-enter real life in August. Well, we're just going to live it up until then! We've got a trip with Matt's family coming up, a trip to Peru to see Matt's Aunt and Uncle who live there, and a bunch of smaller things. Plus, we still have some big decisions coming up. We still need to find housing in Charlottesville and we've got to figure out everything we'll be involved in up there. Well, until next time, remember to live the bigg life!

Grad School: The Decision

Wow. This has been an intense and somewhat stressful adventure. But like all important and life-changing decisions, this one didn't go off exactly as we planned. Such is life. It turns out that we couldn't pick a school by finding out where we both got in--because none of our acceptance schools overlapped! I got into one of our top schools and Matt got into the other one, but neither of us got into both. How unexpected. But we've done a lot of soul searching and pondering and here is our official decision: We're going to the University of Virginia! Matt just accepted the offer on Wednesday.

UVa has extended Matt a generous stipend and he loved his interview experience there. The faculty were engaging and the research environment was stimulating. He found a lab he is really excited about working in and all his bioengineering dreams will come true in just a few short months.

My future will be decided with much more improvisation, trial and error, and pixie dust. Seriously though, the next five years will be one big journey of self-discovery. Since I won't be getting a postgraduate degree at this point, the options have only become more overwhelming. Do I get a postgraduate teaching certificate? Do I become Suzuki-certified to teach violin? Do I find a position at a local non-profit? Do I apply for editing jobs at local magazines and newspapers? The sky is literally the limit.

Amid all the celebration and confusion one thing has become clear: Charlottesville is the right place for us. We'll be back on the east coast--closer to our families, the ocean, and the Appalachian Trail. What more can you ask for? Here's to our new home!

A Whale of a Brag Wall : 2012

Already?! What have we done already in 2012 that deserves attention? Well, some of it is culmination of 2011 efforts. Here's a list:

• Jessica was awarded a $1500 ORCA grant from the Office of Research and Creative Activities for a research project she's working on as a student research fellow at the Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy (CSED) at BYU.
• Matt was awarded $500 of an ORCA grant as part of a group project in computational biology.
• Jessica is team lead of an internship group working with Innosight through the Students for Social Entrepreneurship program at BYU.
• Matt got an interview at the University of Virginia (UVA) for February 23rd.
• Jessica is helping to publish a student travel magazine called Stowaway. She is one of the magazine's copyeditors.
• Matt is working on a new bioinformatics tool for the Griffitts lab (where he works) that visualizes transposon insertion data.

Thanks for tuning in for another episode of Brag Wall 2012!