Hannah mentioned last week that one of the biggest things about my grad school year is my Teaching Assistant job. I only have 9 credit hours of coursework per semester, but that job keeps me very busy. It's a lot of fun, too! Last semester I TA-ed for three Intro to Engineering classes. It was fun to work with the freshmen who had no prior engineering experience, and to show them how great engineering is. It was also good experience for me, since I've always thought it might be rewarding to teach professionally after I retire from the industry.
The class I'm TA-ing for this semester is even cooler, in my opinion. It's called Build Your Engineering Future, and the goals are to help freshmen develop an "engineering identity," give them a better idea of what real industry jobs are like, build a support network of peers and mentors, and help them intentionally "design" their future and the path they can take to get there. Really everyone should be doing this, but it's especially important for retaining students that might otherwise drop out of school altogether! So I really like the mission of the class. And because it's a brand new course, I'm actually heavily involved in planning the curriculum. That's pretty uncommon for TAs, so I feel really blessed to be where I am!
Some of you may be wondering how [voluntarily] involved I've been in our wedding planning process. Though Hannah's certainly taken on more work than me, I'd like to think I've actually helped a lot! I don't have a lot to offer as far as the smaller details go, but I've definitely helped when it comes to determining some of our bigger-picture things, like venue, caterers, photographer, etc. And let's be real - there's no way I'm turning down the opportunity to go to those catering tastings. That food is GOOD, and tastes even better when it's free!! Lately I've been figuring out what we're doing for suits, and I also helped pick out our invitations. It's been fun! Looking forward to creating a playlist for our DJ, too.
Speaking of weddings, seems like we've started to hit that season of our lives where lots of friends tying the knot. During the holidays, two separate friend-couples of ours got engaged! Both have been a long time coming, so we're really excited for them. Meanwhile, another couple friends are getting married in just a few weeks. This past weekend was the bachelor party. We went up to Hannah's family's cabin in Pinetop for a couple days of skiing/snowboarding, football (How about that Packers-Cowboys game??), poker, and good company. It was great!
This being the start of a new year, I'd be remiss not to mention a few of the resolutions / lifestyle changes we've made recently. One of my big ones is to resist turning productivity into an idol. That means being willing to postpone productivity to live in the moment and make more time for fun with friends/family, or just relaxing. And less tangibly, it means not letting myself worry/stress when I'm not as productive as I'd like. I have this awful habit of literally calculating how much time I "waste" when things take longer than I expect them to. Doesn't that sound miserable? I finally realized how ridiculous it was, and even just over the last couple weeks this change has felt really liberating.
Meanwhile, Hannah's been picking up running and killing it! She's been on track since October to run a half marathon in the next week or two. I've been running with her once a week as best I can, but her endurance has definitely surpassed mine. We'll see if I can keep up during the real thing! Either way, I've been really impressed not just by her fitness but by how committed she is to this goal. I hope I can do the same in my own fitness goals this year!
In addition, her whole family's starting to adopt a new lifestyle of "minimalism". Basically the idea is to get rid of everything in your life that doesn't provide value. For some [extreme] people, this means only owning a handful of outfits and very little furniture in their homes. For others, like us, it's more of a healthy mindset to adopt so we live more simply and avoid turning consumerism and "things" into idols. It's financially responsible, too! Through this lens we can better determine whether we really should buy whatever it is we're considering buying. Hannah's sister is leading the charge, challenging us to sell, donate, or throw away X items each day of January, where X = the day of the month. So yes, that would mean eliminating 1 item on the 1st, 2 items on the 2nd ... all the way to 30 items on the 30th. Crazy, right? Hannah and I don't really have enough stuff to carry that on the whole month, at least not without going to extreme levels, but we're doing our best!
I think that covers all the big stuff... so here's some pictures from other things over the last several months. Hannah already covered some of these things in her last post, but it's fun to include my own pictures, too!
We had way too much fun registering at Target and Bed Bath & Beyond!
ASU football games were fun, despite an underwhelming season. Here's a shot of us with my brother... being photobombed, of course. What a poker face. Guy's a straight up G.
Nathan and I finally cleared 300,000 points on the Toy Story Midway Mania ride during my family's October trip to Disneyland! #lifegoals
My beautiful fiancé proudly displaying her signed-and-approved thesis paper! We celebrated with a delicious lunch at Chop Shop.
After much begging and pleading, Hannah agreed to ride Splash Mountain with me during our December trip - twice!! No one else was in the log because it was a chilly night. The first photo accurately displays our respective levels of excitement.
Also on our December trip we said goodbye to one of our favorite rides: Tower of Terror. They had a nice little montage set up for pictures in front of the ride. It was a cathartic moment.
Hannah had a bridal shower last week! I'm sure she has many more pictures of it, but I like this one of her with our grandmas. (Bonus: in the bottom right corner you can spot one of the first pictures of Hannah and me together. It was from her sister's wedding almost six years ago!)
Happy new year, and good luck in your own resolutions and lifestyle changes! Er, not that I'm assuming you need to change your life... I'm sure you're doing just fine, thank me very much.
