So much has happened in the last year and a bit!

In october 201, caleb and I adopted a little mutt from the local humane society. She was about 10 months old, weighed less than our (admittedly large) cat, and lept into my arms when I opened her cage at the shelter. I knew immediately that she was ours. Somehow, she was house trained, named, microchipped, vaccinated and spayed at that time. When we adopted her, she was at the humane society for a second time in her short life, which boggles my mind since in my opinion she is the most darling of dogs in the universe. Since then, Caleb and I have taught our now fatter papillon cross several tricks, including important ones like sit, stay, come...and she can dance, shake our hands, give us high fives, jump through hoops, go through tunnels, roll over, and balance on a high board. She is our delight. Though, I'm not sure if the cat loves her as much as we do.

In May of last year, I finished my master's proposal and got it approved by my committee. throughout the summer, I finished quantifying proteins in my research collection and then have put everything on hold until I can figure out how to statistically analyze my findings. Basically what I mean is that I've procrastinated writing my thesis/defending for a very long time.

In August I had the opportunity to go to Japan for three months, and starting on the last day of August, I found myself in a tiny dorm room in "rural" Ibaraki taking Japanese language courses, an agriculture tour class, and a position helping a fellow master's student in a molecular biology lab. It was an amazing experience, which simultaneously felt like much more than three months and much less than three months. I missed my husband and pets very dearly, but still managed to have a good time.

When I returned home, my husband and I decided to start trying for a baby. So far, no good. I'm not sure but it seems being on Birth Control for the last five years and then disrupting all my schedules to go by myself to Japan for three months took a harder toll than I expected on my fertility...so we'll just leave it to nature now and hope it sorts itself out in a reasonable amount of time.

Dang I'm so glad sitdiary is back. I have missed it a looottt