marriage planning – Page 2 – a thousand new paths

I may not be the next Olivia Pope…

Published on March 4, 2014March 14, 2014 by Jess StoneLeave a comment

…but I did enjoy a nice trip to Washington, DC.

Two weeks ago I had the opportunity to go to NASP’s annual conference. This year it was in Washington, DC, which afforded us a plethora of tourist-y activities for the week.

First, we hit the monuments, from Washington and Lincoln to the various war memorials. We also visited fun museums like the Natural History Museum and the Air & Space Museum, which are some of the coolest museums I’ve been to! One of my favorites was visiting the Ford Theater to see the place where Lincoln was shot and died.

As far as the conference goes, I would say that the experience will be much more valuable in the next couple of years as I begin to work in the field. While there were sessions geared towards grad students, I didn’t find them to be as helpful as one would expect. Even those seem more applicable in your second year, as a practicum student. So, I’m looking forward to heading back to conferences over the years to continue to build upon the foundation I’m working on in grad school.

On Friday I took a detour and headed back to Georgia to see my family. After a short weekend there, I returned to good ole Waco, Texas. Now there is only one week before I travel back to Georgia during spring break. Then wedding planning will kick into high gear!

As graduate school has been taking up the bulk of my time, planning has been paused. I am excited to get back to that because it really has been enjoyable. It’s funny though–I keep waiting on everyone to get tired of hearing about the wedding, but truth be told, I’ve found that I’m usually the one saying, “Let’s talk about that later.” Don’t get me wrong, I do like when people ask about plans, but when I’m overwhelmed with other things, wedding planning takes a back seat.
I’ve just found that I’m a thousand times more concerned with preparing for my marriage than planning for my wedding.

Washington Monument

Lincoln Memorial

Vietnam War Memorial

White House and Washington Monument

Tour of the Capitol

Center of Washington DC inside the Capitol Building

Train cars underground from the Senate building to the Capitol

Ford’s Theatre, where Lincoln was shot

Me with the Ford’s Theatre sign

frantic february

Published on February 5, 2014March 14, 2014 by Jess StoneLeave a comment

Since when did February become the busiest month of the year? Since I came to graduate school and became an ADPi advisor, I guess. Don’t get me wrong! For the most part, it’s a good kind of busy. I’m just used to busy Decembers with finals weeks and the bustle of the holiday season. But February? Really? I feel like the nice, innocuous month of February planned a sneak attack this year! Let me tell you what I’ve got going on, in pictures, perhaps:

Jan 31-Feb 2

ADPi’s District Leadership Conference in Tulsa, OK

ADPiCrest

First week in February

Giant Psychopathology Presentation–check! (I was stressing about this until the moment I was done presenting. I hate being the first to go, and I really felt like I didn’t have enough time to thoroughly prepare for this presentation. However, I did my best, and I think it went well.)
Alpha Ceremony
Alpha Event
Various ADPi socials which I may or may not attend
Ritual Reviews

Second week in February

First Valentine’s Day with Cason–making a pretty sweet gift, if I say so myself
Diamond Days

Third week in February

NASP

National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) Annual Conference in Washington, DC–I will be gone Monday-Friday this week. Thankfully, because my teachers are in the field, classes are cancelled. I will have a bit of work/reading to do on the plan, but I’m sure it’s manageable.

Last week in February

I can’t even think that far ahead, but I’m sure there’s something!

Maybe this doesn’t look like as busy of a month as I thought it would, but this doesn’t really take into account all the various assignments and quizzes that full-time graduate work entails on top of being a good fiancé, trying to make friends, finding time for me, keeping in touch with my family, and planning a wedding. Life happens. Everyone has things on their plates. I’m still just trying to figure out how to balance it all, and I’m sure that’s something that comes with time and experience.
I feel like I constantly write about how much work grad school is but how much I enjoy it…but it’s true. It’s just one of those things that you can’t understand unless you’ve been there, and I can’t explain if you haven’t been there. Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a way to just make people understand the things that we cannot explain in words when they cannot experience it for themselves? That would come in handy in a lot of situations. My guess is that it would also make the world a more compassionate, patient, and understanding kind of place. So, I’ll leave you with that.

an exciting engagement month

Published on December 2, 2013March 14, 2014 by Jess StoneLeave a comment

Wow! I can’t believe that I’ve been engaged for a month already…and that it’s been almost that long since my last blog post. Needless to say, this has been one amazing, crazy, busy month.

Graduate school completely overwhelmed me from about two weeks ago through last Wednesday. I have no idea why I get so stressed, especially since I’m doing well in my classes. I have to constantly remind myself that things are going well, and there’s no need to stress. Then when I wasn’t feeling overwhelmed with grad school, I was feeling homesick. I just wanted to be back in Georgia for Mercer’s homecoming and family Thanksgiving/Christmas decorating. But it’s all good since Cason kept reminding me that we will be home oh so soon for Christmas break and lots of wedding planning.

Overall, though, things are great. Here are some of the highlights from November:

I got engaged, which you already knew!

My cohort hosted an engagement party for Cason and I, which you may not have known.

I went to a Mercer basketball game in Austin, which was amazing even though my guys didn’t take home a win that night. I met a Mercer ADPi alum, and it was really neat to connect over that!

I became the Membership Education Advisor for the Zeta Chi chapter of ADPi here at Baylor. I got to meet the new officers on the Membership Education team as well as the other advisors. I’m super excited to be involved with Alpha Delta Pi as an alum/Pi member!

Cason and I went to see John Mayer in Oklahoma City, which was amazing beyond words! Phillip Phillips opened for John, and he was also awesome. Even though John didn’t play “Why Georgia,” he played “Gravity,” “Slow Dancing in a Burning Room,” “No Such Thing,” and several songs from his newer albums. I love how he mixes a lot of the older stuff in with his new music. I much prefer that over going to a concert and basically listening to the artist’s newest album. Funny story: John started to play a cover of a song, and this guy sitting next to Cason started yelling, “That’s gravity! That’s gravity!” Then John Mayer looked right over at the guy and was like, “No dude, it’s not gravity,” and basically told the guy that it was a good try though. It was interesting though because John Mayer also told the guy that he (John) would have totally done something like that in a concert–like yell out during a quiet song, I guess. It’s just really cool to see an artist roll with the punches and interact with the audience. At one point a group of people counted to three together and yelled, “We love you, John,” and he made a comment about how he’d never seen a group count to three before. He said he always hears, “We love you,” but he thought it was cool to actually see the group of people counting before they yelled together. When I saw John in Atlanta years ago, he also took time to read practically every poster within sight and responded to each one in the middle of the concert. I know everyone has their fair share of reasons to dislike John Mayer, but he puts on a heck of a concert and really interacts with the audience. It was just generally an all-around fantastic weekend. (Oh, did I mention we were on the third row? Win.)

Not much else is going on besides preparing for finals, getting ready to go home, and wedding planning, but I’ll hopefully have more updates soon!