( Read more... )

I took a pretty hefty paycut last September when my Fellowship ended, and it's finally catching up to us. (I suppose technically it turns out it was a much less hefty paycut than I'd thought because they weren't taking taxes out of the Fellowship. Wasn't THAT A joy to find out when I filed taxes ( Read more... )

The new quarter by all rights should be kicking my ass, but I'm on the second week and so far everything seems good ( Read more... )

We did our taxes this past week. I started freaking out when I realized that OSU never withheld anything from my fellowship (which was more than 3/4 of our income for last year), but I didn't want to tell Liz about it until I'd crunched all the numbers.

Turns out I was right to wait. There was an "American Opportunity Credit" we were eligible ( Read more... )

So despite what last week or so's angsty post may have led you to believe, me'n Liz are going to be able to swing Maryland for Christmas after all! The plan is to drive in on Sunday 12/20 -ish and leave Saturday 12/26 -ish, although those plans are flexible if it makes the difference between whether or not we get to see people ( Read more... )

( My own lonely and depressed pity party )

Funny how I've been waiting four years to make this post, and now that it's finally happened I had to force myself to write it, but:

I've officially lost 100 pounds!
Technically I finished losing it about a month ago, but I got myself all riled up and I was gonna do this big victory lap by posting pictures and posting on Facebook/forums about it, ( Read more... )

So the whole time we've been living in this apartment, our electric bills have been ridiculously low (about $10/month, if you can believe that!). We've asked the power company and the landlord about it in the past, but they both said that these are relatively new apartments that were built to be electrically efficient, and although out bills are ( Read more... )

PHD QUALIFYING EXAM RESULTS, SUMMER 2009
OHIO STATE DEPARTMENT OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING

NAME: Ryan Berke

Area ... Grade (S/U)
Mechanics of Materials ... S
Dynamics & Kinematics ... S
Design ... S

GRADUATE STUDIES COMMITTEE RECOMMENDATIONS
CONGRATULATIONS! You have passed the QE's!

I'm so happy I could print their crappy form letter out and ( Read more... )

Qualifier Exams are officially over. I took my last one yesterday, and although it didn't go as well as I thought it would I think I might still have done alright. This was basically my huge project for the summer and I feel like I ought to have more to say about it, but at this point I'm just glad to have it behind me. I get my results on the