Ali’s Life

This blog is always the last to hear bg news…

Anyway! I got a new job! Starting August 6th, I will be working at Macalester College in St. Paul as the Academic Information Associate for Languages and Fine Arts! I am really excited. This job should be similar to my job at Gustavus, but with a whole bunch of bonuses, including a great location, diverse student body, more vacation, and the chance to work with other Carleton grads. I am super excited, but also nervous. I have a million things I want to do when I get there, and I only will have about 3 months before I have to take off for maternity leave. What timing.

Due to the job change, Ethan and I are selling out house (if you are interested in a 3br 2ba house in St. Peter, let me know!) and moving into a rental townhouse in Apple Valley. We sign the lease tonight! The townhouse is really cute, and actually quite big for the cost of rent. I can’t wait to get moved in so I can FINALLY start to set up the baby’s room for real. I can’t wait to get curtains ordered and furniture set up and all that jazz.

So this friday is my last day at Gustavus. There are definitely things I am going to miss about this job.  Mostly I’m going to miss my student workers. They were so awesome. I only hope that the students I have working for me at Macalster are awesome too. Otherwise I might have to force a couple transfers. ^_~

Anyway, that’s the big news. I can’t wait to get all settled in the new place and new job. It is really helping keep my mind off how slowly this pregnancy seems to be going (I am 24 weeks now).

Hello. I recently returned from the IALLT (international association for language learning technology) conference at Tufts University in MA. The content of the conference was very good. I just to see what other colleges are doing, and get some new ideas for my own school (as well as a few good ego-strokes when I saw something we were doing better than others). Unfortunately the organization of the conference was terrible. The hotel we were at was supposed to be a mile from campus, but ot was more like 2 1/2 miles, which is a bit much for a pregnant woman to do in late June. And there were a few other things that made me frustrated. But overall it was a good conference. I hope to go to the IALLT conf in 2009 in Georgia.

Anyway, now I’m home and back at work. Ethan and I are getting started on some summer projects. I am now 21 weeks pregnant with my very active little girl. Hmm, I think that’s about it for now, this was a short update. Take care!

I have not been good about updating. Hmm. Well, it is summer now, which means the campus is quiet and big projects can be done. For my center, this means tearing down a wall and expanding the international tv and movie viewing room. It will be pretty awesome once it’s done, and I hope it will encourage students to hang out and watch foreign language tv more. I know that the comfy couches and relaxing space in the Asian Languages Lounge at Carleton got lots of students to sit and watch Japanese and Chinese TV and discuss language, so I guess I’m trying to duplicate that here at Gustavus.

In non-work-land life is going well. We found out a few weeks ago that we are having a GIRL!! There are some more ultra-sound pictures up in the baby part of the page, and the 16 week ultra-sound video is available on YouTube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0d25WWUneoY

We are thrilled to be having a little girl. We are still doing the room in blues and greens with a dinosaur theme. It will be so cute. We have a name picked out, but you’ll have to ask me in person, because I’m not sharing it with teh internets yet.

At the end of May Ethan and I took a nice, long, and action-packed vacation. First we flew out to L.A. for the Star Wars Celebration IV convention, celebrating the 30th anniversary of the original Star Wars film. It was pretty awesome. There were something like 40,000 - 60,000 people there each day,  but the center was big and there were lots of things to do, so the lines weren’t as bad as at Celebration III. I got to see and meet Carrie Fischer (Princess Leia) and Anthony Daniels (C-3PO). And we bought a 2+ foot tall Yoda doll for Baby.

After 4 days of the convention, we took the 5th day in L.A. to visit with my friend Amy, who had been my roommate first term senior year. We went to Rodeo Drive (spelling??) and then to the beach. It was really fun, despite the sunburn and 3 blisters I got. Her family had us over for dinner and then took us to the airport for our red-eye to Boston.

In Boston we spent 3 days hanging out with another good college friend of mine, Josh (http://www.joshourisman.com) and his girlfriend Jessi. That was fun too. We got lots of good food, although it’s hard to be in a good Irish pub in Boston when you can’t have a beer. We left Boston on Friday to head up to New Hampshire for my cousin’s wedding. (I told you it was a long trip.) The wedding was nice, although my favorite part was going swimming at Connie and Nick’s lake home.

Anyway, that’s the vacation. I’ve been back at work for about a week now. We’re actually leaving again soon for a conference, but I’ll tell you about that once I’ve gone. In the mean time, take a look around the baby part of the page, as it is the most up-dated at the moment. Bye.

I have made it safely into the second trimester! Baby and I are still doing well. My tummy is starting to really grow, and my nausea and tiredness of the first trimester has faded away. Although now I get super hungry instead! It is really neat and kind of weird to see and feel my belly grow. I’ll having a hard time imagining that I can really stretch to accommodate a full-sized baby! I put up more text and pictures in the baby section of the page, so take a look. Also, I should be finding out the gender in about a week and a half, so check back here then for the news!

In other news, my Chinese class at the U of MN is now over. It was a great experience, although quite taxing during the time that over-lapped with my morning-sickness period. I’m glad I took the class though. Hopefully I’ll have the chance to use my Chinese often enough to keep in practice.

I also added pictures from Chinese New Year to my pictures section. Take a look! Although I warn you, it may make you hungry!

I have added a section about the baby to my site (http://ali.ethanet.com). It has some pictures and the story of this pregnancy thus far. It will eventually be a narrative of the entire pregnancy and birth of my first child, but I still have months left to go! Please check it out, and visit back often for more updates.

I haven’t mentioned it here yet, so here’s the official announcement post. I am pregnant! I am due November 5th, that means I am currently 12 weeks pregnant. The morning sickness is finally dropping off and my clothes are getting uncomfortable. The whole thing is very exciting. I already had my first ultra-sound, but it was too early to tell the gender. Hopefully we’ll find that out at my 16 week appointment in 4 weeks.

Ethan and I are very happy. We already have lots of plans for the bedroom that will become the baby’s nursery. My family is also excited, which is really fun to see. I can’t wait for my little baby to grow up and pop out. Right now baby is only about 2 1/2 inches long, but is growing rapidly. November feels like forever away, I can’t wait to meet my little baby!

Once the baby does get here I am planning on taking the full 6 weeks of paid maternity leave offered by Gustavus. That will basically take me from the middle of fall term through to the end. I will start work again in January. And I am still planning on accompanying the Gustavus orchestra to China in January. There are lots of other plans that need to be made between now and November, but we’ve got time. ^_^

I will definitely be updating this blog as the pregnancy progresses! So keep coming back! In the mean time here’s the first ultra sound pic!