Andy& Cara, Iron chef, shingles, Qual Exam

The last three weeks had so much happening! Unfortunately, we didn't take as many pictures as we should have.
First off- Andy and Cara, his girlfriend came to visit. They drove all the way out here from Utah!! Cara is interviewing for grad school for art at Yale and RISD. We, of course, showed them around town, played Star Wars Epic Duels and watched tons of Battlestar Galactica.

Can you believe that 1990 Subaru Legacy made it across country with that massive trailer?

 Andy's found shopping in our ghetto Market Basket pretty entertaining.

 Jodi got a kick of all the people being around who'd never felt a baby moving around. (she's laughing, not unconscious in this picture)

 Andy and Cara are amazing artists so they left some life-size art on an otherwise science filled whiteboard in the department whiteboard!

 We participated in an Iron Chef competition held by my good friend Roger. Our team (Andy, Cara and me) took 1st place because we made goat fish ceviche in tomatillo lemon juice, lemon and poblano hummus with red pepper, toasted pita and spinach hammocks, leechy fruit stuffed with crushed pecan/honey/red peppers with honey yogurt dipping sauce and finally pecan breaded whitefish served with spinach over couscous. It was SUPER good! Our dishes are the white round plates on the left

 I don't know what to do with my hands...

 I went with Andy & Cara down to Providence, RI to help them load and unload their art for her RISD interview.

 Andy and I had a nasty mustaches most of the time in honor of mustache march. Before shaving his, Andy turned it into a catfish mouth and even let Cara put eyeliner on.

 We hung out with buddies and ate our favorite- bacon wrapped cheeze-whiz dogs!

 I even found Andy and Cara side by side on a Second Life date.

 They left just in time though because old man winter threw one more curveball at us. Somewhere around this point I also decided to go to the doctor because my back had really been hurting and a nasty blistery rash showed up all over the left side of my torso. It turns out I had SHINGLES!!! I thought only old people got that?! It hurt like crazy and came the same week of my qualifying exam. I survived though and even passed my Qual exam, a grueling 2 hour oral examination allowing me to officially advance to doctoral candidacy- meaning I'll be done next spring. My guess is the shingles gave me the sympathy vote!

 When I got back to the office I found my office mates had covered it with Herpes pamphlets!! (Shingles is just the Chicken Pox virus recurring as an adult, but it's technical name is Herpes Zoster)

 very funny guys.