Only 6 weeks of school left! That is a frightening thought as there will be much that needs to be done in this short period of time. Talking about frightening, we have posted a few Halloween pictures online. Click on the "Photos of the Month" tab to check them out.

Marc is feeling slightly discouraged by his masters paper, which he has been spending most of his time on lately. His committee is a tough one and they all have high expectations of him (for good reason), but as as result this means that they all want him to build on what he already has. If he were to continue using the same data & topic for his dissertation, this may not be so bad, but because this is really just a masters paper which he is unlikely to pursue into a dissertation, it seems a bit of a drag.

On my end, I have gotten verbal agreements from 5 faculty to be on my dissertation committee and they now have all received a draft version of my proposal (which in all honesty is still quite a mess and has lots of important information missing despite already being 22 single line pages long!) I am waiting to hear lots of comments and suggestions for improvement from them -- it will not be pretty.

Our ceiling that leaked a few weeks ago have FINALLY been repaired, so we just got our dining & living room to be back in order tonight.

As a break, Marc & I went to the Monet exhibit at the NC Museum of Art in Raleigh today. It is really a very impressive collection they have managed to put together. See http://www.ncartmuseum.org/monet/
They did a great job walking the visitors through the various stages of Monet's life and the many series he created in the towns and cities of Normandy. He was one prolific painter!

It was also a wonderful pre-cursor to our trip to France in December. Marc & I need to start thinking about places we want to visit while we are there. Suggestions are welcomed!

I have to say that as much as grad school is consuming, there are great perks to having a flexible schedule and being able to do other things in the middle of the week & day, as well as during holidays!

~ Shuwen