My Month in Review series continues.  April was an incredibly hectic month for school and work.  The four weeks in April were the last four weeks of my Spring semester.  I panicked and rewrote my calendar a dozen times.  I had absolutely no motivation to get through my thesis edits or to study for comprehensive finals.  Somehow I made it alive and am safely on the other side.

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Song

She Moves – Andy Moor ft. Carrie Skipper

Sometimes you’re torn and you are broken

And it takes a lot to get back on your feet

but in your heart she gives you that feeling

and it pushes you to where you want to be

Sometimes you’re torn and you are broken

So take those fears away and live just for today

Open up and let your love shine through

She might never know if you don’t ever show her

You’ve got to show her how good it feels

Don’t be shy cause she looks to you

and you’ll find she Moves

Music throwback:

I spend a lot of time in my car and occupy that time by listening to music (and singing and car dancing).  I don’t make keeping it tidy inside a particularly high priority on my To Do list, so I decided it was time to clean her out.  I found dozens of CDs tucked away in little compartments and in a small CD case.  I decided it was time to change out some of the CDs I’d apparently left in my car since I moved here almost two years ago.  Before I took them out, I listened to them one by one.  I found two old mix CDs that I’d made in the fall of 2005 during a tough time in my life and it was interesting to listen to what I was feeling and thinking at that time.  I also found these albums in a CD case and listened to them for days on end.  They are perfect, they have been part of my life for over a decade and they make me unbelievably content.

Movie

I haven’t been to a movie theater since my birthday weekend.  Sad panda.  At least I have Netflix in my life, which is how I finally saw the beautiful, tragic, exhausting film version of Milan Kundera’s book, The Unbearable Lightness of Being.  I am so thankful I waited to see this as an adult.

Podcast

This month, Armin Van Buuren made a little Trance history.  He celebrated his 450^th A State of Trance (ASOT) podcast by taking it on the road to five major cities across the globe.  Ok, many DJs take their podcasts across the globe and then share their live set online later.  This time, with ASOT450 Armin broadcasted the set live for the whole world to experience together. Music, especially electronic music, transcends language barriers, cultures, geographic boundaries, etc.  Music unites us in ways that no other form of art can unite us.  It is true that music makes us one.  I was unable to listen to all of them, but my favorite was the show from Bratislava with guests Myon and Shane 54, Dash Berlin and Gareth Emery.   The show from Wroclaw, Poland was also incredible and I wish I could have been in NYC the two nights ASOT450 came to the US.

Obsession

I am moving this summer into my own place.  As most of you know, I live in a two story apartment built onto the garage of my grandparents’ house.  It is time for me to move on now for various personal reasons beyond the fact that the commute to work and school is killing me.  This month I began my apartment/house shopping adventure. I spent a substantial amount of time looking into how to section off rooms and maximize space within a studio or one bedroom apartment.

I read so many posts and looked at pictures at Apartment Therapy. I am looking forward to finally having a place I can consider my own for at least three years.  I have moved so many times in my life, but have never really been able to call a place my own.  I never stayed in one place for very long and many of my personal belongings are still in Alabama hidden away in boxes at my mom’s house.  I plan to dedicate a few posts to the moving process!  Here are some of my favorite small spaces:

Moments

I proposed my Thesis on April 12^th at 1pm.

It was an intense, nerve wracking, exhausting two hour session.  I had to change some of my hypotheses and analyses, but I learned from it.  I had two major blonde moments while my committee was grilling me on my planned use of an ANCOVA (analysis of covariance).  In case you’re unaware, the topic of my thesis: Emergent leadership as a function of task difficulty and role assignment in a distributed computer game.  My dependent variable is emergent leadership.  My independent variables are role assignment (immersed vs. not immersed in the game) and task difficulty (easy vs. difficult).  My covariates are video game experience and personality because the literature indicates these variables account for some variance in leadership and video game training performance. The point is, each covariate is measured with a handful of individual factors.  One committee member asked me how I would assess which of those factors to include in my analysis.  I was so nervous I completely blanked on freaking ANOVA basics.  I was utterly embarrassed.  (The answer is: You have to check the correlation between that particular factor and the dependent variable.  A covariate is included in the model only if it correlates significantly with the dependent variable.)

I finalized all my travel plans between May 20^th and June 30^th.

Flight and hotel reservation confirmations are printed and placed in my Travel folder. I’m headed to Vegas for Bloggers in Sin City and then will head to Colorado and Boston for a few days to see some friends. I’m back in town for a week to catch up on work and collect some thesis data before I head to DC for a week for training (and for playing).  After only three days of rest, I will head out to Glasgow, UK for a week for work.  I am truly blessed to have a job that allows me to travel (i.e., to work for the government and to be a Human Factors specialist whose mentor worked it however she could to find the funding for me to go on this UK trip).  I am also blessed to have been just poor enough in 2009 to get a fat tax refund check to pay for my vacation.  Thank you, taxpayers, for making my summer quite exciting.

Activities

I added the 30 Day Shred to my Netflix queue, practiced yoga at home, started walking and joined my school’s fitness center.  I have gained thirty pounds since August 2008 and I have to get in better shape physically.  I hope that by the time Fall rolls around, exercise will be part of my routine again.  An hour of exercise is better than hip pain (I have a hip injury), stress and a size 10.  Anything is better than a muffin top and a thesis gut.  Just sayin’.

Beauty product

Paula’s Choice Almost The Real Thing Self Tanning Gel.

As most people know, I have fair skin covered with freckles.  I burn easily.  I’m allergic to chemical sunscreen and have to use physical sun block.  I wear physical sunblock (Clinique’s Super City Block) daily over my regular moisturizer in the winter and alone in the summer.  I refuse to tan in a tanning bed or “lay out” for hours because I don’t want to destroy my skin.  I saw what tanning did to my grandmother’s skin and to my mother’s skin.  Melanoma also runs in my family and I already am covered in freckles and moles.  I would rather bare white legs than have sun spots show up at 40 or to develop melanoma at any point in my life.  I also don’t want wrinkles before I absolutely have to have them.  Yes, I’m a little vain like that.

I have fully embraced my fair skin, but the truth is: tanned skin looks so much nicer in the summer.  My solution to getting a golden glow has always been self-tanner, but this has deemed a difficult option for me.  Often self-tanners smell awful, are expensive, and/or turn orange on my fair skin.  I bought a tube of Paula’s Choice self tanning gel and used it three days in a row exactly as recommended.  I absolutely loved it.  My skin looked golden, but not too tan and not at all orange.  I plan to make it part of my summer routine.   I will use a tinted moisturizer and a bronzer on my face in the summer to even out my skin tone.

Best posts in my Blogosphere

Derek wrote a wonderful post about love and work: What Love Taught You About Work.

I wrote a guest post (my very first EVER guest post) at Nomadic Foodie:  My favorite food spots in Hampton Roads.

Doniree wrote yet another inspiring post about how we can bring the lessons we learn on the mat during yoga into our lives off the mat: What does it mean to live with an open heart?

Julie at Escape the Ivory Tower hit the nail on the head when she wrote about the Myth of Merit.

Michelle shared how she found herself through the study of Latin and how “the frown” will always be part of her: Finding Myself, Latin and the frown.

Nate celebrated the One Year Anniversary of It Starts With Us!

Liz and Oughta Say collaborated to give us single ladies the low down on How To Be A Cuddleslut.  The first rule is still my favorite: “A badass bitch does not settle. Do you hear that? She does. not. settle. Let it sink in. Let it marinate for a few seconds. Now never forget it.”

Jamie shared how she Channeled The Sexual Energy and put it into her design work to “make shit awesome.”

Brian was featured in a post at SexReally.com wherein he used a napkin to explain how men categorize women: The Napkin Metaphor.

Cate wrote a bittersweet post about grad school and how we really can’t have it all: Finding Balance and Doing Less.

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What did you do in April to pass those moments between work, school and life? Who were your favorite people and what were your favorite places and things?  Do you have any favorite blog posts from April that I missed and you’d like to share?