Apologies for this post being late. Monday was the funeral for Robert Wood, sign language translator, newly minted PHD, high council man for his stake, and husband and father. He is survived by his wife Emma and their four children. Emma is one of Lisa's best friends here.
This event has me thinking about a number of things. The one I will say now is that if you can witness a three year old girl crying that she wants her daddy, knowing that he's the one in the coffin three feet away, and not be affected by that... well I don't know whether to send you for counseling or shoot you on the spot!
Well, moving on to other things...
We just got word this week that Lisa passed her comps for her doctoral program, she also has one four week class to go before she is done with her coursework! That leaves her with finishing her dissertation and she's a doctor (don't worry I have the head deflator on standby...(actually I doubt I'll need it her last class is on creating and using surveys (Patrick stops to palmface...I used to teach that class! (By the way Lisa and one of her friends in the program think it's fairly ridiculous too (her friend teaches surveys too))))) (now that was a lot of parentheticals!)
I'm not going to discuss her dissertation topic at this point because she is considering changing it from something that will take 2-3 years to something she feels she can complete in one (for the record I do in fact understand what she's talking about (and have actually contributed to it) but I'm going to let her work it out and talk about it because it is her thing).
Also in the news... Lisa is going to an AECT conference in Florida in July. The paper she is working on is actually being workshop-ed there and will be included in published conference proceedings (in other words she is getting a book chapter publication!). Again this is one that she can explain the topic to you.
I'm working on some writing too, unfortunately the last piece I had approved was a disciplinary council results letter that while impressing my bishop with its quality is not something I can really talk about (note I'm the Ward Clerk not the one who was 'standing tall before the man').
Well, that's about all of that for now... so lets look at something pretty!
These are some sapphires Lisa and I found in some gravel from Montana (for scale purposes I'm using college ruled lined paper for a back drop). Note that these are Natural Sapphires that have not been treated in any way. Planning on sending the center one in for heat treating and cutting there is a 70% chance of getting the color of the one on the left and a 30% chance for a 'cornflower' blue stone!
People ask me why I love tourmalines... well...
Just for reference these are the most common colors of tourmies but not all of them by any stretch of the imagination. These in particular are also a bit small for cutting into polished stones so I'm going to be doing something more artistic with them.
Also tourmies getting into cut and polish size stones now. The center one is a serious purple which you can just barely see in the picture.
This is an end on view of the big one from that last pic so you can see the crystal structure. Colors in tourmalines can change along the length of the stone or through the width so in addition to a ridiculous number of colors you can have any combination of colors in any direction!
Well, that's it for today folks!
Tune in next week when we... actually your guess is as good as mine at this point!
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