Ringin' in the new year... Helllllooooo 2013!

The Sandia Mountains from my parents' backyard.

As is usually the case, the winter break did not quite feel long enough. Maybe that's because I was so busy having fun on our cross-country road trip to New Mexico, relaxing with my family, and also getting caught up on things that have taken the back-burner throughout the course of my busy first semester. Overall, life here feels more calm, peaceful, in sync. I suppose you can say we've adjusted smoothly and fully.

Al is on the job market and studying to take his national test, I'm embarking on a 3 course load (instead of the 2 I had in the fall semester), and Opal is making sure to maintain her neediness so that we don't have a lot of idle time on our hands.

Our annual photo in front of the huge X-mas tree in Old Town.

There are a number of things I've got going, including traveling to three regional conferences (all in April, oh my! --> Kentucky, Pennsylvania, & Illinois, here I come!), hosting a guest lecturer on campus (my dear friend Dr. Lucy Miller who will talk about her transitioning process as a transgender woman and her research on representations in media), and preparing for a week-long seminar in Austria come June. I'm anticipating collecting data for a couple of ongoing projects I have in the pipeline in the summer. Since midway through the fall semester, I've had a student research assistant transcribing focus group data for me so I'm hoping to get the analysis going soon to prepare for a new round of data. Our bi-weekly coffee meetings to catch up and talk about the data will resume this coming week. I love how hands-on, eager, and interested the students here are. My research assistant (who is a freshman!) resulted from a lecture discussion on race and just a few hours later, I got an email from her expressing interest in helping me with research-related tasks. Um, yes please. Of course you can help me because there is no shortage of work here, haha! (she is getting paid through the college for her work with me, so that's pretty awesome.)

My three classes are full (COM 101 - Public Speaking; COM/SOC 218 - Gendered Communication in Society; COM/SOC 315 - Media Effects) and my teaching evaluations from the fall semester were quite positive. Here are some highlights:

 

 I am humbled and super excited/happy/relieved that things are going well here. There is always some degree of uncertainty that can translate into anxiety when starting something new - whether it's a job, career path, or educational direction. I feel much more "at home" in kicking off a new semester now that I've got one semester's worth of experience at Davidson under my belt. I'm also ecstatic because THE Angela Davis is coming to visit and give a public lecture on campus in February. Interested faculty were provided with Angela Davis Readers in preparation for her visit/talk. We blog about what we're reading and then we will meet for two dinner discussions before she comes to campus. Of course I'm always happy to get free books but I am even more ecstatic at the prospect of being in the same room as Angela Davis! Those are just a few of the anticipated highlights of the semester.  : )   

We recently got a wonderful surprise on our doorstep and in our mailbox. Al's fabulous Aunties Esther & Rose sent us a care package of Texas goodies as well as personalized gifts. We can rest assured we'll have a taste of Texas each month because they also gifted us a magazine subscription to Texas Monthly! Woohoo! The first issue arrived in the mail a couple of weeks ago. No matter how old ya get, it's a guaranteed smile-maker to come home to a box of gifts on the doorstep!

In other news, there was a terrible tragedy at Texas A&M Univ. On Tuesday, January 8, Dr. Jim Aune, the Head of the Department of Communication, committed suicide on campus by jumping from the North Side parking garage in the morning. That's been the biggest happening on my mind lately and you can read about it in the Latino/a AcademicZ blog I run. I blogged therapeutically and in an attempt to make sense of this unthinkable sudden loss. Thankfully, the Aggie Comm. community is strong so there have been plenty of ongoing conversations towards trying to cope, understand, and accept Dr. Aune's suicide on campus. Click the links within the blog link highlighted here and you can see more details on Dr. Aune and the memorial websites that have been set up. This is a tough start to the semester but also has sparked some good conversations among those in my academic network.

Now here's to hoping for a peaceful rest of the semester!

This is quite possibly the best gift ever! Al's Aunties sent us a blanket that has a pup that looks exactly like Opal on it! Lol. Ironically enough, I told Opal that she wasn't allowed to cuddle on it because she's a stinky puppy and it's a new blanket...

Clearly I had a change of heart about the whole blanket rule I made at first, haha.

Al is always talking about going 'tiquing (antique-shopping = 'tiquing) and we finally did go in Bernalillo at a place we spotted near where my parents live. We didn't buy anything but Al had fun saying he went 'tiquing over the holidays, hehe.

Ooh, and we found some Pound Puppies that took us down memory lane in the '80s!

We also strolled around Old Town in Albuquerque. It's become a holiday tradition of ours when we're in N.M. Al was a good sport about trying on some goofy hats we came across in a souvenir shop. Hamburger head! 

Opal - cuddling with my mom and protecting her surgery foot. Mom shared her saltine crackers with Opal, as you can see here.

Opal insisted on being a source of comfort for my mom post-surgery. She laid by her side and constantly ran into her room to check up on her. It was really cute. As a result, my mom shared her saltine crackers with Opal and then Opal really saw my mom as her best buddie, haha. Dad let her have bits of cookies, too! Spoiled just like a grandkid over here!
 

Opal played in the backyard, where Champ used to reside, at my parents' house and really enjoyed herself. From one generation to the next of beloved 4-legged friends... R.I.P. Champ (our handsome German Shepherd/Chow pup we grew up with. He passed away almost 3 years ago).

 Something I got to do quite a bit over the break was experimental cooking. I have been using Pinterest a lot more recently and tend to pin recipes the most. I made crockpot apple cinnamon oatmeal, a pumpkin roll, and these little chocolate pretzel snacks. We did, of course, have tamales and carne adovada to ring in the new year. Ah, I love mom's cooking.  : D  I prepared an extra batch of my famous chicken tortilla soup, homemade tortilla strips, and pasta salad for my parents to have before we left town.

Though we always prepare drinks and map out a plan of action to ring in the new year at home --which typically just means we're planning to stay up long enough to see the ball drop and then go to sleep-- we barely lasted to midnight to toast some champagne before bed. Al let Opal taste the champagne but I don't think she cared for it much, hehe.
 
Another thing we did often while at my parent's house is take long walks around the neighborhood. On the first evening, just me and Opal went by ourselves and we had a terrifying experience. We ran into a coyote trailing us!!!! We quickly bolted around the block as soon as I made eye contact with the coyote. It was the creepiest feeling ever to spot him/her following us quietly. S/he blended into the scenery with the shades of white, black, and brown in her/his coat. We didn't stop running until we came upon a house with two men on the roof hanging up X-mas lights. The garage was open and there were several trucks and cars parked outside so we stopped to catch our breath and see that the coyote wasn't still behind us. I don't think Opal saw him/her, which I was actually relieved by because she might have run up to the coyote and tried to play! When I took off running, she just thought we were suddenly running and she was having a blast in the process... meanwhile I was running possibly for our lives if this coyote decided to chase us! Whew, glad that didn't escalate into anything worse. Needless to say, Al accompanied us on all of the rest of the walks we went on.  : /

Al took my dad's mountain man walking stick on our walks around the neighborhood, haha. It could easily be used as a weapon should the need arise.

Just hanging out with Mom & Dad.  ; )

On our road trip home, we passed through the north tip of Texas, Amarillo. The sky was pink and purple and we felt a tinge of nostalgia as we were under the Texas sky momentarily. It was odd to be in Texas but without it being our final destination. Well, for me, really. I'm more sentimental about that kinda thing. Al, not so much.  : P

HUGE road trip highlight = we got to eat Whataburger in Amarillo!!!!!! Mmmmm, it was soooo goood, too.

 Opal thought we were damn crazy because it was soooo cold in Amarillo and there were huge hunks of snow everywhere, but we decided to try out Braum's on our way out of town. It's a local fast food place we'd never seen before so we got small ice creams just to see what Braum's was all about. It was good but Opal was not impressed with us getting ice cream in that freezing cold weather! Poor baby was shivering when we let her out to eat her dinner so we promptly put her back inside the truck and wrapped her in her blanket.

OF COURSE we also very strategically ate lunch at a Taco Cabana!!!! It was actually in Oklahoma City and not Texas, which was a little surprising to see one there. Even though it wasn't exactly the same as the TCs in Texas, it was still a wonderful lunch. We definitely missed Texas that day, realizing how we probably took for granted the Tex-Mex goodness that is Taco Cabana... now that we can't so easily get it if we wanted to now. I ordered a bean and cheese taco to go! Hehe.

      We stopped by Graceland in Memphis on our way back home. We checked out a souvenir shop and the neat structures surrounding the area, including this tribute wall. Al drew a guitar and I wrote our names inside of it. We left our mark on Graceland in memory of "the King"! 

Mr. Potato Head Elvis! Haha!

Oooh, Elvis! **Swoon** One of my colleagues said she actually met Elvis at a concert when she was 12 years old. She got his autograph and recalled what a cute 18-year-old he was. <3

Al happily eating his White Castle burgers from the restaurant itself (they are sold in the frozen section of the grocery store).

We let Opal have a slider burger & she gulped it down! I think she inhaled it in one bite, haha. It was Opal and Daddy-O's first time eating at the famous White Castle burger joint. I've been to one in NYC a few years back. This was a pit-stop we took in Nashville on our way back home.

Nashville, TN

The road back home... out of the desert of NM, out of the flat plains in TX, and into the beautiful hilly/mountainous south!

And now for Al's Long-Awaited Blog Contribution!!!! --->  

While on our road trip, it was fun to see new cities and enjoy a new route to New Mexico. The one spot I would love to revisit sometime soon is Memphis, Tennessee. We stopped both going and coming back to check out downtown Beale Street and visit the historic Graceland, home of the King of Rock and Roll, Elvis Presley. I also visited the Gibson Guitar Factory and was treated to a VIP tour. I was the only person on the first tour of the day which kicked off at 11 a.m. Gibson has made guitars for the likes of BB King, Zakk Wylde and Elvis. I was excited to see the construction of my very favorite brand of guitars and pleased to see that almost the entire process is done by hand. The cutting, shaping, assembling and painting are all done by skilled craftsmen and women. The most impressive was watching the neck being hand-shaped  by a master-shaper. Gibson has approximately 33 neck profiles and the tour guide told me this shaper does it all by feel. He doesn't use a guide or stencil but can shape different profiles at will and he is the only one in the industry that can do so. She said she once asked him how he knows how to make different shaped necks and he said, "I don't know, I just do it." She even mentioned that the guitar isn't his primary instrument. He actually is a drummer from the UK. When I was finished, I got to stop by the gift shop and plug in and play some of my favorite guitars and amps. By far, this was the best tour I have ever been on.

Amanda and I toured downtown Beale Street and said it reminded us of Austin and New Orleans, two of our favorite cities. Opal also got plenty of attention on this freezing morning. While waiting outside of a gift shop, the store owner told us to come in and asked if little Opal would like some water. She then brought out a little dog bowl. This wasn't the only time people stopped to give her water or a treat. Opal was so well behaved on the entire road trip. She slept in her bed inside the cab of the truck and never even barked once or was whiny. We were really happy and relieved about that!