Wow! it's been a while! I logged in and noticed my last attempt at a post was back in April of 2018... notice the word attempt. I'd written the title of a recap from the Republic of Texas Half marathon. The first half marathon I ever ran with my husband! I guess it's f...

This past July, about 10 days before defending my PhD, I ran my first trail race ever! There were moments when I thought it had been dumb of me to schedule a race so close to my defense, cause of course we have to include the training. However, this forced me to take b...

Firs of all... WOW! What an amazing experience! I ran this race back in June and it will forever be one of the most challenging and enriching experiences when it comes to races. Let's start with what is Ragnar. Ragnar is a long distance (200-ish miles), overnight, team...

I am the AL EX AND ER we are meant to be!

Soooo I'm a huge Broadway fan and towards the end of 2015 I heard about this musical called Hamilton. Everyone in the Broadway fan community was talking about it, I found out it had been created by Lin Manuel Miranda who also cr...

I've lived in Pennsylvania for almost five and a half years and so it pains me a bit to say that I've never truly explored Philly. The first time I went to Philly was for a Charlotte Martin concert (my fave artist), the second time was for last year's Rock and Roll Phi...

April 1st, some of my running buddies (BLG) and I all got into a car and drove to DC. What for? CHERRY BLOSSOM TEN MILER! OK, so why the excitement? First of all, I'm always excited to run with my friends. Second, DC is probably my favorite city in the US (to date). As...

This past February I was able to assist to the Gordon Research Conference - Plant Herbivore Interactions. Now, for those of you who do not know what a Gordon Research Conference or GRC as it's normally referred to are, their website describes it as "an organization tha...

State College celebrates every end of the year with the First Night. This includes several activities around downtown, ice sculptures, music, and of course, a Resolution 5K. The wonderful people from my gym have a tradition of running this 5K snow or rain (no shine sin...

A few days ago, during one of my morning runs, I was complaining to one of my running buddies about how tired I am and how I feel like I will never finish my PhD. She told me: "Look at it like the last 6 miles of a marathon, just keep going, slow but steady. It's hard...

As I've previously mentioned... I love to travel and one of the ways I've been able to do most of my travels as a grad student is by going to conferences. This year, our annual entomology meeting was combined with the International Congress of Entomology which occurs e...