Twenty Two

Happy birthday to me! Yesterday I turned 22. Awesome. 

Can I just say that Saturday birthdays are the BEST?!

I'm not going to list of all the things I have or wish I had accomplished because I'm not the kind of person to write it all out. But still, birthdays have always been days of reflection for me. So shall we pretend that life is perfect, that I used a sweet camera to take that picture (manual setting of course), and the background is blurry, and the brick isn't really holding up a sewer pipe?

Friday night, Doug and I went out for dessert and stayed up late watching Netflix until I turned 22 at midnight. Okay, I wasn't born at midnight really, but who cares? Then on my birthday we went on a walk in Duke Forest and took some pictures.

It's like we did a photo shoot. saweet.

So lovely!

Later we went to the mall and bought stuff - we were allowed to 'cuz it's my birthday, duh. I bought chocolate and Doug bought a statistics book (which was 5X more expensive than the chocolate might I just mention). We celebrated the rest of the day with Emily and Brad, went to bed late, then woke up late. Let's just say that it was a great day.

Beyond proud

Douglas, my man, you are incredible. You have accomplished so much in the last few months I have to brag to everyone else.

• Most recently, he graduated SUMMA cum laude (BYU incorrectly awarded him magna initially due to clerical errors).
• He completed a BS and MS in 5 years of school.
• He will attend Duke in the fall for a PhD in stats. Only Doug...(actually, about 10 others).
• A year ago, he was published in some biochemistry scientific journal that I don't know. Still cool.
• Two months ago he received a personal email from the currently most famous statistician in the world, Bradley Efron, who said about Doug's paper, "This is impressive work, I hope it does get published soon." His email is a rejection of Doug's paper because it's not a good fit for the journal and would "get a better review in JASA."
• Ditto with another journal.
• As an intern, he is currently working at the GE Global Research Center in the statistics department.

On a different note

• He caved in and took me to Europe. :D
• As a result of Europe he wears more fashionable clothing.
  
• He successfully did our taxes (by outsourcing, but still).
• He remembered our anniversary.
• His GE basketball buddies have officially welcomed him to the league after seeing some sweet moves. 
• He has tricked my little siblings into loving him more than they love me!!

I'm sure I forgot something. Oh well. Doug is awesome and I'm so proud to have him as my husband!

By the way...

The first time I heard/saw "btw" was in Sunday School... I was 14. Apparently it was a life-changing experience because I remember where I was sitting (in the 3rd seat from the left) and what what happening (attendance). Okay, moving on.

Why do we substitute "btw" for "by the way?" It makes sense when typing, but vocalizing "btw" seems a little silly. Because it's more syllables than just saying it! Think about it. By-the-way. Bee-tee-dub-ul-you. (That's officially how you spell w, btw: dubulyou.) So to shorten the "bee-tee-dub-ul-you" people say, "bee-tee-dub" and sometimes you'll hear "bee-tee-dubs." I'm just saying. But "bee-tee-dub(s)" is just as efficient as "by the way" (same number of syllables). So there must be a coolness factor in saying "bee-tee-dubs." Then, I figure, if that's the cool thing to say, it might be the cool thing to type!  

btdub.
btdubs.
btdubblicious.

Eh, maybe not. Why not just dubs? Because then posterity would wonder, "how in the world did we get from 'by the way' to 'dubs'?!" We wouldn't wanna stress them out. dubs, we're going to Duke.