Being the wonderfully flexible person she is, Caitlin managed to fight through the game day traffic and even find a place to park. She went into Cate and peeked into the social lounge, but seeing no t-shirts, headed back to her car. I managed to get her back (“check one more time for me?”) long enough for her to see the letter I’d written and three roses, lying on a table in the lounge.

She still had no idea that I was in town, assuming instead that one of my friends had just set things up for her. As she was reading the letter, I hung up on her and walked up from behind.

And then?

Asked her to marry me. And thankfully, she said yes

In the meantime, should you need to get ahold of me, I have new phone numbers. If you’re in Joplin, call 553-4907. In Urbana-Champaign, call 689-1055. (The correct area codes are left as an exercise to the reader, in case someone has some sort of evil program that collects phone numbers on the internet and does bad things with them.)

I tried to pick fun numbers within my local areas; 49 is 7 squared, and 10 is the sum of 5 and 5. Easier to remember that way.

My graduation gift to myself was a Dell 2408WFP monitor. I’ve had my Dell 20″ since 2004, when I came to OU, and it seemed fitting that I upgrade after it saw me through five years of college. The new one… is massive. It really puts a smile on my face just to see how much screen real estate the thing really has. I also convinced my parents to upgrade from their tiny 19″ screen, because they do a lot of video watching on the computer.

Caitlin came to visit me this week before she started summer school. It’s so weird to be apart after seeing her pretty much every single day since we started dating ten and a half months ago. I miss her terribly, but I’m grateful for technology like webcams, Bluetooth headsets, and AIM, so I’m not stuck writing forlorn love letters as my only means of communication It’s a hard thing to be apart, but it’s worth it to know you’ve found your soulmate.

I’m leaving OU with a dual degree (as opposed to a double major, which is a single degree with two concentrations), which is two wholly separate degrees: a Bachelor of Science in Microbiology, summa cum laude, and a Bachelor of Science, with distinction. I also completed minors in French, Computer Science, and the History of Science. It took two hundred and eleven credit hours and five years to get through it all, but it’s over and done.

…Until I leave in August for Illinois to spend another seven years getting two MORE degrees.

I’ll always have good memories of my time at OU. I met a ton of people, did so many new things, and grew up a lot. I lived in Housing, worked for Housing, and met the girl of my dreams thanks to Housing. I took classes from good professors, bad professors, and sit-in-class-and-play-video-games-they’re-so-bad professors. But mostly, I had fun.

Thanks for all the fun.

I got flown out to Urbana-Champaign early this month to interview for the University of Illinois’ Medical Scholars Program. Like many of the others I’ve applied to, it combines two doctoral degrees, the MD and the PhD, into a 7-year program. About a week ago, they let me know that I was accepted. They pay for all the tuition and give me a living stipend— it’s really a very good deal. I’m not completely sure that it’s what I want to do, but it’s definitely at the top of my list. I’ll keep praying about it for sure. Alternatively, I could work here for a year before heading off to school, if they’ll let me defer admission. Or, maybe I’ll find work doing something else entirely. I just am not completely convinced that going to school for another seven years is exactly what I want to do at this point. I’m a little tired of it all.

Caitlin and I went on an adventure today after I read on FatWallet that Walgreens had Energizer rechargeables on sale. Usually they’re about $12 for 4. We drove to 5 Walgreens until we found packs on sale for $8 that had $2 coupons on them, then stacked that with the $5 rebate from Walgreens. We got 12 packs for the price of 1. Yay FatWallet ^_^

Lots of batteries

I introduced Mom, Dad, and Nate to Wii Sports today. As luck would have it, they all had a blast. Dad especially enjoyed punching people in the face in Boxing Mom suggested I leave the Wii here “to keep it safe”. I think that means “so I can get better at Bowling and beat you”, but I’m not judging.

Time on my hands to fix computers and play Wii… it’s good to be home.

I also saw everyone around me fall victim to the siren song of being able to buy things without having to actually fork over cash, and subsequently go into debt. (Okay, not everyone, but you’d be surprised how many people I know here that are in significant credit card debt. I differentiate this from other debt such as student loans.) I’ve never believed in the concept of spending more than you have, and through high school had just used a debit card so that any money I spent was immediately removed from my account. I always knew exactly how much I had, and budgeted accordingly.

In May of 2007, however, I finally sat down and started looking for a credit card. I knew I needed to start building a credit history, and I thought that I could successfully work the system to earn some money rather than going into debt. I didn’t bother with all the hawkers around campus… I just hopped onto FatWallet Finance and started sifting through discussion of credit cards. I had no financial history, so I narrowed my search down to student cards, which are easier to get but come with a correspondingly lower credit limit. I eventually settled on (the terrible cobranding notwithstanding) a Citibank mtvU card. No, I wasn’t drawn by the lure of some advertisement; it simply offered the best selection of features that appealed to me.

Credit cards come in a few basic flavors. Regular old vanilla credit cards, of course, let you put your purchases on account, with a promise to pay them off in the future. If you don’t pay the account in full each month, you incur finance charges equal to a percentage of the balance. But some cards have additional incentives to use them.  Cashback cards refund a certain percentage of some or all of your purchases as a statement credit, usually about 1%. Points cards award points per dollar you spend, and the points can be redeemed for prizes such as gift cards.

My mtvU card is a points card that gives 5 points per dollar on restaurants, movie theaters, bookstores, music stores, and video rentals. Pretty much exactly what a college student spends money on, right? It also gives 1 point / dollar on everything else. 5000 points can be redeemed for a $50 gift card, so points are basically worth a penny. Additionally, there’s a very unique perk: 2000 points every semester you get a 4.0 GPA. That’s basically $20 for free every time I get through a semester. So in about a year and a half of using this card— simply as I would have used a debit card or cash or whatever— I’ve racked up tens of thousands of points. Enough points that I have gotten over $400 worth of gift cards and statement rewards, and enough points that I bought a Nintendo Wii earlier this semester for $20.76

The trick, though, is that I pay the full statement balance every month, pretty much using the card as a delayed debit card. I’ve just set up my account online to automatically debit my checking account each month when the statement is due. To make sure this doesn’t come back to bite me, I never spend more than I have at the time, even if I knew that I would have the money by the time the statement came around. Paying consistently on time has helped my credit score as well; I now score in the top 10% of all 18-25 year olds.

So in the end, I’ve spent nothing that I wouldn’t have otherwise. I’ve earned a little extra interest by keeping my money in my bank account longer (since it only comes out every 45 days instead of immediately). And I’ve gotten over $800 now of cash, gift cards, and rewards. The next time I bring this subject up I’ll go over what I carry in my wallet to earn as many rewards as I do.

If you use a credit card responsibly, it’s great. You never need to carry much cash. You have fraud protection that a debit card doesn’t provide. You have the ability to make chargebacks. You earn rewards points. And you keep your money longer. You can’t go wrong as long as you don’t carry a balance