Subject: Kraig's proposal

Date: Fri, 06 Sep 2002 11:03:33 -0400

From: Kraig Warnemuende <ad6075@wayne.edu>

Dear all,

Well, now that we have a few days breather from baby news (she's still kicking away), it has given Kraig a chance to focus on school stuff. Yesterday he gave his oral proposal as planned. What was cool, too, was that my dad and I were able to go hear the presentation--something I didn't think I'd have a chance to do! Of course, I thought it went extremely well, and Kraig sounded brilliant and all that, but I'm a little biased :) . After he presented, we guests had to leave while his committee of five profs grilled him with questions. The main conclusion after the grilling is that he has to rework the proposal a bit to narrow it down and include a bit more in terms of analytical evaluation (equations and whatnot) in addition to the experiments he's doing. The best news, though, is that all the profs signed the necessary papers so Kraig can begin his actual dissertation research--which includes reworking the proposal information. His advisor was going to go over more things with him today to help him with the plan of attack. Kraig was wiped out from the grilling, to say the least, but very thankful that it was done with and he can move on.

Today he has the first session of his fall class--starting to teach even as I write. He taught the same class last year and is looking forward to getting off on a more experienced foot this year. Sorry, but I can't remember what the class is at the moment--I'm pretty sure its "materials," meaning structural engineering materials such as concrete, fiber-reinforced materials, steel, etc. Thank the Lord he was able to teach today without any tremendous life-changes on his mind!

I think that's it in our news for now! Thanks so much to all of you who were praying for this, too.

We'll keep you posted.

Love, Loren (for Kraig and Baggins, too!)