Las Cruces is becoming more like home every day. I think a large part of it is the amazing friends that I have made here. There is a multitude of good memories here now, and everything is becoming so familiar to me. Not to mention that Hatch green chile is the greatest ever.

Today my Wreck This Journal choice of tasks was first the page that says chew on this. I figured that I had better do it first before everything gets all dirty. After some bite marks were placed, my next choice was the page with the directions: tie a string to the journal, go for a walk, drag it. I have been dragging it around with me all day on campus, and it has elicited some very interesting reactions. It's been so very entertaining to watch everyone that was watching me. People were asking me if I knew that I was dragging a book behind me. My favorite so far was the construction worker who was so appalled that he had to ask me why I was doing what I was doing. I just told him that the book was for destroying, and that is what it said to do. There have been a lot of curious people today to say the least. Another interesting set of reactions were those from my professors in my department. They know and recognize me, and I think that they know that I am not a mad woman. They might have questioned it a bit today though. I look forward to the future tasks.

Today I learned that I aced the second quiz in stats. It is an interesting feeling to realize that I am finally starting to understand this other language that is statistics. It will be scary when we leave the review sections and start learning new material. I find it funny that it will be the statistics classes that will get me a job in the industry rather than the horticulture classes.

Last week my Hort 100 students took a tour of the Chile Pepper Institute (which is about a half acre of various chile varieties). Some of my students were brave enough, or stupid enough, to taste the hottest chile in the world. As a comparison, habenero peppers are about 300,000 skoville units of heat. The next hottest and the hottest chile, bhut jolokia, is more than a million skoville units of heat. It also has a delayed heat, so some people will tell themselves that it wasn't that bad and take another bite before the first bite has really kicked in. Bad idea! Although I am getting more used to the spicy flavors of food here, I don't want to put myself through that pain just to say that I did.