A New Year

No, I haven't lost touch with calendar reality, but every year on june 15th we (the graduate students of the CNUP) have to turn in an annual review. I suppose this is the closest we get to having a real job - I remember having to do self-evaluations of my work at the end of each year as a technician, but then again, I usually got a raise for my efforts :) - but it's also a big pain in the butt. Particularly when you have a bunch of other things to do, and at least one other progress report to write (that one has to go to my thesis committee, was technically "due" on the 10th (although I don't think anyone is itching to read it) and hasn't been started yet). But, I finally got the thing done and handed in this morning. It is a dismaying sign of how lazy I have become that I found three or four typos after I had hit the print button, but didn't bother to reprint the corrected version. I doubt anyone reads these things that closely, especially when it comes from a 5th year graduate student, but if they do, it may inject some humor into the mind-numbing process of reading them.

With that done, this marks the beginning of my 6th year of graduate school, and I believe the beginning of my 23rd year of schooling overall. And I'm still not sure why I'm doing this to myself. But its cool to think that several hundred years ago, I would have qualified as a Druid a few years ago. If I remember correctly, they had 20 years of formal education before they "graduated". I wonder if that's where we get the tradition of funny robes & hats at our modern graduation ceremonies.

So, that was pretty much what I did this weekend. On Friday night, there was a big party that I just didn't feel like going to. D & I stayed up far too late on Wednesday night, drank too much wine, and I was incapacitated on Thursday by something that I'd like to call an alcohol-induced migraine, but was more likely to be an actual hangover. Just when I thought I was over the drinking too much thing (its been over a year since my last hangover), I get pulled back in. Granted, I get hangovers from 4 glasses of wine over 6 hours, but still..... i'd like to think that someday I will be an ultra-responsible person that doesn't ever overindulge, but I think for that to happen I will have to give up drinking all together - which might not be a bad idea.

In any case, I wasn't feeling up to a party that was most likely to be like a frat-house type of ordeal. So D went by himself, and I stayed home, ate popcorn & watched a movie, painted my toenails, pulled my eyesbrow hairs, and all that other stuff that women do when they get an evening to themselves at home (okay, the eyebrow plucking was pretty much the extent of that). Saturday, I got up & went to work for a few hours, so that I could get some uninterrupted time on the confocal microscope. Since it's a shared piece of equipment, you can usually only sign up for 2 hours/day of usage, but few people use it on the weekends, so I can spend 4 hours down there before I start to go a little batty from sitting in the dark for so long. Unfortunately this didn't turn out to be uninterrupted time. There are particular individuals who, for some reason, are completely unable to look at the calendar (sign-up sheet) on the door of this room. So, an hour before my time was up, the door was thrown open, letting all kinds of nice, interfering room light into the darkened fluorescence imaging environment, and I was asked when I would be done. I was able to suppress the response I wanted to give, "At four, like it says on the f'ing sign-up sheet", and was polite. But, I resigned an hour of my time, for no good reason. Or perhaps because I wanted to be able to complain about it later. Or maybe I was just lazy, didn't want to work anymore, & figured I needed to get to the grocery store, get home, and start my annual progress review.

On Sunday, D & I got up relatively early, and were out the door by 11 am. Don't laugh - this is a pretty major accomplishment for us. We went to Lowe's, bought some grilling stuff, a drill press (well, D bought a drill press, I don't as yet have much use for one, but it's kind of comforting to be acquiring big tools for the house), some silicone sealant (so I can re-caulk around the tub), and various other things that jumped right into our shopping basket. I then went to DSW shoe warehouse to see about some new sandals. The only pair I have left is a pair of Doc Martin like sandals, and they're a bit clunky for me lately, especially as I have started wearing some skirts. I managed to find a pair I liked, that are comfortable, don't have bows or beads or stiletto heels or that weird big-toe separating loop. The bad part is that they cost me $60. But, with any luck I will get close to a decade of use from them, so it might be worth it after all (Heck, even if I only get 2 years out of them it will be worth it). I also bought another pair of brown shoes, since my Clarks have a big split in the sole that lets in water. But I put these on this morning to go to work, & they didn't feel as comfortable, & they were pinching my right foot (which is the smaller one - I have no idea how they're pinching that foot, but not the left one, perhaps my feet swell differentially at night?). So I will probably bring these back.

Okay, that thread is getting a bit boring. After the shopping extravaganza, we picked up some discounted gas (my Giant Eagle card & fuel perks points brought the cost down to 2.54 per gallon, ~ 28 bucks to fill the tank), then headed back home. I did more work on my report, and we headed to D's mom's house for dinner. When we got back, I still had more tweaking to do on the report, so I did that with only a few breaks to play some Guitar hero. This game is way too addictive. I'm thinking about playing it again right now. After I was finally satisfied with my progress report, we each played a few more songs, and went to bed. Which was good, because I managed to get up this morning at 6:30, with no going back to sleep.