From a local blogger on "How To Live in Austin", via Austin Metablog:

"If you don't like hippies, tattoos, piercings, poetry, metal, alt-country, tourists, politicians, science, technology, organic food, mohawks, hybrid cards, or anything else associated with these things, move to Dallas."

Well, that effectively removes the chance of most of my family moving here for several reasons or others. Thanks to the hippies and mohawks, or science and metal, I'm safe. Whew. However, it seems that I have other issues:

"Austin's Craigslist is great, but don't troll for dates on it. This town is one of the best places in the nation for dating. If you can't find love in Austin, you're doing it wrong."

My secret is out. I've been spending late nights furtively stalked Craigslist for love now that my thesis is out of my life. No, not really. Based on my track record of living here three years and not yet finding someone within the city limits to call my own, however, I am apparently a failure.

Though, I seem to be doing something right based on the great friends I've found and life I'm making for myself here. Though I really do need to do something about this living on the far north side.

not recommended

Yeah, it was pretty much like that. Needless to say I'm much happier now. Even if I am making peanuts working part-time as a hostess at a bar, a job which will turn me into a misanthrope if I stay there too long.

So I'm job hunting.

now it's really finished

Picked up my signatures. Did a last minute fidgeting both on the document itself and in the chair of the nice degree evalulator as he clicked through the pdf of my thesis. Until finally he looked up, told me "everything looks good" and I handed over the required paperwork. All signed. By my readers. Who approved. my. thesis! Walking out of the office I had to refrain from turning around and asking "so there isn't anything else?" about a dozen times. I'd already asked about six times already.

It didn't feel real until I got outside the building, but then I floated from Main back to ESB. Floated, because the weight of the world has been lifted of my shoulders.

I'm thinking I may buy myself one of these as a "Yay, Me" present.

my thesis is finished

My thesis is finished.

98 pages total, which includes a fair amount of graduate school-required formatting. The table of contents is pretty, though.

I took the day off yesterday, got a few things done, but mostly watched Battlestar Galactica. I'm hooked. (I blame you all, you know who you are, for this.)

Yeah, that's all I've got right now.

nerdgasm

Oh. My. God. If my iPod wasn't a generation early I would so buy this. I don't know how actually useful it would be for me as neuroanatomy is only a very minimal concern for what I do, but having an brain atlas on my iPod? What could possibly be more awesome?

As a side note, Tim totally ROCKS. For many reasons, not the least of which being that he's willing to spend an evening touring the high and low culture of Austin, TX with me, but at the moment because he bought me the new Anberlin album. So I can rock out while working on my "MASSIVE paper."

steam-powered

Maybe it's just my obsession with all things Firefly and Firefly-like (which this somewhat resembles) but this Steampunk showcase at SXSW looks awesome. I could totally use a time machine booth these days.


ah yes, the thesis count: 38 pages, 64 references, and hybridizing arrays tonight!

re:

"If there is anything I could tell prospective lawyers it would be, don't go right out of undergrad. Don't even take just one year off. Do something else for at least 3 or 4 years. If you still want to go back, then you probably want it bad enough not to resent it before you're through."

I'd say that applies in science as well. (Mrs. Juicebox is exceptionally good at articulating things that I also am dealing with or thinking. Particularly in response to certain Dooce posts.) If there is anything I regret it would be coming to graduate school straight out of undergrad. I wasn't ready. No one is at 21. So I find myself cutting my time at UT short and still wondering if that nagging little voice is right about mastering out of the program being failure. Not to mention the mass amount of uncertainty in a large swath of things going on or about to occur in my life. Truly, though, I can't complain; I wound up in Austin and this city has been good enough to provide me with amazing friends and a million opportunites I haven't even begun to explore. I just wish I could shake that negative little voice.

thesis count: 32 pages, 61 citations, experiments in progress

everything I know to do

Spent the weekend mostly trying to avoid completely freaking out about everything I need to do between now and May. It's like it all decided to drop out of the sky on me at once. Thursday night I left neuro class with the distinct feeling that I was in way over my head after a discussion about the physics of electrical current and resistance. Way over my head. So I started making solutions; I need to use my time and my resources more effectively. And make small goals for myself. If I look at the entire mountain I'll freeze in fear; focusing on the next rock makes it seem much more managable.

Friday as I was headed into the Gregory Gym to grab a smoothie between discussion sections I passed a sign advertising "swim like a fish." On an impulse I signed up for swimming lessons. I've been around the water most of my life and can get by just fine, but have never learned anything anywhere near resembling form. I figure I can learn to swim for fitness; having to focus on my breathing will be a big help for rugby and my aerobic abilities. Plus being in the water is just calming for me. So I had my first class today. There are about five other adults ranging in age from mid-college to mid-50s. Our instructor is probably twenty years old, started taking swimming lessons at the age of six, and has spent her entire life in the water on a regular basis. I feel like I'm missing out on something not having had that opportunity as a kid. The first class involved learning the basics of breathing and kicking. As I was focusing on not inhaling water it became pretty plain what the truly important things in life. I think I could really get into this.

thesis count: 29 pages, 54 citations

strategery

This morning was group lab meeting, a rare one in which we had an outside speaker instead of listening to someone from of the other WCAAR labs presenting their most recent data. (I'm scheduled to give mine a week and a half before the thesis is due.) I tried to pay attention, and can say I did actually get a little bit out of it. Serotonin receptors are cool. Pictures of fluorescent imaging are always nice and easy to understand.

Importantly, however, was where my mind wandered. To the thesis. I have 44 days to finish the first complete draft of the thing by my self-imposed strategic "six week early, allow for rewriting after perusal by official readers" deadline of March 23rd. This works out to about two pages per day, including weekends, or just over three if weekends are not included. I will be working weekends.

Okay. 44 days. I can do this. Really.

squeak

Okay, Grey's Anatomy. That moment, the one where George announces that thing, I jumped and I squeaked. I squeaked. And I continued to do so until after the commercial break. Pathetic, perhaps, but there was no helping it.

Even stranger, I was so absorbed in what I was working on with my thesis I missed the first few minutes of the show. I looked up from reading a review on miRNA biogenesis and function and correlating the citations and it was suddenly 8:04. Maybe I really can do this...

Spent today on class stuff, so the count hasn't really changed...

drive in between the rain drops

Email that just showed up in my inbox:

Wednesday, January 31
*New Seminar Listing*
Behavioral Neuroscience
Dr. Victoria N. Luine
Distinguished Professor, Hunter College of CUNY, City University of N.Y.
"Stress Effects on Cognitive Function: Accounting for Sex and Age."
3:00 p.m. - SEA 4.244

Enough to make any grad student wonder.

current thesis count: 15 pages, 38 sources cited

nothing

I'm battling a serious lack of inspiration to write. Or maybe not battling, since I've more or less given in to it. Heading into this semester I can feel the stress looming over me, which makes me want to burn up hours and hours with staying in bed, watching episodes of Firefly over and over, reading fluff fiction, and drinking hot chocolate with irish creme in it. Burn hours spending time with my friends instead of reading endless journal articles with neuro terminology I can't pronounce and that refuses to lodge in my brain.

Four months.

Okay, I'm going to make solutions now. At least that is something I can pretend is productive.