moved

So I'm moved in. Or at least, all of my stuff is here. Most of it's still packed up and quite a bit will remain so because my storage situation needs some serious work. Moving from a one bedroom apartment into one bedroom requires some creativity. Particularly because I don't yet own a dresser. But, I'm here and it's quiet and there is internet access and cable as well as three cats I'm constantly trying keep out of my bedroom. Let's just hope I manage to keep from setting off the alarm.

reclaiming my life

Dusk is gathering, as are what look like rain clouds. It's humid enough at the moment, but still I'm sitting outside on campus for use of the free internet. Might as well use it while I still can. I'm back on campus for the first time in a week to clean out my desk. It's an odd feeling, but freeing. I never have to walk in that lab with the bad fluorescent lighting and horrible boss ever again. There may be a visit or two over the summer when I know my ex-PI is out of town, but there is nothing requiring me to go back.

I have decided I am reclaiming my life. Doing the things I want to do and really live. Two weekends ago I went camping at Enchanted Rock. Every time I spend time in the great outdoors I'm reminded that living in the city is not for me. Saturday morning I was up early with a couple of other people from the group while most everyone else slept in. We went for a hike around part of loop; the Hill Country almost looks like the Appalachians in the early sunlight with fog in the low areas.

My graduation weekend was technically this past weekend. I didn't walk, it seemed, not pointless, but certainly not appealing. So I hung out with the Huns and the boys from the Mariners RFC, who were on tour from Bermuda. The annual Huns boat party on Lake Travis was much more satisfying than sitting through a commencement ceremony. The pub crawl the night before was something of a psychology experiment, but one I enjoyed immensely. There really is nothing in the world quite like a group of ruggers. Particularly ruggers on tour.

Right now I'm in this spot in my life with all the loose ends tied up and nothing new quite in the works yet. Technically, I am totally free. I could pick up and go anywhere in the world, which may be the most intoxicating thought ever. Leaving Austin, or more specifically my support network here, makes the chances that I'll actually do it without a very good reason rather slim. Between the Gateway crew and my Valkyries Austin has become the best place I have ever lived, but maybe I will run away to that island in the tropics after all. I think I've been land locked for far too long.

promise I'll post something soon

I'll have regular internet access again soon. Until then...

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.

Aussie Rules

• From BBC: "Rapper Snoop Dogg has been banned from entering Australia after failing a character test, according to officials. The star - real name Calvin Broadus - was due to co-host the MTV Australian Video Music Awards on Sunday. The 35-year-old had his visa cancelled after recently pleading no contest to gun and drug charges in the US. 'He doesn't seem the sort of bloke we want in this country,' Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews told Sydney's Macquarie Radio."

Now, forgive me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Australia orginally settled as a prison colony?

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.

the end is near

My brain is on overdrive. However, I think it's starting to overheat. Or perhaps simply putting things not related to my thesis out of mind. Unsuccessfully, however, because a lot of my own mental one-liners are sticking there. Staying in lab for sixteen hours will do that. The semester is drawing to a close, however, and very long hours don't seem so bad so long as I'm accomplishing something and the light at the end of the tunnel, as Mrs. Juicebox refers to it, keeps getting brighter. The thesis will be finished soon. I can do this, I will do this. I, however, do not yet have a good title for my thesis. I'd like to get "drunken teenage mice" or "contributing to the delinquincy of minors" in there somehow, though.

Thesis count: 70 pages, a few more references than last time

weekend conversational highlights

"So I was thinking, while I was being a slutty, slutty whore..."

"Y'know between the what, ten of us, we could write a pretty decent sitcom."
"We are a sitcom."

faith and science

There is a rather eloquent blog post to be written somewhere in between this CNN article on Collins and this blog entry refuting Dr. Collins ideas and opinions. Right now I don't have enough presence of thought to write said post.

Suffice to say that faith is intrinsically not quantifiable. That's why it is referred to as 'faith' and not something more solid. Attempts to force views on either side of the faith question are never going to win converts, merely escalate arguments.


Data analyzed...working on results section and discussion, albeit slowly and painfully and stressfully.

there is no excuse

Lately I've been doing as little thinking as possible outside of what I have to (which is quite a lot). Coping mechanism, I suppose. Just ready to be finished and to get my buffer for handling stress back. Unfairly to everyone around me, I seem to walk around either totally exhausted or ready to bite someone's head off. Or both.

At the moment I'm freaking out about something because it's not working and is very vital to my walking away from this campus with a degree to show for the last three years of misery. It is also seems to be out of my control. Insert expletive of choice to describe bioinformatics... This on top of sheer exhaustion from playing more rugby at a higher level than ever before packed into two days.

I'm listening to a lot of Radiohead recently if that's any indication.

Don't even ask about the thesis count.