Leaving in a white van

Leaving around 10:30 tomorrow (Monday) morning to drive back to Kansas. Will check in when we get back.

And that's that

I just finished making my four slide Powerpoint presentation for statistics. After I do the five minute presentation on Tuesday, I will be mostly done for the semester. Both of my girls (undergrad assisants) who helped me this semester with all the physical stuff I am unable to do have asked to continue as my minions next semester, and that is a HUGE relief to me. They are both intelligent, driven, and extremely well self-directed, so I know my fishies will be safe next semester while I'm gone. We're going to practice photographing fins this week so they know EXACTLY how I want it done, then at the beginning of next semester they will photograph all the fins and send me the pictures to play with.

On the preparing to go home front, I went through all of my clothes at the beginning of the month and donated a bunch of stuff to the athletic department's clothing drive for a local mission. Over the last two nights, Tracie has helped me go through the closet by my bed, and I've gotten rid of about half the stuff I had stored in there. I still need to go through the kitchen closet (candles, incense, herbs, winter outerwear) and the big dresser (a junk drawer, a Reba drawer, and a linen drawer). Then the BOOKS. That's going to be crazy, my friends. I'm predicting one box of clothes and at least three of books. Think I'm joking? Ask Anita, Jonikka, or my parents about the clothing-to-book box ratio when I moved out of my Wichita apartment to move here. Tuesday is "talk with your advisor" day, Wednesday will find Moby getting two new shoes and an oil change, and Mom flies in Thursday afternoon. We have tentative plans to go eat with two of my friends and go have dinner made for us at other friends' house at some point over the weekend. Also over the weekend, we'll be hauling some of my stuff (bookshelf, table, TV, DVD player, dishes, small kitchen appliances) to Tracie's house in NO East for storage until I come back. Mom and I plan to leave on Monday, to arrive home on Tuesday.

OK, so I'm going to go try to read Twilight now. I promised a friend almost a year ago that I'd read it, and I still haven't gotten up the nerve. Let's face it, the descriptions of plot I've heard have nearly made my brain cramp. I'll try to keep an open mind, but at the first sign of nausea or neuron suicidal behavior, I'm done. There are too many books in the world to waste time on sparkly, emo vamps. Wait -- open mind, open mind.

What is this "relax" of which you speak?

The Ford Foundation Diversity Fellowship was submitted on 7 Nov. -- two days ahead of schedule.

The poster for the SETAC meeting was emailed to Kinko's on 18 Nov. and finished on 19 Nov. -- it is bright, shiny, all KINDS of sexy in its 40" x 56" glory, and ready to be shown off on Sunday. Can't wait to see the looks on the faces of all those stuffed suits when they realize the chick in the power wheelchair with the dog is the primary author.

The NSF DDIG grant was submitted today -- a whopping hour and a half ahead of the deadline.

All I have left to do school-wise before moving home is make a 5-minute PowerPoint describing some of my data and what statistical methods I used to analyze them, with my presentation being given on 1 Dec. -- maybe I'll get around to it on Monday.

Tomorrow is dedicated to reading a big chunk of The Sweet Far Thing, playing games at MSN Games, a possible nap in my chair, and maybe "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End" on USA.

Relaxing. Let's see if I remember what that is.

Message in a CD case. In a drawer. In a backpack. In a . . .

Little Elena Desserich, a six-year-old diagnosed with brain cancer, hid love notes to her parents and sister all over their house before she passed on. The brief story contains links to the published book by her parents and the non-profit foundation which will receive the proceeds from the book.

What a beautiful little girl with an insightful, wise heart and mind. One of the story's commenters said she was an old soul. I agree -- you can see it in her amazing eyes.

::maniacal giggling::

I thought this was funny as HELL -- but that might be because I got less than five hours of sleep last night.



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The worst thing . . .

. . . about science is the writing. I loathe the writing even more than figuring out how to run the stats. I dislike it mainly because between how much of it I'm having to do right now and all the measuring of fish heads I'm doing at the same time, my already weak hand and wrist muscles are seriously fatigued. It's times like this when I think having voice recognition software would be a good thing.

Cuteness warning

This reminds me of that baby squirrel Sarah and I found at the cemetery the day after my birthday, only ours was half the size of this one.



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