<1629>

I've been ready for work to be over for a while today, and there's still an hour and a half until I should leave, since I decided I had to go get lunch and wandered away for 40 minutes. Ah, the days when I had paid lunch. I'm at the paper-writing stage for real now, with means horrible tooth-extraction pain. Although I have to say, here I am writing a paper from information cobbled together from various documents and conversations, and it's painful, but how much harder is it than the paper I wrote before where I had been involved in the study and designed the recruitment, etc.? It doesn't feel that much harder, which makes me thing wtf was my problem with the last paper in taking so long to write it? It was my first paper, though, and I've written a few more psuedo papers for class since then. Still.

Brain. Dead.

<1717>

It should also be noted that none of that prior shit was written in Spanish, which, like, lots of this stuff is. So hard to skim a report in Spanish when tired...

Man, I gotta buy new Stata. $150!

<2042>

This weekend I did nothing. It was greaaaaat!

Hooray Storey for reminding me of mail-in rebates. I really do want my $180 back from Apple.

People who get what I'm saying make me happy.

Opposite: opposite.

I hope all the kids had a good orientation today.

<1103>

When I got home, my shiny new iBook was right where I hoped it would be, properly locked in between my two doors. I tinkered with it for a while, then Lynn and Tim came over, and then I stayed up way to late tinkering more... I finally figured out exactly how to connect my computers to transfer files, after some fiddling. But I have so many things left to configure, and I have to relearn or remap all the keys because everything is just a little different.

This week is entirely too social. Tonight I'm meeting with a girl in my cohort to figure out some orientation stuff and probably spend far more time catching up and gabbing. Tomorrow Steve and I are doing some kind of cooking. I'm hoping the weather will stay mild for the weekend... I feel like it's been so blistering and gross whenever I'm not at work.

<1502>

Today was all about waiting for things that didn't happen. This morning I called FedEx because there was a weird thing on the tracking that almost made it look like my package went back to Memphis, and the woman said no, they'd deliver by 10:30 (even though the website said 4:30). The box got on the truck, so I believed her and decided to wait around a bit for it. Big waste of time. I didn't get into work until 11:45; I left the outer door open and signed the waiver, so I hope FedEx deliverer person followed my instructions to put the box inside the outer door and lock it.

The other thing I was waiting for today was for my doctor to call, since I left a message at UHS and he has clinic today. But, turns out he called in sick, so I ended up leaving a message at his office, which I should have just done in the first place.

I also just feel like crap today. I hung out with Roxanne and her boy last night while they unpacked her stuff, then we all went to dinner, and I didn't get home until 10. I managed to get to bed reasonably soon, considering, but still, I seem to need 10 hours a day of sleep to be happy, and then only minorly so.

<1633>

I hate it when I get a voice message and the phone didn't ring! Anyway, the doc called back and left a message saying all was well, but didn't say more about if the blob is anything benignly substantive, since he was leaving a message. But, no tumor!

<0812>

My laptop has made it to the Baltimore suburbs! I was a little worried, seeing as it had gone from Newark (about 180 mimles away) to Memphis (about 900 miles away), but I guess Memphis is FedEx's hub. Of course, I have to go to work tomorrow when they're delivering, so I hope I can get it at a convenient location (as in, not the aforementioned suburb, but maybe, like, the FedExKinko's right down the street), and that it won't just get left on the porch or some madness.

<1330>

I probably got my feelings more hurt than they needed to be, and I watched Roger and Me yesterday, which features some pretty rundown sadass parts of Flint, along with many evictions and got all my class hackles up. Even Scent of a Woman, which I watched later, has this whole subtheme of the poor Western kid going to prep school with a bunch of overprivileged east coast kids. So, the conversation was supposed to be about fun new toys, but it quickly for me went to bad places about Harvard kids having screwed up notions of necessity and wrong ideas about what constitutes average levels of economic support and independence in young adulthood. These things certainly went too far beyond the actual scope of the conversation, but they still get to me. I worked throughout college, I started my post-grad job three days after Commencement, and I'm working now so that I can buy necessities, books, even pay part of my tuition back in the day. I grapple with the purchase of non-necessities, spend months weighing the decision, agonizing, ensuring that I will always have enough safety net. I'm lucky I had parents who made sure I went to good schools, and I'm proud of myself for working hard enough not to have needed to call home for money because they already did enough. I've gotten many lucky breaks, and I appreciate them all, and I even feel a little guilty about some of them, because so many other people have it so much harder just by the luck of the draw. I talked to a girl Friday who worked full time through college and is facing this coming term not knowing whether her fellowship is fundable or whether she'll be taking out more loans or registering part time or what. And that's still above average in terms of life goodness and economic situation. So, I just get a little irked when I feel like people attribute to themselves a little more than they should and attribute to their surroundings and their luck a little less than they should. So many people I know, dear wonderful people who I love otherwise, just sort of casually think this certain way (which does lead to some fun grumbling amongst those of a certain range of classes when the others aren't around).

I should add that my geographic comment regarding Scent of a Woman isn't really a correlation I stand behind... I went to high school with plenty of snotty ass rich kids, and I've known plenty of grounded working/service class east coasters.

<2326>

Insert rant about class that I should not post now because it won't be nice.

<1147>

Since I already wrote this elsewhere, might as well stick it here... On the scale of medical procedures and tests, MRIs rank as "pretty fun." The tedious part was the setup... I was next in line for the slow magnet, so they finally got me in there, got me all set up, but then moved me to the faster magnet because it just opened up. I spent a lot of time in a hospital gown with an IV line stuck in my arm for the contrast.

Even though it seemed dumb to have to move when I was all set up, it was well worth it, because they were estimating 1-1.5 hours on the slow machine, and it only took like 35 minutes on the fast one. And that room had a window, so I could look through the machine out at a tree.

I had heard MRI involves loud clicks and noises, but I'm hear to tell you, it is *so fucking loud*. I could hear the prior scan loud and clear from outside the door, and from inside, earplugs don't do too much. I think because they were trying to get me done (I was the last of the day), the tech didn't think to give me headphones with music, but I ended up not minding because the sounds of the machine were kinda fun to listen to. The first scan sounded terrible: constant, loud, fast. The noise shakes the machine a little, and I suspect at times they were also shifting the bed a millimeter at a time, but I actually don't know if they took axial images. The other scans had much more rhythm and interesting pitches and harmonics. Noises would come in and out, come to a crazy climax, and then stop abruptly all together. I could also squeeze and relax my ears around the earplugs to make different pitches come through, which is allowable movement when all they care about is your leg. There was one scan that had the usual main jackhammer noise, but then there was a sound like a big bell with little tinkly bells ringing in between. So, I actually found it a worthwhile auditory experience.

I can see how some people would feel closed in. That window helped. I did notice that from my angle, there was a line and two little holes at the end that made a kind of frowny face shape, from which two strip lights came toward me that looked like alien antennae. So, I couldn't stop seeing this alien staring at me when I had my eyes open.

Radiology will give its official read by tomorrow at the latest, but the tech said he didn't see anything. By which I hope he meant he saw nothing of importance, not nothing at all, because then I would feel bad. At least give me a lipoma or something.

FedEx has seemingly lost my iBook. Rather, it got a shipping number Tuesday, but still hasn't left Shanghai because "Package received after FedEx cutoff" two days later. I think that means it was hiding behind a shelf or something. I'm sure it will be in a thousand pieces by the time I get it.

I went to bed ridiculously early last night, woke up at like 4:15 to pee, was awake until after 5, and so then when the alarm went off at 7, it was right in the middle of happy sleep. So I feel tireder today than I did yesterday.

<1622>

OMG, I just decided to see what software will be on my mac, and Quicken is included! HAWT. It looks like now all I need to buy is Stata.

<1421>

I went to the doctor today, which went as expected. He pretty much felt like I felt, which was that the lump is likely to be nothing important, but that it's worth investigating. So I have an MRI tomorrow to check it out. And I thought getting the primary care appointment was fast, talk about a quick turnaround on the imaging. So, I hope that will clarify things.

I am so tired today. I was dumb and stayed up way too late last night.

<1537>

Also, I got my iPod this morning, and I just want to go home and play with it.

<1455>

I utterly failed to get any work done on Friday (one whole hour!), so now I have 7 hours to make up for work, and it's already 3 and I still haven't exercised or showered, so today isn't looking so terribly hot. Le crap.

Friday I ended up picming up Steve for dinner at delicious Helmand, then we met up with Lynn and crew at this place called Sonar. The music in the lounge was too loud to talk, and the music on the dance floor was even louder and, on top of that, bad for dancing. So Steve and I bailed early. Yesterday I went to school to print some stuff, to the liquor store for supplies, and then picked up Steve to go down to Dave and Court's housewarming. It took forever to get there, because we took an alternate route because the bridge on the better route was closed to one lane and they were expecting huge delays. I dunno if they coud have been as bad as the traffic through town, though, particularly as I missed an exit at one point due to terrible signage and ended up stuck in a contruction-accident double whammy traffic snarl. Suckage. I used so much frigging gas this weekend, I'm never driving anywhere again. Anyway, it was great to see Dave and Court. Their new place is nice. There was lasagna and cake and Scene It.

Getting back was easier, except I ended up going all the way around the beltway because I didn't see the exit to go through on 295. It's hard to drive and look for signs at the same time.

Today I was awoken by some damn kids that I dunno what they were up to. They knocked on the front door first, and then they went away, so I thought maybe they were selling something. Then I heard a noise at the window around the air conditioner, and I don't know if they were trying to break in or what the hell, but the one kid made like he wanted me to come to the door so he could ask me something, but I could hear him fine right there so I told him I didn't want anything. They couldn't have been more than 12, and I was so half asleep that I couldn't even figure out what the hell they were up to. They must have gotten in through the neighbor's yard, as our gate was still locked. I oughta go over there and tell her to keep her damn yard secure.

<2126>

Someone from Romania came to my page wonder if going to bed later than 12am destroys brain cells. My impulse answer was, yes, your brain cells know to turn to little pumpkins right at midnight. No, of course not, your brain only cares how much sleep you get! But then I remembered that article I read about... oh, this one from Harvard Mag... about sleep, and it goes into some interesting stuff about circadian rhythms which indicates that when you sleep is also important. Rather, it's easier to sleep at certain times than others. So, in answer to the Romanian friend's question, yes, your head contents will die a painful death unless you are in bed at 11:59!

So, I bought the iBook. It's so nervewracking buying expensive things, and even more so online. But within a week I should have a shiny iBook, an iPod (yay education discount plus awesome rebate!), and an AirPort Base that I can stick my speakers and printer into as well as the internet, so that I can roam all over the house with the iBook unattached to anything!

Today was the longest day ever. And this was with like a 2 hour lunch with Theresa and to fax this form for old work. I kinda felt like new work deserved this slackerhood for making it impossible for me to fax there. Poo head budget number bee-ess. Anyhoo, I'm glad there are only 40 total more hours of cataloguing, because I am way burned out on it. I'd much rather be spending all 40 hours a week working on this paper project.

<0947>

Oh relief! I'm lucky enough to be the beneficiary of some funding here at the school, but one stipulation of it is that to keep getting it, I have to apply for extramural funding by the end of the 2nd term this year, which I considered to end December 22 or 23 or whatever it is. I thought I was golden, because there are a couple of grant dates in Nov and Dec, but then I realized that my topic is likely to be AIDS-related, which means that the Dec deadline is certainly out, and the Nov is questionable. AIDS-related grants are generally due Sept 1, which is waaaaaaay too soon, or Jan 2, which I thought might be too late for my funding stipulations. But it turns out today that it's not! So I am again quite golden.

Had dinner with Roxanne and her boy last night. She's got a pretty good apartment, nice central Mt. Vernon location. We're going to have party times.

<1415>

I made an appointment with UHS to inspect my leg... I thought I was developing this awesome lateral thigh muscle, but it's sort of asymmetric, so I figure it's worth a look. They had an opening for next Tuesday, which tells me I should only go there during the summer when no one else is around.

It's probably just new job energy, but I managed to be very productive this morning. It's also a lot easier to write a paper after having written one already, and the topic is a lot more straightforward. Also, I didn't have any input at all into the design, so when there are shortcomings, I'm just like, eh, whereas with the knee paper I was often annoyed that we hadn't done something. Anyway, they're doing some crazy electrical work this weekend, so they're kicking us all out at 1 on Friday, so my boss is just working from home and says I should too. Friday work in pajamas!

The upstairs digs are pretty nice. The one downside is that I share my cubicle with three people. But one of them is a girl from my cohort / co-advisee, and she rules. The upside is that there is a huge giant window within view, and so I can occasionally see what's up in the harbor, and I always know what the weather is like. All my cubicles down here have been landlocked.

When they tweaked my account to add new access, they dropped my access to the folder with the cataloguing database stuff in it. I emailed IS, and got back a response that my boss here had to authorize it... even though it's not like he had to authorize my being kicked off it. Dumb. So I'm goofing off mercilessly while I wait to get back on. The weird thing, though, about the whole terminal-esque aspect of the computers here is that whether I'm in my landlocked 3rd floor cubicle or the airy 9th floor cubicle, the stuff on the computer screen is exactly the same. Bizarro.

<2157>

New job es bueno. I spent a lot of today reading plays in Spanish, starting with ones written by and for gay men, MSM (or HSH como dicen en espanol), transvestites, bisexual men, etc. I learned a lot of new Spanish slang! The rest were written by African migrants, and generally involved unehlpful parents with daughters who had sketchy HIV-and-baby providing boyfriends. Overall, the big theme was kids getting tossed out of the house for fairly minor issues (being gay, getting love letters), and falling into some real shit to survive.

I was watching a little MNF, until the fucking dish died all the way, and I saw a commercial for a contest to take an NFL player to school. Wow! I thought, it would be sweet to take Donovan or Peyton to public health classes! But alas, the contest is only open to those age 6-13. Discrimination!

This promises to be a busy week. Tomorrow dinner with Roxanne, Weds dinner with Theresa, maybe Friday party fun, and Saturday housewarming. Madness.

<2255>

Friday night I went with Lynn and Tim to dinner and then to this jazz club near here, which was chill and fun. Yesterday I did nothing much at all, and same for today. I sleep so damn late on the weekends that I end up not having time to do exciting things. Anyway, tomorrow is the first day of work at the other job, woo.

I'm feeling sort of frustrated. I hate it when people foist expectations on me. I hate being put in awkward situations. I hate feeling imposed upon, and I hate imposing on others.

<1431>

I had another good meeting with my advisor today. Between that and the new job, I'm feeling re-immersed in school, and in a good way. After the lunch meeting, I jeopardized my good mood by looking at my quals comments... wow. The admin asked me how they were, and I said, "kind of unenlightening." The higher grader actually had more and more coherent comments than the lower grader. And on the section on which I got the 3 from the lower grader, a section which is supposed to be fully commented and justified, there was a minor comment in the summary about how the reliability and validity discussion was weak (okay, how?), and an undecipherable scrawl next to a paragraph. Grader comments should at a minimum match the detail of a manuscript reviewers comments or grant pink sheets, and ideally should go far beyond that. I worked my butt off to produce the exam, and it ought to be a learning experience.

So I'm irked about the paucity of comments instead of at the actual comments, which were useless.

<1638>

Today I signed myself up for another job, meaning that I'll be working full time for the next 4 weeks. I am so smart, s-m-r-t. No, but really, the second job is at the same place as the first, and this one actually may lead to thesis material and at least one publication. Probably more. It just means that all my beautiful vacation time has evaporated. If this job had appeared before summer started, I would have ditched Job #1, even though I have gotten a decent amount out of it.

This may actually be a good thing, though, since I have done jack squat with all my lovely vacation time. Also, I've been kinda wanting that shiny new iBook, and I may have to spend that extra money on just such a thing. Also, if I do end up working this second job into September also, that will be even more dinero.