<1647

Early indications that things are going to be stupid for a little while. On a couple of fronts, actually.

And I have a cold. Effing shit.

<1400>

Not cool: having a conference in Germany. During the World Cup.

That's one flight I don't think I can afford. I could go on a whole damn vacation and then some for that much.

I want to go home. My boss left for some thing at school at said she'd see me tomorrow, making me think maybe I should bail. I ought to at least attempt some MLRs before I go.

<1943>

I left work after like another half an hour. I got stuck, so I figured why dick around there longer than I had to.

I came home and listened to angsty music, and I've done a little homework.

I also discovered that Office Depot has charged my credit card for the shelves I never got. I called to complain and was told someone would research the issue and get back to me in three hours. LIARS. They also said someone would contact me in an email message in response to some grumbing I did on their website. Also liars. Now I'll probably have to dispute the charge with my credit card. No one has done anything as heinous as Verizon yet, but Office Depot is definitely on the Dead To Me list. (Verizon is more on the I Will Hurt You If I Ever See You Again list).

<1718>

Things are much better today, now that I'm not hungover. I still haven't accomplished shit, other than grocery shopping.

<2042>

Last night was P's birthday, so we met up for Happy Hour at 4, went to Copra for dinner at 7:30, and then headed to the Spy Club for drinks and dancing around 10:30. Got home around 1:30. Dinner was delicious, and we had the downstairs all to ourselves. And the Spy Club was really fun... I'd never been there, but it had a nice little dance floor where we boogied on down.

As for certain drama... I don't even know where to start. Again, with the trouble. Trouble just presents itself as my best friend. I managed to stay in my right mind. But I kind of didn't want to. I'm sure all this will be pushed aside and ignored in real life, but I'm rattled to discover that I felt more strongly than I ever recognized. Fatal flaws provided a nice wall between myself and my feelings, but with the breach, I'm feeling a little drowned.

M called, which was nice. He told me about his New Year's resolutions.

<1123>

So tired. I managed to knock off a lot of tasks yesterday. I turned in my fellowship app during the lunch break so that I could shop two classes at 3:30 (the ones I missed Monday). Turns out the meta-analysis class actually meets Mon/Fri, which eliminates that from consideration, because I don't go to class during Happy Hour. And the community trials class had an annoying number of little assignments, so I knocked that out of consideration. I've perused the Homewood catalog, and nothing excited me, so I guess I'm really doing 5 credits of special studies. I checked out a library book and have some preliminary reading thoughts, but I kinda wish I could just read all term, but I know R is going to make me write a paper. I am so sick of writing fucking papers. I just want to read things for a while. That's what other grad peeps get to do.

I also got the ereserves for class mostly set up (until I realized many of the links from last year aren't to articles, but to web pages that are only accessible from on campus or if you can get the VPN to work, which I couldn't). I scheduled an appointment to fix my tire and get an oil change. I did the buttload of reading for ethics. But I still feel like I have a million things to do. I haven't graded the exams yet for the winter class, and now we're getting their short papers. And R is promising a week turnaround on them.

Work is continuing to be a bit lame. My boss at least finally came to terms with the fact that our outcome would never lead to properly-powered analyses, so now she has me playing around with new outcomes (that aren't that thrilling to me), and if those don't pan out, she has an evaluation of the media campaign for this survey that she didn't seem that psyched about. I don't want to pipe up and say, it's okay, I don't need to keep working, because I really don't with the two TA things going on right now. But I know she doesn't have time to write papers and really wants to publish something. But it's not really motivating me much.

<1130>

I'm not sure how I feel about policies of being as unhelpful as possible. It might be a long term.

<1449>

I intended to go into school today, on time, to shop some classes. I worked a few hours from home so I could wait for some bookshelves to be delivered. Thus far, no delivery. Boooo, now I've missed the shuttle. And I was planning to shop 2 courses in the time frame, which is challenging enough without getting there late (or never). I was also hoping to pick up my recommendation letters, so if these shelves come anytime soon, I'll go to school. If they don't come, I'm cancelling my order. Angrily.

Speaking of angry, some ass pipe left a note on my car that read, "It is hard enough to find a parking space. Could you please be so kind and just use 1 parking space? This car is just sitting here -- at least park it in a reasonable space." I wish I knew where this person's car was so I could leave my own note. Dear ass pipe. When I parked my car, there were cars in front of me, so I just parked behind them. I figured that was a sane thing to do, but clearly you wanted me to either 1) park on top of the car in front of me; 2) block the alleyway. You're a fuckface. I mean, seriously, I was parked maybe 3-4 feet from the alley opening, so maybe I could have been like a foot further back, but since I know my crazy landlord and the trash guys drive on that alleyway, there's no way in hell I'm getting too close to it. Meanwhile, there are like 4 insanely-parked cars on the block. And what's this crap treating me like some kind of second-class citizen for not driving my damn car every day? Fuck you, fuck your entire family, and fuck all people who like you, you stupid git.

<1609>

I noted with some glee that when my neighbor parked behind me, there was like 3/4 of a parking space behind her. See, ass pipe? There just isn't enough room for all the cars you'd like. There's only room for 4 cars on this 1/2 block. So, bite me.

Still no damn bookshelves. I'm calling at 5:01 to cancel my order.

In the meantime, I've been using Library Thing to catalogue my books. It's pretty cool.

<1730>

No bookshelves. Office Depot is officially DEAD TO ME.

And I still need some damn bookshelves!

<2234>

24 was so fucking awesome tonight!

I don't want to go in to work tomorrow. My interest in this analysis has plummeted after realizing we didn't really have the numbers to split by gender, and now we have this hackneyed thing of using slightly different outcomes for men and women that I find utterly unsatisfying. And then it turns out in the final regressions, they have almost the same predictors fall out, so I might lobby for collapsing them back together and looking for interactions instead. But, I'm tired of working. I don't know whether it would have been better or worse to have not TAed and worked the last two weeks... on the one hand, I would have had more real vacation, but on the other hand, it might have just been harder to get back into work.

<1747>

I got up at like 10:30 today, early for the weekend, but I still have accomplished not a lot other than reading like the entire NYT. I did manage to write up the guest speaker evals for the winter institute class (right before my advisor emailed to ask for them... I am psychic), and since this AFC game has been kind of a thumping (thus far), I devoted some time during it to working on my personal statement. It was kind of rambly, esp the intro, which, upon re-reading it, made me go, OMG shut the hell up already. I'll read it again tomorrow and see if there's more to be done.

Then I just need my recs, which I'm sure I'll have by tomorrow, and then I hope that my grades will also be fully posted by tomorrow so I can get my transcript. I sent politely-worded emailed to the offending profs asking them to please post their effing grades already. They were due 2 weeks ago. Seriously.

<2144>

R did give me all the exams, because he wants them all to get 2 looks, I guess. But today I neither worked on my personal statement nor graded exams, because I went with Lynn and her mom and her mom's coworker to see Brokeback Mountain and then to experience the amazemenet that is Wegman's. BM was pretty good, and I think I would have liked it a whole lot better if these women behind us hadn't been making inappropriate disapproving noises throughout. So annoying. The movie started slow and I didn't quite buy the men's dynamic, but it picked up speed. Wegman's was exciting because Corey had told us all about it at New Year's, so I was interested in it. It's quite the supermarket.

Now I'm going to goof off.

<1531>

I find playing with my CV very satifying. It's gets notably more impressive every time I touch it, with so little effort! But I figured it was time to open up my statement of purpose to see how much work I thought that needed. Turns out I hate it and want to completely overhaul it! I just wrote it like 2 months ago, how can I think it sucks so bad now!

I also forgot I'll have a pile of exams to grade as of today. Well, not that many, unless R gives me all of them.

<1933>

My lecture went well today. I think lecturing is something that requires practice... I forget to breathe when I'm talking, and I feel nervous and forget the things I was going to add, or just ramble. But it went well. I didn't end up showing the racy ad CCP did to promote vasectomy in Brazil. The guest speaker asked me why I thought the ad was so scandalous, and I was like, uh, well, the woman heart did have breasts (I failed to add, with nipples, oh yeah and the upside down guy heart kept erecting).

I know it's early, but I think I"m going to bed.

<1538> Class makes me tired. Also, TV night. We had three TV nights in a row with the double 24 action going on. Tonight I need to get my lecture together for tomorrow... I'll probably only have a short time because R is waaaaay behind in his own lectures. This is probably good, because I haven't started it yet. And I want to play around with my CV more. I tweaked it a lot last night based on some suggestions I got... turns out you can have a 'Papers in Progress' section, which allows me to put up all the papers that haven't been published yet. I also forgot there was another paper that got accepted to put on the publications list.

We got the rejection from JAMA, though, which is a bummer because the crew really put together a comprehensive response to the reviewers. In the end, I think they were just not going to get over the weaknesses in the study design.

I met with the crew for the third term course I'm TAing today. I think it'll be good, and Ann said some very sane things about how TAing should take a confined amount of time and not sprawl out into unlimited madness.

<1425>

The class is quieter today since R isn't here and we have a substitute. I'm happy.

Okay, they need to post grades already. They were due 10 days ago, they should be up. I need them so I can get my transcript for this fellowship application.

The app is otherwise going well. Recs are in process, and I have some tweaking to do on my CV and statement based on suggestions. Otherwise all the paperwork is in order.

<2256>

Bantha was down all yesterday and today due to a power outage combined with vacation, in case anyone was wondering.

Hmm, web pages might still be broken, but I can type!

Last night and tonight there was 24. Other than that I haven't been up to too much.

Trouble just tracks me down. I don't know if there's really anything going on in that head, but it makes me wary and yet intrigued. I know I'm a magnet for trouble, the kind that bring out my most biting wit tend to enjoy it most. And the nice ones, too often they're looking for the things I'm not, religious, teetotalling, not at all scathing. But I'm really not looking for trouble.

I have enough trouble going on in my own brain. A few words start by just making me giggle and go on to make me think and go on to make me lament.

<1643>

Even though I went to bed last night at like 11:30, I still got up at 12:30 today. I woke up around 10:30, but rolled over and fell right back to sleep. And, in reality, I probably only got up at 12:30 because I can't bring myself to sleep later than that unless I went to bed insanely late.

But I think I managed to forestall a cold (I can't tell whether the random snot and sore throat are just random or systematic), and I finally cleaned my bedroom, which has been increasingly unusable for anything but sleep since summer. Now I can use my desk if I want, and there's no longer luggage in the middle of my room. Now I just need to get all this paper out of the living room and into filing cabinets, and my house will be ready to actually do work in.

I need to get some bookshelves, though, now that I have nearly all my books. I filled the staircase to nowhere, so no I just have a pile of half-boxed books in the library.

Now I'm ready for some football.

<1948>

Woo, managed to get my filing done during the first game! I haven't filed things in any complete way since March.

<2116>

I finished Lost two minutes before the new episode. Who rocks? Me.

Me rock.

I got over being impressed that the new kids are so verbal when I realized that most of what they said bored me and made me wish they'd just let R lecture. But otherwise class is not that painful, and I can mostly putz around on the computer though I'm not at all productive.

I found out today I only have like 2 paid hours left at work, so until there is more money found, I'm only on "whenever I feel charitable" work status. Fortunately for my boss, we started doing analyses and it looks like there may be interesting results to write up, which will snag me somewhat, as I'm a whore for publication. Unfortunately for her, she drank my coffee I brought into our meeting and set on her desk while we talked. She just totally started guzzling it like 5 minutes in, so I didn't say anything.

I'm psyched about the 3-day weekend and the posse getting together Sunday and Monday for 24. I've missed the posse.

I also miss the drinking posse, who hasn't been around for Happy Hour, which made me sad because I've been at school the past 2 Fridays with no one to keep me there for drinking.

<2021>

Mostly I've just been watching Lost since I got back. We're adding it to the TV night lineup, so I have to catch up, and Mike made me copies of Season 1, so I have gotten that out of the way. Still working on Season 2.

Class started up today for the winter institute. The people in this class are a lot more verbal and engaged than the 2nd term kids. I guess they only have a limited chance to be in a classroom class, so maybe it's more exciting.

I can't work up a happy reaction. Maybe it'll all turn out fine, but now it just feels uneasy.

<0141>

Derailment turned out to be a good thing. I really misestimated someone, and their perceived apathy I certainly took on full fledged. But I was wrong.

It may still be true that it wouldn't really matter, but it's probably better not to find out I'm wrong on that count.

I headed to H Sq., did some grading at Peet's, then hung out with Lauren for a couple of hours. I shared my facebook divinations (ah, my crystal ball), but she could not corroborate. Then I went to Chuck's, met up with Loren, followed by M and others. I sang "Alone" by Heart, and nearly died due to lack of oxygen to the brain. I was distinctly faint afterwards. I wanted to sing again, but no such luck. I really need to get a karaoke posse and locale together in Baltimore, because it's just such a rush.

Time to go to bed... gotta get up, pack, check out (between 3 days of internet and 2 dinners, I may not be that happy with the residuals bill), and I think I'm just going to go straight to the airport and try to get on the earliest flight I can instead of my 5 pm flight. It's going to be such a bitch getting back on the other end. My bag is evil.

I can't say I enjoy that my vacation is ending.

<0053>

Read and edited the grant. Finished my 4-pager (at more like 3.1 pages, which is fine). Still 5.5 papers to grade, which I'll try to tackle tomorrow and Weds. I've managed to schedule plenty of fun.

I've decided to prioritize my fun over other concerns, because it's about damn time.

<1617>

Well that totally derails my day.

I'm just so annoyed right now.

<2127>

OMG, I hate grading! I got going way too late today as it was. I did get a nice jaunt to Trader Joe's, where I bought mostly crap. Terrible. It was actually decently nice outside, with my long underwear. It's supposed to snow like mad starting tonight through tomorrow night, which will probably mean I'll be all alone at karaoke. I hope there will at least be a Danny. I've only managed to get through 2.5 out of 8 papers, I have a 4-pager to write, and then my advisor calls me, I thought to be all like where's my grades at?, but it was instead to have me read over the grant before it goes off to NIH tomorrow. I insanely said yes. I wanted to finish all that tonight so I could goof off hardcore tomorrow. But now it looks more likely that I'll finish the grant, the paper, and maybe 1.5 more grading papers, and have the rest of the papers for tomorrow.

I'm going to lunch with Court no matter what, so take that, papers.

Of course, tonight I went down to the Zephyr and had ribs for dinner. I just need a box of wine to complete the sleepiness.

Or some Three Philosophers, which I have now broken open out of desire for as many obstacles to finishing my work as possible.

<2050>

Yesterday was only mostly a pain in terms of travel. I managed to sleep through both flights instead of being productive... they were bumpy, so I think that made me sleepy, like being rocked on the giant knee of the sky. I took a way-too-expensive cab to downtown Providence that almost made me wish I had waited the hour for the city bus. But the Bonanza bus was cheaper than I'd remembered, so that was at least something. Courtenay and Jack graciously let me park my enomous evil suitcase at their house, and I went with them to the party. Party was pretty fun... mostly old people, lots of food. We destroyed much alcohol. The folks who crashed at the house (including me) didn't go to bed until like 6, which was nuts, but fun. Today we all kinda bummed around drinking lethally strong coffee. Then I went to retrieve my bags, C&J drove me to the Hyatt, and now I am vegging, having purchased internet (what kind of hotel doesn't have free internet these days?) and room service pizza, which was so damn worth it because I did *not* want to put on clothes and go to the restaurant. And it's sufficiently cold and the hotel is remote enough that I wasn't interested in trekking out for food.

We're actually supposed to get a noreaster, which thrills me enormously. Not at all.

Also not thrilling: the grading and paper-writing I need to do tomorrow.