<1914>

Friday was the usual Happy Hour, but it was just the core three of us there. Renan's wife was sick, so he couldn't come to karaoke. P wanted to stay with the Brazilians when I was ready to leave at 20 til 8, but I was out of beer and don't speak Portuguese, so, annoyed, I left that scene and headed to Max's. Grabbed some pizza, and the astrofiz crew had arrived by the time I was done, so that was good. Quite a few folks ended up showing, with a few notable absences on the SPH end, but physics was having its prospectives weekend, meaning there were tons of them ready to party. I got to sing 3.5 times, because the DJ loved me... every time I put in a slip I'd be up in five minutes. Somebody to Love, Alone and I Will Survive by myself, and Love Shack with Rock Star Tim and Annie. I say Rock Star Tim because later he sang Don't You Forget About Me like a rock star and surprised the hell out of everyone. Particularly me, because he was not a rock star on Love Shack. That's a song you really gotta know to do the guy's part.

Anyway, karaoke was great.

Saturday I watched Sopranos all day and then went to the physics party and stayed extremely late, for reasons I can't even figure out. All of a sudden it was like 4 am. I set the stage for future extreme mocking of people who talk about their alma mater a tad too much, and generally had a good time.

Until the next morning when I woke up with a hangover (I didn't drink that much! But I did drink rum, so, I need to remember to never drink rum) and the worst ass ache of the month. It's been nearly a month since I first hurt my lower back sacroiliac area, and I wore those same damn boots again this weekend. It didn't hurt Saturday, and I even got up Sunday and checked my email and drank some water and went back to sleep. When I got up the second time is when I felt crippled. It was terrible. Today was exactly the same... I slept like crap all night because it hurt so bad, and then I got up, took a shower, and nearly died. Normally my back has only hurt really bad while I'm sitting, but hurting that much while lying and standing is new. So I threw back some Aleve and got a few hours of decent sleep in. Clearly there's some kind of inflammatory process going on if the Aleve has some effect, so I guess I'll try the old popping of NSAIDs twice a day until this thing is beat. I have a doctor's appt next week too for annual routine shit, so if it's still agonizing then, I'll mention it. It feels a bit better now.

<2239>

The last 24 hours of the Band mailing list has been a hilarious recreation of what the witchhunts would have been like if Salemites had email. Seriously, like all sorts of adding of e's onto the ends of words and archaic language. It's totally dorky and New England, but I love it.

<1443>

Sure enough, R decided he wanted to do some interactions and multivariate stuff. Well, no kidding, dude. So I'm glad I passed that crap off to him. I have too much stuff to deal with. If I'd had more time, I coulda totally figured this stuff out, but a few hours is not enough.

So, the weekend. Friday I went to Happy Hour and was the only one there for like half an hour. I almost left, but then some folks showed up and good times were had by all. Then I went to Tapas Teatro with some peeps, which was tasty.

Saturday I went to Boston, chilled in Davis for a while, and then went to Court and Jack's. They got a keg of Newcastle and a half keg of Bud Light, both of which were kicked by the end of the night. Tons of people showed up, there was great food, beer pong, and overall craziness. Well worth the trip.

I stayed at Mike's (after a brief but extremely cold walk), which was good, and he made breakfast for everyone. Then I bummed around Harvard Sq, not being productive, until dinner with Court at Tanjore. It was good to chat about school and life and get caught up. After that I went to the airport and came home.

Monday I opted not to go into work because my boss wouldn't be there. I did nearly nothing productive. I did make some tables for R, which have turned out to be useful. And I wrote up a ton of minutes and emails for the club. But I didn't do any grading or writing on these papers I have due at the end of the week.

Yesterday was annoying. I stayed up too late writing those emails, then went to work, had a productive meeting with my boss and R after he asked me to do crazy abstract writing, and then had to go to a curriculum committee meeting I found out about just that morning. After that was the goodbye party for Barbara, and then I went home and had a little stress freakout about the stupid abstract. Then I took a nap and went to TV night.

Today I have so much effing grade to do, and I also have to write a paper. Booo.

<1731>

Thanks, advisor, for making me feel like a lame jerk. He comes up to me today, asks what I'm up to for the day, wants to get an abstract together for *tomorrow*. I say okay and try to start working on it this afternoon, but just get confused as to what the heck to include since all I've done are some preliminary analyses and nothing that I would consider nearly interesting enough to report on. So I call him and he's like, why don't you send me that table because I can do it in like 25 minutes, like I'm some kind of big baby for not being able to just whip out an abstract. I'm sorry, where I come from, people have more than a few hours to make an abstract that says something remotely interesting. They even, like, have other people look over them and stuff. So now I'm all upset and just want to pout and not do the 43587438957 other stupid things I'm supposed to be doing, like grading papers.

I just hate insane demands is all. He should have taken the tables when I showed him this morning if he thinks he's so awesome at making abstracts out of lame univariate crap.

Anyway, Boston was good this weekend, and I'll write about it when I'm not busy pouting.

<0713>

Booo weather. The temps are going to drop 20 degrees between now and tomorrow (effectively less than that, though, because of the winds that accompany such drops), but I'm going to Boston, so that means a 30 degree drop for me. Yikes. I anticipate having a cold next week. I wish it would decide whether it's spring or winter.

<1426>

Such filler today. We had two sets of office hours, which no one came to because they just got the assignment Weds. So I got some work done. And then this eval class is such a study hall because it's either easy, obvious, or I do not care. Today we're talking about health information systems, which, like, whatever. I hope some of these people are paying attention so they can set up these systems so I can get get ahold of good data. But there's no way I"ll ever be setting up health information systems.

<1501>

I've definitely moved into the Who Effing Cares camp about the Cheney-shooing-his-friend thing. The jokes are great, of course, but the actual serious hysteria and speculation about why he didn't bust out his cell phone and call the press while he was standing over his friend checking out the damage? Good God, people, there are so many things about this veep and this administration to be livid about. I know you're foisting all those frustrations on this incident and it's not really about what it is. But, dude, eye on the ball.

<2220>

Guh, he's the sweetest man ever. Just so nice.

<1047>

Blah blah, work. I'm doing a lit review, halfheartedly. I think my boss and I have both decided that this dataset isn't going to give us much (although the effect of demographic variables may be interesting enough to report). But she has a new dataset coming with more and better questions, so I'm doing a lit review in preparation for that maybe being useful. So, no escape for me from work.

Today is kind of a long day... after work, class, then I need to get some stuff done for R, then a meeting of the student group, first one with new board members in place. There are 80 things on the agenda, so I'm anticipating a couple of hours. Then tomorrow I have to be in early for office hours, TAing, more office hours, class, and then Happy Hour. Hooray for Happy Hour! Then Saturday it's off to Boston! I'm terribly pleased with myself for deciding to go.

<1229>

Sometimes I come across old things when looking for unrelated old things, and when I inevitably dig through them a bit, I get this powerful bittersweet mix of feelings. Bitter, because, gah, you asshole and waste of time and energy. Sweet, because I was so right, all the time, and you were just as deluded and evil and gross as I was always trying to tell you you were (as nicely as I could).

<2106>

Stanford tree behaves in way more becoming of me than a tree.

So, I totally won my battle with Office Depot, via fighting powers of credit card company. I got my credit a few days ago and just noticed it today. Take that, fuckers!

Sadly, I am in more need of bookshelves than ever. I have so many boxes of crap. I feel as if I've moved in again.

<0118>

Spur of the moment is so good sometimes (and surprisingly affordable, thanks to last-minute fares). I'm going to Boston this weekend! And I'll even still make Happy Hour Friday! How good am I?

This was a really good V-day. It was awesome to chill with the girls and have champagne, got to also have mini-TV night and say goodbye to AD (I hope not forever... damn you, Fox). I haven't always been feeling so physically great lately, which sometimes gets me down, but things are pretty solid overall right now. And tomorrow (today) I get to sleep in late!

<1157>

I got up to go to my afternoon class, but also because it was 11:30, but now I think I'm going to play hooky. DVDs have arrived in the mail, and process eval is not so exciting that I'll get more from going than just reading the slides! :-)

<2026>

Too much champagne and chambord! But I got more for TV night, which wasn't happening, but now it might be in abbreviated form at Lynn's.

I got email this afternoon to look over assignemtn 2 for class, but if you're going to send that shit to me the day before on V-day, don't expect a response.

Unless you're like that fucking [bleep] (yeah, I said cunt, gotta problem?) who called me several years ago to fix her computer problems at 1 am, only to be appalled I was tipsy.

<1845>

People, you need to send me some ideas of amusing things to do with my old MathCounts and ABQ Trib Lighthouse trophies, and my SciOly medals. God, and the big state triangles aren't even here yet. I can't bear to dispose of them, but they cannot be displayed without some kind of wackiness involved. I wish there was a way to make coasters out of the medals. If I had any skill at attaching things to the wall, the triangles could be used as shelf brackets. The Lighthouse awards I could really just chuck, even though it was pleasant to recall that I got one for my music column, trashy and embarrassing as I'm sure I'd find it now.

But, seriously, what do people do with their high school crap?

The other stuff I got was better: little doodads and baubles, a jewelry box (good replacement for a drawer full of boxes), some t-shirts I'd forgotten. More books, including the toucan journal, which I think completes the set.

I had a good meeting with my advisor today. We're working on some papers, and we decide that summer would be a good time to write a dissertation proposal, and before then would be a good time for me to add survey questions to the Namibia study if I want to. I feel like since the end of 2nd term, the whole advising thing has clicked pretty well.

Much better than my current teaching job... I just *know* that she's going to take just long enough with the papers that it'll run into grading for winter term final papers, even though I have tried my best to get the process set to go on Wednesday. But it sounds like she will just have us log which ones have been turned in, give them to her, and then someday, when the time is the wrongest, she'll give them to us to grade. And in talking to her about the grading process today, she was all like, "Didn't we talk about this at the start of term?" like I was being redundant or something. There' no way we had a conversation as detailed as "In step 1, you will log the papers. In step 2, blah blah" and even if we did, I was a little more concerned about making sure there existed a web site with readings, thank you very much. So annoying. R was ever so much more laid back and yet organized in a reasonable way.

<0150>

So, due to bad weather, we're bailing on TASPplication day tomorrow. I was trying to not be a weather wuss, but as the forecast went from "we don't know how much it will snow" to "maybe 2-4 inches and you can probably drive down and back okay" to "OMG, stay the fuck off the roads it's gonna snow like balls" I had to reasonably move to not driving down there tomorrow. I guess we could have took the train, but eff spending $26 to read applications all day. Damn MARC, would be nice if it were open on weekends.

In lieu of getting up early, I stayed late at happy hour due to Brazilians, and then E asked if I wanted to go to Brewer's because the one extra Brazilian beer and she was ready to party. I was too. We met cute boys, she made out with hers, left, and I told mine he was cute but not coming home with me, and then I "went to the bathroom" and came home. I understand he's tired of the relationship thing, but I don't have enough experience to have tired of it, so sorry, boyee.

Sleeping late tomorrow!!!!

<1017>

What is this cold air that seems to be happening? I seem to recall it having a name like winel or wonter. Where'd spring go?

<2109>

I came home, put on my pajamas, and promptly fell asleep for 3 hours. I don't know what's wrong with me. I was supposed to stay at school and do work, but I just felt so tired. Now I feel unmotivated. I need vacation.

<1747>

Yesterday I went down to DC to watch the Super Bowl at Dave and Court's. Their apartment has progressed nicely since I was down there for the housewarming. They have grown-up furniture! It was just us and a friend of Court's from school, but it was fun. We gorged ourselves on bad food. I also got to drive back really fast, because the traffic wasn't so bad, and there were leaders.

I dragged my ass out of bed this morning, decided it was too cold to shuttle and walk and so I took the city bus. Only to get to work and discover that my account was disabled AGAIN. My boss wasn't there yet, so I bailed. Which was good, because she was actually out with wisdom tooth extraction recovery, and forgot to email and tell me until 11:30, so I would have just been waiting for her to show. I went to Best Buy and bought a new flash drive, since my old one went AWOL. Then I went to school, got my meeting with R in early, and went home. Since then I've been doing laundry (had to once again move Bill's laundry, since not a day goes by without his clothing invading the basement), sending out grades for the winter class, and blazing through homework. This week isn't so bad for work, even though I have two assignments due. No grading, at least.

Okay, I know I watched the game with Steeler-leaning people, but I am astonished at the amount of whining about the refs that has been going on. People, the refs did not lose the game for Seattle. I think them not being able to put a decent drive together all of the first half when they were otherwise dominating, and many other errors on their part, were much more significant. Please. And most of the calls people are crying about were pretty legit. So. Stop, you whiners.

<1823>

Oh! Reading Bill Simmons reminds me of something I believe had more to do with Seattle losing than refs! They came out onto the field to the triumphant tune of... "Bittersweet Symphony"? No wonder they couldn't score!

<1842>

Had brunch with the cohort today, which was fun. It was raining like mad, though. Even so, parking was still impossible at Fells Pt, although circling around did finally result in me getting a free spot very close to the restaurant, so woo!

Grading is so much faster now that I've done a class of this already. I swear, I graded short papers over Thanksgiving at Court's, and it felt painful and time consuming. Now I have 20 papers to grade (instead of the 12 I had over T-day), and I've just finished blazing through 9 of them in like a couple of hours. This is great.

I still don't know if that means I can allow myself to go out tonight. I need to run some analyses tomorrow, and I have to go to school to convert the dataset somehow (I don't know where my flash drive went, so that makes things much harder). I need to do this all before I head to DC for the Super Bowl party, although I can probably fudge a little work time to finish it up before my meeting with R at 2 on Monday. I feel like if I go out, I'll be out late and then I won't get up early enough tomorrow to be productive.

<2151>

Looks like karaoke is gearing up thanks to P!

People. Stop with the comparing of others to Hitler. Hitler is seriously way badder than all your enemies. All the bad are belong to him. Your enemies might be bad, BUT HITLER OUTBADS THEM ALL.
Thank you,
Discount Tire Company

<1544>

Doobeedoo, waiting for Happy Hour. I hope I won't be disappointed.

I used up the rest of the NyQuil last night (and I went to bed early-ish given how late I got up, and then I slept until almost 10), so today I had my first experience buying it since they started putting that stuff behind the counter. It was uneventful. I'm going to use half the stuff the normal NyQuil coma-inducing way, and I'll make meth with the other half to wake me up during the day.

<2210>

So I seem to be doing a lot of DC these next 2 weekends. I'm going to a Super Bowl party and Court and Dave's Sunday, and then next Saturday L and I are doing TASPplication day down there (FYI any other TASPer folks in the area). Nice to have the car fixed for such adventures.

<2358>

BTW, Happy Hour was good. Things are cool.

<1716>

Because of my cold, I emailed in sick to work when I got up at 7. I set my alarm for 11:30 to go to class, but then when it got to be around that time, I decided not to go. So I slept on and off until 3. It was great. NyQuil is good stuff.

Office Depot is about to be on the I Will Hurt You if You Don't Go Away list. Now they're trying to tell me the warehouse is saying they delivered the bookshelves. Well, that's nice and all, but it's not like I'm overlooking enormous bookshelves that happen to be sitting on my porch. They're supposed to be getting back to me with who signed for them. I'm guessing that I'm going to have to refute the charges from the credit card end of things.

<1851>

On top of being sick, my tailbone hurt like crazy today. It's been acting up ever since I ran in those boots on Friday, and dancing certainly didn't help that night, and carrying books in a rush very much didn't help today.

I was kind of annoyed this morning about class... R always, like, emailed me the slides the night before so I could photocopy them whenever. But this class is gonna make me come in an hour before our start at 10:30 to make the copies. I'd much rather do it the day before, but the prof says she won't be ready by then, which, fine, but I don't think the slides have changed so much from year to year. But fine, photocopying before class won't be a big deal. I just wish she would have bothered to let me know that was the story. At least she stopped being pissy about it pretty quickly... I think she came to realize she had only talked to the other TA about what the plan was.

No opportunity for feeling resolved today. I want things to be normal. I just want to know they'll be normal.

<2132>

I got my MD tax refund today. They have the easiest online filing system ever. I'm hanging onto the federal taxes until April, though, since I owe them money. :-)

So, the new department student group is having elections coming up, and I'm trying to decide what all to run for. Unlike Band, these are elections, so I think there's less intrigue than when super secret meetings of the cabal lead to the final decision. But I realized that I didn't want to run for Chair if the current de facto chair is running, because she's much more low key than I am, while still being way organized. So, it looks like she's running, so I'm free to run for stuff that fits a bit better (not that I would mind if other folks were Chair besides her, it just wouldn't be as good). I'm running for rep to the academic affairs committee, which given the amount of time I spend thinking about curriculum is a pretty good fit, and Ops Chair, which is like Treasurer mixed with record-keeper (an aspect I kinda threw in mildly with myself in mind).