Great Band

So some of Nicole's friends from college are in a band, The Whitest Light, is on tour, and they stopped in RI on Saturday night. A couple of us girls saw the show, and the band was awesome! I'm including their myspace page so that ya'll can check out their songs, if anyone's interested.

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=6671450


In other, less interesting news, the stress of writing my thesis is slowly driving me insane. I've been getting pretty shitty sleep the last week, waking up every hour and a half, or every two hours on good nights. I don't know if it's the stress that's keeping me awake or what. I mean, Saturday night when we saw the band I went to bed at 4 AM. But I still work up at like 8:30 or 9:00. And I mean wide awake. So I got up, took a shower and went to work. I didn't even take a nap. I think my body is just on autopilot now. And today marks the beginning of what I call "crunch time", i.e., when I start coming back to the office every night after dinner to get more work done. I just keep telling myself that I"m working towards 1) getting out of RI 2) living above the poverty line and hopefully 3) a job living and working on a beach in SC for the summer. I know others are stressed as well; Spencer's finishing law school, last I heard he and Mags were lookin for a new apt, Caitlin has a bunch of conferences in March, Ames is trying to decide if she should go for her masters, Mike is trying to decide between school and a girl.....I could go on but my brain can't hold anymore problems. I hope everyone's stuff works out. Come on guys, suck it up, we can do this!

Job Update

Okay, so I FINALLY talked to the guy at Clemson University, and we're set up to discuss the job next Friday morning. So I guess that makes this a phone interview? My cell phone cut out a few times during the conversation, so I missed a few words. Anyways, that's a positive sign, that somebody is interested in me for a job, even if it's only a summer job. :) Here's the link if anyone's interested in what the camp is like:

http://www.clemson.edu/yli/campsewee/

So apparently there are 8 sessions, each one lasting one week. During that week we teach some marine science stuff, but also go out to the marshes, go to a water park, there's optional kayaking, and some boating, judging by pics from last summer. And I'd get the week of July 4th off to do something. So that looks good. I never did the summer camp thing, so it will be weird to be in charge of kids all day and night for a week, and then never see them again as I try to learn the names of the new kids. But hey, it looks like a fun experience, and if I don't love it, it's only for one summer, right?

Busy Busy Busy

I meant to update earlier this week because last week was so full of stuff. Monday I took my car in. Tuesday I got the call that the motor was shot, and that I needed to get another car. Wednesday I covered a lab for someone and the building flooded because it poured from 10 AM til 6 PM. Thursday I taught all day and then went to drink wine and eat cheese and chocolate cake for Valentine's day. Friday I had a lunch meeting with a genomics candidate for our school. Saturday I shopped for cars and then went to Boston with friends to celebrate Michelle's birthday. I now know of a good Thai restaurant and dueling piano bar in Boston, if anybody's heading up there. Sunday I bought my new car (well, new to me, it's 2004, but it LOOKS brand new) and saw Dave and Sara for like 20 minutes, because they were in Newport for the weekend.

Whew. So that was last week. Also, my brother Mike is dating someone now. I can't remember if I've updated about that before. Her name is Kodi and she lives in NYC, so clearly the distance thing is an issue. He might possibly move to NYC to be with her, but then he has to stop school again, or wait til the summer. More updates on that when I know what's going on.

My personal updates pretty much just consist of work/thesis updates. I applied for two more jobs, but got an email this morning that one of the jobs I applied for has already been filled. I've been playing phone tag with a guy from Clemson about the South Carolina summer camp counsellor job. He called Thurs, I called Fri, he called Mon, I called Tues. It's really getting ridiculous. I may call hiim again this afternoon, since he hasn't called me back yet today. Also, I just finished the intro for my thesis. Of course, the only reason I have it done is because 85% of my intro is the proposal I turned in at the end of summer. Since it's all background info anyways, I pretty much just filled in some holes. So far, my intro, methods and results = 15 double spaced pages. With my works cited it's 21 pages. So this may be the shortest master's thesis ever. We'll see.

I have 5 weeks til I need to turn in a defendable copy if I plan on graduating this semester. I'm not sure I can pull it off. If I just had to write a paper then I'd be fine. But I know Brad will make lots of suggetions and changes, and when you factor in editing time, I really don't know if I can pull everything together in time. But if not, I'm hoping I'll just be a couple of weeks behind, and that I can defend in May. Partly because I'm hoping I get that summer job, which starts at the end of May, and partly because I want to get the hell out of Rhode Island.

Mechanical Failures.....

So apparently all electronic/mechanical things in my life are failing. Last week my cell phone was losing charge like crazy. It turned itself off one day when I was at school because the battery was draining so quickly. So I drive half an hour out to Warwick so I can find a Sprint store and get a new phone (which I love! It's so sleeky and shiny and not scraped up from being dropped multiple times on concrete!)

Unfortunately, on the way back from Warwick my car started overheating. When I got back I noticed that the water/antifreeze was empty (which seemed odd), so I filled that up, but it still overheated. So I took it to the shop yesterday and just got the call. Or death sentence.

It overheated so badly that the head gasket got wet, and coolant went through the motor and came out with the oil. Coolant is very corrosive, so I would need a new motor, which is not worth putting into a car that is 15 years old and has over 160,000 miles. So basically I need to buy a new car. I was really hoping the van would last me till the end of grad school, but it just couldn't make it. I was also hoping I could work on my thesis all day this Saturday, but I guess I'll be looking for cars instead. :(

Moving Forward

I'm posting because I've had a great, productive day. Firstly, I learned at the end of last week that I don't have to do another analysis on my blood! I won't go into details, but suffice it to say that the analysis would have been complex, and would have had to be repeated multiple times in order to ensure a reliable result. So I'm happy to avoid that crap.

Also, I wrote the results section of my thesis yesterday and made all my graphs and tables. I cleaned it up a bit this morning and sent it off to Brad, along with some questions. I know there's more work to be done on it, but finishing another section of my thesis feels like a big accomplishment at this point. I also applied for my first job this morning! It took like 1 1/2 hours, because I had to fill out an online resume, answer a questionairre (spelling? is that even a word?) that consisted of 151 questions (seriously, how ridiculous is that?) and scan my transcripts into a word document so they could be uploaded electronically. Whew. I assume it was complicated because I'm applying for a federal job, so they have to check my background 5 different ways or something. The job itself is "Grants Specialist," and involves math stuff and grants. Confirming that the numbers are correct? Designating which grants get money? Something like that.

I also got a huge care package from my mom yesterday which included a book called Enter Three Witches. It's essentially Macbeth from the point of view of servants, wards, Banquo's son and one of Macbeth's paid assassins. It's fun to recognize the bits and pieces of the official play within the book, and it's a fast read, since there are roughly half a dozen main characters, and each point of view only lasts a few pages. I definately recommend it to my Shakespeare-loving friends.