Wednesday, December 20, 2006

I really need to bury that last post...

Especially since the "Tuesday the 13th" in my post title sits right underneath the "Wednesday the 13th" on the date. How embarassing...

I'm at home sweet home in Massachusetts, sitting on my parents couch and letting my mom make me dinner. Life is hard. Although I am mildly overwhelmed by all the cable channels. I actually flipped by a TV show called "Bathrooms of the World."

The snack food named after my hometown.

My hamstring has been pestering me, so I decided a week off from running is in order. I did actually bring my bathing suit home, but the odds of me seeking out the local Y and going swimming are pretty slim. So instead I go to the gym at my mom's hospital.

Besides the hamstring (grumble, grumble), life is good:

1. I just found out today that NSF has decided to fund my graduate research (well they "anticipate recommeding" it for funding), which means that I might actually get out of grad school before the end the decade.

2. I just finished a great book. How can you go wrong with a book whose main character is named Hiro Protagonist?! One of his other books apparently has a "cult following amongst water pollution control engineers." How can I not read that now?

3. I am merrily throwing away all my money at www.steepandcheap.com. Seriously, they sell some good outdoor gear, only one item at a time, for like 75% off. My only salvation from the poor house has been that I am stealing my neighbor's wireless and my internet has been iffy lately. But I already bought a rain jacket and a watch. I needed that stuff! Yeah... I keep missing the sweet Patagonia stuff - a woman can never have enough wicking clothes! And in general, I can't afford that stuff, even though I get warm fuzzies supporting a company like Patagonia that does good things for the world.

Thank goodness I am going to VT in a couple of days where there is no internet! At least where our house is... I am pretty sure somewhere in the state has the internet.

Oh, and I just saw this. I believe this is exactly what I told my advisor and exactly what will happen:

8 comments:

ButterPeanut said...

good stuff! Here's to getting out of grad school before middle age.

And that cartoon IS scarily accurate....!

Joe said...

I love the book with Hiro. Can't even count the number of times I've read it. I didn't like water pollution one as much. If you're ever in a mood to punish yourself, though, try his other uber-famous book. It's ridiculously thick, but if you ever want a multiple page description of a guy putting a single spoonful of cereal in his mouth, that's the book for you. :)

(P.S. why aren't we saying the books' titles?)

Danielle in Iowa in Ireland said...

I meant to link to the amazon page for Snow Crash, but my internet was slow and amazon wouldn't open and I forgot to go back and write the title :-)

Joe said...

I thought it was a game to see who was cool enough to know what you were talking about. I was proud that my geekiness allowed me to understand...

Al Dimond said...

Well I totally failed the test then. But it (Snow Crash) is now second in line on my "stuff to read" list.

Anonymous said...

Happy holidays to all of you guys!! Enjoy your time off from your scientist duties! :)

Laurie said...

The NSF grant news is very exciting. Congratulations!

I hope you have a great vacation. You shouldn't feel at all guilty for not being productive. You deserve a break.

Happy New Year!

Al Dimond said...

(I just checked out that "Steep and Cheap" store... that's really neat, it's like a specialized version of woot.com. My consumerist* brother is a big user of woot.com; if I were more of a consumerist I would be, too.)

* here I define "consumerist" as "an adherent of consumerism", which, when held by consumers, I define as, "the belief that consuming more will improve one's life"; it is a belief typically expressed in actions rather than in words.