I heart red wine and running!

Seriously, it totally makes everything better.

So yeah, today was totally craptacular.

My advisor, out of the blue, says to me "So you need to have three papers out to graduate."

To which I respond (in my head) WTF?!!!!!

Hello! Before I took the job in Seattle we discussed this and what milestones I needed to accomplish. And in my head, the goal was to have two papers out before I left in April. I am making good progress on one, and March will be devoted to the other.

But now! A third! Which I am going to have to pull out of my ass!

To all you non-academicians, I'm not talking about a paper like you write for a class. I'm talking paper that needs to be submitted to a journal and peer reviewed so you can't submit some half-assed piece of work!

So yeah, now I have 150% of the work I thought I had to do before I blow this joint. And yeah, did you know I really only have 6 weeks left in Ames? After over 5 years here, my time here is dwindling fast. I was at the point where I was a bit stressed with what I had to do, but I had my head around it. I had a productive work week so I was actually feeling pretty good.

But then I got blindsided by this. Let me note that he has never required that any of this other students get 3 papers out before they leave.

And did I mention I will be on a boat for the entire month of April? And then at a field station for all of May and June? And that I have to defend my mid-July to graduate this summer? Who has time for this shit?!

Anyway, this cast a bit of a pallor over the rest of my day.

So I decided to blow out of my office at 4pm and go home and run, since it was over 30 degrees. I am finally upping my mileage a little and I had a glorious 7+ mile run. It was dark and I was totally unsafe and not running with reflective gear and totally running on dark country roads. But only a few cars passed me, so it was all good. I couldn't see my HRM so I just had to listen to it beep when I was running too hard or I was being lazy. My run wasn't superfast (7.25 miles in 1:20), but it wasn't supposed to be fast, but an easy run. Of course, I have a half-marathon in a month and I am still only up to 7 miles, but I have been doing "long" runs twice a week or so, so I figure that has to count for something.

Well anyway this is my favorite route in Ames. It is the route I randomly ran the first Thanksgiving I was here and I hated the world because not a single person asked me if I had Thanksgiving plans so I spent Thanksgiving alone and I hated Iowa to death (you people aren't as nice as you seem to think you are) and I decided to just run this loop that I didn't even know where it went or how long it was and it turned out to be a good 7 miles and it was the first time I ever ran more than 6.

Anyway, then I came home, took a hot shower (stretching in the shower, new favorite thing!) and ate leftover mashed potatoes and cracked open a Cab from the Columbia Valley. When I was in NZ mode, I was all about drinking NZ wines, so now that I am in Seattle mode, it is all about the WA wines.

Anyway, my day sucked, but now endorphins + alcohol == superawesome!

I may have to remove this post tomorrow...