Trip to east TN-I can't wait

I leave on Friday-for 2.5 whole days for the south. I am so excited its not even funny. I can't wait to drive for 5 hours, 3 of those which my cell phone doesn't work but my XM radio does and I get to listen to NPR in Kentucky. Two diet cokes, one bag of skittles and one (small bag) of cheetos later and I'll be as happy as can be. Really-its the little things in life. And yes-I will sing to every song I know and I might have to stop at the outlets once I get on 65.

Then I get to see both my family and my friends in one weekend. I just can't wait to see everyone-my friends back home who are easy going and get this-I asked one of my friends for a ride and got a "no problem" response!! Really!? Grad students take forever to respond to those things and usually its-"I'll have to check my schedule" or "Maybe (but I will cancel last minute)"-I just can't wait to go back home. One of my good friends is having a baby shower and I, for the first time in my life, have a semi-creative gift idea that was actually planned out. I would tell you but my friend reads this and I don't want her knowing. Its going to be a good weekend. Can't wait.

Now I just have one seminar talk to give, lots of meetings, 1 paper to finish writing, 40 papers to grade and statistics homework. Its all good-because I get to go to Tennessee. :)

Who doesn't love the NY Times? Words of Wisdom...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/24/opinion/24fri1.html

And I think this is funny because of "Joe the Plumber" gimmicks and then we finally see the expense reports...

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/24/pains-makeup-stylist-fetches-highest-salary-in-2-week-period/?em

It was really one of those weeks...(again)

Again, the wicked Wednesday struck again. This time, it hit my computer. So Wednesday before working out I checked my email and all of a sudden my computer made a high frequency noise and then the screen went black! Somewhat scary-actually really scary but I managed to get my files off the computer. Long story short-it works and that is great.

I really must say that if you are in a conversation and you have a point to make to someone-just make the point and move on. There is no need to keep dragging it on, I think I'm smart enough to follow a conversation (well..that might be debatable). But I argue that if you keep talking about the same stuff then I will just start thinking about my own research. Kind of reminds me of infant looking paradigms. Show them a repeated stimulus and eventually they will stop looking at it-its called habituation people and that is exactly what happens when the conversations get really long and winded and especially when you don't let me talk. Like one day at lunch this past week. So let's just make the point and move on? Sounds good. And its really not all about you. But in all reality this is what happens frequently at lab meetings..talk, talk, talk (60 minutes still talking about the same thing-this is where I zone out).

And one more person that asks if something is graded or if a project is done or why am I arriving late somewhere or why can't I be there here rather than there-Im going to ignore unless your Mike and then I can just call you a name and you will think its funny and then laugh.

My Friday...

My friends...

are awesome. I have some really good true friends. Some examples:

1) This morning started out like any other Wednesday. 5:30am alarm followed by grabbing the ipod touch and checking email to make sure a disaster didn't occur for the 5 hours I was asleep. Today: Disaster occurred. It was an email from a ra that told me she had some rash and she thought it was contagious and so she couldn't come in for the 3 appointments for Wednesday. WTF? Are you kidding me. Im thinking no, oh hell no this isn't going to happen. It has already been a horrible week. Long story short about the study: she had to be there with me to run the study. Ok one disaster and its only 5:45am...what to do. Go to cyclefit. So Im at cyclefit and it takes a total of 4 bikes to get to one that actually works...by the 4th I yell out something like: this ****ing sucks, why can't things just work (which is what I yell out when something breaks in the infant lab) and at that moment, at 6:15am after two disasters my friend starts laughing her ass off and tells me that she thinks Im funny. Not funny.