and life goes on...
well, still feeling stressed but not as much as during my last entry. my presentation on friday went pretty well - didn't get that many questions but everyone told me they really enjoyed it. and my research advisor thought it was good. so i'm still rushed through this experiment, but things are coming together. AND my advisor also asked me if I wanted to work in his lab during the year, to which I said yes. today he said that he was glad I had been in lab this summer and that he could see I had gotten a lot done, so that made me feel a lot better about myself. now i just need to cram in all my remaining experimentation, complete my final presentation and write my final paper. oh, and plead my case for getting about 2,000 dollars added to my orientation budget. why? because apparently a large bill from last year wasn't paid, and so when the office received the invoice, they had to pay it out of MY budget. I'm hoping that when I show Dean Moll that last year's orientation came in 6,000 dollars under budget, he will be willing to give me the money to replace what this bill took out. Other than that little wrinkle, I'm just scrambling to get as much of this purchase order stuff done before I leave St. Louis. But I'm starting to hear from my staff and I think things over all are going well. a little more than a week to go and then I'll be back home for a bit. home. with that wonderful desert rain smell and sun but not humidity and mountains and REAL mexican food and old friends and family and my dog and a better church choir and all the little El Paso things that I couldn't wait to get away from until I actually did. I think we all feel that way about home - no matter where it is or how much we hate being "stuck" there, there will never be another place that will make us feel quite the same. No matter how many places we live or how much we come to love those places, there is something about home that cannot be reproduced or replicated. Perhaps like a first language, it just fits a little bit better than everything to come after.