Ring my doorbell, please?
The pumpkins are outside with candles glowing and lights have been turned on to show that I'm home, but there are still no trick-or-treaters. I am surprisingly bummed by this; Yuki lives in a reasonably dense neighborhood - the kind for me that would have indicated plenty of candy for a minimal amount of work. Maybe because most of CA is densely developed this isn't as big of a deal, but I would have thought someone would have come by since I got home at 4. Or that I'd at least see anyone out at all while driving home, but that was another total miss.
It is Halloween today, right? I didn't fall into some mystical time warp like last week?
His parents were out here visiting from Tuesday to Tuesday this past week. It was good to see them, although at times stressful and very tiring. We drove up to Lake Tahoe and spent the weekend there. I managed to walk out of the casino with $31 more than I went in with, which puts me up for the lifetime to $29. The bar on the top floor had a wonderful martini that was totally worth the $14 it cost me - tasted just like fresh pears with alcohol. Since I adore pear, it isn't hard to see why I loved this. I could definitely see enjoying the scenery up there when it's snowing; it has the ski town feel to it, and I drooled over a pair of snowboots in the North Face outlet up there that aren't worth $100 when you live in a town that sees no snow ever. I miss the cold and the snow and everything that goes along with it - the Bay Area is nice but not for a lifetime, I think. I'll go mad missing the seasons like this forever.
NaNo starts tomorrow and I am intensely jealous of those with time to do it. Hopefully next year I'll be in a place where it's possible; between quals and the release of Wrath in about two weeks, there's very little free time left for me to do anything resembling novel writing. I'm hard-pressed to balance e-mails and journal writing with the mountain of work for quals. The stress (or at least, I'm hoping it's just the stress) has had me in a bit of a funk lately. It looks like the hopeful date for quals will be March 11th, which means I at least have a date to work towards, but I still want to have a first draft of the quals proposal done by the end of November, along with the poster draft for the conference I'm presenting it at in December, and I'm somehow expected to continue to produce output in the lab.
Looking at it that way it's a little more understandable why I haven't been sleeping well lately. And why my shoulders seem to have permanent knots installed. One of my labmates had her defense today; I didn't stick around to wait for the private grilling to be over but I'm sure she did fine. I'm quite jealous, but I know I'll get there eventually. I just have to pass quals first.
Yes, my life really is this boring right now. Hopefully I'll get out of the funk soon.
It is Halloween today, right? I didn't fall into some mystical time warp like last week?
His parents were out here visiting from Tuesday to Tuesday this past week. It was good to see them, although at times stressful and very tiring. We drove up to Lake Tahoe and spent the weekend there. I managed to walk out of the casino with $31 more than I went in with, which puts me up for the lifetime to $29. The bar on the top floor had a wonderful martini that was totally worth the $14 it cost me - tasted just like fresh pears with alcohol. Since I adore pear, it isn't hard to see why I loved this. I could definitely see enjoying the scenery up there when it's snowing; it has the ski town feel to it, and I drooled over a pair of snowboots in the North Face outlet up there that aren't worth $100 when you live in a town that sees no snow ever. I miss the cold and the snow and everything that goes along with it - the Bay Area is nice but not for a lifetime, I think. I'll go mad missing the seasons like this forever.
NaNo starts tomorrow and I am intensely jealous of those with time to do it. Hopefully next year I'll be in a place where it's possible; between quals and the release of Wrath in about two weeks, there's very little free time left for me to do anything resembling novel writing. I'm hard-pressed to balance e-mails and journal writing with the mountain of work for quals. The stress (or at least, I'm hoping it's just the stress) has had me in a bit of a funk lately. It looks like the hopeful date for quals will be March 11th, which means I at least have a date to work towards, but I still want to have a first draft of the quals proposal done by the end of November, along with the poster draft for the conference I'm presenting it at in December, and I'm somehow expected to continue to produce output in the lab.
Looking at it that way it's a little more understandable why I haven't been sleeping well lately. And why my shoulders seem to have permanent knots installed. One of my labmates had her defense today; I didn't stick around to wait for the private grilling to be over but I'm sure she did fine. I'm quite jealous, but I know I'll get there eventually. I just have to pass quals first.
Yes, my life really is this boring right now. Hopefully I'll get out of the funk soon.