who else has a key to my apartment?

this morning i get home from the house i'm dog sitting at to find that both the dead bolt and door handle of my apartment are locked. i ONLY ever lock the dead bolt! what the HELL?!?
now i'm really starting to get creeped out by paul. i mean, who else could it have possibly been? and if it had been for a legitimate reason, shouldn't he have called me first? or at least afterward or something?

not so yes, yes, yes

so turns out eric doesn't have the budget to pay me, so bye bye post-doc in the weeks lab. he gave me a few suggestions of others at emory that might match my research well. one is a guy who's ex-wife works in the chem-e department at tech, and is an ex because he was apparently sleeping with an undergrad student (information received at a group meeting when bart picked one of his papers to discuss and andrew said the guy was a creep and shared the story of why). needless to say, i have no interest to work for him. i don't think its a particularly good thing to go into a job already thinking your boss is a creep. there is one other physics guy at emory that i might ask, one guy at tech in chem-e, and a woman in physics at tech (my personal 1st choice) that i will probably get in touch with soon. its not looking super promising though.

i'm also torn between wanting this week to fly by so i can see tejas sooner, and wanting it to creep so i can get done all the crap i need to do before next monday when i need to turn in my written research summary to my committee. i'm pretty much in a constant state of anxiety since my parents left friday over how much i have to get done. its strange how when i have something so important coming up i get so scared about it that i freeze up and do nothing, making the whole situation even worse. I am doing lots of work now, but i still just feel like curling up in a ball on my bed and just giving up completely. really useful.

YES! YES! YES!

so, i emailed the guy at Emory that's on my committee about the potential of getting a short-term post-doc position in his group in starting in january, and he said he'd be EXCITED to have me work in his group, and he'd get back to me next week about whether or not he has the budget to do it! i know that means its not a sure thing yet, but its still FREAKIN AWESOME! and there is also a small possibility that i could get a 6-month rent free dog sitting job close to Emory. maybe. we'll see. it would be cool though.

also, i get the weird feeling that paul was following me this evening when i walked to publix. mostly because i walked past him messing with his flowers and down the street, and while i was waiting to cross the street i saw him turn the corner and look the direction i turned then sort of stop and walk back from whence he came. what the heck, man. why do i have to have such a freaking weird land lord. plus, that was just creepy.

my parents will be here sunday night til friday morning. should be fun balancing that with getting my crap together for my final research review.

this afternoon i saw a guy walk across north ave just to turn around and pee onto the street he just crossed. perhaps he thought it would be funny to pee right next to the fire hydrant, i don't know.

i also finally figured out how to get comedy central on my tv. it requires keeping the dvd player on and changing the channels through that, and taping the cable wire to the wall in two different places. now i can finally watch jon stewart again.