no, i haven't dropped off the face of the earth, it just seems that way

i keep wanting to update here a bit, but never seem to find the time. we moved most of my stuff to the house in decatur yesterday(where i will be dogsitting for 6months). Tejas pointed out that, for someone who moves almost yearly, i own way too many sturdy hardwood pieces of furniture. its true, my body is revolting against me today. i just can't part with those things though. anyway, we are leaving for india on wed., and i am trying frantically to finish up some research, start a proposal that i need to write for a post-doc application, clean-up the apartment, and pack for the trip before then. and now i have to waste a few of these precious hours at a party for the group at andrew's new house. weeeee! i promise to post pictures and whatnot when we get back! and then i may be gone again until i finish my thesis in march!

flikr crapped out on me and we went camping this weekend!

so my flikr account seems to be acting up. its not showing the better portion of my images! so, i've moved on over to picasa. yay, google! we went camping near callaway gardens this weekend. we went to the gardens, and the safari, and ran into tejas' advisor at an icecream shop while playing chess. i lost.

knitting books and the library

rather recently the library obtained a couple of knitting books that i was really excited about being about to get my hands on:

fitted knits: which i'm really excited about because i like pretty much every pattern in the book, and the author explains how to tailor all the patterns to be (properly) fitted to the individual knitter (hence, the name). anyway, its finally been catalogued, but i was third in line so probably won't be seeing it until december anyway.

romantic hand knits: there were only a couple of patterns i really wanted from this book, but i was first in line so i picked it up this evening. turns out there are a couple more things i might like than i thought originally, but mostly all i could think while looking it over was, "My GOD, can someone PLEASE put a bra on these girls!" i'm pretty sure there's not one bra to be found behind all those romantic hand knits and its pretty freaking obvious. seriously, this book is obviously being marketed to women. do we really need that much boobage to be sold?

anyway, because i was thinking about the book i had to pick-up this evening, this afternoon i went on a search of my computer for the patterns i had scanned from a few other library knitting books. and they seem to have disappeared. i'm not really sure how that's possible. its also kind of sad, considering the excessive amount of time it took me to do the scanning in the first place.

long time gone

i really do have things to tell and still have pictures to show from my birthday boating in the park. just don't seem to find the time to sit down and type them out in an orderly fashion. so, a small list of things and a promise to elaborate on most of them at a later date:

1) no longer planning to graduate in december, more like march or april now.

2) i had a very nice b-day in nyc where bethany and thomas took me out to the trailer park for a b-day eve dinner and i had champane in a can! (obviously i still have the can). it was really nice getting to see them so regularly during the summer.

3) rach call me on my b-day as well even though 3 days before i had NOT called her on her b-day.

4) kati called me too!

5) stealing an excellent birthday plan from bethany, we took out a rowboat in central park! then we went to a schmancy fondue place and had cheese fondue for dinner! followed by desert at max brenner's chocolate bar. perhaps i was just too full from the cheese, but the chocolate bar wasn't THAT great.

6) ACS was ok. would have been lots better if i had not been left to entertain courtney the entire time (she's completely incapable of being by herself, and would rather hang out with someone she greatly dislikes than go it alone!). neetu was meeting with her future husband, and therefore can not be chastised for leaving me alone with the beast.

7) tejas is moving to midtown this weekend. yay! no more crazy middle aged man (and sometimes wife and 3 kids) to contend with! plus, he has a little front porch area, just the right size for my little patio furniture set from my mom!

8) i'm finally getting back into the swing of things in the lab after the move and ACS and all. my laser set-up is almost complete (this time with properly expanded beam) and a replacement polarlizer arrived yesterday for the one i seem to have burned a hole in!

9) the ~1oz polarizer can in a respectively huge box that weighed 2 lbs. when i opened it up there was this large red box that says LAB SNACKS: A Treat for Humans. and it was filled with SNACKS! its awesome. Thorlabs is the best! there are 2 trail mix bars, cheezits, 2 twizzlers, tic-tacs, roasted almonds, and fruit snacks! obviously, thorlabs is very smart and realizes how easily swayed grad students are by free food!

10) job searching sucks. i applied to a position at sandia. haven't heard anything yet. am going to the job fair on campus next week. don't think i really want an industry job, but i'm gonna give it a go anyway. not that i can even give them a approximate starting date yet. geez.

11) the church is a having a pet blessing for the local community next weekend. i agreed to make homemade doggy biscuits and organize others to make people treats. i'm still a little on the fence with this one, honestly. i think its sort of odd, but i understand why they are doing it. they are trying to meet people where they are. the community is full of pets and pet lovers, so what better way to meet these people and get them to at least know that Epworth exists than through their pets? still, i think its weird. thoughts?

i suppose that's all for know. neetu should be coming in soon and then we will be heading to the gym.

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.