(Actually now with PhD, but Doctor of Philosophy just doesn't have the same evil ring, does it?)
Wow, it's the IRL Buckaroo Banzai!
Okay, so he's not a surgeon....yet.
Also from the really cool TED conference: Zimbardo talks about Abu Ghraib. (Events that--I'm sorry to say--I predicted, as most psychologists could have. Or at least most feminist psychologists or social psychologists.)
Friday, February 29, 2008
Thursday, February 28, 2008
I Got the Winter Tail-End Blues
I'm not really that blue right now (though ask me last thing at night and I might tell you a different story). I am feeling tired a lot this week, which could be a lotta stuff.
Anyway, today would have been my mother's 60th birthday. Happy Birthday, Mama: I wish you could have met your first grandson. He's a pip.
* * * * * * * * *
I've been sending out job applications, initially to my chagrin. I wanted some time off after that whole dissertation thing. Like, maybe a month to get my land legs again. However, the internship year is just not set up that way. At least the job apps are not--generally speaking--as much of a PITA as internship apps. Until I get interview offers and have to start flying to another state; then that will definitely be somewhat of a PITA. I'm actually beginning to feel some excitement about some of them, which is better than the pure mental exhaustion I have been feeling.
I got one great reference letter that stated that I was NOT the best person he'd ever worked with*.
Next week is spring break here at the U. I'm so busy that I barely have the time to notice that something is happening the following week, but I couldn't help notice that while all my regular client spaces are filled, there are no new intakes at all (usually they are totally full.) So perhaps I can start to catch up on some things that have gone fallow since, say, November due to the Great Dissertation Crunch.
Hopefully this means that the actual "spring" itself is around the corner--in a few weeks, it'll be rainy and mushy and melty. This year I think we are all desperate for winter to be over --last year it was just me. It's funny to think that for Limelet it will sort of be like the whole world is new again, since he was just barely beginning to walk when it became too cold to hang out outside.
I heard a cardinal singing his spring song yesterday morning, despite the newly fallen four inches of snow. It was such an optimistic sound.
Likely this means that the phototherapy program I instituted here will soon go belly-up until next winter, when I will have been several months gone. But now that they have the lights and the lights are mounted on the wall and a protocol is nearly written (thank you, colleague), at least next year they will be available for SAD clients.
I constantly think of things I'd like to blog, but when I have computer time it's always at work. Most of us are...shall we say, a bit overextended, so I don't do much leisure writing. Right now I should be doing about five something elses, but I just want to do one blog entry! Just one, darnit!
In the brief few minutes when Limelet is falling asleep but is not asleep enough for me to leave the room yet, I do all my leisure reading. So a few pages a night. I just finished re-reading George MacDonald's books Lilith and Phantastes. I read them as a child, I think more than once. It was strange, because I couldn't remember the content until I started reading them, and then it was as familiar as your old street at your childhood home. (Not mine, because there are too many of them.)
Now I am reading something completely on the other end of the scale--a book that someone left on the "free stuff" shelf at our laundry facility: A suspense-thriller set in Montana called Dark Paradise (Hoag). The former owner left it there for a reason: I hate to say this because I like everything--and I mean, everything--but it is actually bad!
I'm still reading it, because sometimes I just want some fluff, you know? But I think I know how it will end already, and I'm only 50 pages in. (I think the ending was actually given away in the intro.)
So far, my favorite signs of book badness have been a sentence that discussed how a character had "forgotten how delicate women's underwear could be", and a recently introduced stock-Englishman character. I have to say, he's not the usual "evil-Englishman" character that you might think. No, he's the just slightly less-frequent "gay Englishman" character, and says things like "I say, you look positively knackered, Luv."
So, Cheerio! I'm off to get some work sorted before I'm positively knackered, Guv'ner.
*No, it really was a great letter. The referrer said I was the second best intern in the 30 years he's been here. Which actually sounds a lot more believable than saying someone is the best, doesn't it?
Anyway, today would have been my mother's 60th birthday. Happy Birthday, Mama: I wish you could have met your first grandson. He's a pip.
* * * * * * * * *
I've been sending out job applications, initially to my chagrin. I wanted some time off after that whole dissertation thing. Like, maybe a month to get my land legs again. However, the internship year is just not set up that way. At least the job apps are not--generally speaking--as much of a PITA as internship apps. Until I get interview offers and have to start flying to another state; then that will definitely be somewhat of a PITA. I'm actually beginning to feel some excitement about some of them, which is better than the pure mental exhaustion I have been feeling.
I got one great reference letter that stated that I was NOT the best person he'd ever worked with*.
Next week is spring break here at the U. I'm so busy that I barely have the time to notice that something is happening the following week, but I couldn't help notice that while all my regular client spaces are filled, there are no new intakes at all (usually they are totally full.) So perhaps I can start to catch up on some things that have gone fallow since, say, November due to the Great Dissertation Crunch.
Hopefully this means that the actual "spring" itself is around the corner--in a few weeks, it'll be rainy and mushy and melty. This year I think we are all desperate for winter to be over --last year it was just me. It's funny to think that for Limelet it will sort of be like the whole world is new again, since he was just barely beginning to walk when it became too cold to hang out outside.
I heard a cardinal singing his spring song yesterday morning, despite the newly fallen four inches of snow. It was such an optimistic sound.
Likely this means that the phototherapy program I instituted here will soon go belly-up until next winter, when I will have been several months gone. But now that they have the lights and the lights are mounted on the wall and a protocol is nearly written (thank you, colleague), at least next year they will be available for SAD clients.
I constantly think of things I'd like to blog, but when I have computer time it's always at work. Most of us are...shall we say, a bit overextended, so I don't do much leisure writing. Right now I should be doing about five something elses, but I just want to do one blog entry! Just one, darnit!
In the brief few minutes when Limelet is falling asleep but is not asleep enough for me to leave the room yet, I do all my leisure reading. So a few pages a night. I just finished re-reading George MacDonald's books Lilith and Phantastes. I read them as a child, I think more than once. It was strange, because I couldn't remember the content until I started reading them, and then it was as familiar as your old street at your childhood home. (Not mine, because there are too many of them.)
Now I am reading something completely on the other end of the scale--a book that someone left on the "free stuff" shelf at our laundry facility: A suspense-thriller set in Montana called Dark Paradise (Hoag). The former owner left it there for a reason: I hate to say this because I like everything--and I mean, everything--but it is actually bad!
I'm still reading it, because sometimes I just want some fluff, you know? But I think I know how it will end already, and I'm only 50 pages in. (I think the ending was actually given away in the intro.)
So far, my favorite signs of book badness have been a sentence that discussed how a character had "forgotten how delicate women's underwear could be", and a recently introduced stock-Englishman character. I have to say, he's not the usual "evil-Englishman" character that you might think. No, he's the just slightly less-frequent "gay Englishman" character, and says things like "I say, you look positively knackered, Luv."
So, Cheerio! I'm off to get some work sorted before I'm positively knackered, Guv'ner.
*No, it really was a great letter. The referrer said I was the second best intern in the 30 years he's been here. Which actually sounds a lot more believable than saying someone is the best, doesn't it?
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Match Day
Having gone through Match Day three times myself (one year before our new PhD program was accredited, one year in which I turned up "in a family way" and had to withdraw, and then the final year in which everything worked out) I heartily sympathize with the subjects of this article.
You'd think that "in the wake of" (which always means the word "shooting" is about to occur) various incidents, we as a country would be more interested in funding mental health care (as described in article).
But--what am I thinking? We don't appear to place much of a value on other health care, so of course mental health care would be viewed as even more fluffy and incidental.
Monday, February 25, 2008
Electoral Compass
It's a sad commentary on my life that doing this quiz was my break for the day.
Inspired by geistweg.
Inspired by geistweg.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
eclipse 928pm
As detailed below.
Limelet is distracted with an unused phone I found in a box, so I was able to take this (terrible) picture.
Limelet is distracted with an unused phone I found in a box, so I was able to take this (terrible) picture.
Eclipse
Between bouts of trying to get Limelet to sleep (he's sick again as well as teething like crazy, which means a lot less sleep for all three of us, and a lot more crankiness for all three of us) I have had a great view of the lunar eclipse tonight. The moon is about half covered right now. I always prefer having east-facing bedroom windows because I can see the moon rising. (Oh yeah, and the sun, I guess!)
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Happy Valentine's Day!
I love weird, old-fashioned candy, including conversation hearts (and Necco wafers).
Limelet got a floaty silver balloon from me, and TheLimey got a box of chocolates. (That's an upside of being the stay-at-home parent, right?) Review on the balloon: "Best. Toy. Ever." No word yet on the chocolates.
Limelet got a floaty silver balloon from me, and TheLimey got a box of chocolates. (That's an upside of being the stay-at-home parent, right?) Review on the balloon: "Best. Toy. Ever." No word yet on the chocolates.
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
Wow!
It is superblizzardy out there today. And the heavy snow is predicted to begin at 6pm. I do love precipitation when I don't have to drive in it, and today I took the bus.
Stay home if you can, unless you're somewhere there isn't a blizzard or other insane weather occurring at you.
I better put some peanuts out for sure.
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