press release

I've been quiet recently. It's gotten to the point that even the people who are closest to me have said things like "You're going WHERE for three months?" or "You're bringing WHO home for Christmas?" So here's a run-down of what's been happening for me and what's going to happen in the next while.

This summer I finished writing my dissertation and worked on experiments at a lab in Vancouver.

Over the past week I've done a lot of travelling. I spent last weekend in Ottawa with my baby brother (who is 28 and a homeowner) and his friends. It was my birthday on Sunday and we all went out for drinks. My brother's friends were the sweetest. One of them was charmingly astonished that I was actually turning 31. "I wouldn't have put you at more than ... (long pause) ... 30." Riiiiight.

As a birthday/graduation present, my parents gave me a stethescope--because how can I be a Doctor without one? I put it to good use when I finally met my long-time internet buddy Corey.



We are soooo cool--rockin' out in the Rideau Centre food court.



Travelling TO Ottawa was somewhat...problematic. The night before, my otherwise-lovely boyfriend tried to poison me. I'm not sure exactly how much I had to drink, but I learned yet again that any drink that includes both vodka and cranberry juice should be handled with extreme care because of the way that the cranberry masks the alcohol. About all I can say for myself on the plane trip to Ottawa the next day is that I didn't actually vomit into the first-class drinks cart while squeezing past it on my way up from the "Hospitality" cabin to the first-class bathroom. We of the Hospitalitariat have to line up for two little bathrooms while the first-class overlords have a bathroom all to themselves. Using their bathroom was a big enough act of class warfare in itself that I thought it was redundant to escalate hostilities by vomiting on anyone.

I got to spend a couple of days in New York after Ottawa, visiting with T-regina (whose birthday falls on International Talk Like A Pirate Day, yaarrrrrr) and with my friend Willem, his wife Debbie, and their new family member Isaac. His 84th-day birthday is today. When I told them my retreat is going to be 84 days long, they had a really visceral (literally!) appreciation of exactly how long that is.

At the moment I'm back in New Haven, sitting at my old desk in my old office. I got back here to find that someone had used the printer in the outer office to print out the results of a Google image search for "porn" with (get this) the Safe Search on. The results included things like images from the Muppet movie, for some reason. I'm hoping that this was a joke, because surely no physics grad student can be that stupid, but fearing that it really was just someone being dumb.

I'm packing up my stuff for my retreat. I'm leaving tomorrow and getting back on Dec. 16th. Lots of sweaters are going into my bags. (Also my wikkid-cool meditation cushion, which takes up a good chunk of space by itself.) Before I go, I'm going to hand in my thesis to the graduate school, and while I'm gone I'll be officially doctor-ified.

(And yes, the last paragraph does mean that I'm going to be out of contact until Dec. 16th. If I'm not commenting on your blog during this time, I'm not snubbing you. I'll catch up with you when I get back.)

I'm cramming for my retreat by listening to Leigh Brasington's Jhana talks. He just shared a brilliant quote: "You can't have a belief system without BS." har har har

After my retreat, I'm heading over to the UK to start my new job. I'll be working as a post-doc at the University of York. Before I start that, I'm taking a trip to Turkey to visit my parents, who are settling in nicely there.

So that's my life. Between that and my flickr updates, you know everything. Doesn't that feel better?