I don't know what it says about that I successfully defend my thesis and the first thing I think is "I gotta get back to my office and blog this!"

(I waited until I got home, instead.)

It all went really well. And now that it's all done I might actually talk about it here, some--just what I did, and why it's cool. Because it is.

So, thanks for all the well-wishes. The blog will probably be very quiet for the next week or so--the movers are coming in tomorrow, we're starting a relatively leisurely drive to New York on Saturday, and it'll probably be a little bit until we have internet up and running at the new place.

A picture to remind myself what to talk about when I get back:


Dear Subconscious:

Those dreams? The panicky ones about sleeping through my defense (which starts in the afternoon), about the room being outside, about the committee getting bored and critiquing my snack choices, about not having filled in the proper form on the first day of school and having to start all over again?

Yeah, those dreams.

You can cut them out now. They're not helping.

T

Subletters continue to be sketchy. Freecyclers, however, are awesome.

J and I have been clearing out a lot of clutter. (people who have been over are probably amused right now, because we really don't have that much stuff). But there are always things which aren't worth getting rid of when you're staying in one place, but aren't worth keeping to drive halfway across the country either. Cheap MDF bookcases, the pots I grew veggies in on the patio, the bike I bought for 30$ at St. Vinnie's--it's all clean and in good shape, but not worth bringing along for a variety of reasons, and a hassle to carry to the donation box (where it might get rained on or crushed and ruined anyhow). But! I had someone come earlier and get everything except the bike, and another person coming soon for that. Good homes, all.

On the other hand, writing a post, sorting through emails, and setting up meeting times would be a hassle for some of the smaller-scale accumulated cruft--old clothes, overambitious craft supplies, a high school textbook of J's. So they go to St. Vincent's, which is only a few blocks away.

At this point 95% of what we're bringing sits in boxes in the living room. It looks like a lot, and not a lot, at the same time.

(One of these box-stacks is still empty, but there's an equivalent amount of kitchen stuff left.)
We're really excited about where we're headed both geographically and personally, but it is always a bit disconcerting to see all your personal stuff neatly labeled, fitting easily into a quarter of a room. Sort of feels like your life is being quantified, except a pile of boxes is never going to measure up.

Potential subletters are a sketchy bunch.

Scratch that--everyone who's come to look at the apartment has seemed like a perfectly reasonable human being. But fully 1/3 of people who have called to make appointments to look at the place have not shown up. No call, just a no-show. Who would do that? So, so rude, since we have to be at the apartment to show it, and make some attempt to make things pretty for them.

And then this morning someone who was interested in the apartment called at 6:30am. 6:30! I may be more grumpy about this than I'd normally be since I'm running on a significant sleep deficit right now, but I simply can't imagine the conditions under which someone would consider calling at 6:30 in the morning to be appropriate. Even if you're a morning person, even if you work third shift, you'd still know that lots of people aren't awake that time in the morning, and the people who are up probably haven't had their coffee yet.

On the plus side we have someone who seemed super, super interested yesterday, so the dopeyness will be totally worth it if we actually get someone to take the apartment.

It was so cold this morning that I couldn't breathe through my mouth. I started to take a breath and fell apart in wracking coughs. Which became a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy--do you know how hard it is not to breathe in while you're coughing?

However, I'm very happy about my knee-high wool socks at the moment. I was giving a practice talk today, so nice clothes were called for. They're not as warm as my polarfleece-lined jeans, but they helped.

The fear-freeze has improved. Liberal amounts of Dance Dance Revolution and some easy lab stuff got me moving. Amazing how you can use unrelated stuff to get momentum going for something else entirely. In the case of the DDR, it's also that I can work out all the excess energy, and then I'm too sweaty to be nervous.

Bonus: I'm getting really good at playing DDR. Me, uncoordinated person, doing something vaguely dancelike!

I'm having a really hard time engaging with the last few things I need to do before my defense. Just... can't. I'm starting to feel that nothing I can do at this point will make things any better or worse, except 1) That's totally untrue, and 2) I'm hearing those words in a Calvinistic voice, and not in a "Hey, we're practically done, yahoo!" way. Just can't seem to get out of the "headed to the gallows" mindset. I'm tired of feeling all fluttery and freaked out. And I'm trying to figure out how I'm even going to be able to stand up and talk during my actual defense, if I can barely consider the possibility right now, with a week to go.

Late, late last night, the sound of me turning off the computer and puttering around roused J just enough to lift his head and look at me blearily.

I've learned from experience that the only part of his brain that turns on at these moments is the little switch labeled "I have no idea what's going on and need an explanation, or I will wake up completely and won't be able to get back to sleep*."

"Nothing's wrong," I said, "I've just finished up my work for the night, and the computer beeped as it was shutting down, which woke you up. I'll be in bed as soon as I brush my teeth."

Satisfied with the answer, the switch turned itself off again, and what was left of his consciousness thanked me. "vvmm. Four."

* This is better than my unexpected-awakening switch, which is labeled "Enemy Tribe In Our Cave! Defend!"

First 70 pages of thesis for committee? Printed.

First ream of paper? Used.

First curse-out-the-printer-and-Microsoft-a-thon? Complete.

A finished project! Egads!



Soy silk, 4 ounces, 900 yards (when I finish plying the last quarter-ounce), 25 or so wpi, two-ply. I bought the fiber from the Mielkes at the WI sheep and wool festival in September. The fiber is handdyed by Conjoined Creations.

This was a project for Madam, in exchange for some videogame stuff.

The spinning part went really well; I'd practiced with a bit of undyed soy silk to get the hang of the fiber, which was a GOOD IDEA. It took me a long time to get the hang of it. At the same time, though, the twist and thickness looked very even throughout the skein, so I felt like I'd stepped up to the task.

The downside: the fiber bled like a bloody bleeding thing. My previous experience with bleeding fiber was that a rinse or two was enough to get the water to run mostly-clear, but I gave up after 6 or 7 rinses turned my sink and hands bright green. Worse, what started out as bright, vibrant greens and aquas faded to the color you see above, which is pretty true. Want to see how much dye came out? This picture of the fiber on the bobbin is also pretty true to color:

Although my magpie self was mad about the dye, I think this color actually suits Madam more, so it's not too tragic. And honestly I'm not sure if soy silk just doesn't take dye well and this is expected, or what--neither the fiber, nor the website, mentions any special care required. I did tell Madam to wash it in cold, cold water from now on. Who knows--it might have just been a dud batch.

Either way, I learned a lesson about sampling; I'd sampled the undyed yarn to determine a good way to spin the fiber, but I should have done at least a few-yard sample of the dyed fiber to test for any "unknowns". And I probably won't buy that fiber again.

So we're doing all the typical moving-out-soon things right now. I want us to eat through as much food in the pantry as possible, so I'm tailoring grocery lists around the things I see in the cabinets more than usual--we've got canned beans and tomatoes and frozen corn, but no chili mix. Matzo ball soup mix, but no onions. The components of peanut noodles, but no fresh veggies to go with them. I'm pretty pleased, actually; I think we'll end up with less than a grocery bag of food left by moving day, including spices.

Today I went through the baking stuff, which I hadn't done previously. I've been thinking of having a nice baking afternoon that uses up the last of the flour after I hand in my thesis to my committee. But I noticed a trend in the baking cabinet:


That's 8 different formats of chocolate. Nine, if you count the mostly-eaten cookies. Two different types of chocolate chips, three different kinds of just-add-milk cocoa, two half-bars of Scharffen-Berger (unsweetened and semisweet), and some plain cocoa. And all this was hiding in mostly-empty cabinets.

And I'm not even a big chocolate eater! Maybe that would be indicated by the amount of chocolate that made its way in here without my noticing.

I think some chocolate cake is in the offing. With orange-chocolate frosting, maybe--we've got a rapidly-fading bag of oranges, and confectioners' sugar.

Permalinks are going to be borked for a few days, until I get the wherewithal to deal with adding a new year's worth of months. I do all this stuff by hand because it's too far gone to use a better system, but occasionally this means adjusting the menu of almost 6 year's worth of entries grouped by month, which is a pain. I decided that a few days of borkage is better than no entries at all, so here you go.

Things are going okay here. The writing is going really well, but I still don't have a date set for the defense though because that's what happens when you need to get a bunch of well-respected profs to meet in one place for an extended period of time. Their days are packed. It's close, though. Basically just have to double-check with everyone.

I realized this morning that I don't have a thesis title. I laughed when I realized this, because it sounds so stupid to not know what's going on the front of the book three weeks before it's going in. But the way my research has gone is kind of funny. Picture topics X, Y, and Z. Various chapters contain X and Y, X and Z, and Y and Z. So having the title be "X, Y, and Z All Together" doesn't seem quite right, but mentioning any one or two factors will leave out other chunks of the thing. I think I have it, at the cost of normal grammar, it's ended up sounding a bit like "X And/Or Y with a Smattering of Z Thrown in for Good Measure".

It'll do.

With crafty things, I'm actually almost done with the Crowned Heads scarf; just started the decreases at the opposite pointy end. I really want to finish that green sweater, too--it needs one sleeve cap! Why is it still in the bag? So that'll happen soon, I think. I might even rip out both sleeve caps and start afresh, since I think the description of the sleeve cap shaping consists of a horrific dual-scribble, and I'm not sure I'll be able to figure out which is which to begin with. I have a pretty good idea of what worked and didn't, though.

I'm also swatching for a vest for J. The green sweater is stopped because it's at a tricky part and I don't have a head for tricky parts right now--there are 3 or 4 separate projects that I'm really excited about, but my brain's just not there yet. I think I can get the vest started and work on it until the end of the month without hurting. The only challenge with the vest will be the neckline--J wants something that'll work with button-downs, so I expect I might be ripping things out a few times until I like how it sits with a collar.