Blessed by the Potato

I’m optimistic about tomorrow (technically today now). I think it will go well. I know my shit, at the PhD level if not the master’s. My presentation is reasonably polished. I know the two or three things I inevitably forgot to do, and I don’t care.

I had a great practice run of my lecture this afternoon. A little too good — I don’t think the actual talk will be that good or that smooth, but as long as it’s close, it will be fine. I’ve spent the last bit of tonight not worrying. I made some cookies for my committee, I cleaned up a bit more.

Optimism is a bit of a strange feeling for me (though I do have times where I’m hopelessly so). I just hope it’s not a sign of over-confidence.

Wish me luck tomorrow (today), and the next time I post, I should have some extra letters after my name!

Let’s do this.

Well, a year of thesis writing and working from home (and being sick and not giving a damn) has really taken a toll on my room. It is, I think, the messiest home office I’ve ever seen. I should qualify that statement: it’s the messiest where the mess is relatively sanitary (for those people blessed with the special gift of not fearing food and bugs on the ground, they have the ability to make things far worse).

While writing I’ve wanted to have a large number of papers handy to reference, and while reading I’ve been too lazy to file them away properly, so I’ve been stacking them nearby… which has lead to a massive buildup of papers on virtually every surface, but particularly the floor. Now with tax season in full swing, I’ve brought out all my financial records and have them strewn about so that not only have I run out of floor space to walk on, I’m even building piles on top of my keyboard (one keyboard is completely covered, the other is only experiencing some fringing clutter along the F-keys).

So, with my presentation done, my review paper submitted to the journal, and nothing but stress between now and Friday, I decided to do some cleanup.

“Some cleanup” hmmf, it sounds so oridinary and mundane. I did a monumental cleanup, clearing clutter of epic proportions — the clutter to end all clutter. Hell, I deserve a degree just for getting all those papers in some kind of logical order! Not to dimish the hard work and knowledge put into my MSc, but damn, that shit’s got to be worth a 2-year college diploma of some sort! At the very least a certificate with some nice calligraphy.

Actually, that might not be such a good idea, since if I fail to hang said certificate on my walls immediately, it may sit in a corner somewhere, and serve as a nucleus for the condensation of more clutter.

I’ll post some pictures shortly (well, not that shortly, it’ll probably wait until next week), until then you’ll just have to imagine suddenly having all this walking space on the floor open up. Combined with the offensively pleasant spring weather (it’s so pleasant it’s just all up in your face about how really really nice it is, taunting me with its severe mildness, letting me know that weather like this only comes along two or maybe, if I’ve been really good, maybe three times a year) it makes me want to stay in and go for a long walk around my apartment.

Anyhow, for my PhD I think I’m going to reinstate my no-taking-work-home rule that worked so well for the first 3 months of my masters. It’s going to be hard with a summer start, since my air conditioning is so clearly superior to the one at the hospital, and I’m going to have a lot of writing to start with…