Upswing upswing!

Well, I'm definitely feeling alot better, a day or two removed from the weekend. I wanted to make sure I thanked everyone who checked in to see how I was doing, or just offered anything near the phrase "hey, I care how you're doing, and I hope you feel better."

It's so amazing how much more powerful that can be than attempting to solve a person's problem.

I'm probably going to be doing this up-and-down thing as I get ready for baby's first thesis committee meeting. I've got a complete outline of my presentation--gotta run it past Ned in the morning. I keep telling myself I'm on schedule and have plenty of time to get fully prepared. This is important to do because if I feel I'm not on track, I may just panic and then I'll get less work done because it will be filled with anxiety.

I really like my topic though! "How bacteria stick to things" would be the big general topic, and "how does being sticky help my bacteria live in symbiosis with the squid?" would be the more specific topic. I've found that I work best with recursive outline-writing. I just keep writing outlines, and I throw them away and don't look at them again, and then I write a newer, hopefully better one. We'll see how it goes.

I just had a stunningly nice evening. I microwaved some miso soup and watched the original Dawn of the Dead while trying to sew my skirt (How-to-Sew Book Project #3). Either activity on its own wouldn't have been very exciting, but together there was just this pleasing synergy of mindless busy work and mindless zombies shambling around the mall. That movie is pretty hilarious, even if the director is trying to make some social commentary along with it.

On the homefront, West Virginia is getting totally flooded. Ok, at least Wheeling, WV is. Fortunately, my family lives up on a ridge, so they are sittin' pretty with electricity and running water and whatnot. Yay for living uphill!

Ok, I need to go to bed. Tomorrow is a big, open day for working on the committee thing. I want to have this well in hand before the weekend hits. . . . Thanks again to all the nice people out there--you made it easy to get happy again.