Well, I apologize for not updating sooner. Life (as usual) as been pretty crazy for the last few weeks. Allison is here, so keeping her entertained has been keeping me busy, along with trying to work normal hours since the University has gone back to work.
The positive thing is that I finally got paid, and hence I paid back my supervisor the money he lent me for the deposit on my apartment, as well, as the rent for January. I'll also be getting a rebate check for some tax that was taken out but shouldn't have been. Now I just have to concentrate on saving up for all the expensive toys I'd like to have. Xmas was good, I was invited around to lunch by one of the graduate students. She was from South African, and had a friend visiting, and we had Xmas turkey and chatted away until the evening. At that point I caught a taxi to the airport to pick up Allison, and brought her home all tired from the long flight. For most of the Xmas break, we've just been taking things fairly easy. On New Years Eve we hired a car and drove up to Fort Lauderdale, and then the next day down to a really cool place down South called “Coral Castle”. New Years Eve itself was fairly unexciting, as I was so tired I lay down for a rest at 10:30 pm, and didn't really get up again, except to listen to the fireworks.
I'm now back to my regular hours at the lab, which makes a change. I'm trying desperately to get this new ruthenium system to work, but without much success. I had a meeting with my supervisor yesterday, which was up and down but which gave me a few new directions to work on.