Well, fortunately working all day Saturday and Sunday did the trick and my boss liked the paper. I've entered the majority of corrections and now I just need to get the samples for microanalysis ready and I can put this area behind me. Tomorrow is the "point of no return" with my 10 am appointment. It ought to be fairly perfunctory, but I may yet be surprised as I was at my consultation way back on 26th March.
And now a word...
Pants.
Well, there was a point behind that, but I just woke up so my brain is sparking somewhat randomly. The point was that despite the fact that they are completely inappropriate for Miami, I love my black leather pants. They've stretched enough since I bought them on back in Canberra, and apart from being wonderfully comfortable, there's a faint but enjoyable leather smell. I've often joked with Ally that I'll put her in something leather also, prop her up on the back of a Harley and turn up at her parents house. ;)
I woke up from a dream this morning. We had gone to see some relatives who we hadn't seen for +20 years, and weird dream dynamics being what thy are, eventually I was standing up in front of 250 people explaining about myself. Hrmmm...
I kind forgot to update people on Wednesday's appointment. It went fine, medical history, discussions on size, photos, lots of indemnity forms and so on. Oh yes, and paying. It all went pretty well, I just have to get some blood drawn and that will be about all.
Work yesterday was a pain in the ass. The boss got all annoyed over a trivial problem with the paper which took 5 minutes to fix. The he gave the other post-doc and I the weekend to prepare PowerPoint presentations for Monday followed by major presentations on our previous work in just a few weeks. So much for getting any work done, I'm too busy preparing reports. At the moment I'm not going anywhere though. It's raining and thundering outside and so I'm stuck here eating breakfast (12:50 pm) and enjoying the weather. You know a lightning strike is close when the EM pulse sets off twitchy car alarms.
1:20 pm - Well that settles it. A quick trip to the supermarket (total distance less than 100 meters) demonstrated that I am definitely not going to the lab until the rain abates.
8:03 pm - Well, about 4 pm the rain eased off and I made it over to the lab. I changed over the microanalysis samples on the pump, but I am still one short, I couldn't do any synthetic work because we had no liquid nitrogen. I tried to work on my seminar without much success and instead spent most of the time searching for new jobs. I think I have enough leads that given a month notice I could probably find something that would keep me employed and hence in North America. I know that I have to think ahead any be a little careful about what offer I take up, naturally it would be best to try and get into a high-profile group rather than end up in some backwater.
9:15 pm - Interest in Japanese culture must be passed on by close association like the flu, I picked it up from Jules and subsequently passed it onto Allison. But as interesting as Japanese history is, it can also be simultaneously depressing, the ideals of blind obedience in a militaristic culture detract strongly from the romanticized view of the era of the samurai. Fundamentally the Tokugawa period was one of stagnation and blind adherence to long faded traditions. Much less palatable to me personally than the more dynamic era which had been progressing simultaneously in Europe.