Yesterday (Wednesday) really was quite a busy day, Lois was giving a talk on “Coming Out” in the Union building, and so I went along to that. Normally I'd do it to see who “comes out of the wood work”, however I was disappointed that a lot of students had come as part of a class. The talk was enjoyable but as I mentioned, the room was too small for all the people. I talked with the new Q organizer after that, and apologized for foisting the position onto her at such short notice. After that I headed back to work, but when I walking past the coffee line I encountered a very bummed out Katie. Her girlfriend (who lives in Boston) was apparently not coming to Bozeman to live as had been planned. I had never seen Katie so head over heels for anyone like this before, so I guess that crushed her pretty badly.
After that I received some very nice information; a grants officer had contacted our engineer and has said that he was going to recommend our SBIR (small business) grant, which had been submitted back in May. I am on this grant, so that looks good for me, especially since I'm on the job market.
This information nicely segued into a meeting with my two bosses to discuss this very question. They had not heard about the email till I showed them, but they though it was a very positive development. We talked for a while about some strategies we should take to deal with the interesting personalities in this project. In the afternoon I also had Anthony M. in the lab, and so had to supervise him.
Today was another exceedingly long and arduous day. I was up at 7 am to get ready to race over for my early morning class. Afterwards I discussed with my teammate the presentation we are to give next Tuesday. I've got my part underway already, but it does need to be extended and fleshed out. Then it was back to work to try and get some work done. I went for coffee about noon, and bumped into Syd. She is very busy with film stuff, and we chatted briefly. Her birthday is next Friday, so we will be doing a spaghetti night at her place. After getting my coffee, I then bumped into Jen! We also chatted briefly before partying ways. To complete the troika, Dee called in the afternoon to do some planning for the film festival that is on here in town this weekend. We are going to go out on Saturday evening and see a few bands, how long we will stay out is unknown.
I had both Anthony and Kolter in the lab today, and then I had to leave for class at 1:30 pm. For this particular graduate level class, I think the lecturer is being a bit rude. He's extended the class by an extra 15 minutes, as well as having an additional (practically mandatory) class on Mondays. I don't go to the extra Monday class, so I'm not fully up to speed on some of the stuff covered in class. Still, I think I hold my own quite well, even though I don't do any of the homework. At 5 pm I went for a run, and to kill multiple birds with minimal stones, I grabbed some milk from the store on the way back.
This evening there was a circus performing at the nearby stadium, so there was plenty of people and cars. I came home to eat and put laundry in, and then fixed my bicycle's flat tire before heading back to work. Thankfully I wasn't there for too long before I came home.
My 40 faculty applications are still out there in the ether somewhere. Although I've had the obligatory responses, that's been all so far. I know it's too early to get worried about it yet, but in the few moments I have now and then, I wonder “if no one asks me for an interview, what more can I do?” I have a top-level publication record, post-doctoral experience and good references, but what if…
Bonnie just had a whole slew of homework due today, as well as an exam. She's been pretty stressed out, but her sister has been visiting her, so hopefully she's had someone to be able to rant to.
It has been interesting of late hanging out with Jen and Syd. There were very touchy feely when we were out bowling the other night. I don't have a problem with that part of the equation, but the idea of the “open relationship” threesome is sometime I'm not at all interested in. I feel bad for Roger, and I hope he's not being excluded or marginalized.
I just got a text message from Bonnie, she's out with Kay and Bonita, so I guess that means she's taking the opportunity to relax which is a good sign.