9:17 pm – Monday 24th October 2005

First strike option.

Today has been an ok start to the week, I had a little more class work than usual but it wasn't so bad. This semester I'm officially taking only 3 credits for a hazardous waste management class, but I'm also informally sitting in on two graduate level classes, which are three credits each. This means that much more of my time is taken up with classes, however I thought it was a good idea to keep in touch with the theoretical background of my area of specialization. I am a rather practical researcher, that is to say I like to make new compounds. The theoretical underpinnings interest me less, but I need to be aware of them.

I was running experiments this morning, and received a delivery of a new piece of laboratory apparatus. The assembly of this new rotary evaporator consumed much of my afternoon. I received a letter from Cornell thanking me for my faculty application, which may possibly be the only time I ever need worrying about getting a letter from them. I still have not heard from any of my faculty applications, but Mary (the young professor down the hall) said that for our local faculty search she had only just contacted applicants for interviews last Wednesday. She also mentioned that these people said she was the first person to call them, which she had intended. So I won't get too worried just yet, but the waiting is rather frustrating.

Something I don't think I mentioned in my diary entries is that I stopped seeing my therapist some time back. It was at the end of the April (2005), and I told her it was simply because I didn't have anything else to tell her. She'd helped me work through dealing with my break up, and then preparing and recovering from the Thailand trip. I think that coupled with my willingness to try and talk about how I feel puts me in a good mental space. It was just about exactly this time last year that surgery suddenly seemed like a real possibility. My how quickly a year passes.

I'm still processing the new situation that Bonnie and I are in. She had talked to Judy and Tiffany on Saturday night, but didn't mention what had happened. That was kind of her as I think it will take a while for it all to sink in for both of us. I guess my hope is that our relationship will continue informally, in anticipation that both of us are free to date whomever they choose when the opportunity presents itself. Intimacy with Bonnie was very nice, so why wouldn't I wish it to continue?

I'm happy that I'm finally getting around to posting my diary entries at last. I don't think I'll post many of the Thailand entires, because I'd like to keep that personal. If you really feel you need to read them, then email me and I'll consider it. Reading them is also another way of realizing how time has sprinted on by. How helpless I was in that foreign country by myself, and how grateful I am that things are no all recuperated.

The weekend here in Bozeman was interesting. I have been ill all week with a low-grade flu, but on Sunday morning I practically leapt out of bed before 8 am. The UU's had a guest pastor give the sermon on Sunday. He was a FTM, and gave a talk on the “Integrity of the In Between”. It was a very cool sermon that gave me much to think about, and I talked briefly with him afterwards.

After that I bought croissants from the supermarket and dropped in to say hello to Rachel and Lori. I have been making a habit of dropping in on them on Sunday around lunchtime. That was fun and I hung out with them for about an hour.

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