winter break update

Visiting the family now so I’m updating more, as is typical for me. 

Cat’s adjusting pretty well after the trip here. I had to take a cab to the airport since no one with a licence was around. At least no one I felt comfortable asking (read: labmates I rant about on OD). Cab was 15 minutes late and it was a very frustrating standing there in my apartment lobby at 6 am with a howling cat. She calmed down eventually, which was great because my flight was 2 hours delayed and traffic from the airport took another hour. Meaning poor kitty spent 8 hours in her carrier. And on top of that my cousin and her family visited with us today, so she was terrorized further by two little boys. 

Anyway, enough about the cat. 

I have to give two presentations when I get back from break, including a departmental work in progress type thing. I wound up changing my flight back from the 3rd to the 2nd because I didn’t realize my other talk was the morning of the 3rd..and re-scheduling didn’t work out. There goes an extra $250 in airline tickets. My own fault I guess. I’ve got so much work to do in getting everything together for these presentations, it’s not even funny. Gotta really get on it tomorrow.

So J’s sent out a bunch of job applications..to places all around the country (and a few in Canada :/ ) , but also two to the university I’m at.  His graduate supervisor took his sweet ass time getting in a reference letter, even though he and J were on good terms and J was by far the most productive person to ever come out of his lab. Asshole. The letters seem to be going out now, but last week was crazy stressful. I spent a good chunk of last Saturday morning crying outside the hospital (I hate crying in public but I had work to do and couldn’t go home). J kept saying how pissed off he was about the situation – and of course I totally get that, but there are only so many times I can listen to him make the same complaint before I start to offer advice. At which point he snaps at me that he’s already done all the things I suggested (which I was supposed to know how without him telling me???).  So it was a crappy call, but we worked through it by the end. He said he needed me to know he really was trying his best. And I absolutely do know and believe that, but maybe don’t communicate so well? 

Sigh. I’m planning to visit him sometime this week, since I’m a relatively short bus ride away. My mom was already pissed off about me leaving a day earlier, so this news did not go over well. I feel guilty, even though I have no reason to. I’m all for spending quality time with my parents, but two weeks is overkill, especially since I was just here over Thanksgiving.

At any rate, it’s bedtime for me. Speaking of which, I am grateful for this lovely hard bed I have – my bed back home is woefully soft, and sometimes I wake up with a sore back, feeling like my insides have sunk a bit. But this, this bed is perfect.