Recovery and stuff

Nursing a man cold is hard work. It's also extremely boring. I've spent pretty much the entire weekend in bed, with occasional breaks to strap on my feed bag. Never one to settle for mediocrity, I likely took the adage "starve a fever, feed a cold" way too far. Today I felt well enough to get dressed at least. Unfortunately though, I missed Elliot's field trip. His class was going to the Discovery Center in Garden City to conduct a "CSI"-type investigation. When he got home, Elliot told me that it was kind of like Law & Order: Criminal Intent. Hmm. I didn't catch what part of the field trip he was referring to, but I think maybe I should limit his exposure to the police procedural shows.

I think I'll be well enough to go to school tomorrow, but I am really not looking forward to going. I have an IMSD (Initiative for Maximizing Student Development) meeting tomorrow morning at 8:00 am, which is essentially an hour and a half of listening to other students present their research. I need to leave the house between 7:00 and 7:15 to make sure I get there on time, which means that I need to set my alarm for 5:30 and out of bed no later than 6:00. Waaaahhh!! Once I get there, I expect to receive a dressing down for not having registered for the obligatory 10 credits already. I'm supposed to do this 6-8 weeks before the start of the semester, but I always put it off. Then my PI was in Japan for two weeks, and yada, yada, yada...

I need to sit down with my PI and talk about defining the boundaries of my project. One of the classes I have to sign up for is basically the same thing as Proposal Development at Eastern. During the course, I am supposed to write up my actual research project proposal. In June or July of 2013, I am supposed to defend my proposal to the committee I will have chosen. If my proposal is accepted by my committee, then I'll be promoted to doctoral candidate from doctoral student. This promotion is supposed to come with a $1000/year raise. That comes out to roughly $35 a paycheck. I guess that will pay for my parking permit, so I shouldn't complain.

The rest of this week is going to be busy and I don't expect to get much, if any, actual lab work done. I'll write more on that tomorrow or Wednesday, but right now the boys have just come back from the store and my concentration is shot.