No More Behaving

I've been neglecting the blogosphere for the last few days. You probably know all about this by now, but on the very slim chance that you don't read any other blogs on my blogroll, I'll tell you about it anyway.During my absence a couple of very visible bloggers have initiated a campaign against sexual violence, particularly in Liberia. A bunch more very visible bloggers have jumped on the wagon, and are donating this month's proceeds from their blogs to Doctors Without Borders. It's a worthy cause. I don't make any money off of this blog, so I encourage you to click over to those other sites I've linked to and read all about it there. Every click means $$ for supporting victims of sexual violence.I understand that if you normally access posts from those bloggers via Google Reader/RSS feed, that doesn't count as a click and it doesn't generate any revenue to be passed on to DWB. So please access those blogs via your web browser, or via links provided here/elsewhere. Those count.What else can you do? Write to your reps and/or the UN. Both Isis and Sheril have the links for finding the relevant people, so click through to theirs to find them and generate a little donation in so doing. Thanks.

Labels: Better, Never

I've been feeling a little weird about my impending defense. In part because I've had zero feedback from GrAdvisor, which could mean 1) he's confident that I've got my shit together so I don't really need anything from him, 2) he's already written me off since I'll be out of here soon after so who cares, or 3) he's giving me enough rope to hang myself.Now, 1 is the most likely answer but like most of us I'm a little neurotic. It can make for good science, but it also makes me well, a little neurotic. So I just can't dismiss options 2 and 3 out-of-hand.Which brings me to the weird bit: I'm not freaking out about this.Ordinarily, I would be freaking out about this. Some not-so-small part of me thinks I should be freaking out about this. I usually freak out about stuff like this, and I have well-practiced coping mechanisms for dealing with it.I don't have coping mechanisms for not freaking out. So I don't know what to do with myself.I had a nice relaxing holiday weekend. Great low-key meal with friends. Came to the lab only briefly to keep a few things running so I can get back to the bench when it's all over. Did some work around the house. Went running a lot with DangerDog. Took BH out to lunch. Put up the Christmas tree. Spent 2 hours putting together my talk and declared it done. Didn't freak out.I gave a practice talk today and I will give another one tomorrow including suggested changes. It needs another run-through, but then really, truly, I'm ready. But I'm not freaking out. Which totally freaks me out. I don't know how to deal with this. Therefore, I'm improvising. I'm not freaking out about the D-day itself, which is probably good but it feels unnatural...so instead I am freaking out about not freaking out. Phew! That feels better.

Labels: Better