PunkAssBlog.com

Hi all!

I’ve been back from Europe for about a week now, and posting is still light. I got back at 9PM on a Sunday and had a 9AM Monday meeting, four projects to get caught up on, two younger students to keep occupied, and I have to move apartments. My brain is fried.

I highly recommend traveling in Europe for anyone who has the opportunity. The only downside is that when you come home, you can’t talk about all of your wonderful experiences without making people scoff at your supposed bragging, or making them burn with jealousy. Or both. Which means you’re just bursting with fun and funny stories that you can’t tell too many of without people accusing you of pretentious twatdom. It’s a gift and a curse. I’m just saying, if you like coffee, get yourself to western Europe right now. They are not fucking around.

For now, I am focused on getting some projects started at school, one of which is funded by a major company and so of course they’re a little more in love with hard deadlines than our usual funding sources. This has led to an interesting dilemma for me: my helpful coworkers are constantly dropping in to give helpful advice and suggestions to my enthusiastic undergraduate, and while he’s excellent at setting up the equipment and doing experiments, he’s having a hard time keeping his eye on the prize. It’s all so important, how can he possibly not enact every suggestion? So now I need to tell these guys that while I generally appreciate their help, they need to back the fuck off the kid so he can get something done in time for the next meeting. That part is easy. It’s doing it without starting some kind of passive-aggressive scientists feud that’s going to be tricky.

At home, I’m sorting through five years worth of roommate possession creep, dividing up plates and towels like we’re in some kind of divorce. I’ve been living with these guys for five years, and this is the first time I’ll be moving to a place by myself. Somebody hold me. Or at least tell me how to get that musty smell out of my towels, the one caused by years of ex-fiance’s pile-the-wet-towels-until-all-towels-in-the-house-are-dirty method of laundry management. OK, I admit, some things I won’t miss. He’s already gleeful about never having to look at the breadmaker again, and about not having to share bathroom counter space with me.

I promise to form an opinion on something one of these days. Maybe after I’ve moved.