Admittedly, my world is quite small.
Things are pretty cool in it, though. I mean, it’s back to full-time experimentation now that the comprehensive exam is finally over, so that’s a thing – and hopefully, I can get a couple of constructs in a reasonable amount of time (c’mon, bacteria, give it up, let’s shoot for a month here) and move on from the paper to my main area of research. I should probably be working harder, but there was a Christmas party for the department today, and door decorating was required (I’d like to announce that our lab won ‘most festive,’ and when I say ‘our lab,’ what I actually mean is me, because I am the only person in our lab), and then there was food, and there were games (like ‘match the Howard Hughes investigator with his or her research’) and, you know, stuff. At any rate, now everyone’s gone for Christmas and I can dig in and work properly.
I’m house- and dog-sitting again. The dogs are being wonderfully well-behaved. I assume they’re planning something.
I’m also writing again. This is a wonderful thing, and I think I’ve found a couple of worlds I can play in without feeling like it’s a chore. I was starting to feel that way a little about the writing I was doing before – too many requests, not enough freedom – but working with new material has made things a lot more fun.
Oh! and I went to see a movie for the first time in about three years, which was exciting. Saw an action film, of all things, but to be fair, I did always love the old ’60s Mission Impossible franchise, and this one happened to have one of my all-time favourite actors in it, so it was worth a shot. And if you were watching it for my reasons (namely, to see some great characterization and team dynamics), it was fantastic. (If you were looking for intelligent plot or, you know, skilful storytelling, you were possibly in the wrong theatre.)
Right, well, I’m off, because the house has a piano, and that means I can play the piano (which I may or may not have been doing for the past hour), and I’ve only got a week with it, so, yeah, off to go and take advantage of that now.
Pianos and dogs…. what a great mix!