odds and ends

today i had the pleasure of attending an irb training with my supervisor who slept through the entire thing. whenever you do research, you have to submit your proposal to an 'irb' - something review board - which allegedly are in place to protect human subjects (participants in your research). the truth is, these irb's serve to protect the university from liability issues but they don't say that. the timing of this training was a little late as 1) i have already completed the on-line, much more comprehensive, irb training; and 2) i submitted an irb application 2 weeks ago. but, as a lowly grad student/project assistant, i had to attend per my supervisor - who, did i mention, slept throughout the training??

ziva's crawling and oh man, is she cute. of course, she won't crawl on command so if you put her down, wanting her to perform, she looks up at you as if you've betrayed her and tears fill her big blue eyes causing your heart to break and your arms to reach down and pick her up again. she may never learn to walk.

it was 0 degrees when i woke up this morning and 5 degrees when i got to work. and no, i don't get tired of reporting the weather to you all.

i'm starting a new study group. i sent out the invitation to everyone in my classes and got a pretty enthusiastic response. i had to find a meeting room large enough for us and we start meeting next monday. we'll see how it goes.

my laptop has a virus even though i have anti-virus software. i need to take it to the computer doctor on campus and see if he can do anything. i know antibiotics won't work because it's not bacterial but maybe they'll have something to knock it out.

someone stole my coffee mug at work.

and so, my friends, now you know why i haven't been posting a lot lately. while i've been crazy busy, nothing very exciting has been happening. school is intense and all-consuming and when i'm not at school, i'm working and when i'm not working or at school, i want to sleep. it's not yet 8:30 pm and all i can think about is crawling into bed and closing my eyes. of course, then i'll lie there for two hours thinking of everything i need to be doing (like bringing in the trash can from the street that i've left out there for 2 days, shoot!). so it's homework for a few hours before i get to fall into that beautiful bed upstairs. i'll leave the trash can for tomorrow.