Small things

I was standing in the car park at Uni today watching what I thought was a trick kite. It was amazing, zooming around and flipping over and over. Then it flew closer to me and I realised it was a white cockatoo and it was having a lovely time! Amazing...I've never seen one do that before.

An update on life, the universe and ... Texas?

Hello dear friends. This blerg is dedicated to you all. I'll try to keep it short and sweet, with lots of updates about life in Texas, the adventures of Jac, and the complexities of statistical genetics (ok, I might leave that out).

So this is it. This is supposed to be the post where I update you all on the state of affairs in the life of Jac (there are no affairs).

Firstly, you may not believe it but I've handed in my thesis. Yup, after all these years I've finally finished. It's a weird feeling, not great relief or excitement, just an odd, nagging feeling like I should be doing something... sitting at the laptop until midnight writing frantically for example! However, I'm sure I can find plenty to fill the void!

Rushing headlong into the next stage of life - I'm moving to Texas in a month to take up a statistical genetics postdoc. Basically, I'm going from being tied to the laptop in Tassies to chained to a workstation in San Antonio. It will be amazing and scary and lonely and exciting. I'm looking forward to Krispy Kreme and 150 cable channels and driving on the WRONG side of the road and being able to have a pet hamster and all the other wacky stuff that is America. Not thinking about the cons, politically or otherwise, and I'm going to try not to cover them here. We do enough America bashing. That doesn't mean I'm going in blind (y'all know me better than that) but I'm going to make an effort to see the good, and if there is some, I'll pass it on ;)

I leave this beautiful place on the 16th of March, to start work on the 20th. Before then I'm working full time, dealing with visas and all the other paperwork nightmares, catching up with as many people as I can, and generally having a marvelous time!

Well, that's probably enough of an egotistical rant for the moment. I miss you all and I hope you're well and, most importantly, happy. All love-

Jac ^_^

Cutting the umbilical cord

It's been one of those days! Stress levels are high this week... I've taken on full time work (in order to have some cash to take with me) and I'm hoping to have the thesis finished and to the binders this week too. The thesis has been dependent on supervisor feedback and that's been coming in slowly, until today...

A little while ago both of my supervisors signed off on the final draft of my thesis! I can't really believe it... That's it, that's what I've been waiting for. What it means now is that as soon as I'm finished mucking about with formatting and checking reference I can print it out, take it to the binders and HAND IT IN! I've had a postcard on my wall for years that says "SUBMIT" but now I really can.

Is this the end of my procrastinating golden years as a student?? Stay tuned...

Postscript: I'm going to see Brokeback Mountain tonight to celebrate (ok, so I'd already planned to go - and celebrating with a film that's likely to make me sob for hours after???).