Hmm, well. It was pointed out to me that blogging about work, especially when said work can be identified provided you read American Rhapsody with enough care, wasn't necessarily the smartest thing to do.

But nobody reads me, I thought. I get a few dozens of hits a day, mostly on the French pages, and none of them from anywhere near here. And I haven't been that harshly critical. And I'm only here until September anyway.

Still. I have written things I would have kept to myself had I been writing under my own name, and I'm clearly not that far from doing that anyway, so I taken a few posts (or parts of posts) down.

Nevertheless, I'll have you know that I have no idea where the reams of paper are kept. The printers seem to always be magically refilled whenever necessary without requiring any external intervention.

And if I have the courage, I'll write about re-reading Jane Austen sometime soon. Don't expect anything deep, though: it's been done too many times by more gifted than me.

I don't think I have yet fully realized that I am leaving for the whole summer, which I am going to spend as an intern for one of the research labs of Big International Company in Israel. I am both thrilled by the new experiences that await me and slightly scared to be on my own in a foreign country where I have never set a foot and the language of which I hardly speak at all. I am leaving tomorrow morning, and will spend a week in France on my way there. In the meanwhile, I still have a good deal of packing and last minute work to do so... off I am after no more than one paragraph. Can you believe it?

Advisor cleared his throat and stood up. It is my pleasure to welcome you today to the final defense... His introductory speech was glorious, stating how exciting it was to have his extraordinary student arriving at the culminating point of his PhD, and how sad it was to see him leave the lab. We were all very proud of J, especially, I suppose, his wife and parents, when Advisor told us in a few words about his contributions to Science.

J's talk was brilliant, even more so than usual. I smiled to myself as I reckoned how smoothly the carefully rehearsed transitions were going. Although I have worked closely enough with him that I could have given this talk myself, I felt captivated again by the power and coolness of it all. This is hot science, I reflected, wondering how on Earth I would be able to pull off such a performance in a year from now.

The Supreme Court of California ruled to uphold the ban on same-sex marriage voted by the oh-so-progressive and righteous electors of California. But not to worry, the homosexual couples wed before November 4th are allow to remain married! I am trying to reconcile the idea that marriage in California is now defined as being between people of opposite genders with the fact that some 18,000 homosexual couples are legally married in that very same California and I think I just blew a few synapses.

On that very same day, President Barack Obama nominated a woman of Puerto-Rican origins as a Supreme Court Justice. And of top of that, she is fat. (If you thought that last point couldn't matter less, read here and think twice).

This simultaneity saddens me: both events seem to be canceling each other and I am unable to be really furious about the first one or really excited about the second one. Or maybe it's just that I am working too much?

Yup. I did it at last! After months and months of toying with the idea and talking about it, I upgraded AmRhaps to dotclear2 (which had, in the meanwhile, moved from 2.0 to 2.1.5), adapted my theme to the vastly irritating new format, and created an English section.

And obviously, I made it happen when I am tremendously busy, having to finish an insane amount of projects before (1) my officemate and collaborator graduates (2) a conference deadline (Advisor and I are submitting two papers and I am loosely participating in a third one) and 3) I leave for Israel, where I am going to spend the whole summer interning in a very nice industry research lab, while two projects will keep moving on with only my remote assistance (three weeks from now... and I still don't have my plane tickets, which is driving me insane).

But the good news is, although I am getting more than my share of stress, wondering if I will ever get my PhD (the other student in the lab who started the same year as me graduated Friday morning -- to be exactly accurate, I should mention a third guy started in the Fall of 2005, but he quit the program, so I guess I'm not in that bad of a shape), and more generally speaking completely losing it, going to Israel means I get to spend some time in France both in June and September. And that, readers dearest, is beyond cool.

Especially when topped with the sweetness of the discovery of Tel-Aviv and Haifa (and I hope, many more places), the mental break of being away from the lab, and having the same mornings and evenings as France (moving from nine hours behind to one hour ahead is going to be quite surprising, I'm sure).