A lot of week 8 has been spent planning for my soon-to-happen move. I have probably found a company who will ship my boxes without flame throwing a hole in my bank account (will keep you updated), and as a slightly OCD person (cue in snickering from any person who ever shared a living space with me) I find a lot of soothing peace and, to be entirely honest, hints of pleasure, in cleaning out old boxes of stuff and piling books and planning out how many boxes of which dimensions I will need.

Speaking of books: stay tuned, as I might soon try to get rid of a few stack of them by offering them to you for nothing more than the shipping costs. Which might still be a steep price if you live overseas.

I wanted to try and do an audio recording for this week so as to spare my wrists.

But, I can't be arsed, because I sound whiny and tired, which I am, both, due to the goddamn effing pain and the fact that I want to get things done but everything (from brushing my teeth to washing the dishes to holy goodness, work, let's not even talk about work) takes so much more time and effort than usual that I bore myself halfway through, which is all very inefficient and therefore even more whine-inducing.

Although I must say that I am feeling better as of yesterday, which is good, but not enough. Try again, body.

Therefore, a list.

• I'm delightfully pleasant, these days;
• Hence it works out rather well that
  

- nobody's in lab;
- I have only one roommate left and she's not around much at all this summer;

• July 4th was a lot of fun (friends, barbecue, kubb, fireworks) and would have been better without
  

- 2 young Mormons (males), rather reminiscent of whipped puppies, but with the Book of M. tucked under the arm, trying their shy, pitiful proselytism on my 30% amused, 40% irritated and 30% sorry person;
- hours and hours of work;
- inability to play kubb;

• I know you'll find it hard to have sympathy, but SoCal didn't get the memo about summer and it's
  

- cold
- dreary
- humid
- even rainy, actually

As a conclusion: go watch a beautifully illustrated takedown of capitalism or a cat on a tortoise.

Emma over at Belgian Waffle asked her readers for a drawing of their ideal summer.

Upon which I bring you, drawn in GNUPaint, using my brand new graphic tablet, with my brand new splint and really, really quickly in order to spare my carpal tunnel, My Ideal Summer, by Krazy Kitty (25 1/2).

Week 10 was Carpal Tunnel Syndrome Week. Otherwise known as "your body is signaling to you that you are spending too much bloody time at the computer and will you stop using this right hand on a mouse and keyboard already? What is that you said about having a dissertation to write and three research projects to complete? I don't care! Go roll in the freshly cut grass! Chase after butterflies! Swing dance if you must!". I did none of that (except for swing dancing), kept working my ass off while designing ingenious ways of not using my right hand as much, and got myself an appointment with a doctor. Who confirmed the diagnosis, gave me a splint and told me to take ibuprofene and try to reduce my computer usage as much as possible. Excellent timing.

Week 11 mostly coincided with intermission. The spring quarter is over; undergrads are gone, and many grad students have already left for internships or research stays abroad. Summer session hadn't started yet, which makes it an ideal time for us to go away for a few days. Most eateries have reduced hours (my favorite coffee shop will be closed for the whole summer -- no more bagels for me, as the ones sold at the other places are disgusting). It is a bit hard to adjust to the lack of people, but I appreciate that the park is so much more quiet. So do bunnies, who are all over the freaking place, and dogs, who can now be walked on campus.

This is the to-do list I wrote myself yesterday before going to bed:

• molecular dynamics: it ran; you changed both the force field and the structure, it exploded; so go back and change only one of these things at once;
• ltr project: get performance closer to the benchmark;
• fellowship: seriously, DO IT;
• stretch;
• ps: you know it's the force field and not the structure.

I am not very good at concision. Weirdly enough, I can also lack in the domain of detailed instructions.

My final defense will take place 11 weeks from now.

Still I do, sometimes, by mistake, happen to think about other things. Even things that I feel like sharing! Sometimes I post them on Twitter. And sometimes I can't be bothered to make them fit in under 140 characters. So there.

There's a lady I like a lot who often asks me why I'm worrying over this thing or other, as I always end up smelling like roses.

I have this theory that I wouldn't smell nearly as nice if I didn't worry about doing things well in the first place.

In any case, I am only waiting for a few more rounds of emails to set the date of my defense (do you have any idea how difficult it is to get three professors in the same room at the same time?) at the very end of August.

And I already have a very definitive answer to the question "What's next?", once sleeping, traveling, and hanging out with friends and family have been taken care of.

So 2011 will take place here:

And also, which absolutely blows my mind, there:

Oh yeah, baby.

As a side note, if you care to do so, you can spent 30 seconds on it and work out exactly which lab I am joining. Please respect my kind of pseudonymity and don't name names.

Also, noticed how I cunningly made this announcement on the anniversary of Victory in Europe Day?

I just saw a brand new Facebook group named "I want to graduate", described as "for all the phd students who want to graduate".

I am dumbstruck. What, we want to graduate, now? I thought the whole point was to remain an underpaid, unrecognized, lowly student forever, and ever, and ever? Who on Earth starts an educational program with in mind the idea of graduating from it? I thought graduating was a punishment!

Next thing you know, someone will create a Facebook cause out of that. And maybe even a political movement! Let students graduate! That's actually what they want!

Yes, I know that 97.3% of all Facebook groups are utterly pointless, and meant for people to shout their oh so controversial views (such as, enjoying baths, liking naps better than work, disliking war and hunger and world poverty, finding kitties super duper cute, hating mean customers, etc.) to the world.

Yes, I know I'm ranting a lot at Facebook these days, probably because (a) I've recently added a lot of people I need to be able to contact although they're never going to be friends and I can't hide updates about their activities fast enough and (b) I'm tired of wondering, each time I upload a picture or write a few words on their website, to whom they're planning to sell it.

Yes, I'm probably irritated beyond any reasonable measure.

But seriously, there's no fucking point. Graduate students want to graduate! Hold the presses! Call the President! It's not informative, it's not witty, it's not even remotely amusing, it's just polluting my time line and proving that if I ruled the world you who joined that group, and especially you, who created it, would never, ever deserve to be called a Doctor of Philosophy (from, you know, philo, loving, and sophia, wisdom).

Also, it's spelled "PhD", doofus.

This is, supposedly, "Spring Break".

I do not know what is this "break" you are talking about.

I will attend a wedding, late Sunday morning, then fly to San Francisco with two of my partners in adventure and science. Then I will present a poster, all dressed up in my business suit — if our flight is on time, I should have time to change from my lovely dress.

Conferencing will ensue for the next four days, until the three of us fly back into the night, together with the friend (a partner in tango and late night conversations, if you will) who will join us as a tourist and share my hotel room.

The weather forecast assures me it is going to be warm and sunny. I do not quite dare believing it.

Today I received an email from a former lab mate. "The three of you together in San Francisco?" it more or less said. "What could go wrong with that?" We have a reputation to live up to, and will therefore try to squeeze in restaurants, breweries, coffee shops, and art museums when we're not presenting our work or asking smartass deeply relevant questions about that of others.

It is going to be brilliant.

And you can email me your address at krazykitty [at] amrhaps [dot] net if you reside in either Europe or the US (for I have stamps for both) and wish to receive a postcard from San Francisco. (This, obviously, is only necessary if I do not already have it; if I have already sent a postcard to you in the past, chances are I am not going to stop at one.)