Time marches along

Having class with a bunch of undergrads is kind of weird.  Sometimes I feel like I'm not that far removed from undergrad life.  I still live in the same town, hang around the same freakin' campus...am still learning undergrad things....

But then I chat with some and realize "Hm, yeah.  Not so much in that mentality anymore."   This also happens when I think back to myself as an undergrad.  Comparatively, I was drifting in life, not sure of what my priorities or goals were, not sure who I wanted to be or be with or what I should do with myself!  Not like I've got every little thing figured out, but boy, a lot of sh*t has come together for me in the last 5 years.  It's a good feeling, that sense of growth and of crystallization.  I feel as if the unimportant things, the extraneous side-tracks of life have come to an end.  And life is simpler for it...sort of :-)

Not much exciting to report around here.  My cycle of labwork - class - homework - freak out about how much dog hair is collecting in the house - labwork continues.  Lab is good in that it is busy and I'm being sort of productive.  I've been hovering around that line of being too busy such that I'm really unproductive.  It doesn't help that at least 50% of my time is spent just managing/organizing crap and training my new minion (read: undergrad).  Thus I have nothing tangible in the form of data to show for 50% of my time and it makes me feel like a bum.  It's telling that I'm looking forward to being a grad student again where I've got my own project and am not in charge of the managerial tasks that are inevitably given to techs.  Things like freezer inventories and mouse colony data tracking.  Ugh!  I got a taste of the glory doing my Master's degree and now I want it back!!!  (I'm sure anyone with a PhD that reads this will be laughing their arse off, and yes it is meant tongue-in-cheek.)

The furries are all well and handling the return of cold weather fine.  Dax was rather frisky this morning - trotting up and down the fence, tossing her head and generally making clear her displeasure about being fed at 8am rather than 7.  The clickers have shipped and my clicker training book is at the library waiting to be picked up on Saturday.  She's going to be interesting to work with, considering all the pent up energy.  It'll be even more interesting when I start doing walks and stuff....Wed. March 16th is the 60day mark.  She's moving so well now, I'm tempted to push it up, but don't worry - my rational brain won't let me.  I am going to try some toy ideas on her...might make for interesting photos :-)

Hope everybody is staying warm out there.  Any obnoxious weather comments from the California contingent might result in a blog BAN.  You are warned.