The last working day before Christi arrives from Michigan was not as productive as I'd hoped, but I still licked a couple of major items on the to-do list. The prospect of moving props back a few days is pretty sweet, since that's atop the list and isn't proceeding with the dispatch that I had hoped for. Dalai Lama also wound down this evening, a 8-6 loss in the semifinals with two key players (including a goalie) still returning from the long weekend.

posted at 12:12 AM - comments

Happy Memorial Day to our great nation. It was one of the first really summer-like days here, but I spent it inside slaving away and hiding from the sun. Structures and econ proved worthy adversaries, and then I moved on to props. There was also a hockey game to be watched and that just about did it for my Monday.

posted at 10:01 PM - comments

The middle of our last three day weekend here spent away, at the south shore home of fair Kate, who entertained us and fed us and lured us off campus. I am reveling in the laziness of this weekend, but all of that must come to an end tomorrow as work begins once again for the final push towards the paper that lies just 4 weeks away.

posted at 10:56 PM - comments

The end of the spring and the start of summer - we have a holiday weekend this year with added emphasis on the Memorial part of the observance. At Webb, we celebrate by watching all but a precious few file down Crescent Beach Road on Friday afternoon and then kick back to enjoy the time to ourselves. It was a great day today, perfect for having the option not to be productive. Soreness lingering from skating prevented any sports, but the desire to go waterskiing is definitely growing.

posted at 10:45 PM - comments

Morning came early once again today and I creaked and groaned out of bed and into class with achy muscles and sore joints. After props at 9 we sat through a brief period of Prof. Pres. and then were dismissed for the day. In light of this free time I lazed around and tinkered with work in the afternoon, ate biscottes and pesto, and shared talk of the proletariate in America. Ahhh college!

posted at 10:52 PM - comments

A day off, of sorts, yesterday. Projects due in the afternoon leave the evenings free for calls to the important people in a Webbies life and time to watch movies. Tonight, though, we are staying up late to go ice skating. This will be my first chance to ride my old Super Tachs in quite some time and I am pretty excited. In the meantime there are thesis revisions and a structures project to be working on.

posted at 10:01 PM - comments

Things went well this morning - a warm congratulations all around despite a couple of knuckleball questions from professors. Then the afternoon turned frenzy with thesis submission and props homework clogging the works. Apparently I'm one step closer to being done, but I'd like to have a night to myself all the same.

posted at 11:25 PM - comments

Final presentation warm-up this evening before the world glares in with great (if short-lived) enthusiasm tomorrow at 1100. The presentation is so ingrained in my very being that it keeps getting shorter and shorter - not a good scenario for yours truly. Other events, most notably Jill Compton's play "High Society," overfilled this day and leave tomorrow a giant rush to finish things. This was not a productive enough weekend...blame the alumni I guess but ultimately I'm going to be the one front and center facing the music.

posted at 9:27 PM - comments

Alumni day. Crowds crowded the interior spaces of the campus while Karyn and I tried to put the wraps on Webb a Go-Go, I finished my thesis show-and-tell poster, and a former boss dropped off the Girl Scout cookies I ordered in February. The WFS also performed during the evening to a very receptive and, apparently, entertained crowd. Tonight we bid farewell to SNL season 27, which opened under the cloak of terrorism and ends looking ahead to a brave new world.

posted at 10:04 PM - comments

What a hiatus it has been from the blog! After a much needed weekend away with my girl that included a whole lot of normal dating stuff and almost no abnormal Webb stuff, I returned to rejoin the melee. Life here in the library, buried in books, staring over them to Manhattan's untouchable skyline, cloaked in learning and headphones, is such a far cry from the utter peacefulness of 1454 Burke that it's almost painful not to be there. Since returning there's been an FD racing practice and dinner in West Sayville, an introduction to alumni life and that of the deputy class agent, a Star Wars party with my fair ladies, chorus and a frantic day of assembling a weekend's worth of work. Tomorrow will be nuts as alumni descend en masse and crowd my life and space with their proud Webbiness.

posted at 8:34 PM - comments

Sometimes you need somebody from far away to make you feel like you belong where you are, and I'm lucky enough to get a little dose of sanity on a pretty regular basis. That's the difference between thesis completion and hari kari tonight, I tell you what. It's supposed to be rewarding to publish a 60+ page document, but I find that the printing just takes too damn long. Just get me to Thursday, GRR, and the tall brunette who'll be waiting there; that's all I need or want or could possibly wish for.

posted at 1:11 AM - comments

Another day in the library being, at best, semi-productive. Recruiting and chorus and filling by piehole with Klondike bars has been the order of the non-studying day. Propellers homework has crammed my evening fuller than I'd like it to be...and taken away time from thesis that I really could use. Perhaps tomorrow will be better; we have an AA field trip to Sea Cliff to fill the afternoon and floor hockey to fill the night.

posted at 11:30 PM - comments

Oh! Vanessa Carlton and Andrew WK, where have you been all of my life? Today this interesting juxtaposition has kept my eye on the prize through the haze of thesis that has come to cloud my mind. Carlton's subtlety on "A Thousand Miles" keeps me remembering why I should keep going even as the strained and methodical pub anthem "Party Hard" rings clear in my mind: "we know what we want and we'll get it from you; we do what we like and we like what we do." Five weeks it was, from yesterday, until the party is over, but that is still a long time.

posted at 7:03 PM - comments

Kyle insists that I must stop hitting the bottle. I maintain that booze is not the source of my torment, but rather the work that keeps me here and her there. Another day dissolved into a march towards a goal whose bitter taste sticks in the dry mouth of a pupil whose brain is full. Time teases us and wraps itself, cold and untouchable, around all that we do and dream...people look back and lament, another day's useless energy spent. Then, as daylight faded maidens came to rescue me, to cool my skin, to level my head.

posted at 9:19 PM - comments

The Red Wings start round two this evening, but mostly today's excitement has been focused on the lingering thorn - that's right, thesis carries another day. The AM started off with presentation, then the day digressed into work. I did multitask this afternoon and take in Serendipity...and I think that I am becoming a Kate Beckinsale fan. Let's face it, everybody loves the way her hair frames her smile.

posted at 9:09 PM - comments

Not sure where yesterday went - nothing that astonishing took place but the day simply disappeared. Floor hockey team #1 finally took home a victory, Christi and I talked and laughed on the phone, and I watched a good portion of the Mel Gibson ballad "The Patriot." Today was much the same: a run to the grocery, some serious thesis work, a trip to the gym, and poof! the day is nearly gone.

posted at 9:22 PM - comments