My lovely location this friday night is Barriques. People behind me were discussing the proper pronunciation of some French something. And wine abounds. People have this deliciously incompetent obsession with buying one glass of wine at a time 5 times in a row. You know. Instead of a bottle. But it makes me giggle my inner ass off, so this remains my favorite coffee hole.

Ohhh, and I discovered this wonderful contraption called a 'miel' here. Espresso, soy milk, cinnamon, honey. The sweet and bitter are a perfect compliment to one another. What doesn't work for relationships is great with coffee; who'da thunk?

This past week has mostly been working on my manuscript and listening to happy hardcore/darkwave/soundtracks while doing so. I fired off the first draft of my introduction and the general methods section to Dr. C. He hasn't gotten back to me about it, so I'm guessing he's working on it or something else. Takes a long time to craft a good introduction, and he likely has some good citations to use that I'm not aware of. Either that or he's re-writing the thing for me. Which is fine: he's published nearly 100 papers. I have 0. I'll defer to authority and experience for what he thinks'll sell.

I also proctored an exam for abnormal psych. The prof I work with, Ben, is on top of his shit. He hired out for not 1, not 2, but 3 other proctors to make sure people didn't cheat and shit. And among them, none other than Meagan! I haven't seen her for months. So with 400 students cranking through an exam, me filling out an answer key, and her wandering the walkways dutifully, we made silly faces at each other. Bug eyes, tongue sticking, eyebrows, whole deal. She's the most awesomely awesome lesbian I know. We're talking instant friendship, just add water, here. So we made plans to meet for coffee next friday @ Indie Coffee. She too is a nomad of the bean.

More broadly, the Teaching Assistant gig has been...terribly fucking easy. I feel almost a little guilty getting paid. There are 700+ students who could ask me questions, complain, make special requests...but next to noone does. It's so cool! 3 1/2 times the students of last semester, 1/3 of the work!

As far as Dr. C's Primate course goes, I've sat through it once before. And I swear, sitting through it a second time, everything that is primate busts out of the fog and becomes crystal clear. I remember 95% of course material without referring back to it. And exams are multiple choice, and not written by me, so all I do is answer the occasional question. It's wicked in how laid back it.

Abnormal psych is a tiny amount more effort. My one major function is to help students figure out projects in order to take the course for honors credit. It's kinda neat, trying to refine their ideas. This one dude in particular, Mark, has a raging hard-on for getting research experience. He's a sophomore, seems to be interested in anything I tell him about, and has a certain steadfast conviction that I see in very few students. He's a full-time real-estate agent, so I guess that sorta makes sense. I'd say trying to squeeze in research is a bit much, but he seems to like work. So basically I emailed a few clinical psych people I know to see if anyone nibbled. I set him up with Jess after some semi-lengthy machinations, so we'll see.

And the seminar course I'm taking with Dr. C is good. I can tell a lot of people are overwhelmed by the material. And having gone through all of it more or less on my own to do my research, yeah, it is a hell of a lot to take in. That said, I try not to dominate the discussion or answer sessions. I figure I fulfill a preset quota, then answer if other people are stumped and I think I know what Dr. C is getting at. He's got a proto-Socratic method going on, y'see, where he leads the discussion with the occasional question.

So yeah, work work work. I'm hoping by the end of February to submit my manuscript. Hopefully BBI will accept it and I'll have my first 1st tier pub. down.

Only other thing I can think of is that we've started organizing shit to process this 1997 survey Dr. C has. This was prompted by my assistant, Nicole, wanting to have more direction this semester. I was kinda innerly bitchy about having to add another reading on top of my..er...busy week, but I got around to enjoying it. There's a master's degree student of Dr. C's that wrote up her dissertation on some of this data set. We're hoping she'll still have an Excel file or something else with all the data entered in. If not, well, I need to find me 4-5 undergrads who loves themselves the fuck outta data entry.

So my plan for the rest of the semester breaks down to:

*Work on, revise, submit manuscript

*Work on, revise, turn in the paper for Dr. C's seminar course in early may, which I'll turn around and submit as a grant for the NIH.

*Meanwhile, re-pick up a stats technique that'll give me more math power to analyze the 1997 survey, as well as this 1991 survey. Those'll be two pubs down the road, probably around this summer.

*Pick up the infant behavior and physiology processing that some lab people are doing for my project right now. This would be the megolithically fucking huge 2nd year project. This is a commitment on wednesdays, basically, although Gabe (our senior scientist) is looking to move some stuff around in accordance with my schedule..which I finally got to her.

So yeah, me = throbbing work love. You're thrilled, I'm thrilled, etc.

In the realm of personal stuff, Brian and I are looking for a 2 bedroom. I'm sick of living alone and paying an arm and three nuts to live where I'm at. We're looking for places that are around a grand a month. Ideally we'd find a place in the bohemian district on the east side of town. Or the more quiet west side. But both of us live near the capital, near all the frat brats, and we're looking to get the fuck out.

So it'll be me, him, and his part-time cat. That is, it'll switch hands between him and his g/f. I'm thinking of getting an animal myself. A cat would be cool. 9-19 year commitment, but the companionship would be welcome.

You're waiting for me to make a getting pussy joke. So was I.

I'd kinda hoped we could find a third person and get a house, but a 2 bedroom is cool too.

What else.

I sent Hillary an e-mail about possible hanging out time this week or weekend, but no reply back. Same deal on the text message. She used to reply back pretty promptly, but I'm guessing it's either a lot of work or just getting tired of my communications. Given that she's mostly studying or sleeping and she's stressed out, I'm thinking that she's focused on keeping her head above water.

We did have a good e-talk via mail about a week ago, which was neat. I really miss hanging out with her. But friendship dynamics change, schedules change. It's good that the dating bit didn't deep six the friendship. She's got her sights on another guy she knows from the local goth club. This is good because we can go back to the friends + attraction deal we had going before.

I figure 80% of the reason I want to bother finding a woman is to snuggle, and I can still do that with Hill, so rock on.

But speaking of that front. I do have one potential prospect. She's a graduating senior, but she may be staying in Madison. She works over at the primate lab. Chelsea. Her and another animal care dude I know, Mike, are usually sitting around the (for lack of a better term) foyer of the psych building. The last few weeks, after abnormal, I see them, walk over, and we hang out and talk. At first she seemed to know more about me than vice-versa, but that could be because of Mike. I'm not sure if the two of them are going out. I need to invest a 40 minute block in talking with Mike and surreptitiously figure out what the deal is.

And if it's clear, fuck it, I'll ask her out.

Not much else going on on that count. Brian wants to go out to the bohemian district and see if we can find some women there. It's a sight better than the undergrad scene around downtown. I like younger women, true, but I'm looking for someone with their shit together and a definite, no-holds-barred lack of girly bullshit. Oh I know it's the same game with different teams, but I figure those specs aren't impossible.

So I'm going to finish the rest of this reading on happy hardcore, then do...I don't know, work on the paper due in 3 months.

And look for apartments.

Ah hell and email back Dean, I keep forgetting about that.

Maybe I'll do the reverse order.

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