So it's been awhile. I have no 'net access at home, so any updating constitutes goofing off at work.

Grad school is going alright. I've been hounding my prof to finish edits on our behavior + physiology paper on the LPS project. That needs to go out to reviewers sometime this month. While I appreciate that he has a lot to do, we're a few months overdue on getting this one out. There's also the LPS project brain paper that we need to send out, and the one on the survey data. While I've got the methods section pegged down and edited with M-town's helps, I've only done some scattered reading on prenatal infection and consequent brain changes. I'll save writing the rest of that beast for later (see below for why). The survey data paper is a long ways off. If I knew how many 100's of hours I'd need to spend re-working, re-analyzing, and re-explaining the results in various styles, I'd never have bothered with the whole thing.

I mean: feelings of depression reduce accuracy of health reporting in two samples. Coping strategies and practical social support increase accuracy. It really is that simple, but it's like fellating a turned on garden hose.

I've otherwise been studying for prelim exams. What exactly are these? Well for nearly all science grad students, sooner or later, you need to prove to the department that you're competent enough to do dissertation research, get your degree, and get a job. For some people in some departments, this is a 'pass or you get kicked out' test that happens early on. For me and most psych students, it's a pro forma, 'you're doing this because I had to suffer too, you poor dumb bastard' sorta vestigial practice.

Like a Latin mass but with intellectually pornographic cavortment.

My particular version is to write 4 20 page papers in a month. 1 per week. I get a choice of 2 scientific questions at the beginning of a given week from one of my committee members, spend a week drafting the paper, send it in, get the next one.

People express universal WTFness at this.

There's not a chance I'm going to fail, however; it's just simply not done to students. Scientific writing is also my prime strong point, so there's only moderate pressure to do well enough to secure recommendation letters for a post-doc job. I've had writing classes with all of the members on my committee, so I already know their intellectual flavor and what toppings they like on their sundaes so to speak.

General plan: do the first two the 2nd and 3rd week of May, take 2 weeks off to relax and present at a few conferences, do the last 2 thereafter.

Seems like a plan.

Emily and I are doing well. I really do think her being straight and from a stable 2 parent household, as opposed to being bisexual and having familial issues, was the clincher for things going along well. With a literal few exceptions, most women I'd previously dated had a constellation of behavioral curiousities that, in part, seemed to revolve around sexual preference.

We also almost never talk about past relationships, where things may be going, hardcore soul-searching, etc. It's fun, it's usually playful, it's nice. I don't have to regularly write or recite essays about nuances of behavior and thought as if I were a hypothetical missle defense system during World War 2. It works out well for the time being. There is some tension about when she wants to get out of Madison, if I can finish my degree in time to make moving together realistic, if any of my job prospects happen to be near where she wants to go, stuff like that.

Still, it beats dating razor wire in human form.

Eminem are soon getting married, incidentally. Lots of mutual friends are. Xtian & Becks, Dan & Kat, entities wide and far. I've occasionally thought about it. As much as I love my independence and peculiar habit for sucking on regret and Placebo like a child to a lollipop, this motherfucker ain't getting older and sincerely doubts finding a better match. Enough time hasn't passed under the bridge to really say. I'd also prefer trying to live together first. I've thought of bringing up the latter possibility, but I don't know if she wants to stay another year. Then again, unless she somehow finds a job and leaves at the end of her lease period, she'll need to find somewhere. Only problem is, if we did agree to move in, I'd need to go back downtown.

And though my adoration for the disconnected and often blaring hijinks of undergrads still murmurs strong, I may just fancy thrusting my bargepole into a woodchipper rather than regularly waking up to "woooooooooooo!i'mdrunk!!!111" at 2 in the morning.

Nigger please.

I have an artshow at ER for the entire month of April. I have damn near no cash to pay for new framed prints, so I'll mostly be using the shit no one has bought from previous shows--that being almost all of the stuff.

Madison is a liberal town full of conservative buyers. One may listen to NPR and have some inclination to be hip and young, but people are cheap.

Still, this show will not cost me anything, and I'm planning on cutting my profit margin to basically 200%, so maybe I'll get a nibble. I don't count on it, but hey.

I haven't taken any recent shots. Nothing around here really. No real motivation at the moment.

Nicholas and crew are still working on the script for a film project of theirs, Rallo. They want to write a grant, get some funding, and shoot the thing in Detroit. Dennis Cooper could well get some backing for this venture, which'd make it more realistic. I showed some of my work on his website due to Nick's influence. Apparently said crew think I should give a hand at being the director of photography/cinematography. My knowledge about cinematography approximates 1/4 of a dick (i.e. less than). Still, if the funding were in place, if the script were good, and I could somehow block out a few months of time where I worked on my actual job at night and did framing, lens shit, etc. during the day, I'd be fairly tempted to give it a try.

I'm an art guy kindof. What can I say.

In other news, I'm still doing writing for the game project. Not nearly as much as I had been, given that certain areas of production are farther behind than the dialogue department. I made some volunteer hires in the past few months, so my staff is now around 5-6. I've got another guy who is taking awhile to get me back samples, but if he works out then we'll be in a good place to have things done by the end of the 3rd quarter, or at least the end of the year.

So life is fine, I'm fine, my family is fine, my S.O. is fine, my mental state is fine, everything is fine.

Couldn't ask for anything more (other than 700 dollars to pay off my credit card which is coming via taxes rebate and department funds), wouldn't ask for anything less.

/Update

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