A mysterious scratch: the tone of the week

I woke up last Monday morning with a big scratch on the left side of my face that was not there when I went to bed Sunday night. And that has sort of set the tone for this week, which has been not a very fun one.

Tuesday was marked by an interminable college meeting. It when on for about 2 and a quarter hours, and I got about two or three useful pieces of information from it. Luckily, I was smart and was working through the President's address in the morning, which I heard went on for an hour and forty minutes, and had about the same amount of useful content as the afternoon meeting.

I think one good thing I learned around this time was that the first stage in our green card application went through. And quite a bit faster than I was expecting. Now, we begin phase 2: which means more money, medical exams, pictures, and more paperwork. But it should be worth it, as it should make it possible for my S.O. Sarah to get a job, which would be a huge difference.

Wednesday was marked by more meetings, although these were my own fault, because I called them! I'm the graduate program coordinator, so I wanted to meet with our Master's students. I ended up with a two hour meeting in the morning, and a one hour meeting in the evening (for part time students with day jobs). They were good, but draining. Plus, I had people one after the other in my office, again mostly talking about the graduate program.

I think Wednesday was also the day I got a rejection letter for one of my manuscripts.

Thursday was the first day of class. I didn't have any classes to teach, but it's always a ratty day, so I went to the beach with my student Michael to collect mud shrimp and sand crabs. The sand crabs have become scarce: only saw one that I hit with a shovel. The mud shrimp were more plentiful, though. It was a good trip, but again, a couple of hours in the sun and heat on the beach meant I came home with a bit of pink on my skin and was again pretty tired.

By Friday, half the mud shrimp we collected the day before died. It was also my first day of my class, plus I was presenting a paper for our Journal Club. I was also running around trying to deal with a variety of administrative things. Like a graduate student who is apparently missing one class to graduate, and I could have sworn I'd checked he had that requirement. Don't know how that happened. Went to the pub for a bit afterwards, but had to leave when Chris and Jason started smoking their foul cigars. Luckily, by then Sarah was there to rescue me. Again, just a long day.

And this morning I wake up to find Port Adelaide won their match over the Dockers, which means tomorrow's match with Essendon is a must win if my team the Demons are to make it to the AFL finals, and break the odd-year hoodoo that has plagued them for years now. Go the Dees!

And I spent most of the day at work because there's so much that needs doing. And more mud shrimp died. And I'll have to go again tomorrow to try and get a little more work done in time to meet some Monday deadlines.

Oh, something I've been forgetting to mention: I have a little technical essay up at the International Society for Neuroethology website. It harkens back to my first post-doc.