It’s been a pretty good day…

I spent my 1^st day working in my new office. I like it! I've got everything organized (it took me 6 hrs yesterday to do so) and all of my pictures up. It is quieter than my old office. Was fairly productive, but could have done more…although there is ALWAYS more I could do. I'm trying to relax tonight and tell myself I have tomorrow and the first part of Wednesday to get some order to my new dissertation ideas. Also have some revisions to do on the book chapter. And need to finalize the survey for the JCC. And figure out bday stuff for a certain someone who is turning 30 very soon…that should be a lot of funJ. The birthday planning/celebration part at least. In short, I'm busy but not minding it too much at the moment. Yay for good moods!

I get to teach an OB class in the spring! And get this: I was asked what time I would like to teach it. WHENEVER!!!! Never, ever been asked that! Not to pick from various times, but to make up my own time! I asked for 10:45 – 12pm TTH. Not too early, not too late. Avoids the inevitable "lunch coma". Yay!!!

I also found out that I am going to do the assessment in B'ham in August J I'm pumped – I've done it twice before and had a blast each time. We work hard, but play harder. Or at least I try. We are supposed to be there for 7 days this time. I'm not sure if that's a typo or not. Or that we'll just have that much work to do. It's all good though – I still am enthralled by someone else paying for my hotel room for a week. And still, air travel. But no US Air this time. No, no, no. I've begun to be obsessed with a flight tracking/rating site: www.flightstats.com. It gives ontime performance ratings and all sorts of other stuff. I'll be going to Savannah to visit my g-ma in July and one of my flights is rated very, very poor. And I have 2 connections on the way back: Dulles & O'Hare. Only 50 minutes in O'Hare. Great idea. Well if any of you in Chicago are reading, I may get stuck on May 17^th. Just a heads-up; you might be hearing from me then. I'm sure you'll be hearing about my first experiences with United Airlines later.

If you don’t want to read whining and complaining, stop reading here. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

So, I feel quite defeated today. Being a 6^th year, I got booted out of my office and moved to another, more isolated office. I got moved to the counseling side. What happened to seniority? I've been here 5 years already; why should I have to give up my desk? I guess it's meant to be a gentle nudge that I've been here too long (more like a kick in the ass, really). I guess I should feel grateful that I still have an office. My soon-to-be former office is on the main hallway. Thus, people stop by and I can hear the departmental gossip without even leaving my chair. In addition, it has window to outside. It gets too hot or cold, I can open the window. I love my officemates too and don't want to leave (although my new officemates are awesome too…they will never be around though).

New office: kinda on a side hallway. Only near old I/O students like myself and counseling students. Not that I don't like the counseling folks, I just feel so isolated from the I/O happenings. Also, it has only about a quarter of a window…of the atrium. Not an outside window. No temperature control either. Ok, as I'm reading this, I really am whining and should be grateful for an office and stuff, I'm lucky the offices are as nice as they are, blah, blah, blah. I'm still going to pout like a little kid. Try and stop me.

Also, I haven't managed to come up with a dissertation topic in the last three weeks that I haven't met with my advisor. Also, I thought we weren't meeting this week for some reason. Damn. I've been out of town a great deal and have been working a lot on other stuff, but the fact that I've made no progress is really pathetic. I'll probably come up with a half-assed idea (or excuse, if things don't go well) that will get shot down immediately. I hate these meetings. I never have anything worthwhile to say and feel that my attempts at a dissertation are futile. Keep in mind, however that I'm not trashing my advisor. Not at all; I am the one that can't seem to get anything done. I wish someone would pick a topic for me – I'll hate end up hating one I initially liked anyway – If I work on anything too long, it gets old. Really, really old.

I'm frustrated at myself. Now I'm frustrated that can't keep from being frustrated at myself. I have a really, really bad attitude about grad school right now. So bad, that I'm not even sure it is wise to meet with my advisor. I'm afraid that I'll say that I don't care about any of this stuff and that dissertations are pointless. Or that I'll say that I haven't done anything and not sound like I feel bad about it. Probably not a wise decision.

I wonder if I can get away with studying graduate students anxiety who continually procrastinate on their dissertations and how effective ice cream therapy is as a coping strategy. Mmm, ice cream.