DON’T STAND SO CLOSE TO ME!

Well you can stand close to me, but don’t hold my hands! The other day I noticed a friendly smiley face starting to grow on my left thumb! It was cute little bumps and I thought nothing of it.

Until… It swelled up into a nice bubbly smiley face! After I noticed a few more bumps on my left hand, it spread on to my right hand, and became very itchy. By this time the rash had been around for 4 or 5 days and we had become friends. It would itch and I would scratch every so gently so as not to pop the bubbles! Then it spread to my face! Not good to look at! And now I decided to go the pharmacist. He took one look at it and said “Get to a doctor imediately!” So I made an appointment for that afternoon. He (the pharmacist) was concerned that it might be a “Staph” infection. But when I saw the doctor she said it was more like an allergic reaction to something. When she took a closer look at my hands she was horrified, like a scared child on Halloween Night! (For those who don’t know, yes I bite my nails and the skin around them too. Yes I know, what a disgusting habit! I’m trying to stop!) Anyway, to continue the story, she told me I needed to stop, and SURPRISE SURPRISE I had to stop washing my hands so often! The water/soap combo was drying them out and may be the cause of this gross reaction! She prescribed a steroid cream to use only once a day, and also recommended to use a hand cream that would keep moisture in.

I hope that these creams will help clear up my hands, and I won’t be to sad when I have to say goodbye to my dear friend “The Rash”

Mental Cross-Training

For those of you who enjoy your morning crossword puzzle or have caught onto the Sudoku craze, you might want to give Planarity a shot. A few rounds of this should give you mental cramps…

Small Bit O’ News

The first application goes out this week. It’s the Commonwealth Scholarship Application, which enables Canadian citizens to study abroad in other commonwealth countries. I’m applying for the UK for Oxford and St. Andrews. (I know, I said I scratched St. Andrews. Well, I unscratched it.) The scholarship value is quite good. It covers all tuition and fees and provides a maintenance allowance of ~900 pounds/month for the duration of the degree.

The thesis is coming along well. The 2nd and 3rd chapters are in the draft stage right now. The 2nd one should take a more finalized form by mid-November and the 3rd by mid-December. After that, it’s just an introduction, conclusion, and revisions. (Oh, and the defense, of course.)

Small Bit O’ News

The first application goes out this week. It’s the Commonwealth Scholarship Application, which enables Canadian citizens to study abroad in other commonwealth countries. I’m applying for the UK for Oxford and St. Andrews. (I know, I said I scratched St. Andrews. Well, I unscratched it.) The scholarship value is quite good. It covers all tuition and fees and provides a maintenance allowance of ~900 pounds/month for the duration of the degree.

The thesis is coming along well. The 2nd and 3rd chapters are in the draft stage right now. The 2nd one should take a more finalized form by mid-November and the 3rd by mid-December. After that, it’s just an introduction, conclusion, and revisions. (Oh, and the defense, of course.)

Awesome Austin!

This past weekend Dave and I, along with 2 other couples (Chris & Angela, Matt & Amy) ventured to Austin Texas. Angela grew up there and her parents were gracious enough to open their doors and let us stay there for the weekend.
We arrived at about 9.30pm and enjoyed a wonderful dinner at “Hula Hut”, a great Mexican/Hawaiian fusion. The restaurant had outdoor seating on a pier in to Lake Austin and while we were enjoying our meal, a tour boat that was docking next to the restaurant, accidently hit the end of the pier!! There were some panicked faces and the waitresses came around to reassure their patrons that “this kind of thing happens all the time, like 3 times a year”. After dinner we sat in the hot tub at Angela’s parents house.

Saturday was a sleep-in kind if morning. We woke up to a wonderful breakfast spread that Ang’s mom had prepared. After that we went downtown to the Bob Bullok Museam and for a tour of the Capital Building. Then we (the girls) dropped off the boys at a bar to watch the many football games, and we headed off to Nordstroms and Banana Republic for some much needed shopping therapy! There was a MAC Cosmetics counter and I purchased a new lip gloss! We picked up the boys, relaxed at Ang’s parents house, long enough to catch the bad beginning of the Aggies’ football game. Before dinner we were witness to the flying of the bats. If you don’t know what I’m talking about there is this bridge called the Congress Bridge, where the largest colony of Mexican freetail bats live in the summer. They leave the bridge at dusk for feeding time where they eat over 37 thousand pounds of bugs a night. It was very cool to see, the only problem was that it was alittle too dark, and the smell was… well let’s just say yucky!!! After that we ate dinner at The Salt Lick, a local BBQ place, and then experienced 6th Street, a local bar hang out where we sat on the second story balcony of the Iron Cactus and had a drink.

On Sunday we hung out and discussed the bad loss of the Aggies the previous day. We left at around 1pm to end our wonderful weekend.

(Pictures to come soon!)

I knew I’d get a good education here…

Feedback, please

I put myself before a firing squad yesterday (read: I read a paper in front of members of the philosophy department yesterday). I think the presentation went well. After I read the paper, there was a fruitful Q&A session that lasted about an hour. This was the important part for me. The paper I read is part of the first chapter of my thesis, as well as my application writing sample, which means I’m looking for all the feedback I can get on this thing. In light of some of the comments made yesterday, the paper has already made some improvements. It can only go up from here…

Barb came to the talk. It was her first real philosophy event (although she has been to many dept outings, which inevitably turn into philosophy events). On the bus ride home, I asked her ‘Whaddaya think?’

‘You guys are wierd. You spend all your time working hard on some idea and then take it to people so they can tear it apart.’

Maybe we’re gluttons for punishment…

Calm After the Storm?

I guess we’ve been a little quiet this week. The week was relatively uneventful after the panic-filled week many had last week.

Things seem to be rolling along fine. I’m further ahead with my applications than I thought I would be at this point. Also, my list has been modified. You can scratch Washington Univ., Queen’s, Cambridge, St. Andrews, and UCL from the list and add Cornell. The UK scratches are largely due to finding out some things about the application process I previously did not know. Those unknowns make the process more complicated and expensive than I wanted. (I will still be applying to Oxford, however.) The other scratches… I think I just wanted to eliminate some of the cost. Washington and Queen’s were pretty much at the bottom of the list, so to save some money I decided to scratch them too. Cornell, on the other hand, has become an attractive dept after some research, so I added it.

I’ve ordered my transcripts, drafted my statement, and my writing sample is well on the way. (I’m actually presenting it at the dept this week and am thinking about submitting it to a few regional conferences.) My reference letters have been secured, as well. I’ll have three well-established senior people writing for me, as well as one very promising junior person. I think the letters will be strong. So, it’ll be up to my writing sample and a little luck to determine where we’ll be moving in 8 months.

I’ve got a stack of freshmen intro papers to grade, so I probably better get back to that…