42 hours and counting

How will I know if my eagerness to leave New York is too obvious and bordering on offensive to those to live here? Maybe the hourly countdown isn't the best idea, but at this point, I don't really care.

I have already packed and cleaned... My final presentation is this afternoon and my department is doing a happy hour get-together this afternoon. If my favorite-est brother wasn't flying in on Saturday morning to drive back with me (the boy is a life saver), I would be beyond tempted to call in sick on Friday and leave a day early.

Just so I don't forget what I loved (and didn't quite love) here, I've decided to make a list. I love me some lists.

Things I will miss:

• Autumn - the smell of it, the colors, the sweater weather. Love it.
• Having a CPK a couple miles from my house.
• Living in a great neighborhood for running. It was big enough so that each lap was 1.7 miles and after a couple of weeks, everyone started recognizing me and waving.
  
• Mass transit. This didn't really apply to my everyday life, but when I went into the city, the subway system is great. And cheap. Dear Tucson... get a train.
• Honking horns. I'm completely allowed to honk at idiot drivers here. It's great.
  

Things I don't care to deal with much longer:

• Loud, obnoxious people with annoying accents. Remember Janice on Friends? Yeah. It wasn't an exaggeration. At all.
  
• Narrow roads. I have learned that there are terrible drivers everywhere you go. Unfortunately, they don't quite fit in their own lane here, so it's a bit more dangerous.
• Cold, wet mornings. And it's not even November yet.
  
• Rude people. They aren't being mean; they're just incredibly rude.
  
• Twisty, windy roads that make no sense and change direction and name all the time. I miss my wide roads that meet at right angles.
  
• Traffic lights that are directly over the stop line. I'm constantly leaning forward to try and watch for the light to turn green.
• Loud, obnoxious people with annoying accents. Trust me, this just grates on you... especially at the end of a long day or long week. Ugh.

Let's just say I'm excited to get home. Brett and I are hoping to make it in 3 days, which works out to 14-15 hours of driving each day. If anyone wants to call and visit Saturday through Monday, we'll have the time to talk. A lot.

ABD

For those of you that don't know, ABD stands for All But Dissertation. I just passed my orals and have gone from a lowly Ph.D. student to a Ph.D. Candidate. :)

Now I just have to get that pesky dissertation done...

Yay!

I've been instructed to post and be witty...

I don't know about the latter but I suppose I can do my husbandly duties and type out some stuff. I've never been very good at keeping up with a blog (three failed attempts so far) but with the diligent nagging of my loving wife, I'm sure I'll do much better this time, I think.

I suppose the cynic in me has always had two...no, three problems with blogging. One, I never understood why anyone would want to add to the cacophony of 90 million other blogs on the intraweb but apparently people do read these things so that's out.

Two, I've doubted anyone would want to actually read about the goings-on in our lives but I suppose if I stick to the big, exciting stuff and avoid the twitter, I suppose I can get over my fear that no one really gives a shit about what we're doing.

Three, I'm lazy. I guess now I have Nicole to "help" with that.

So, dear reader, you have to look forward to seeing some of nifty things we've been up to like our visits to NYC and Washington, D.C.. Also, I'm sure I'll put up some stuff about seeing the SEMA show, and some other cool stuff going on in the immediate future -- that is when I get around to actually downloading the pictures. You also get the pleasure of my caustic attitude and reading more colorful language than you might be used to.

Hey, all I can say is: she asked for it.

X.

Tucson or bust

I'm sure all of you are sick of hearing about me missing home, but I do. I miss knowing the streets and knowing that there is room for my car in my lane. I miss sleeping in a bed that is long enough for me. (Sleeping diagonally gets a bit old and disorienting.) I miss my puppy. I miss having In-n-Out Burger just down the street at the end of a bad day. And I really miss my husband. I keep telling him it's so much different being away from "the good one," and it's true. ;) I miss just chatting with him and telling him stories about crazy stuff I see everyday. And I'm sure he misses my nagging about stupid stuff that only wives nag about.

So I'm excited to fly home to Tucson for the weekend, even though the real reason I'm flying home is to take my orals on Friday. I'm nervous and getting more nervous by the hour. Failing just wouldn't be a good thing right now; I need to be a candidate when I head to Montreal to interview for positions in December. Oh - and I need to pass them so I can focus on my dissertation. But at least if I do fail, Xav will be there to cuddle me and take me to In-n-Out. And probably ColdStone after that.

Hopefully, though, the plan will be to fly in tonight, work and cram on Thursday, stress through the exam on Friday... then pass and celebrate. The exam is Friday at 10:00am PDT and will probably take a couple of hours, so crossed fingers and prayers and hail mary's are all welcome. On Saturday, I plan on cheering on my cute (crappy) little U of A football team; maybe they'll get lucky and win one, too.

My Dæmon - rawr!

According to Julia and the Internet (so it must be true), a dæmon is a physical manifestation of a soul. This one just happens to be of my soul:



I thought for sure I'd end up with a ferret or something.

To get your own: http://www.goldencompassmovie.com/

Yay pictures

I have learned from my in-laws that Mexicans never take pictures and if they do, they never get them developed. Apparently I've been Mexican all these years and never realized it.

As promised, here's a picture of me at Yankee Stadium. This was taken shortly before rain that caused a 92-minute rain delay. A big thanks to Wesley for letting me have his extra ticket that day! Sysadmins are the coolest.

I also went to visit Rockefeller State Park this weekend. Yay for super rich people who decide to donate cool stuff for normal people like me to visit. Over 1,000 acres of their estate has been deeded to the state of New York, which has woodlands, meadows, wetlands, and a lake. Twenty miles of paths originally created for carriage rides are maintained for the public and we can even bring our doggies and horseys.

I'm only here in New York for a few more weeks - if anyone has any requests, start sending them in now. :)

Better than the track

Thanks to some inspiration from Julia's blog, I've decided to get off my arse and do some jogging. And by jogging, I mean bouncy walking. It's the same jog that got me through the Honolulu Marathon and back then, I could speed walk faster than my jog.

Anyway, aside from the accompanying soreness - especially the first week - it's been pretty nice. I'm finally over my jet lag and I sleep through the night. Even better, I get around my neighborhood and have been watching some of the leaves start turning. It's reminding me how much I love the smell of autumn and how much I need to sneak out of work on occasion. Spending countless hours in front of a computer screen and under fluorescent lights just can't be good for you.