a day at the office

Thanks to David for sending this one.

http://glumbert.com/wii/view.php?name=baddayoffice

Welcome to DC!

So, I am finally a full fledged resident of the District of Columbia. After putting off the decision for years to maintain my Florida residency, last Friday I went to the DMV and got a Washington DC license. I have also registered to vote in the District. So DC is now officially my home. I am very excited by it... and surprisingly my summons to jury duty has not got to me yet.

The DMV wasn't nearly as bad nor as intimidating as people made it out to be. I went to the one in Georgetown and I was in and out within an hour. In fact the woman who was helping me loved me and we gossiped and talked about Florida and her new computer and hairstyle, etc etc. It was a very positive experience for me.

Cool Video...

This was pretty awesome! Check it out.

Thanks to Lisa for sending it.

Two steps forward, one step back.

I feel like the process to completing your dissertation is one of two steps forward, one step back. I made some good decisions about my dissertation in the last two weeks. First, I'm dropping a research question that is only tangentially related to my project (this will allow me to drop a third of my literature review). Secondly, I found an already constructed data source from a university that asks thousands of students questions about my topic (this will make data collection so much easier). But then, as I was going through my chapter one that I wrote last November, I realize its not salvageable with these changes and I have to scrap it. Granted its only 20 pages, but I'm slightly depressed about doing the work again and have found it hard to stop up. And hard to go to the gym, and hard not to eat double cheeseburgers all day. So I've taken two steps forward but then had to take one step back.

Unacceptable!

So I was at the gym yesterday afternoon on my lunch break. When I was post-workout, post-shower dressing to head back to the office, this guy whose locker was like 5 down from mine pulled out a large stack of mail and started going through it. He was sorting his bills, reading his mail, etc etc. He made piles all along a bench to the point no one could use the bench (bench etiquette in the gym is something that really bothers me... your bag doesn't need to be on the bench if someone needs to sit down). I thought it was appalling to have one's entire mail for the past week on the bench and going through it there. I thought that would be the end of this post....


But I went back for my post-work workout yesterday (about 3 hours after the lunchtime one). He was still there with what seemed to be everything he owned there (no i dont think he's homeless, but he could be). But he had a two liter of orange soda out and was eating a Sarah Lee Cherry Cheesecake right out of the tin. I was like "am i on candid camera, or is this a fucking joke?" WHy not have a pizza delivered to the locker room? Have a cable tv installed in your favorite locker? I understand making yourself at home at the gym but this was a little overboard.