Feeling Good for 5, Getting Excited and Why So Sleepy?

I have decided that I could just really put the subject of each topic in my posts in the subject line and then you don't even need to read this like today.....

Well nevermind, I'll just give the details.

Yesterday I took the train back downtown. There is something about those freakin' Metra trains that make my eyelids close on me. I'm all ready to get a lot of reading done and then my head is leaning on the window and the eyes are droopy. Anyways, went downtown and met up with Jason. We Bluelined it to Milwaukee and then walked home from there (I hate being on crowded buses and we are only about 2 miles from the stop so a walk it was. After we got home I tried giving the theory part of my talk to Jason. I was all excited about it, but as that was the first time I had run through it, it was pretty rough. But that's how it used to be when I have the analysis part of it which at this point I have down so I don't really even need to run through it (although of course I will).

After that and cooling down a bit we went out for a 5 mile run. Again, just trying to get the mojo back and so we started off really slow. We went for our usual 5 miler around the neighborhood and felt really good. No pain and the breathing was ok (my achilles has been feeling really good...most of the time. I am experimenting with lacing my shoes differently and it seems to be making a world of difference) and it wasn't as hot out as we thought it was going to be.

Ok...what's the next subject up there in the subject line. Right. Getting Excited. About what? Well everything but specifically these days, giving my talk next week. Jason took of Wednesday-Friday and so we will leave for Bloomington very early on Wednesday morning. While I am nervous for my talk, I also realized that I am going to get 3 great days in Bloomington and the defense part of it is only about 2 hours of it. That's right 6 years of work all wrapped up in a nice 1 hour talk with questions. I think my talk looks good and I have added in some slides from the last time I gave this talk. I will send my adviser a copy of the talk on Sunday and hopefully he'll get back with comments soonish. I am also supposed to expand on my conclusions section of my these as was requested by one of my committee members and I haven't done that yet.

This morning I took the Metra train back to the lab (probably the last time!) and I was again all set to read a bunch of my book (I'm reading Atlas Shrugged) and I sat down and I mean instantly I was shutting my eyes. What the ass? Is there some kind of something in the air on those trains that I am allergic to or something. Sheesh.

Today I am just at the lab and working on my talk and trying to "get my words down" as Jason says and then around lunch time (in about an hour) I am going to walk around the ring, stopping at the main building for lunch. It's about 4 miles around. The whole "leaving Fermilab and academia" is a post in and of itself and I don't want to really think about it just yet because while I know it's time to move on...it's still sad as parts of working here were really cool.

Alright, well that's all from these parts. Happy Friday all!