I am not dead...

In spite of what my lack of activity on this site may have let you to believe, I am not, in fact, dead. I am, however, the next-best thing: trying to graduate. I think part of the process of graduate school is realizing that it is not at all what you thought it would be like when you decided to postpone outside life for another few years. I know that I had imagined it similar to undergrad, except that you get to pick a neat topic and do a really big project on it.

For those of you who are like me and occasionally need a kick in the butt - otherwise known as a "deadline" - you will understand how annoying it is to realize that you've wasted the better part of a year doing work that, under different circumstances, should have taken you a month. The key here is money. If you have an adviser that pays you, then he / she has a vested interest in getting you to do your work on time. This is usually because there is someone above him / her who is ultimately paying the bills.

If you are like me, and get no money from your adviser, then you tend to be left free to float, for as long as you like, in self-imposed research limbo. This, combined with work that pays the bills, and consequently has a more valid claim on my time, means that I'll be graduating just a little later than I had hoped. The good news is that I now have my motivation in the form of a job! I have accepted an offer to work in sunny Melbourne, Florida, starting at the end of June, so if I don't get everything done and in by then I'm screwed.

Alright, that's the update for now. It's 3:47am, and time for the sleeping.

G'night.