Emerging back into the light

Whew! Busy, ugly week it has been.

Last weekend's getaway was absolutely lovely, thanks for asking!

Technological gliches have been solved by restoring my system to last working settings and tossing disk of offensive software into file 13. But man! was that a pain in the ass while I was struggling with it!

Draft of dissertation introduction is fully complete! Yeah! Now I can move to finishing off the other two chapters that are mostly complete, and then move into the second half of this monstrous beast. Feels good to finish up a piece.

But I also haven't sent it to my supervisor yet. She's waiting for it. I'm just chicken. Don't know why. I'm actually pretty happy with it (for a draft). But I'm afraid to send it off nonetheless. I'm always nervous about sharing my academic work though, even after several conferences, the dissertation writing group, and other venues. Not quite sure why. I've given myself till Monday to send the draft though - no delaying past that point. Maybe I'll read through it again before then and feel better about it!

Still not much interesting happening in life though.

We're finally getting snow, which the kids are loving. They've been out on the hill behind our house all day. They're fun to watch. At one point this afternoon, there were four of them, just lying in the snow at the bottom of the hill. Don't know what they were doing - they were just lying there. I actually spent time watching because I thought at first maybe one of them was hurt. But no. They were just hanging out in the snow. Can't remember the last time I just hung out in the snow.

Was almost late on Friday because of snow. Left early but still walked into the class at 9:02. Only half of the students were there though, so it wasn't a big deal. Ozzie's "Crazy Train" coming on the radio during the drive seemed really appropriate.

Got to thinking during the commute about how different my car is to drive. I wouldn't let a new driver try to manage it on snowy roads. It's not that it handles badly. I'm actually surprised how well it handles given its light weight and small tires.

But it does require a different kind of attention to driving. For example, when downshifting in snow, the slightly reduced traction, means that the swift shifting that the clutchless transmission does can make you slip a bit if you aren't applying the gas. Never had that happen in an automatic, nor in a standard, whose gear engagement you can control more. Means I have to avoid downshifting (not a problem since it does it automatically when I don't) or just be applying a bit of gas when I do (which actually gives me better traction than just braking and letting the car shift for me). So a very different kind of driving. I feel like I have more control over the car, but I also have to be just a bit more conscious about what the motor and transmission are doing at any given moment.

Still wouldn't trade the car in. Am still waiting for my eco-rebate though. They're apparently backed up by several months on processing all the applications. Will be nice to get 2 grand on top of all the fuel savings when it comes!

Hopefully interesting things happen soon worth blogging about! Or the dissertation meter will shoot way up! or both!