Progress

This week has been a good one. All the paperwork for R is submitted, and will hopefully be finished and ready in 6 weeks or so. Mine took 5 weeks, once the IND had all the documents. That puts us right on track for moving R and the dogs here soon after the new year, which is awesome! R has found a possible service that would take care of flying the dogs here for us, so we're hoping they aren't too expensive. That'd be way easier than moving them ourselves. The bank is crawling along with the short sale paperwork, but we can sign things from a distance if they don't hurry it up. I'm unconcerned with inconveniencing them.

On top of all that, my model's working again! Yay for that! A colleague directed me to where the overfull server was, so I was able to delete a bunch of stuff I don't need anymore. Tomorrow I can run some interesting tests, to look at the performance of a promising cloud scheme change. Then I just need to convince NCL to plot nicely for me, which may take some doing. It's well documented though, so I'm currently optimistic.

I'm very much looking forward to MM's visit tomorrow as well. So overall, even with getting rained on 4 times in 3 days, and biking through the scary Fog of No Visibility, this has been a very awesome week.

The Right Choice

R and I have done long distance before, so I'm pretty well used to it. This past trip was different though, because I didn't cry at all when we had to separate again. Before now, I always have, and when I moved here, I cried a lot. Mostly because it was terrifying to move across an ocean to a new country, to start a job with people I'd talked on the phone with twice, to move in with roommates I only knew via email and facebook, and to leave R and the dogs behind to do it. I'm still pretty impressed that I chose to make this move in the first place, because there were definitely less scary options available.

This time, though, the only part of the return trip I dreaded was the actual trip, which was moderately un-fun, although way better than my last trans Atlantic adventure. I was looking forward to coming back to roommates that are friends, and a job that's awesome, and colleagues who are pretty awesome too. And I'll admit, escaping the heat and humidity was pretty thrilling. But I've been happy with my life and still cried when leaving every time before, when I was in grad school the first time.

This time, I think the difference is that I really truly love my life here in Holland, and while it would be better with R and the dogs, it's still pretty good without them. For the first time, I actually wanted to leave, because I'm excited about the next step in my research, and I missed my roommates, and I really missed the cool weather and my bike. Granted, I didn't actually go to work today, but I did sleep for 14 straight hours, so I think my body was busy recovering from my vacation. My very small bedroom feels more like home than the accursed house that hasn't sold yet. It also helps that we're planning to move R and the dogs after the winter holidays, so there's only a few more months of long-distance to go. His paperwork should be done by then, especially since he won't need the MVV and can skip that entire part of the process. Of course, we'll be adding all the fun of doggie passports and tranquilizers and crates to make up for it.

Not crying when leaving my best friend and my canine family behind tells me that moving here was absolutely the right thing to do. Leaving industry for academia was the right thing too, and that's very comforting, considering the salary differences. So weirdly, I'm grateful for being laid off, because I think my current life is a much better fit. I liked my old job, but I like my new one a lot better. I very much prefer my new city, particularly the bike-ability, and the charm, and the public transportation, and the little things, like flowers planted along the bike paths. And did I mention my hatred of hot weather?

Misc

It's summer here. Gloriously, summertime means upper 70's F, not sauna weather. I did get sunburned during our coffee break today, since we've been taking the coffee outside. Most of my group went sailing this afternoon, but when asked if I wanted to come I told them next time they go on a cloudy day, thanks. I know very well how burned I'd be in this sun plus water reflections. I did leave work a little early, though.

Went to the bike shop to replace my recently stolen bike. I'm already tired of walking when I could ride! Mostly because my shoes keep getting sand in them when I walk through construction areas, of which there are 3 on my trip to campus. Sadly, the bike shop no longer has the purple bike I was planning to get. I liked the purple one. I did look at a couple other ones instead, and I'm leaning towards a cheaper black one. They also can't take my credit cards (EU cards have a different scanning system, or something like that) so I couldn't get a bike today. I'll be getting some cash tomorrow and buying one then, on my way home from the market.

On Monday (if I have a bike, it's too far to walk in the hour they're open after work) I can pick up my new debit card! And finally use plastic here! I'm pretty happy about that.

I had a good day at work yesterday. I finally got my broken output problem all squared away, which was a relief. I spent most of today running experiments and trying to read a dissertation. I made it all the way through Chpt 1, which would be a lot more impressive if it were more than 5 pages long.

I've been here for 2.5 months already! It's craziness. I feel like I'm getting to actually know my coworkers a bit, which is pretty awesome. On Monday we made up a ridiculous new sporting event during coffee; underwater upside down hockey. Lots of silliness, which was pretty fun. Today I introduced them to the world's awesomest religion; the cult of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Good times.

I really like having work to do. I finally feel like myself again, after 6 months of horrible stress and nearly of year of boredom. This is much better.