Oh the weather outside is frightful...

Winter is here with a vengeance! I think it is trying to get back at us. It is saying "I know you managed to keep me away for longer than usual this year...you had a green Christmas, it was 40 degrees and sunny in the middle of January, but I finally managed to get here and now you are going to pay!!!" We have a blizzard warning today and they have already canceled the home Griffins game that was tonight. DARN YOU WINTER! MESSING WITH MY HOCKEY!!!! And it doesn't look like it will get any better soon. High temperatures are forecasted to be in the single digit with continuing snow for a while. I know that the groundhog didn't see his shadow, but I have trouble believing spring is right around to corner!

So, since I don't have a hockey game to go to anymore tonight, I have time for one of my sporadic updates about what is going on in my life:

I went to the MOST AWESOME TALK EVER at MSU on Wednesday night. Jorge Cham, the author of PhD (Piled Higher and Deeper) comics came to MSU!!!! (Check out the link under the "links" list to the right. Also check out my photo-a-day site for a picture of Katie W and me with Jorge afterwards!!!!) His talk was amazingly funny! It was basically a survival guide to grad school. Everything he said had us rolling in the aisles because it was so funny and so completely and perfectly true. He really helped us realize that we are not alone in the unique struggles that grad students face. I was reminded not to give in the to guilt of how there is always something I should be doing, that procrastination is a good coping mechanism, and that no one is ever really happy with their thesis, so I shouldn't be putting so much pressure on myself. (Oh also that F=ma. You don't argue with F=ma!) And I laughed harder than I have laughed in years.

And...on a related note, I gave a talk at KBS about my research on Friday. All of us grads are required to do this each spring. My talk went well and I got some good positive feedback. Also I've very happy that I'm done with it! To celebrate, Katie W stayed overnight and we had a great time hanging out, playing games with our friends (the hat game and doko...I lost doko like usual but was MVP of that hat game...where the East Coast babies beat the West Coast babies twice in a row!), and then veging and watching movies today. And playing with Isis of course, who betrayed me and slept with Katie like usual!

It has been a busy but good week, and I'm looking forward to watching DA BEARS take down the Colts tomorrow!