And Hello from Wet and Rainy Illinois

From snow and ice to cold rain. What a spring it is turning out to be. Who knew there was such a different between Iowa and Illinois. I've now returned to Illinois.Yes, break is officially over and it's back to work for me. At least I can say that I enjoyed getting away from the dissertation for a good 6 days. By the end of the week last week, 2 of my 3 readers had read my diss and provided comments. I now need to get crackin' and start making some of those revisions. The good news is that the reader who gave me the most comments for revisions did so by prefacing his comments with, "I want you to graduate in May, so we will work with these comments to allow you to still do that." All I have to say is "Bless that man!" Why can't the director act that way? Oh yeah - still waiting for comments from him. I haven't received his comments yet. I'm worried enough about making the revisions that I've received now. It's taken me a few days just to get my head wrapped around them and get a game plan going for starting.

Today was a busier than usual day. Of my list of 12 things to do this morning, I've managed to cross off only about 8. I suppose that's not too bad considering some of the things I have left to do include going to the credit union and just dropping things off. I did call the Grad School to inquire about whether I could actually walk in graduate in May even if I wasn't quite finished with the diss. The answer: no. Only Masters students can do such a thing. Doctoral students must meet all deadlines to be able to walk. I was just checking as a "what if I don't get finished" thought.

Ken and I tried looking for places to live in Iowa, but had no luck. All places advertised in the paper are so cruddy, especially in the college town where the college kids treat housing like garbage. It's so discouraging. It makes me want to just buy a house, but I know we can't do that until I have a job. And so we keep looking. If anyone reading this is in the Waterloo area (Mel), let me know if you have any housing leads! :)

Not much else new. I am hesitant to say too much about my job interview (as some of you have requested) until I know whether I'm even a candidate or not. Call me superstitious. I'll keep you posted when I hear any news. In the mean time, keep your fingers crossed, say a little prayer, or do some ritual that you believe in to send positive vibes this way.