Raq, if you are still around, I just looked through most of your pictures from Germany. (They were a great distraction while suffering through the pump.) They are amazing! Bavaria looks so beautiful - I think I'm going tohave to talk to Joe about going there after Puerto Rico. Mal looks so cute in his carrier.

vw, I feel your pain. I have only a conclusion left, and still have about 1/5 of the length of the thing to fill.

eta: I also have nothing to conclude at the moment, which makes life awfully special.

I'm doing what's commonly known as bullshitting, talking out my ass or snowballing. It's great fun!

My whole paper is that. It's amazing how well that works out, a lot of the time.

I highly recommend Bavaria, Stephanie! Except maybe not in the winter.

I am just back from The Mall. This turns out to be the large salmon-color edifice I've seen them building for a few months. It's near Nea Kifissia, where JZ's relative(s?) lives. It's very shiny. The food court on the top floor overlooks the Olympic stadium, and has a wide variety of food (Mal and I had Chinese for lunch...he digs on being fed by chopstick). There's tons of parking, and the spaces are big enough for cars to fit!

Not sure I'll do much shopping there, but there is a Marks and Spencer, which is nice. The Sephora has almost no makeup (apparently this is some sort of EU trade thing), but the girls working in Sephora were wearing more makeup than most drug stores carry.

Now we're having a major thunderstorm, so the cat is burrowed on my lap. Life is good. The only hiccup is that I haven't found a present for our Marine.

I'm SO with you.

HUSTON! We have a draft! I repeat, we have a draft!

Ok. I made it to half-way down page 10. Maybe with a little editing, it'll fluff up a bit.

Heh, with my professor, she always coaches the page limit as "a MAXIMUM of five pages" because she cannot read 70+papers that are any longer than that and get them graded in a timely fashion. Therefore, I do not feel bad if I have a bit of space on that final page.

Oh, I know. It's just, I have to deal with it...although, not right now.

Why come? She's the fool that didn't stick to the program. If you need to deal with that on any level other than saying that, then... I'm sorry, that seriously sucks.

I have emailed my final exam paper to my professor, wheeeeee! (Ginger, I added some fleshing out to that issue you commented on)

Now to go back to the work week from hell.

I'm awake and it's 3:25am. I'm up because the entire family went to bed at 8pm because Joe is jumping (out of an airplane) this morning and has to be there at 4am. I'm not really worried for him, but I am just a little bit worried. Of course, the jump isn't until 8, so I've got a while before I know he's fine.

Is this for work? Raq's right--it's much safer these days. My dad made 33 jumps as a paratrooper over 40 years ago and still has great stories to tell (and bad knees as proof). I hope Joe lands safe and sound.

I highly recommend Bavaria, Stephanie! Except maybe not in the winter.

But the snow is sooooo pretty!!!! And Mal's round, rosy cheeks made him totally fit into the scenery. I'm surprised you didn't have trouble getting him back out of the country.

My cousin who shared my due date went into early labor last night. The fuckwits at the local podunk hospital (not her doctor or her hospital) did NOT manually check her for dilation--but sent her home. She returned a short while later, fully dilated and delievered a breech, preemie baby girl. The baby's ok and has been transferred to the best NICU in the state. But my cousin got a ruptured uterus out of it. They'll be transferring her to a better hospital today, too.

Shit's happening to my family and I can't be there and it's starting to piss me off.

I'm doing what's commonly known as bullshitting, talking out my ass or snowballing. It's great fun!

I've never heard the term snowballing.

Wait, does it mean the same thing as it does in the movie Clerks ? Because if it does - funny.

Oh my word, Cashmere. I'm so sorry. Your due date is around Feb. 8, right? Your poor cousin. I can't believe she was seven months along, having pains, and they didn't check to see if she was dilated. That's criminal.

I hope she and the baby are all right. Is the ruptured uterus something that can be repaired?