Strange days…

“Times, they are a changin’,” says Bob Dylan… Not that things are drastically different right now from where they were a month ago, but school has certainly shifted to a different “chapter,” so to speak… As of a few weeks ago, I have no classes to attend anymore in graduate school, so I’m working completely on research now. Really, I’ve just been spending the last two weeks getting in to all the literature on the subject(s) I’m investigating, getting papers from the last few years and as far back as 1948…

I guess it’s just that it’s going to be weird getting used to not being spoon-fed information anymore. It’s not like I can go to a textbook for this stuff, or go to a few lectures on a general subject and take an exam after you learn the material… Nope, now it’s reading directly from the fringes of all scientific knowledge, sifting through hundreds of papers and data to try and decide what information to focus on, and what to set aside… It’s just a different kind of learning, a kind that I’m not terribly used to…yet… Kinda like solving a puzzle, really, in that you run across various pieces that you have to fit together. If they fit, you win a Ph.D… 😛

Anyway, life is good, otherwise. We’ve got three weddings to attend in June (let alone our own anniversary…), and we’ll probably spend a little vacation time up in Minnesota while we go to one of them, but that mostly takes care of the weddings for the summer. We’ve gotta figure out what to do with Edie for a few of those weddings, but I’m sure there are plenty of people that’d be willing to watch her (hint, hint…).

Onward, summer!