I fear my monkey may be starving.....

It has been so long, and I have not been dropping by to give Mono any bananas....but I think he will make it.

So what is going on? Why the long absence? Why no knitting?

I am currently a graduate student in conservation biology here in the midwest. Last semester, I had applied for a grant that would continue my funding until January of 2008. The granting agency takes forever to make decisions, and so from Nov to March, I was in limbo. Trying to simultaneously prepare to finish, while also prepare to gear up for an additional research line in case I got the grant.

In March, I found out that I did not get the grant. Okay, no big deal. I contact my committee to determine their availability for a defense this summer....and I find out that one of them (the one appointed by the graduate college) is retiring as of May 6th, and another is leaving the state for the summer as of May 8th or so.

Arggghhh! So, the defense went from being 'maybe this summer (no grant), maybe next year (have grant)' to being in 6 weeks within the space of a day. Fun!

So, I have been living and breathing my dissertation. And applying for jobs.

I defend May 2nd. I have a job interview in Massachusetts on May 4th (made it to the second round on a very cool research post-doc). Very scary.

Knitting has been minimal, occasionally working on plain vanilla socks when I need a break. After the job interview, I am staying in the Mass/CT area for a few days to see friends (and Webs is about 25 minutes away from the job interview......so I will be coming home with yarn).
I figure, even If I bomb the interview (I have to give an hour long presentation on my research...OMG!), I'll get to go to Webs and see my good friends.

Then, I am coming home and casting on for SIXTEEN projects!!!! Okay, I may need to start back slow.....

Of course, all of this moving on business is contingent on me actually passing the defense........