RBOC

• My tenure & promotion application went in last week. The entire process was much more of a draining, politically-motivated and seemingly endless ordeal than I ever saw coming.

• Now we (well, I) wait while the application makes its way through endless committee and President and Senate approvals.

• The whole process left me down-right grumpy.

• I'm over that now. I have the second-year medical class to thank for that. Welcome back! I've missed you guys.
  

• The (first-year) medical class of 2012 seems different somehow. It leaves me wondering whether they are actually different or whether being post-tenure application is causing me to perceive them differently. After-all, I feel ... stronger. I've done everything that I can do to earn tenure and so now I can do what works the best. Yeah, that sounds weird. I know. I'm still figuring out this post-tenure application thing. My mind she is scrambled.

• My mind sometimes needs to remind itself that this is just the tenure application. Things can still go downhill rapidly from here.
  

• The only "back to school" downside that I have experienced is the need to once again wear socks. My toes are screaming out for their now-lost summer freedom.

• Oh, and being awake at 5:00 a.m. for a 7:00 a.m. meeting. That sucks as much as socks.
  

• Dragonfly asked how kitty is doing. Thanks for asking! Kitty is a trooper and has recovered 100% from his surgery. He's so, so, so happy to have the nasty tumour off of his chest and is back to being his normal neurotic self. And yay! He's been using the litter box consistently since his surgery. Looking back, I wish that I had paid more attention to him peeing on me/anywhere else. The vet put it down to senility and I accepted that. I now know that kitty was trying to tell me how wrong his something wrong was. The next time that he pees on me, he may rest assured that I will pay much closer attention.

• Speaking of, kitty's 17th birthday is coming up. 17! We will be celebrating that in every possible way. After-all, survival through: two clots, a heart condition/uncontrolled hypertension that should have killed him years ago and now the recovery from surgical removal of a cancerous tumour. Yet still he purrs, bends his body to receive the best possible skritchy-skratchies and loves his Greenies. Quality of life. It's all worth celebrating.
  

• I have a friend who's 18-month old child recently underwent a liver transplant due to alpha 1 anti-trypsin deficiency. Until now this inherited illness has existed for me only in text books. It's difficult. I wish that she didn't need to ask the questions that she is now asking. I wish that I had better (more hopeful) answers for her, particularly after seeing her (and her husband's) Pi phenotype.

• Student loans are a bitch. This topic has become bothersome enough for me over the past few years that it likely deserves its own post. So, that's to come. In the meantime, I've become so pissed off at the entire process that I've upped my repayments to $2000/month. The bad news is that it will still take me a year to repay in full. The good news is that it won't take me another 6 years and phenomenal interest payments to repay in full, as would be the case if I stuck to minimum payments. Current students? Think carefully about each and every $1000 that you borrow. Believe me, it adds up quickly when it comes time for repayment/facing the interest on your loans.

• Now you will have to pardon me. I have gin and I have tonic. They are currently demanding that they be mixed.