Hello from Canada! (I love hotels with internet access). I should probably know better than to post while drunk, but such is life. Arrived in Hamilton yesterday, went to Canadian Association for Culture Studies Conference this afternoon. Carrie gave a kick ass paper on Donnie Darko. Ate and drank too much at Chester's Beers of the World. All for now. Going for a cig.

Oh, and if you haven't seen Donnie Darko yet, go rent it!

So I'm finally going to Canada tomorrow. Why finally? Because I've lived in Cleveland for 5 years now, and it seems pretty silly that I've never made it across our northern border. Dad keeps giving me a hard time, saying he's expecting a call Sunday afternoon because they won't let me back into the US. Anyway, Mark, Carrie, and I are all going because Carrie is giving a paper on Donnie Darko at some conference in Hamilton. Should be pretty fun, especially since I finally finished up that bootstrapping stuff for Eric's JAMA paper and turned in my crappy-ass linear models homework this afternoon, so I can just relax (drink) and enjoy our little road trip (and drink).

It's always nice to re-remember how much you enjoy someone's company.

Woo-Hoo!!!!! The code works! *jumps around room in joy* Nevermind that I still have a lot of tedious, repetitive coding to finish up, nevermind that I've been ignoring all my other work and it's starting to pile up, nevermind that Bush is a frightening little man to be running the country and just gave a discouraging speech riddled with poor rhetoric...I'm just going to bask in the glow of success for a bit...(and give a little shout out to my buddy nick for being the first to read and comment my blog - hi Nick! *mwa*)

I have this really great opportunity to be listed as a co-author on a paper in JAMA, but at the moment I feel like it's only as a result of my boss being nice to me and trying to give me my first publication. That's what it feels like - a gift. And while I certainly appreciate the opportunity, and feel that I've earned the opportunity, I also want to earn the credit. I s'pose it's hard for me to tell, since I don't actually know what constitutes an "intellectual contribution," and I'm probably just being negative because I can't get my stupid code to work...guess I'm just feeling immensely frustrated, and on a grander scale, since if it were only homework, it would only be my grade that suffers, rather than the analytical integrity of a published paper.

um...still very new at this, trying to get the comment button to work...

So I never fully understood the appeal of weblogs. But then several of my friends started them, and it became the only way that I knew anything about what was happening in their lives. Ok, so that made me something of a cyber-stalker, but they knew I was doing it, so that makes it less creepy, right? Right? Anyway, I figured it's only fair to provide them with the same opportunity, assuming there's any interest out there...

Oh yeah, if it helps you remember, gymno means naked.

And thanks to Amelia for making me aware of blogspot in the first place.

*sigh* As with most things I decide to do at 1:33 am, I will probably regret this...