I like the days when I feel like this more than the ones when I feel like this. Thankfully, today has been one of the former. (there are several more phd comics that fill in the gap between those two; read and be entertained) Anyway, I may be singing a different tune next week when I get my test back and face the distinct possibility that I didn't do very well. But grades aside, I feel good because this morning was another one of those moments when I actually felt like a statistician. Lance (one of the profs in the dept) says the "imposter syndrome" doesn't really ever go away, but it's nice to discover that there are moments when it fades a little. I guess I'm just feeling particularly lucky that despite how hard this all is, I want to be here, I want to do this, and I'm proving to myself that, from time to time, I can do this.

It's also just nice that I've been in a good mood lately. As Sid points out, these are stressful, frustrating times. One needs a positive distraction from the carnival sideshow politics have become. My distraction is the 8:30 am lab that I teach. I haven't talked about it much here, but I'm really, really enjoying teaching this semester. What do you know? That declaration I made in third grade about wanting to be a teacher when I grow up might not have been totally off base. One day soon I may have to stop insisting that I have no plans to go into academia. Of course, at the moment, it's just one class, and a really good class, which spoils me because the students are so smart and great. But I look forward to teaching (even at the crack of dawn) and like my students, and some (most?) seem to genuinely like me. On Wednesday one of them brought me (and the rest of the class) chocolate chip cookies. This was also the morning we did evaluations, and one student said I was "wonderful." *warm fuzzies*

All right. Enough of the love-fest. If I'm going to be lame and stay in tonight I may as well get some much-needed cleaning done.