Its pronounced "nuke-ular."

It has been a long four days since I last commented on my upcoming thesis defense. Before I get to that drama I have an amusing little anecdote (amusing to me if no one else). We are all assigned to an exit interview with financial aid before graduation. Mine was set for Thursday, I thought at 11 am. The best part about this "assigned" interview is that the email provided no room information and stated that "you should put this in your calendar as you will not receive confirmation." What? So anyway, I had no idea what room and I kinda flaked on the time. I head over thinking it's at 11. I stop by the FA office and get a room number and off I go. It was way across campus so I am a few minutes late. I rush into the room,grab a seat and drop my bag, getting settled. I turn and look up and there is some Russian guy explaining nuclear fission. I figure, well maybe the class is running late and so I sit there. Learning about the enrichment process for uranium. I sit for about 15 minutes before I figure that I should escape. I was worried about being called on or quizzed on something. It was really fascinating. I felt a bit like Homer. Although I probably know more about the nuclear process than he does now. So all of you out there ask away! I can answer many questions regarding this fascinating topic. Now I have to figure out how to put it on my resume.

Ah, the defense. One word: painful. First there were numerous technical issues with the Polycom. Wasted 15 minutes trying to get it to work before heading to W's office and using his phone. I won't go into details but at the end the professor from Harvard says "I wish we hadn't spent so much time on the problems cause there was so much good stuff here!" Did I want to smack her? You bet your ass. She even admitted that there was information in it that she would be using in her art history classes! I was very irritated and overwhelmed. Afterwards my advisor admitted that there was quite a bit coming from the other two committee members that he disagreed with.
Anyway, long story short. I was told that I could fix it in the six days I have to deadline and graduate. Or I could spend the summer REALLY fixing it and shop for a publisher. After much soul-searching I opted for the latter. The main motivation being that I owe Sherry Turkle a huge paper next week and the last thing I wanted to do was kill myself trying to crank out two weighty papers and having both of them suck ass.
So for the first time in my life I am a summer student. Ultimately the pros outweighed the cons.
Pro: defer my loans; use of both the MIT and Harvard libraries all summer; use of the MIT gym all summer; possible paid research position for the summer; no family visits for graduation day; no sitting on a lawn chair for six hours listening to a bunch of people pat themselves on the back.
Con: no graduation ceremony; no speeches by Ben Bernanke. Bummer. And it means I am not finished.

We went to Newport on Saturday and I tried to make it up to C for all of my craziness. I got my tat finished and then spent the day shopping. You all know how much I enjoy shopping. After a visit to home depot, target, petsmart, bed, bath and beyond, and (worst of the worst) Michael's crafts! I was very exhausted and was ready for a cocktail. Which we decided to forego as we were both beat. Ended up having dinner at the Cheesecake Depository cause neither of us could decide on food.

I think that brings me up to date?
Off to the library

names out.