So it's Valentine's Day here... Shuwen is in Hawaii at a conference, and we will meet in Washington D.C. tomorrow afternoon for my birthday. Before she left, she made sure that I would not be lonely. The birthday cards for my 30th have been coming by the dozens, each and every day.

I got my dissertation draft to my advisor this week, and have busily turned to some other papers that I need to revise for various journal resubmissions.
Other things are keeping me busy too. I have been preparing a presentation for Water Week (World Bank event) this coming Wednesday. That has been an exercise in frustration. How do you boil down your dissertation work into a twelve minute presentation? My friend Drew started a dissertation haiku blog, which is even more extreme.

My running has been a good outlet of late, but it is an outlet full of sadness. The Carrboro Athletics Club basically fell apart at the end of November, on account of losing runners turning to other pursuits, and having New Balance not renew our sponsorship (thus losing our coaching as well). There has also been a change of ownership at the local Fleet Feet store, and we are not sure we will have any more support from it either. At times like these, I am very glad I do not depend on running, but at the same tine, it is also nice to have that team spirit. Meanwhile, a group of seven or eight stalwarts still gather at the track weekly for hard workouts.

Those of us who remain did manage to pull a team together to run at the cross-country championships in Maryland last weekend. It was great fun, and yet I feel blue about this running team. No doubt it also reflects my own malaise with graduate school right now, and the pressure of trying to finish.