Tuesday, October 24th

Today 5 years ago I was spending a night wide awake in bed, very happy, with a curly head happily sleeping next to me. Tonight we went to celebrate this, 5 years ago Blove and I finally got together after a dinner of knakworstjes and soup. It seems like yesterday in some ways. This evening was only a pub dinner celebration, our real celebration dinner was this weekend. WE actually nearly missed it as we woke up at 7.15 pm having dropped into bed after a long hike. 7.15 was also the time the taxi was supposed to pick us up and take us for our special dinner. So that was dinner without makeup on, it was lovely, despite the sleepy hectic start. The whole weekend was great, we went to the BErkshires, a hilly area in Massachusetts (I should know how to write this..). It took me a while to switch off from work, had been particularly unpleasant working week. But we had such a beautiful long hike and we were reminiscing about the nicest moment in our 5 year relationship - there were too many to chose just one..
Ok, I will stop my romantic reminiscences. I don't have that much to write, my study is not working, I am writing a new IRB to apply to the ethical committee to run a follow up study, and I meet J this Friday to hopefully discuss some theoretical issues I have been worrying about. He has been a good mentor recently, even when he had me dropping a few tears in his office last week (very embarrassing, will not be repeated).
The doggies are both here still, happily chewing apart any toy animals they can get hold of, glad I did not bring one of mine (the way I was feeling the day before I left I was very inclined to, only reason none crossed the ocean was luggage constraints).
B pointed out that my weblog reads as if I am not having a good time, i would like to point out that I am. I use this weblog to digest the aspects of my life here that are more difficult (also because I do not have anyone to talk to about them on a daily basis!), so sometimes it may seem as if I don't have fun here, but I do. Most of all I really enjoy my work here, so if I work a lot, I am also enjoying myself. And that for me is a new and good experience, good in that in the long run it may make it easier for me to know what I want in my career.
Oof we're getting serious here. I could recount my stats class comment of hte day. We were talking about dichotomous variables and that if you wanted to study them you might need different types of stats programs. DK pointed out that, for example, life versus death is a dichotomous variable - to add that the way he is feeling today he might also consider it a continuous variable. I thought that was very funny. But maybe you have to hear it to laugh (or you just have to be me- I wouldn't).
So, that's all from me for today.