Paws and Reflect

Well, I dropped little Phoebe and O’Reilly off at PetCo this morning for adoption day. But I returned with O’Reilly and a new boy kitten, Fraley. I will miss my little Phoebe, but I knew it was coming. She was too darn cute to not get adopted! And it’s good for her, since she’ll have a good permanent home now (I hope!). The new kitty looks like a little cow. Mostly white with round black patches. The boys are still getting used to each other. There were several reasons why I decided to foster: 1) They need the help! There are simply too many stray cats that need homes, and I applaud any groups that try to cut back on overpopulation. 2) To have little buddies who will entertain me and keep me company, without the true commitment of owning a pet. I simply can’t have a pet since my current location is so unsettled: Texas, Delaware, California. 3) To help me learn a life lesson that most of us seem to have trouble with. Transience and detachment. Life is short, and everything—good or bad—eventually passes. We can’t have everything that we want, and if we have something great, we won’t have it forever so we need to enjoy every current minute of it, not taking it for granted and assuming it will always be there in the future.

In other news, my friend Susanna, her husband Jeramy, their new baby Jack, and dog Lady came to visit on Thursday evening. They were temporarily displaced by Gustav, the hurricane that hit Louisiana a few days ago. It was great to catch up with Susanna, and meet little Jack, who--although only a few weeks old--left quite an impression on me. Its kind of crazy to think about all of my friends who are getting married and starting families, and then there's me--on my way to becoming crazy cat lady. Crazy cat lady who is a birding fanatic.

We went out last night in Downtown Bryan (pronounced with one syllable, not two)--dinner and a couple of bars. "We" being about 11 of us from our lab group. Good times. We are working on plans to go to the Hall of Fame or Harry's for a night of two-stepping, but with several of us being single gals, I demand that we find a bunch of cowboys to escort us. Yes, I know I swore off cowboys not too long ago because they are bad news, but who else is going to take us out on the dance floor?? My advisor seems to only hire married (or soon to be) guys. Hmm.

Just trying to survive the semester for now. I've been good about keeping up with reading for class and starting projects early--mainly because I have a rather demanding professor who tends to enjoy embarrassing students for not being well prepared for class. We've spent the first two weeks talking about the philosophy of science, the science wars, axiology, epistemology, ontology, etc. I've learned more new terms in these two weeks than I think I ever have. Funny how there's always more to learn--I thought I was at least familiar with most topics that would ever come up in graduate classes--I wasn't expecting philosophy at all. The prof is genius for sure, its my brain's fault for not being able to keep up! But I'm trying. The only problem is that the mounds of data entry from this summer are simply not getting any smaller as I'm constantly reading and doing other things. Multi-tasking with research, data entry, writing proposals, reading, publishing old work, teaching, taking classes, being a foster mommy, and hanging on to a shred of a social life all at once is not my strong point at the moment. I waste a lot of time, and then beat myself up for it. Just as I'm wasiting time on this blog. But, if I don't get it out in writing, it will likely drive me nuts.