Just an Update

Hi everyone and Happy Thanksgiving.

I just wanted to give everyone a quick update. I'm still busy chipping away at the enormous task of finishing this %$*&@ thesis. I had hoped to get things done yesterday in order to meet a deadline of November 27th to have everything approved and turned into the College of Graduate Studies. It is looking less likely that I will make that deadline with every minute that passes by with me not being finished, but I will probably take a 1 credit extension that will give me until January 14th to have things wrapped up. I would have preffered that this didn't happen because I have been off payroll for a couple months now, and would really like to move on with my life.

That brings me to my next update. I've accepted a temporary (~4 months) job with my old advisor at USU, Wayne Wurtsbaugh. He needs someone to finish some work up on a project he had funded last spring on the Great Salt Lake. It is a great project and I had a good experience working with him as an undergrad, and I think a positive work experience would be good for me right now. This means that I'll be moving to Logan on Monday (yeah, that's soon). I'm excited to earn money again, I will have to keep pushing myself to work on my thesis but I think I'm close enough that I should be able to stay motivated by the idea of wrapping it up. I'm not excited to leave Erin in Bozeman for these coming months, but she has a good job and some promising opportunities with school. I/we will be sure to make frequent trips between Utah and Montana, and I have a calm and reasuring feeling that this minor blip of separation will be challanging but no big deal in the grand scheme of things. I am quite committed to holding on to a very, very, good thing in my life. I'll be excited to be closer to Glen and Kendi and to see what this new adventure brings.

Love you all, Joel

Joel Reappears

Not really. This is Erin on behalf of Joel. When the thesis calls, the blog is quiet. Sad. Here's my attempt at channeling Joel...enjoy.

Hey everybody! Sorry it's been so long since I've written on this thing. I've been really busy with this stupid thesis, some days I just want to quit. Wait, I'm on a new "let's be positive about bad things" kick. Starting over.

Hey everybody! Sorry it's been so long since I've written on this thing. My thesis is so much fun, and I'm learning so much every minute of the 18-hour days I'm putting in, that I don't even think about blogging! Or anything else...like food, sleep, fun, or sports. In fact, I'm kind of sad that the Broncos game is on in 52 minutes and some of my focus will get diverted to less exciting events, like Sunday football.

Back to the topic of the blog. It's a sunny day and I was just sitting here, happily editing page 831 of my thesis that is really long enough to be a dissertation but my advisor doesn't care...oops, slipped up there...as I was saying, I was just thinking about the sun. Isn't it an amazing thing? It's always there, trying to brighten our day, and sometimes those clouds get in the way, but does the sun give up? No way, dudes, no way. It sticks it out, waiting for those pesky clouds to dissipate, ready to make us happy once again. I love that golden sun. Ah, life is good.

Well, better get back to my other computer...the big one with charts and graphs and tables and pages and pages (and pages!) of long scientific words that no one understands except me. I dread the day I don't get to be intellectually challenged by this thing. I guess I'll just try to make it last as long as I can.

Miss you all! Love, Joel

P.S. Erin is the coolest girl ever. She takes really good care of me and has already started buying Christmas presents for me and all my family. Gosh golly, she's swell. I'm a lucky guy!