Body meet Mind; Mind, this is Body

For the first time in an embarrassingly long time, I have taken up regular exercise. (Hooray me!) In addition to riding my bike to Uni, I've been taking a couple of classes (like yoga, pilates) a week. I also hope to start swimming regularly. The side effects that I've noticed include an increase in consumption of hydrating fluids, crepuscular muscular fatigue, and an augmentation of available diurnal energy. However, contrary to what previous studies have found, I have not enjoyed more restful nocturnal episodes. The other night I kept Z up with my tossing and turning; little did he know that I was fighting off dream-sharks. Last night he woke me up and said that I was doing that sit-up-while-rolling-over thing - repeatedly. Let's hope this researcher notices a temporal attenuation of this mildly deleterious side-effect.

As you can probably tell, I'm getting into the swing of this whole research thing. This morning, I went to a post-grad orientation. I find orientations to be such hit-or-miss events. Often, 99% of the information will be useless, but that 1% will be so valuable as to make the hours of boredom worth it. At other times, 100% is useless. Today was one of those rare orientations where about 80% was useful information. Among descriptions of various courses and services, I learned what happens if a student and supervisor fall in love. I have to thank whomever it was that asked that question for the outrageous laughter than ensued. I also learned that the completion rates for PhD's hovers around 50%. The professor who presented this information urged us to not be dismayed. Dismayed? I thought. Isn't that supposed to be a challenge? Just like being told that the number of women in the sciences drops off radically after the master's level. I guess my attitude is something like: Ha! Take that!

I've also recently begun to string together bits and pieces from the various topics that I'm interested in. At first I thought that I would have to make a decision to study one thing or another. I've begun to see how they might all slot together into a unified whole. This is very exciting in a very nerdy, scientific sort of way. Which is perfect, because I'm exciting in a very nerdy, scientific sort of way.