Settling In

Well, yesterday was my first full day back in Maryland "for good." Sunday I drove to Nashville, got some more of my stuff on Monday, then drove back on Tuesday. Yesterday was a full day with getting my car serviced in the early, early AM, lunch with my pastor, then an afternoon of trying to figure out what to do about getting back into grad school with my advisor. I also ran into my ex-boyfriend, Jean-Marc. He's married now! (Don't worry, it wasn't a surprise to me or anything, it was just the first time I'd seen him since the "big day.") Hard to believe sometimes that it's been six years since he and I dated.

Anyway, then I went to my first class - Satellite Design. It looks like it may be more work than I expected, but hopefully it won't be too bad. There apparently were complaints about the lengths of homework assignments the last time the course was offered, so hopefully they're going to work on that some this time. It's gonna be a really fun class though. We've been given "Level 1 Requirements" (i.e., top-level requirements for the system, some of which are imposed by the instrument that the spacecraft (s/c forevermore) we're designing will carry, some imposed by the launch vehicle we've been assigned, etc.) and we get to completely design the s/c bus to adhere to those requirements. It'll be fun, I say, but then I've always loved design classes. :)

Today I'll spend in the continuing unpacking/organizational phase for my room. It's pretty much just boxes and stuff all over the place right now. For all that I tend toward the cluttered side of life, I can't stand it when things aren't organized and I like to feel "nested," so it's somewhat discombobulating to still have my "home" be a wreck. I'm working on that though and will work some more today. There are a few things I need to buy (like a new bookshelf and some hangars) in order for everything to have a home, so that's probably what I'll spend my "out and about" hours doing today. I also still need to get a MD driver's license. That might be a "tomorrow task" though.

I also need to stop by the University again today to talk some more with my advisor's wife who I hate referring to in this manner since she's an aerospace professor in her own right and on the graduate selection committee. So, from now on I'll just call her Mary since that's her name. My advisor will be code-named Dave. Oddly, that's his real name too. Either that's not sneaky at all, or it's so sneaky that it's really amazingly sneaky.

Yes, I've been watching too much Alias.

On the job front, I've got a couple of irons in the fire including one at ARL (the Army Research Lab). It's a defense-related thing....but actually _defense_, not offensive stuff....so that makes it better somehow? It would also mean working for a guy at my church which could have its good points and its bad points. They're going to send me an application, then I'll interview after that, in sha'allah. Hope with me that ARL has a "casual" dress policy because all (both) of my business suits got eaten by mildew while I was away and I'm too cheap to want to spend hundreds of dollars (and many, many hours of shopping) replacing them right now. Actually, I took the mildew-eating as a sign from God that business suits are a tool of the Devil and should not be worn except at great need. But maybe I'm biased in that regard.

Anyway....I'm going to go shower now and get my butt moving on the ever-growing list of things I need to take care of and buy.