Artist's Hour, with puke

India is getting closer and closer. I’ve sent off my application for a visa, and this week I also sent off TM’s application for a PIO card (Person of Indian Origin card, so she won’t need a visa for about 5 years). I still need to find an apartment.

Yesterday I took some time for an Artist’s Hour, as my Aunt calls it. She says that if I don’t get creativity time, I’ll struggle interminably through my PhD. So yesterday I went to visit one of My husband’s friends who has a huge house and a huge yard to go with it. He wants to change it over to natives, and is doing a wonderful job, but is intimidated by the size of his lot. I told him that the first thing we need to do it map out his property and get a paper design going. So I’m going to the library sometime this week to find out how to get a plot map. I also need to figure out how to map out the huge oaks he has on his property. Then we’ll draw the ideal plan to our hearts’ content. Wheee!

It was a lot of fun, and I feel rejuvenated, except that TM puked all over his nice wood floor and her own clothes to boot. I can’t wait to hear what the gastroenterologist says. She puked again last night, poor kid. I never thought I could be so immune to puke. It’s getting quite interesting, actually.

I got comments back from my coauthors on our methods paper. Hopefully we’ll get it sent out again this week to the publishers. And this week I also have to run STRUCTURE (genetic analysis program) on my former undergraduate’s data. Gotta get her stuff moving.

Oh, did I tell you? I sold the Toyota Matrix! I went from $8200 to $7500 just to get it sold, but it’s gone! Now we can pay off the Hyundai Elantra and start buying a car in India. My husband will be pleased.

Prepping for move to India

The holidays have gone, and my husband just left to go back to India. His job is so time-consuming that we didn’t get much of his time while he was here. Still, it was wonderful to be able to say, “Keep an ear out for TM in case she wakes up while I run to the post office.” Single parenting is hard. And now it’s back to single parenting again. But at least I get to sleep in a bed! I’ve been sleeping half on TM’s twin bed, half on three filing boxes sandwiched between her bed and the full bed my husband used while he was here. Now it’s mine, all mine! Sleep, here we come!

My methods paper has been provisionally accepted, hooray! We just have to make various changes, and we’re in. And the former undergraduate’s data is coming along well – I’ve almost finished going through it with a fine tooth comb. After I re-run all the analyses, I’ll be able to re-write the results and discussion sections of her honor’s thesis, and send it off for publication! I simply have to get that done before going to India.

The grant agency for the grant that funded my research asked us to present at the next ESA meeting… so we will. Of course, I plan on being in India, but I’m optimistic. Heh heh heh. That’s a long shot… I mean, who will watch TM while I’m gone? Her grandma? Maybe. I really don’t know. That’ll take some faith and prayers to pull off. And now I have to get as much data analysis done before Feb 7th that I can, since I’m planning on dashing up to Oregon for a couple days to have a committee meeting with my dissertation committee. Yoikes, as my sister would say.

Meanwhile, there’s the stress of moving to India. My brain is having real trouble wrapping itself around everything we have to do. I need to sell both our cars, but I’m not on the title for one of them, so I have to try to put myself on the title. I got my husband to sign a form before he left this time, so hopefully it’ll be enough to change the title, and hopefully it’ll happen fast enough for me to sell it without too much loss before we go. And taxes? What happens when you sell cars? Frustrating that we have to pay taxes when we already paid taxes on the money we spent to buy them in the first place. Oh well.

So. Sell cars. Get visas. I just sent off TM’s visa application, and it’ll take about a month if all goes well, ‘cause I applied for a PIO card that will let her come and go without a visa since her dad’s Indian. My own visa should, hopefully, be coming back any day now.

Need to find a house in India. Looking for something in North Bangalore, near the new airport, since my husband travels a lot. That puts me in the LDS church 2nd branch in Bangalore. Maybe they can help us find a house in the area, who knows. We also need to ship all our stuff to India. Where? When? It’ll take about 2 months to ship, and I’d like to be able to move into a house of our own as soon as possible.

Cars. Visas. House. Shipping. Oh, immunizations! TM and I have to get typhoid immunizations and whatever else they recommend. Sigh. And I don’t have a doctor in this area yet, and it’d probably take a month to get in to see a new doctor, and do I have a month? I don’t know. This is what happens when you move every single year. Besides the fact that I tend to put off going to the doctor.

Cars. Visas. House. Shipping. Immunizations. I think that’s it. Of course, then there’s getting set up in India once we get there – how long will it take to get high speed internet? To find a good daycare (play school)? Oh, those muscles in my right shoulder blade are scrunching together, tying knots in each other… I must find a way to relax.

My aunt has been going to AA meetings for maybe 20 years now, and has a lot of good advice about giving problems to God. I’m trying to do that, by letting Him take care of all the things that I really don’t have control over. But as you can tell, it’s kinda hard sometimes. I guess that’s the point, isn’t it…?

So I’ll just keep trucking along. I’ll get that paper out and go to India and try to find enough help that I can come back in August for the meetings, and be a productive PhD student. It’ll work out, with any luck. Si Dios Quiere, as I heard so often in Spain while on my mission.

Ttfn (Ta Ta For Now)
Rhamnites