4 days to PhD day

I am attempting to finish up my seminar presentation for my defense... it's not too bad, and I need to start practicing. I'm trying to stick to the new rule I've learned recently 6x6x1: 6 lines per slide, 6 words per line, 1 minute per slide. Which means I need 45 slides. And I have lots of pictures, so not worrying too much about overwhelming people with words. And first and foremost, I have to convince everyone why they should care. I'm feeling somewhat nervous about the defense part, but I know what I've done and what I haven't, and why I haven't been able to do things that I really wanted to. Sometimes, things just don't work out as well as I hoped.

I will say that as I've written my thesis, I really feel like I am leaving the lab (and the person taking over my project) with an awesome start to answering lots of questions. I almost wish I could stick around to work on these things (haha). There's just a lot of questions that I've realized I'm closer to finding the answer to than I originally thought. I have always loved my project, and now that I'm coming to the end of it and handing it over to someone else, I might just love it even more.

And, I'm half-watching the inaguration eve stuff (I cannot believe tomorrow is finally here and we will finally have a new president, long overdue). This inauguration eve stuff looks like new year's eve stuff! people outside bundled up in the freezing cold, screaming with excitement, it looks like new years eve, which i suppose inaguration day is like a new 4-years eve. anyway, it's awesome.
and now that we can finally say bye bye to GWB, I will just say what I've been thinking for months: I have been wanting to sing "He's Gone" by the Grateful Dead on GWB's last day in office. I'll post it one day early:



Rat in a drain ditch
Caught on a limb
I know better but you know him
Like I told ya
What I said
Steal your face right off your head
Now he's gone
Now he's gone
gone he's gone
he's gone
like a steam locomotive
rolling down the track
he's gone
nothing's gonna bring him back
he's gone

Thank goodness. Bye GWB, Nothing's gonna bring you back.