My thesis is almost done, just getting the last bits together.  Compiling the appendix, getting my citations in order.

I will officially be done at the end of September, a month away at this point, but I'm still nervous.  With the research and writing done it's all the little bits that need to be tied together.  My appendix of articles are PDF's, and I'm not sure how I go about labeling them in a pleasing way.  I think I also need to firm up the format of my citations.

The amount of work it still needs will not take me even close to a month to do, maybe a day or two, but it still weighs on me.  And this is the hard stuff to get done.  The little stuff.  Whomever coined the phrase "the devil is in the details" must have been nearing the end of their thesis.

Even though I just got back from Canada, I will be heading back to Toronto for surgery in a few weeks.  I have to get my wisdom teeth out, and apparently I wont be able to have solid foods for a few days.  In order to make these few days livable I'm compiling a list of things that are yummy and mushy.

-Pudding
-Congee
-Polenta
-Creamed spinach
-Creme caramel
-Mashed potatoes and gravy
-Schneenockeln (aka floating island)
-Chicken soup with griesnockle (cream of wheat dumpling)
-Cream of mushroom soup
-Chopped liver on fresh challah bread
-Ice cream
-Poached eggs

Savory mushy things were harder to think of than sweet mushy things.  Any suggestions are welcome.

This past weekend I went camping for the first time in many years.  It was really great, I got to make a few new friends and get to know a few other friends better.  I am not a natural camper, so the night before we left I did not sleep at all.  This made me unpleasant the next morning.  Once we arrived in Maine I settled in pretty nicely and had a truly good time even through the massive down pour that happened thankfully just after we set up our tent.  Although my hangover Saturday morning did prompt a few thoughts of going home to my shower I'm really glad I stuck it out, triumphant does not begin to describe how I felt at the end of the weekend.  I plan on going back to Beltek next year, hopefully with the same awesome group of people.

Here's a picture of my feet (on the left), this is just before we left the camp site on Sunday morning.  Look really closely, they are totally covered in mud.

I was happy to see vendors selling things (necklaces, t-shirts, various glass and wood creations) in one area of the festival.  At the Official Beltek booth there was a man cooking crab rangoons, egg rolls and pad thai.  The pad thai was awesome!  Such a great surprise! This man made every order fresh in a small single family sized wok.  Really fresh, really good.

Anyway, had a great time despite the mud.  Saw some awesome sets spun by some very talented DJ's.  The great music combined with some unexpectedly good pad thai made the whole weekend really memorable.