Seven workdays to go.  I’m beginning to get a sense of just how weird it is going to be, going somewhere other than the University in the morning.  Between my undergrad years, four years at my old lab and two years at the one I’m at now, I’ve been going to campus every weekday morning since 1997.  I’m not sure I even know how to go somewhere else in the morning anymore!  Granted, I’m going all of about four blocks away, but still, it’s going to be weird.
I really should have written this entry yesterday, when it was a gorgeous day and all the grassy spaces of campus were filled the way they get in spring, with people playing and napping and picnicking and just generally enjoying the gorgeous weather.  A new free-public-bikes system went into effect yesterday, so people were zipping all around on these cute little plaid bikes with bells and baskets, and everyone was clearly having a load of fun.  And while they all looked about twelve years old to me, it was still one of those days when I really love the University, and made me think about how much I’ll miss being a part of it in some ways.

Of course, today was cold and gray and rainy, and I felt that way much less.  Although the zippy little plaid bikes were still awfully cute.   Nonetheless, my replacement came and I got her all set up with equipment and keys and some preliminary training, and it was all very strange.

Then again, no one really lives CMU for good; everyone seems to come back sooner or later either as staff or for grad school.  So perhaps I will be back one of these days.  In the meanwhile, it’ll be good to be somewhere else, doing new things.  It’s long past time.

I was accused multiple times today of being positively giddy with next-to-last-day-of-work-ness.  I suspect those accusations are not far off the mark.  I was mostly holding it together until about yesterday, but I have definitely hit the “at this time next week, I will be lounging about in my pajamas and this job will be a fading memory” wall.

Maybe not so much with the pajamas part, as I have many plans for my weeks off and one of them is taking a shot at the Couch-to-5K program, so I have promised myself I will do at least some walking and hopefully actually do the program whenever it is nice out, and the weather report claims next week will be cool but sunny.  So maybe I will be out running around next week, weather permitting.  But still - not at work.  So the motivation, it is dwindling rapidly.

The list of things I would like to do with my time off gets longer by the day, and I suspect I could never actually do it all even with my six weeks off, even if i weren’t going to be spending part of the time traveilng.  But I’m looking forward to doing at least a bunch of those things.  Eventually.  The very first thing I will do is catch up on lost sleep, so it’s possible I’m just going to sleep through the entire weekend, waking up periodically to forage for cheese and crackers like some sort of weird vegetarian bear.  If I’m incommunicado for a few days, just assume I’m having a really delightful stress-free hibernation.

Man, I can’t wait.

So far, I must say that as long as one knows one will be employed again in a few weeks, a leisurely bit of unemployment is quite nice.  It hasn’t been all that different than a regular weekend, but I’ve gotten a lot done and am enjoying the fact that every time a job-related issue pops into my head I can dismiss it forever with a “not my problem anymore!” thought.

I’ve gotten many useful things done, including estimated quarterly taxes, filing my security clearances for my new job, and finally renewing my library card, which I let lapse when we lived at the old house because there was no convenient library.  The library that is convenient to our house turns out to be pretty tiny and crappy, but I plan to make extensive use of interlibrary loan to get the books that exist in other parts of the library system.  Of course, I have about twelve half-read books already, but I hope to use part of my leisure time to finish them up soon.

My plan to get exercise has not yet been put into effect because it has been cold and raining and awful out, but I dug out my sneakers and am all ready to get walking as soon as a not-completely-miserable day happens.

Alas, the whole catching-up-on-lost-sleep thing isn’t happening yet.  Dimitri decided at 6 a.m. this morning that waking me up by smacking me in the eye with his gigantic paw, repeatedly, would be a great idea.  Charming creature, he is.  But hey, I’ve got six weeks.  Lots of time to sleep.

To top off a nice weekend, there was celebratory job-quitting curry, and then Len actually got to use the studio for some actual recording.  It’s not finished yet, but having it finished enough to be usable is a big step.  A good weekend all around, I’d say.

Ha. Last weekend at this time I was all “Whee! I have quit my job! Look how productive I will be, with the cleaning and taxes and errands and all!” I kept that up for another 24 hours or so, and then sometime around Tuesday, massive slack set in. Delayed reaction to quitting, perhaps?

In the intervening time, while I have gotten several more errands done and a few random household chores, I have been largely ensconced on couches or beds, reading or watching movies. Or playing computer games. Ahh, slack.

That said, if I accomplished nothing else last week I wanted to start my running (read: jogging at a pace barely above a snail’s) program, which I did. I ran three times, just as the first week of the program prescribes, and it was actually really nice. The reservoir up in the park turns out to be a nice place to walk/jog - lots of cute animals and nice scenery, and a nice easy level track. There are less level trails in the park and I will probably explore them later, but for now I just want to develop a regular habit and then I can worry about branching out later on. So yay for me, and getting exercise. Even if that was the only useful thing I did, apart from helping Len out in the studio a bit in a bumbling not-very-helpful sort of way.

This week’s plan: keep getting exercise, plus do useful things in the garden. I got off to a good start today by digging most of a new bed. Over the next few days I want to finish that up and get my transplants in the ground. And water everything really well, since I’ll be away for a few days and Len is highly unlikely to remember to water things in my absence. Plus, I should get some groceries and cook something, because there is nothing resembling food in this house.