Mices, Mices, and More Mices

While most people are using their blogs to talk about things Easter, I decided to give an update about what I have been doing. The good news, it is quite simple, and only one thing: mice. The bad news is that Justin is in town and has even spent hours watching me run these cute little critters. And yes, that is a picture of the C57BL10/mdx/mdx mouse from the JAX website. The background strain, the C57BL/10's look about the same. Some are quite smart little things, others are not that bright. We have one that may be as dumb as a rock - either that or he is not very motivated. I guess we will have to see over the next few weeks. If he is as dumb as he currently seems, he is going to skew my data a ton. Oh well, there is always one.

Both this last Friday and coming Monday are holidays at the TTUHSC, but I will be there running my animals and working on my dissertation. I recently got my edits back from Dr Young and while I do not have to totally re-write the paper, there is a lot of be done. My writing has never been the best, and apparently my organization and use of comma's sucked. Thus, I have about 20 or so hours worth of rewrites to do. I was actually expecting worse. I hope to have that part done this week before I am three or more weeks into my dissertation. There is a rule that you really should not start collecting data until you are done with your proposal and have successfully passed that part. Well, I think I will be breaking that one. Oh well.

Cleo and Squishy met for the first time this week. It seemed cruel and unusual to have Squishy stay at home while Justin came here a week, especially after she was at a friend's home while he was in El Paso. As I may have mentioned previously, Cleo was not aware that she had a sister, and was not too fond of the idea. The scary part was not that Cleo acted as we expected (lots of hissing and running under the bed) hat was scary was that she was actually terrified of the little 6 lb kitty. Cleo herself being around 23 lbs would in fact be quite physically superior to Squish, but mentally she is not equipped to deal with any other animal. So Squishy has spent a lot of her time in the extra bedroom, and Cleo has spent a lot of her time under the bed. Oh well, it was worth a try. At least no one was injured. Cleo may never forgive Justin - which is who she is placed move of the blame on, but he will be gone for a while anyway, and cats tend to forget - eventually.

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Wednesday

Ok so I never finished that blog while Justin was here. We watched some movies and hung out when we were not at work, and now he is back at Fort Sill. I got a lot of work done, and due to an error am at home today. See, this morning when my RA went in at 6:30 to start the mice she could not get access to where they were. Computer problem. So they did not get run. In turn, there was no point in running the rest as they would have been run more times in the end. So we all kinda got the day off. I came back home and went back to bed with Cleo, and when I woke up I felt really cruddy. I am not sure if it is because Justin left (so a psychological thing) or if I am actually getting sick (which would be a total disaster at this point). I am feeling a bit better this afternoon after some rest, so it could be stress or just my back as well.

For those of you who keep asking (and I do not mean that it is annoying) I thought I would give you the Justin update. He was here this last week for leave, and as far as we know this is the last "for sure" time that he will get leave before he goes to Iraq sometime in April (nope, no dates yet!). He will still have short weekends at least, and maybe a long one or two depending on when they leave. That does not mean I am going to get to see him, it depends on how much he has to do. There is a lot to be done to get ready to leave, and he has to do most of that still as they just got back from training. I am expecting to get to see him at least once, but you never know. And we are still not sure if it will be a 12 or 15 month deployment, so we are planning on 15. Basically, he will get back sometime between May and August 2009 when I am in Virginia. He will still need to come to Fort Sill to be "out processed" which takes a few weeks, then will start a long drive to Colorado to get stuff, then all the way to Virginia to see me. I will possibly fly in to see him in Oklahoma if I am not working - but that depends on when he gets back. So what is what I know. Squishy will be staying with Aunt Caroline in Utah.

Alas, that is all the news I have for now, and I need to get to working on my dissertation edits. I know Dr Young wanted some to take with her to DC this weekend, and I do not think I am going to make it, but I am going to try. Hope all it well!