It's been quite a quarter.

I've worked in tropics as a researcher for three months now, and I'm ready to be finished for a while. I'm excited for Friday, when Rebecca and I will give our presentation. Then we are throwing a party and then we are finished.

We write evals this week. Jack will entertain us on Saturday in his temporary classroom here at La Selva. After that we are free to go. Yesterday it seemed like an eternity away. Right now it doesn't seem so bad. I have been working all night every night, sleeping for a few hours here and there when I just can't keep myself awake any longer, but our paper is almost done. And it's good, too. It seems this quarter will end on a very positive note.

I've come to the conclusion that it's very hard for me to learn things about myself. I have this grand barricade of verbal, intellectual, and subconscious defenses that guard my ego from any sort of affront, even if it is one I should pay attention to. Maybe that's what we're all struggling against: our own inability to maintain a sense of self and please others at the same time. I wonder which great thinker brought that uncomfortable contradiction into the light of modern thought?

Time to get started with that PowerPoint presentation.