Live from Miami International Airport

For once I'm not feeling guilty about taking a few days off. Especially since I'm going to meet with my Mom and step-dad who I haven't seen for 6 months.

So I'm spending the night at MIA, testing the carpet, learning by heart the security announcements (every 10 minutes) and watching the carts passing by... I can't really sleep because 1) It's freezing (thanx to the AC), 2) It's far to be clean, 3) there are announcements every 10 minutes.... obvioulsy. Anyway, it's giving me the opportunity to see the life inside a terminal in the middle of the night. And the least you can say is that it's very quiet... Nobody around, except for the cleaning crew and the few who didn't want to spent $90 for a crappy hotel room 15 minutes away from the airport....

12 more hours and I''ll be in the Caribbean Sea, brain, cellphone and computer turned off... Wishing you all a great Thanksgiving break and a wonderful time with your families (for those on the left side of the pond)!

OMG!!!!

WATER IS FALLING FROM THE SKY!!!!! And it's going to be raining for the next... 5 hours. After that, well, we're good for another week of dry weather.

That's it for the middle of the night weather update.

Something's missing

The thing about being so busy and focused on work is that you forget about your lack or absence of personal and intimate life. Having a boyfriend is the least of your worries, plus honestly, you don't know when you would have the time to see him anyway... And then one night, things go a little bit further than just the usual beer drinking, joking and passive flirting, and you realize how much you have missed sharing these wonderful moments with someone you really connect with. Even the simplest thing as holding hands fills you with amazingly warm feelings, just because you're not used to it anymore. But as usual, it is just an evening thing, something that only happens after a few beers, when the inhibitions and guilt somehow belong to an other world. Nothing serious happened that night but it was enough to screw my mind and remind me how good life can be when you share more than a hug with somebody who's special to you.

Quals

The ones who took the quals this semester were told yesterday evening if they passed or not. It was a lot of stress even for the ones, who like me, were waiting to congratulate friends. There were smiles and tears. Cyril passed, and it was just wonderful to see him so happy again. My cubemate, on the other hand, didn't and that was definitely the most surprising news. I was so sure he was going to pass... And I feel so sorry for him. They all studied like crazy for 3 months and it's hard to tell somebody who worked so hard for that long: "Sorry, next time"...
I'm taking the quals next semester. I'm obviously very anxious but also very excited. I'm finally going to take the time to go back to all these little things I know I didn't understand completely. I'll finally have the time to study topics into more details and, hopefully, a lot of things will start to make more sense.
Anyway, we celebrated pretty hard last night. We took Cyril and a bunch of friends to the Highlands. Cyril is the only guy I know who can't stop laughing when he's drunk. He was laughing so much that he couldn't walk. It was just hilarious :) The firefighter hat was definitely something and you can be sure he'll never forget that one. And I'll never forget that night.

With Cyril at Rocky Mountain (our local F&F)

The craziest firefighter ever :)

Home sweet (?) home

The more I read the French news, the more I wonder who's not on strike in France right now... After the State employees and civil servants, Air France flight attendants, the railroaders, the fishermen (am I missing somebody?), here come the students... Thank you guys for the booster shot, I was almost feeling home-sick.

The week-end in photos...

Here are a few pictures to summarize this week-end:

Friday: on campus... Don't ask :)

Friday night: Halloween Party!!! I had a heck of headache. Go figure...

Saturday: Conference, Lab, no fun, no picture

Sunday: It's finally Fall here, so we took off for Fort Mountain SP and Amicalola Falls SP (North of Georgia) for the day. It was grreeeaaat!!!

I have about 1000 pictures to sort and upload and it's going to take a while... Hopefully everything should be online by Xmas :P

Exceptional drought

We have now reached Level 4 out of.... 4.

The state of the Federal Reservoirs in Georgia is as follow (from Drought Monitoring Status. Presented by Water Resources and Hydrological Analysis Unit - Georgia EPD on September 27, 2007):
• Lanier (Atlanta's primary water source) and West Point are in Zone 4 (bottom zone in conservation storage) as of September 27, 2007
• W.F. George just a foot from inactive pool
• ACF system has only 47% of storage left as of September 27, 2007
• Allatoona is in Zone 2 (bottom zone in conservation pool)
• Carters elevation at 1053.2 feet as of September 25, 2007, a low record for this time of the year
• Hartwell and Thurmond expected to reach Level 3 mid-December

So it would be cool if we could stop sending the little water we have left to help protect mussels and sturgeon in Florida and keep it here, otherwise we'll all have to switch to this:
by the end of this year (though I'm sure the guys working in the building across the street would be really happy about this).
For more information: College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, University of Georgia