Yesterday the snow came down solidly all day, but we still went up for a half-day of skiing to take advantage of the relatively balmy (i.e., positive) temperatures. Although visibility was low, I managed to stay comfortably warm by wearing every article of ski clothing I own. My fingers were still cold, but when I took my gloves off for lunch my nails were slightly less purple than they’d been the day before, so that was nice.

Today EVERYBODY is taking the day off, except for a few hardy souls we saw trudging up to the mountain. A cold front blew through last night along with four inches of snow, and now the temperature is minus one degree (again, Fahrenheit) in the village. On top of the mountain it’s minus five, with a wind chill of minus thirty-one. MINUS THIRTY-ONE.

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So we’re here, and it’s cold. The plane did not go down in a ball of flames, fortunately. In fact, the flight was rather pleasant. My personal experience of the flight was still horrible, of course, but not because of anything outside my little head.

Here in Keystone it is very, very cold. Not only is the temperature below freezing, it’s not supposed to even approach freezing until approximately March. How people live in climates like this for more than a week at a time is beyond me.

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I went back to the ear doctor today to find out the results of my ENG. That is to say, I got out of bed earlier than I wanted to, drove 35 minutes each way, and sat in the waiting room 15 minutes to find out that there is absolutely nothing wrong with my ears.

Seriously, the report was maybe 50 words long. First test…normal. Second test…normal. Etc. The technician could *totally* have told me this a week ago, as soon as the tests were over, if it weren’t for the rules about that sort of thing. Can I just sign a release form promising not to sue you? It would save me a good bit of time.

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Here’s one for Christmas. It’s nothing too complicated, but who’s reading blogs over Christmas, anyway? We have ten people at our house, so I’m certainly not. (via Cheeky Prof)

Christmas Eve Meme
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Sections today, because this is really several posts rolled into one.

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Let’s start with some spectacular news. My friend Sandra from all the way back in elementary/middle school, whom I haven’t talked to in years, found my blog a while back. She read my post about Sammy having to stay in a kennel over New Year’s and generously offered him a spot at her mom and brother’s house. Hooray! Y’all are awesome, seriously. Samson will be so much happier in a real, comfy house with people who care about him, and his mommy will sleep easier, too.

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I’ll still do my usual Year-in-Review, so don’t get your hopes up that you won’t have to slog through those acres of text, but some sciency folks are doing a condensed bloggy version in which they repost the first sentence of the first blog post each month.

By golly, that sounds like a great way to get a new post up while exerting little to no creative effort! Just the thing for the week after finals week, when my thoughts turn from Greek and Quantum to Christmas shopping*.

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I’m almost positive I’ve used this as a title before, but WordPress doesn’t remember it, so it must’ve been way back in the Xanga days.

Yes, I’m still dizzy. Six weeks now. I haven’t had a bad episode since last week (bad = with nausea), but spells of dizziness and pressure headaches come and go almost daily. In the past two or three weeks I’ve developed a sensation of fullness in my ears that wasn’t there earlier but is now my constant companion.

I went back to my physician’s assistant for a follow-up visit, and she put me on nasal spray and a decongestant. Um, right. I respect your years of medical training and all, but this system of throwing fistfuls* of pills at the problem and seeing if any stick just isn’t working for me**.

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Feeling adrift in a sea of grad schools and law schools and Big Life Decisions, I’ve been looking for people to talk to. People who’ve been there, people who can give me not just stats and rankings, but advice on my personal situation based on real experience.

My friend Jay is just finishing up his J.D. at South Texas, so he’s been a big help. Otherwise, though, I don’t have regular contact with any law students or working lawyers.

One of John’s professors just happens to be a lawyer on the side. What’s more, he’s a patent lawyer, and patent law is likely to be my specialty*. What luck!

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So classes are over, and I find myself with a full load of work to do and a week of unstructured time; there’s a recipe for success, eh?

I spent a good chunk of today drawing up a beautiful spreadsheet of all the grad programs we’re applying to and their deadlines, fees, number of rec letters, extra materials, etc. I bet “making a spreadsheet about it” is one of the top ten ways to make yourself feel productive without actually accomplishing anything useful, right between “writing a to-do list” and “printing labels for all your file folders.”

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It’s over. By my count, I wrote 22 posts during the 30 days of November, which I’ll call respectable, considering. I missed a shot at perfection right off the bat when I spent the first evening of November in the emergency room, and the drawn-out sickity-sick through the rest of the month made even near-perfection tough to attain.

But what’s done is done, and I’m not bothered by my missing the mark this year. NaBloPoMo got me out of the blogging slump I’d been in, and that was what I’d most hoped for.

There was once an afternoon when I mused idly that I might like to try making a video every day in December, but John quickly talked me out of that one, thank goodness. Success at such a project would likely be much, much worse than failure.

So long, NaBlo! See you next year! Thanks for the hostess gifts; they’re lovely.