For those who haven't noticed, I've been a little absent from the site and from Xbox Live for the past month or so. This mainly had to do with me having to get my thesis done, or at least the first part of it, coupled with a few other papers and posters. In short, I was damn busy.

My thesis is on creating a simulated (aka synthetic) skin model for diffusive purposes, and it's a topic that I was happy to receive and put a good amount of time into. The written portion was coming along well until a few weeks ago where a number of situations and circumstances made this interesting.

Let's start a few weeks ago shall we? That was when I found out that my research advisor was leaving the university. Now she wasn't leaving because she was fed up or being fired, she was leaving because she wasn't hired. My research professor was not tenured. That basically means her position was on a yearly basis. A tenured position means you're a permanent hire. So she decided to move on to a place that wanted to keep her, and to be honest I think there were a few other factors lending into her decision that weren't made public that I can guess at. Either way, we met on that Friday and she managed to inform me that the topic I was working on for about a year now was being removed. In other words, I could no longer work on it. Being a little frustrated, I ask her what do I present for the next week, to which she responded by saying present what you have and pretend everything is alright, while at the same time giving me an ultimatum of 48 hours to either take an alternative project she was preparing or not. Seeing myself in a precarious situation, I contacted my academic advisor to see what we could do. I had planned the rest of my time at school with a thesis to work on. A project would upset that plan, and I wanted to see what options I had. Ultimately, I not only met with him but also the chairman of the department, who did a fantastic job of clarifying the situation, and I came to a decision that my research advisor's plan was the best.

Heading into this past week, with my presentation coming up for this Friday, I finally get my written report of my thesis sent off to my professor to check and got to work on my presentation. My professor replies that my report is good, but a few sections are missing. I quickly add those and send in my presentation the day of thinking everything is pretty good. She replies quickly saying there's another section missing. I get that done quickly and send it back to her. Finally she calls me and begins to tell me that I didn't do entirely all the work that's expected for a thesis, and goes on to argue about a number of sections in the report, sections that we had agreed upon weeks ago. This is occurring three hours before class begins, and I'm getting ****ing pissed. While I can go ahead and admit I could have done more work, it was never made clear as to how much work I needed to have had completed, and despite that, we're arguing three ****ing hours before I have to present! She's had my God damn report for a few days and never mentioned anything about that.

Regardless, we get to work and finally she says she'll fix the presentation to a "workable" state and get it back to in twenty minutes. It is now thirty minutes before class and to make matters worse, I run out of ink for my printer. I dash off towards the engineering building at this moment in a good suit hoping that I can print everything there. My adivsor calls just as I reach the building and I check the presentation. There were a few changes, and I primarily do a few cosmetic changes to make it appear as though I did everything and proceed to try to print it all out. My presentation is actually the last for the night supposed to start at 8:00 PM. I'm allowed to be late. Unfortunately, the systems in the Engineering Building refuse to print stuff for me and I decide to dash off to the nearest Kinkos about five blocks away. With everything printed and a snack in hand, I dash all the way to class. I get in around 7:15 just as a group is finishing up covered in sweat. Once the group finishes, the class professor looks over at me and announces that it's my turn. Bet you didn't see that coming.

If you're wondering, I really haven't seen the bulk of my presentation and I've had no time to prepare for it all. With no other option in front of me, I go ahead and present. It's probably the worst presentation I've ever done, considering that I really had no idea how the slides flowed together and was frankly surprised at the appearance of a few of them. I typically keep a copy of the slide handout in my hand and go through both at the same time, yet I was flipping through my handout faster than what was on the screen. Somehow I make it, and I'm being bombarded with questions from my committee. That's over and I check the time. It's now 8:00 PM, the time I was originally supposed to begin.

Afterwards, I track my research professor down and had a little chat with her. She already knew I was pissed off at her and we managed to come to an agreement on how we can avoid a similar situation next semester.

Then I got drunk and can't remember the rest of the night.

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So yeah. I'll be back both on here and Live, so if anyone's up for a few games, I'm definitely up. I just want this semester to be over so badly now. Damn it.