foiled!

...by the wonderful birth of a healthy baby boy to my advisor and his wife.  My thesis proposal talk has been postponed til Thursday, so now I have a talk on Thursday and another the next day.  Let's just say without the hour-long elliptical sessions I've been putting in every morning this week, I'm pretty sure my heart would have exploded from the pressure and stress.  Just keep swimming, it's almost December 17th...

In other news, I just found out three minutes ago in my word-a-day post about the word beaucoup.  Beaucoup, in French, sounds just like boo-coo.  I said the words outloud, and there goes another vestige of my dyslexic childhood, joining the ranks of paradigm (para-dig-um) and inventory (inn-vent-tory vs. in-ven-tory).  I've spelled it booku in my head for, oh, years.  "Booku bucks" was a favorite phrase of someone in my family, maybe dad?  Now looking back, I can't imagine that particular phrase in his vocabulary.  Come to think of it--it's the same beaucoup in "merci beaucoup!"  This inability to spell things and make phonetic connections, wow, it's really quite a talent of mine. 

But--there is sun streaming into my office today (it's been awhile, sun...stay and hang out, will you?)...and I have pumpkin-italian sausage pasta for lunch.  Then tonight, some reading, delivering muffins, and maybe even putting up the Christmas tree.  You never know...