I’ve been feeling really “me” lately. For instance, this afternoon I took advantage of the weekly farmer’s market at Duke Hospital to buy myself some strawberries and three irises at $1 each. That’s right; I bought flowers, for myself, to put in my room; you know, just to cheer it up a little. It felt so right, and hardly gay at all.

And I’m in an especially good mood now that I’ve purchased a three-week, unlimited EuroRail pass for roughly the amount of my tax return. All caution to the four winds!

I’m now entering the last month of my job here at Duke. The flyers have been posted, the resignation letter has been written, and Alberto Gonzales keeps calling to check if the opening has been filled. Not that I can recall, Alberto, not that I can recall. Not to knock my past jobs…well, some of them, but this position is been the best job I’ve had, and I will be sad to leave it. The primary reason is that here I’ve had the opportunity to put my intelligence and talents to good use. To be fair, I had the chance to do so in past positions, but I wasn’t emotionally strong enough to reach my full potential. Screw that pansy of my former self. Here at the MSRB I’ve been able to write a paper, create figures, do stats, and go for long walks carrying innocuous-looking coolers that actually contain vials of still-warm human blood (Fooled you, passers-by!).

The reason I’m not really sad or considering staying where I am is that I’m confident that the graduate school environment will challenge me to an equal or greater extent. In logistical preparation for this transition, I’ve rented a 5’x15’ self-storage locker in Carborro, which upon inspection looked a little bigger than what I’ll need, but you never know, do you? Additionally, the apartment hunt begins tomorrow.

Sadly, there were no visitors this week who I could not place or at least make an educated guess about, so the next mystery reader segment will have to wait.

Kind of a seat of the pants entry, I have to admit. Happy Cinco de Mayo!