I See the Light, and I'm Pretty Sure It's Not a Freight Train

As my probable last semester of classes winds down, I find myself in an interesting position on several fronts.

• I gave my talk for the RIT I'm in.  Now, I just need to polish it before I give my preliminary exam sometime between December 6 and December 9.  Since my final exam for my SDE course will be the next week, I will probably be doing some "celebrating" the weekend of December 17-19 (or, depending on how the end-of-semester schedule looks, the weekend before).
• I'm still upset that Discovery's last launch had to be postponed until the end of the month.
• The Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear was fun.  I missed some of the jokes being in the mass of humanity that day, so I spent part of the next day watching the DVR recording.
• Yes, the proof I was at the rally is still visible.
• For some reason, my sleep schedule has morphed into a 1-9 a.m. schedule.
• I get to proctor a qualifying exam on January 10th.

But yes, I can sense the end of the semester, which means a few weeks off before the real work begins.  You know, writing the dissertation and some papers for publication before graduation.  And who knows, maybe I'll have to preach again over break as well.