The End of Uncertainty

So, it seems my last post was back in January.  I believe that means it is time for an update (okay, several updates).

• The proofs for my first published article have been reviewed and submitted.  So in a few months, I think, I will be a published author in a mathematical journal.
• My talk about that paper and a slight extension was accepted for the conference I am attending in Italy at the end of June.  However, I still have to cut 15 minutes of it out.
• My advisor and I submitted my second paper a couple of weeks ago.  We'll probably find out about it by the end of the year.
• My dissertation prospectus has been approved.  I am planning to defend in March.  Fortunately, I pretty much have over half of it written.
• I will in the next few weeks be getting a new computer.  I think it is time to retire, with full honors, the Gateway after nearly nine years.

But none of the above items even comes close to the biggest news in my life right now--I may be on the verge of no longer being single.  (A couple of you already know about this, and can skim this part of the post.)  She's a fellow applied math graduate student at Maryland, and, well, I'll refrain from gushing too much.  I have gotten farther in dating her than I have in dating anyone else since, well, since I had a girlfriend.  Over the past couple of weeks, I have attended a game night and potluck dinner with her, spent lots of time on campus talking, attended one of her choral concerts, had dinner with her out in Silver Spring, ate a lunch she made and brought to campus, and Saturday spent the day touring EU embassies with her and her roommate.  And today, we spent about 90 minutes to two hours just talking.  So, I am more than slightly optimistic. 

Yet, there is still uncertainty.  We will be going to lunch together sometime this week.  I'm not sure, but I think I may have THE talk with her then.  Hopefully, I can judge if it is a good idea.  But I have to do something; the uncertainty has started killing my mathematical productivity.  And while my advisor would almost certainly understand, I can't tell her why.  (Unless I want my life to get VERY interesting.)

So, yeah, expect a mood extreme from me in the next week or so.  I'm not sure which way it will go, but I am hopeful.  Wish me luck, because I am going to need it when I check Schrödinger's cat.