the new advisor

comebacknikki asked about the meeting with my advisor.

I'm excited to announce that my advisor is really stylish. Flattering, funky clothes, cool glasses, and a great haircut.

I don't mean to be superficial about this, but you have to realize that, in Old Discipline, a stylish advisor was extremely rare. I don't know if my new advisor is an anomaly in Mysterious Discipline, but either way, I'll take it.

Of course, my advisor is also extremely intelligent, has strong intellectual commitments, and absolutely loves her job in a very palpable way.

While I ended up with a great committee chair my last time in grad school, he was from New Discipline and wasn't really into the academic advising side of things. She's just the kind of advisor I didn't have in my M.A. program, both in terms of style and substance, and I'm grateful.

So, I am hoping that our relationship will be productive and satisfying both professionally and personally. It is a testament to this little corner of the blogworld that I can admit that having a stylish advisor matters to me, at least a little, and that I feel happy and lucky to have just such an advisor as I embark on my doctoral studies.

(I'm also giggling to myself that I get label this post with the tags "graduate school" and "fashion." That's a first for me.)

inhabiting new homes

Today, for the first time in this house, I walked home from work, came in the house, and thought, with a wonderfully full and relaxed sigh, "I love this home." My love for this place has been growing since we moved in, but today is the first day that it felt like home. And not just a home, but our home, reflecting our needs, tastes, and values.

It's a home where I can see myself dissertating. And it feels good to be home.

In other news, I've migrated this blog to the new blogger beta. So, I've changed my posting name and e-mail address in order to keep everything a bit more streamlined. I've also tweaked my template to (sort of) match my office area in the new house. The new template customizing feature ends up making my sidebar and title fonts huge and underlining my post titles, which I'm not crazy about, but I can live with it for now.

So, new homes all around.

A dinner of salmon broiled with fresh pesto, steamed corn on the cob, and organic red zin awaits. Yup, feeling good.