A few folks people have been asking, so “what next?” The immediate next is that I am here in Puerto Rico, visitng my mom, and nursing my sinuses which of course got mucus-blasted with an infection due to the pressure and stress of finishing up. I have not been here since December and not much has changed although the temperature is characteristicaly HOT and actually my mom is doing better which is relief. The sinuses are recovering thanks to the salty ocean water and thick humid air. There was something remarakbly different about swimming in the ocean without a looming dissertation. Really… different. I am also lowering the caffeine intake which always seems easier to do here because there are less demands made on brain (although I have to do a lot of word catching for my mom) and I really think there is something about the sun and ocean water that makes the withdrawl effects much less severe. I think when I return in July I will go off of it entirely at least for a few weeks.

Back in Chicago, I am going to edit the diss before depositing, figure out how to format it (hell hell and more hell) and start reading because I basically stopped doing so in the last 2 months. I will also start catching up on emails that are starting to pile high here in my inbox. I will answer a number of those on the plane flight home now that I have a computer with a battery worth something.

I plan to take most of July off-off. Go back to PR for a number of weeks and then I hope attend and give a paper at What the Hack. But they are having a heck of a time getting a permit so that is somewhat up in the netherworld of government administration (it would seem smarter to grant the permit to what has been a very orderly hacker festival that to deny the permit to some very bright hackers…. but then again that is just my prespective).

Then I am moving to the Garden State for a postdoc fellowship at the CCAC at Rutgers. I am psyched.

Along with that I hope to perhaps learn how to windsurf?? The life of the mind now needs some body life to keep going…

Thanks for everyone who has passed along a congratulations!