Qualifying update #3

Monday morning, approximately 3:15 am. It is finished. Sort of. Still need to proofread one last time and send off, but no new significant amount of information is coming, for better or for worse. Mental state: surprisingly chipper. Caffeine and sugar intake this evening has been much more evenly distributed. Peaks and valleys are all well and good when one is crossing the rugged terrain of the Oregon Territory; not so much for blood sugar.

At this point, approximately 39 hours used; 9 remain. Even allowing another half an hour to proofread and send it in, and eight hours (ha!) for sleep if that were really the physiological necessity everyone claims it is, I would just like to note that this still leaves me a full half an hour of buffer time. A.k.a. more buffer time than I have had for any assignment I have ever been given in my entire life. There must be something wrong with me. I must have gotten weirdly responsible in my old age. Or, more likely, screwed something up. Something like hearing "you only have to answer three of the questions," when in reality the assignment was "answer all eight, or you will be summarily castrated."

Pace: still steady. Rations: adequate. (Tomorrow and for several days thereafter, rations are going to have to become meager, as I am beginning to have trouble carrying my own fat ass back to the wagon, much less all the bison I am shooting.)

Sucked the snake venom out of Jane's wound; she is improving. Billy's typhoid took a sudden turn for the worse; he died. Also, Jane is pregnant. Apparently venom-sucking proved to be an unexpected aphrodesiac.

Until I find out tomorrow that I did everything OK, Matt has a case of Schroedinger's Testicles.

Qualifying still blows. For about 2.5 more days. At which point, qualifying will be awesome, since I will be done with it and most of my friends will still have to do it. Ha. Losers. Then, it will be paper revisions and conference preparations which will blow.