Enter the New Year, exit the blur

Friday, I finished the last of my most pressing deadlines, the business plan for Helarctos Press, which will be the distribution vehicle for the book that I am completing. When I look back on the last three months, I barely remember any of it! Still, in that time I got three papers and a business plan out, made progress on my dissertation, my book, and the informatics for infectious disease course I am developing, and traveled to Michigan to give a talk, as well as having some kind of super-cold that really kicked my ass.

The last time my schedule was jammed quite this tight was 1991-1992. I was working at Microsoft during the day, providing technical support for the documentation team producing the first sim-ship (simultaneous release to production) of the US, French, and German versions of WinWord 1.0. Two nights a week, I was in a 4-hour massage licensing class, and two other nights a week, I was taking the year-long sequence of organic chemistry. I finished everything more or less successfully, but I essentially have no memories of that year. This period was similar, but mercifully shorter. I hope it's a very long time before I have a stretch like that again.

(UPDATE: I forgot to explain the title of this post. Mr. Raven and I celebrated my return to the land of the living by attending the Cambodian New Year celebration at the university last night. Cambodian New Year is called "Choul Chnam Tmey", or "Enter(ing) the New Year"--so the entrance of the new year coincides with the exit of the latest blur.)