I got paid for the month of June, a total of $1180 something. I had been waiting for that for a few days. I should be getting my per diem check for Japan tomorrow in the afternoon. That’s around $1275 I think which roughly translates to $100 a day for the 13 days I am there! Which hopefully will go mostly towards food which means I should be able to save some money.
         As for the update on my paper, me and Doc emailed back and forth about my paper. I had questions about where to get certain information. I found a couple of honors paper which had the information I needed. I just need Greg’s section of the paper containing the results for the paper to look sort of complete. I think we will be getting more NMR analysis done on our glasses when Greg goes over to Canada sometime this month. I don’t know if we are doing more Raman studies of the high alkali content borate glasses or not. I think we should so that we have a complete set of physical data to analyse. I emailed Scott to see if he knows what happened to the book which contained the raman procedure that we used at Iowa State last summer. I need that to give a more definitive description of the method in the paper. Tomorrow is the last day I am going to be here, so I need to finish the paper so far as possible with multiple edits. I have a nagging suspicion that I have to work on it after I get back to Coe at the end of July.
         I remembered that I had to try out the aerials with Kiki so I went into workout at 5. I saw Amanda and Matt on the way and they told me that they would play with me if I did a quick run. I ran for 15 minutes sprinting the last lap, so that was about 2 miles. And then I played RB for about 45 minutes. Amanda was off today but luckily Matt was good, so we did have a good couple of games. This time they scored before I did and actually overtook me in points at some point. But I came back with serves and won both the games. I got back to see that Jessi had called me again. I keep calling her back but she is never there when I call her. I want to see her tomorrow before I leave. I think I am going to call her and make sure I see her. I called Kiki to make sure we were still on, but she told me that she had a migraine so we could practice. That sucks! I could have exercised and played more if I knew that before. But it’s ok..I am still sore in my calves and butt and upper thigh. Playing RB is quite a workout, but then I need to play everyday to condition my muscles to that sort of torture. I do play everyday but the weekends. And now after tomorrow, I can’t play for about a month. That will suck and I will it sorely. Atleast I can still run, although I don’t know about weights anymore. I finished my hot dogs with beer. and then drank some milk and V8 to replenish me.
         I tried to finish packing my suitcase. I think its mostly done. I have to pack other stuff like chargers, music and stuff like that. I also have to dispose of the perishable food in my fridge. I talked to Doll for a long time about what went on the last couple of days and the trip to Japan and stuff. She told me that one of her friends is coming back from India. I hope the reconnection is goes well. I told her that I was going to see Kiran this weekend and she was very excited! Well, so am I!! Well, I thought I was going to talk to Andi today giving her details about my arrival tomorrow. But I think she is hanging out with her friends tonight and I don’t want to disturb her. So, if she doesn’t come online and tell me to call her in the next 30 mins, I’ll just call her or email her tomorrow.

I saw Amanda and Matt at lunch today. Amanda tells me that she will “kick my ass” in racquetball when I get back to Coe..hehe..We’ll see about that. I am sure Matt and Amanda will be worthy adversaries soon because they play hard. Amanda has the killer instinct in this game because she doesn’t shy away from killing the ball when she has the oppurtunity. You know, they might actually beat me when I play them next month because I will have no practice for a month. I guess it should be interesting because they improved a helluva lot in just 10 days, saying anything else would be an understatement. Me and Amanda give so much of shit to each other, it’s more fun that way. Well, I have hit her quite a few times….

I went to bed earlier than usual, ie. before 1 am. I got up at 8.15 without the alarm, I was very surprised. Actually I was kinda scared initially because I thought I have overslept again. At work, I typed up a bit more and I have been waiting for Greg’s results section to put in. I emailed Doc yesteday asking him a few questions about the paper. I just sent him another email telling him that I can’t find the notebooks or papers dealing with the Raman studies from last summer or NMR studies from Canada. I am waiting to see what he says. I don’t want to write about something I don’t fully comprehend yet. We had Italian food from Biaggi’s. It was good, and I made sure I didn’t over eat this time because I still wanted to run and workout in the evening before swing dancing with Kiki. I should be done dancing by 7.45 as far as I know and I will try to complete my packing.

“When You Say Nothing At All”

            –Ronan Keating