man, i hate it when i don't get around to writing for a long time--there's so much news, and so little time! i'll just dive right in.

the class
class is over. kids had their final, and it's all graded and everything. we were pretty generous with grades--even the two students who didn't do that well (read: 60% and 73%) got a B+ and A- in the class, respectively. not totally unearned either: they had earned a B and B+, but given how much they'd improved from midterm to final, we felt like they should get higher grades. one student failed. it was that guy who blew off the midterm because his mom was having menopausal difficulties (i know. i can't believe it either. but there it is.) and had the gaul to think we'd let him take it with no penalty. anyway, he got a 37% on the final, and because that counted for 85% of his grade... well, he failed. badly. dumbass.

grant
i had sent in the revision of the grant on 5 august, glad to get it out of here once again. couple of days later, i get a call from the director of the center where i sent it. she says there are problems, and if i can fix them in a couple of days, i can send her another version. i had put my letter detailing the changes in the wrong place, and apparently the course i took on patient protection wasn't good enough and i needed another course on research ethics. so i fixed it and sent it back in. i'll hear what my score was sometime in december/january. hopefully i'll get it this time.

funding
well, not so much news here. i still don't have any for the fall. had to pay my $2300 tuition the other day. i've basically resigned myself to waitressing, though i'm hoping to at least do so at the white dog. gotta go apply.

karl
so we're moving in! karl asked me via etch-a-sketch if i wanted to, and after much discussing, we decided yes. then came the horror of finding a new place, and dealing with our overlapping leases. mine ends at the end of august, his not til end of november. so the options were (a) to move at the end of august, meaning we had to look fast, and we had to find someone to sublet his place, (b) to move at the end of november, meaning we'd have to find someone to take over my lease then, in the winter, when no one wants to move, or (c) we could move into a place my current landlord is renovating, which isn't going to be done until the end of the year, and he'd give me a lease extension with no penalty.

so, we didn't really love that place my landlord was renting. i had a long list of wants: southern exposure, hardwood floors, outdoor access of some kind (porch or yard), un-disgusting kitchen and bath, closets. ideally, it would also have a diswasher and garbage disposal, and would have some character. so we started looking. saw several places, heard about others, got there just too late for some.

but then...

we saw two apartments in a building in west philly, about 7 blocks from where i live now. a little further than we would have ideally liked to have been, but...the apartment is GORGEOUS. the one we saw first, karl liked better. he thinks it's bigger. it's a legit 3-bedroom. but it was $1400/month, more than we wanted to spend. the one we took is a 2-bedroom, that could be used, awkwardly, as a 3-bedroom. i think that the living spaces are bigger in this one, though. and it's $1200. top of our price range. we would have used the 3rd bedroom as a "billiards room" and put a pool table in it. the apartment we actually took doesn't have room for a pool table in that room that could be a 3rd bedroom. so we're going to get a foosball table instead. if we can find one for cheap.

so, the apartment. it's, as i said, a large 2-bedroom. the second bedroom we'll use as an office. it's got a huge living room, that's partly circular, because it's in a tower. off the living room is the foosball room, which has double pocket doors to the living room and to the hallway, and french doors out onto the big balcony. it's also got a cute little corner fireplace-thing that's actually a radiator in disguise. the hallway is really wide, and could practically be another room. there's a kitchen that's big enough to be an eat-in, but we don't need it because there's also a dining room! a huuuge dining room. we're going to have to buy another table--mine will just look silly. the kitchen has a door out onto the fire observation deck (really, the fire escape: my friend michael used to live in an apartment with a fire escape like this, where you have to enter a tower, and then go down stairs to get out. it took him a long time to realize about the tower, so he thought there was no way down from the fire escape, so took to calling it the fire observation deck. so that's what i call mine). it's on the 3rd floor, which means nice views and some privacy, but hauling the bikes up 3 flights every day. it'll have a new kitchen and bath (!), with a dishwasher and garbage disposal. and new paint, and newly buffed floors, and new light fixtures! now, all we have to do is actually *move*.