waiting for the novacaine

I've had nearly weekly dental appointments as various fillings and yes, even a root canal are showing its age and needing to be redone. Hope it will be over soon. Am thinking about getting braces later this year/early next to help make it easier for me to clean said teeth, thus avoid these novacaine days. But I am enjoying one of the many fringe benefits to marriage, dual covered dental insurance.

In the meantime, I found out an abstract a co-worker and I wrote for a work conference has been accepted, which means we're going to Canada in November. Which also means, we are postponing our France/Spain trip to Spring next year which on many different levels is a good thing (though it was a bad thing since it would have been fun being in France while some other friends were there).

Tomorrow I get to meet a professor who is a bit of a rockstar in the scientific community. He's having email problems on his Mac. Hubby doesn't say if this guy will get the Nobel, he talks about when this guy will get the Nobel for his work. Talking with the prof on the phone, his email problems don't sound that tricky, so I hope to have it resolved easily then assist him with any other questions he may have. This is a part of my work that I really do enjoy. One of those things that gets me thinking, "wow, and they really pay me to do this?" I mean, I enjoy the work and I get paid? It's really an excellent feeling to have.

I remember being in college thinking about what I wanted to do for a living. And I found myself often gravitating to people who all said that they have fun at what they do (college professor, fly fisherman/pe instructor) and they get paid to have fun. And I remember feeling/thinking, that's what I want to do. I want to be paid to have fun.

Though at times I can be a bit aloof and a tad shy, I do enjoy meeting people and hearing about what research they do or what they're into. And at Berkeley, there's always some kind of research going on, on some fascinating social or medical or scientific dilemna. And it's especially fun meeting these people and their personalities. And I like helping people use technology in a way that allows them to do more of what they do because maybe tomorrow they'll find the answer to one of those dilemnas.

J'aime ma vie.