And so it begins...

In the last several days I've begun at long last contacting potential grad school advisors.  I feel like I still haven't looked at everyone I should, or compiled the best list of people possible to write to, but it's starting to get late in the season, and I need to get going.  So last night I jumped off a cliff, send out a letter to a guy I met at ESA over the summer, and took a deep breath.  Now that I've begun, I feel like this means I'm definitely committed to beginning grad school next year.  Gulp.  Hopefully a lot of the nerves are out of the way now that I've begun, and the excitement of this whole thing will shine through.

This afternoon I got an e-mail back from the guy I wrote to - it was very, very positive, which makes me happy.   He wasn't planning on taking a student in 09 because of a sabbatical that he's taking, but he said he "can't pass up a chance to get you here".  WOW.  Very unexpected...  am I just being flattered?  Eeeek.   Now the pressure's on.  I realllly didn't think I'd get that good of a response from someone I'd only briefly met and conversed with.  

I'm pushing on, with the intent of getting out a letter a night minimum until I'm done (right now 7-8 people are on my hit list).  Before I get to that though, I'm paying rent, grabbing some thai food with the other research techs, and then back here to read through my paper manuscript (the lab group here is reading and discussing it at the meeting tomorrow am to give me feedback.)  I really hope it goes over well - this is a group of people with a much more applied focus than who I usually share this project with.  My co-author's comments on the current draft are in the mail too, so maybe this weekend I'll submit the sucker (who knows!).

Time for a shower...