6 weeks

State of the Nebiverse:

Weight: 142.0
Physical experience: My left knee has apparently resigned! I found the following note taped to my pants leg:

"Dear Host Body,

You have taken us for granted for the last time! Remember last May, when we first expressed our discontent and boredom? WHAT were you told to do...? That's right! EXERCISE!! Meaning, let us MOVE once in a while! Take us for a brisk 30 minute walk in the refreshing outside air! Give us the chance to live out the full potential of the Knee we were created to be! Last May's pain was a Warning. Yet still, STILL you never let us get out and experience the world! All day you sit in front of the computer screen in that unnatural position, in which we are cramped and stiff and uncomfortable! Then when you're finally done with the mindless staring at the screen, when you're ready to do homework you FOLD US UP like a paper fan, under layers of blankets and other body parts, on that EXCUSE for a sofa while your mind is busy and active pondering inexplicable things. You restrain us! You restrict us! You make us support heavy algebra books! Most importantly, you TAKE US FOR GRANTED! Then you have the audacity to complain when you get up for the occasional coffee refill/ bathroom break as we stiffly and unhappily do our job.

Well, we're sick of it! We quit! Though Right Knee has not yet quite been persuaded to join us- poor sap! deluded into a proletariat life of drudgery and misuse!- we will no longer tolerate this gross abuse. Now, IN PAIN will you sit down and stand up! IN PAIN will you go upstairs, and, even more horrific, DOWNstairs. (*audible groan*) IN PAIN will you apply the emergency break on your car! Who's ignoring who [sic] now, chump?!?!? Huh? WHO'S IGNORING WHO NOW???

Remember last May how you coped with the Pain? With those frequent doses of... what was that? Oh, ALEVE! You mean that stuff that says "do not take when pregnant"...? Mwah ha ha ha hah!!!

Enjoy those recitations four times a day on the 4th floor of the math building! (no elevator, remember?)

xoxoxo
Left Knee

PS Bet you'll miss us now!
PPS But we're not coming back!
PPPS EVER! Even if you beg!"

In other news, I am Frequently Queasy (but no vomiting- yet).

Emotional Experience: I am Happy!! About the Baby!! Yay!! Also a little weirded out by telling people. This morning I told Professor King. I went into school for a brief [rather pointless] meeting with Prof. Logic (he's the prof I'm working with as a TA) and I had been debating whether or not to tell P.L.... the meeting was short and it didn't really come up, so I didn't. But then I went upstairs and read my course evaluations from last semester (Favorite comment: "You lit up my Thursdays with your beautiful face" !!!) and then Prof. King was there, and we started chatting. And he was like, "So, you're REALLY leaving in May...? You're not going to get a PhD? Why not?" So then I was like, um... ummm... I'm having a baby in September. And he tried to be all cool and non-embarrassed about it (I think he is from the generation when being pregnant is just something you Don't Talk About? Like, you just wait to get big and wear a big sack of a dress and then eventually the baby comes out?) and then he said "Lots of women are in the same situation and manage to get a PhD and do research and still have their kids taken care of very well..." and I was like, "Also, we're moving" and he was like "There are lots of schools" and I won't bore you trying to recreate this whole conversation, but as he was walking away he said, "I'll talk to you more about getting a PhD some time later..."

The ironic thing was that I tried to explain all of this to him in the letter. But I don't know if he gets it yet.

I dreamed last night about telling him. So it was kind of weird and cool that it happened today.

I have completed 2 of the 16 Logic problems.

Love, Neb