blah, blog explosion

I've skipped my "weekly" update, so I might as well toss one on now. It's been a fairly busy couple weeks, with cross racing starting, track ending, friends moving to another continent/hemisphere, and school stuff. I'm really trying hard not to stress over finding a job, but I'm truthfully terrified because I have no idea where the hell I'll end up for the next couple years. And thinking about leaving Seattle makes me feel queasy. So, I'm going with denial for now. Having people leave has really been throwing me for a loop, too. I know it's happening, and I'm excited about having good friends spread across the globe, but change... change is weird.
Among other things, I've been freaking out a little bit about funding for my last year of grad school; a grant I helped submit for a renewal of my project's funding was approved but the money has yet to be seen. I had not heard back about the TA funding, although many people still haven't and there are still spots. So I emailed our department chair, and the department is just covering me for the fall quarter, which is pretty sweet. I was kind of hoping there were magical funds available for people finishing. Hopefully, I won't have any more 4 am panic attacks over this.
Also, if anyone hasn't seen this comic strip, which I've posted multiple places, the first two panels are my advisor exactly.
Keeping with my non-training plan of the summer, I've come into cyclocross pretty well. I did okay at the first race of the MFG series. I got there late, which seems to always happen for cross, so I only got half a warm up lap, in which I proceeded to run my left shifter into a fence, somewhat breaking it and bending it. It still kind of works, but I couldn't shift into the front during that race at all, and I was really annoyed by it. I ended up 7th or something, which is reasonable. I also raced Starcrossed and got my best result ever in the 3/4s of 8th. I doubt I'll be able to upgrade this year, though that had been my goal for me during the shitty, shitty year that was last year. At least I was able to successfully race through the cold I had this past weekend, without making it worse (again, in opposition to last year).
Anyway, I may or may not find some pictures from racing or from other events that are interesting. I'm kind of running on fumes this week, so I have no idea if I'll get around to positing stuff. Also, if you haven't checked it out, I started a tumblr blog (rachellovesrocks is the blog name). It gets updates when I update this blog, but I also like it for the ability to reblog stuff and easily post music and other random things that don't seem worth writing a full blog entry for. I like the tumblr format, though I do wish it were a little easier to change the colors, formats, and things. You can do really coarse stuff super easily, but if you want to get more complex, it involves going into the code. My HTML knowledge seriously does not extend past HTML 2.0, so it's Greek to me for now.