On the Cusp 🐤🎓

Our daughter was born in our bedroom a couple weeks ago...November 28th to be exact. She and her mother are healthy, and her birth has really made a cozy winter den of our home. Her older brother and sister just adore her and have been very helpful. Everyone has been adjusting well. In spite of the physical demands of caring for a newborn, we have all been in better spirits lately. We are on the cusp of a whole new life, and it feels wonderful.

Last friday I had my final defense for my dissertation. After an exhausting, humiliating, and also helpful two hours of critique and discussion, I managed to pass! So I am on my way to being Dr. Mieum after seven long years! I still have a ton of restructuring and rewriting to do for the final manuscript, but it is a lot easier to undertake without the anxiety of having to defend this thing!

These two things have put a little bounce in my step. I have even less time and freedom than I previously had when we were preparing for the baby and for the defense, but it feels like I have so much more slack now that there is a little less pressure on my shoulders. I have been writing so many songs! They just keep coming! Usually I will play while the kids are in the tub and they will hum along and give good feedback. I have also been writing a TON in my journal and have made lots of progress in improving my overly hasty chicken scratch. I have lots of little projects and chores that have been put off for a long time, like little sewing jobs or home improvement tasks, and I feel like I have enough space in my brain to accommodate them.

I am not through the woods yet, so I can't really do too much, but things feel so much better around here now. On top of all that, my mom is coming to visit us in January. Tourism is not allowed in Korea currently, but the exceptions are visiting children/parents and, of all things, business. There is now a mandatory quarantine of ten days for ALL travelers, which isn't ideal, but there is a chance things will change by then. Either way, it will be so nice to see my mother again. The kids are just bursting from anticipation!

I also have a few programming projects I am itching to get into once I get my dissertation published, which will be no later than the first week of January. I look forward to cozying up and hacking up a few neat little tools for myself; at least two of which are gemini-related :)

Lots to look forward to on the horizon! 🌅

_________

./ Gemlog

../ Home

CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 mieum(at)rawtext.club