Cassini took a picture...

Of a backlit Saturn.

Carolyn Porco of the imaging team said, after revealing the mosaic:

"I fervently hope it serves as a reminder that we humans, though troubled and warlike, are also the dreamers, thinkers, and explorers inhabiting one achingly beautiful planet, yearning for the sublime, and capable of the magnificent."

Also got...

The third interview.  I think I'm in, for good or ill.

Got...

An A.  Take that, universe.

I'm Done!

With my degree in French, that is.  There's no update on my transcript yet, so I'm not sure of my grade, but optimistic me says A and pessimistic me says B, which means that I probably received a B+.  McGill professors are terrifyingly strict about grading.

Still no pic of me in a cocktail dress holding a bottle of prosecco, but my buddy here is still on her honeymoon in Aruba, so I haven't had a party yet.  Perhaps this weekend?  Unfortunately, the sealed, stamped and signed diploma will be printed with the rest of the diplomas for 2012-2013 in one fell swoop...  Sometime next April.  POOP.

Six days after my last final exam...  I had a job interview for a company in a field that I refuse to talk about simply because my potential future position there could actually be dangerous.  My dad even suggested that I go by a pseudonym simply because the market can be so volatile and easy to take advantage of.  I really, really don't want to jinx the result (I'll receive news tomorrow or Tuesday), and so I'm carefully cultivating an attitude of stoic apathy.

But within 10 minutes of sending the company my CV, I received an e-mail invitation to a phone interview.  I gave HR my availability, and within 10 minutes of my first available hour, HR called me and I had that interview.  Was immediately invited to an in-person interview, which took place last Thursday.  Interview went very well compared to that one I had last March for the position with that marketing company.

Can't say anything either way.  But I've thought it over and over and over again, flip-flopped multiple times, been alternately jazzed and jaded...  Because the position is a high-powered, high-salaried, high-stress position that could make me or break me.  Terrifying and challenging.  Do I want that, or do I want to be a fiction editor and writer, spending my days in the nearby library with my laptop while the snow falls or the sun shines outside, lost in fantasy worlds?

Interesting Analogy

I do my homework like I do the dishes.  And I have tons of both.

In a state of some stress, I quickly wash all of the easy stuff (plates, bowls) to make it look like there's less stuff in the sink.  I pretend not to be aware of my ploy and stare uneasily at the really tough stuff coming up, like the tupperware caked with dry hummus and intricate thermos lids that I have to disassemble.  Then I grab the spoons and decisively get them over with.

Still staring at the thermos lids, I slowly wash and rinse the wine glasses.  I'm just as stressed as I was when I started.  Next, the coffee mugs and the big cooking utensils.

Now there's nothing left except the hummus container and the thermos.

I go read a book for an hour.  Then I take a bubble bath.  Then I go to bed.  And then I'm late in the morning because I had to wash an old thermos that I wanted to drink coffee out of during class.