Back-end shadow period (30 January to 9 February):

  • Met up with a colleague from a previous place of work who just joined my current place of work
  • Lost credit card, had to get a new one


Retrograde period (10 February to 7 March):

In Pisces, it was a pretty sludgy period

Nevertheless, work submitted previously seems to come out during Merc Rx periods

  • Got an email (on 11 February, the second day of the retrograde) confirming that a paper written about two years ago will be coming out soon (when, it doesn’t say)

In Aquarius (from 27 February), much better news

  • Was invited to lunch by an acquaintance I met only once and for the first time just before Christmas
  • Pulled out of the funk
  • Head cleared, started thesis revisions again
  • Got an email with proofs for correction of another paper to be published in April
  • Got an unexpected invitation to join a paid trip to Boston for a conference; which allows me to plan a short trip to New York (always wanted to go), and to visit an old school friend in Chicago, who has asked me to visit for years now
  • Got news from three different sources that a professor to whom I had submitted a research proposal for a fellowship is still interested in my research, though I didn’t get the fellowship at the time; was asked to reapply when I got the PhD
  • One of the sources above appears to have intentionally withheld the news for reasons I haven’t yet fathomed
  • Just discovered the ‘more’ function in html, which tidies up the blog pages! :)
  • Reappearance of ex-boyfriend on instant messanger online after several months, with a curiously cryptic exchange — leaving it at that!
  • Have not had any post for the last three weeks at least — not even junk mail. I have a DVD rental and magazine subscriptions which seem to be all overdue.
  • Solved mystery of missing mail

Front-end shadow period (8 March to 28 March):

  • Boss calls for meeting on week I will be away (booked during MR)
  • But found out shortly after two other senior colleagues (making up my entire division) will also be away, thus letting me off the hook

Quite an intense see-sawing over the past few weeks, though more pluses than minuses. Am looking forward to when the weight drops from my ankles, perhaps when the Sun (and Mercury) moves out of Pisces into Aries.