So far I have spent 90% of my vacation tied to my computer, analyzing gravitational waveforms. Nifty? Sure. But it means not only have I gotten no rest, I have also not had time to start next week's homework, or the end-of-term report for one of the classes, or get my taxes done, or go shopping, or...

In other words, at the end of this week "off" I'm going to be more tired and further behind than I started.

The only other thing I've accomplished, and I use that term extremely loosely, has been to extract the cell phone sounds from Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei for use in my email client.

(Update, 3:21 am: The programs finally finished running, the plots are finally plotted, and I'm going to bed. Unless I decide that's too much effort and I just fall asleep in the desk chair).

Although all that means is that I won't be taking or teaching any classes this week, and no new work will be coming in. I still have ample accumulated work to do, however.

The most notable aspect of this semester (apart from how insanely busy its been) is that my research plans have changed. It turned out the cosmology group wasn't able to take on any new students, so I'm now working with the gravitational wave group. It's a direction in which I wouldn't have initially expected to go, but I'm finding it very much to my liking. A couple of weeks ago I helped assemble our new supercomputer!