The Long-Term Implications of the Development Model of the First Five-Year Plan for the USSR (RIP) - Alpha 2 (title subject to change)

I'm finished with what I am calling release alpha 2 of my research paper for the OCH (Oregon Council of Halfwits). There will be two beta releases (tomorrow and Saturday), a release candidate (Sunday), and then a final release on September 1st... probably. If the OCH can't clean up their act or if they really, really clean up their act to an unimaginable degree, then it will be be September 1st. If they sort of clean up their act, then it will be after September 1st. In any case, I will start distributing copies at request in PDF format on September 1st. I might even put it up for download here!

This may very well be the most monumental work (in terms of relative size, scope, quality, and man hours) that I've ever written. Currently the page count is at 20 pages (total, including bibliography), with 10 tables and graphs (maximized not for prettiness, but for elegance and readibility! None of this 3-D junk!), and even equations to glom everything together with indestructible logic. The more, the merrier!! Well, I can't say for sure that it'll be good but I think it's at least headed away from badness. If nothing else, I had fun writing it. I get immense from pleasure teaching myself production formulas and using them to slam things (like the USSR) for incompetance. I think I even giggled once today while I was writing page 16.

Enough of that. Things are going at a positive pace. On a more depressing note, I think that I have already slipped into my unilateral ([sad-face here] it seems that all of this war-rhetoric vocabulary is in my mind to stay; would you know! I used "regime" twice today!) school mindset of work: I was writing a list of things to do before I leave for Portland and after I arrive in Portland but before school starts (comprising an unfortunate 27 items), and I created a separate list for things to do in Portland only if time permits, in which I put "do something fun for birthday". My only retrospective consolation in this matter is that I put "birthday party" on my list of things to do before leaving. It's time for a sigh of acceptance that the on set of such a mindset is truly inevitable.