Notes for My Doctoral Thesis 3 and other stuff

The past week (and weekend) have been somewhat interesting, though nothing out of the ordinary happened. True, it was my first week on the job – but with a very slow start, it wasn’t very exciting. I had some enthusiasm at having my very first cubical, mainly motivated by imagining myself as a character in Dilbert. Yes - I am a corporate slave. As a further sign of my enslavement, I actually went to work in heels 4 out of 5 days. The latter part wasn’t that bad actually… well, most of the time I sit in my cube anyway (then I take the shoes off – it’s my little mutiny).
A highlight for the past week is another insight I had into American culture. I realized that Americans are socialized to always notice the people around them. More specifically, to notice the physical presence of others. This is why they keep going around saying “sorry” all the time, because they are always aware that they are intruding another person’s physical space. To elaborate on this point for those who have not spent more than a week here - they say "I'm sorry" and "Excuse me" ALL the time. Just as an example - today at the office, I was entering a large space through a corridor, and as I was coming in, another woman was making the corner to come out. We ended up passing each other with roughly 10 cm between us, and she said "Excuse me", to which I immediately responded "I'm sorry", and actually thought to myself "What exactly am I excusing you for?!?" Anyway back to the point, what happens is that a lot of things here have the underlying assumption that you will notice the other people around you – like a line starting really far away from the counter, or the (in)famous 4-way stop. Please note that noticing physical presence doesn’t translate into cultural sensitivity – they don’t notice if they are being loud and obnoxious – as long as it’s done at a safe distance, it’s fine.
On a different subject, I also will make a small comment to the fact that about 3/4 of the way from Ithaca to Boston on Sunday night, I the thought ran through my mind that in a couple of weeks 6.5 hours won't seem that bad to me, and I'll likely be able to make it without stopping along the way. As I drove the country roads, and the highways that run through the countryside, I thought several time about the fact that there are a lot songs that make more sense in this context of endless highway and endless plains (or mountains, or whatever), like classic "road songs" - about driving and the like, that just feel more right when you are driving on and on and on.
Oh – and one last, more informative thing: I’m going to be spending the entire 10 weeks (minus a few weekends) at the B&B. After spending one day driving to Boston to look at apartments, and the second driving to Providence to look at apartments, I came to the conclusion that it would be a colossal waste of time to spend 2 hours each day in the car rather than doing something (anything) more fun and/or productive. Considering the apartments I saw in the area, and the fact that I knew I would not want to stay the weekend in them (i.e. considering how much it would cost to go somewhere else in the weekend), it just made sense staying at the B&B.