White Thanksgiving

It's a cold, blustery, and snowy day here--perfect weather for curling up on the couch, reading by the fireplace, and hanging out with friends over a good meal. Unfortunately, Canadian Thanksgiving was last month, so I'm working on a paper due next Tuesday, in my 55° F electrically heated apartment. Oh yeah, and I have to head back to the University a second time tonight, to babysit my experiment.

The trip to Boston took a lot more out of me than I expected. First of all, the minimal sleep I was getting turned my sore throat into a full-blown cold. I got back on Monday, around noon, had to deal with my car, and made a token appearance at school. On Tuesday, class took up the whole morning (to noon), and I mostly sleepwalked through the rest of that day. On Wednesday, I finally finished what I wanted to get running before I left last week. And now, on Thursday, I'm finally getting around to writing.

I guess one problem is that as little as I personally knew FB, the emotional aftershocks are still hitting me. With all the wonderful and fun stories told about him at the memorial, my thoughts keep returning to him, and then I realize: "Crap. I'll never see him again." Highly emotional events are not conducive to buckling down and cranking on "Using Wood Surrogate Measurements to Monitor Concrete Moisture Levels." Instead, my mind wanders to, "Where is my life going, and will I be happy with that?" Not the type of perspective you want when you're trying to get your ass in gear and write.

So anyway, Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! Don't worry--I might sound a little bit down in this post, but I'm not that bad or anything. And thanks to JMD for calling me up from the celebrations in Hopkinton! Hope the fried turkey was yummy this year!