Woo, only one class left, and it should be a fairly easy exam. Sucks that I have to take home that one final, but everyone else does too, so at least I'm not alone in my inability to finish everything. I'm packed, and so I can come home and try to sleep. Then home!

So, I figured I might as well confer with Lowell House on this guest room they have, so I emailed like a week ago and never heard back, so I was like, oh well, but then I got an email yesterday saying if I still wanted it the room was available and the cost would be $100. This seemed like too good a price to be accurate, and the email didn't make any reference to the amount of time I'd mentioned wanting to stay, so I wrote back to ask whether that was for the whole stay or one night, and I got an email back this morning from the house assistant that she got word they could offer it for $70 a night. Which is vastly cheaper than a square hotel, but vastly more expensive than any other long-term type housing, and insanely more expensive than crashing on people's couches for two weeks. So I was like, no. Only at Harvard, man. As far as I can tell it's pretty much like a dorm room, with one room and a bathroom. Not even like a kitchen or anything! So, thanks, Lowell House, but no thanks.

I have no schedule of crash space when I get to Boston, but I think there are enough people that I only have to impose for a couple of days each. Fortunately my bags don't seem excessive right now, so it shouldn't be so bad.

Woo extra hour of sleep! My friend was already going to take some peeps to the airport at the ridiculously early hour, so I glommed on, which means I don't have to get up quite so insanely early.

I'm still going to go sleep now, though.

You made me old. When I was young, lust was goal enough. My heart swung at tiny words, signs of interest, hints of my own worth reflected in shards. And now I'm old. I think of love burning slowly, warm and calm. I smile about new friends, but they are a new part of my world and not the new focus. I swung around with my eyes closed, hysterical and out-of-control; now I turn slowly, with measured movements, taking in the threads so they wind around carefully. I don't get tangled. I don't get dizzy.

...

Well, at this rate it looks like that takehome final is going to actually get taken home, unless I can really crank out the rest of US Healthcare early tomorrow evening and get a big jump on the final. I would like to go to bed early Weds night, so I'd rather finish it up over break than rush it on Weds. But I was hoping to be all done.

Oh my God oh my God oh my God. Paper-writing is my least favorite thing.

But I think this paper will be decent, which is good since it is worth 60%. I will finish it tonight, and if I have any brain cells left, I'll even proof it and email it off and do no writing tomorrow! Take home the takehome, poke at it, type it up at Am's, and that will be done. But tomorrow, I will go to class, come home and pack, go back and take my last final (which should be easy), come home and try to sleep so I won't be dead when I have to get up ass early Thursday.

As much of a bummer as it is that I couldn't finish these other papers soon enough to also do the takehome, 1) no one else could either; and 2) I actually managed to not be writing down to the wire on the two papers I've written! Major progress!

I coughed up four pages real quick, kinda outliney like, which means all the harder writing is still to come, but still, four pages!

Time for some Biostats.

I was gonna edit the old people paper today, but after spending yet another half hour on the phone with my partner, I decided I was done with it. Good riddance, falling old people!

Sadly, this meant I had to start my paper on comsumer-driven health care, which is just about the most boring topic of all time.

I've decided that the facebook profile is the new .plan. Brief, visible, easily alterable. Performance space, essentially. Like I need more of that.

I must have blocked it out of my mind that my flight home is at 6:55 am. I mean, it makes sense with the trying to make it cheap and all, but for some reason I had like 11 in my head. I was planning to hop on a school shuttle to Penn station, take the light rail and enjoy a nice ride, since it's all constructed now and goes all the way to the airport. But, no, upon further review, my flight is at 6:55. So I booked a shuttle, seeing as public transit doesn't open obscenely early. The latest time it will come for me given my flight? 3:55 am. I'm already tired thinking about how tired I will be at that point.

I sure hope I finish all my writing early Wednesday so I can go to bed as soon as I get home from school. Urgh.

I'm still like a day behind, but I should be able to crank out a bunch of this paper tomorrow (I wish it would snow more and cancel my class), so I'll have very little to do on it Tuesday so I can crank out my SBS exam. I'll have five hours between classes on Wednesday also. That should be enough.

1 am, and I am too fried to write more. I hate this sort of manuscripty-type writing, because it's so dense and full of citations and transitions. I'm almost done, but I was being more and more incoherent, so poo until tomrrow. I hope I can get it done quickly, so I can move on to the next paper which is longer, but I hope a lot less dense.

Actually, that paper is a 10-page absolute maximum, so I'm shooting for 8.

Then the SBS takehome, which I can turn in anytime before the 31st, but I desperately do not want to do it over break.

I have accomplished laundry, however, so I may pack this weekend and set my bags aside mostly ready to go.

Man, someone better drunk call me tonight (Christmas party night), or I will truly be furious this time.

Yay Elf! Also managrrrr! Also a frosh who asked me if I was extremely lonely due to my posting volume on hubba. Astute, these kids.

And yay both Jerry and Matty calling last night too. Apparently the Christmas party was not really scandalous, but it sounded pretty fun.

Matty said because he drunk called, I'm not allowed to complain. I don't know why he's trying to take away one of the few pleasures in my life.

Wooo, more paper writing!

I rocked out the rest of my paper sections, but since I finished that, I've mostly been useless. I did one Biostats practice exam, but with a nap in between. I need to get crakin' on paper 2.

I'm really happy that this old people paper is so very close to being done. It's been a giant ass pain.

I'm like a day behind... but I hope my US healthcare paper won't take as long as planned. :-/

It's 4. I've been home several hours. I went for a long walk. I have not written a word!

I think maybe I'll do some Biostats to feel productive.

How do you know the difference between dysfunction and destiny? The heart lies often, but it can't lie always!

My mind is starting to slip away into vacation, though I'm sure this weekend will pull it back as I pound out papers. All the relaxing things to do...

I'm not very relaxed at the moment because my internet is being super flaky. I've not been very happy with it since the outage.

Last night I decided to do the Biostats lab before hunkering down with the problem set, since I figured it would be easy. It was until I couldn't get this one calculation to work, which was made more annoying by the error-ridden notes I was working from and the answer key which didn't go through the calculation (leading me to think the question maybe was just about reading the right numbers off the Stata output, but then why provide the equations?). Beating the calculator with my head was not effective. Doing the calculations a somewhat different way did work, however, to my bafflement. Anyway, I flipped out for a while, officially designating this quarter as hellish.

So I went to bed early. And had weird dreams that at one point turned lucid as I realized the weirdness of my phone and the timing of certain clocks meant I had to be dreaming, and I conjured up a shadowy monster to awaken myself, heart pounding (but I conjured it! Why the heart beating?). I feel much better today. I'm rocking the old people paper, and that should be done by Friday. US Healthcare over the weekend. Seminar early next week. Studying for Biostats squeezed in there.

In a week I'll be free!

It's getting a lot colder in these parts, and it's even colder in Boston. I put on my winter coat (as opposed to the quite warm, but still lighter coat), and I decided I really just looked ridiculous. I need a new coat. When I bought this coat, it was on sale, but I should have waited until after the diet study, because in addition to being long (part of why I bought it, because I was wearing lots of long skirts, but nonetheless, skirts at the time) it is also sack-like. I put up with it last winter out of apathy, but Baltimore isn't sufficiently cold to go around looking like a crazy wool tent, and there are too many hobos I might be confused with. So, the coat can stay around as a dress coat, but I just can't wear that thing every day.

So, I have to get a new coat. The plan is to buy one after Christmas in Albuquerque and somehow get my current one into a bag. I'm not really sure how this shlepping around is going to work over the three weeks, but I'm sure I'll end up mailing stuff to Baltimore at some point.

I went to bed sort of late, but I figured still had plenty of time to sleep. I then proceeded to take over an hour to fall asleep. Then this morning, I was awake 45 minutes early. Primarily thanks to the goddamn garbage truck, which is a constant menace due to twice-weekly pickup, the loudness of the truck, and the shouting that the garbagemen seem to find essential.

I'm going to need that whole month to recover from this term.

I am actually surprisingly untired now that I've been awake a bit, meaning maybe I had enough protective sleep from the weekend.

Huh, I wonder what that means.

So as far as output for the weekend, I didn't write any of my group paper STILL, but I did make loads of progress in conceptualizing the project, which I think is a vastly greater contribution in the end. Today I decided I had to have major output, so I got all that reading done. Tomorrow (later today), I don't have to go to school early, since my advisor wants to meet later in the week, so I can get more stuff done.

I'm trying not to stress, but I'll be much happier when I get some real things written.

GRAAAHHHHH STRESS!!!!!

I did nothing substantive this morning, and this evening hasn't been vastly useful and it's 10. And Rajiv added another chapter for Weds reading, making this week's reading the longest of the term. Whereas the first few weeks had like no reading. And we weren't writing an evail paper then.

Furthermore, it was brought to my attention today a requirement for this other paper that we have not 15 sources total, but 15 sources in addition to the ones we read for class. I can't make everything fit. I'm going to die.

I've been sleeping a decent amount, and yet I can't sleep less BECAUSE I AM SO TIRED.

I feel like I worked all day today (Sat), and yet somehow didn't seem to produce anything and still have a crapload to do. Rar.

At dinner, I did end up watching an episode of America's Next Top Model, and now I WANT TO WATCH THEM ALL. Damn reality TV hooks me in every time.

I hate homework. I've been avoiding the paper I should be working on. I will be writing my sections soon... I really would like to write the section on interventions, since I have plenty of ideas, but we'll see.

Instead of writing, I'm trying to do all the class reading for the rest of the term, since that's a little more varied than article after article about falls among the elderly. Rargh.

Many lament the amount of time they have to spend sleeping, but some of you know I've often contended that I don't mind, because I have this whole other vivid life going on while I sleep, in my brain. But lately there have been a few unhelpful elements, elements which content me greatly as I dream, but which just serve to make my waking hours that much more difficult. My dreams are not helping me change my mind the way I want it to go, but are holding out for things long gone.

In real life, things are going well enough. Well, except the massive school work, but it'll get done, even if it's painful.

Though at the rate I've been going today, nothing will get done! Got up at like 10:15, putzed around, went to the Farmers Market, had breakfast, putzed around, discovered that the JAMA article came out and my diet was the winner!, dispersed this knowledge, putzed around, and now I should shower. This means I probably won't start being productive until like 2:30. Lame.

But as for the JAMA article:

Pereira, M. A., Swain, J., Goldfine, A. B., Rifai, N., & Ludwig, D. S. Effects of a low-glycemic load diet on resting energy expenditure and heart disease risk factors during weight loss. JAMA, 2004, 292(20): 2482-90.

It basically says that the diet I was on (low-glycemic load) resulted in a smaller decrease in resting energy expenditure (meaning that energy output stayed higher, which is good, because dieting often makes energy output go down a lot, which makes you feel crappy and lose weight more slowly), resulted in less hunger, and resulted in greater improvements in insulin resistance, serum triglycerides (though I think mine stayed exactly the same), C-reactive protein, and blood pressure (again, I know mine was like the same, because it was low to start). That's all good for cardiovascular disease risk and diabetes risk, in case you're not up with the jargon. No difference in body composition change between groups, though.

So maybe I should start it up again! It's not just good for weight loss (which I don't really need, but a teensy bit never hurts), but also for general health!

I really dislike group projects. Urgh.

In other news, my advisor didn't get her promotion, so she's leaving, meaning I have to get a new advisor. Fortunately, there are lots of cool people in the department, but still, lame.

I'm starting to groove on the project a bit more. I still haven't written a word, and I'm far from it, but I think we have a more targeted sense now of where things are going. Or, at least, I do!

Storey is my hero for having a much longer attention span and higher level of persistence than I do... turns out Google did have my page cached somewhere in its recesses, and he sent it to me! All is restored!

Woo, also I can go there and get the source! Hooray restoration!

This probably does not excite most other people.

What should excite you is that all the post-election Get Your War On strips are up, and they are just as delightfully scathing as you'd expect. "You know what's weird? This election turned me into a Republican -- All of a sudden I hate working class people and don't believe in evolution."

Well, at least there's pleasant. I can live with that. :-)

Urgh, presentation you are too long!

Then again, Peg's lecture will probably cover some of it. But what, I don't know, since she failed to email me her slides like I asked! Booo.

Okay, sleep.

My hatred of paper-writing has me doing my reding in furious productive procrastination. I can write tomorrow!

I dunno if I was supposed to be giving props to people for their presentations all this time, or if my presentation was actually good today in seminar, but lots of people told me good job. Maybe they've been telling everyone good job and I've just been being the not touchy-feely one, or perhaps I seemed nervous and they pitied me! Or maybe it was good, I was just surprised.

So it looks like anything remotely interesting I said this month was eaten, leaving only the most mundane bits for everyone. I summed a few items in parentheses here and there, but I didn't bother to be thorough. I'm too upset. I really hate it when my writing, no matter how dumb and generally self-pitying it is, gets destroyed. I can never get it back!

It was a challenge to recover what I did... the text that remained was surrounded by junk, and then all the lines were reversed and the line breaks destroyed! So I had to redo the breaks, but in reverse order, making it quite difficult. Then I had to rearrange all the lines... and a lot of the paragraphs were all over the place too, and I had duplicates of some stuff, probably what destroyed some of the other stuff. So pissed. I mean, I should have looked at the swap file, but still, it's not supposed to destroy my damn webpage!

It would be nice to hear a comforting voice, but the trouble I'm in, oh, the ways I've been shown how I'm not really a friend. The silent purgatory, the awkward easing away of connections.

I'm sorry, this really put me in a terrible mood... and it kept me up far later than I wanted, and I have to be up at 7. :-(

It gets worse before it gets better. It gets worse when I'm tired and stressed. It'll be better when I'm on vacation, when I see my peeps, when I can sleep in and go exploring. It will get better. It will get better.

I anticipate January will actually be delightful. Big plans for that month, I have.

I think my expectations are too high. If I set my expectations at zero, I think I'll be less disappointed all the time.

Good morning! Due to my insomnia last night, I got up at 7 and checked my email, and then went back to bed. So I missed class, but a voicemail from a girl in my cohort leads me to believe I didn't miss too much. Yay!

Sunshine outside! It's also supposed to be warm.

After sleep, I feel much better. I was in such a terrible mood last night. I realized thanks to an email from the old Pro this morning that the things that are bugging me are due to such petty little things, I feel like I'm in high school. Two explanatory variables: 1) when there is a general lack of information, of interaction, I interpret each bit to its maximum extent, extract the fullest significance from it, probably stretching beyond reason (then again, when I think about my conclusions, they aren't incompatible with the original fact of not having much to work with anyway). 2) Relativity of emotion. Generally, life has been pretty good. So something that registers as like a 3 or 4 on the A-anger scale is still the biggest thing around, so it gets the focus that a 9 or 10 would have gotten in other days. I guess if there were more going on with the A-awesome scale, I could ignore blips on the former scale.

Nonetheless, I think I did establish with Mr. Dewitz in our emails last night that trivial bits can certainly be interpreted accurately. Though I suppose that was more factual information than the shape of someone's thoughts.

What a fucking terrible dream! I don't need that shit! Stupid brain!

It wasn't an objectively terrible dream, it was actually quite peaceful and if I didn't have biostats, it might not have been interrupted, though I'm not sure what happens if you fall asleep happily in a dream, if you start dreaming other dreams anyway.

Like the weird one before that, which did start with a kitten, granted, but then it became some sort of Matrix-y thing with basements and stairwells. There was a British man in a Beefeater's uniform, without the hat, who I knew would go off drinking when we got to the other sub-basement, and he cheerfully warned me that he wouldn't tip me to get him to the other side. I didn't care. We headed up a stairwell, but we heard footsteps. An older man saw us but kept going up, so we kept going up. When we caught up to him, the stairwell was going down, and he asked us what we were doing, so I pushed him and he fell down and cracked his head on the step. But I knew that was only the beginning of the story!

I hate my life.

Soo much work. Soo little energy.

I am suddenly very hyper... I can't wait for the crash! :p

Articles... soo... boring... can't put any more info in brain...

So, Having a stat tracker is weird. I spend lots of time going, who the fuck do I know *there*? The answer may be no one, but I have no idea. Hello to all of you who are in weird cities that I can't figure out, or who I don't know. I hope you enjoy my completely strange world.

I made it through the articles, even though it took way longer than it should have. Also, I have about 2 weeks to do a shitload of work. POO.

The weather is awesome right now. Earlier this evening it was very densely foggy, and now it's pouring. And it's really warm out! I just went and stood on the porch to watch it a bit. Rawk.

Things that I enjoy about my apartment compared to my old: 1) no fucking evil hill; 2) enough counter space (well, kitchen table as counter height too) for stuff, including overflow dishes; 3) no roommates!; 4) covered porch, so I can stand out and watch rain without getting wet; 5) close to grocery store, with no evil hill in between; 6) doesn't turn into an oven in the winter, but is still cozy warm (well, at least after Bill turned on the heat); 7) north-facing bedroom windows so I'm not steamed out in the morning.

I would write more, but I just had to completely resalvage what I could of my webpage... the connection died, and when I reconnected, I just copied the .swp file for the regular file, not knowing it was half garbage... so if I seem to be missing entries, that's why. :-( Devastation!

Mondays are great, with no class until 3:30. I got up around 8:30, took a shower... and then went back to bed for two hours. Ahhh... though this means I haven't been terribly productive.

I was actually not amazingly productive all weekend, even though I stayed home all weekend. Lame.

I've had time to expand my possible explanations into howlingly hilarious scenarios. But my mental energies could surely be well spent elsewhere.

I'm annoyed. I don't like evasiveness. It certainly discourages me from trying to communicate at all.

It certainly would be easier to stop trying, in a lot of ways. I have enough that is worthwhile to focus on without all this aggravation. It's not like I get much out of it.

When something doesn't feel natural, you have to practice it until it's second nature. But when something requires an interaction, both parties have to put forth the effort to practice the interaction. Effort from one party just won't work.

I'm so glad I got my act together and made it to the birthday party. This was for the girl who was the captain of our department volleyball team who is super cool. Anyway, it was at this Russian restaurant/club, and we got the banquet, which was totally worth it. We got to sample a bunch of appetizers followed by several entrees, and eventually capped off with delicious coffee and dessert. There was also semi-live music (singers with crazy Russian techno and other music), so there was some dancing. It was loads of fun.

Tonight I was also in a rare mood in which I don't really care whether I know a lot of people at a social event. I knew enough to have conversation most of the night, and when I didn't feel like being social, I could chill at the table. That was nice.

Hahaha, silly frosh thinking he could post "evidence" to back his claim and not have it shreded to pieces by glorious public health me.

I watched this episode of Seinfeld today that I know I've seen before, because I remembered the part about Jerry stalking this building with George in hopes of seeing this woman he met at a dinner, and the whole architect and Art Vandelay (Cordelay!) thing. I forgot that the reason Jerry had to stalk the building was because it was an early episode, and he felt awkward asking Elaine about who the woman was because they hadn't reached the stage yet where they felt comfortable talking about other people yet, but by the end of the episode, they resolved that. Sitcoms can be very therapeutic that way, how they resolve stuff like that neatly in half an hour. It's like, see, this isn't that hard really.

Woo getting up at 12:30! I guess I also went to bed at 3, though. I think if I do make it to the Science Museum and all that stuff this weekend, it will have to be tomorrow, which is supposed to be warmer anyway. I missed the farmer's market, sadly, which means I have to buy milk at some point, but it's not urgent.

It's sunny, though, so I have opened all my curtains to absorb the brightness.

Wow I was lame at doing homework today... but I did just watch Identity! It was sweet, if not unintentionally hilarious at times. Like, the end, it was funny, and then it got a lot funnier.

Next up: Intolerable Cruelty!

I had the amused thought falling asleep that my phone conversation was exactly like a ten minute visit to Boston, with so many of the same recent dynamics.

Also, I amused to note that I said "irked" when I really meant "perplexed," but for me those are usually the same thing. I get so mad when I don't understand someone's perspective! I understand a lot of perspectives I don't agree with, but when I just don't get it, I get so pissed.

I think I also ascribe more meaning and implications to things than might be warranted or considered by other people, which sometimes gets me in trouble.

That's the problem with the internet... too much incomplete communication that leaves so much room for interpretation. People like me can just run wild.

I am so completely terrible about exerting effort... I am supposed to go to a birthday party tonight, but I have to have a ride as it is far away. The girl whose birthday it is said we could chat today about logistics, but I actually didn't end up seeing her in class. I'm sure she doesn't have my phone number, so I thought maybe she'd email me. But she hasn't, and I can't decide whether to call because I'm feeling kind of lazy, and wearing pajamas is kind of nice and I'm not sure whether I feel like being social, since I don't really know most of the other people who will be there... I should call, though.

I did accomplish two major things today! Edited Elena's paper that I'm on, and edited my manuscript!!

Yay return of internet! It was broken all day yesterday, but it was working again as promised when I got home today.

The more I think about it, the more irked I get. Mostly, I just feel like, what the fuck is wrong with you? I mean, wanting to have fun I can certainly understand. Maybe I'm just interpreting the item to indicate current readiness, and I'm like, vastly far away from such a state. Maybe the item could also be interpreted as signifying longer term goals. But seriously, still. STILL.

Maybe I'm just not such a fucken fuddy duddy or something.

Or maybe I just can't conceive of it because everything still reminds me of everything else. I'm too associative. It takes so long for things to feel less intense for me.

In other news, I had a nice dinner last night with that guy in the history dept at Rocky Run. It was chill. We sat in the non-bar part, which meant butcher paper and crayons on the table. He drew a crazy alien in a biodome. It's nice to have some conversation that doesn't involve public health.

I have so much damn work to do, but I don't want to do any of it.

Done with work I wanted to do, now should go to bed... but I feel like conversation, but I hate calling people.

I got an email from IT about how I've printed like 2200 pages so far this school year. I find this not at all surprising given the crapload of reading I spend so much time printing every week. So far at least two of the girls in my cohort have received similar email, so I'm not alone in my abnormally high printing. Damn readings.

I decided to call Jer and the QT gang. I got to talk to an assortment of my favorite peeps, until the TV drowned out all possible conversation. They're drinking fruity beer up there, which is kinda wack.

Also, it's funny that the Doctor is probably the only person who has been to all iterations of Thursday.