Comme ci comme ça

Travel
Good: I’ve booked my trip to Prague and then in the spirit of being in a travel agency bought a ticket to Thailand to see my sister. Hopefully I will get to see Matt and Fiona in Prague and maybe Andrew might even join me in Thailand for a little while. Very exciting! I want to travel all the time.
Bad: Lindsay left to New Zealand to do her Master’s. I mean, great for her and she’ll have an excellent time I’m sure, but I’m sad to see her go.

School
Good: Getting an A plus in Survival Analysis. Probably the least deserved A I’ve ever received. Classes this year are really interesting, too. In one, I have to write a fundable protocol in an area I know nothing about. At the moment, it looks like I’m doing mouth parasites and periodontitis. It’s a neat area and I’m really into them common parasites.

Bad: Getting an A- in my research methods class. This class I should have gotten an A+ but I essentially failed my term paper. There were a few moments there when I was having a little crisis over whether I really deserved to be here. But I’ve gotten over that.

Entertainment:
Good: Tobogganing last night at Shannon’s: It’s strange feeling old and terrified at going down a hill and feeling like you might break something, but after a while, we warmed up to it and felt like little kids running up and down the hills. Then had mulled wine and felt more like adults. Neko Case concert: I dragged Amanda to this and it was brilliant. Neko, when she sings, is the sexiest woman in the world. She sang “Favorite” just before the encore and there was a note in there that was just perfection—it sent a shiver through my entire body and left my knees week. Books: I’m a word junkie again. Great books I’ve read this month: Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell (like A History of the World in 10 ½ chapters, but more beautiful), Rotter’s Club by Jonathan Coe (I wasn’t expecting much from this story of a teenager in the 1970’s England but it was great and I’m dying to read the next book. Read a excerpt from the beginning. Television: I’ve finally figured out how to use Bittorrent and it’s brilliant. I can download a movie in about 40 minutes. So I’m getting into some TV shows as I can watch them when I have time. I really enjoyed “Medium.”

Bad: Numb3rs is the worst television show ever made. It feels like a make work project for out of work actors. I watched a whole episode because it was really about infectious disease epidemiology (although they never used that word) and it was painful. “Is there a mathematician in the house?” Ridiculous.