out of the summer country
It is amazing how much of a difference three hours can make.
Three hours to the South of Gainesville, there is still sun, and the leaves are still green. Gainesville may never quite experience winter, but it unquestionably sees fall as the leaves here turn to yellow and gold and sail and swirl away on the wind.
Visiting family for Turkey Day was good. Family is good. They have helped to fill the empty space that my surrogate family made up of my extended network of friends used to fill... or maybe I have that backwards. Whichever it is, I know that it makes a difference to sit down and break bread with people, and to see the same faces every day. There is more than a sense of community - there is a sense of 'belongingness' that I did not find outside of Austin. Besides, few things in the world beat watching your aged and respectable parents laugh and chase after dragonflies with an enormous butterfly net.
Finally got a new battery for my laptop, and it is rather like falling in love all over again: I have no strings, and I may wander. No longer do I need to worry about squandering power frivolously on such things as a monitor with gamma bright enough to read. No longer must I race from outlet to outlet, hoping that I will have enough charge to last all the way through class.
So life is good.
Then again, I am about to re-enter hell-week. You should either expect extended silence from this station, or lengthy tales of procrastination. One of the things I do not miss about the whole educational program is the sheer number of things that must fall together at the last possible minute. I am moving forward, and with far more diligence than in my undergraduate years - but... Yeesh. Corporate life retrained me to accept lower standards, but I am starting over and I refuse to hand in anything less than a solid effort.
Time will tell.