Last weekend I drove down to DC to visit Intern T from Florida in his new digs. It was a really great visit and it was awesome seeing Intern T again and hearing that he's doing so well and loves his new job and city so much. We went and saw Circle Mirror Transformation, which was a play I wasn't familiar with and really enjoyed. If I carried one purely positive thing away from my class with JCO last semester, it was to pay attention to the difference between plays, novels, etc. you could have written and ones beyond your reach. And then, when you run into one of the ones you could have written, feel good about it.
After the play we walked around the Mall area, took pictures with monuments, and decided that D.C. is the City of Nerds (for any number of reasons, but mostly the Racing Presidents--Jefferson always loses!--and the license plates). We ate dinner at a Mexican restaurant in Chinatown and then headed back to his place to drink champagne and watch "A Very Potter Musical." And if that is not the epitome of classy, I don't know what is.
This week was long, and rough, and I've been doing practically nothing ever since I discharged my last duty on Thursday. There are things I could be doing, but the things I've been doing instead--Glee Club Concert featuring HSClassmate, drinks with K, an awesome long-lost friend from Writing Seminar freshman year, leaf peeping on the tow path, and going to see The Social Network and rekindling my love of Aaron Sorkin dialogue and igniting a new-found interest in jock-y rowers-- have been pretty darn great. Tonight: more nothing--rest and recovery from the nothing that came before it. Tomorrow: down to business cleaning the bathroom, having brunch with SoccerRoommate, and getting measured for a graduation gown.
Oh, and that pesky homework thing. That too.

I finally figured out what was making me so miserable and stressed out about planning for the upcoming year: I thought I was being flexible and instead I was being inflexible. My plans were such that I felt like I was passing up on some of Princeton's great hold-your-hand opportunities. So I threw all my plans away and started anew. I'll apply to a variety of one-year projects and fellowships and keep my options open. If I get to Dublin, I'll get to Dublin. If I don't it's because I'm doing something even more amazing.

It rarely happens in college that anyone achieves the perfect balance of calm and productivity, but somehow yesterday it happened to me.
In the morning I got up and strolled over to the Witherspoon Bread Company, where I get my weekly pain au chocolat and San Pellegrino Aranciata. I ate that sitting outside in one of my two favorite places to sit on campus (super-secret, to avoid overcrowding). Then I went inside, because there was a bit of a nip in the air, and breezed through half of my reading for the week. Yes. The week. The difference between taking three classes and four classes is so much more significant than the difference between taking four and five classes. Trust me on this. The weekend is now manageable.
After that, I went back to the dorm room, pumped up my bicycle tires, packed a sack, and biked down to the tow path where I read for about two hours on my favorite bench overlooking Lake Carnegie. It was perfect sweater weather: not a cloud in the sky and a high of seventy. Around four forty I started the trek back, returning in time to clean the bathroom (every weekend someone takes a turn) and take a shower before CC made us all dinner and we ate together in the suddenly classy living/dining room.
I had some time to kill so I worked on my thesis reading a bit before heading out with Roommate J at 11:30 to watch the weekly free screening at The Garden. This week was Toy Story 3. I laughed, I cried, I developed an unhealthy attachment to an animated 17 year-old.
It was a good day.