etc. Life still sucks massive-amounts-of-work-wise, but, hey, I just got some very nice professional validation! I don't want to get into too much detail since this is still a public blog, but let's just say that a Major Conference Panel Proposal is in the collaborative works with a Very Important and Awesome Person in the Field. Which is pretty goddamn great.

Before that happens, though, I've got about two hundred more pages on Kenyan party-state development to read (damn you, Daniel arap Moi, for betraying Jomo Kenyatta's legacy!), and then somehow have to crank out a paper in the next 24 hours about regime change and democratization in the FSU. Which will be just in time to get a new problem set in stats. Thank god for the awesomest corporate coffee in all of Cambridge (which the relatively decent corporate citizens at Peet's assure me is fair-trade, or at least as fair-trade as one can hope for in East Africa). I just polished off another bag o' beans, which means the timing is great to pick up some even awesomer bean juice in Seattle later this week. Also, have I mentioned the pumpkin beer? Some people call Christmas the most wonderful time of year, but they clearly haven't had the Elysian's pumpkin stout.  ¶ 12:25 PM